In June of this year, Mercenary, Denmark’s melodic death metal band, celebrated it’s 20-year anniversary. This is a testament to how popular a band Mercenary has been amongst the “melodic death metal” faithful. In November of 2009, significant lineup changes took place, three members departed, and the future looked questionable. A statement from guitarist Jakob Mølbjerg announced: “We no longer share the same vision and enthusiasm about the direction and the future of the band.” However, only a few weeks later a new lineup was formed and new material soon followed in the album, Metamorphosis.
The following is an interview with Jakob Mølbjerg, guitarist of Mercenary.
The last couple of years were huge for Mercenary, with the group’s most significant lineup change in its history taking place. Tell us a little about the immediate aftermath of this event, fan response, and anything else you feel like sharing.
Jakob Mølbjerg: Well, the response has overall been really, really good, I think. Whenever you change a lineup it is something your fans and listeners have to adapt to. Such changes are of course felt even more when you change the singer, as a singer’s voice is something unique and very individual. So we of course expected from the start that some fans would lose interest in the band and that some would not know what to think of the new lineup while other old fans would really dig and understand the new stuff. And that was pretty much what happened – but we also got a lot of new fans who are more into our new approach, so that’s something we are very happy about, of course. It’s been no easy change but we knew this from the start and we just decided to bite the proverbial bullet. Some people were quite skeptical but I feel that we have won over a lot of people with the new album as well as with our live performances.
How much did these changes affect the writing process.? Clearly, as per your statements there was a division of opinion on the direction of the band. Can you give us any details as to the nature of this division?
Mølbjerg: I guess basically it was a matter of people in the band having different musical backgrounds and aspirations and in the end that become something that made it very hard for us to work together. For some years, Martin (Buus, lead guitarist) and I thought it was okay to ‘soften’ our sound a bit by having more clean vocals and more keyboards that we would have preferred in order to make the band chemistry work. We usually wrote the songs a bit harder than they ended up on the albums and we were okay with that because it was necessary to make the band function as a whole. But in the end everybody was just unhappy about being in the band so there was no point in making these compromises anymore. So when we change the lineup it was actually a great relief and it made the songwriting and the recording of the album much more smooth and easy than previously. It was a breath of fresh air.
Your newest release Metamorphosis has been out for some time now. How do you feel about its reception, both critically and from the responses the fans have given you? Rabid fans can be both brutal and remarkably amicable.
Mølbjerg: The reception has been divided, which is only logical and expected. Overall I think there have been a lot of great reviews and reaction from fans, but some people of course prefer the old material and the old sound, and that’s a completely fair and understandable position. It’s just how it is when you are a band with a history and you change your sound. However, it’s also quite irrelevant for us to hear from disappointed fans or reviewers as we have taken this new direction to avoid splitting up the band and have fun playing music after a long period of constant frustrations.
While Mercenary’s sound has always changed from album to album, 11 Dreams, The Hours That Remain, and Architect of Lies were a trio of releases with a thread of continuity that made them relate more closely than previous releases. Although I am a huge fan of this “era” I’ve always felt that these albums were so immense and full of ideas that they seemed to lack focus. Any thoughts?
Mølbjerg: I am actually quite in agreement with you. Even though I’m still proud of these albums, I think they lack a certain coherence and focus by the very fact that there’s so much different going on. On the other hand some people like the album because of that some quality, I guess that’s very much a question of individual taste.
Metamorphosis is an entirely new beast. Tell us about some of the ideas you implemented during the writing process that you were unable to before.
Mølbjerg: I guess it was mostly a question of being able to focus our direction and expression in a more coherent direction. Basically, it’s just easier to cook a meal with less cooks in the kitchen, as a Danish saying goes. We wanted the material to be a bit faster and aggressive and to restore the balance between clean and aggressive vocals that we had on Everblack and 11 Dreams, simply because that’s how we like it ourselves and it’s what we prefer to play live. The softer material from The Hours that Remain and Architect of Lies could be a bit boring to perform live, I must admit.
Tell us a bit about recording the new album. Any highs and lows?
Mølbjerg: Basically, it was an easy ride. It’s always complex to record an album for us, however, because we put an emphasis on having a lot of layers in the music, for instance keyboards and vocal harmonies. And it’s hard to prepare these layers 100% in the preproductions we make in our rehearsal room, so that can wear you out a bit, having to decide on so much all the time. But generally, it was just a very enjoyable process and we were very happy to hear how the album come together really smoothly with the new lineup.
You have once again used Jacob Hansen as your producer. What is it about Jacob that keeps you working with him?
Mølbjerg: I think he’s just a very talented and humble producer who keeps pushing himself to learn new tricks and become better. He’s always made us sound the best we could, so it’s just a very natural and easy cooperation. Moreover, he’s a great guy so that just makes everything a lot easier.
Metamorphasis seems to be a bit more straight forward, a little less theatrical, more “in your face.” One of the biggest concerns I, and many fans had was the direction the vocals would take without Mikkel. I was pleasantly surprised to hear that Rene (Pedersen) has a hell of a set of lungs on him and his voice fits very well both the new direction, and no doubt with older material.
Mølbjerg: We were very glad to be able to turn the music in this new direction as we thought we had tried the theatrical approach long enough. The more direct approach is what we really love doing, so we’re glad to hear people like it. And that goes for the reaction to René as main singer as well, of course. I think he’s been received incredibly well with very few negative reactions.
The album as a whole is a lot more focused. I particularly dig “Shades of Grey.” I think this is the first song you guys have done that is totally without harsh vocals. While I can’t imagine Mercenary entirely without harsh vocals, this is a very successful experiment. Do you think we will see more of this in the future?
Mølbjerg: I can’t say for sure, really. We are not a band that make decisions on anything on principle, and we like to keep an open mind about our options. I guess it will really depend on the material we come up with during the writing process for the next album.
Do you guys split lyric duties? I seem to recall reading Rene writes from a very personal standpoint. Let’s talk a bit about the inspirations for Metamorphosis.
Mølbjerg:Yeah, that’s true. René writes all the lyrics and then we talk them over sometimes and work a bit on them together. It’s just something that comes very easy and natural for him, and yeah, he uses a lot of personal experiences from his own life. He’s had some difficult times in his life, but hey, at least they inspired some great lyrics, haha!
Tell us a little about the writing process of Metamorphosis. How does it compare to previous albums? Does that band interact in a different way now that the musical vision is shared more harmoniously?
Mølbjerg: Actually, we had a bit of a slow start because we felt like anything was permitted now. So we experimented a lot but not everything really worked out. I guess we very mostly just having fun toying around with some harder material than we were used to. After a while, however, we really got a strong focus and got a really great shared understanding of where we wanted to go. By that point the music really started to come very easy to us and we ended up writing four more tracks than were needed for the album in just a few weeks.
Whether one likes the new direction the band has gone in, I don’t think anyone can deny that there is a palpable energy in the songs that seems to be missing from Architect of Lies. Is this the feeling of the band as well?
Mølbjerg: Yeah, definitely. I really feel the new album is much more vibrant and musically relevant and alive. I guess it’s just because it’s straight from our hearts and completely honest.
Mercenary has yet to tour the U.S. Is this likely to change in the future? You guys have a rabid fan base over here, and you would likely be well received.
Mølbjerg:We’d love to do a tour in the US but the thing is that the costs are really enormous for a band like us because of the travel expenses and the required work VISA’s. So it’s a really big investment and that’s difficult to make, as income for both bands and labels are dropping. So the circumstances have to be right. We have some options under consideration but while we are hoping they work out, we don’t have anything specific confirmed.
Speaking of live shows, how much will past material play into future gigs? Some bands that go through significant changes choose to leave the majority of their previous work behind.
Mølbjerg:I think we will always have some old songs on our setlists but it also feels natural to weight the new material more. It’s the same band yet it’s not the same band, so to speak. Some of the older songs sound great with our current lineup and I think we will continue to pick up different old songs and play around with them and see how they work out with this lineup. Just last week we went over ‘Black and Hollow’ from Architect of Lies for the first time with this lineup and it really sounded good with René’s vocals.
It’s always fun to speculate. What does the near future look like for Mercenary?
In September we will do some shows in Denmark with Hatesphere and Artillery on the “Headbanger’s Ball Tour”. That should be great fun! Later, at the end of October, we go on another European tour with Dark Tranquility, Eluveittie and others which is also something we are really looking forward to. Dark Tranquility are the godfathers of melodic deathmetal so it’s both a great match and a really cool thing for us to be on that tour. And well, after that tour, I guess we will slowly start to write new material for a new album sometimes next year, hopefuly.
Any final words/thoughts?
Mølbjerg: Yeah, I hope people will check out the new album, it’s really something fresh and different while being very easily identifiable as Mercenary. I can personally say it’s the Mercenary-album I’m the most proud of to date.
Interview by Marc Garrison
For more information on Mercenary go to http://www.mercenary.dk
