Henrik Ohlsson: Kreator in 1990 or 1991. It was during their "Coma of Souls" tour. Death was the opening act and they played without Chuck Schuldiner on that tour, the so-called "F--k Chuck" tour. They had released Spiritual Healing and I guess they had a lot of problems with the band at that point. A funny thing is that a guy named Walter (ex-Rotting Corpse) played guitar in Death on that tour and he actually drove our tour bus on both of our U.S. tours in 2007! When I realized that I had seen him live on stage like 16 or 17 years before I was speechless, it was such a weird coincidence.
What’s the craziest thing that’s happened to you on the road?
Everything is crazy on tour, you totally change your worldview when you’re out on the road for a bunch of weeks. What is usually crazy becomes normal and you just can’t relate to ordinary things while touring. So there’s been numerous crazy incidents by normal standards, but in order to protect the not-so-innocent I better not talk about it!
Describe the first show your band played.
That was in Stockholm in 2005 I think. We played at a club called Purgatory and I’m pretty sure we sucked big time! There was probably like 50 people there or something and I’m thankful that the crowd was so small, I wouldn’t have wanted to see that show. We played songs from our first album Symmetric in Design, but I don’t remember the setlist. I do remember that it was hot as hell in there though. After the show we got drunk and talked to some guy who developed videogames across the street. He wanted to use one of our songs for a game, Battlefield 2 or something like that, but in the end it never happened. I think he was drunk too!
What band did you have the best time touring with?
I think that Dark Tranquillity was awesome to tour with because those guys are totally nuts and they party like animals. Our kind of people! But Katatonia was cool to tour with too, and Hypocrisy and Soilwork were also awesome touring partners. We had fun times with all of those guys, I have several favorites.
How did you get started in music?
I guess it started when I was 8 years old and heard Kiss for the first time. That got me hooked for life. But I started playing drums at 13 and by then I was listening to thrash and death metal. The death metal scene of the early ‘90s really made me form my first band, because I got so inspired by all the death metal acts that were around at that point.
What was your first band?
My first band was called Adversary, it existed between 1990 and 1993. We played death metal and we were inspired by Swedish bands like Entombed, Dismember, Therion, Grave and so on; but also American acts like Morbid Angel, Obituary, Deicide, Cannibal Corpse and all of those bands. Adversary recorded three demos: The Blood Of Those Who Failed, Beyond Death and Remains Of An Art Forgotten. One year ago I was actually contacted by a guy who was writing an encyclopedia on Swedish Death Metal of the ‘90s, that book is out now and Adversary is in it!
Who are some fellow drummers you admire?
I admire a lot of drummers, too numerous to mention them all, but guys that really inspire me are Snowy Shaw, especially for his drum-work with King Diamond, Memento Mori and IllWill, Mikkey Dee for his work in King Diamond and Sean Reinert from Cynic.
What is your all time favorite album?
I don’t have one single favorite album. I have lots of them and it changes all the time. But right now I would say Kiss - Alive. That album has been spinning every now and then in my CD player ever since it came out. Morbid Angel - Altars of Madness up to Domination are all great. King Diamond Fatal Portrait up to The Eye are all classics to me. Cynic Focus is a defining album for me, it got me interested in doing new things with death metal. More recent albums that I enjoy and find well-written and interesting are Avenged Sevenfold`s latest album-release and Dragonforce Inhuman Rampage. I`m a sucker for great guitarists.
What’s your favorite drummer joke?
Question: How do you know that the drum-riser is equally high on all sides?
Answer: The drummer drools from both sides of the mouth.
Who are the top 3 Swedish metal bands of all time?
That’s hard to answer, but Meshuggah, Entombed and At the Gates all changed the course of metal at different points in history and invented new ways to play extreme metal, which is a great achievement.
Anything else you’d like to mention or plug?
Keep an eye out for our new video! We shot it recently and the song we chose was "Noumenon and Phenomenon." Hope to see you all on the road, cheers!
