Even through Thrawn might not sound familiar to many - this band has it all there to go out to the wide world. Coming from Sweden and keeping it far from any trends, they do not represent the melodic death metal scene, which many of You out there got sick of. With their "Light Creates Shadows" demo'03 are sure to grip the attention of any metalhead into thrash and death metal - aggression and melody all in one... We've spoke to Henrik - the man in charge:

1. Hello Henrik & Thrawn! How are You doing these days? Let's go back in time a bit - would You tell us a couple of words about it how it all begun?
     Hi there, I'm doing fine thank you! Well, the whole thing with Thrawn started in 2001 when I presented some songs I had been working on to Kjell (originally the vocalist of a band called Azotic Reign) and he liked the ideas I had. As I continued to develop these musical ideas they started to grow more and more interesting and in 2002 we recruited a rhythm guitarist called Niklas who made rehearsing a little bit easier, if you know what I mean! We were thinking of recording for a long time but we wanted to really explore and find our sound first, which took quite a while. We all have specific and individual musical tastes in Thrawn but the idea was to create songs that appealed to all of us, you know. So that's why there is such a blend of different genres in Thrawn with the emphasis on fast thrash metal, or occult thrash metal as we like to call it, with a fair share of death metal riffing. But as I said, we have lots of other influences too and they can be heard as well.

2. So You were also involved in other bands like Theory In Practice and Mutant through out the years, could You tell us something about those? Are You still into any of them or has Thrawn become Your main priority?
     Mutant fell asleep in 2001 and even though we've discussed waking that monster up, it just hasn't happened. T.I.P's activity has also been lacking for the last six months, and being the creative force that I am I just have to move on without looking back. And working with Thrawn is much more of a personal challenge to me since my role is so big in the band. Having the opportunity to manifest my musical and lyrical visions without restrictions is truly awesome! But I'm involved in the bands you mentioned when they're active, I'm also part in some other projects. But right now Thrawn is my main priority.

3. Well, I got to tell You that "Light Creates Shadows" made a real good impression on me. How has been the response to this material from the local media and well, on an international level?
     Well, thanks for the positive feedback we've received from you and diabolous.com! The media has been extremely kind to us so far, it's gone beyond our expectations to be honest. You never know how people will respond to the stuff you're putting out there but it's really been amazing how thrilled people seems to be about this band. Some people are probably not into what we do, I guess, but they've kept their mouths shut so far he he... What we've seen is good reviews and kind words regarding Thrawn's first release "Light Creates Shadows".

4. Is Your line-up stable right now?
     Yeah, it is stable but not complete. We have a guy called Tord (he's also a part of Azotic Reign where he handles the guitar) coming in to join us, he will take care of the bass. We will try him out in the coming weeks. Otherwise the band consists of me, Kjell and Niklas. Per, who contributed with solos on the demo, is not really a member of the band but he could be in the future. He will definitely contribute on our next recording anyway.

5. Working over the title of Your demo... I came up with something like that the more light - meaning religion and holy shit thrown over the masses, the more shadows - meaning the darker sides (in the church's opinion) of life are being brought up and pin pointed... And well, without one, there would not be the other... How would You explain it?
     That's a pretty good interpretation you came up with there! Yes, the christian teachings and part of the new age movement preaches about light and purity and how one must stay away from everything they consider to be evil or wrong. What they fail to see that light does create shadows! These people pretend to lack a darker side but behind their internal light falls an internal shadow that will ultimately force its way through and claim its right to exist. As you said, both have to be taken in regard and neither should be shunned to oblivion. It's just two sides of the same f----n´ coin! So the title is mainly criticism towards the christian views of existence but also criticism towards ANYONE who is stuck in their limited perception of reality.

6. In fact You lyrics are pretty dark there... I know You arrange most of Thrawn's music Who's in charge of the lyrics? What pushes You to unfold all that darkness dwelling within?
     I'm writing the lyrics for Thrawn, I always received a good response for my lyrics in Mutant and T.I.P and that has really inspired me to continue to unleash all these ideas I have in my head and put them to paper. I have no idea what pushes me...these days I'm almost exclusively inspired by reality-based phenomenons, you know? So I am not really influenced by sci-fi and horror stories as many seems to think. What I mean by reality-based is that I often write from the viewpoints of "real life"-people experiencing all kinds of mind-boggling and awe-inspiring stuff and I mix their reality with my own ideas. And everything revolves around what I believe to be true, believe it or not. But a lot of the stuff is symbolic, and most of the time you have to read between the lines because a lyric is never long enough to describe everything in detail. And that often adds to the mysticism of the story, of course. But anyway, the dark approach of it all comes with this style of music, I guess, and I tend to appreciate that approach to art. My fascination lies within the obscure areas of existence, that's why the word occult is part of the band's description. Because occult means "hidden" as in "hidden knowledge", a lot of people seems to misunderstand that word. It really doesn't have anything to do with satanism or anything like that, occultism is just esoteric knowledge in one way or another. And that's what the lyrics deal with all the time.

7. ...And by the way, how do the rehearsals look like - You being in charge of all the instruments?
     Ha ha ha, I'll leave that to the imagination! Nah OK, I'll reveal it then... Either we rehearse pretty normally with me on drums, Niklas on guitar and Kjell on vocals or we rehearse with recorded drums (that I've recorded before the others get to the rehearsal place) and in that case I play guitar, while the others handle their instruments respectively. It is good to rehearse with two guitars every now and then just to hear all the guitar harmonies and overall everything that happens guitar-wise. The bass is pretty much left out in rehearsals right now but we have this guy Tord coming in soon as I already explained.

8. What can You tell us about Thrawn's live performances?
     Eh, Thrawn has not been a live band so far. The reason is pretty obvious, it is because of the lineup-situation. We've concentrated on creating strong material and getting some of it out there through this "Light Creates Shadows"-release. So we have yet to enter a stage under the monicker of Thrawn. But we've been asked to perform live already so we may put a full lineup together and blow you all away this autumn.

9. Sweden's been known for years as sort of a endless hatching soil for death metal bands... These last years mostly melodic death metal. Thrawn comes out to be a nice counterweight to all this. Do You also get that feeling, living there right in the middle of all this, that Thrawn stands out of the rest in a way and it has its chances to break through?
     I've never been into music to break through or anything like that, I do it because I don't know any better! There's this roaring flame inside me that commands me to play so that's what I do, you know? Only time will tell where it takes me and where Thrawn will end up. I definitely think we have potential to compete with just about any band out there and I do think we have something to offer to the metal scene. But really...just being creative makes it all worthwhile for me, that's the greatest high I get out of this. I also think that Thrawn is in many ways completely different from the usual Swedish melodic death metal, we're not influenced in any way by that genre of music to be honest! We don't have death metal vocals to begin with! We're taking in so many different aspects of music that I really can't label us, even though that sounds like a cliché... but man, that's the way I feel about what Thrawn does. The best label we've come up with so far is occult thrash metal, it has a nice vibe to it and it pretty much displays the basic elements of what we do.

10. Anyway, that must be a real challenge to break through all this curtain of huge bands there. Do You find that as an inconvenience or maybe that it sets the standards so high that once You come out onto the wider world, just start kicking ass right away?
     Again, "breaking through" isn't really the reason why I'm doing this. There's inspiration and creativity within me that just has to be acted upon from my side! If you're gonna create music then you have to go with the stuff that comes up, in other words the ideas that surface and that proves to be good material. I mean, it has to be quality stuff but that's just common sense- you don't want to put stuff out that doesn't sound good or stuff that is below your true potential. If you can't put all your energy into it then it isn't worth doing in the first place. At least that's how I've always worked. If I get an idea and it feels "right" then I'll just go with it and see what the others in the band thinks of it. The only important thing is that everyone in the band feels like their hearts are into the music we play and that they are 100% committed to it, the outside world really doesn't affect the sound of Thrawn. When it comes to the music it is strictly a band-matter. The challenge is to keep on being motivated and keep the flame of creativity burning. Because if that flame burns out then it's all over, then it doesn't matter if you've reached a breakthrough or whatever.

11. Sometimes I get the impression You guys there in Sweden are force fed with metal since birth and apart from ABBA, Ace Of Base and a couple of other maybe, metal seems to be the only right way of life for everybody there..? How is that?
     Hmmm, there's a lot of metal musicians in Sweden, that's true. But there are a lot of mainstream music fans too, and the general music scene in Sweden doesn't really give a shit about metal. All the Swedish metal bands that are huge outside of Sweden are barely known within their home country, it's pretty sick when you think about it. As for being force-fed with metal I think that most of the musicians you see in big bands today were growing up during the 80`s when heavy metal was so big and of course it influenced a lot of people. Then you had the death metal boom in the early 90`s which also had a huge impact on the youth back then. I mean, metal has so many faces and if you consider all the genres that exist today it is easy to understand why most people can take some form of metal to their hearts. And the fact that many begin to play instruments is a side effect I guess, it enables you to be more of a part in the whole scene. And many in Sweden decide to do that. So this country has a lot of bands but that goes for a lot of other countries too, I see a lot of talent in many countries - not just Sweden.

12. What have been Your main influences through the years on the metal scene and common life?
     It all started with heavy metal in the 80`s (what a surprise, eh?) which directed me on to the path of music from the age of 8 or 9 years old. That's when I realized that I wanted to devote a big part of my life to music and I developed my musical tastes from there. I continued to listen to a lot of music through the years and it all became more brutal and so on. In 1990 I heard Morbid Angel and that was a defining moment for sure, I just stared at the record player not believing what I was hearing when I put on "Altars of Madness" for the first time. From then on death metal had a huge influence on me, even though I leaned more and more towards the technical side of it. Bands like Atheist and Cynic was the next step for me musically. Which eventually lead me to fusion jazz which continues to inspire my playing actually. Common life doesn't really influence me, it's always art that keeps me inspired. Be it literature, movies or music.

13. I suppose You're working constantly on new material and well... are there plans and possibilities of a full length and if so, could You give us any details of what to expect?
     Yeah, new material is constantly being created. We will record a full length if we get a recording contract that we can agree on, that's the main issue. It all stands and falls with that. But if it happens you can expect an even more focused Thrawn that will take our sound to new heights and hopefully amaze you even more.

14. Do You follow at all Your local metal scene or You rather concentrate on Your own band? Do You stay within Your genre of metal or You like to explore other breeds of it as well?
     There's not much of a local scene where we live, most of the bands that are well known emerges from the south of Sweden. We live more in the middle, you see. But anyway, I have a radio show called Deadline where I try to play some local acts so I definitely want to support the local scene, however small it may be. And as I said earlier I am into fusion jazz and generally any style of music that is performed by good musicians. I always enjoy listening to/watching good musicians that are really into what they're doing!

15. Are there any other countries You enjoy digging their metal scene?
     The States produces a lot of good music in any given genre. I actually prefer extreme music from to the States rather than the music that comes from Sweden, Poland is also producing some really great extreme music these days. Those are the ones that I come to think of first and foremost.

16. I heard some years ago, that Sweden was one of those countries where racism was very much a common thing... Is that really so, and what is your opinion about racism at all?
     Oh yeah, I've had that question directed towards me before. I really can't tell if racism is more common here than in any other country but I CAN tell you that I'm not into that sort of stuff. I couldn't care less, I never think about it.

17. Do You Henrik get any time to enjoy other things in life apart from metal? I suppose You still got to earn Your living somewhere else - which isn't really that enjoyable I guess hehe..?
     I have a family, a house and all that. I spend time taking care of all of it, of course. And I enjoy that, it's keeping from soaring too much above ground. Otherwise I tend to be very disconnected from the everyday life because it's so shallow and...uninspiring a lot of the time. BUT my family is something I care for so that's keeping me tuned into earth, if you know what I mean ha ha... And I am currently unemployed, got fired from a cell phone company because their stock value sank pretty severely to say the least. So they had to cut down on their staff. But I got a pretty good payment deal when I left the company so right now I'm really enjoying life on all fronts. I have a new employment coming up though so I guess it's back to the mines again soon... Earning my livelihood through music has proved to be really hard, maybe that breakthrough standpoint should be reconsidered, it may not be such a bad idea after all? He he he...

18. What would be the first things that'd come to Your mind, thinking of those that annoy You most?
     I can't make up my mind if it's religious fanatics or diehard atheists...they're pretty much the same to me. Go figure! The business side of music also annoy the hell out of me for the most part.

Alright Henrik, so we've come to an end of this interview. I'd like to thank You for you time and awaiting a full-length release wish You best of luck. Would You like to add anything to finish it all?
     Thanks for your incredible support and keep YOUR flame of creativity burning! Good luck with Diabolous.com in the future and we'll keep in touch, OK? Check out the temporary Thrawn site regularly because we will keep you posted there when the REAL Thrawn website is launched: hem.passagen.se/thrawnsite
I will finish with a quote from a metal legend we all miss: "Let the metal flow!"

Thrawn
http://hem.passagen.se/thrawnsite