Hypocrisy: Injecting Some Fresh Blood
The life of a musician can be relentless at the best of times, if they aren’t touring, they’re writing or preparing for the next album cycle in order to make a living. A perfect example of this is the iconic Peter Tägtgren of HYPOCRISY who has been known to juggle a host of bands at once. The pandemic has been a huge hindrance for musicians but if anything, Peter was relieved.
“For the first time in 28 years, I actually spent a summer at home, sitting on the porch, looking out at the lake and just being able to appreciate the quietness instead of always having to go to the airport every weekend and fly to a festival. It’s been quite nice!” He explains. “After the LINDEMANN tour got cut short I basically came home and for half a year I just laid on the couch, watching TV and eating junk food! I really needed that because I kind of hit a wall in 2015 and never recovered. I should have taken a break but I didn’t and just kept going. I feel a lot more motivated now.”
Before the world came to a complete halt, Peter had already completed the latest chapter in the illustrious legacy of HYPOCRISY. A release which he has been sat on for quite some time, poised to pull the trigger when the time was right. Album number 13, Worship could well be their best material to date. “I didn’t want to start rearranging and changing things, I wanted it to be 100% HYPOCRISY but I also wanted it to be better songs, better production. We’ve established our style over the years and I know what I do best,” explains Peter.
“I pretty much wrote and recorded the album apart from the drums. We spent a couple of weeks in the studio but because we all live in different countries we had limited time to work together. This gave me enough time to piece what I needed together and by 2019 the album was done. Obviously, the pandemic happened and due to a lot of issues with things like the huge delays in vinyl pressing we just kind of sat on the album and I’ll tell you, it was no fun at all, just waiting and waiting but it was good in a sense as we had everything prepared like the music videos so we were good to go. It’s always exciting as you put a lot of time and effort into it. You’ve done the best you could and you want to see what everyone thinks about it. There are a few songs which I think are weaker than others but usually, I’m wrong about that and other people think they are the best songs so I’m curious to see the reactions.”
One of the most exciting elements of this album cycle is that Peter‘s son Sebastian (who has already showed his talent as the live drummer for PAIN) has assisted in contributing to this release. Something which has really sparked a fire under Peter. “When you’ve done 12 albums with a band you’re not as motivated as you once were all those years ago. I felt like I had spilled out everything I could. We can still go out and play shows, that was no problem. I just kind of needed some kind of carrot to start writing again and I think this father/son collaboration really woke me up again. I never write when out on tour as I need the peace of mind, I have to be home then I can write the lyrics and the music. I’ve been writing here in my studio since about 1994. In 2017 we spent the whole summer just writing riffs and putting songs together because we wanted to do it.
“He was writing for End Of Disclosure too and me and him wrote Soldier Of Fortune when he was like 14 years old so he’s always had a lot of potential. So we just started spitting riffs out and writing all kinds of weird shit and Dead World was one of the songs he wrote and I asked him if I could use it for HYPOCRISY. I think it is really cool, it’s fresh, unique and brutal. We’re going to start writing some PAIN songs together. He’s a young kid but he can handle a lot of stuff already and I want to see what we can contribute to PAIN together. I think it could be something cool, a bit of fresh blood!”
Worship is out now via Nuclear Blast Records.
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