Q and A: Niclas Engelin (The Halo Effect)

By PAUL SOUTHWELL

THE Halo Effect came about from the combined efforts of various notable musicians involved in bands such as In Flames, Dark Tranquillity and HammerFall to create something musically unique.

Their debut album, Days Of The Lost, saw The Halo Effect nominated for a Swedish Grammy, topping numerous annual album lists, and participating in a variety of tours, including venturing to Australia as the headline act for Lagerfest in late 2023. They’ve since made time to put together a second album, titled March Of The Unheard, which is receiving substantial acclaim from fans and critics. Exploring themes of discovering independence through a love of the metal genre, and expanding on the content of their first album, the second combines great riffs and melodies with a more progressive musical approach. We recently spoke to co-writing guitarist Niclas Engelin about the success of The Halo Effect, and the machinations behind the group’s love of making two excellent metal albums thus far.

Hot Metal: Hello, sir. How did you enjoy your most recent trip to Australia?
Niclas Engelin: “We’ve been there a couple of times before, but it’s always the same. It’s something else for us up here from Scandinavia, Sweden. It’s exotic, it’s something out of a movie scenery for us. We went to New Zealand as well, which was really nice, and made new friends in Devilskin as well. It’s great meeting new people and Australia is fantastic. Being on tour is always an adventure, but being in New Zealand and Australia is a true adventure for us.”

HM: Do you feel it had more freedom being with The Halo Effect as opposed to In Flames when you toured here?
NE: “I mean, The Halo Effect is a band and In Flames are as well. We are doing our thing in The Halo Effect and In Flames are doing their thing. I think it’s beautiful that both bands can be still around making music. We are having fun still making music. I think that’s beautiful.”

HM: The latest album truly does the job. How do you feel about that in context of the first one? Because you may well have surpassed the first album for expectations.
NE: “Thank you so much, Paul. I think it’s interesting if you follow us a little bit. When we came up with Days Of The Lost, we didn’t know what to expect. Everything was a bonus. I remember us releasing the first single, “Shadowminds”, and I didn’t know what to think of it. I went to bed, I woke up with a phone with messages, “What the hell is going on? What are you doing?” That was, wow, weird. Yeah, people taking notice. I didn’t think in those terms so then we started to tour with The Halo Effect. I mean, we’ve known each other for decades and we played together for so many years, but not under the banner of The Halo Effect. So that was new to us as well as it was to create music to The Halo Effect. So, I think Days Of The Lost was a great start for us and also great start where we did so many shows at festivals and entering up on short Grammy nominations, Metal Hammer Awards and all this stuff. Everything was bonuses to me, and during that time writing a record in March Of The Unheard, when I heard the album, yeah, this is a band that have been doing shows that has been glued together under the banner of The Halo Effect, which is important to mention. I think it’s a more confident album in a way and there’s a little bit more of everything, like solos, melodies, and something in some ways, I wouldn’t say progressive passages for different songs. I mean, if you listen to this subject, you can hear that some guitar parts are just there one time. It never comes back throughout the song. It’s just once and then it leaves. That just happens by nature and comes naturally to us to do such a thing on this album. So, I think it’s interesting when you look at it that way, what stuff like touring, traveling, meeting people, going to Australia, New Zealand, Mexico have done to us as a person, as a band. It will be interesting to see how the third one will turn out.”

HM: I believe that with this one there’s almost better instrumentation because you’ve got acoustic guitars in there, maybe some mandolin, you’ve also got some strings by the sounds of it, so there is a plentiful amount of different musical figures going on.
NE: “Yeah, it is proper real strings. Cello played by Johannes Bergion, violin by Erika [both on “Between Directions” and “Coda”]. So, I mean when they come into the studio, I have set the songs beforehand, they’re well prepared, they have these notes, and they are proper musicians. We’re just standing there like, ‘Oh,’ with jaws dropped. It’s almost like it’s one done in one take and they just play along with the chords and songs, and song structure. They’re doing it so effortlessly. It’s really impressive to see. I think I have some clips of where they’re working with our music. It’s so cool because their instruments themselves can be a hundred-year-old violin that she’s picking up and she’s starting to play, making noises out of the woods. You can hear that when you pull the string over. So, that’s really interesting when you record those sounds.”

HM: The last track on the album is an instrumental. How did that come about?
NE: “That was one and a half months prior to our first show ever, as The Halo Effect …  at Sweden Rock Festival. And we got an hour, but the album is only almost 42 minutes. That means that we have 18 minutes to fill up. ‘Mikael [Stanne – vocals], can you read a poem?’ No, you can’t do that for 18 minutes. So, I wrote an intro, and I wrote an outro for the show, to stretch it a little bit. Then we used the intro and outro throughout the whole touring cycle, and we, as a band, never got tired of it. Hearing it 96 times or so in a row. The supporters in the crowd were like, ‘Yeah!’, and some people have seen us five, six or 10 times in a row. They were catching on, and then people started to write about it on social media. So, we made a song out of it. Then I did “March Of The Unheard” out of the intro. Then with the outro, I rearranged a little bit. So, if you listen to the song, it’s called “Coda” on the album. It’s the instrumental track with shallow violin and soaring vocals from Julia [Norman] along with Mikael. There’s a little bits of pieces here and there from the melodies throughout the whole album, tied together in one track. I think that has this melancholic theme and you feel cosy listening to it. You want to have a coffee and this feels good. Or go for beer, but it’s up to you.”

HM: I did recognise some of the melody lines in it. Speaking of references, you’ve put a clip out for “Cruel Perception”, which contains images of Gothenburg. Is that telling the world, “Hey, we’re here”? Is it a statement?
NE: “In a way it is. I mean, we are from Gothenburg. We still live in and around Gothenburg and we love our Gothenburg, and we play death metal from Gothenburg. So, it’s been something that we have done since the first video for “Shadowminds”, where Gothenburg is like this dystopian world, torn to pieces. But after that we have used elements to showcase Gothenburg and it made sense to us because we love it, we play music, and we live here. On this album, March Of The Unheard, we collaborated with the marching band Göta Lejon, which is a famous marching band from here in Gothenburg, with some celebration going on. So, we incorporated them into our music. There are on the video for ‘March Of The Unheard’ and will be in another.  So, it’s something that we want to keep our Gothenburg vibes close to our hearts and showcase to the world the beauty of this city.”

HM: Yeah, certainly. But I guess that from a marketing perspective, you’ve always got that melodic death metal, Gothenburg sound, such as In Flames, and all the other bands. It’s never going to leave you, right?
NE: “No, that’s correct. That’s correct. It’s a beautiful thing that shows that you are proud of your city, where you come from, and you want to keep that on your chest and show everyone.”

HM: Yeah, it’s a beautiful thing. So how do you approach the songwriting now? Has it changed at all? Given that The Halo Effect has got legs, and is going places, do you feel songwriting has to be a uniform thing across the board this time around?
NE: “No, it’s mostly me, and Jesper [Strömblad – guitars] who does the music. Then Mikael comes in with his magic, and then of course Daniel [Svensson – drums] came in. They will have their thoughts about arrangements and songs, and they put on their beautiful magic as well. But the songs always have to start somewhere, and I’m the one who comes with skeletons of songs or ideas in the first place to kind of start the whole process.”

HM: On guitars quickly, initially you were with B.C. Rich and then moved to Gibson. That’s not really the standard kind of trajectory of most metal players.
NE: “That was nice. That was funny times as when back with In Flames, I used BC Rich, but those guitars couldn’t hold up for touring really for 50 shows in a row. We’d always break down. Okay, so my guitar tech had to almost spend every night standing there working on the guitars. Then we thought, ‘Why don’t we approach Gibson?’ We got this beautiful Gibson RD Standard at the time, which is a guitar model made and used back in the seventies mostly for soul rock, stuff like that. But I got a deal with them using Gibson RDS guitars; the shape and the body looks so freaking cool. But then they stopped doing Gibson RDS guitars a while back. So now it’s this collector’s item instead.”

HM: How it is that you come to a relationship with luthiers, and the people that manufacture guitars to say, ‘I need a guitar that actually can hold up for every gig that I do,’ and at the same time, you’ve got to want to play it.
NE: “Yeah, exactly. It’s important because in the end it sounds really boring. It’s a working tool. You’re working and it needs to hold up for what you’re doing, and everyone needs to feel good about it.”

HM: In that light, is that the kind of guitar that you were gravitating towards for recording and when you were doing the songwriting?
NE: “I use a couple of different guitars for that. I think it’s funny with guitars, and I think it’s really interesting. For March Of The Unheard, maybe I used five, six different guitars. It’s a little bit what the song calls for and what is needed to be done within the song. It is really important to experiment a little bit and have fun with it while you are there. Not to stay on the same guitar, the same tone, the same sound. Maybe try another guitar with different pickups to create something else. It’s inspirational to me as a guitar player and songwriter in this matter. I have a Stratocaster over here. Let’s try it. Let’s give it some brilliance to that melody.’ I can do that on top of the melody and keep that sound. It is always this kind of stuff in order it. Then it’s, ‘Why don’t we use that stomp box? I just bought it yesterday. Yeah, I need to try it.’ So that’s a funny way of working that works for me and it works for Jesper and Oscar [Nilsson] who is our producer. We are all in this in the end. Yeah, we are gear nerds when it comes to it.”

HM: It all makes sense because if you look at the way that things have changed live versus studio. In-studio wise, people are just sort of gravitating towards digital gear and they’re not actually understanding the sonics of how a guitar creates a particular tone. There’s a variance where if people are taking sounds out of the box, in software, it just doesn’t quite cut it. Like, I can just hear that it’s done on a laptop versus being done in a proper room.
NE: “Exactly like that, and with a proper amplifier. You spend hours, days in fact, mic’ing it up, you try different parts and different amps, and you go nuts. I love that stuff. I love that part of recording. Then you got a phone call from a friend. ‘Hey, I heard you were in the studio. Hey, I will come by with my amp. I have this new one. You need to try it.’ So it will be, ‘All right, come by. I’ll put the coffee on.’ Then 12 hours later…”

HM: But see all this stuff that Jimmy Page and people like that have gone through. So, they’ve got that knowledge. I guess the younger generation doesn’t relate to that.
NE: “I have a friend of mine, a dear friend of mine, I love him to bits. He maybe has a writer’s block and says, ‘I can’t get anything done.’ So, then I call, and I talk to him two days later, or something like that. ‘Hey, I bought this Frankenstein Edward Van Halen model guitar coming next week.’ And then soon he will say, ‘Hey, I got five new songs done just by holding a new piece of instrument, and you’re playing it’. It just comes by, and you get inspired by that. Maybe I need to try another guitar or stuff like that to keep it interesting.”

HM: Edward obviously is just an influence on everyone in the guitar universe. Do you think that people see the impact of Edward Van Halen in the Gothenburg metal scene or not?
NE: “Yeah, most definitely. It has to be there. It is. I know Bjorn [Gelotte – In Flames guitarist] loves it. I love it. Everyone loves Ed Van Halen because it’s melodic. It’s so effortless when he’s playing this stuff because it all comes from him. He’s playing it while he’s playing it. It’s coming up with this beautiful stuff while he’s doing it. I mean, if you put on. Just listen to the song “Unchained”, he just feels. Yeah. He came up with a reference and then jammed a couple of times and there it was. It’s just so effortless.  When you listen to his solos, they’re so melodic.  You got me started now, Paul. He’s got these melodies. It’s always been there forever.”

HM: Edward was a keyboard player as well. I suspect that’s where it entertains or informs his guitar playing.
NE: “When you listen to Van Halen, it doesn’t matter which era, Sammy or David, what a great band. Alex’s drums and Michael Anthony’s bass, and the instrumentation is perfect. Everything is such that they are amazing players and still focus on the song.”

HM: I recommend Alex’s book, Brothers, as well as Geddy Lee’s recent book, My Effin’ Life.
NE: “Oh, Rush, that’s a good one. That’s a good one and just beautiful. Yes, I read those books myself and what I got inspired by while reading them is that they are there for the music. Everything else is secondary. It has to be all about the music. They are true musicians.”

HM: When you read from musicians like that and international stardom, about how they deal with producers do you look at your own projects and see any correlation with how you deal with producers?
NE: “I mean, these guys to me are cartoons. They are superheroes with capes. I take a lot of inspiration while just reading these books, and I feel really inspiration. I get really uplifted and happy reading these books, as I said, because they are true musicians. It’s all about the music when you read these books. It’s fame, fortune, of course, all of this. No, it’s all about the music. And they are still interested in playing their instruments even though they are huge, huge stars. That’s really inspirational to me.”

HM: Yeah, it comes down to music. So, looking at the album that you’ve just done, is there any particular track that represents where The Halo Effect is going?
NE: “It’s too early for me to say that because I still live in the album in some way. I haven’t got the vinyl yet. I need to have the vinyl for the touch, smell and feel it and put it on turntable. “The Burning Point” is a new take for The Halo Effect, I think, and when you listen to “Coda”, which ends the whole album, it’s an instrumental track, as we talked about earlier, you kind of get the feeling of what’s next when you hear that outro, ‘What’s next? What’s going to happen after this?’ That, at least for me, is intriguing as a songwriter.”

HM: Okay, so maybe “Between Directions” would be another single?
NE: “Yeah, yeah, exactly. At some point, I know it’s going to be when the outro kicks in. “The Burning Point” was called “Gary Moore” as a working title because we have that Celtic aspect. It’s still there, but it’s up sped up. The first edition or idea of “The Burning Point” was more Gary Moorish with his Celtic melodies, and then it changed. We arranged the song differently. I think we did that three or four times. But then we kind of kept with a basic Garry Moore ID, then Mikael comes in; ‘Oh, this is going to be “The Burning Point”, as the title of this song. Well, it’s Gary Moore still because it was working with the song for so long and live with it. But it will come. I hope so, eventually.”

HM: There’s some twin guitar on there with Jesper. How do you divvy up the harmonies and all the rest of it? Does one of you write it and say, ‘This is what you play,’ or is it more of those just improvise when you’re in there, methods?
NE: “That’s really interesting. He has his way of melodies. He’s the wizard. Maybe if we do the song – the song you think is done. ‘Yeah, we feel comfortable about this track’, and then the next day, he’ll say, ‘I was thinking about the song. It needs something. Can I just have a try? What do you think about this melody and this sound? Can we?’ We’ll think, ‘Oh, that’s great. Can you change that to that one or this one in that tempo instead?’ He’ll say, ‘Yeah, I can do that,’ we’ll ask, ‘Hey, can we put the harmony to that one?’ He’ll say, ‘Yes, let’s do it.’ That’s the way we work it.”

HM: So, you never stop tinkering.
NE: “Always. It can be in the last minute, just before going into mix, where we are changing stuff. You’re still moulding small, tiny, tiny bits and pieces, such as when you want to sprinkle the guitar sound a little bit. ‘Let’s use the Telecaster to do it. Oh, my God. That sounds great’.”

HM: Any chance of a tour to Australia happening again.
NE: “Oh, yeah, it’s on the table. We are talking about it. We would love to come back to Australia and New Zealand. That would just rule. Because we love your country. Yes, we are talking about it. We’re just going to get into this planning calendar and the boring stuff. But we want to make it over there again.”