Sabaton frontman Joakim Broden says the band's line-up changes led to serious “anxiety” as he sat down to write songs for the new album.
The Swedish band brought in new members Chris Rorland, Thobbe Englund and Hannes Van Dahl ahead of the recording and release of their upcoming seventh album, Heroes, leaving only Broden and bass player Par Sundstrom from the original line-up.
And while the new blood has energised the band, Broden admits he was concerned that fans could blame the replacements if the new tunes weren’t up to scratch.
He tells Metallus.it: “This was the first album with the new line-up. I had a lot of performance anxiety, because if I fuck this up and write bad songs people might think it’s because of the new boys coming into the band. It was really hard for me, the pressure. I don’t want to fail because they would pay the price for my failure.
“In November, I took four or five songs and threw them away and started over again. They shouldn’t pay the price, you know…‘the old Sabaton were better, the new guys are shit’. No, they are better.”
Broden adds that before the new members came on board, he was the band’s sole songwriter. He says he’s happy to start sharing the workload when it comes to creating new material and adds that Soldier Of 3 Armies from Heroes was a collaborative effort.
“The song _Soldier Of 3 Armies _was the first time I’ve ever written music with anyone else,” he says. “I’ve been doing this for 15 years and this was the first time I’ve written music with somebody in the band.”
Heroes is released on Friday, May 16.
