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8/9/2019 Dead by April Interview
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s Jimmie Strimmel ap-proaches me in the can-teen of the ManchesterAcademy 2 I notice that
he is a shy individual. Despitethis he greets me with a politemanner and treats those aroundhim with the utmost respect. Asfrontman for Gothenberg, Swe-dens hottest export Dead ByApril he provides the venomousscreams and melodic singingbacked up by some of theheavest elements of metal andthe catchiest elements of pop.Formerly of Swedish Death Met-allers Night Rage, Jimmies musi-cal interest had reached a turningpoint in 2007 when he left NightRage to concentrate on writing
more melodic music.Backed up by fellow former NightRage drummer Alexander Sven-ningson, guitarists Pontus Hjelm,Johan Olsson and bassist Mar-cus Wessln the seeds of DeadBy April were planted. Describedas a mixture of Linkin Park, SonicSyndicate and In Flames they
have taken their homeland by
storm. And now they have the UK
within their sights. Currently sup-porting Skindred on some of their
first shows, Jimmie talks about
playing Sonisphere, their My-space success and the recording
of their stunning debut albumDead by April
So Jimmie, how did the band
get together?
It was Ponthus and I originally.Weve known each other since
we were 18. I was into death
metal at the time but I grew out of
it. I always knew Ponthus was a
killer player and songwriter so I
asked if he wanted to work onsome music with me. I wrote a
song called Lost, which I origi-
nally recorded when I was with
Night Rage but they werent inter-
ested. So Ponthus and merecorded that song together
Youre two days into your first
UK tour right now, how is it
going so far?
Its been really good. Its great tobe in the UK on a proper tour
playing in front of such passion-
ate fans. The crowd response
has been unbelievable with them
singing the lyrics word for word
and breaking into mosh pits andeverything even though were
only just making our way over
here. Its crazy.
Have there been any standout
moments so far on the tour?
I really like it when the crowd dothe wall of death to Erased they
just really get into it and its really
overwhelming to watch onstage
as Im singing and screaming my
heart out.
What kind of backstage antics
go on if any?
When were onstage we have lots
of fun and joke around. Some-
thing weve been doing a lot re-cently is the your mum jokes.
Nothing too harsh, just a lot of
harmless fun.
How did it feel playing to such
a large UK audience for thefirst time playing Sonisphere?
That was something I dont think I
will ever forget. It was just unbe-
lievable, a dream come true. It
was crazy to think we were play-
ing on the same bill as LinkinPark and Metallica, those guys
are just incredible live performers
Did you happen to catch any of
the bands play?
We had a tight interview schedulefor the majority of the weekend
but we did manage to catch Limp
Bizkit. I think that theyre incredi-
ble and they played well, but I
dont know what it was, but Fred(Durst, LB front man) was jump-
ing around all over the place try-
ing to get the crowd pumped up
and a lot of the audience just did-
nt respond that well. I dont know
whether it was just an off day orthe whole problems that were
around concerning Machine
Head
After achieving vast success inSweden, how does it feel to
have reached this much suc-
cess so prematurely in your
career?
It as unexpected but were happyand amazed that our home coun-
try has embraced us so much.
Were not overtly gutted that the
album missed out on the number
one spot by 14 copies to Green
Day. For us to come out ofnowhere and land the number 2
spot, beating Eminems new
album as well is such an amazing
achievement for us personally
DEA
AP
INTRODUCING:
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8/9/2019 Dead by April Interview
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and professionally. Like the single
(Losing You) was number one for
three weeks straight too as well,
so we cant complain really.
The albums overall sound has
a little bit of everything, dance,
pop and metal among other
things, what made you choose
this direction and are there any
established artist that you as-pire to musically and person-
ally?
When I was in my old band
(Death Metal band Night Rage) I
just started to get really boredplaying the same death metal lots
of bands have tried and tested,
and I just wanted to try something
new. People thought that I was
crazy when I told them Id be mix-
ing pop songs with screams andsinging youd normally find in
metal. Nobody believed that it
would work but judging by thisyear I think we can safely say
weve done it. And with bandslike Skindred its an honour to be
supporting them as theyre doing
similar practice to us. Mixing reg-
gae and punk with metal, nobody
should be afraid to try new things.
When we first put up the songson our Myspace the reaction from
people was overwhelmingly posi-
tive and the airplay our singles
getting on Scuzz over here is
helping us build a fan base over
here.
Tell us about your collabora-
tion with Shawn Crahan from
Slipknot. How was that con-
cept introduced to you?
He remixed our debut UK singleAngels of Clarity. Ill tell you, its
a whole different song. I mean
Shawn has stripped it down and
given his own industrial metallic
stamp on it. Im happy with it, Ivebeen a fan of Slipknot since I was
16 and its just unreal somebodythat established in the industry as
well as begin one of my heroes
took the time to put his own spin
on one of our songs.
Early in your career you used
to suffer from stage fright and
in an instant you simply
snapped out of it, what helped
you overcome this?Since then Ive done touring with
Night Rage over Europe etc but
earlier on yes I did suffer from
stage fright but Ponthus hadnever even played live properlybefore and on our first show he
was so nervous I thought he was
going to pack up, quit the band
and go home. But I think now
were all getting over it together, I
mean were playing a lot of
shows and to crowds much big-
ger than what were normally
used to.
Youve been announced for Eu-
ropean dates of the Rockstar
Energy Drink Taste of Chaos
as well
Yes, were playing the Scandana-vian dates with Killswitch Engage
and In Flames but maybe if were
lucky Germany and some UK
dates. Some of the UK dates
though; were headlining a showin London and heading over to
the Loudpark Festival in Tokyo.
So were pretty much keeping
ourselves busy. Weve also been
playing some new and left over
material from the album to keepthings fresh and unexpected.
Your debut contains remas-tered demos from a taster
demo you released last year.How long was the recording
process and what was your ex-
perience like working with a
producer known for making
pop records?
The album took like 2 months torecord, it probably would have
been a much shorter time but we
had gigs and other things hap-
pening at around the same time.
We went in the studio with
around 25+ songs and it wasvery hard to bring it down to
about 13 songs. Our producer ()
was supposed to produce the
album but in the end he wasnt as
hands on as we would have liked
him to be. I think the only realcontribution he made was the in-
clusion of strings and such on
Losing You. But Ponthus pretty
much produced the record him-
self with the bands help. Kind ofthe way Killswitch Engage like to
do with some of their records.
Are there any future plans for
the UK audience i.e Festivals
next summer?We hope so, nothing has been
arranged and we havent had any
contact with organizers but we do
hope to possibly play the Down-
load Festival. We would have
liked to play this year (Download2009), but our album wasnt re-
leased over here until last month.
So I dont think that would have
gone down well... Well just seewhat happens and if the UK em-braces us.
Dead by April is out now on
Universal/Spinefarm Records
D BY
IL
Dead by April (left to right):
Marcus Wesslen, Alexander
Svenningson, Jimmie Strimmel,Johan Olsson, Pontus Hjelm
