One of my favourite power metal bands of all time is Stratovarius, so when they announced their performance at the Tuska Festival, I knew I had to grab the opportunity to interview one of them for my Beniy Talks Metal column. Here is what I talked about with keyboardist Jens about music, food, and karaoke.
Benedetta
I’m here with Mr. Jens Johansson from Stratovarius. Nice to meet you. How are you doing today?
Jens Johansson
Ah, hello. Yes, I’m doing fine. We just came from France. We have played some place called Hellfest. And of course, it’s a quite long trip, so I think Timo didn’t sleep so well on the bus, so I think he’s dropping out from all the interviews today. But after the show, I think he will be. But yeah, it goes with the territory, but it’s like six hours away from the airport. This place is in Clisson, Hellfest. But it’s a really nice festival. I haven’t been there in many years and it’s a very pleasant surprise. It’s grown a lot, but it was like very nicely organized. Hats off to the French, better organized than Wacken. I told some of my German contacts and they were shocked. How is it possible? I mean, the French food is fantastic usually, but also the organization was really good, like, technical and, you know, logistics and, you know, everything. Of course, I don’t know how to organize a festival, but you know what you see and what you perceive. Like, is it chaotic and if the backline is bad or something like what happened to us in Wacken, it’s like, what? Hellfest it’s probably not been bought by some multi mega company yet. Maybe it’s like the city of Clisson running it. Whereas I still love Wacken but I think they have been bought by Live Nation or something like that. It’s also so huge that it’s probably more difficult to organize it. It used to be like some of the gold standards for festival organization to me. And I was like, this is actually better. What happened?
Benedetta
You are about to perform as well in Tuska. Is there a favourite aspect of yours about performing in festivals?
Jens Johansson
I don’t know. It’s usually big crowds, which is nice. And everybody’s in a good mood, they’re already drunk usually when you play. I mean the only bad thing is that the weather is unpredictable. Yesterday we were lucky, it was raining in the morning when we played, when Yngwie played. It was nice weather, Rhapsody was there, so it was a good day. And then at some point after Yngwie sto it started raining again. Somebody got a bit. Maybe Metallica got rained on. We weren’t there then, you know.
Benedetta
As you are touring and of course always on the road, are there any traditions that you have with your bandmates when you travel?
Jens Johansson
No. Try to sleep and eat. It becomes more, well, stuff like that you usually don’t have time. Especially for this type of trip, you’re kind of a little bit at the mercy of who has organized it. Like, now I went ten meters to a tent and there happened to be some food. You find food in the garbage and you eat that like a raccoon or a homeless cat.
Benedetta
Have you ever dealt with performance anxiety?
Jens Johansson
Well, when I was just starting out, but then, you know, if you play enough shows I think it kind of goes away. It’s also when you are used to a particular style of music, there’s not so much that can go wrong, really. I mean, with this band, there’s not so much improvised parts, or like, the songs are not so different from day to day. We play with a click track, and the songs are set in structure for sure. There’s no drummer starting the song two times faster than it should have been. There are a few songs still that we play without the click track. I start, and then of course sometimes I just fuck everybody up because I started too fast or too slow or something. For fun.
Benedetta
Oh, okay. So you’re messing with the others.
Jens Johansson
Yeah. Everybody gets angry.
Benedetta
Do you sing in the shower?
Jens Johansson
No, I don’t. I don’t sing so well. I might be able to sing somewhat in tune if I really try it, but still, you know, I haven’t done it so it’s like, no.
Benedetta
We were talking about food, and what is favourite breakfast?
Jens Johansson
I would say, I eat, normally for breakfast, just like some cereal or knäckebröd. And, like, that’s my favorite breakfast. Lofibre fibre and local taste. So
Benedetta
Here at FemMetal we try to bring awareness that unfortunately, even still today there are some discrimination towards female artists in the metal world. Do you think that there will ever be someday equality between males and females as opportunity and pay?
Jens Johansson
I think it’s difficult to be equal because there are some differences of course, but I noticed this festival for instance, I mean this stage where this band is playing now. Is it like a female-fronted band or something. It seemed, of, course I don’t know any of the bands really, but now there’s like a woman singer for instance. But I don’t know if there was some plan for this. The potential is there, and I think, you know, it’s like, in the end, we are just like pawns in this capitalist game. But, of course, you know, since metal is like very much, there’s like very many male metal fans, having a female front person would be a good capitalistic selling point. So I don’t understand why people don’t just go and grab this money, but there’s like, of course, there are quite a few good bands, especially from here that have female front persons, but yeah, I’m just hoping it gets better. I agree. I mean, it shouldn’t matter if the singer or whoever places male, female, if the art is good, I mean, they should matter, It would be an extra selling point, I think, you know, in a way, but somebody’s being very stupid. If I think myself back like 30 years or whatever, it would probably be more interesting to see a sweaty woman perform than to see some sweaty dude. There’s a pile of money there and somebody’s not grabbing it.
Benedetta
I know you, you don’t sing, but I wanted to play a little game with you. You have to go to a karaoke and sing a song with your friends, and it can’t be from the metal genre or rock. Which one would you choose?
Jens Johansson
I don’t know. I mean, I’m terrible with singing, so something simple. Something like, “Who Let The Dogs Out?” Now we just have to woof. Like, woof, woof, woof, woof. Who let the dogs out? I could do that. I don’t have to sing really, you know. You don’t have to kind of like perform hitting notes in the right pitch and such. I could probably do that. I would probably pick some really idiotic rap song.
Benedetta
Thank you very much for taking the time to do this interview. Is there anything else you want to add to our readers?
Jens Johansson
Keep practising and don’t forget there’s a big pile of money out there for somebody to grab with female-fronted metal. A lot of people are being idiotic and it’s like, “Where’s the money?” And then they go, you know, the opposite direction and they don’t see this big pile of money. Somebody should start getting shovels. Like, you know, Scrooge McDuck this room with coins. I think it’s baffling. Part of the music industry is, of course, not so much about the people that do it, it’s part of the organization and songwriting and things like that. But still, I think it’s like if I was starting a completely new band from scratch, I would probably have a female singer. Because I think it makes capitalistic sense on the business side.
