Pain

BraveWords Interview: PAIN – Designed To Piss You Off

By Carl Begai

Amongst metal’s heaviest, darkest and meanest diehards Peter Tägtgren is known first and foremost as the frontman and founder of Hypocrisy, then as a producer who has racked up time in his Abyss Studio since 1995 with seemingly every metal band under the sun. There’s no getting past the fact, however, that his greatest success to date is his mainstream-ish electro-industrial outfit Pain. Originally launched as a one-man pet project in 1997, Pain now boasts a real band line-up and eight albums in their catalogue with no brick walls to slow them down in sight. The newest outing, Coming Home, is distinctly Swede-powered Pain boasting its fair share of surprises, from releasing its sick-riff heaviest track (“Call Me”) as the lead single, to an unexpected guest vocalist, to some serious balladeering on the title track. And clean singing. Lots of it.

During the five year gap between You Only Live Twice (2011) and Coming Home, Pain did a decent amount of touring and Peter succeeded in blindsiding the metal community by teaming up with seemingly reclusive Rammstein frontman Till Lindemann. The duo released the Lindemann debut, Skills And Pills, backed by some huge label confidence and promotional firepower, guaranteeing that everyone heard about Lindemann whether they liked the Pain-Stein sound of the project or not.

“It was great, we had the time of our lives,” Peter laughs. “Just two idiots out in the world doing promotion and it was great. We had such a blast. It’s a memory for life. We started with one song and we all know how it ended. It was amazing. Till is fucked up which is why we fit together (laughs). There were no rules for anything when we made the album. It was all ‘follow your heart.'” Continue reading BraveWords Interview: PAIN – Designed To Piss You Off

BraveWords Interview: LINDEMANN – “Your Giant Boobs Are Just Wunderbar”

By Carl Begai

For non-German-speaking Rammstein fans that have wondered what frontman Till Lindemann has been singing about for the past 20 years, the Lindemann debut Skills In Pills will answer that question. May whatever deity you bow down to save your soul if you’re a prude.

It’s actually not as bad as all that provided your sense of humour is plugged in along with your earbuds. If you enter Skills In Pills expecting emotional depth and moral introspection you’re most certainly in the wrong place. There are a couple such moments, but you need to weed them out amongst done-for-fun tracks like “Praise Abort”, “Ladyboy”, “Golden Shower”, “Fish On”, “Skills In Pills” and “Fat” (which spawned the title of this story). Settling in to discuss the new record with Till Lindemann and Pain / Hypocrisy frontman Peter Tägtgren, it becomes clear within the first 30 seconds that the duo had a riot putting it together. The share a mutual respect as musicians and friends, and their chemistry is that of two high school punks up to no good and looking forward to the repercussions.

To be clear, Lindemann is not a solo project. Peter Tägtgren is an equal partner, but most folks outside of Scandinavia can’t pronounce his surname properly so the duo went with the next obvious choice.

BraveWords: For those that haven’t heard the Lindemann material yet, your sound is a mix between Rammstein and Pain, which should come as a surprise to exactly nobody.

Peter: “Oh yeah, it’s definitely a mix of the two.”

Till: “Call it PainStein-ish (laughs).”

Peter: “You’ll always hear Rammstein in there because of Till’s voice, and the keyboards and chugging guitars are definitely me. But, it was put together in a different way and I did things that I’ve never done before on this album. There are two ballads on the album, for example. At the beginning Till was talking about doing one and I was like, ‘No, I don’t want to do a fucking ballad…’ but somehow he convinced me (laughs). We were writing a piece and it turned into something else, so what we accomplished as the final album turned out to be very fresh.” Continue reading BraveWords Interview: LINDEMANN – “Your Giant Boobs Are Just Wunderbar”

BW&BK Interview: PAIN – Can You Feel It?

By Carl Begai

As first impressions go, the video for Pain’s new song ‘Dirty Woman’ is a sure sign that mastermind / Hypocrisy frontman Peter Tägtgren is still having a truckload of fun with his one time side project. Nothing says “devil-may-care” like a performance clip featuring well endowed women posing for the camera, with a drummer unleashing hell and violence on an uncooperative drum kit in the background. Flames included.

“That was my idea, actually,” laughs Tägtgren. “It was the first time I ever got involved in the concept for a video, which was really simple; a bunch of really cool guys playing the song, and then the shit hits the fan. And yeah, it was tempting to turn around to see what was going on when we were filming because all I heard was ‘Bam! Wham! Bang!’ and all kinds of shit going on behind me. I really like the end result.”

Pain’s new album, You Only Live Twice, finds Tägtgren picking up where the band’s previous record Cynic Paradise left off, but he’s twisted their trademark sound into something darker and heavier along the way. A calculated move, but when asked if the fans have become more critical or more accepting of his experiments with the Pain formula – an ongoing process since the band’s 1996 inception – Tägtgren admits he doesn’t have a clue.

“I don’t know. In the past people always said ‘Pain is just a side project…’ and they liked it for what it was. They didn’t care that I was in Hypocrisy, a lot of them didn’t even know Pain’s background; they just liked it for the music. The band’s following has been growing steadily, and I guess people are getting more picky about what we do (laughs).” Continue reading BW&BK Interview: PAIN – Can You Feel It?