Swedish melodic rock metal band REMEDY, recently released their latest album, “Pleasure Beats the Pain.” We had the chance to talk to vocalist Robert van der Zwan and guitarist Roland Forsman about the album. Read the whole interview here…
Thank you so much for coming to Helsinki today. How was the trip here?
Roland: Everything went fine, you know, we went to McDonald’s in Sweden, that took some time, you know, but besides that everything has went smoothly, I would say.
Yeah, is McDonald’s in Sweden fundamentally different?
Roland: No, it’s the same, a bit slower.
Rob: On the airport they were obviously slower.
Roland: It’s like fast food.
Yeah, what a nightmare when that happens. Well, anyway, I’m glad you’re here and seems like you took a flight and not the crazy ferry, so that’s also nice.
Rob: We’re actually kind of used to the ferries. We used to play there like 20 years ago. We actually met on the ferry between Canada and Sweden.
Were you partying there then?
Rob: No, we were actually playing as a party band.
Oh, well then, yes, sort of.
Rob: Kind of two years or something like that, almost two years now. We played like one week or ten days every month there. So, yeah, that’s how we got our stage time.
Yeah, at what point did you realize you had to start this band together?
Roland: Yeah, well, actually, you know, it was COVID and cancer. It sounds a bit crazy, but that was like the reason why we formed, yeah, that’s the reason why we formed REMEDY. I lost all my jobs, you know, because of the restrictions. And you lost… you were at home, you were sick with cancer, having a battle against cancer.
Rob: I had a cancer treatment going on for a couple of months where I did radiation and chemotherapy. But it’s a funny thing because one of my colleagues, a friend of mine, a drummer, he told me that, yeah, it’s too bad with the cancer and everything, but you’re the only one right now that gets paid. Because I have what you call a sick leave payment.
Roland: Yeah, basically.
Rob: Well, if I was about to get cancer any time in my life, maybe I picked a good time to do it.
A little silver lining, I guess. Hopefully, you are doing better now. Is that also why you—because I usually don’t ask about band names—but is that also why you called it REMEDY?
Roland: Absolutely. You know, this was truly our remedy in a difficult point of our lives, you know. This was what got us going, you know. I didn’t touch my guitar, you know, for like three, four months before we started writing rock music and, you know, kicking off REMEDY. So yeah, that’s why we have the name, yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, I also noted that, I mean, some of the songs sound a little melancholic, I guess, because you’re also a Swedish band, it’s a bit like in Finland, but there’s like some sort of more positive, like hopeful undertone for me in the songs. So is that also maybe where that comes from?
Roland: Yeah, well, we try to have like, you know, both the positive and the negative side, you know, the day and the night. Pleasure and pain, we try to have both of those segments in our songs, that’s like, we’re happy to hear that you found that, because that’s something we think about, because that’s a part of life. Everything is not good all the time, but everything is not bad all the time, you know, it’s like a balance.
The album also doesn’t have a title track, but it’s called “Pleasure Beats the Pain,“ and you mentioned pleasure and pain. I suppose that everything is sort of connected then in that sense in your band.
Roland: Absolutely, but you will get the answer to your question next fall, around Halloween, we will release a song.
Oh, okay.
Roland: Yeah, if you listen carefully, you will find the answer.
I guess it’s been only two years since you released your debut album. So did you start writing songs already like right after, or was it an ongoing process because of the pandemic that you mentioned? Were these songs already ready, for instance?
Roland: No, we had a few. We had some, didn’t we?
Rob: Yeah, some, but most of it is like, it was written for the second album.
Roland: Yeah, we hit the top charts in Sweden, we sold out twice, we went on a huge tour. So we had a lot of positive energy with us last summer. After, you know, our first six months as a band, a lot of good things happened.
Rob: Yeah.
Roland: So that was, you know, we got our batteries were like fully recharged, a supercharger. So we hit the studio almost instantly after.
Rob: Yeah, I think that the week after the tour was finished, we started to work on the new stuff.
Roland: Yeah.
Yeah, was the fact thatyou were received so well with the audience and the live shows, was that also inspiring to you as well?
Roland: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. You know, in my opinion, you know, the rock fans are the best fans in the world. They are so amazing. And, you know, they support us, they buy our stuff, they come to our shows, they, talk to us, give us support on social media, you know, it’s truly amazing. All the love we get from our fans. And yeah, that was a big factor in our tour.
I read in the press release that these new songs, they mentioned that you present a sound even more personal and pushing boundaries even further. So in that sense, did you try to experiment a lot more with this album in terms of your sound?
Rob: Well, we do have, I mean, the first album, we didn’t have the courage to go out and do something out of our comfort zone in one way. But on this second album, “Pleasure Beats the Pain,” we actually, I mean, we were confident enough to put different instruments on it, for example, like saxophone and harmonica, vocoder, and this song with strings and acoustic guitar. We couldn’t have done that on the first album, because then we’re a bit afraid of how everything should sound and stuff like that. But after the first album, I mean, meeting people out there and get to know the band more, we understood that we, as long as we do it as REMEDY and under that, could you say umbrella or?
Roland: Yeah.
Rob: Then it’s REMEDY. So I’m happy that we actually could do that.
Roland: Yeah. And we’re also a bit older. I had my birthday yesterday, so we get older all the time and we get older and we get bolder and don’t care what people, you know, other people think. We try to do it our way and hopefully people will like it.
Rob: But that was also like a problem for the first album, because I thought that, well, I don’t really look like a rock singer. And I met a drummer of a big Swedish rock band, an old rock band. And I told him my concerns about this and he said, never listen to other people. It doesn’t matter if, as long as you think it’s rock, it’s rock. You do your thing. If you do it from your heart. We were in a bar, we were having a couple of beers and yeah, there was like a wake up call for me that, yeah, I can do this. Yeah. It doesn’t matter that I have this look that I have.
Roland: No, it doesn’t.
Rob: No.
Roland: You look fine.
Rob: As long as you’re confident and believe in yourself and what you’re doing. I mean, it sounds like a crappy sports movie from the ’80s, but it’s true.
Yeah.
Rob: And as long as you get that confidence, then you’re fine. I think that the audience can see that as well.
Roland: Yeah.
Is that something that was also a huge learning process as well, considering the first album… it sounds like you were still doubting yourselves a little bit much, like when you said that you sort of tried to stick to your comfort zone.
Roland: Yeah. But you know, Rob, he’s not a metal singer. I’m not a metal guitarist, you know, but we do it our way. And, you know, we could, it’s hard to foresee what people in the business would, say about us when they heard us. But now I believe it’s a strength, that I play guitar the way I do and you sing like you do, and we write music the way we do. And we sound like we do. So hopefully, you know, we have a bit of a, you know, musical identity that shows people, okay, this is REMEDY, this is how they sound.
With all the challenges, I guess, that you mentioned and the things you’ve learned from the first album, were there any challenges this time around while creating this one?
Roland: It’s always a struggle, you know, to get 10 good songs in place. You know, I can’t hide that, you know, that’s always a no. It’s a long journey and you need to work really, really, really hard.
Rob: Some songs have like five different versions.
Roland: Yeah. You know, “Crying Heart,” I remember I wrote that riff, you know, that’s the opener for the album. I wrote that in a session, you know, we wrote it for Joe Lynn Turner at that point in time. But I felt, you know, the song was good, but it didn’t feel right. So, you know, then I rewrote it like four or five times, you know, over five years before I last full presented it to you and said, okay, now I got a song. You know, sometimes it takes years. But with that being said, I did not work every day on the song. I did, you know, give it a, you know, I checked it out once in a while. So, you know, sometimes it goes quite smoothly. Like “Moon has the Night,” that was a song that just came to me in some manner. I don’t know how, but I hardly remember writing it because it was ready so fast. But “Angelina, “that’s another song that we had some struggle with, like made, I don’t know how many.
Rob: And also the last song on the album, something that they called “Love Yourself.“
Roland: Yeah, so you hear us talking. We had some struggles, you know. It’s not an easy task.
Rob: When you finally find the, I mean, the way that you want to do it, the way you want it to sound and the melody and everything about the song. I mean, the hard work, it pays in the end.
Roland: Yeah, absolutely.
Rob: It pays off.
I really like the way the album ended with that song. It sounded also a bit different than the rest. I really liked that it had that maybe like a bit of an edge that I didn’t hear over the rest of the record. So was it important to include that little bit of diversity?
Roland: Yeah, well, that song was important for me personally to have on the album. It felt like, you know, I’ve been through some hardship in my personal life. So that was like a long therapy session for me. And we knew that it would be like, you know, it would not be like in the box of the rest. But that’s something, you know, we can do now. We can do whatever we want. So that’s like a that’s a song. It’s a keeper. And, you know, Rob sings it fantastically. And, you know, the string quartet is recorded in ABBA‘s studio. So, you know, it’s I’m really proud and happy about that song.
Rob: I mean, to challenge the listeners into different, I mean, I wouldn’t say style, but different kind of REMEDY songs. I don’t think that is a negative thing. They need that. Everyone needs that.
Roland: Yeah.
You mentioned that it was recorded in, well, part of it was recorded in ABBA studio. I usually like to ask this to Swedish bands. How important for you as musicians is ABBA? Because I always hear that it’s such an important part of Swedish music.
Roland: Yeah, well, it’s a big part of our legacy. And it shows in our music, you know, whether we like it or not. You know, we have consumed so much ABBA that, you know, I feel it in the harmonies that sometimes it’s a bit of, you know, though we’re like writing metal songs, we have a, you know, it’s a glimpse of ABBA in them all. And I grew up listening to ABBA. I still love ABBA’s music, so yeah.
Rob: Yeah, and I’ve been touring the world playing ABBA music like years ago. So I think that if you’re from Sweden, you can’t, I mean, you can’t help it. ABBA‘s been everywhere and it still is. Actually, I’m part of a show in Stockholm. Sometimes I play guitar and sing in a, it’s an ABBA show called Mamma Mia at the Party. Which I’m like a stand-in for. So I’m actually hanging out now and then with Björn Ulvaeus from ABBA, because he’s a part of that show. He’s around there, he’s like, hi, hi.
Can you keep your cool? I don’t think I would.
Rob: Well, he’s like everyone else. He’s a nice guy.
Yeah, it’s always surprising, I guess, when you meet your heroes and they turn out to be nice people. That’s a nice thing.
Rob: Yeah. Yeah, actually, the first time I met him, he approached me asking questions about my guitar. And I had a 12-string guitar, a Purge guitar. He asked me a lot of questions about it. And after a while, I realized when I was talking to him that actually I got this guitar from playing in like an ABBA tribute band touring around the world. And that was because I was playing his part. I was playing Björn Ulvaeus. And I needed a 12-string guitar. So it was because of him that I got the guitar that he was talking about. The cycle was fulfilled.
Roland: Full circle.
Rob: Yeah, he’s such a sweet guy. It’s cool that he’s still a part of the music industry. I mean, he’s been in the music industry since the ’60s. Yeah, huge respect for that guy.
Roland: He’s great.
How was it to record something in that studio? Or were you actually there physically?
Roland: Yeah, we were. We also recorded a video that we will release next fall, in September.
Ah, it’s the same video. Or what?
Rob: It’s a different one. We got plenty of stuff up our sleeves.
Roland: We like videos, so you will get a bunch.
Yeah, but how was it to record there in general?
Roland: Yeah, well, it’s an amazing location. You have a sea view and everything is really beautiful. And, you know, amazing microphones and so on. Yeah, and you know, when you go on the toilet, there are some marks on the wall saying, you know, Björn and Benny from ABBA.
Rob: Yeah, they had the towels there. We took a pen and we wrote our names.
Roland: Rob and Rolly. Whose towels are these?
Rob: No, no, no, they’re towels. We took their towels.
Roland: You should.
Well, you mentioned a little bit that you also wrote some songs. But what is the general process? Is there a main songwriter or is it a very collaborative thing?
Roland: Yeah, well, that’s mainly me writing the songs. But I, you know, quite instantly, I present them to Rob, you know, when I have a first idea, first demo. And then we record vocals. And, you know, if it feels good, you know, we continue on the song. So that’s like the main process. You know, I present an idea and you try it out and see. We listen to the demo and see how it feels. And if it feels good, we will continue. And then we will make like a demo of the song. After that, when we have the demo and the song in place, we will strip it apart and re-record everything with real instruments and real drums and so on.
Yeah, cool. What are your plans for after the release? I noticed you have some Swedish dates coming up.
Roland: We have a tour starting tomorrow. So that’s the main plan now to tour Sweden. We will also visit the UK. And also, yeah, the album is being released in one week from now when we’re having this conversation. So we have a busy schedule moving on.
How are you looking forward to the tour?
Roland: Yeah, it will be amazing. You know, that’s where we belong, you know, on stage. Recording an album and writing new material. That’s like one part of the whole picture.
Rob: And the thing is that playing live is more like what we’ve done. Yeah, that’s part of our musician lives. So that’s where we belong. I think that actually the recording process is more…
Roland: Yeah, and there are also a bunch of bands, you know, metal bands and also melodic rock bands and so on that are like projects, you know, just studio projects that these big labels like put together. So it’s a good thing for us to show that we are not one of those bands. We’re like a real deal and we’re here to stay.
Thank you so much for your time. Do you have any last thoughts you want to share?
Roland: Yes, please follow us on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok. Remedy Music Sweden, that’s our name. And yeah, hook up with us over there. And thank you for having us.
Rob: Yeah, thank you for having us. And also, don’t forget to check out our videos on YouTube.
Roland: We have a lot of videos. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Rob: So we love videos. We love music videos. But when we grew up, that was like the coolest thing that you… And now we try to do…
Roland: Now we try to be the coolest thing.
Rob: No, but we do music videos the way we saw them. We were kids like that. We want to like redo that.
Roland: Yeah, with a storyline.
Rob: Yeah, not on all videos, but storylines and stuff like that. It’s something that we like that. Don’t forget to check them out.
Interview by Laureline Tilkin
