Sabaton is the encyclopedia of war for every power metal fan. The Swedish band delves into the history of armed conflicts to create epic songs, based on real events and, at times, little known to the general public. In the album The War To End All Wars , which will be released this Friday, the 4th, by Nuclear Blast , the band follows the trenches of the First World War.
In a press conference for Latin American media outlets, attended by Wikimetal , vocalist Joakim Brodén spoke with good humor and enthusiasm about the new album, the return to the stage, and whether Sabaton would like to write another song with Brazilian characters, like "Smoking Snakes" from 2014.
The conversation took place before Russia's invasion of Ukraine , which began last week, but the topic was the first to be raised at the press conference. "Wow, an easy question, what a great start! You need to talk to someone smarter than me," Brodén laughed, not wanting to delve deeper into the issue.
Returning to the 20th-century conflict, the subject was already explored by the band on their previous album, The Great War (2019), but the discovery of new stories, combined with the long-standing desire to address episodes like "The Christmas Truce," motivated the band to continue exploring the topic on another album to complement it.
Asked if the Great War could become a trilogy, the singer didn't rule out the possibility. "Well, I'm not going to say it's impossible because we haven't decided what we're going to do next, but I feel like we won't do the next one about the First World War," he said.
Any fan can contact the band through their official website, and the sheer number of stories about the First World War received by email or in person, backstage at shows, defined the direction of this album – and perhaps put Brazil on the radar once again, should Sabaton find another war story with soldiers from here, just as they did with "Smoking Snakes," which even included a verse sung in Portuguese.
“There are many topics in the world about which we don’t have as much information as we should. We don’t know as much about the history of Latin America, France, or Eastern Europe; there’s a language barrier,” he explained. “In the case of ‘Smoking Snakes,’ for example, [we received] an email from a Brazilian guy, we Googled it, and we thought it was a fantastic story.”.
The choice of events and characters to be turned into music depends on how unique that event or person is, as in the case of "Lady of The Dark," about Miluna Savic , a Serbian woman who took her brother's place in the army disguised as a man and became one of the most decorated soldiers of the war. Although not yet released, the peculiar story has attracted media attention.
“The fact that it’s a man or a woman isn’t a decisive factor [in the choice], only if it’s interesting enough. If the person is a woman, even better, because it’s more unique and unexpected,” commented Joakim.
The biggest musical challenge of this album, Joakim explained to Wikimetal at the press conference, was breaking the band's usual production rhythm: releasing an album, going on tour, and then starting to compose again after a year.
“I haven’t had enough time to come up with ideas,” he said. “It’s interesting that you ask that, today I was in the shower and it was the first time I felt excited to write [new] songs and have ideas. And now it’s been months since we finished recording this album. Yeah, it takes almost a year for me to start feeling excited to compose again.”.
So, is the band working on their next album? “It’s funny, people ask me when I’m going to ‘start researching’ or ‘writing new tracks’ for the next one, but I do that every day. I watch history documentaries at least five times a week because that’s what I love to do!” he said humorously.
