INTERVIEW: Olof Wikstrand – Enforcer

Swedish heavy metal outfit ENFORCER have been going from strength to strength since their inception in 2004. Previous full length release From Beyond elevated them into the top tier with its no frills approach of solid, hard hitting metal anthems and they are hoping to achieve the same levels of praise with the recently released follow up entitled Zenith which is available now via Nuclear Blast Records. Prior to release we caught up with frontman Olof Wikstrand to get some insight into how this album came together and what they have in store going forward.

Your new album Zenith is due for release later this month, what can we expect from this release?

Olof: I think that if you’re already familiar with our band you can expect to not be disappointed, and if you’re familiar with the heavy metal genre you will have something new to look forward to! I think Zenith is an album in which we’re both true to ourselves and true to our sound, but we also achieve in making something way bigger than just another ENFORCER album. We’ve been inspired by the classics of the genre and went really deep within the genre to come up with the songs and fit them together. It’s a very varied album and it has a lot of different extremes, so yeah, I think that’s what you can expect.

Zenith will be your first release in four years, was this gap between the albums intentional?

Olof: It was not intentional, but you know how you can never truly make plans that far ahead! We were touring a hell of a lot following our previous album – I think we did something like two hundred shows in a little more than two years. So that took up two years of our time, and then we spent one whole year writing Zenith, with another year spent waiting for the record to be released.

From Beyond received a lot of praise, was there any kind of pressure to make sure Zenith lived up to expectations?

Olof: I think there’s always a pressure to outdo yourself with your new efforts. The pressure comes from ourselves it’s not even from the press or the fans, it’s always you yourself who will be the hardest judge in regards to the stuff you so. For every new album project we involve ourselves in, we tend to raise the bar, so of course we’ll have sky high expectations by album number five. That’s also another reason as to why it took such a long time I would say!

Was there anything you approached differently during the writing or recording process this time around?

Olof: We didn’t really approach anything differently. I think that we wrote songs the same way that we’ve always been doing, however we did intend to have songs that really contrasted each other throughout the album. We wanted to build an album as a comprehensive whole, as a bigger picture – perhaps a bigger album than our previous efforts that afterwards, I think sounded perhaps a little bit one sided? That was the biggest difference. But I remember that I felt the same with From Beyond as well, that we were really trying to vary our sound. However this time I think we really proved it as well.

Your long time guitarist Joseph departed the band earlier this year, how have you found working with Jonathan this year?

Olof: We’ve worked with Jonathan for a while now as he’s been a live session guitar player for us when Joseph hasn’t been able to make it previously, so working with him in that way works out perfectly fine. It’s great to have some new blood in the band – it’s like and an energy injection! However he hasn’t really participated much in the song writing process this time, but I will be looking forward to that happening for the next album. To use some of his great ideas!

One thing I really appreciated about ENFORCER is that you always stick to your guns and not comprised your sound to fit any certain trends is that something you’re conscious of?

Olof: I think I’m probably the most untrendy person in the world – I always go against all trends and that’s been a trademark of the band since day one. I think it’s also a part of the success, that we always go our own way and do our own thing. We create trends instead of following them!

For the last few years you’ve been taking a step back from live performance to concentrate on the release, are you looking forward to getting back on the road?

Olof: Yes we did we step back a bit. After two hundred plus shows we felt that it was pretty useless doing more shows with our old material, unless we were offered a great tour that would put us out in a bigger context; however that didn’t happen so we just focused on the release. I am very much looking forward to getting back out on the stages. We just did two shows this past weekend and I think we all got reminded of just how much we like being on stage, and the reason we’ve been doing this!

You’re got a huge American tour with WARBRINGER later this year, are there any particular dates you’re excited to visit?

Olof: I don’t know to be honest! The bigger the shows are the more fun it is usually, so we’ll just have to see what kind of dates will be good and what dates will be surprises, and some dates might also be disappointments. You just never know how it’s going to pan out.

As your catalogue grows with each release, how do you find constructing set lists for touring?

Olof: It’s great constructing the set lists. The current set we’ve prepared now contains a lot of old songs but also new songs; the new songs totally give a new dimension to the live set list because they contain so many varied tempos and varied extremes, so it’s also a lot more fun playing. I hope that this will come across in our shows and concerts!

Are there any particular routines you go through to ensure you stay fresh on long tours?

Olof: Sleep a lot! To not compromise on good sleep, good rest, and convenience. We have a small crew that really works hard for us so we can relax and we can take the time for ourselves that we need. You’ve got to be relaxed if you’re going to do a proper show – if you’re tense and nervous you can only play on around twenty percent of your capacity, so everything I do is to be able to relax and let the adrenaline calm down. I think that’s the best thing to do, or that’s what works best for me at least I play so much better and I sing so much better when I’m relaxed. Also, not to forget to have fun as well because that’s eventually why we do it.

Zenith is available now via Nuclear Blast Records.

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