I have really not been a part of the Lake of Tears story since we played 70000 Tons of Metal in 2015 but I had a great time playing with the rest of the guys and we made an album together that I’m proud of.
Of course I think it’s sad that Johan and Daniel have parted ways, but combining having a band and a family at the same time is hard and family must come first at all times.
For me personally the most sad news that I can currently imagine… Only a real man like you can survive a Jamaican beach fully dressed in black with leather boots, you will manage this situation as well!
Well, I think it´s a very sad thing that it was no longer possible for me to be part of LoT. What happens in the future no one knows (except maybe Nostradamus or someone..) but the situation right now is that my family situation, with some very major problems concerning my son, just does not allow any time or energy to spend on anything but the family. What has become clear is a real "game changer" as the americans say. He has very special needs and, as I believe you would agree, family must come first.
A short interview with Johan, made especially for Russian underground magazine OR.
- Welcome! How is it going? How is the weather in Sweden, Forever Autumn?:)
- Thank you! It´s going ok, I guess. Although time has become an even bigger enemy now when there are two one year old kids to tend to… It is now the dark period, weather wise. The sun being up for only a couple of hours a day. But I guess it´s about the same in Russia?
- Summer-time fests, but somehow in 2015 LOT has not been seen in the posters of famous European open airs. You can tell out what are the reasons?
- Well, there are a few reasons for this. We have turned down all offers for shows lately. We want to try to focus on getting new material done because we think this is the most important thing right now. Also it seems LoT are back to consisting of me and Daniel, so that would make any live performance quite hard to do…
On the eve o
f the 20th anniversary of the album «Headstones», we decided to talk about the times of LAKE OF TEARS formation and the period when albums that have become classics were recorded with a member of the original cast of the group, ex-guitarist – Jonas Eriksson.
– You, Daniel and Mikael played in the band CARNAL ERUPTION. No information about this project is available. Please tell us what musical style it was.
– Well I’m not sure there’s very much to tell except from maybe that this became the seed of LAKE OF TEARS and this was also the first moment for some of us that we ever picked up an instrument. And everything that came from that and made our sound at the time 
I’m mean we even had our friends to come over to help us tune and stuff like that. But I would say it was from the beginning not so far from early sound of LAKE OF TEARS. Maybe a notch darker and heavier. Especially it was loud. Loudest in town.
– Was there a strong metal community in Borås in the early 90s?
– I think at this time it was pretty good actually. And I guess that’s a part of what helped us up and going. There was death metal bands like CEMETARY, EVOCATION, BESEECH and heavy metal band CRYSTAL EYES. And EVOCATION and CRYSTAL EYES still going strong.
– Did you use any materials made for CARNAL ERUPTION later in LAKE OF TEARS?
– To be honest I couldn’t say. Maybe some riffs or stuff like that.
– Album «Greater Art» was recorded in just two weeks. For a debut album it was sold quite well, but there were almost no concerts.
– I think we did a few gigs in Sweden, but not many. I guess that was the situation for us at the moment. It all went really quick for us. From when we started to play until we did our first demo it was like 9 months. And at once we got a record deal with Black Mark.
– The booklet of «Greater Art» says that all the guitars for the album were recorded by Daniel. You did not take part in the studio work, did you?
– At the moment I had an employment and I couldn’t get the time off basically.