Evergrey – interview met Tom S. Englund (vocals, guitars)
Tom S. Englund: “The idea behind the album title is that you are the architect of your own future. No matter where you are or how expectations of life look, you are for sure the creator of your own future.“
Sinds de jaren negentig is Evergrey een vaste waarde wanneer we spreken over progressieve metal uit Zweden. Anno 2026 zijn Tom S Englund en zijn kompanen toe aan het vijftiende studioalbum ‘Architects Of A New Weave’ en dat komt uit exact twee jaar na ‘Theories Of Emptiness’. Al even standvastig maken we bij Arrow Lords of Metal een afspraak om bij te praten met zanger/gitarist Tom S. Englund.
Vera Matthijssens Ι 4 juni 2026
I like the album, but I have the impression that it is a rather positive one. How did you feel during the writing process?
I think it is a continuing progression of what we always do. This is a new sound, evaluating and progressing and becoming more and more for every album. You grow. We try keep growing it and this is how we sound at this album and I think for me the positivism is always there. We have always created positive thoughts and work from sad stories to things getting better. The outcome is still a very cool thing.
It has always been the art of getting over bad things and seeing the possibilities again, let us say…
Yes, exactly. And I think that the world is opening up more and more for us, so I think it is a very nice energy album to be honest.
Indeed and with the song ‘Leaving The Emptiness’ it is as if you say goodbye to the former album…
Yes, very smart of you. It is correct (laughs). I like that moving on and I think that is what life is about. You keep on moving. And that is what people need nowadays. Positivism.
Another thing: with the release of the second single ‘The World Is On Fire’, we had something to get over (let us say): your guitar player Henrik Danhage left… for the second time… What happened?
We needed a guitar player that wanted to be in the band and devoted to this kind of music and we needed someone very fast for the tour with Katatonia. Stephen stepped in. We knew he was not touring a lot with Scar Symmetry, so he was a good saviour and then obviously we made a lot of shows with him and he grew to become a person that we felt that maybe we could consider being in Evergrey. So we asked him actually a month ago. Now he is the official guitar player of Evergrey.
I saw Evergrey with Katatonia in December. That was my first encounter with him…
Yeah, he did a good job, right?
Yes. What are the plans for Henrik? Why did he leave?
You have to ask Henrik, to be honest. He had not had any communication with us and for us, we have done one hundred shows now without him. It is water under the bridge for us. We have moved on and we are concentrated on the people who are here making music for Evergrey. Stephen fits in perfectly. And he is a very nice guy as well.
Do you have an idea why you have chosen the title ‘Architects Of A New Weave’?
The idea is that you are the architect of your own future. No matter where you are or how expectations of life look, you are for sure the creator of your own future. That might be a little bit bold to say, because some people are born poor and with disabilities or other hinders in life, but obviously I am talking about that you can always do something to better yourself and become the best you are. No matter what situation you find yourself in. So that is the general idea of the title and then of course the song ‘Architects Of THE New Weave’ is about me and the way that I am living. It is about my life, while the album title is about showing that there are multiple ways to find a better life. Finding that way is one of the key things. You really need to find out who you want to be and then BE that person as best as you can. I think the only thing you can strife for is becoming better and better.
Ahead of the album, you released the single ‘Oxygen’. I think it differs a bit from the Evergrey sound. Do you agree with that?
I think it sounds very much like this album, like the songs ‘The Scrypt’ or ‘The World Is On Fire’. I think it sounds very much like the new Evergrey in a sense. The new era, if you want. We needed a song for the tour we did with Katatonia and we had already mixed the album. They wanted a double album for the vinyl’s, so I said okay, let us release ‘Oxygen’ first, then it doesn’t need to be on the actual album and we avoid that our fans have to buy a double album, which is twice the price.
There is a special edition and there are many things on it, I think. Can you go deeper into that?
Honestly I am not that much into the special editions. I don’t design them, I don’t do much with them. I provide the material for them, because if you can choose to buy a special edition, then I am all for it, but I think everyone should have the access to the songs anyway. That is a way for us to make sure that all of the music we have is released on a physical media.
Another amazing thing is that we have two legends hailing from Gothenburg, you and Mikael Stanne (Dark Tranquillity), singing on one song called ‘A Burning Flame’. What is the story behind that?
The story is that I heard his voice on the song, that is basically how music is for me. It is a little bit magic, you hear something and then you go with it. I called him up and said: ‘hey, I have a song that I think you would sound great on’. It was more his voice that he uses in Cemetery Skyline. He then told me that he was a huge fan of Evergrey and he was really nervous. He absolutely wanted to do it and here we are! We’ve known each other for thirty years, it is not that difficult.
Was there something new in the recording process this time?
We needed a guitar player to play half of the solos and instead of calling somebody that was really famous or really talented, I asked Johan, the bass player, to play the guitar solos for the album, at least the ones I did not do. That is very different obviously. He is a really good guitar player and now he got to show it. That is something people don’t really know. People maybe think that Henrik played on the album, he did not. People maybe think that we picked someone else or that I did it, but no, it is Johan who’s playing the solos. I played all the rhythm guitars for the last five albums. It was important for us to keep the music in the family, in the band, instead of inviting somebody, just to make it work. Johan has written half of the songs with me, it makes perfect sense for him to write solos of songs he knows.
With the previous album Mattias Norén came back for the artwork and that is prolonged. Can you tell something about the artwork?
I asked him to do symbolism for each and every song of the album and it really is different from the last cover for ‘Theories Of Emptiness’. Sometimes people do not understand that people can do different things (chuckles). This is another side of Mattias’ brilliance as an artist. When you buy the vinyl album, there are a lot Easter eggs and surprises in the cover. You can sit and study for days, so it is fantastic. It is his best artwork ever.
What can you tell about the single ‘The World Is On Fire’?
That is an obvious one. It is about the state of the world today, about the things occurring every day, what we hear in the news. It is profound, it is sad. It is a world I don’t agree with and this is my way of not agreeing with it. It is to be said that we live in a world where we don’t accept what is going on. I don’t think so much in terms of specific thoughts or specific songs. I make music as a whole and this album is representing the way we dealt with and felt and how we saw the world at the day we were writing the music. It is like a daily diary for me, one that consists of inspiration. We talk about how we see the world and that is basically what every song is about. It is about how I see the world, how I see people destroying this world, not caring, it is about how you feel misunderstood. I think the music in general is uprising towards the world we don’t accept. The frustration that we feel is turning into something that is something positive instead, which music is for us. So we are turning something very negative into something very positive. I think that is the power and that is the gift we have as musicians hopefully, to evoke some positivism within people and make them feel hopeful instead of mad.
That is a nice thing to strife for…
Not only escaping the reality, also getting a different perspective of the same world that you are living in. Many times this is very useful, because you can feel lost – we all do sometimes – but when you hear somebody else’s perspective of the same issues, you might get another view on the issue or on the world in general.
Do you have plans with your other bands, like Redemption and Silent Skies?
We will be very busy with Evergrey this year, all the way to Christmas at least. We are doing a US tour in September/October. Then we try to fit in the other things. Right now Evergrey is what we need to concentrate on, also I think this album deserves a lot of time to present it on a lot of people. It feels like people really love the music. We see it on the streams for the first three singles, they are doing better than all the other singles we have done in our lives.
You will see a big part of the world on tour. Do you look forward to that? First we have an Australian tour… have you been there before?
I have been to Australia twenty years ago. Now it looks like we cannot go. It is a war zone where we had our connection flights. It is very difficult. We have been very uncertain since the beginning of the war. (Iran). I have to wait for the local promoters to come up with things. Apart from that we are doing a lot of festivals. We are doing two shows with Iron Maiden in Amsterdam and in Paris. We are doing a tour in the US with HammerFall. We are headlining ProgPower in the US, we are doing some major festivals in Europe. Some of them are not announced yet and they are announcing a new tour for Europe I think in the week of our album release.
