Sweden has unleashed yet another incredible group of musicians by the name of Scar Symmetry; and they are perhaps the best new band in the face of Metal to arrive in recent years. Their abilities are all top notch and take the evolution of the genre to an entirely new playing field. It’s all here: brutal vocals, crisp melodies, agonizing guitar riffs and stellar leads. Utilizing an evenly placed balance of melody and aggression these guys are already leaders in the new frontier. I recently was able to catch some time with the very humble and extremely hilarious Jonas Kjellgren, who plays guitar for Scar Symmetry. Amid discussions of farmers, boy bands, rock stardom and colorless food, this conversation made for one of the most memorable and entertaining interviews I’ve been a part of in some time. The band are currently touring the states in support of their latest offering, Pitch Black Progress, which is available through Nuclear Blast Records. Join with me, for this first look at one of modern metal’s newest and most praiseworthy artists.

OT: How’s it going?

Jonas: It’s going great man.

OT: Cool. So like I was telling you when we were gettin’ on the bus, I listened to the new album on the way down here; my god man, it was f*ckin’ smokin’, it’s just incredible. You guys are just absolutely so diverse in your sound. Do you find it hard to reach certain people? Especially when it comes to metal, there are a lot of people that tend to be purists where they don’t want to cross over.

Jonas: Yeah, I know what you mean, but I don’t know what to think in terms like that because we do music for ourselves. Like we want to have this and this in the song, I cannot think about some dude in Norway who only listens to Black Metal or whatever. I cannot think like that, you should do what you want to do. So, no, we don’t think about that.

OT: Right, right. You guys are kind of carvin’ out your own niche.

Jonas: Yeah, yeah, I don’t care about people liking us because we all have day jobs; this is just like a hobby.

OT: So far.

Jonas: Yeah so far.

OT: Hopefully it won’t always be a hobby.

Jonas: I think it’s good to have it as a hobby, then it will be always fun. You tour ten months a year: then it would be a job - a day job - it would be boring and I think your performances will suffer from it ‘cause you know you have to do it today to pay the mortgage on your house or the loans on your car. So it’s better like it is now. But of course, if we will become bigger then that wouldn’t hurt. Then maybe we could have a bus without porn maybe. (Laughter) That would be the only difference.

OT: (Laughing) So how do you describe your sound when people ask what kind of music do you play?

Jonas: Sometimes, when we want to be funny, we say it’s like Death Metal with Back Street Boys vocals. (Laughter)

OT: That’s funny.

Jonas: Otherwise it’s typical Swedish sound with some…., I think it has some American stuff too, like Nevermore I think; some of their riffs you can hear in our music, if you listen too close you will hear it. Otherwise we’re like, influenced by Def Leppard, stuff like that. I like Talisman, and I like Cryptopsy and Cannibal Corpse, but of course we don’t try to make it super crazy with the grrrrr, rrrrh, lalala. We just make something, put in whatever fits into the music. I think we do the songs in certain ways; they should have a very good flow, if you know what I mean. Some bands it’s just too much, I cannot take it ‘cause in here and out here. It’s too much for me, I’m not like a super-genius, my brain cannot melt all that stuff so we try to keep it as simple as possible.

OT: Mhmmm yeah. Well it seems to be workin’, whatever you’re doing. Like I said, I hear a lot of diversity in there, classic elements, there’s some soulful stuff in there in the melodies. It’s really good.

Jonas: Thank you, it’s mostly based on 80’s Heavy Metal though, actually. That’s what all of us listened to.

OT: That was metal, though, for the most part; wasn’t it?

Jonas: Yeah, yeah yeah.

OT: So how did your first tour of the states go?

Jonas: Really, really, really good. Like we did not expect anything because we never been in the U.S. before. Like on the first gig, the people were crazy and screaming and I was like, “Oooh what is this, why? What have we done to you, you sick f*ckers? Can’t you see right through us, we’re just farmers with guitars!” (LAUGHTER) “It’s nothing special, go home. Listen to Iron Maiden or some other good music like Judas Priest or something.”

OT: Yeah it can be a little overwhelming. You guys got a pretty good package deal. A lot of bands, the first time they come over, they play smaller venues, but these were some fairly decent big venues for what we have out here.

Jonas: Most of them have been really, really cool.

OT: Very cool. So how did it all work for you to get onto this tour, I mean somebody contacted somebody, or were you just sittin’ around and got a phone call?

Jonas: I don’t know. Our first tour was supposed to happen in October, 2006, so like Per, he quit his job because we were doing European tours. So it was like, “Ok, we’ve been touring this whole year so I will quit my job now. That’s a good idea.” Then they’re saying, “No this tour is off, but you got a tour in December.” “Ok, ok.” Then it’s, “No, this tour is off, you got a tour in January.” We said, “We cannot do it because we have to work to make money to pay the rents and shit like that. It finally happened and was good and then this one came and we were just lucky that it fit into everybody’s schedules.

OT: Now with what you’ve just said about coming over here and the fans going nuts, they obviously don’t see through you, they look at you: you’re sitting on a bus, you’re doing interviews, you’re playing every night, people are taking pictures, and fans are screaming… they think you’re rock stars! And obviously that doesn’t quite settle with you just yet.

Jonas: No, no I don’t like it.

OT: What do you think about how people perceive you? Do you want them to look at you as being in the limelight, or just as normal people?

Jonas: I don’t know, I don’t know. They can think whatever they want. (Laughing) We will still be the same people whatever happens. But it’s nice because you know when we started to play music it was because you worshipped all the 80’s metal bands. Like, “Ohhhhh, I want to be like them because they were so cool.” Like W.A.S.P. or something. But I didn’t know what to do I just want to be like them, ‘Aaarrrhhhhh!’ I want to have an instrument with blood on it! (Laughter) Yeah, they must think we are more than ordinary people; that’s a good thing! (Laughter)

OT: That’s a good thing! Ok. Don’t mind havin’ ‘em see you as a little bit more than just farm boys. (Laughing)

Jonas: Yeah, we are not normally farmers from our village, we are super-humans! (Laughter)

OT: Super-humans… (laughing).

Jonas: No way, I think people realize we are just some guys. But it’s hard for you to understand because you are from U.S.A. Sweden, it’s like so f*cking small, you can go for hours and hours and not one house or gas station, only woods.

OT: Yeah I’ve been there, I know.

Jonas: You’ve been to Sweden! Then you know it sucks, the roads are like this small.

OT: Where are you guys from, what city?

Jonas: Dorlana, we be 3 or 4 hours north from Stockholm. Like in Sweden we could not play a place like this, nobody would show up; it’s too…. big.

OT: Too big huh?

Jonas: Only in Stockholm and Gothenburg, they are like the only places that are big.

OT: So you’ve done a European tour, you’ve been over here now. What’s the crowd response like, how does it differ between here and there.

Jonas: Awwww it’s the same.

OT: They all think you’re rock stars.

Jonas: Yeah. (Laughing) No, I don’t know.

OT: You’re foolin’ them huh? “We’re just regular people.”

Jonas: No it’s the same I guess, but I like it more here because every day is more different here. If you’re in Germany or Holland or Belgium, it’s the same; everything is gray and looks like crap, I hate gray. (Laughter) I do! It looks like shit I don’t like it.

OT: (Laughing) Little dismal there… kinda depressing?

Jonas: Yeah and they have no good food either. (Laughter) I don’t like the food at all; the vegetables you get are grey. If you get peas, they’re supposed to be green but they’re grey; that sucks. Food needs to have some color! Yeah I like the food very much here. I do. Steak & Shake, Sonic, stuff like that…, Outback with that onion bloom shit, Bennigan’s.

OT: Well right on, sounds great. So the album’s been out for awhile, are you guys planning the next release yet, have you written anything?

Jonas: We will record it soon; we have all the songs ready.

OT: And what can we expect, are you gonna try and take it in different directions or stay true to the formula?

Jonas: Well I don’t know what we’re doing, we have the songs ready and… you tell me when the album comes out. I have not even thought about it, if it’s the same style as Pitch Black Progress or not, I don’t know. But it will be a bit different, we tried to do everything the same, but better; like the weak spots are gone now the way we feel.

OT: Well that’s what counts the most, right? If you’re not happy with it yourselves then nobody else can be, right?

Jonas: No, no. But some bands it gets to the point where they think it works and everybody else thinks it sucks. Lots of bands are doing that lately, thinking that they’ve released the best album ever and nobody likes it. It’s all these 80’s bands doing a new album. Like the new Iron Maiden album has one or two good songs, the old albums had just killer songs all the way through.

OT: I agree, I absolutely agree.

Jonas: But I’m sure they’re thinking they’re doing the best music ever.

OT: The worst one that I know is the Swedish band Europe.

Jonas: Yes!

OT: That new album’s just terrible.

Jonas: They tried to do something grunge-like.

OT: They sound like Audioslave.

Jonas: Yeah, Europe should be who they are and play 80’s music.

OT: Right, yeah absolutely. I don’t know what goes through musician’s minds. It seems to me that if you’re a fan of music to begin with, putting yourself in the audience and listening to a band or listening to a CD, you know what people are going to like and what they’re not because you’re one of them. So I don’t know how it is that bands come out with such crappy albums.

Jonas: Just a few bands who actually dominate for twenty/thirty years and still making good music like AD/DC, its still being the same where it’s all good.

OT: That works for them, but somebody like Maiden, it seems to me that some of the bands, they run out of ideas or they just take parts from other songs and kind of re-hash them…

Jonas: And the worst part, they may hear a new band, ‘Oh let’s steal something from them!’ And it doesn’t fit into the music at all. It’s like, I always loved Slayer, and I love everything they’ve done, almost. But when they got this crazy idea sayin’, ‘Hey, let’s put in some New Metal stuff.’ Not God Hates Us All, the album before that, Diabolus In Musica, some good songs, some not. It’s like it doesn’t sound like Slayer.

OT: Yeah, I don’t know, I kinda liked that one, it had some of those elements, but I really liked it better. The most recent one from them is the worst to me.

Jonas: It had one or two real good songs; the rest is not so good.

OT: And Tom’s not singing as much as he used to, it’s just real raspy yelling. I mean I want ‘em to come out and do Seasons In The Abyss again, do something in that vein.

Jonas: Could be someone told him, ‘Yeah today you just have to scream all the time.’ Tom went, ‘Ok, I understand, I’m gonna do it.’ You never know what’s going on in the studio.

OT: Well it seems like that’s kind of the vibe that’s been going on, especially here in America, where with all the metal core bands like Lamb Of God and such is to do more of that yelling and so they kind of went that route. And then they’ll sit there and say that they’re not selling out. I’m like, ‘I don’t know about that.’

Jonas: I don’t know about that. But I love Slayer they are like gods to me.

OT: Definitely. So tell me a little bit about the current album, is there a concept behind it or a particular ‘theme’?

Jonas: I think it’s like the movie Matrix; you take the red pill or whatever. It’s Henrik, our drummer, who makes all the lyrics, but to me it’s like that, or Operation Mind Crime with Queensryche, something in that way. It’s like Big Brother, you’re not thinking for yourself. I like the lyrics a lot, I don’t understand everything, but most of it.

OT: Y’know, that’s expected and it’s almost, I think its better that way ‘cause if you did understand everything then you would probably find more fault with it. I write lyrics too and I like to leave ‘em open to interpretation.

Jonas: I know every song he has thought behind it and he told me and I try to make notes (laughter) so I can put it in the answers in interviews; but I lost those, sorry. (Laughter) He’s a cool dude and it’s insane because he was writing poetry in English when he was four years old.

OT: Oh wow.

Jonas: So he’s like over-intelligent, yes, but you cannot tell because he’s just a drummer, he’s all, bombombombom; but he’s really intelligent.

OT: Yeah I write music with this guy, he plays guitars and I write lyrics and he doesn’t know what my stuff’s about either. So what about the name of the band? I’m always into the meaning of names.

Jonas: It came… it was Henrick again. At first we all hate the name, Scar Symmetry, sounds like beabeabeabea. What is this crap? But he told me, ‘One harsh word and one nice word.’ And he explained to me, like scar symmetry is like the symmetry for all the scars to get their life from failure: your girlfriend leaves you, of course they always do sooner or later, or somebody dies or something like that.

OT: That’s cool. Right on, man. Well thank you so much for your time, I really enjoyed seeing you guys last time and look forward to the next time. The album’s great, can’t wait to hear some more stuff from you guys. Hopefully you’ll all be able to quit your jobs and just be out on the road playing music.

Jonas: Awh, why? (Laughter)

OT: Just tour ten months or whatever and then you take two years off.

Jonas: No, then everybody will forget you.

OT: If you’re good enough they won’t.

Jonas: We could tour maybe four months a year… five, that would be enough and then the festivals in the summer.

OT: Then you could write a new album or something.

Jonas: Yeah you have to make new albums and play free Xbox. Yeah, watch My Name Is Earl and stuff like that, my favorite show; I have it with me the whole season one and two. I’ve seen them many times but I watch them almost every night.

OT: Some shows just never lose their humor no matter how many times you’ve seen them.

Jonas: I love his brother, Earl’s brother…. ‘Huh? Huh?’ He’s just like me!

OT: That’s funny. Well right on Jonas, thank you so much.

Jonas: Thank you.