Interview with Scar Symmetry about "Holographic Universe" promo, their Spanish tour and much more. Check it out at this location.

M.S: First of all, thank you very much for your time and congratulations for your third album Holographic Universe".

S.S: Thank you!

M.S: Well, we are in front of a quite young band that started last 2005 with "Symmetric in design" but, it founded the bases ofor a new way to understand the melodic metal. What can you say about those 3 years?

S.S: The band was formed in early 2004, basically just for the fun of it, as a side-project with all of us still in our "main" bands at the time. Today, four and a half years later, Scar Symmetry is the main band for all of us, we've put out three albums and toured both Europe and North America. We didn't really expect to get this far!

M.S: Big part od that success is because of the awesome combination of Christian Älvestam voices, able to do very deep throat voices and quite melodic ones too. Everybody can see that in songs like "2012 – "The demise of the 5th sun". But Christian, just after recording the thrid album, decides to leave band. What were his reasons for that?

S.S: Christian didn't decide to leave the band. We asked him to leave the band, due to a lot of different reasons. What triggered our decision was when he refused to tour. We've had many issues with Christian before, but his resistance to touring just made it impossible for us to continue working with him.

M.S: Just after that, the band goes on and get two new vocalists to cover the two voices of Christian. Was it so hard to find someone to fulfill the rol?

S.S: No it wouldn't have been hard at all. After releasing the news about Christian's departure we received tons of applications for the singer position. A handful of these applications were from vocalists of bands that are well-known to the metal community, and all of them did both vocal-styles.

However, we had already decided upon using two vocalists in Scar Symmetry. I love the sound of Christians voice on our albums, but he had a really hard time performing the songs live. Switching between growls and high-pitched clean vocals puts a lot of strain on your voice, so we always had to be very choosy to which songs we would put on our live setlist. Songs with too many high notes or too fast shifting between growls and cleans was impossible. Some songs just aren't possible for a single vocalist to do live. Which is why deciding upon two vocalists was very easy!

M.S: About Christian, Do you know if he will still be in the music world or, on the other hand, he will completely quit it?

S.S: Actually last time I asked Christian, he was involved in eight different bands!

M.S: About Jonas Kjellgren, is one of SCAR SYMMETRY's guitarrist, but also a producer. Someof his most recent works are both SONIC SYNDICATE albums, and that's curious, they also work with two voices. Do you think SCAR SYMMETRY will be the band to look for when talking about using two voices?

S.S: We've always had a lot of different vocals styles on the albums. For us to faithfully reproduce our music live, we now have two vocalists in the band. I don't know if the two-singer approach is something that will be more popular now, but it sure works for us.

M.S: Talking about the new vocalists, Can you introduce them? Where are they from? Do they have previous expereience?

S.S: Their names are Roberth Karlsson and Lars Palmqvist, they are both from a small place called Finspang. Roberth is the most experienced of them, he's mostly known for his work with Edge of Sanity and Facebreaker, though he has been in many other bands as well. Lars is virtually unknown to the metal community, he's been singing for a long time and been in local bands but never made it big-time.

I have so many good things to say about these guys, they both have amazing voices of course, but what's almost as important to us is that they are just the coolest, nicest people!

M.S: We have read that Chirstian didn't like to tour so much, and that didn't thought he could be a rock starm and that was the reason he didn't want to get involved in the tours, to the point to put in danger that last album. So, How will the "Holographic Univers" presentation like to be?

S.S: We will tour as much as possible to support Holographic Universe! We're hoping to tour both Europe and North America next year, and possible other territories as well!

M.S: Nexr 5th December you will come to Tarragona, Spain. Do you know something about the city?

S.S: No, not really.

M.S: After producing SONIC SYNDICATE, are you jealous because they were chosen to be the support band for In Flames tour, and you have to come to a small club when your career and quality may say you are way over them?

S.S: No, we're not jealous of them. Sonic Syndicate is a hard-working band and they're doing very well, I'm happy for them!

M.S: How does SCAR SIMMETRY work in Sweden?

S.S: I think it's working better and better for every release. We haven't done a lot of shows in Sweden, but last time we played in Stockholm the turnout was amazing.

M.S: Watching your videoclips (like "Morphogenesis") seems that your discographic company bets for you. Can you tell us a little about the expansion project for Europe and other countries?

S.S: We have very strong support from our record label. Right now, I think they've done pretty much all the promotion they can for Holographic Universe. So now it's up to us to continue pushing the album, by touring as much as possible.

M.S: Talking about "Morphogenesis" videoclip. What is the relationship between the videoclip and the song? I mean, why people get trhough walls in a so vicious way?

S.S: I haven't got a clue! I guess it was the director's mad idea, hehe!

M.S: What is the thematic of "Holographic Universe"?

S.S: Well, it deals with some heavy subjects, like the new science that is coming forward in particular quantum physics. It points in the same direction where all the eastern philosophies have been talking about; mind is everything and matter is nothing compared to mind. The lyrics on Holographic Universe are more or less talking about the new marriage between science and philosophy. We take it a little bit more to the extreme site, so you really have to think backwards when you try to interpret the lyrics. It just says; there is no world out there, there is a world inside your head and when you open your eyes you can see what you expect to see.

M.S: Now that you have two new vocalists. What can we expect from SCAR SYMMETRY music? How it will evolve?

S.S: I think we might start working on some new stuff next summer, but as for what the next step in the evolution of our sound will be - I don't know! Obviously there will be a change in the timbre of the vocals, but there will still be plenty of different vocal styles present.

M.S: An usual question we use to make is... What does SCAR SIMMETRY crew use to do when they are not playing with the band?

S.S: We spend time with our families, go to work, go to the pub, practice our instruments, hang out with friends, just normal stuff like everyone else.

M.S: Well, just to say that we wish you luck on your tour for Spain, and may we ask about your set-list? will you have any surprise??

S.S: We're gonna do some songs that we've never performed live before, but you'll have to come to a show to see it! We will do songs from all three albums.

M.S: Thank you very much for your time, here we end the interview, go ahead if you want to say anything else, good luck and hope to see you next 5th in Tarragona!

S.S: Yes see you there! Thanks a lot!

Marcel.lí Dreamevil // Jordi Fosch
Photos: Vanessa de Campos