“I think of bands being true as opposed to do things just for the almighty dollar.”

An honest and friendly conversation with Jacob Molbjerg - guitarist of the mighty Danish metal gang Mercenary - about the band’s new full-length studio album, “Architect of Lies”...

Vassil Varbanov: Jacob, hello, how are you?

Jacob Molbjerg: I’m pretty good, thanks.

V. V.: Good, so obviously we know that the reason we have you with us today is this forthcoming album of yours, “Architect of Lies”, but besides that, what are you up to right now?

J. M.: Oh, we just finished shooting a video this weekend, and last weekend we did a couple of shows with the almighty Megadeth, so things are pretty busy and pretty good here in the Mercenary camp.

V. V.: Ok, there are 10 new tracks on this new record. Which one was filmed for the video?

J. M.: It’s track number 5, called “Isolation”.

V. V.: “The Lonelinesss in December”…

J. M.: Yeah, “The Lonelinesss in December”, that’s right.

V. V.: OK, so again, this album is like with a new guy in the band…

J. M.: Mhm…

V. V.: Where did you find him?

J. M.: He was playing with a local band as a singer and we actually didn’t know that he could also play bass and guitars, and we wanted a guy who can do both, so we didn’t approach him first. But when we heard he can also play string instruments, we called him out for a rehearsal and tried him out and it just clicked very well. He knew a lot of the songs and lyrics. He’s an old fan, so it was really cool.

V. V.: What happened to the guy that played before him?

J. M.: Oh, he couldn’t really find the time and dedication anymore, because he wanted to spend more time with his family… I mean, when you are playing in a rock band you never know when the next cheque is coming into your mailbox... Things can be a bit hectic sometimes.

V. V.: Yeah, but this is something you all are looking for while being in a rock’n’roll band, right?

J. M.: Yeah, of course, we love it, but it’s something you have to enjoy 100%, otherwise you just end up being worn-out and that happens to some guys, I guess.

V. V.: We know all the attempts people try to categorize and label your band, but if you ask me, I would call you simply a thrash metal band. Would you agree with that?

J. M.: Yes and no. We’re not exactly thrash metal, but I think there’s a lot of death and thrash in our music. It fits quite well. However, we also have keyboards and clean singing - these are elements you don’t usually find, but I don’t have a problem with whatever people call us as long as they don’t call us power metal. I really don’t like that.

V. V.: OK, brother.

J. M.: Huh-huh…

V. V.: There is also something like a touch of progressive in your music. If we say that you have some progressive elements in your music, to what extent is this new album a progression of new ideas if you compare it to the previous one, “The Hours That Remain”?

J. M.: Well, this album is a bit more straightforward, whereas the last one was more technical, progressive and experimental. We made it very clear as a working guideline from the beginning that we wanted to make a more straightforward album - an album that can just rock your socks off! We tried not to have much technical stuff going, so I think that’s the big difference with the last album.

V. V.: In lots of places in the world, especially in the USA, we have this huge thrash revival in Bay Area with the new albums of Exodus and Death Angel. We can see that thrash is getting really trendy in the UK with several new bands, too. What is the feeling in Denmark? Is thrash getting big again or it has never been?

J. M.: Well, the scene in Denmark is not very big, so it’s hard to speak about any movements. Of course we have Hatesphere - a very strong band that has big success. And recently we also have the band Raunchy - they are very thrashy, so I guess we have had our own thrash thing going on for the last couple of years, but if there will be more, I can’t tell.

V. V.: Yeah, but you know, these are the bands and not necessarily the whole atmosphere like media, fanzines, fans themselves. Or we can say that people in Denmark listen to thrash again? I mean, it’s a global event to a certain extent, because today, when everything is so global, you can’t say it’s a local magazine and the people in that particular town don’t use Internet or don’t read and see what is going on. This is something that stays in the past. But you can have like, this feeling, that is why we ask you. You can go to clubs and see what is trendy - not in the bad sense of the word “trendy”.

J. M.: I don’t think there’s anything like public or a particular movement in the scene like thrash, not in Denmark… I don’t think so… It’s just a few bands might do the thrash movement here and of course people like them, because they are good bands, but it’s not a movement.

V. V.: You have something like more than a month until this album is going to be released basically. What are you going to do? Promo activities for a whole fucking month?

J. M.: We are actually going to rehearse. We’ve got to be able to play this album live, you know, with all the kind of small details and new stuff you think out in the studio. You always make changes in the last moment, so we’ve got to get the whole of it after having a break just recently. We also have a couple of shows with Megadeth - two more in Germany. We just did the video that’s going to be edited and we have to prove that. And it’s a whole fucking mess, you know, promotion stuff, interviews like this one… And we will be preparing a release show. In Denmark we will have a really big production with fantastic lights and so on. We will make sure that we will do something more special… So that’s what we probably will be doing.

V. V.: It’s interesting to see that basically you’ve chose the longest track on the album for a video. Does it make it more expensive?

J. M.: Ah, no, not at all. It’s not a very big or expansive production, because it’s really hard to get any airplay anywhere. We are lucky because we got like a break in Denmark - the last time we did a video it got played in a teenage pop program, which was pretty surprising and really cool. Apart from that, it seems like there’s not really a lot of metal TV shows anywhere in Europe. I don’t think I have heard of such or it’s just because that information doesn’t’ reach me…

V. V.: You guys in Denmark are flooded with the same shit like everywhere in Europe, I mean shows like “Music Idol” and blah0blah…

J. M.: Yeah, absolutely. I don’t watch TV, but from what people are talking about I know what’s going on.

V. V.: You mentioned shows with Megadeth. How were they?

J. M.: It was like a dream come true actually. Us, being fans 12 years old or so… It was terrifying. And the band, the guys, the crew - they were so professional and super nice. It was really cool. Sometimes you go out and you meet some bands that are not really big but are total assholes and their tour managers are pricks… But here everybody was just cool.

V. V.: So, they didn’t treat you bad? No limitations of sound and light and everything?

J. M.: A little bit, but there was a reason for that. We were the support band after all.

V. V.: Last time we spoke to Dave Mustaine was something like four or five weeks ago and he was very much impressed by this Led Zeppelin reunion. He was there at the venue in London. It seems that this big and obviously important reunion of this legendary band is getting to be very trendy nowadays. Even the latest album of a very distant to that kind of culture artist like Lenny Kravitz is strongly influenced by Led Zeppelin. To what extent do you find Led Zeppelin to be in your own roots as a musician?

J. M.: Not at all. I grew up listening not even to Black Sabbath and Deep Purple. I started off with Iron Maiden and then went to thrash stuff like Megadeth, Metallica and so on, so I’ve never really been a big fan of the 70’s. For me it’s all about the 80’s and the 90’s.

V. V.: That’s because you’re younger

J. M.: Yeah. of course. Some people at my age love the 70’s, but I have never had any relationship with the music of that decade.

V. V.: Before getting back to your band, one more question concerning this whole rock’n’roll/metal atmosphere in the world. It’s been said a lot about really big bands. You just mentioned Metallica as really a monster. When do you see the limit, the border when a band stops to be real, because basically we know that part of the American dream has always been to get as much money as possible and there’s nothing bad about it, but when we go to a Metallica show, people obviously scream and shout to get old songs, old stuff, back from ‘86 and ’88. I have never seen a fan on a Metallica concert to scream for songs from “St. Anger” or “Load” and “Re-Load”. Where do you see the boarder?

J. M.: For bands being true as opposed to do things just for the almighty dollar… I think when you are in a band like Metallica you obviously owe your success to the fans who’ve been loyal and true for many, many years and you made a living out of these fans’ dedication.  So, I mean you, obviously owe it to people to play old material and I have always thought that Metallica were very cool, because they did that. They always played a lot of old songs, not like Iron maiden who went out playing the entire new album on that tour.  I mean, I can understand why a band would do that, but I think it’s a bit selfish to do that. On the other hand being in a band like this means you’re doing this for your own sake. I mean you can easily become a sell-out. But if you want to be true to yourself, then you just can’t have only the criteria to please the fans, because then eventually you lose something from yourself. I mean I don’t want to play songs from 1998 to 2002 only, because we need to promote this new album and move the band onto a higher level. So, you have to stay true to your fans, but also to yourself, and you know, sometimes you let some fans down, but you know, you can’t please them all…

V. V.: For sure. And there’s no need to please every fuckin’ motherfucker on this earth. Let’s go back to Mercenary. You mentioned that playing with Megadeth was like a dream come true, but what are your dreams for you and your band mates to happen until the end of 2008?

J. M.: We actually have a lot of plans. We have a tour with Death Angel in April. We will be their main support for their European tour and that’s perfect, because we will go and promote our album right after its release. In a perfect world we will also get like tons of festivals. Right now we have a few very cool ones like Wacken and so on. And then in September we will be doing a Danish tour, the Headbanger’s Ball Tour, which we will headline. So for the rest of the year we will probably be on another European tour - perhaps as a headliner or co-headliner. In my perfect world we’ll get an opening slot for In Flames, which will be a really cool tour. You know, this would be my perfect scenario for this year and I will be really pleased and happy.

Copyright: Tangra Mega Rock