Burning Up

Co-credited with birthing the Gothenburg sound, Sweden’s In Flames have gradually transitioned from side project to commercially viable outfit. They’ve since transcended said style. Shifting direction has ensured a fan base turnover, too. Disgruntled long-timers have departed, while many newcomers have subsequently arrived. 

The Music quizzes tub-thumper Daniel Svensson whether he believes they have any lingering association with the “Gothenburg sound”. “I don’t really know really what the Gothenburg sound is,” he ponders. “Is it the melodies? We’re certainly not death metal, but I think… A lot of people say that In Flames was a melodic death metal band, but I never consider us a death metal band at all. We are a melodic metal band. We still have the melody, so that’s the trademark of In Flames. So if that is the Gothenburg sound, we definitely accept that. But it’s up to others to judge.” 

Plenty have responded in the affirmative; their current path resulting in music becoming a full-time occupation. “I think if we would have done ten [1996’s] The Jester Race albums by now, I don’t know if we would exist still. We would have been so bored already, we would have quit. We need to make it interesting for ourselves, and are grateful that our fans are loyal and like what we do. This is actually a hobby for us that became a day job. We want to keep it fun; we don’t want to make it boring just because it is our day job.

“It was shortly after I joined [in 1998], when we said that we wanted to try and tour as much as possible and see how far we could go with this band. Before that, In Flames was more like a studio band and not really playing shows. We’ve been able to pay our bills since like ‘98, because of the income from the band. We were kind of poor in the beginning, but we managed. It’s pretty tough to survive as a musician; it’s easy to start doing things that you think people would like. But then you start compromising with what you want to do. We don’t have to do that, and are really thankful.” 

Having issued new disc Siren Charms, In Flames return to Australia alongside Trivium. Aforementioned older listeners have lambasted them for neglecting early releases during their live sets; Svensson dismisses this as the bleating of a vocal minority. “We’ve heard those comments, and tried songs before from those albums, but people don’t get it. When we play these songs, they’re not moving, they don’t understand the songs,” he laughs. “Because I think the majority of the people that come to the shows, they don’t know these songs apparently. But the guys that are screaming the most are not that many. You can probably hear them everywhere, but they are such a small part of our fan base I think. We always try to play older songs, even though they don’t really work out that well… if we want to please the majority of the fans we have to play newer songs. It’s very tough.”