We had the chance to sit down and have a chat with Evergrey keyboard player Rikard Zander. We spoke all things “Theories Of Emptiness” ahead of its release on June 7 via Napalm Records. The band are in fine form with the new album and are about to embark on some pretty serious touring.
Andrew : Hi Rikard, welcome to The Rockpit. How are you doing?
Rikard : I’m pretty good. Yeah, doing some interviews today.
Andrew : Well, I guess that’s the reason we are here. Congratulations on “Theories Of Emptiness”. What a record.
Rikard : Thank You. Thank you very much.
Andrew : What an amazing record.
Rikard : Glad to hear that. Thank You.
Andrew : I guess if I go back and give you a brief history of how I discovered you guys, and that would’ve been 2006 and the “Monday Morning Apocalypse” album. I was given that by a friend and was just instantly hooked on what you guys were doing. What you were doing as a band was really innovative. The mix of melodic with the hint of progressive while still staying heavy was incredible. The general variety that you get within an album from you guys is fantastic. Stylistically and journey wise, the new record “Theories Of Emptiness” is no different for me. I’ve had the pleasure of living with it for a couple of days now, and it gets better and better with every listen.
Rikard : All right. That’s a good thing. Yeah.
Andrew : While it hasn’t been a long time between albums. The previous album “A Heartless Portrait (The Orphan Testament)” was out in 2022 as a band. How do you guys go about producing music on such a frequent basis? You guys have been really reliable over your whole career a new music fix has never been too far away.
Rikard : I don’t know if you heard about the recent changes in the band, but we have had the same line up for a very long time. We know each other really well. Everyone in the band writes music, so if someone in the band has time, when nothing comes up, someone else in the band will have new material. I think that’s why we never really have to feel stressed about putting out the new album, because we cannot rely on each other that we’re going to have new material since everyone in the band writes, and on this album. Also, Joe or Bass player who hasn’t written that much before. He has done a lot on this album. I think the secret behind the reason why we can make music frequently, because everyone contributes in the band musically.
Andrew : The bands musical palette is quite broad stylistically, when you have so many people contributing to writing the music, do you find that you inspire each other in the way that you write? Obviously, there are differences in the way that everybody writes.
Rikard : Yes we do inspire each other, you really do get inspired in a band like this. You cannot get in the Evergrey mode. I mean, we have a history of music, and even though we try to do new stuff all the time, we still sound like Evergrey. That’s mainly because of Tom’s voice, he writes the melodies and the lyrics, and when he puts his voice on the music instantly, it sounds a bit Evergreyish. I mean, it’s not deliberately trying to, well, sometimes maybe it is, but it’s kind of when you are in a band for such a long time, you get in the, I mean, before Evergrey, I used to play in a very rock and roll oriented band, and I became writing just simple rock tunes. When I joined Evergrey, it took a couple of years, but then you get in the mood for that type of music. It’s just something that kind of happens.
Andrew : You have obviously been contributing to the writing for quite some time. How do you find working with Tom?
Rikard : It’s very inspiring, and that’s one of the reasons I’m still in the band, because I still find it challenging, and I still get surprised of what he comes up with and what he does to my ideas. It is really satisfying for me as a music writer to present an idea to him, have him take it, develop it and put his vocals on it. I get surprised and I feel, oh, I would never have thought about that. That makes it fresh for me to continue, because it doesn’t get boring, it feels like everyone in the band has a motivation of getting better and better musically. Of course, we want to maybe become a bigger band as well to reach out to more people, but most importantly, we want to continue create music as best as we can.
Andrew : I touched on it before, but I mean, you guys, for me have been super consistent through your entire career. You’ve always delivered great records, and that for me is, I mean, if I hear that you guys are releasing a new record, I know it’s going to be a safe bet. It’s going to be money well spent from my perspective. Being able to access an advance of the album for purposes such as this is amazing. There is a beauty within “Theories Of Emptiness” there really is. For me, there’s a lot to digest in it. There’s a lot of things going on song to song and within songs themselves, and I found that the album’s really been a big journey of light and shade. Is that something that you wanted to do on this record particularly was to create and grow on what was already out there?
Rikard : We make albums, we don’t make singles, so of course we want to make an album that kind of had some kind of red line through it, and that consists of a lot of different emotions and vibes in the music. So that’s always our goal, to make an album a good album. Then of course, you need good songs in it; our goal has never really been to make hit songs, to release a singles. It’s been, okay, now we’re going to do an album. Now we’re going to do a great album. I hope that answers your question a little bit.
Andrew : It absolutely does. Do you have a personal favourite track on the album? Is there one that resonates with you that maybe you’re proudest of or that you feel your contribution was something extra special?
Rikard : Yeah, I think I didn’t write that song, but I remember when Joe presented some ideas and some riffs he had, and there was particularly one song idea, it was just like a guitar riff, and there was not much to it, but I really felt, oh, I really like that. That’s going to be a great song. That song is ‘Misfortune’. I feel now when the album is complete, that that’s still my favourite song on the album, actually.
Andrew : And again, it’s a great track. I still haven’t taken in all of the song titles. It’s just been something that I have had on constant play.
Rikard : ‘Misfortune’ it’s the second song on the album. Do you have a favourite?
Andrew : It’s changing each, listen, it really is changing each listen. ‘Falling From The Sun’, I have to say, was a spectacular start for me. Absolutely. Yeah. I adore that song, and ‘That’s Incredible’, ‘One Heart’, ‘We Are the North’ and ‘Ghost of My Hero’ is one that has really, really grown on me. I think now that I have had a chance to process the production, the song writing and the song structures, I’m really taking in the lyrics from it. It’s resonating with me overall. It’s just a great record.
Rikard : Oh, thank you.
Andrew : What an amazing visual you have in the ‘Falling From The Sun’ video. What a great looking clip with the fireworks. It must have been quite a bit of fun to make.
Rikard : Definitely. Yes, it is, we are really happy with that one; we used heaps of fireworks. The location was in the middle of nowhere, of course, because I guess you have to have permits to use so much fireworks, but it was literally out in the forest in Sweden where no one lives. We got the opportunity to use all those fireworks which was amazing. But the thing is, we didn’t see much of it because we had our faces facing the camera, so everything happened behind our backs, but we heard it, and it was really fun to see how it all looked when the video was completed.
Andrew : How was the album recorded? Was it a band in a studio environment, or were there individual parts that were then pieced and placed together and mixed in a studio?
Rikard : Now days you can do pretty much you do both because in the previous days, maybe you used the studio for the whole band, but now you can record guitars, vocals, keyboards. You can do it in your own house, in your own home. But of course, the drums we recorded in the studio, so we recorded the drums and the bass together in the studio, in our own studio, actually. Then we took it from there as we had the basics, and then of course, we had some demos to reference to, but then you just build it from there.
Andrew : Was it a long process putting all of the pieces together?
Rikard : Well, I don’t really remember now. I guess the whole thing maybe took about a year, maybe a little longer with the song writing and kind of making demos and then sitting together and trying out ideas, and then the actual recording of the songs. I mean, it’s like I say, when you do demos today, some things you don’t really have to change because a designated studio is more for recording drums where you need a proper studio room. A lot of things that are on the album were also on the demos, actually.
Andrew : Kicking off from the date of the album’s release, you’ve got quite a few dates lined up through Latin America, some Nordic dates, and a few festivals. What are you most looking forward to?
Rikard : There are a lot of shows coming up. We are starting off with South America, and we have some countries we have never played in before, so it’s going to be fun and we are looking forward to them. It’s always hard to tour in South America because it’s a lot of flights. You fly to all the gigs. It’s a lot of late nights and early mornings in airports, but it’s going to be fun. Then we are also going to do a pretty comprehensive Scandinavian tour; we have never really done that before. We played shows in Sweden and Norway and Denmark, et cetera, but we never done a full tour. So that’s going to be really cool as well, I think. It’s always fun with the festivals in Europe. The summer festivals are really great. Then it’s going to be interesting to see how the European tour goes, if there’re going to be a lot of people at the shows, we hope, of course. I’m looking forward to all of it, but it’s going to be a lot.
Andrew : The burning question is a return to Australia. Is that on the cards too?
Rikard : I really hope so. I haven’t heard anything about it, but it will be really great. We have only been there once. We had a great time and did some good shows, so I really hope we get the chance to come back to Australia.
Andrew : I have just been watching some of the festival footage that’s on YouTube of the band live and predominantly festival shows like Bloodstock there really is a magic to the live performance. There’s an energy that you have. I think Tom’s an amazing front man, and that comes from watching Bloodstock from 2018 or 17, I think. When I watched that this morning I just went, yep, he knows how to work a crowd. He knows how to get people involved, and you guys all play incredibly well. Evergrey live is something that I’m excited to experience. I missed you the first-time you guys came out and would love to see you guys back out in Australia again.
Rikard : I hope we get back to Australia too. When you start a metal band, it’s mainly because you want to play live. So that’s always been our main focus. Then you have to make albums to get the chance to play live, but at first, we are a live band, so I’m glad that you appreciate what you’ve seen with us.
Andrew : I think it is just really icing on the cake to the whole package, and when the opportunity to chat with you guys came up, it’s like I jumped at it. It has been a twenty-year journey with you guys and your music. You’ve become a significant part of the soundtrack to my life, and I thank you for that.
Rikard : My Pleasure
Andrew : Looking back retrospectively, do you have a favourite Evergrey album?
Rikard : Ooh, that’s very hard to choose. I mean, it’s been quite a lot of albums now, but my first album was “Recreation Day”, so that will always be special. Of course, I really liked “A Heartless Portrait”, the one before this one, and I really like this new one. But no, I don’t think I can just name one that is my absolute favourites. I like all of them. There’s not one of them I don’t like. Anyway, I think we’ve done a good job with all the albums we have released and even the ones they released before I was in the band.
Andrew : It’s an amazing catalogue. ‘Say’ was the last single or the second single to come off the album. Are there more singles planned?
Rikard : There are more singles planned. I’m not sure when they are going to be released, but there will be. There will be another one released before the album comes out, but I’m not sure exactly when. But there will be more singles.
Andrew : Just looking at the time, we are running short on time. I just want to wrap things up and say congratulations on the new record. It really is a great listen.
Rikard : Thank you.
Andrew : I think it’s going to be one of those classic albums for me.
Rikard : Thank you, thank you very much. I’m glad to hear that.
Andrew : Congratulations to you all, and I hope it brings you all the success and that your tour is everything that you want it to be. And again, hopefully we’ll see you back down under shortly. Yeah, I hope so. See you in Australia. Absolutely. All right, Ricard, thank you so much for your time.
Rikard : Okay. Enjoy the rest of your day. Take care.
“Theories Of Emptiness” is out via Napalm Records June 7 2024.
