His rich baritone glides through air, even when speaking. Dark Tranquillity doesn’t merely speak – it roars. Originally called Septic Broiler, Dark Tranquillity pioneered the mid-‘90s Gothenburg sound. A sound that Mikael, along with lifetime friend Niklas Sundin helped create. It seized upon the heat and fire of death metal, tempering it with classic twin-guitar harmonies, acoustic flourishes and singing. Clean, classically-trained singing.
Alongside fellow Swedes At The Gates and In Flames, their melodic death metal stands like a proud pillar of heavy metal. Proving so popular, it’s unsurprising 2014 notches up Dark Tranquillity’s quarter century. “I get a little stab of anxiety,” Stanne ventures on being in the band for so long. “Actually, it doesn’t feel like 25 years at all. It’s something that I’ve been doing for more than half my life. I can’t do anything else.”
Mikael was 14 when he founded the band, as a guitarist. He then filled Anders Friden’s, now of In Flames, left-open vocal spot in 1994. “It immediately became like the most important thing in the world, like there was nothing else,” Stanne recalls. “We grew up together. We lived on the same street. We discovered metal music together. We listened to the same albums. We copied each other’s CDs, vinyl, cassettes. Went to the same shows. The fact that it’s been 25 years, it’s just been incredible.”
Mikael’s has known a life on the road from an age that’s used to riding bikes to school.
“The fact is we have to travel,” Stanne says, chewing it over. “We have met so many awesome people, seen so many great things, travelled the world, and even had opportunities to relax. It’s the best thing in the world. We’re lucky that we can still do this. We feel very thankful to the people who still support us, come out to our shows, and buy our records and all that.”
When Mikael says records, he means records. Vinyl records. Despite the band blooming as vinyl’s years as a staple tailed off, they demanded releases on wax. Throughout their career, their albums arrived in an array of colourful and enticing formats. One such extravagance is their live album, Where Death is Most Alive, a whopping 180g 3LP set. True to form, they issued a new 7-inch for sale exclusively at their North American shows.
“I’d love to go record shopping on this tour but I can’t really do that,” he says, crestfallen. “Our 7-inch was supposed to arrive today…” he excuses himself for a moment. “Hey! I’m holding it right now,” he gushes, like a father with his newborn. “It’s red and splattered…it feels good to hold it in my hands. I’m kind of sad for people like who never even bought CDs. Now they’re just losing out. [Buying records is] a form of pride as well. I like to show off my album collection at home to my friends.”
Metalheads hoarding rare collectibles feels kindred with geekdom-at-large. Mikael is no stranger to all things nerdy. “Oh, we’re huge Star Trek fans,” Mikael confesses. “Very much so, all of us.” His favourite series is The Next Generation, by the way. “I think metal is something a lot of people are really passionate about so they get obsessive about it,” Stanne points out. “We do these meet and greets every day and the people who come have really interesting questions that sometimes we can’t even answer. We’re like, ‘What? what? No, I don’t remember that!’ They’re really, really passionate about us. I love that.”
BY TOM VALCANIS
