CROWNSHIFT only recently appeared on the scene as the new band of guitarist Daniel Freyberg, bass player Jukka Koskinen, and drummer Heikki Saari, with the addition of vocalist Tommy Tuovinen. The band is ready to release their self-titled debut album via Nuclear Blast Records on May 17th, 2024. We chatted with Daniel Freyberg about the newly founded band, their debut album, and live appearances. Watch the interview here or read the complete transcript below…
Thank you so much for taking the time to do this interview today. How are you feeling?
Daniel: I’m feeling good. Thanks for having me.
In a couple of days, you’re releasing the debut album of CROWNSHIFT, self-titled. How are you feeling about the upcoming release?
Daniel: Well, I’m really excited about it. We’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time, so I’m excited, but I have an extremely good feeling about it.
When we first chatted about this project, it was around 2022, right?
Daniel: Somewhere around that, yes.
Which means you’ve been cooking this up for a little while. We know what happened with your previous band and the tragic and abrupt ending to that. Did you need some time for yourself first and thus take a break from music, or did you instantly know that you wanted to start a band again?
Daniel: A little bit of both. Well, actually, CROWNSHIFT was… even before what happened to CHILDREN OF BODOM or BODOM AFTER MIDNIGHT, we were already talking about that a lot, and I knew that it’s going to happen someday. Especially after the BODOM AFTER MIDNIGHT thing, I needed some time off. It was on hold for a while, but it would have been anyway because there was the pandemic and stuff like that, nothing really seemed to happen anyway.
I guess the most obvious question is why you decided to go for a new band and not continue under NORTHER or NAILDOWN with Heikki and Jukka.
Daniel: I think we all wanted a fresh start, to not have any expectations of any other or baggage or how you want to see it. So we felt that this was… this sounded kind of different anyway. It wasn’t really similar to NORTHER or even NAILDOWN, so we felt that let’s take a fresh start and we go from there.
You mentioned the newer sound. Do you feel like that is partly because you matured as a musician, given that NAILDOWN, for instance, was so early on in your career?
Daniel: Yeah, probably that. There’s a lot of years in between. Definitely, and we also have… of course, there’s three guys that have been playing together before, but we also have a new singer, Tommy [Tuovinen], who brings a lot to the table. His sound is so different than we have ever had before in our bands.
At what point did you decide that you should get a singer and not do the vocals yourself like what you used to do?
Daniel: That was probably straight away because I kind of quit as a lead singer a long time ago. I’m not going back there. So, I do a little bit of backing vocals on the album, which helps. But I never wanted to be the lead singer of this band. Yeah, I could never do what Tommy does. It made sense to have him because he could do pretty much anything.
I suppose that Tommy has been your friend for years, but what was the main factor in inviting him as a vocalist for CROWNSHIFT?
Daniel: Probably because… yeah, we go a long way back. I know him well, and he’s an amazing singer. He has like a… he can cover any style. His register is very wide… what he can do. I always knew in my head that I wanted a singer, probably the other guys as well, who can cover a variety of styles, not just a one-trick pony, because we like many styles.
I guess that’s also where the progressive elements come in as well. Based on the recent singles, many people noticed some STRAPPING YOUR LAD and MNEMIC influences, and they’re also pretty apparent in the album. At what point did you decide that you sort of want to branch out from the typical melodic death metal sound or is that something that came naturally?
Daniel: We really didn’t decide anything. We just did what came naturally and that’s the result. Like I said, we like many different genres and many different styles, and we don’t want to just stick to one, for example, melodic death metal, because if you heard the songs, there’s a lot of different stuff across the spectrum. So, yeah, that’s the way we want to keep it and we’re probably going to continue like that.
Is that also the reason why you decided to release those three songs as singles? They are definitely the most diverse ones on the album. Or is that something the label chose?
Daniel: No, we actually chose them… the band did. They are a pretty good take from the album, but there’s not probably the most progressive stuff on these singles. So there’s a couple more surprises on the way.
What was the songwriting like? Did you have any leftover songs from back in the NAILDOWN days that you used as a base or did you start from scratch?
Daniel: Well, both. I did have some leftovers, and I do have some leftovers… a lot because I basically write more music than I can put out. So I have a session full of riffs and melodies which I visit from time to time and see if there’s something cool that I forgot about. It’s something I write in the moment, and then if I’m struggling to get some missing part, or I go to my sessions and check if there’s something I wrote maybe 5 or 20 years ago, and see, oh, now this is the place for this. So it’s always kind of a mixture of new and old.
How did you guys bring it all together? Was it mainly you who wrote the songs or was it a bit more collaborative?
Daniel: We didn’t really rehearse as a band that much because we like to work remotely. So the process is basically that I do the core song, I program drums, guitars, bass, synths, and then, I send it out to the other guys and they are going to practice, take the best part of it, put their own flavor to it, and then we go to record, and then, even when we are recording, we tweak them a little bit on the spot. That’s how we did this album.
What about the vocal melodies?
Daniel: Well, the vocals are a little bit different. We did those only when we got to the recording. We wrote lyrics, vocal lines, and everything on the spot. So it’s like a two-part process: first comes the music, and then we focus on the vocals. Of course, there are some really raw ideas coming along the way, but we’re not really diving deep into it until it’s [time for] the recording process. Yeah.
How much do the songs then change during the recording process?
Daniel: Well, the vocals didn’t change because they didn’t exist. [laughs] But of course, the vocals can change the song. So, yeah, it depends on the song. Sometimes very little musically, but when you add the vocals, then it sort of opens up the whole song in a different way. It depends on the song a little bit.
It’s quite an interesting way of working because I guess most bands usually have the whole song ready at the start, before recording. Is that something you always did or something you wanted to experiment with now?
Daniel: I’ve been more or less doing that in the past, but maybe not as much as now. The reason that we could do it like this and kind of made it easy to do it like this is mainly because I recorded this – except the drums – in my home studio, so we didn’t have any pressure time-wise or so on. I remember when we did BODOM stuff, it was completely the opposite way. Everything happens in the rehearsal place, and then we just go to the studio and execute it. So they’re two different ways, but both can work.
This is CROWNSHIFT’s debut album, but you already have a management deal with Till Dawn They Count (who also manage NIGHTWISH and SONATA ARCTICA), a great label deal with Nuclear Blast, and as a result, you’re already booked for a lot of summer festivals, like for instance, one of the biggest European metal festivals, Graspop Metal Meeting in Belgium. How does it feel to kickstart your career with this band with such an explosive start?
Daniel: We feel extremely good. We got the people behind us, you know, what we basically wanted. That actually took a lot of time to get everything in place, and we sort of wanted to get these things ready before we announced the band. I’m extremely happy that Nuclear Blast believes in us, and the management is in believing us, so I have a good feeling.
How long have you in that sense been sitting on this record? Has it been done for quite a while?
Daniel: A little while. [laughs] Well, it’s better… I’d rather not say.
Really? [laughs]
Daniel: [laughs] No, I’m not going to reveal that, but the good thing is, it’s new for you guys. Because anyway, it’s old for the artist when it comes out. It doesn’t really matter how old it is.
Have you started preparing for your shows already?
Daniel: Yes, we have. Actually, right before I got here, I was doing some preparations and rehearsing, some pre-production. Very much.
What can people expect from the release show in Helsinki, since it’s not only your first show but also your first headlining show?
Daniel: At least a few surprises. We have to play more material than we actually have, so there are a few surprises coming for sure. You’re going to see us giving everything we got, so but actually it’s kind of cool because it’s a new thing for us too, so we don’t know exactly what to expect, I’m sure it’s going to be a blast.
Talking a little bit more about the album, I really like the opener of the record, “Stellar Halo,” is there anything you can tell us about that song?
Daniel: “Stellar Halo,” that’s probably the most technical song on the album. At least for me, it’s the trickiest to play. It’s like a rollercoaster. Somehow, it felt like a good opener because of the keyboard intro, it’s one of my favorite songs. Probably one of the first songs I wrote on the album, but it still holds pretty well. We like it.
What I also really liked was the instrumental track, “Mirage,” which mainly focuses on your guitar playing. How did you come up with that one?
Daniel: From the get-go, it felt like an instrumental track. I always liked instrumental songs, but I just haven’t really done them so much. It just felt like it’s a good balancing element in the hectic album.
I guess if the guitar has such a beautiful melody, sometimes vocals aren’t really necessary.
Daniel: It’s a different kind of challenge because you have to keep it interesting without the vocals and sort of replace the vocals somehow. I think it does a pretty good job without, but there are also cool bass melodies, and very much going on in that song, than just guitar.
The last song, “To the Other Side,” is also the longest song with 11 minutes. Is there anything you can say about getting that song together?
Daniel: I remember it took a lot of time to get it together. There was a logical point somewhere around the second chorus that I could have ended that song, but something really told me that you have to see where this goes. I just kept throwing things and it just came into my mind and it just kept growing and growing and snowballing. It made sense, but it was a lot of work. I’m really happy that I checked that card and pushed that a little bit further than just writing a 5-minute song because it turned out to be good.
[laughs] At what point were you like “this is enough”?
Daniel: [laughs] I don’t remember. Probably when I got to the end. [laughter] But it’s difficult to also keep this lengthier song, like 10-minute songs, interesting, rather than 5-minute songs. I think it’s easier to do two interesting 5-minute songs than one interesting 10-minute song.
So it is more complex?
Daniel: It is, it’s more challenging. You have to think in a little bit of a different way. I can say there is more time because you have to keep it interesting. When a typical 4 or 5-minute song, you can use the same parts a little bit more.
A new band means new aesthetics, visuals, and a logo. How did you decide on those things?
Daniel: We just brainstormed. It wasn’t like a certain thing of we have to have this or that. We just brainstormed and throwing ideas to designers and picked the best out of them, tweaking them a little bit more. It’s the same as what we did with the music.
Was it a difficult process to pick a band name?
Daniel: It’s always difficult because you have to live with that name forever for the rest of your life. We had some alternatives, but that just felt right for us.
Well, let’s see how you feel about it in some years. [laughter] Do you guys already have other plans that you can talk about for Fall? Can we expect a tour soon?
Daniel: Nothing is really set. But of course, we have plans. We try to be as active as we can, but it’s not just our schedule, it’s a lot more factors regarding touring. So let’s see. Hopefully, we can do tours in the Fall or later, but first, we’re focusing on these summer festivals.
Where are you all heading to?
Daniel: We are going to go to France, Switzerland, Germany, Graspop [in Belgium], Romania, Finland, so there’s a good bunch of festivals around Europe.
That sounds like a great festival run! Well, that’s it for my questions. Thank you so much. Do you have any last thoughts you want to share?
Daniel: Just check out the album, hopefully, you like it, catch us at our shows!
Interview by Laureline Tilkin
