I spoke to Joel Fox Apelgren, bass player with Dynazty shotly before they performed on stage supporting Amaranthe at the Garage in London, and asked him about their new album and tour plans. As they were running late, we had to keep things very short.
Festivalphoto: Your new album, Sultans of sin has recently been released. Can you tell us a bit about the album?
Joel: It’s an album really in the same sort of style as we’ve done before but we wanted to give it a really modern edge so we implemented that in our writing, and also chose to work with Peter Tägtgren as a producer because he normally produces much heavier and more modern stuff so we thought that would be a really cool clash, and I think it turned out great.
Festivalphoto: Is the name inspired by Dire straits ?
Joel: Definitely, its a bit of a word play. I think ”Sultans of Swing” is a great song, it’s a bit of fun really, ”Sultans of sin”, yeah that’s cool.
Festivalphoto: That sounds like the sort of great idea you get after a few beers.
Joel: Yeah that’s how we work.
Festivalphoto: What’s the song writing process in the band – is it a collaborative thing or are there one or two main song writers?
Joel: We’ve done it a little differently for every album. This time we got together, all of us and pretty much worked 9 to 5 writing songs in the studio, at home, so someone comes up with an idea they have a riff or a chorus and we then all work on it together. We realised it works out a lot better when we all get our input because then everyones happy.
Festivalphoto: Apart from your Swedish tour dates with Sabaton, are there any more tours planned?
Joel: Yes we have one big tour coming up this fall but it’s not official till sometime next week, so I can’t say anything about it really. Keep an eye out, it’s not what you’re used to but it’s going to be pretty cool. Other than that we’re looking into getting a UK tour later this fall as a support but nothing is confirmed there either – but we’re definitely trying.
Festivalphoto: Tonight’s lineup is quite diverse – Dynazty, Amaranthe and Soen, all very different musically.
Joel: Definitely. I think it’s going to work fine because we are three very good bands, talented musicians, even though the styles are different. It’s going to be cool.
Festivalphoto: Which do you prefer and why – Vinyl, CD or legal mp3 downloads ?
Joel: Vinyl. I used to buy a lot of CD’s but for some reason stopped doing that. More and more albums were coming out on vinyl, and there’s itunes, but most of all I stream music from places like Spotify.
Festivalphoto: Vinyl has made a big comeback recently. We heard that CD’s were going to kill vinyl and mp3s will kill CD’s but Vinyl is still fighting back.
Joel: Yeah, we’ve got one album now, this one, Sultans of Sin, on vinyl – limited to 500 copies, so that’s really cool, to hold your own music on a piece of vinyl.
Festivalphoto: With vinyl the album art looks so much better too.
Joel: With CD’s being so small you can’t get a message from it, its just a small 10x10cm picture.
Festivalphoto: What was the last album you bought?
Joel: Hardcore Superstars, best of collection
Festivalphoto: OK thanks for your time, and I look forward to the show later.
