Run Level Zero

You have released two albums lately. First of the full length album 'Walk the psycho[path]' and now the MCD 'And Thus We Walked...'. Tell us more about these two releases and about all the work behind them.
- "With the full length album 'Walk The Psycho[path]' we wanted to try to use an extern producer and also develop our sound allot. Therefore we used some help from Kristian Petterson who have earlier worked with allot of bands within the genre. It was a challenge to work in that way and it actually could be to your advantage to not have total control of the result. On the MCD we used a number of producers and also remixes from other bands. 'And Thus We Walked...' includes three new tracks and five remixes. Because so many different people have worked with the tracks the sound becomes a little bit wider and not as linked as on the album, which of course not has to be anything negative."

What would you say are the differences between the debut album 'Symbol of Submission' and your latest album 'Walk the psycho[path]'?
- "It feels like the sound is a little more refining on 'Walk The Psycho[path]'. 'Symbol of Submission' was a little bit more unpolished in almost every aspect. You are still able to hear that it's Run Level Zero on the new album as well, but just a little bit different. Our next album will not sound like 'Walk The Psycho[path]' at all, but on the other hand there's no greater value in always making changes. To us it's something that comes quite natural."

What's the background to your lyrics and what do you want to present with them?
- "We don't want to present anything with our lyrics actually. I don't like dogma ? to write things in the face of people. The ones that listen to the lyrics have to come to their own conclusions of what I think and mean. Often the lyrics are about something that concerns me at the moment."

What do you guys listen to and what inspires you?
Hans: - "The things that inspire me to my lyrics are things I've experienced and what I see around me. Other things that inspire me are music, literature, poesy, movies and more. I listen allot to David Bowie, Leætherstrip, the classical Canadian industrial/EBM-acts and similar. Right now mostly playful electronica is in my stereo. "
Ville: - "I'm a restless information addict and it's really quite hard to define what I really like... but right now it's allot of Anglo-Saxon literature Korean film and new as well as old electronical music of the heavier kind."

You have recently been on tour around Europe (especially Germany) and have been on the road with Rotersand (D) and Assemblage 23 (US). Tell us more about this tour and please add some of the better and less good memories of the tour.
- "It's a very different and intense way to live - you can't not fully prepare in any way to spend three weeks together with 20 people in a tour bus that best could be described as a cottage on wheels. But it all went better than I expected, we got along with most of the others and had allot of great after parties on the tour bus with to much alcohol, Playstation 2 and DVD's. Of course some internal conflicts happen when you go on tour with people you never met before, but in the end all the bad memories are of things we couldn't do anything about. A fun but quite diffuse memory includes a muddy cornfield, crowns from Burger King made of paper and the expression "I am the King of Corn!!!"."

You have changed live crew every now and then, but Ville Hising has been around for quite some time now. Is he a band member now or do are you still in total control of Run Level Zero?
- "Yes, Ville Hising is a full member now and do allot of work apart from the live set. Further more we have our manager, Rikard Florin, which controls our website runlevelzero.com and the live drummer Ola Sundell."

How do you proceed when you choose who's going to remix you. Do you guys ask the artists, do the artists ask you or do you have small "competitions"?
- "On And Thus We Walked... which you could see as a remix album, we discussed and chose a couple of bands, musicians and DJ's that we wanted to work with and then we contacted them. When the remixes started to show up we new that we could not use them all, so we selected five of them which we though would fit in best in the context of the album. When we have recovered from the Christmas holidays we will put together a net release with the rest of the remixes. All you who have bought And Thus We Walked... will be able to download them as mp3 with cover and everything at our homepage."

I know that Interlace are very restricted about making remixes for other bands, did it surprise you that the wanted to do a remix of CNN of Worms?
- "Honestly - actually not, we have spent some time with the guys at different occasions and we are getting along just fine and we also are signed to the same label. But of course it was allot of fun that they wanted to do a remix of us, especially when it turned out to be a different and fresh version."

Your tour and release are all done, what happens now? Will it be some easy time ahead or is it right back in to the studio?
- "It's very unusual that we have a period not spending time in the studio... we have already started to think about the next release and we hope that we have a new album finished in the end of the year. Some tracks are already finished, so we'll see what happens."

What are your opinions about the Swedish EBM scene today? What highlights are there?
- "It's better now than it's been before - it seems like we Swedes like to do modern EBM and have some pretty strong connection with the roots in contrast to allot of bands that either look to much back or are to eager to "modernize" their sound and it only sounds like commercial techno in the end. Just take a look at our Swedish new hopes Interlace, Spetsnaz, 8kHz Mono and Necro Facility."

Any last words to our readers?
- "This have Ville's puppy Rudy (named after Rudy from Wumpscut) written. We leave the message open for interpretation and let this end this interview: - "z, 7777¨álk,.cåä¨äääá"

This interview was made 2005 and initially published on Neurozine.com