Over more than 30 years, Swedish heroes Hammerfall have steadily but assuredly confirmed themselves as one of the most important bands in power metal history (even if they're not huge fans of the term themselves). With latest, bombastic album Avenge The Fallen dropping this month, we caught up with frontman Joacim Cans to talk about his career, some of the amazing artists he's worked with and why a Hammerfall/Bonnie Tyler collab needs to happen ASAP.
Growing up, you were part of Sweden’s junior swimming national team. Is there a parallel universe where you’re a pro athlete instead of a metal singer?
“I’ve thought about that sometimes, like, ‘What if...?’ I think I still have so much of that athlete in me. I can’t really do anything without it being a competition. I guess somewhere I’m doing great at the ‘parallel Olympics’. Not the Paralympics, that’s a different thing! Ha ha ha!”
In what ways are you still competitive?
“I’m a lead singer: I want to be at the front, I want to be number one! I was never a team player. I started out playing football and ice hockey, but I didn’t make it to playing games and I was only eight years old. I decided, ‘I don’t want to be dependent on anyone in the future!’ That’s why I started my swimming career and maybe that’s why I became a singer. If I have a bad day or sing out of tune, I can’t blame anybody else – except for the monitor tech. Ha ha ha!”
Is it true you studied music in Hollywood?
“That was the adventurous side of me. I didn’t have anything tying me down to Sweden at the age of 23. I wanted to give myself the chance to be the best I could be by going to Los Angeles. And I thought, ‘Whatever happens after this year in Los Angeles, I’ll always have this memory.’”
Why did you only stay in America for a year?
“Because I hated it! I felt that I was useless, not in school but outside of it. You went to [legendary LA bar] The Rainbow and met so many ‘talented’ musicians with so much going on: ‘We’re going on this tour and have this connection with this label. What do you have going on?’ 'Nothing!’ I didn’t have the cool style with the
big hair. Later I realised that, most people I met, they had the image down – now they only needed to learn how to play their instrument!”
Hammerfall played some shows in the States with Death in 1998. Was that a confusing bill?
“I don’t think anyone believed that a tour with death metal pioneers and an up-and-coming traditional metal band would work, but Chuck [Schuldiner, Death singer/guitarist] truly believed in it. Somehow, it did work, because I don’t think the Americans are as stuck on genre as we’ve been in Europe. In Europe, black metal bands do their own tours and you have festivals with black metal bands only, where you can’t read one name on the poster. Ha ha! In the US, the bills are more mixed up.”
You called Hammerfall a ‘traditional metal’ band. Do you not like the term ‘power metal’?
“The way I see it, ‘power metal’ is the American way of naming traditional heavy metal, especially if it’s not made in the 80s. We are as traditional as can be. I think heavy metal is enough, because within the boundaries of heavy metal, you can do so many things.”
One of the backing vocalists on your new album, Avenge The Fallen, is Armored Saint and former Anthrax frontman John Bush. Was getting him onboard a ‘pinch me’ moment?
“We’ve met so many times before, out on the road, and he’s always been such a nice guy. When our vocal producer, Jay Ruston, said, ‘I can ask him to come around,’ I thought it would be really cool! John wasn’t sure he could make it, but then he said, ‘I made sure I could do this, because I really wanted to be part of this.’ That felt good to us, because he wanted to be there. It wasn’t me sending him a hundred emails, bugging him and texting him.”
Who’s on the bucket list of singers to work with?
“I would like to do a karaoke duet with Bonnie Tyler! Ha ha ha! Total Eclipse Of The Heart is one of the best songs ever written. We did a TV show together in Sweden
way, way back. I got a hug and we talked for a while, but I never take selfies with singers I admire. I get too nervous!”
Avenge The Fallen is out now
