For those who weren’t lucky enough to experience the bombast of Sabaton’s The Tour To End All Tours in the flesh, there is the opportunity, for one night only, to watch it from the comfort of your very own local cinema in full surround sound, high definition glory on 11th October. Mick Burgess called up Sabaton frontman, Joakim Broden to talk about the film.
On 11th October you will be film stars for one day. Your concert movie Sabaton: The Tour To End All Tours will be getting shown in cinemas across the UK. Are you looking forward to your fans enjoying the Sabaton live experience from the comfort of a cinema seat?
I am indeed. Even though I grew up loving live albums, these days they are not doing that well. Now there’s videos, DVDs, streaming and stuff like that. I think one thing that’s missing from the experience of enjoying a live recording is having several people around you. We’re hoping that a movie theatre will give you more of that vibe of being at a concert rather than just listening to a live album or watching a live DVD.
Is this basically a recording of your live show from start to finish right the way through or does it feature interviews and other backstage and tour clips between the songs?
It’s going to be more of a concert experience although there’ll be some stuff at the start and at the end but it’s very much a whole live show from start to finish.
Whose idea was it to bring the Sabaton show to the cinema?
We are only big enough in Europe to bring a show to 15-20.000 seater arenas so the only place we can do the full show. If we go to other places, we can still put on a show with pyro but not the full, massive thing. We thought we’d record it so our fans in other places can see our full show. We didn’t initially have plans for it to be a movie theatre experience as that came later.
Where did you record the show? Is it one complete performance or is it compiled from several different shows?
It’s one complete performance that we did at the Ziggo Dome in Amsterdam. We chose that because the arena is very well equipped and has the space for cranes for the cameras and it had the advantage of being not at the beginning of the tour so less chance of us messing up.
Did the knowledge that it was being recorded and filmed put extra pressure on you on the night?
I always get a bit more nervous, not for actually performing the songs, but for talking in between the songs and interacting with the crowd. There are some things that you do uniquely each night but there are some things you do pretty much the same every night. Some things you don’t want to burn for the future I’m always wondering what I said on the last recording and whether I used that joke or introduced a song a certain way. I don’t swear much but I do occasionally curse so that could be a problem so I have to be aware of all of these things when a show is being recorded.
Have you watched it back yet in the cinema for the full experience?
No unfortunately I’ve only seen it on laptop screens so I’ll have to buy a ticket. We’re flying out today to The States to join Judas Priest on tour and we hope to see one of the screenings while we’re there.
Last April you toured the UK with your biggest ever show. When you played in Leeds on 14th April at the First Direct Arena that was your first time back since 2006 when you played the Metropolitan University to a handful of people. How did it feel seeing thousands of people packed into the Arena on your return to the city?
The whole UK thing for us was a such a moment of joy. People were telling us to miss out the UK. They said people didn’t like our music and it was never going to work. The UK invented what we do so they should like it, so we just kept at it over the years and I’m so happy to see that it’s paying off and we’ve been able to give the UK our full production.
On that tour there was a World War One theme to your stage show with the sandbags, ramparts, gun turrets, barbed wire, the Red Baron’s Fokker triplane as the keyboard stand and a big tank as a drum riser and this will all be seen in your film. Did you ever think that you’d one day be able to put on such an extravagant show when you first started Sabaton back in 1999?
I don’t think so. I think we’ve got most things under control now and people think it’s a cool concept to have all the pyro and the war theme. The show grew organically over a period of years. We started out playing heavy metal and drinking beer at first but then military history came a few years later. We were doing a video shoot and the director wanted us in a bunker and suggested getting some camouflage clothing rather than the black leather we had been wearing. It felt a bit weird at first but now it feels super natural to put those clothes on. When people saw the video they thought that was us in our new stage clothes and said how much they liked it. We didn’t intend for that to happen it just did after that video. I think all of these things that we have now were basically a solution to a problem that we had. We didn’t have a great master plan. We tried a lot of things that failed as well.
Do you sit around and throw ideas around and then look at the practicalities of getting them to work?
That’s sort of how it happens and we come up with something to solve a problem. In “Red Baron” there’s a Hammond organ in there and that was my first instrument so I wanted to play that live. The band said that I couldn’t play a Hammond Organ on stage so I suggested building into a Tri-Plane like the one the Red Baron himself flew in the First World War. The tank was a long process and some people said we couldn’t do it as KISS had done it but it was a long time ago and we had a very god reason for having a tank there. I thought that a part of the show would benefit from shooting a bazooka so we worked on developing that and it works really well, so I get to kill our drummer every night. Everything worth doing is worth overdoing every night. Trying to do something subtle would be silly as we’ve already gone all in on everything so we might as well embrace it.
You’ll have to make a grand entrance by dropping onto the stage from a Zeppelin on the next tour?
Well, we have been looking at certain aerial entrances so we’ll see how we can work that out.
There is a big military history thread running right though your lyrics. What was it that first attracted you to military history?
I was always interested in military history but wasn’t a military nerd or anything like that. I used to watch old war films with my dad like Lawrence of Arabia. It was more of a casual hobby but my interest and knowledge of history grew exponentially when we started writing about it in Sabaton. We first wrote “Primo Victori” which was about D-Day and we just felt it was much more interesting to write about than metal and beer. There’s nothing wrong with that and I love them both but I don’t want to write lyrics about them or sing about them. It just clicked so I suggested making an album about military history. It became an interest to us and became our thing but it did just happen naturally.
Does your band name have a military origin?
When we found out that our old band name, Aeon, was already taken back in 1999 we said that at the next band rehearsal we should all come up with suggestions for band names and I was the only one that did and I came up with Sabaton and that is actually an old Medieval armoured boot so we just went with that.
Do you hope that this may stir somebody’s interest in military history firstly through your music and lyrics and secondly via your YouTube Channel who may otherwise not have had an interest in the subject?
If it happens it’s a positive side effect. Even though we are amateur historians I think we have a larger understanding than the general public and I think this is a way for us to quickly and in an entertaining way to get people to understand the song and the lyrics along with the context around it.
Is this why you have a special History Edition of your The War To End All Wars where there is a narration before each song to give the backstory to each of the subjects?
We have the narration on the special edition to give some context to the song. If you’ve heard it a few times and are having a barbeque with your friends then you won’t want that intro so you can put on the regular version instead. I genuinely hope that people choose to listen to the narrated versions for the first couple of times.
You also did an orchestral version The Symphony To End All Wars which is cinematic in scope. Who came up with that idea?
I grew up with a lot of classical music around me and still listen to it. The harmonies that we use are more classically inspired rather than blues based like a lot of bands. We just thought putting the melodies in our music to classical music was a cool idea.
Most people will be aware of the Christmas Truce and the Treaty Of Versailles but you go much further than that and tackle issues such as The Harlem Hellfighters, which is about the only frontline African American unit in the war and the fascinating character Adrian Carton De Wiart in the “Unkillable Soldier”. Is it important to you dig deeper and write about some of the lesser known events and characters?
We don’t go out of our way to find the most obscure thing but if we do it’s a positive side effect but at the same time we wouldn’t only want stuff that people had already heard about. We are quite obsessed with finding the right story for the right music. When we make an album we may have a pot of forty historical subjects that we want to include. We usually write the music first so once we start to write lyrics to go with the music that’s when we start attaching them to subjects.
Your last two records have been about the Great War. Is that subject finished for you now? What other military events will you be looking at next?
When the pandemic came along we decided to extend the World War One theme into a second album and “Hellfighters” and “Christmas Truce” were the first two songs we got in there. I know what we will be doing next but I can’t say anything yet as it’ll spoil the surprise. We will revisit World War One events again in the future but I don’t see it happening now and I don’t see us doing more complete albums so we’ll cover different areas on the next one rather than a single subject.
Tommy Johansson left Sabaton earlier this year? What happened there? Did he just want to do something different?
It was very undramatic. He basically came to us late last year and said that he felt like a traitor as he wanted to do his own thing. We said that he wasn’t a traitor and wanted everybody to be happy. He said he was happy in Sabaton and liked the band. He actually took a fan picture with us in 2005 way before he joined the band. He has his own band Majestica and a YouTube channel and all the other things he’s involved in and has had to say no to so many things he’d like to have done, he realised that he just couldn’t do it.
Thobbe Englund has now rejoined you after leaving 8 years ago. Does it feel good to have him back in the band?
I was actually writing a song with Thobbe, who we’d always stayed in touch with and written songs together even after he left. He lives 10 minutes from my parents. I told him that Tommy was quitting and said that if we couldn’t find a replacement for the upcoming tour could he possibly consider rejoining for a few shows. He just said absolutely, yes. We decided to ask him to join full time as he’s in a very different place now with his family and own band and he said yes directly. We never went public when Tommy left and were without a guitarist for a month before Thobbe came back.
You’re celebrating your 25th anniversary this year. That’s quite a milestone. Did you ever dare to dream that you’d make it this far in the music business?
We could never have envisaged this level of success when we started. My dream was to be in a band and play at the Wacken Festival and release an album. We never ever thought we’d headline Wacken or tour with our childhood heroes, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, and the Scorpions. I don’t think our ambitions were that high at that point. If we could have played at Wacken, played five shows in Germany and made a record we would have been thrilled but to achieve what we have done is just incredible. We have surprisingly few regrets.
What are your plans for the rest of the year and when do you hope to start work on the follow up to The War To End All Wars?
We are heading off to the US now for six weeks to tour with Judas Priest and we will be sharing some more information before the end of the year which I think people will be surprised and happy with. Things have been moving along fast so there’s exciting times ahead.
Sabaton: The Tour To End All Tours is showing in cinemas across the UK on 11th October. To book tickets visit: https://sabaton.film
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