What is your background? Introduce us to Scar Symmetry. 

Hi! Scar Symmetry was formed in 2004 by me (Henrik Ohlsson) on drums, Jonas Kjellgren on rhythm/lead guitar, Per Nilsson on rhythm/lead guitar, Kenneth Seil on bass and Christian Älvestam on vocals. The music we play is called melodic death metal by most people but we try to use all kinds of influences in our music. We recorded a one track demo in 2004 featuring the song “Seeds of rebellion” and that demo lead to a deal with Cold records. We released our first album called “Symmetric in Design” in early 2005 through Cold records who had a license deal with Metal Blade at the time. Metal Blade wanted to sign us for real after the release of that album but Cold records said no due to financial reasons. Nuclear Blast was another label that showed interest in Scar Symmetry and they worked out a deal with Cold records that made it possible for us to switch label from Cold records to Nuclear Blast. We have just released our second album “Pitch Black Progress” through Nuclear Blast and we just finished our first European tour!

While I am listening your 2 albums, the sound reminds me to bands like Soilwork, Arch Enemy and sometimes to Opeth. Who are your musical influences?

Everyone has different musical influences in Scar Symmetry, it`s really hard to define exactly what inspires us to write our music because we`re not really consciously aware of it. Per is into progressive music, fusion jazz and progressive metal etc while Jonas is into death metal and 80`s heavy metal etc. They`re not strictly attached to those genres, I`m just giving you an idea of what the songwriters in this band are into. Christian is into progressive music, death metal, all kinds of shit. Kenneth too. And me too. He he, we have a wide spectrum of influences, man!

How do you describe your music to people?

Well, mostly we just call it melodic death metal because that`s what the journalists and the label call it, you know. Melodic death metal is an established genre too so people automatically understand sort of what it sounds like, I guess that “melo-death” is the description that fits our music best in the current metal scene. I mean, “progressive catchy melodic cosmic metal” takes too much time to say and no one can remember a description like that anyway, he he.

Why you decided to call the band "Scar Symmetry"?

I came up with that name during the traditional “bandname-discussions” where we tried to figure out what to call this band. We threw a couple of ideas back and forth and decided that Scar Symmetry was the best one. It basically represents the suffering of living a human life (Scar) and the synchronicity that seems to be present in our lives (Symmetry). So the name basically symbolizes the balance between pleasure and pain in an earhtly existence.

What are your songs about?. What do you want to transmit to yourlisteners?

The lyrics deals with mysticism, conspiracy theories and various topics that are never featured in the mainstream media. Or rarely featured at least. On “Pitch Black Progress” there is sort of a concept where a leading elite, a world government, has taken over all economy and media. They are even implanting microchips into the bodies of the population just to be able to monitor their every step and their every thought. 4-5 songs on the new album describes what it`s like to live in that kind of world and you can see clear similarities between that dark future and the current state of the world. The rest of the lyrics deals with various “mystic” topcis as I said earlier.

We want to resurrect awe in our listeners, at least those who has lost their passion for art. And we want to maintain inspiration in the inspired ones. We want to share our creative ideas with anyone who is willing to listen.

Did you have any crazy "live performance experience"?. Wich is the best concert you have played and with who?

Oh, I`m not sure what you mean by crazy live performance. I think that being on stage and being observed by numerous persons is a pretty crazy situation to begin with! But it`s really cool. There`s all kinds of crazy shit going on when you`re playing live, I don`t even know where to begin.

One of the coolest shows so far for me personally was probably in Amneville, France, where we played at a big arena with huge video-screens on the sides and everything. That was massive! And the crowd was huge aswell, we supported Hypocrisy, Soilwork and Mayhem among others that night.

Your last album is released by Nuclear Blast Records. How are the relationships with them?. Are thing very different from your last label?

I think that the relationship with Nuclear Blast has been really good so far, they really believe in us and we get the chance lots of cool things thanks to them. It is very different to be signed to Nuclear Blast compared to any smaller label out there, the whole thing is so organized and they have loads of people working for them and so on.

Tell us about the recording at Black Lounge Studio.Are you happy with the album's sound?

We did the recording in the same vein as the first album, we were in the studio for 2-3 months but we had breaks here and there. That`s one of the positive aspects of recording at Jonas´ studio- we don`t have any pressure in terms of time. So we just recorded the songs after spending a couple of weeks on writing them and then we changed the parts that didn`t feel right or re-arranged songs that needed to be re-arranged. We`re very happy with the sound of the album, everything from the songs to the production kicks ass if you ask us! Jonas produced the whole thing and he definetly did a killer job.

What about touring? Do you have plans to visit Spain?

There are no confirmed plans for Spain at this point, we just finished a European tour as I said earlier and we`re going to do some festivals and a couple of shows here in Sweden this summer. That´s all we know right now.

Thank you for answering our questions, congratulations for your success and good luck!!! 

Thank you, it was pleasure! Take care!