Q and A: Oscar Dronjak (Hammerfall)

By PAUL SOUTHWELL

HAMMERFALL have only played one show in Australia thus far, so a full tour of Australia in January 2025 promises a superb set list. The show will contain plentiful  crushing guitar riffs, galloping rhythms, falsetto vocals and melodic-yet-intricate guitar solos. Founding guitarist Oscar Dronjak, ever personable, offered some insights into Hammerfall’s visit, and the work behind the latest album. The tour is one all respectable heavy metal music aficionados should attend.

Hot Metal: Hello, when you get here, it’s probably going to be pretty warm.
Oscar Dronjak: “Yes, it’s summer – the high point of the summer. I’m going to bring a hat.”

HM: A full tour of Australia has been a long time coming, I guess, and obviously the pandemic caused dramas, but what can we expect from the set list?
OD: “Honestly, we haven’t really started thinking about it yet because we’re in the middle of the album release, and then we have a month-long tour with Powerwolf. So, once that’s over with, we’re going to start talking about the set lists for 2025. But we haven’t really put any attention to it yet.”

HM: How’s the latest album sitting with you now, given the whole process of pre-production, recording, and release, then having to remember these tracks to play live?
OD: “Yeah, the thing is, nowadays, you have to finish the albums a lot earlier than before because of the production timelines with vinyls and stuff like that. So, before, you could have two and a half months and just went into production anyway. But since after the pandemic, there’s been a shortage of materials, I think also because of the war in Ukraine. But whatever the reason is, the lead time is a lot longer for records now. So, when we finish our album – we were finished at the end of February, which is quite long to sit on your songs – you want to get them out in the world. We’re happy with it, it’s fine. I’m getting around to listening to it again now because I didn’t listen to it throughout the whole summer because we were busy playing. I only listened to the songs that we were playing. Of course, we did play the first single, “Hail to the King”, and the second single, “The End Justifies”. We played those live all summer. But I need some perspective to get a more detailed feeling about the album because, like you said, we work with it a lot. The lead up to the recording is that I listen to the music, or the songs, a lot, and then during the recordings, you listen to them over and over again. So, you’re kind of fed up with the shit when you’re done. But after a while, you start to listen to it and you can listen to it with your different ears. I’m very, very happy with how this album turned out.”

HM: How was the production side of things handled for this release?
OD: “The production was done basically the same way we’ve done our previous four albums. So, ever since 2014, we had the same general way of recording. I’m in the studio now, in our own studio [Castle Black Studios, Göteborg], and we recorded the drums here. We recorded the guitars and the bass here, and some backing vocals. Sometimes not this time, but sometimes we do. Then Joacim does his singing somewhere else, in a studio with a person that he wants to work with. So, this time we did the vocals with Jay Ruston in LA, and Fredrik Nordström is, of course, involved from the drums, through to the guitars, and also the mixing. Freddie is not here on a day-to-day basis when we do the guitars and bass because we have Pontus Norgren, our guitar player, who is also a very proficient producer, so he knows how to do this shit. That also means that Freddie can work on other projects. So, he’s not tied up for two months in a row with us. When it comes down to the mixing, of course, that is Fredrik ‘s job. I mean, that’s what Freddie Nordström does best, and he’s incredibly good at that. So, that is the same process we had since the (r)Evolution album.”

HM: Some of the songs were penned whilst you were on the road with Helloween. Also, the ballad “Hope Springs Eternal” was essentially shelved for ages until Joacim ‘s been able to add that magic ingredient to bring it to life. Is that a common thing for Hammerfall now, where you’ve got stuff that sits in the pipeline, not sure when it’s going to pop out?
OD: “Nowadays, it is, yes but it never was before. This is a result of us being on tour more than we were since this started. For me, it started with the Built To Last album, as normally before that, we always had six to eight months of downtime from the last show until the album recording started. That’s when you rewrote the songs, basically. But this time we had two months. I knew this going in, but we only had two months from the last show to when the album recording started, and I was not really by any means with the song, so I was really stressed out. It was not a good place to be. So, I decided, ‘this is never going to happen to me again.’ I decided to do something different and I started to write songs on the road since there’s a lot of downtime on the tour, so just to use that time for something else. But because this is also a technical question, nowadays I have a guitar that fits in my suitcase, so I bring that with me everywhere I go. That means I need a guitar, an interface, and a computer; that’s all I need to write songs, you know? That has helped me a lot, because then once the inspiration strikes, you can be there to capture it, instead of having to wait three days until you get home. Inspiration will be gone by then, and another thing I didn’t realise was how inspiring it is to play live every day and the adrenaline rush that you get from that. I learned how to transfer that into songwriting because it’s the same type of underlying feeling that I have when I write music normally, so it’s turned out really well. So, I have a bunch of songs. For example, like you mentioned, “Freedom“ was written on the tour in 2018, and on the same tour I also wrote “Brotherhood” for Hammer of Dawn. But that album, this was during the songwriting for the album before that, for Dominion. But I decided to hold both of those songs off because I didn’t want to put them on an album and just have them disappear. I felt both of those songs had some potential, and I wanted them to realise that potential. They would never have realised that potential on Dominion because we already had the songs we needed for that album. It was very close to the end of the songwriting process. So, I held off “Brotherhood” for the next album, which turned out to be great, because that became one of the main singles. I held off “Freedom” for this album because they didn’t really fit as well on Hammer of Dawn as I thought it would. I felt that “Freedom” would be a better fit in the future sometime because I knew this was a song that had some potential, too. So, we saved it for events to fall in, because then all the songs that we had, they lined up much closer to that one. It was a good, or better fit for that album, so to speak.”

HM: It also sounds like a song that is recorded with the live audience in mind.
OD: “Yeah, we always have that. I mean, that is how I approach songwriting and have since day one, basically, because at the end of the day, we’re going to be a rock band. You know, we’re not going to have to do a bunch of shit that you can’t do live. I mean, of course we have some keyboards and stuff, but it’s minimal. There’s no song-altering things, you know, that we have.
But I want us to be able to perform almost any song that we record in the studio. I want us to be able to perform them live and I have that in the back of my head all the time, asking myself, ‘How will this sound when played live?’ So that’s how I imagine when I write music. Of course, nowadays, when you have 13 albums to choose from, we will never play every song live anymore, which is sad. But that comes with the territory, I guess.”

HM: Yeah, certainly. When you go through the whole production, the recording process, songwriting, everything that has to take place. Presumably the inspiration at the end is playing it live and having people sing the lyrics back to you?
OD: “Yes, you have that. That is the utmost compliment I think we can get. When we are on stage performing, we have people down in the audience singing along with us. I think that is the best feeling you can have as a band. That is also, I think, why heavy metal shows, during the pandemic; a lot of people did live streams of their rehearsals and I don’t think it’s going to be a show unless you have the audience there. You cannot say a rehearsal is a live stream of a show because there needs to be the audience. It needs to be there to make it alive and I think the great thing about heavy metal is not just the audience being there, but the audience participating, the interaction. That is why heavy metal shows blows everything else away on the planet.”

HM: Indeed, and speaking of shows, you’ve obviously just recently been out with Halloween for a massive tour. Prior to that, it was Sabaton. But if you go back a while, there was playing with Ronnie James Dio. Clearly, that’s audience interaction 101.
OD: “Yes, yes. We learned a lot from Dio. He was incredible, and not just during the shows, but after the shows. I had no idea how he did it. Every show he went out and had, you know, fans who have been fans sometimes since the seventies, sometimes since the eighties, but he knew them all by name and it was different people in different cities every night. I could never do that. I’m not great with names. I’m not a people person in that respect. I don’t like to feel like I have to do something as that instantly makes me not want to do it. You know, it’s just the way it is. But he was a fantastic, fantastic guy, of course. Wonderful, and the vocals are incredible. You cannot touch his vocals, of course, but just the way he was around everybody, that’s why everybody loved him so much, you know. The fans, loved him for the voice and the people who worked with him. For the most part, he was really good with people. So, he’s one of those unique metal personalities that will live on forever.”

HM: What did you learn from watching him that helped with your backing vocals perspective?
OD: “Oh, wow. I mean, we did tour this 22 years ago. We did tour with him in the US. So, I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking in those terms, especially not back then. You know, for me, it was all about playing music, and we were still very green. I mean, that was around my fourth album [Crimson Thunder], but I found it hard to wrap my head around the fact that we had gotten so far, you know. I never envisioned this to be a career. I never envisioned anybody else, really, to like this shit that we were doing because nobody was liking this type of music back then. I mean, of course in 2002, they were. But it took me years to realise what an impact we had at that point. So, by then I started to understand it, but I was also enjoying it. So, I didn’t really think that’s one of my regrets. If I look back on those days, you know, that the middle, early to mid two-thousands, I say that was our peak at that time, and there was a lot of things that I should have done differently; a lot more professional, maybe, you know, thinking about it. Back then I always thought the work is done in the studio, the live shows are fun. I mean, that’s the party, you know. And I think maybe if I put more thought into things being a more professional musician and just looking at the business more like that. But I was never into that. So I wish I could have been more perceptive back then with that. But also, if I would have been, I would not have been able to write the songs that I wrote. So, there are no regrets.”

HM: Well, I suppose one of the interesting things about the very early days is that you initially started out as death metal. I guess it must have been quite a crowded scene in Sweden with the Gothenburg death metal sound. So, it was a good decision to go into heavy metal.
OD: “I left a death metal band called Ceremonial Oath because we had differences in direction and stuff. But once I left that band, I realised that I wanted to be in a heavy metal band. I could play death metal still. I continued to do that but I wanted to have a heavy metal band because that’s what I love the most of anything. So that’s when I formed Hammerfall in 1993 and that was never anything other than a heavy metal band that played melodic music with clear vocals. That was the idea, basically but also, power metal back in those days did not exist as it does today. Power metal back in those days was. You were old enough to remember this probably the US power metal, with camouflage pants, that was power metal back then. It was nothing like what you call power metal today. And I’ve never felt any affiliation with the power metal or the power metal genre, really. I mean, of course, I know we have some power metal songs or power metal ideas in there. But for me, it’s a matter of starting out as a heavy metal band. When everybody else thought that heavy metal sucked, then we wore that as a badge of honour instead. You know, everybody was laughing at us, ‘Why don’t you play music that people want to hear?’ Well, because I don’t care what other people want to hear. I want to play the music I want to play because I love it. That was our idea and that was heavy metal. So, for me, it’s much more than just a label. For me, it’s a badge of honour and that’s why I always bring this up, because in certain territories, like Australia, the US, and the UK as well, they call this type of music power metal and they’re very intent on doing that. I always say the Hammerfall has never been a power metal band. It just did not exist when we started. That’s my poin, and that’s also because to me, it’s not just a label. It’s much, much more personal than that.”

HM: I understand that. If you look at the heavy metal side of it, when I listen to the album latest one, I can hear Priest in there, and certainly some Maiden in later tracks. Plus, Pontus, adds that Malmsteen vibe with some of the guitar rhythm progressions, and solos.
OD: “Absolutely – and we both like that very much. So, it’s no coincidence.”

HM: “Burn it Down” reminded me very much of “Riot in the Dungeons” from Malmsteen’s Odyssey album, with the guitar rhythm.
OD: “That’s interesting you mentioned that, because I always felt that song was more Running Wild-ish in the speed, and the type of melody on the guitars. Running Wild is another band that I listened to a lot when I formed Hammerfall, and a couple of years after that and that was fun. One of the bands I listened to a lot … and going back now, for me, I can absolutely hear the Running Wild influences in that type of music. I don’t really have that influence in the same strong sense anymore because I was listening to it so much back then but you can definitely feel it. For me, when I wrote “Burn it Down”, I felt like, this kind of reminds me of how I used to do things, back in the day.”

HM: In distinguishing guitar solos, Pontus seems to have a wider vibrato, whereas your solos seem to go towards harmony lines. Would you agree?
OD: “Yeah, I patterned my solos after Wolf Hoffman [Accept] more than anything because I know I’m not a great lead guitar player, especially. Pontus is a fantastic lead guitar player. He plays real solos. I try to incorporate my solos with a melody, with maybe the riff I try to do, because that’s how Wolf Hoffman did it a lot. That’s the way that I really love. I mean, he’s my favourite guitar player of all time, so it’s easy to have that influence for me. But I try to branch out a little bit. I try to do more solo stuff, and I have learned how to do that a lot in the last 10 years or so. I’ve gotten a lot better at that, actually. I was at a standstill for 20 years of my career but now I’m starting to learn how to play real solos and that is largely thanks to Pontus because he’s a great learner, a great teacher and also offers great encouragement. Because when you’re playing solos, you need to have confidence. If you don’t have confidence, it’s going to suck whatever you do, you know, and it’s the same with singing I guess. If you don’t have confidence in your abilities or stay with any sport or whatever, if you don’t believe in what you’re doing, then it’s not going be good. Pontus has helped me to disregard all that and to just think about why you’re doing this and let it loose – and that has been really good for me.”

HM: I’ve noticed that the band as a whole seems even more synchronised, with the rhythm section very strong, particularly when changing time signatures, or going into double time and half-time sections. There are a few songs on Avenge The Fallen where the pace suddenly ramps up very quickly and then it goes back to pre-chorus and it’s back to the original pace. Does that take a lot of rehearsal or it’s just natural now?
OD: “That’s part of the songwriting, you know, to have the dynamics of a song, to make it work. I recognise the terms, but for me, I write music based what I feel is good for the song and if I come up with an idea that this is going to be half time here and normal there, that’s not a conscious decision. I thought this might be good, but this is just a matter of how I feel when I write the music. I do put the drum machine on, so I do like a drum template for David [Wallin – drums] to start with, basically.”

HM: David’s recorded some fantastic drumming on there, seemingly following in the footsteps of Anders Johansson, in a sense.
OD: “Yeah. He’s really, really good. David, especially this album, I think that’s probably his best with us. This is his best performance with Hammerfall on any album for David because he felt his performance on Hammer of Dawn was not up to what he normally knows he could do. That album was recorded during the pandemic and he hadn’t rehearsed, hadn’t played drums in a long while. He had COVID two or three weeks before the recording, too. We had to postpone it for a week so he could get better, actually. So, we got where we wanted to in the end, but he felt it was not up to par. He felt it took too long. I thought he did a great job but it took a while, twice as long as it normally does, during Hammer of Dawn. So, for Avenge The Fallen, he came in, and he hit the ground running, you could say, because he was really, adamant that he was never happy with anything he did. He always wanted to make it better and better. We had to tell him, ‘Stop, this is fucking great what you’re doing right now. You don’t have to change it, it is fantastic’. That energy that he brought into the drums I think carried on to the rest of the recording. It was very, very easy to put the guitars and the bass on top of this drumming that was so powerful and so energetic that we got a kick out of it too.”

HM: Isn’t that the curse of a musician in not being able to know when to stop on a track and to move on to the next one?
OD: “Yes, that is why you have producers. Fredrik Nordström is the one who’s producing the drums and when we’re all in the room, Fredrik and I are always there to give our opinions. Mostly, because I write the songs, I have ideas of how I want it to be and sometimes how I want it not to be. But Fredrik Nordström is the one who’s sort of producing the drums and he also knows. I mean, he turns to us sometimes, ‘What do you think of that feel?’ We have an idea of it, and we say yes or no and talk together. Then we talk to David and suggest, ‘You can do this better, try that,’ whatever, sometimes. But we never tell him, ‘Play exactly like this,’ you know, doing different fills, maybe more toms or whatever the hell it is,and then he does it. So, everything comes from David, you know, from his mind as well. So, it’s great for recording drums with him because, especially this album, he did an outstanding job.”

HM: How did your involvement with Sandberg guitars come about?
OD: “For the most part they only do bass guitars and that is how we got in touch with them. Pontus put Fredrik [Larsson] in touch with guys at Sandberg, during the recording of (r)Evolution. I also got in touch, and they asked, ‘What kind of guitars do you play?’ and I was like, ‘What does that matter? You build basses?’ It turned out, they build guitars too and that’s how it started for us to design our own guitars, which is what I love the most about that because I have great guitars. But I didn’t have great looking guitars in the same way. As in, I don’t have unique guitars, which was what I was after. They were all too happy to help because they build all their stuff by hand, so it was easy for them to incorporate my ideas into reality. It’s not just guitars, it’s great guitars and is a really good brand. If you build everything by hand and you know what you’re doing, the instrument’s going to turn out great and they are fantastic at that. I don’t have my Sandberg guitars here in the studio right now, unfortunately, because they’re on the road doing what they’re supposed to do.”

HM: Well, I gather that it’s a bolt on, not a neck through, with the hammer guitar.
OD: “Yeah, yeah. I mean, the hammer is a different thing. I. For me, the inspiration for that was the Gene Simmons axe bass guitar from around 1980 or 1982. I tried to get that done for probably 10 years. Not quite, but probably close to that. You know, I wanted to get that done, but no guitar manufacturer that I worked with were interested in doing something like that. I tried to but they didn’t want to. So, once we found Sandberg and I said, ‘This is what I would like to do, that’s something,’ they got excited because usually they build their normal shapes all the time, but now they got to do something fun or, at least different. So, they were really excited in doing that, and I’m so happy because I got my dream guitar.”

HM: Finally, is there a particular track on Avenge the Fallen that you’re most happy with, currently?
OD: “I’ve got to say the ballad “Hope Springs Eternal”. I think that turned out to be a really solid song. I always knew that it would take some time to write that song. It was based on a really old, probably 20-year-old idea that I had and I started working on it again, a couple of years ago but I never got far. I had something like the chorus or an idea for the chorus, whatever it was. I was kind of stuck for years with that one but during the song writing for the last album, I got a little bit further, thinking, ‘Okay, I’m going to do something with this, but I don’t have any idea if it will come out right now, but it’ll come out when he wants to come out’. I started working on it for this album and all of a sudden, you know, it is when you open the faucet and it just runs out, and that’s what it was with that song. It was stuck for a long time, and all of a sudden it was unclogged, and then it came out. It was a hard song to write, it took a while, but once it was done, I felt that this was one of the better ones on the album.”

HM: Great. So, was one of the secrets of that in the arrangements, with adding strings and things like that?
OD: “Well, yeah, strings and stuff. I worked on that a lot, too, but for me, it’s more arrangement than anything else. Yeah, it’s arrangements, and what part goes where. So, it’s about where do you do the up and down flow aspects in the song – the dynamics. That took a while to decide what I wanted to do with it, to decide what I felt was best.”

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