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Covenant
Since the start 1992 Covenant has released 6 albums and has grown to one of the biggest synth bands of today. Not yet a year after the release of “Skyshaper” Covenant is already working on a new album. I met up with Joakim Montelius on a hot and sunny Saturday afternoon in Arvika during the festival and talked about xBox, side projects and catastrophic gigs.
You have been doing this for a while/time now – for how long?
"14 years"
You are not starting to get sick and tired on each other?
"O’yes" (laugh)
During your 14 years you have not changed any band members, which is quite unique. How come?
"The thing about Covenant is that we decided from the beginning if someone would leave the band it would not be Covenant anymore. This is the foundation for Covenant. Temporarily you can put in someone, but not replace a member. It would become another band then."
What is driving you to continue?
"All the things we have not done, Japan for instance. You get inspiration from other bands all the time, which you would like to develop, make it to your own and use it."
For how long will you be doing this?
"Hard to tell. Everything after the first record is just a bonus. We will always do music in some form. If it will be Covenant or something else I do not know. There is nothing better right now that I want to do. It is about how you cope with this life."
If Covenant would not exists what would you have done instead?
"It is something that I have been thinking about for a long time. Clas is a computer consult. Eskil and I have our educations, actually I do not know. But we would probably have done something with music."
How was Covenant created? How did it all begin 14 years ago?
"Covenant is parts of other bands from the time when we were younger. The first bands we had was about 1986 and it was built after we had seen Front 242 at the enriched Stadt Hamburg in Malmö, Sweden, and we thought that this is something we have to do. It all resulted in a couple of hobby bands. After starting our educations in Lund, Clas and I shared apartment and Eskil lived next door to us. We simply built a studio in Clas’ room and after that it has been rolling on."
You have become one of the greatest Swedish synth bands of today. How does it feel?
"Bizarre. I remember Eskil telling me when we were at the store buying milk right after the first demo, that we should contact a record company. I just laughed at him, and was more sceptic and though it was going to be a tough match. But it wasn't. What the reason is I do not know, but we have a special sound. In those days no group had done an album like “Dreams of a Cryotank“ or “Sequencer”.
Your latest album “ Skyshaper” has been warmly received by most people. How does it feel?
"I am most pleased that it became an album at all. It took time until we knew how it was going to be. Though when you are finished it feels good and you can let it go. It is like being pregnant - you have it for 9 months and when it comes out you have to be pleased with it. It is a process from an idea to a ready product."
Recalling from earlier reading you never sing about love and politics. Despite that you can discern little love on “ Skyshaper”. Or have you got any other inspirations for “Skyshaper”?
"Politics we never sing about but you are right, there are some love lyrics on “Skyshaper”. “Skyshaper” is a bit special. According to me “Northern light” is the best. We cannot get any further than this, but now we have done the best record we can do. “ Skyshaper” is what it became and it is a dreary album."
“ Skyshaper” feels a bit calmer than for example “ Northern light” - more commercial. What do you have to say about that?
"It is a combination of what we like to do. I wanted to do a damn hard album, but Eskil wanted to do a pure pop album. Clas did not really know what he wanted to do. But somewhere in between it became a super alternative album and a pop album and it resulted in “Skyshaper”. We have already done the noise album, the techno one and the pop one too. And once again somewhere in between “Skyshaper” came. And it is pop for sure."
You have a song “20 Hz” in a xBox game (Project Gothham racing 3). Comments?
"Pretty fun. The music fits in a racing game. Eskil is thrilled, because he plays xBox."
You mentioned earlier one reason that you continue are things that you haven’t done yet, what kind of things are you thinking of?
"Japan. It’s quite difficult to get into the Japanese market but we hope that we will get there within a year, it would be really fun to go there."
Leaving Sony you are back to SubSpace since “Sequencer” – why is that?
"We were signed on sub-label for Sony in Germany. They got panic from all the downloading of music off the Internet and they started to lose money. So they shut down all sub-labels including ours. Considering starting an own record company similarly to VNV Nation’s, we did not find the idea so fun after all. We thought that others do it better than we do. It resulted in signing a contract with SPV in Germany and licensed to SubSpace in Scandinavia."
Speaking of VNV Nation, you had a project going on with Ronan Harris from VNV Nation. Tell us about it.
"This project is on ice right now. In Leipzig they hold a Bachfestival every year where musicians from all over the world come and play Bach. Some people there wanted to start an alternative Bach project, where hardrockers, synth people, punk rockers would play in the Bach spirit. Ronan phoned me and said he had been requested about this .We have always wanted to do something together and have pretty much same ideas. We made six songs and only performed 3 and a half of them, because our computers flipped and the power broke down. It was supposed to become an album of this, but “Skyshaper” came in between and VNV Nation released “ Matter+Form”. VNV Nation is working on a new album and so are we."
When asking Joakim when the new album is going to be released he can’t tell me. It’s all in the planning stage right now. “We will start in the beginning of the autumn, but when it will get into stores I do not know. On the other hand we are doing a live DVD, which is composed of the tour now both in Europe and in the USA. It will be out before Christmas I believe. A new single will also be out in August.”
Eskil lives in Germany - is it a problem for you?
"Not really. Sometimes it is good, because it is a big city and there is a lot of good music. Sometimes it is not so good, because when he is there everything takes more time."
I read in an earlier interview that Covenant was going to be one of the greatest techno/synthband and soon will cross the Atlantic. You have done this now. What is it like to be Covenant today 2006 comparing to 1997?
"It is something that I am not thinking about, but our first time in the USA was awesome, we played in New York, WOW. It is a job, but it feels peculiar that people pay our trips to the USA just to see us on stage. You get very humble."
My first contact with Joakim was when I drove a car from Malmö and Helsingborg to X-Ray in Stockholm 1996. Joakim remembers that with split feelings. “It was not a good performance. I recall the sound was extremely poorly and it was badly organized. I also fell off the stage several times. It was built of pallets with masonite board. The band before had made the pallets slide apart and behind me there was a big hole and every time I took a step back I fell. I was so upset, but it went well after all.”
Speaking of gigs and concert, which one is your best one as you see it?
"Oh, hard question. It is almost impossible to answer. I do remember when we played at M’era Luna festival a couple of years ago in front of 22 000 people and beyond the horizon there still was people. It was a mighty feeling. And on the contrary 50 persons can create much bigger feeling than 22 000. That what makes it so cool."
And the following question must be which is your worst concert ever?
"The third or fourth performance on a small festival in Helsingborg. We only had one thing in the rider and there was a smoke machine with much smoke and stroboscope. When we arrived the smoke liquid was out and no stroboscope was to be found. We had a lot of plans, like a guy dressed like a robot, who could wave with his arms and everything. He stood on the stage edge and threw out flowers, which we had picked. Later during “Edge of dawn” another guy came out with 4 meters long arms and beak and could not move. We also forgot our keyboard stands, so we found an old stove at a scrap yard and put them on. Clas was sitting on the ground I believe. The plastic things we had on us just looked ridiculous without the smoking machine and the stroboscope. It was the whole thing so to speak. What were we suppose to do then? Clas had a couple of smoke shells stolen from the military service. We put them in the stove and during the concert we trigged them. The smoke was so intensive that everyone had to leave. The fire fighters and the police came later and asked if we were about to burn the place down. We said it was only smoke and they wondered where it came from. These smoke shells were not very legal. The guy in the costume was still in there, because he had passed out and could not open the door. I think it took 6 months until he spoke with us again."
What can we expect from the concert later today?
"More Covenant standard I think. We do not have any cool stuff with us. We have 11 good songs with happy music among happy people. We did not start doing music just because it should be played live. Everything is programmed and non of us play that good live actually."
/Niclas Sandén
Photos by Mattias Nordgren
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Joakim Montelius (Interview)
Clas Nachmansson
Eskil Simonsson
Joakim Montelius
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