The Swedish metallers performed at Bangalore Open Air last week, alongside German thrash metal veterans Kreator
It’s afternoon in Bengaluru and Swedish metallers In Flames’ vocalist Anders Friden has managed to get a cup of coffee – the most he’s experienced India ever since he and the band landed to perform at Bangalore Open Air on February 10th.
He was invited out by bassist Liam Wilson (who previously visited India to perform with American mathcore band The Dillinger Escape Plan in 2017), but then he had to do this interview. “It’s your fucking fault,” Friden says with a laugh about how he won’t be able to see much of the city now. It’s a short trip for In Flames, who made their India debut as part of a larger Asia tour and then immediately flew to Australia. Friden says over a video call, “That’s a long flight. It sucks in a way, because I would like to see and meet the people in [India]. I want to eat the food, I want to see the sights. And friends back home who don’t really understand, they are like, ‘Oh, you get to see the world!’ I’ll be like, ‘Fuck, no, I don’t get to see. I see hotels, airports. I get to play and I leave.’ I’ve been in a lot of places in the world, but I haven’t seen much. Unfortunately, we don’t have that luxury.”
It’s a sobering, unfair truth about touring from Friden, who has been part of In Flames since 1995 and led vocals and songwriting on the band’s most seminal work like The Jester Race, Colony, Clayman, Come Clarity all the way to their 2023 album Foregone. At Bangalore Open Air, In Flames dove into songs from across their 14-album career, with Friden joining the band – guitarist Björn Gelotte, drummer Tanner Wayne, guitarist Chris Broderick and bassist Liam Wilson – to stomp around on stage.
Prior to the performance, Friden spoke with Rolling Stone India about exploring new territories as part of the Klash of the Titans tour with German thrash metal legends Kreator, the current lineup of the band, Foregone and more. Excerpts:
Rolling Stone India: This tour has brought In Flames to a lot of new territories, right? Apart from India, have you been playing any other countries for the first time on the Klash of the Titans tour?
Anders Friden: Yes, I think we’ve been to Thailand for the first time, and we have been in China before, but we never played Shanghai, only Beijing before, so that was our first. That was a lot of fun. But I’m here in India. It’s awesome. I’ve been wanting to go here for a long, long time, so I’m very happy that the music took me here.
You must have heard the metal scene in India, too.
Yeah, I mean, I check what’s happening in the world. And I’ve seen some images from the festival we’re playing today before, and I spoke to our friends in Meshuggah about they being here as well. So they told me some wild and crazy stories, but it’s more fun to experience them for yourself. So I have really high hopes for tonight, and, I mean, it’s a special occasion since we’ve never been here before.
You’re headlining Bangalore Open Air alongside Kreator as part of the Klash of the Titans tour. How has it been touring with Kreator once again, this time in different countries?
I mean, it’s awesome. For me, it’s like a full circle in a way, because I got into Kreator around 1986/87. So when I heard them, I was hugely inspired by… the band I was in at that moment, Dark Tranquillity, we were hugely inspired by Kreator, and Mille’s vocal style was definitely a huge inspiration for me to start singing.
As you mentioned, we toured with them before, but that was a long time ago. That was in the Nineties in Europe, and then obviously, we met along the way here and there on festivals and such. I think it’s amazing to see a band of their legendary status still continue to push and do what they do. And obviously, that’s an inspiration for me and for my band and what we try to do. We’ve been around for a long, long time, but I still want to achieve more. I want to explore more of what we can do with our sound, and it’s an honor to be part of a package and also an honor to be able to share our love for music with parts of the world that we usually don’t go to. I love it. I’m super stoked. Our music is not for a little part of the world. It’s for everyone that’s interested.
You’ve had Tanner [Wayne] on drums and Chris [Broderick] on guitars and Liam [Wilson] now on bass during this tour. What is it like bringing different people into the band, even if it’s just for the touring lineup? What have you seen in them that fits the In Flames sound?
All the guys that you mentioned – Tanner and Chris and Liam – are in the band, so it’s not just hired people, they are part of the band, but it’s Björn and me that write the music and arrange it. That’s what we do and it will not change. But the guys are very important to us and I think the way we sound live, we never sounded better.
I don’t mean that to be disrespectful to anyone who has ever been in the band, but these are really professional musicians and very skilled at what they do, and they all come from different backgrounds. Tanner comes from a more hardcore punkish era, and Chris, obviously, with his history of being in Nevermore and Jag Panzer and Megadeth… him we’ve known for more than 20 years. We were friends way before we thought about of him being in the band. It’s been great to have him and him and Bjorn really gel together and they play a lot of guitar. I’ve never seen Björn play this much guitar, and I think Chris is a big part of that.
Guitarist Chris Broderick and bassist Liam Wilson (background) on stage with In Flames at Bangalore Open Air 2024. Photo: Mohit Sharma
Liam came in this last summer because Bryce left us kind of abruptly. We’re still friends, so it’s no bad blood whatsoever. But he had to focus on family and we had a festival booked in Europe, so we had to do something. And then, obviously, I know of Dillinger [Escape Plan] from before and we met here and there, but we were not friends at all, so I didn’t really know him. But our manager said, ‘I think this would be a great fit for you.’ He knew him way better than us and he came in and after meeting him for an hour, we were like best buddies. He’s awesome and he’s great and he fits in the band really well. He’s a little bit older. He’s not a young kid. He has a family. He has so much experience from the road, so it’s a perfect fit. And he’s a great guy on stage and off stage, and that’s very important. And I need to say that because we play an hour, one and a half hours every other day.
So that’s what happens on stage. But off stage is also extremely important, how you are and how you behave and how you are socially, how you interact with each other. There’s so much fun and there’s no tension in the van, everybody’s laughing and having a good time. Whenever someone needs to walk away a little bit and be on their own, it’s totally cool. Nobody bothers you. So I am very happy to be part of this band right now. It’s a good feeling after so many years, as I said before, still feel the vibe, especially after the pandemic and everything that happened. We got back together and we are able to do this. It’s awesome.
February 10th marks a year since the release of Foregone. How do you look back at the time you’ve spent with this album?
Every album is important. I think you always try to do your best. You always try to top the previous one. Now I’m talking about how I feel, not how people perceive it. I always want to challenge myself and do something extra, add something new. And I think this album came about after the whole pandemic thing. So there was a lot of frustration and also inspiration and lot of motivation to get back in the room together and play this music. I think the whole being away from this band, being away from everybody was very good in this. I mean, it was good for us. I know a lot of people suffered, a lot of bad things happen, but if I talk solely about the band, I think it was a good moment for us to step away and look at what we have, what we’ve done and where we want to go and what we want to do.
Looking back, I don’t want to change anything about it. I think it’s a very good mix of everything In Flames are and what we stand for, the balance between the melody, the aggression, and there’s some new things in there that I think it’s fun to explore sonically.
The crowd during In Flames’ set at Bangalore Open Air 2024. Photo: Mohit Sharma
Over the years, In Flames has fit on a touring bill with everyone from Mudvayne to Motorhead to Kreator. Are there any challenges in winning over audiences from different styles or it’s something you’re happy to take on?
No, I see that as a challenge, but I think that’s an important challenge. I don’t want to be safe all the time. Yes, we sound very different from a band like Mudvayne, but maybe there are people in the audience that be like, ‘Oh, I never heard this band before.’ And then they start looking into our career and what we have done. For me, that’s always been important.
With the release of Foregone, In Flames re-signed with Nuclear Blast. From a music industry perspective, what did you have to keep in mind when you were going back to a label you’d worked with before?
Signing with Nuclear Blast again, it felt like coming home in many ways. They helped us build our career in the Nineties. It’s been very important to us. Nuclear Blast today is not the same sort of label, but at the same time, it’s still the essence, the heart is still there, and the people we work with now, it feels like coming home. The boss is awesome. He’s fucking phenomenal. All the PR people are great, and every person feels like they really want to be there, so that feels good.
We tried to venture out after the extension of a record label reached its end. We tried some new things here and there. Looking back now, I don’t think all the decisions were great. But you don’t know that until you try, right? We tried to be on a major label. We tried to work with Sony Music for a while.
The thing was, I’ve heard so many stories about bands signing to record labels, like big major labels, and they have an A&R that’s super interested. As soon as you’re about to release the album that A&R is gone and you end up with no one, and the label doesn’t know who you are and don’t know what to do. And I was like, ‘That will never happen to us.’ Of course, the same fucking thing happened to us. So as we were about to release Siren Charms [2014], for instance, that album just… it didn’t do what we hoped and didn’t do what they hoped.
There was a fight between us. I wanted to release different singles. I wanted to have stuff done in a different way, but the record label wanted to do it in a different way. Looking back, it wasn’t great, but if we wouldn’t have done that, I wouldn’t know what I know today, and it wouldn’t feel so good to be back where we are right now. And we’ve been with Century Media, and those guys were great to us, too. But Nuclear Blast is a label I would like to continue working with.
Fans at Bangalore Open Air 2024. Photo: Mohit Sharma
What else is coming up in 2024?
We have a tour in May in the U.S. with Gatecreeper and Creeping Death, both really cool death metal bands that reminds me of the stuff I grew up on.
We decided not to do anything this summer, which feels kind of nice except for the COVID years. But I don’t count those years. I haven’t had a summer off just being home or going on vacation since I joined the band, pretty much. So it’s always festivals and more festivals. Then we have the Arch Enemy/Soilwork tour coming up in Europe, which is going to be awesome. It’s been a long time coming. We all toured together back in the day and it’s very good and fun to be doing it again. It’s cool to see both those bands still continue to push what they do and push their sound. And then it’s time to celebrate Christmas. [laughs] Yeah, we have shit planned for 2025 as well, but nothing I can really talk about right now.
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