A Gated Hell

"The first time we came back it was like 'Let's do everything now and that's it',” says Lindberg of his band's original, and supposedly limited, reformation in 2008. The highly prolific, 40-year-old screamer is on a break from teaching English to Swedes just a quarter of his age – worlds away from his band's original split in 1996. “At the same time, we said that we were going to try to come to all the places that wanted to see At The Gates again, and especially the places that we never went to back in the day. The summer of 2008... we were a bit too naïve in the way of how many people actually wanted to see us. The Haunted released a new record in 2008,” he says referring to the post-At The Gates band of guitar brothers Anders and Jonas Björler, “and Disfear, my band, released a new record in 2008. Both these bands were touring at the same time, so it was impossible to cover all the places in one summer basically.

“When the different offers came mounting up in 2010, 2011, we were like, 'We have to try and do all of these places'. Now with South America and Australia soon to be done, we'll see what happens after that. No more promises, 'This is the last show,' stuff like that, because you never know really. All of a sudden maybe like Nigeria wants us or something, and who's going to say no to that?”

The legacy created by the band's fourth and final full-length, Slaughter of The Soul, was driven by a slow-burning phenomenon that saw the group's influence on modern metal staggered throughout the years since its release in 1995. Released amidst the hype of Pantera and the height of nu-metal, the band's melodic take on the aggressive Swedish death metal sound was somewhat missed by Western metal trends right up until the early 2000s when metalcore exploded, and all of a sudden At The Gates was an influence for everyone. While polite and understated, Lindberg is obviously appreciative of his band's eventual recognition and subsequent god-like status, and earlier this year visited South America for the first time ever thanks to the will of so many metalheads eager to witness the band.

“We went to Venezuela, which was a very different country; we went to Costa Rica, and we are trying to plan together some sort of Asian trip for next year. This is not official yet. There are a lot of places that are very exciting to go to, but is it possible? Like in Eastern Europe, where the political climate is not really up-to-date maybe, but we'll have to see. We really want to go to as many different places as possible. We went in 1996, we actually went to Yugoslavia right after the war when they had divided the country into all these different parts, we played a show in every part. It was still basically at war. We'd never really been so afraid of that – the people are still there, the people who are our fans.”

The mentioning of war has one wondering, has At The Gates ever faced any life-threatening situations on tour before? “We've been stopped a million times at borders by people with machine guns and stuff like that. They can be pretty rough if they suspect that you have bombs on you. I've been to Israel a couple of times, and me being a metalhead and into hardcore and punk rock; if you live in Israel and you're a hardcore punk, you're anti-government, and if you're anti-government in Israel, that means you're pro-Palestine. I ended up with all these records, books and fliers from bands, and trying to bring those home, and they are in Hebrew, and they had these anti-Israel statements, so then going through customs I was a little bit scared.”

And how does it feel to still be singing songs written mostly over 15 years ago? “That's what's special with playing these old songs – I think they have all come to life in a different way again. Into another level. Especially the really old songs, maybe the recordings are a bit like – they are not flawless. They have ups and downs in tempos, but now we can play them better and they come to a different level. I think they all have a different life, a different persona.

“I think I came into being myself during those years, very much. All my political and philosophical views are based on the knowledge I gained during those years. Of course I developed, but my standpoint is still the same. That's why all these songs are still me, and are still very accurate to where I am as a person still, which is quite fun actually because they are so old. When we did one reunion show with my older band, Grotesque, when they released the Swedish Death Metal book here for the first time, and that was a more Satanic black metal/death metal kind of thing, but that was a bit more hard to go into. Even if I am still proud of what we did with that band, it's still further away from where I am today. But At The Gates is very much who I am and I stand by every word.”

Various statements from band members and just straight-up rumours regarding new recording plans have been circulating since the band's re-formation, despite their original intent being to never record new music. Most recently there has been talk of a new EP of cover songs. “Well basically, all these recording plans... it goes up and down with what we want to do with that. Basically we kind of agreed lately that we shouldn't talk too much about it in public, because one day we're like, 'Let's do a new album,' and then the next day it's like, 'Let's record one new song and put it online for free,' then next time it's, 'Let's record some cover songs'. We want to have as much fun as possible – we really enjoy the time we spend together. Right now we are really the best of friends. We were good friends back in the day too, but we are old enough to cherish the moment, and we want the moment to continue and feel for it. So times change back and forth, and I can't really comment on the situation right now with where we are. It's a positive vibe and I hope that something will come out of it – not old shows, but something that will last.”

So far this year The Haunted has seen three members quit the group, leaving only Anders Björler and rhythm guitarist Patrick Jensen in the band. With this, and the response to The Haunted's last album in mind, perhaps the time is right for At The Gates to make their fully fledged return to the studio? Time will tell.

At The Gates will be playing the following shows: