Interview: Daniel Gildenlow (PAIN OF SALVATION)

Thank you for the chance to make this interview and welcome back to Bulgaria. It's been like 13 years from last time. Why is that?

Yeah, we realized it's been a while. We just accept gigs and never think much about it. The years go by so fast, right? I guess, we had no idea it was such a long time ago until we sat down and were like “Oh my God, this was not yesterday?!” (laughs)

Now since you are in this venue, can we expect something special? Something a little bit “out of scale”? I mean, it won't be a regular show, come on.

No, of course. I mean, we never do regular shows. Every show will be different. We don't have any specific technics or whatever for this show, but just this backdrop and this venue will certainly affect us on stage and hopefully the guys in the audience. It's a wonderful place, really. I'm sending home pictures all the time and they say like “Wow, such a nice place!”

Daniel Gildenlow Live in Plovdiv 2024

Okay, so we did an interview with you 13 years ago when you were here in Bulgaria (Read here). This might sound like an ambitious question, but what has changed over the last 13 years for you, for the band?

At the moment the lineup feels so nice. We just make great gigs right now. Even when we suck, we are better than everyone else (laughs). Yeah, I know it's a bit provocative, but it just feels really, really good. We are very tightly-knitted together right now, in a way that I've been missing for a long time.

It's not easy. We have a keyboard player that lives in America. It's not next door so it's a bit complicated from that point of view, but everything is working out really nicely. Personally, I feel… I know this may come off as weird, but when you're younger you're waiting for that big break somehow. You're thinking that just around the next corner maybe something will happen and you just have to go on… I don't have those ambitions anymore, which feels nice. I just enjoy playing.

When do you think that clicked for you?

I guess it's an age thing. You have your family. Your kids grow up. We have our youngest son with autism and Down syndrome and our life is just so complicated every day. That really helps you come to a point where you go like “I'm not making plans. There is no point.”. Whatever happens today will be something that might be entirely different from tomorrow. Every day is just what it is and you enjoy whatever you can enjoy, as soon as it happens. Yeah, it sounds just like an old cliché but you never know what’s going to happen.

I am also a father and I can relate.

Yeah, your priorities shift…

But you are in good shape! You don’t have that “dad bod” (laughs).

Well, I was way more in shape a few years back. I guess I’m one of those dads that haven't realized that I should just give up everything (laughs).

So that kind of leads to my next question. It is something that I personally struggled with a lot. How does music go along with fatherhood or that of being a parent? We know that being a musician is far from being practical in a way. However, being a father requires you to be practical for a lot of stuff.

We have an album that's basically been done for three years and I can't get into the studio and finish it. Being a father is definitely part of that. In the past, I would be struggling to meet deadlines or whatever. I would feel stressed out and I would be like “God, I need to finish the album.”. Now, I’m more like “There's an album in there. I'll finish it another day. I need to do this now”. So that’s it. For good or bad. For me it's good, for the fans - not so good, I think.

Yeah, they have to wait a bit longer than they want.

They would say “What's happening with the album?” and I will be “Nothing. Really, nothing.” (laughs)

Daniel Gildenlow Live in Sofia 2011

But that is also a question – how ready is the album? Any percentage?

95%, but it has been like that for 3 years (laughs). The thing is, I built a studio in my home because I realized I could never get away properly. But it's the same thing now - if I have two hours there's no point in going into the studio for just two hours. I can't get anything done. Then, at 12 o'clock midnight I could go in, but then I will be there the entire night.

And you will regret it tomorrow.

Yeah, because I need to work tomorrow. I'm a guitar teacher. So, it has a tendency of always being pushed back, you know, to be postponed.

There's never the perfect moment.

Exactly, yeah. It's just a lot of bad, small moments (laughs).

Daniel Gildenlow Live in Plovdiv 2024

You still manage somehow, which is really, really impressive. I know when my child was born, I kind of set everything else aside…

For a lot of the lineup changes in the band It's been because people get married or you know, they have kids. And that works for the first year, the second… but the third or fourth year - that's when there is a risk of things falling apart. You need to be one of those guys who are just a musician by heart. It's not a choice. Those people will stay in the band. Just like me, you go like “Well, it doesn't matter. I can stop making music, but all of the drawbacks of me being a musician will still be there. I will still be occupied in my head.”

It was 13 years since you were here (Live report) (Gallery) , I think it was about the time when “Road Salt” came out. There was this change. I would describe it as kind of a shift in what Pain of Salvation does, musically. The music became less produced in a way. It is now more raw sounding, more “in your face”. The lyrics are also much more direct, sometimes even cynical, I might say. Was this a thoughtful decision or it was how you felt at the time?

For every album, I've been trying to find new ways of approaching the production, new ways of actually making the album. For “Road Salt”, I was so sick of… I think the biggest change has been, because of the industry in general or like the music style in general. We started with making what was called progressive metal. It was progressive. It was something new. After a few years, they just started repeating themselves, and I hated that. I've been changing my music direction ever since I was 11. All the time I did whatever I want to do. It just happened that the first albums caught that specific era…

Of progressive metal?

Yeah, and back then, progressive was progressive. Then very quickly it just stagnated into a sort of recipe style for how you're supposed to play music, which was never anything that interested me. Just like finding one music style and continue doing that. I guess, from that point of view, I feel that we've just stayed progressive in a way. We just kept on going where they stopped.

It's like they tried to put progressive music in some borders, but it's meant to evolve and change.

Yeah, that was what I thought when we were jumping on that train. I figured that was the cool thing. When you heard the progressive metal back then, it was like nothing you heard before. That was the point. That was what I liked with it. And then after three years, four years, everything just sounded the same. You’re like “Oh, I’ve heard this now. This train is not going anywhere. What's happening?”. With the “Road Salt” albums, as you mentioned, that was more of a decision that I think came out of frustration with the music industry at that point or the bands that were especially in our music style. Everything started to sound very polished and very structured. They were trying to obtain some sort of perfection musically and production-wise. And for me, that is never perfection. It becomes something that is dead.

It's like pop music. Recently, I find myself listening to more and more pop music, because it sounds way more unique and interesting than some of the metal stuff that is coming out. It's really, really ironic (laughs).

I went into Rock & Roll and Hard Rock when I was a kid, because it was something that felt like it was going against the grain. It felt like it was trying something and it wanted something. And then, very quickly it turned into just not that... So, I've been constantly trying to find music that has that sort of restless feeling, which was the feeling that drew me to that kind of music when I was, like 9 and 10 years old. Music that would make you feel restless and that would want to make you feel like someone wanted to change something and do something. But that happened to be the music of that era. Like, had I been born 10 or 20 years earlier, I might have been punk or disco. What do I know?

Daniel Gildenlow Live in Sofia 2011

But you did disco (Disco Queen from Scarsick)! Recently, I thought that there's practically no music style that you haven't done in a way, or pass through it…

It’s curiosity, like if you think of “The Beatles”. When “The Beatles” are interesting, it's just “The Beatles” failing to do other music styles that they're attracted to. And that turns into something new, because it's a different setting. It’s like if they want to do ragtime music in their setting, it's not going to sound like ragtime, but it's just going to sound like a weird thing happening that is reminiscent of ragtime in certain aspects. So, I think that curiosity is always important, but as I said, also some sort of honesty. Not specifically by us or by me, but I wish this music was made. I wish this music was out there to be heard, whatever it is. Let's just like put it out there. If no one else does it, then we'll do it.

So, talking again about the music style a bit more. Recently it is more riff-oriented in a way. Specifically, the last two albums have this “djenty” feeling with riffs that are very syncopated over a typical maybe 4/4 signature, but not always. Is this something that comes naturally or did you specifically target this kind of sound?

Well, it's their fault, really (laughs). We’ve done that since the first album. I like rhythms. I can't get away from the fact. For “In the Passing Light of Day”, songs that are written with me playing the drums will have that vibe. So, for almost all of the songs in that album I would be playing the drums while making the songs, except for the ones that were already done. It's the same thing with the first and especially the second album. I was behind the drums a lot for the creative part of it. I just love that… Apart from “Restless Boy” that I actually did on the toilet (laughs). I was reading a magazine, and then I did this *rubs his leg with the palm of his hand*. So, the hi-hat should really have this sort of sound (laughs).

Daniel Gildenlow Live in Plovdiv 2024

Before we wrap it up, I wanted to ask a final question. Two years ago, COVID changed the game a lot for musicians. People don't actually realize how expensive it is for a band to go on tour nowadays. What do you think? You know, the prices are going up. Even the merchandise is expensive. This kind of puts a question mark for live shows in general…

I've been…and probably still am in a bit of a depression from the entire pandemic. Not because of all the people who died. I mean, that was sad too, but… *looks towards the other members*. No one laughs? The thing is, with the pandemic I had this feeling that up until that point, whenever something really problematic would happen all of those “idiot” differences that we as a species are maintaining - we would put those aside. We would come together and really be that brotherhood of mankind. But that never happened. It was terrible. I think we failed the test so miserably that it really put me in a very laconic state of mind.

And then, after the pandemic wore off, we were supposed to go on tour again. The band structure just fell apart because all of our crew had started doing other stuff. I mean, for us as musicians it was bad enough. Our industry died, but I could still sit at home and make music. We had an album basically done (Panther). It was a bit problematic to actually make the final production of it. We had to do it over the phone, which is a weird way of producing an album. But apart from that, we could still maintain some sort of activity and get the album out. As for the crew, their industry just went from 100 to 0 instantly. There was no touring. They had nothing to do. So, they started like driving medical equipment and stuff from the hospital or to film MMA movies (laughs). Weird stuff... And then we had people, both in the crew and in the band who, just as we mentioned earlier, started building houses, getting kids, changing jobs, starting to study to get another job…

When we got back on track after the pandemic, we did not get back on track. We were just trying to patch it together quickly to be able to do something. We had a tour planned and contracted for the US, and everything just fell apart. Just two days before the visas were supposed to be applied for, our keyboard player finally said “You know, this is not fitting my life puzzle right now”. I mean really? I told you about my situation. I haven't seen the puzzle for a decade (laughs). I have some bits and pieces just scattered everywhere. “You talk about life puzzle? Come on, seriously!”. So that was a bit of a drag. It was not the most fun tour that I've ever done - to put it mildly. I was really happy that we did it. We did a very good tour, but it was with a lot of feeling of loss and sort of uncertainty. We carried that feeling with us through the tour, because I really didn't know what was going to happen after that. We had Vic coming in and he was doing great delivery - like a champ, really. But we had no bass player and we didn't have any proper crew anymore. We didn't have our guitar tech that we'd had with us for a long, long time. After this tour I really didn’t know. Is this the band now? What do we tell Vic after this tour? It's like, “You're welcome in the band and by the way, we don't know what we are anymore”. That's the problem with all the lineup changes, but coming out of the pandemic already, of course you will stop and think “Is this worth it?”. Because honestly, I had a brilliant time with my family during the pandemic. There are so many jobs I could have if it's just about the money. If this is not fun; if this is just hard work and feeling anxiety when we're going on stage, because you don’t know; because you haven't had proper rehearsals for two years… I want it to be fun, and I want it to feel for real. So, it took a while and we had some discussions because basically, at that point we were three guys. We had been a five-piece band with a three-to-four-piece crew and all of a sudden, we’re three guys - with kids, with lives, with jobs. And we're pushing 50, or in my case, sort of having pushed 50 over the edge (laughs). So obviously, I mean, who would not stop to consider? What are we doing here? What is the plan from here on? Obviously, we're never going to be AC/DC. Let's face it - that's not the music style, that's not the decisions we've made, that's not who we ever wanted to be.

Even the logo is different (laughs).

Yeah, the logo is different and the band name (laughs)… So again, we haven't been looking for a bass player for the same reason. Do we want to bring someone into this? If we want to bring someone in, I would be happy if it is someone who's actually been in the band before. Someone who is not blue-eyed thinking like “Yeah, I'm gonna join Pain of Salvation! I'm gonna be rich! I’m gonna be famous!” (laughs). You know, that 11-year-old in me never wants to give up. Whenever an 11-year-old asks me like “Will we be really world famous at some point?”, I'm like “Yeah, sure. Absolutely!” (laughs)

So right now, for the for the last gigs we've done, it really feels like we're a proper band again. We still don't have a proper crew. Yeah, we have sound and light, but we’re building it together again. It is a family, and you need that family to be a family, otherwise it's just going to be a bunch of people trying to make good shows. That's not what I want…

Pain Of Salvation live in Plovdiv 2024

Yeah, that's also very difficult for me. How do people nowadays get this “band feeling” again? It's really difficult to get it, because people are now sort of scattered all over the place and getting them into this is hard…

Exactly, but you know what I found? When I started being a guitar teacher, I get a lot of that feeling again because I play with kids. They're still young and energetic so all of a sudden you have that again. You have kids coming in that have different ideas. They have different things they want to do and you end up being in the school orchestra, you know, helping out. You play all these different music styles and get to play so much…

Definitely. I now play with my son. He is learning drums and I get to finally have someone to play with. We can just go along and not be too pretentious (laughs).

Yeah, at the school I work with they have several concerts every year for different reasons. Sometimes it's all of the vocal students who want to have a concert. So, every time they need some sort of band just to play the music, I always volunteer. A lot of the people who were working there for a long time say “Oh, this is extra work…”, but I think it’s fun. It's fun to play, you know. Music is fun, music is wonderful.

This will be my key takeaway - that music is fun.

Yeah, it should be. If it's not, then there's no point, right? It doesn't have to be fun, like laughing fun, but meaningful. There's got to be a level of meaningfulness, or else I'd rather do something else. I went into this, let’s call it “job” (laughs), and was the least practical thing you could do. Definitely, when I was 11 years old, already at that point, I decided for myself that I'm going to do this. It's not practical. Chances are really slim of any success whatsoever, but this feels meaningful. This feels like something I want to do, and if I don't have that feeling, I'd rather not do it. I wish more people actually had that. There's so many people doing shitty stuff on an everyday basis, like producing shitty plastic things that no one will appreciate. I wish that they would just quit. Do something meaningful, like whatever is better.

True…

So just, quit your jobs! (laughs)

Do meaningful stuff! (laughs). Well then, thank you very much for this interview.

Of course. Thank you too.

Author: Yannis Petras
Photos: Nikola Petras
August 2024