Interview with Sweet Sorrow, melodic death metal from Slovenia

Sweet Sorrow is one of the bands in the Slovenian metal scene that is still growing strong inspite being around for almost two decades. We had a small talk with their drummer Rope and guitarist Pero about their past, new album and future plans.

Hi guys! Thanks for this interview! Could you please introduce the band?

Hi, thank you, for helping us promote our band and music. The band was established in the year 1996. with the idea of playing heavy metal, but in 2002. all of the heavy metal members left the band and started a new life with no music. For Peter Caric and Ragnar Us this was not the end of their musical journey, so they started to look for new members and found Peter Gale and Valentin Bufolin, and soon new music started to come out of the rehearsal place. After six years the band changed their musical style in to Melodic Death Metal, it all happened mostly because of the new line up and ideas in the band.

You recently released your latest album entitled “1000th Millennium”. How long did it take for you to record it? I read on you site that the recording process started in 2008…

That is correct the new record was recorded in 2008 at the Negligent Sound Solution studio with our good friends and producers Jan Svigelj and Ziga Zmazek, this two guys know how we like to sound and we are really happy they recorded the 1000th Millennium. I think we were in the studio for around six months to record the 1000th Millennium, and the sessions were really great because no one was pushing us to record and work faster, it was very rehearsal style with great vibe. Since we do not have a label the publishing took much longer, but we never give up and now in 2010 the CD is finally out and we are happy to present you our new child.

Do you have certain tour activities in plan to promote the album, or will you concentrate on single gigs?

To promote 1000th Millennium we will try to tour as much as possible, at the moment we are booking gigs in Germany, Austria, Italy, Belgium…But we are looking to book gigs world wide as well and hope to be on the road for some time. We do not care if we have a tour or have to drive 1200 kilometers for one gig we do it, because we like this lifestyle and if it would be possible we would be on the road 24/7.

You are active since 1996, which kinda makes you an institution of death metal. What changed in these 14 years in a way you look on death metal and the scene in particular?

Band started with death metal in 2002, when we changed three members. It is the beginning of new era for Sweet Sorrow. We believe the scene is now bigger and stronger like it was in late 90´s, sure there are a lot of metal core bands around, but we prefer to listen and compose classic death metal mixed with nordic style.

Musically you are continuing along the path of bands like Amon Amarth (at least I feel similar atmosphere in your music), early In Flames and the school of melodic death metal in general. What bands are you major influences?

Our major influence is all music in the world, sure there are bands that inspire us and Amon Amarth is one of the bands, but you have to know that Sweet Sorrow members mostly all listen to a different style of metal so the influences come from all around and if we have to put up some bands they would probably be : At The Gates (one of the bands we all listen to), Dimmu Borgir, Deicide, Cannibal Corpse, In Flames, Demonoid and many more…The CD and Vinyl collection is big and like i sad all the music of the world is our inspiration.

I see that you are heavily influenced with pagan themes and Nordic mythology in particular. On what themes do you focus lyrically and where do you found inspiration for them?

True, we do not believe in Christianity and this is not just because we are metal heads, this is the way we see things, and we like to explore what was before Christ, themes are Satanism, Nordic mythology, we will probably start with some Slovenian pagan themes on new album.

Do you have any side projects or are you focused entirely on Sweet Sorrow?

Most of us are living out of music like being sound or light technicians or roadies, so I can say that we are focused on Sweet sorrow 100% because our jobs are going hand in hand with band. When we play a show in Slovenia, we usually do also sound reinforcement on that event, we practice in place where we are house technicians. This is very important for us, because we can pack gear in the van and hit the road any time.

Thanks for this interview, and I hope to see you soon live! Any last thoughts you’d like to share with us?

Thank you also, what we do is our lifestyle, we will make and play our music for long years, Sweet Sorrow has never been stronger and we believe in this team.
There are many shows starting in two weeks and we can’t wait to hit the road again.