Q and A: Joakim Brodén (Sabaton)

By BRIAN GIFFIN

SABATON are returning to Australia in September. While over the past decade or so their historically-themed music has filled halls and festival pits across Europe, previous Australian visits have been restricted to support slots and brief festival appearances. Next month, local crowds will get the full Sabaton experience as the Swedes headline here for the first time, so we grabbed a few minutes with vocalist Joakin Brodén.

Hot Metal: It’s going to be great to have you back in Australia. You’re doing a headlining set this time – the last time you were here, you were part of a festival. So, is that going to mean something different from Sabaton this time, for Australian audiences?
Joakim Broden: “It will be our first headlining tour. In 2013 when we supported Nightwish, we had one or two headline shows around there. But obviously that was a long, long time ago – 11 years ago!”

HM: More than that! It was a long time ago, and you’ve made a lot more records since then, and you’ve become a much bigger band since then.
JB: “So it’s going to be great to be able to play a longer set. I know we’ve got quite a few more fans, as you said, and we’ve released quite a few more albums. So now it’s time to catch you up on all the stuff you’ve missed!”

HM: You do have a big fanbase here, going back almost to the beginning. Does this mean we’ll be getting the full Sabaton experience this time?
JB: “As big as we can possibly do it. The trick is, yes we’ve gotten bigger in Europe where we do 15- 20,000 – there’s no way we’re going to do that many, so for economic and logistical reasons, we couldn’t bring you everything. But we’ll bring you as much as we can, and we’ll work with what we’ve got.”

HM: People are going to enjoy that regardless, because you have a surprisingly large fanbase. When I say surprisingly, I’m talking about people whom I wouldn’t even think listen to metal, listen to Sabaton. Have you also found that?
JB: “Yeah it’s been going on, I would say, in the last bunch of years. In the beginning it was the hardcore metalheads who heard about us, and we weren’t the biggest metal band so it was people in the metal community actively searching for new bands – reading metal magazines or listening to the metal scene.

“I don’t know when the shift happened, but it was slightly before the pandemic. A bit before that, I don’t exactly know when. Somehow then … it could be the gamer community that started it. Streamers and gamers. We allowed gamers to use our music, as long as they didn’t try to steal stuff. If they monetised the video and tried to make money out of it, then it would be wrong. But if they played the game and were posting it for free, we wouldn’t take their videos down. There’s a lot of historical gaming, so maybe that’s where a lot of it came from.

“The other part of it – I don’t know how we got them. We seem to have a gap where a bunch of people who aren’t really into metal and haven’t watched bands, are going to their first heavy metal concert, and it’s Sabaton. So I’m thinking: one,, I’m super happy, but it’s quite a leap, isn’t it? Because we’re not the softest metal – we’re far from the heaviest – but you’d think people would start with something, if you’ve never listened to metal before, to make your way in through two or three more bands before Sabaton. But no! We’re the starting point. I’m happy.”

HM: The things that you write about, I guess, are things that people find a deep interest in, and can maybe not necessarily relate to but are things they’ve learned about in school or developed an interest in.
JB: “There’s a bunch of people who came in through the historical angle. They heard about us through something somewhere. So they’re like, ‘Oh, I’m into military history’, and then… In that case, that would explain why people have come to us. I’ve heard that we have become the gateway to metal for some people and I’m guessing that it’s more of the historically inclined people.”

HM: The last couple of albums focused particularly on World War I. Is there a particular focus this time, or is there a broader scope?
JB: “Much broader scope. It’s called Legends. We decided, Well who are legends? We found an obstacle. Our favourite thing to do is to pick up a vessel that’s pretty unknown, and we’ve always tried to do one or two of those. This is a problem now, because if nobody’s ever heard of it, he or she wouldn’t be a legend!

“We have legendary groups, warriors, generals, kings… historically speaking, the first one would be the Egyptian pharaoh Ramses III: 1800 (years) before Christ. And the latest one, historically, would be Napoleon, 1800 after Christ. So it’s quite a big span of time there, and in there you’ve got the Mongolian hordes and Khan, Hannibal crossing the Alps, Julius Caesar, Vlad the Impaler the Prince of Wallachia. So we’re bouncing around quite a bit.”

HM: Some of those people, they’re all very interesting and important figures that most people would know even a little bit about. But when you look at someone like Vlad Dracul, particularly in the metal field, there’s been so many songs written about him already. How do you approach that without doing something that hasn’t been done 10,000 times already?
JB: “We try not to think about it too much! I’ve heard something about him musically, other stuff that other people have done. But if we ignore and forget about that and focus on doing it our way… I’m aware there are tracks about him, obviously, but it’s going to be different because we’re doing it our way but also we are taking less of the mythical approach, and more of the historical approach.

“Not in every case, but in the case with many metal bands, they might be leaning more into the mythical side of Vlad Dracula. We are focusing on Vlad the Impaler, the prince of Wallachia and the power struggles and games, him growing up basically as a hostage in the Ottoman Empire in the court of the sultan. We are incorporating more stuff like that.”

HM: That’s a very distinct viewpoint. He was a political hostage for most of his young life, which is why he knew so much about the Ottomans. Napoleon’s interesting too, because he’s a subject that a lot of people think they know a lot about, but probably don’t.
JB: “Yeah, some of these people… Napoleon’s one, but also Caesar… there’s been so much in popular media about them, movies, podcasts… everything. But the amount of stuff these people did – movies and all these documentaries focus on the highlights, but if you’re talking Napoleon, if you’re talking Julius Caesar – we could make a whole album only about one of these people without it becoming boring.”

HM: That’s very much something to look forward to, how you will be presenting these things, and we’re all looking forward to getting the full Sabaton experience in Australia for the very first time. And hope that it won’t be the last time!
JB: “Oh, absolutely not! This is going to be catching you guys up. We’ll play a song or two from Legends, because unfortunately the album hasn’t been released by the time we come over to you. So we’re trying to catch you up, and the hope and plan – not making any promises here – but the hope and plan is to come back and return properly on the Legends tour. Because there’s so much older stuff that you’ve missed, that we can come back with a quite different setlist, actually.” 

HM: We’ve missed so much you could probably do two different sets on two nights and still have songs left for us.
JB: “Yes. If you’re talking about… in Europe, they’ve had the chance… We’ve been touring Europe for nearly 25 years. But 20 years ago, most people hadn’t heard of us and didn’t have the chance to see us then. To be fair, the Europeans have had way, way, way more chances to catch up on us, and go to a different show and get two different setlists.”

GET TICKETS HERE

SEPTEMBER 1: Metro City, Perth
SEPTEMBER 3: Hindley Street Music Hall, Adelaide
SEPTEMBER 5: Margaret Court Arena, Melbourne
SEPTEMBER 6: Hordern Pavilion, Sydney
SEPTEMBER 7: Fortitude Music Hall, Brisbane