DESTINY
STEFAN BJÖRNSHÖG
Destiny, veterans of Dark Metal and an institution in Swedish Heavy Metal music since their humble beginnings way back in 1982. Over the years they have kept their sound and style on the darker side of metal. With a sound that they describe as Dark Metal or Mörkrock as they call it in Swedish. The band's sound was heavily influenced by Savatage and Metal Church and it looked like Destiny was headed for stardom when the biggest metal magazines gave their albums favourable reviews. The big break never came but their bassist Stefan Björnshög has kept the band going for several decades now. So over to Stefan.
We can begin with a small presentation of your Destiny.
I guess that you mean the band and not my personal Destiny. ;)
Well, that’s a long story but I will try to keep it short. The band was founded way back in 1982 by myself and Magnus Österman who played guitar on the first album Beyond All Sense. It took some time to find the right people but by the time of the debut album Beyond All Sense was released guitarist John Prodén, vocalist Håkan Ring and drummer Peter Lundgren had all joined Destiny.
Beyond All Sense was released in March 1985 and since then we have released seven albums including the new one, Climate Change. There is also an upcoming album called Global Warming that is almost completed and planned for release in the fall of 2017 when Destiny celebrates its 35:th year.
Of course many members have come and gone over the years but today Destiny are Jonas Heidgert (also in Dragonland) on vocals, Michael Åberg (formerley of Nostradameus) on guitar, Veith Offenbächer (formerly of Dawn of Destiny) also guitar, Kane Svantesson on drums and myself on bass.
Your first album in over a decade is about to be released, Climate Change is its name, what can we expect from the new album?
The plan was to release "Climate Change," the "Anniversary album," in the fall of 2015 but it got delayed for a number of reasons. The album is mixed by Henrik Pettersson and mastered by Dragan Tanaskovic of Bohus Sound Recording! ”Climate Change” features 14 songs and was released on October 21 by GMR Music Group! The original plan was to release it to coincide with Destiny's 30th anniversary in 2012 but due to some tragic personal events including the passing of my fiancé Therese Hanserot everything stopped for a while.
Anyway, about the songs, lots of albums have old demo tapes as bonus songs. We didn't want to do that so we decided to make new recordings of five very old Destiny songs from the early eighties that never made it to any album. These songs were performed live at the time but never recorded properly. We used some old demos and rehearsal room recordings to relearn them, but unfortunately the quality wasn't good enough to figure out the vocals. I contacted Håkan Ring (vocalist on "Beyond All Sense") who wrote most of those original lyrics to see if still had them. He did not, but he agreed to write new lyrics based on the original vocal melodies and what we could hear on the original recordings and it turned out great. We didn't have the complete recording on one of the songs so I had to write some new music and arrangements for that particular song, but other than that we tried to stay as close as possible to the original versions.
The oldest song 'Money Preacher' is from 1983. 'Duke of Darkness,' 'Lead Into Gold' and 'Ruins and Destruction” are from 1985 and 'Dream Reaper' is from 1986. I'm very excited to release proper new recordings of these gems from Destiny's past and I think they are perfect for an anniversary album.
Climate Change (2016)
We haven't seen Destiny in a while, as it was over a decade since the last Destiny release. What have you been up to?
We have been working in the studio on two studio albums. We started to rehearse the songs for the album ”Global Warming” way back in 2006 when we suddenly got an offer to support Tony Martin (ex-Black Sabbath) on his Swedish tour. After the tour we did one more gig at the Gothenburg Metal Festival and that was also the last gig with Kristoffer Göbel, who was the singer on “Future of the Past” and “Beyond All sense 2005”.
It took a very long time to find a new singer even though we auditioned quit a few. Some of them were very good but lived to far away from Gothenburg for it to be practical and some were not good enough. In the meantime we started to record the songs for ”Global Warming”, without vocals. Unfortunately it took a lot longer than expected and as the years passed I realized that our 30:th anniversary was coming up so I thought that maybe we should invite some former members to record an anniversary album to get some product out while still searching for a new singer. The plan was to get the former singers to guest on different songs but when we finally found Jonas we decided that it was better to promote the current lineup. Anyway we started to record the anniversary album ”Climate Change” in December 2011 before Jonas joined. Our drummer at the time didn’t want to do any recordings before we had found a new singer so we used session drummer Adde Larsson and started to look for a new permanent drummer.
When the drums was recorded and I was about to record the bass my fiancée suddenly passed away and of course I was devastated. Everything stopped for a while but after maybe three months I started to record the bass and in the fall of 2012 Jonas Heidgert joined the band and not long after that our current drummer Kane Svantessom rejoined Destiny. He was in the band in the mid-nineties and is the drummer on “The Undiscovered Country”. Jonas immediately started to record the vocals for all 14 songs on ”Climate Change” and at the same time Michael recorded his guitars one song at the time and ahead of Jonas. This also took some time, and when they were done we still had to ad keyboards and backing vocals before we could mix the album. When we were done the anniversary had passed by four years.
We have also started to record vocals for ”Global Warming” which will feature nine or ten songs. So far the vocals for four songs are recorded. Apart from the vocals everything except keyboards and some additional guitar is recorded and the album will be released in the fall of 2017, if everything works out.
We also released a song in 2015 for a special project here in Sweden. It's a song sung in Swedish, a first for us, and released on an album featuring lots of other artists from Gothenburg including people from In Flames, Mustasch, The Soundtrack of Our Lives, Tiamat and even more not that internationally known acts. The song is called "Förväntan Stiger" and there was also a video released last fall, that you can find on YouTube. This song will not be featured on "Climate Change." We have also recorded videos for two songs, "Living Dead" and "Sabotage" from ”Climate Change”.
So apart from what’s been going on in our private lives we have been working off and on in the studio for ten years.
Destiny in action. Photo by Artrock.se - Conny Myrberg.
You haven't played that much live either, are there any plans to tour in support of your new album?
Yes there is, though nothing is booked at the moment. To play live is something that we all look very much forward to. When we took the stage on the release party for ”Climate Change” at Sticky Fingers Rock Club in Gothenburg on October 20 this year it was like a ten year curse had been lifted. We now work with Norrland Booking which is great as I don’t have to do the bookings myself. I don’t know if there will be any more gigs this year, but for sure we will play live as much as we get a chance to in 2017.
I've read about The Incompatibility of Philosophical Terminology. What happened to that album?
”The Incompatibility of Philosophical Terminology” is just an aborted name for the anniversary album ”Climate Change”.
Global Warming, Climate Change and Atomic Winter, I can see a red line there, are you into environmental issues?
When we released "Atomic Winter" the biggest fear for a lot of people was nuclear war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. One of the consequences for the survivors of such a war would have been the Atomic Winter and we felt that was a frightening and important issue to write about.
The biggest threat now is Climate Change and Global Warming. If we can't slow down the temperature rising of the earth to at least 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels fast enough the living condition for both plants and animals including humans will change so drastically that we can't feed everyone and a lot of places of the earth will be impossible to inhabit. This will lead to climate refugees on a scale that will dwarf what's happening today. On top of that the rising of the sea will threaten most coastal cities around the world. The only solution to stop the worst-case scenario is to stop burning fossil fuels as soon as possible. A lot of people are not aware of this because of the climate deniers, which is very scary as 97% of all scientists agree that Climate Change is manmade. We need to do what the scientist recommends to minimize the damage. If we go on burning fossil fuels like now the temperature rising won’t stop at 6 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
Another problem is that we need to save the bees, as a lot of what we eat needs them to survive. Most of our crops, vegetables, fruits and berries will disappear along with the bees if we don't act now. I could go on... . However, we do write about more fantasy oriented stories as well.
Do you think that the climate for metal music has changed as well since your last record?
I really don’t know anything about the climate for metal music these days, as it’s been so long since our last release but when we did our first gig at the release party for “Climate Change” at the rock club sticky Fingers in Gothenburg the audience was as enthusiastic as ever.
I do however understand that the music business is totally changed and that it’s hard to sell CDs, even though vinyl’s has made a minor comeback.
The Internet has turned out to be both a blessing and a curse. The bad thing is of course that streaming and downloading makes it harder to sell records and make money. Even though it's easier to record a lot of stuff with a computer at home these days you still need good studio equipment. We are fortunate to have DRS, our own studio, with an excellent sound engineer in Henrik Pettersson.
The good thing about the internet is that it's a lot easier to make your music available and reach new fans all over the world. Facebook and other social media, blogs, e-zines, internet radio, YouTube and so on didn't even exist when we released our last album in 2005.
The trick is to stand out among millions of bands. You need to reach the metal fans and that doesn't happen just because you upload your music and videos. You still need some kind of promotion or you will drown in a sea of metal bands. But all in all the Internet is a fantastic tool that gives you lots of possibilities like for instance making this interview with you.
It’s going to be very interesting to see how “Climate Change” will do.
What is Dark Metal to you?
Well, Dark Metal is the direct translation from the term Mörkrock that we in Destiny call our music. Mörkrock relay mean “dark rock” but when Destiny started to get attention outside of Sweden in the early eighties we chose to translate it to the term Dark Metal. At the time we were the first band to call our music Dark Metal. These days I guess there is a genre totally different to what Destiny sounds like that use that term, so now we use the original Swedish term Mörk Rock even outside of Sweden. It has nothing to do with the lyrics and more with the drama and suggestive feeling of the music.
Was the creation of Dark Metal a tag to distance yourselves from the hair metal bands of the eighties?
No, because when we started out in 1982, there weren’t that many hair metal bands. It was just something we thought fitted the music and image of the band. I guess later on it did distance us from those bands, but that was not a deliberate choice or anything we planned.
You almost had a thrash metal vibe at times, were you fans of the thrash metal genre?
Actually, we didn’t even know of Thrash or Speed Metal at the time. We only became aware of those styles of metal when some journalist started to compare us with those bands when “Atomic Winter” was released. I was never a super big fan of thrash metal even though I love bands like Ice Age, Megadeth and Annihilator. I guess that we were more influenced by Savatage and Metal Church amongst others…
Speaking of Savatage, you once opened for them how was that?
We meet Savatage for the first time in Copenhagen Denmark when they were touring for “Fight for the Rock”. We hanged out with the band for about two days and became great friends with them. There was even talk about Jon Oliva producing “Atomic Winter”, Chris wanted to co-produce. Unfortunately the recording of “Hall of the Mountain King” took up to much of their time when we were ready to record. A couple of years later when “Nothing Left to Fear” was released in 1991 Savatage came to Sweden on their “Streets” tour and we got a chance to open for them and Vicious Rumor in Borlänge. Unfortunately I lost contact with them after that. I would love for Destiny to open for Jon Oliva’s Pain if they ever tour again.
Destiny album debuted in 1985 with Beyond All Sense, What do you think of the album today? and how come you decided to re-record the album in 2005?
I always loved the songs but the mix of the album was terrible, it didn’t do the music justice. That is also the reason for the re-recording the album as “Beyond All Sense 2005”, we wanted to give those songs a new chance. Another reason was that “Beyond All Sense” was only released in Sweden and only 2000 vinyl copies was printed.
Beyond All Sense (1985)
Your second studio album Atomic Winter (1988) got a 4,5k review in Kerrang at the time, it must have been flattering?
Of course, it made us very proud, but the album also got very good reviews in most other metal magazines and fanzines. It was a very good time for Destiny apart from the lack of touring.
You also toured with ex-Black Sabbath vocalist Tony Martin, How was it to tour with him?
That was a great tour as Tony and the members of his touring band were great guys. We are still in contact with some of them. As a big Sabbath fan it was equally exiting to see them play the Martin era classics live. I believe that our guitarist Michael Åberg has played with Tony at least once since that tour.
Destiny celebrates 34 years as a band this year, what's the key to the bands longevity?
Wow, I never even thought about that. I guess that if you love what you do there is no reason to quit. We still have music in us that needs to get out. We also need to play live a lot more, that’s what we all look forward to the most.
Have you got any funny story to tell, if anything weird has happened while touring or so?
Well, there are some very odd things I could tell you about…
Like the time when we were doing a gig in the eighties when a cymbal fell down and cut the guitarist guitar chord which led to his amp blowing up. When the guy responsible for the gig tried to fix it he got electrocuted and hade to go to the hospital. Thankfully he made it without any means, but we had to finish the gig with only one guitar and later we had to go to the hospital to get our fee. Not so funny perhaps, but odd…
Any last words for our readers?
Yes, check out “Climate Change” if you haven’t already done it. It’s a great introduction to Destiny’s music for new “fans” and to the new line up for longtime “fans”. It’s available on CD, download and streaming. There will probably be a vinyl release as well at a later date. We are very proud of the album!
Also, join us on Facebook and come to our shows if you get a chance. Rock on!
By/Ruthless
(16-11-2016)
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