Since the turn of the millennium, Sweden’s Grand Magus have been flag-waving champions of trad metal. But unlike their tank-loving countrymen in Sabaton or even fellow leatherwear enthusiasts Hammerfall, nobody’s ever dared call them power metal.
Spawned very much in the vision of Priest and Sabbath, theirs is a doomy take on heavy metal’s blueprint that brings it all back to the source. Now 10 albums in, Hammer caught up with frontman Janne Christofferson – or JB, as he’s better known – to talk gangs, giggle grass the disappearance of two years.
Beowulf, the Germanic Old English epic poem, is a theme throughout your new album, Sunraven. It’s perfect fit for Grand Magus; metalheads who read the tale often come away thinking ‘Some band should do an album about this…’
“I got in touch with Beowulf when I was a tiny boy, I was fascinated immediately, and it’s something I’ve carried with me all my life. Over the years we’ve picked stuff from this poem for other songs, maybe not overtly but at least subliminally. But when we started to write Sunraven, somehow it seemed the right time and the right music to fit with this concept.”
You, drummer Ludwig ‘Ludde’ Witt and bassist Mats ‘Fox’ Skinner have been together for 12 years. Presumably you’d move Heaven and Earth to keep this line-up now?
“It’s weird the way this ‘guns for hire’ thing suddenly became the norm, like everybody’s replaceable as long as one original member is still in the band. I’ve always felt that the most important thing with a band is the humans involved, the personalities. It was very important with the bands that I got into growing up. So when Ritchie Blackmore left Deep Purple, they did some great stuff after that, but for me it wasn’t DP. It’s an old example, but a good one! I met another of those bands a few weeks ago: Clutch. Same guys, still amazing live. It’s heartening to see they’re still the same gang.”
Have Grand Magus ever come close to splitting up?
“When Covid struck, it was like, ‘Maybe that’s it.’ It was so extreme and unprecedented. Everything stopped, and we didn’t know if live music would ever return. If we couldn’t do it the way we used to do it, I couldn’t see any point. Why replace the memories of all the great things we’ve experienced with just standing around our rehearsal room with a video camera on? So two years pretty much disappeared, and it wasn’t until things came back properly that I felt any inclination to do anything with the band. Interaction is everything. You can write music without it, but you can’t perform.”
What’s the most you have ever laughed together?
“Me, Fox and one of our first drummers [Sebastian Sippola] were at one of the earliest festivals we ever played, and I had my first whiff of grass. It was the ‘giggle grass’, so everything struck me as hysterically funny for about three hours. It shuts off your logic! It was hysterical, but I never experienced that again. I didn’t keep that up, it was never my type of thing. I prefer alcohol.”
What did you want to be when you were a kid?
“My earliest memories are of wanting to be a zoologist or a marine biologist. Didn’t turn out that way! But nature was my earliest interest that I can recall, and when I get interested in something I’m pretty thorough. Birds of prey were a big interest, I delved into that, learned the Latin names and all that. But now it’s just a hobby – no pun intended.”
You’re touring with Opeth – an exciting Stockholm double bill. Do you go back a long way?
“When we started they were a well established band, and although they were death metal, they were always out in their own little niche. The death metal bands we hung out with in the early days were more like Dismember, Entombed and Unleashed, we met Opeth a little later on. But we know each other really well. I’m close friends with Mikael [Åkerfeldt] and Fredrik [Åkesson]; they’re all brilliant people.”
Do you keep up with the younger heavy metal bands? Any hot tips to check out?
“There are definitely some newer bands that I’ve really enjoyed, if I stumble on something when I’m looking for Uriah Heep gigs on YouTube! I like to mention Eternal Champion, Visigoth and Night Demon… although they’ve been going for many years. They’re veterans of the scene now!”
Sunraven is out now via Nuclear Blast. Grand Magus support Opeth on their UK tour from February 25.
