Turk Gitar: I want to say welcome first. It’s a pleasure to making a interview with you. I want to ask about your new album. What are your expectations?
ATG: Thank you! Nice talking to you. I’d say we’ve already fulfilled our biggest expectation. To write an album we would be proud of ourselves. Then of course we hope that people will appreciate it too.
Turk Gitar: You’re releasing a new album after 19 years. After reunion in 2007, why did you wait for a new album that long?
ATG: Everything happened little by little. First it was only gonna be a reunion/farewell tour during the summer of 2008. Then people kept asking for more shows and we felt that we neglected to play in a lot of places like Australia and South America for instance, so we decided to continue. Then one day, as Anders said, he woke up and wrote a song. When he presented it to us we all realised that this is way too good not to keep working on.
Turk Gitar: We heard many good things about your new album At War with Reality’s first single; At War with Reality. In Turkey, I read about the song keeps the “Slaughter of the Soul” spirit. What do you think about it? Is it all new or is it holding the legendary “Slaughter of the Soul” spirit?
ATG: We’re the same people who recorded SotS, so it’s bound to have similarities, but I think there are a lot of differences too.
Turk Gitar: I Want to ask about writing process.Your last album Slaughter of the Soul released 19 years ago and it was a long space and I believe that each one of you wrote personel material. Did you use them for writing new songs? How did go the shaping your new album process?
ATG: Anders is the musical mastermind. Jonas has brought in a lot of musical ideas too. The difference from 19 years ago is that you can make very detailed demos at home now. So Anders kept sending out demos that all of us commented on and then there were new versions and new versions until we were all satisfied. I don’t think any of the material is older than about a year.
Turk Gitar: You were young when you recorded your last album Slaughter of the Soul. And now you are more experienced and mature musicians. How did this situation effects At the Gates’ music?
ATG: That’s really hard to say. When you’re so totally focussed on something for such a long time you lose your distance to it. One thing that’s different is how we deal with differences of opinion. Before there could be fights about arrangements and such whereas now we can reason about it. We definitely still care just as much about the music it’s just that we’re better at listening to each other. I guess that’s maturity.
Turk Gitar: We know that the Swiss bands did amazing things at last 20 years. While this growing going on, we see At the Gates out of music. What kind of advantages (if it has:)) or disadvantages did this situation give you?
ATG: I’m guessing a little now, but we did two big support tours in the USA in ’96. It seems like some of the Americans who saw us then started their own bands somewhat influenced by us. Some of them became pretty big and when they dropped our name in interviews after we broke up a lot of people checked us out and that kept our name alive during our long absence. That’s a big advantage. Then all of us have kept busy with other bands in the interim, otherwise inactivity would have been a big disadvantage.
Turk Gitar: Turkey hosted some major fests in 2014 like Rock-Off, Metal Summer Fest, Hi-Voltage. You are going to play the first big show of 2015’s. What’s expecting us?
ATG: A band very much looking forward to playing our first show ever for the Turkish fans. You’ll get a good mix of old a new songs.
Turk Gitar: Thank you so much for asking our questions. See you in Istanbul!
ATG: Thank you for your time and support! Yeah, see you in Istanbul. We can’t wait!
