At The Gates - Interview

What can you unveil about “At War With Reality,” namely about its main lyrical theme, and what inspired this astonishing comeback after 19 years?

Well, I guess it is a rather deep and dark record, and we tried to create a multi-layered and epic feeling with both the music and the lyrics. The lyrical inspiration was the magic realism novels by Spanish/ south American authors like Borges. This literary style fits perfectly with the mood of the music.

Who is “the enemy at the gates” in this war with reality?

I guess the perception of reality is the real enemy. With this record, we challenge the listeners to see beyond the everyday “truths” and “realities” and try to appreciate a new approach to death metal music.

Was Century Media the obvious choice when the time came to sign with a label?

Yes, we are really good friends with them, and they have helped us out a lot since 2004 when we did rEVOLVEr with The Haunted.

You guys were pioneers of the “Gothenburg-style” melodic death metal sound, and even if you had a long hiatus with At The Gates, you were still deeply involved in the metal scene. What´s the “status” of the metal scene back home?

I have no idea about the metal scene in Gothenburg right now, but I know there are a lot of underground metal acts popping up all over Sweden like Tribulation, Miasmal, Morbus Chron.

In 19 years, much has changed in the music business, so we have a couple of questions about that. Can you tell us about the main differences between writing and recording a 90s masterpiece like Slaughter of the Soul compared to XXI century opus like At war with Reality?

AWWR was written using Cubase mostly, we were sending song demos around on the Internet, so a big difference this time was that we didn’t rehearse as much together like we used to do.

I think multitrack recording software is a really good tool for us nowadays when we live so far apart from each other.

In terms of music production, do you think that the changes were really for the best or, as they say in the latest South Park episode, now it’s all on “Auto-Tune”?

We still record everything as we used to do, so no cheating for ATG. /Apple so-called “revolution” in record release, we heard a lot of critics from musicians and Bono was calling them “hatters”? What do you think will be the future in music releases?

I think there will be a big increase in streaming music.

With the upcoming release of AWWR, every single fan here in Portugal is eager for a concert on Portuguese shores? Any contacts from Portuguese promoters? Would you visit us if the opportunity rose?

We are talking to promoters right now, and hopefully, we will have some shows there soon.

If I asked you to change roles and make yourself a question (that nobody has asked yet), what would it be, and would you be so kind as to answer it?

Do you enjoy questions like this one? Yes, I do :D

Finally, would you like to leave a message to all the Portuguese fans out there?

Please check out our new album, we are really proud of it — and hopefully, you will enjoy it too.

Rui Carneiro is a teacher and life-coach specialized in strategic communication and self-development. Before his experience in Project Management for The European Commission, he was a decorated Army Sergeant.

Rui is a senior partner of Rock n’Heavy and a graduate of the University of Porto, Faculty of Letters.

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