{"id":14804,"date":"2015-05-18T01:00:17","date_gmt":"2015-05-18T05:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southeastofheaven.com\/?p=14804"},"modified":"2015-05-18T10:03:00","modified_gmt":"2015-05-18T14:03:00","slug":"content-needed-blowin-wind-with-graveyards-jonatan-ramm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/?p=14804","title":{"rendered":"Blowin&#8217; Wind with Graveyard&#8217;s Jonatan Ramm: &#8220;I\u2019m like an old man.  Of course I like to see what\u2019s new and stuff but I pretty much like a lot of old music.&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"irc_mi\" class=\" alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/www.underground-empire.com\/img\/oe48\/interviews\/graveyard_s_p03_max.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"248\" height=\"400\" \/><strong>If you have been reading this blog for a while, you already know how I feel about Graveyard. In my opinion, Graveyard leads the pack when it comes to this renaissance that the classic psychedelic rock scene has been experiencing and I honestly believe that nobody does it better. Graveyard has released three of the most consistently stellar hard rock albums of the last 20 years and the band continues to grow, winning over audiences the world over and with every visit they conquer the US leaving a trail of melted faces in their wake.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Graveyard\u2019s journey has been a fruitful and exciting journey but it has also had its share of road blocks and detours. The biggest blow to the band came from the departure of long time bassist\/founding member Rikard Edlund in 2015. Not being a band to take things lying down, Graveyard forged forward by recruiting former lead guitarist Truls Morck as their new full time bassist and hit the studio to begin work on their as of now untitled follow up to 2012\u2019s Lights Out.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Graveyard has been on the road here in the US as support act for The Missing Link tour featuring headliners Mastodon and Clutch but us here in Atlanta were treated to a rare one off headlining performance. Before the show I had the chance to catch up with lead guitarist Jonatan Ramm for our 3<sup>rd<\/sup> interview together. Jonatan, as always, was a blast to talk to and we talked about life after their friend Rikard, how the new recording process challenged them on their new album, and what songs he really enjoys playing the most live.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Jonatan, thanks for taking the time to do this interview today.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Don, thank you for wanting to talk to me again [laughs].<\/p>\n<p>===========================================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>You realize this is our third interview together? I feel like I should\u2019ve brought flowers or chocolate or something to celebrate!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>[laughs] Yeah. Hopefully we can do this again when we come back after the new album comes out.<\/p>\n<p>===========================================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>You guys have been out on the road as the opening for the Mastodon\/Clutch tour. Graveyard as of late has been used to being pretty much a headlining band. How hard is it to adjust to playing only 30-40 minutes?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Yeah, it feels really short but it\u2019s been good. They are all nice people to travel with and everything has been great. We haven\u2019t had any real problems except the tornados and plane crashes [laughs].\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s been good but like you said, it has been a while since we\u2019ve done a support tour. They have treated us very well and it\u2019s just good to be back here in the States.<\/p>\n<p>===========================================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>Have the audiences been receptive or hard to win over?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Yeah, they\u2019ve been receptive. We are going on earlier so it\u2019s not always packed in there. People are usually still coming into the venue while we are playing.<\/p>\n<p>===========================================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>Have you been able to see a difference in audiences you\u2019re playing for on these shows versus the audiences you usually get as a headliner.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Yes, it\u2019s hard to explain, but when we have our own shows it\u2019s a little more of a mixed crowd. On these shows, everyone seems to have more of a common interest. Not everyone but it\u2019s a little bit more, well, the fans seem to be bigger with more muscles and what not [laughs].<\/p>\n<p>===========================================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>I totally understand. I personally don\u2019t like those bands and it sometimes bugs me when people say stuff like, \u201cHow can you not like Mastodon and Clutch yet you like Graveyard?\u201d I just feel that these bands are just different from Graveyard in so many ways such as the lyrical content and the vibe is so different.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Yes, I agree with you. It\u2019s different and I\u2019m sure that\u2019s a good thing. I hope we can give them something back but it\u2019s been great to have new people hearing us every night. It\u2019s always hard when you\u2019re playing for the hardcore fans of one or two bands to try to get in there and make an impression but it\u2019s been good. Sometimes we have a few more Graveyard fans in the crowd which is always nice [laughs].<\/p>\n<p><center><iframe width=\"420\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/z_S-VtamJdg\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/center><\/p>\n<p><strong>It must be cool to look out into an audience and see a Graveyard shirt or two on someone. Does that trip you out to this day when you see that?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Oh yeah. It feels really good especially when you\u2019re on a support tour. I kind of always expect that there are going to be just the main band\u2019s fans out there but when I see it it\u2019s very nice. It makes it feel a bit more comfortable to know that there are people out there that know us and are fans.<\/p>\n<p>===========================================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>At this point you guys have three albums under your belts with another on the way. How hard is it to make a setlist these days?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Right now, it\u2019s pretty easy still but when we get to this fourth album it\u2019ll be a lot harder. We\u2019ll have a lot to choose from and then we\u2019ll have to mix in a little from each record. Mostly, we\u2019ve been playing somewhat of the same setlist for a few years. It\u2019s not exactly the same. We try to change songs out now and then.<\/p>\n<p>===========================================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>What song do you love playing live the most and why?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Ah man. I think once in a while I always get tired of some song [laughs]. I really like the slower songs. I love to play \u201cHard Times Loving\u201d and \u201cSlow Motion Countdown.\u201d We haven\u2019t played \u201cThin Line\u201d on this tour since we have a new bass player (Truls Morck) and we\u2019ve been recording so we didn\u2019t have great amounts of time to rehearse. With that song, you just never know what\u2019s going to happen in that song so that one\u2019s always fun to play.<\/p>\n<p>===========================================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>What Graveyard song hasn\u2019t been in the set list for a while that you would love to play again?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I think it would have to be \u201cThin Line.\u201d We\u2019re not done playing it or anything. We just tried to focus on getting to as many songs as possible and it just didn\u2019t make the list this time. That song, to me, feels a bit more like its jam based and it\u2019s a fun song to play. Next time we\u2019ll play it for sure.<\/p>\n<p>===========================================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>Well, I\u2019m still waiting to hear \u201cRight is Wrong\u201d so one of these days you guys need to rehearse it so you can play it for me! I\u2019ve been dying to hear that one live!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>[Laughs] Oh yeah, yeah. You love that one. We will. We played it a lot after the first record came out. Sometimes you get a little lazy especially when you get more songs to choose from you just forget to pick up some of the older songs and you forget how to play them. There are a few songs from each record that we\u2019ll say, \u201cOh, this one is really hard to do live. Let\u2019s wait on that one.\u201d [Laughs] We figured we would do a tour someday where we would play all the songs that we haven\u2019t played much live and that would be cool.<\/p>\n<p>===========================================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>That would be amazing. Or maybe do a tour where you let the fans pick the setlists.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Oh, that\u2019s a great idea. I like that.<\/p>\n<p>===========================================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>Good. I\u2019ll send you my setlist ASAP.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>[Laughs] You should do that. I\u2019d like to see it.<\/p>\n<p>===========================================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>Are you guys performing any new material on this tour?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We have been doing one new one because it\u2019s always easy to get a little too ahead and say, \u201cYeah, let\u2019s do four of them \u201cand then you\u2019re sick of them before the album even comes out. We have been doing one called \u201cShunken.\u201d It\u2019s just a working title and it\u2019s a kind of silly name that doesn\u2019t really mean anything. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s even a real word [laughs]. It\u2019s a more up tempo song, especially for this new album. This song is more of a boogie song. It\u2019s fun.<\/p>\n<p><center><iframe width=\"420\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/OnGBa8dVm6k\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/center><\/p>\n<p><strong>The last couple of US tours you had Johan Grettve filling in on bass for Rikard and this year you announced that Truls Morck has taken over bass full time. How has the dynamic changed within the band with Truls on bass now?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Rikard actually made the decision to leave the band and it was something we could all feel coming even thought it was something we didn\u2019t really want to see happen. We wrote most of the songs for the demos before Truls came into the band but he\u2019s been involved in the process of making the album. He\u2019s a very talented bass player and he\u2019s been contributing a lot. He\u2019s a very steady guy and he\u2019s great to have in the band. If Rikky would\u2019ve been in and we would\u2019ve recorded this album the way we\u2019ve been doing it, with a new producer, new sound guy, new studio, I think it would\u2019ve been very different. I mean, it would sound like a Graveyard album but Truls brings something different. He thinks of music differently but it fits the music very well.<\/p>\n<p>===========================================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>So with Rikkard being gone, you don\u2019t feel that the overall vibe of Graveyard has changed much if at all?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>No, I don\u2019t think so. The music is still there as it\u2019s been since the beginning. I just feel that it\u2019s been good for the music in the band and it turned out to be as good as it possibly could out of that situation. We\u2019re very happy.<\/p>\n<p>===========================================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sometimes change is something that needs to happen in a band to keep things together. Even though it can be unfortunate on a personal level, it\u2019s important to keep the band as a whole healthy and happy so that the music doesn\u2019t suffer.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Yeah, exactly. I think maybe the parting can help him as well. I haven\u2019t talked to him in a while. Hopefully it will get him into a better place.<\/p>\n<p>===========================================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>Truls was actually the guitarist that you replaced in Graveyard. Is that a little weird at all?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>[Laughs] No, everything has been great actually. When we were writing songs for the new album, we called him up and asked him if he\u2019d come by and help us out. He just came by and it felt good immediately. He\u2019s a great guitar player and a great bass player as well. Axel actually called me up and asked me what I thought about Truls and I told I thought he was great! I think it was a good thing that he was in the band early on and now he\u2019s back. He\u2019s a very easy guy to be around and he likes good music.<\/p>\n<p>===========================================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>Part of what makes Graveyard so great is your now signature production on the albums. It\u2019s always so warm and raw. Will you be taking that approach with this album?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We went to a really nice studio this time and it\u2019s huge. One of the reasons we wanted to try a new studio was because you could use the room so much. We tried to keep the volume down and it made everything in that room sound so different. Like, if you just really pushed the drums hard it sounded too much for the room to handle but if you were just not beating them so hard and if you lowered the amps you could actually hear how big the sound was in the room. It was a new experience for us and a little hard. At first, we did 10 songs in one week and then we came back and figured we should redo a few of those because of that kind of sound. I don\u2019t think we\u2019ve ever played or recorded the songs this fast but it was a lot more to think about and to be cautious of instrument levels. It was a good way for us to do this and pretty much everything is live with just a few overdubs. It just feels really good to do it that way when you have to get really into it. On this album there\u2019s just more space and more air in the songs. You can tell what\u2019s going on and really see the sound picture.<\/p>\n<p>===========================================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>When I listen to each of the Graveyard albums, there is definitely a progression of growth in the songwriter from album to album yet the Graveyard sound just always stays perfectly intact. Do you feel that growth continues with this new one?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Thank you for saying that by the way. Definitely. We\u2019re still the same band. We haven\u2019t changed drastically in any way. We kind of do the same thing that we\u2019ve always done but we try to focus a little more on how we write songs. That\u2019s the fun part. We still have the same way of writing songs. We jam on everything to make sure it\u2019s fun to play and that\u2019s the most important thing. Then we narrow it all down to make sure we get to the most important parts to get a proper song out of it. It\u2019s the same process really. The sound is still the same. You\u2019ll still be able to say that it\u2019s a Graveyard album.<\/p>\n<p>===========================================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>Since Graveyard\u2019s appearance on the scene nearly 10 years ago, it seems that so many bands have come forward playing this classic sounding hard rock\/occult rock kind of thing. Why do think this kind of music is seeing such resurgence?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>To be honest, I don\u2019t have a clue but I like it a lot too. These kinds of bands are all out there playing live and that\u2019s a very good thing because there\u2019s really no other way to do it really and get good at it. It is hard to tell sometimes if they are playing with a true interest in that kind of music or if they are just playing it because it\u2019s what is hip or because that\u2019s what a certain record label wants. I think it\u2019s great that people are out and playing and listening to more different kinds of music than just what\u2019s on the radio. It\u2019s fun to listen to bands that have the same kind of influences.<\/p>\n<p>===========================================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>I totally agree and sometimes I feel like you can tell right away if a band is truly sincere about the music they\u2019re playing of if they\u2019re just riding the wave of what\u2019s cool at the moment.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Yeah, I think so too. I hope so [laughs]. Usually I\u2019ll give something a few tries to see what I really think. There are some bands that sound like they\u2019ve been listening to one group and all they did was change the riffs around a little bit and that\u2019s not fun. I want something that comes from them; their own thing.<\/p>\n<p>===========================================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>You guys are pretty much honorary Americans at this point. What is your favorite American food to indulge in when touring over here?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I always look forward to the veggie burgers here. I don\u2019t eat meat and the veggie burgers here are very, very good. I\u2019m also very excited about Whole Foods [laughs].<\/p>\n<p>===========================================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>What have you been listening to a lot of lately?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m like an old man [laughs]. Of course I like to see what\u2019s new and stuff but I pretty much like a lot of old music. Last night I was listening to RL Burnside. I\u2019ve also been listening to a lot of Kenny Rogers stuff lately. I\u2019ve been also listening to a lot of blues, I love Nina Simone, and as always, I\u2019ve been listening to a lot of early Fleetwood Mac. I always have them on.<\/p>\n<p><center><iframe width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/6HmMy2ubC7E\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/center><\/p>\n<p><strong>I never asked you about this but since you\u2019re such a huge early Fleetwood Mac fan, how do you feel about the Buckingham\/Nicks era.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Ah, you know\u2026<\/p>\n<p>===========================================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>Go ahead; you can be as mean as you want.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>[Laughs] To be honest, I never really put it on. In my head, Fleetwood Mac is Peter Greene\u2019s Fleetwood Mac and it\u2019s going to take a lot to change that for me. I don\u2019t have that eras records any longer. I sold them a long time ago [laughs]. I mean, it\u2019s not that bad and it\u2019s not that I have anything against that kind of Fleetwood Mac stuff. I don\u2019t know what the deal was but to me, it would have been obvious to change the name after that time period but I don\u2019t know. I just know that when I hear the name Fleetwood Mac, I think of Peter Greene\u2019s Fleetwood Mac.<\/p>\n<p>===========================================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>What does the rest of 2015 have in store for Graveyard and the fans?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The new album will come out in September and we will be back in the States for a tour. We will be doing a couple of Swedish shows right after we release the record and then we will do maybe a 2-3 week European tour and then shortly after we\u2019ll be back in the states. After this record comes out we\u2019re just going to go tour and play as much as possible.<\/p>\n<p>===========================================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>Can I put in my request for a song tonight?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Sure. Of course. What is it? I can\u2019t guarantee we can play it [laughs].<\/p>\n<p>===========================================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cAs the Years Pass By, the Hours Bend.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Oh yeah. Fuck yeah we can do that one [laughs].<\/p>\n<p>===========================================================<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jonatan, this was so much fun catching up with you again.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Thank you so much, Don. This was fun to do again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you have been reading this blog for a while, you already know how I feel about Graveyard. In my opinion, Graveyard leads the pack when it comes to this renaissance that the classic psychedelic rock scene has been experiencing and I honestly believe that nobody does it better. Graveyard has released three of the most consistently stellar hard rock albums of the last 20 years and the band continues to grow, winning over audiences the world over and with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[194],"tags":[573,581],"class_list":["post-14804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interviews","tag-graveyard","tag-jonatan-ramm"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14804\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}