Translation, part 1.
Translation of the FUZZ magazine interview with John Norum, Issue no.9/ Nov. 2004
Part 1:
Note: This interview is not translated in its entirety. I have left out the technical details discussed in it because it's beyond my competence and powers to translate such. Sorry, maybe someone else would take these on. :-)
If you can't understand much of the second part of this translation, you should see the part that I left out! ;-)
''We wanted to make a rock album. It would be heavy and fleshy. If it had been pop, I wouldn't want to be part of it.''
These words come from John Norum, concerning the comeback album of the Swedish million-selling group EUROPE, which is called Start From The Dark. The last time that FUZZ interviewed John in no. 4/2000, he expressed it in this way:
''If there is a reunion, there will be heavy and hard but melodic songs. EUROPE is a rock-n-roll band, though there will certainly be some ballads as well.'' The reunion is more than enough proof that even then he knew what he was talking about.
''We thought all the time that we would make a guitar-based album. We like bands like Velvet Revolver, Audioslave and The Darkness, rock bands with a class. It would be heavy and fleshy. I sent three song ideas to Joey: Start From The Dark, Gotta have Faith and Settle For Love, that he wrote lyrics and layered singing upon. He sent it back to me and I thought that it sounded damn cool. The The guitars fit so well to his voice. I thought that we had something there and then it just floated on. I had 12-13 riff ideas that I sent over to Joey in London.
Naturally the band's old record company SONY were not totally uninterested. The first single from the album, Gotta have Faith, came maybe a bit unpredictably, since they had included the title song on their set for SRF last summer.
''We didn't want to come out with a pop song like Carrie again, we wanted it to be a rocker song. On the other hand, there are some other songs that are more commercial, but who cares? Not me in any case,'' says John.
Start From The Dark is very different from the earlier production of the band, both musically and sound-wise. Especially the sound of John's guitar has changed radically from the traditional medium register distortion to the warm vocal microphone sound.
''We recorded on an old analogue band recorder in order to achieve a bit warmer sound. If you go back and listen to the old albums from the 70s, they sound so much better than the modern digital productions. We had 12 songs, but thought that we would use only 10 for Europe and use the other two as bonus for Japan. We didn't want to have 15 songs with a lot of fillers. It would have been boring. The problem was that none of us could choose which songs to leave out. Haugland, for example, wanted to leave Settle For Love out, 'because you call fall asleep of it', but I think that it's a great song! A soul ballad, something that EUROPE have never done before and my mom thinks that it's the best song on the album,'' he says laughing.
The choice of style must have caused a great deal of puzzlement and will probably result in some form of protest or other, since it occupies another realm musically, in comparison to the old albums and their big fat refrains.
''Yes, but we don't do that anymore. No football choirs and such crap. The 80s are over and thank God for that. Although the refrains are still there,'' he points out.
Hero is about the front figure of Thin Lizzy, Phil Lynott.
''It's a song that Joey had written for quite a long time and didn't know what to do with. I put to it a little Lizzy inspired solo later as my little tribute to Phil.''
He would not tell publicly who Sucker is about, but it's quite clear that it is about a lady with big preference to guys with guitars.
As a contrast to John's own albums, here he has contributed with rather short guitar solos.
''Yes, that's right. I have tried to be in line with the needs of the specific song. On my latest album, Slipped Into Tomorrow, there were too many overdubs and unnecessarily long solos. Now I tried to play a bit more melodically instead, like I did before,''he tells us.
...... talk about guitars and technical stuff.....
One of John's little secrets are his attitude guitars, which are guitars or effects that lie in the background, but which contribute a lot to the whole. In Song no. 12, for example, I think I hear some octaves.
''Yes, there are Boss Octaves, the same old box that I used on almost every solo on TFC. It lies on one side, and an ordinary one lies on the other side. In the refrain I have even used a baritone guitar, a Danelectro, a complete devil with lipstick pickups (?). It sounded great in any case! The amplifier (?) I have is a two-channel one, so the clean sound is only the clean channel with the volume at 6 and only a little dist(ance?), then the guitar down at 6. Otherwise I have set the treble down at 1,5. I wanted to have it at 2 but Joey and the producer Kevin Elson voted me down,'' he says laughing.
Another one of John's little novelties is that he has found a new fascination in a new type of steel.
''It is a titanium steel. I have changed on all my guitars now. It gives a totally different sustain, 25% longer tone and better overtones,'' he says exalted. ''Another thing that is in fact very important are the cables. Everyone talks about Proco Monster Cables, with copper only. I have tried them, but it's too much. I use Proco Excalibur, which have plugs with copper tops in the whole rig and they sound great. Between the top and the box I have a Proco Powerplus loudspeaker cable.''
Live John uses both his JCM tops and a Boss Chorus Ensemble, stereo chorus in between.
''The one on the left side has a Roland SDE 2000 delay, and the one on the right side has the chorus effect. I try to place the boxes as long apart as possible, in order to get a broader sound picture (?),'' he explains.
To be continued.