Written by Members of Swedish melodic death metal pioneers At The Gates have looked back on how they met their late lead singer, Tomas Lindberg.
Talking in the issue of Metal Hammer, founding members and twin brothers Anders (guitars) and Jonas Björler (bass) reveal that they met their future frontman, who died last year aged 52 after being diagnosed with the rare oral cancer adenoid cystic carcinoma, at a bus stop when they were 16 and he was 17.
“He really was a character,” Jonas remembers. “I never saw anybody who dressed like that. He had a huge beard! When he was 17, he looked like he was 25 or something. He looked like an old man, but he was 17. Blond, long hair, a giant beard, a leather jacket and an underground death metal t-shirt. So he really stood out.”
Anders adds that, the first time the twins went to Lindberg’s house, they found a cast of a human skull in his bedroom.
“He had a human skull – like, a cast of it,” he recalls, “because he was interested in the occult during his early days in [pre-At The Gates band] Grotesque. He was interested in that, but we noticed that that faded away pretty quickly.”
Drummer Adrian Erlandsson says that he first met Lindberg on a bus to a Morbid Angel concert in Sweden. The singer had just put At The Gates together and was looking for a drummer to complete the lineup.
“I was just about to move to [Lindberg’s hometown] Gothenburg, actually, to start studies at university,” the drummer says, “and my friend said, ‘Oh, he’s a drummer,’ and pointed to me, and that’s how I got introduced.”
He continues: “Tompa said, ‘You can’t be in the band! You’ve got short hair!’ And he laughed. And then we had a few beers and he asked, ‘Can you play double-bass? Can you blast?!’”
With Alf Svensson as co-guitarist, At The Gates released their first two albums, The Red In The Sky Is Ours and With Fear I Kiss The Burning Darkness, in 1992 and 1993. Martin Larsson replaced Svensson in ’93, after which they released 1994 EP Terminal Spirit Disease and landmark ’95 album Slaughter Of The Soul.
Regarded as one of the most influential metal albums of the 1990s, Slaughter… helped to shape the 2000s New Wave Of American Heavy Metal movement, inspiring such superstar bands as Lamb Of God, Trivium and Killswitch Engage.
At The Gates broke up in 1996 but reunited in 2008, initially with the goal of giving their fans an official goodbye. But, the band continued and released three further albums during Lindberg’s lifetime. Their fourth post-reunion album, The Ghost Of A Future Dead, came out last month and features posthumous performances from the singer, who tracked his vocals shortly before undergoing cancer treatment.
Talking to Hammer, Erlandsson says that he couldn’t listen to At The Gates’ new album until “recently”, due to the emotional impact of Lindberg’s illness.
“I can’t actually speak about the lyrics, to be honest, [because] I haven’t read the lyrics,” Erlandsson tells us. “With all the stuff surrounding this album with [Lindberg’s] illness and then eventually passing, for a long time, I had a hard time listening to it. It was just recently, since just before he passed, that I started to listen to it again.”
Lindberg died on September 16 last year, and news of his passing was followed by a wave of tributes from fans and peers. Opeth’s Mikael Åkerfeldt wrote via social media, “As a frontman… he was awesome, plain and simple,” and added, “Intellectually, he seemed to be a step above and beyond your generic metal musician.” Trivium’s Matt Heafy said he was “one of the most important singers/screamers of any metal band”.
Read all about Lindberg’s life and legacy in the new issue of Metal Hammer. Order it now and get it delivered directly to your door.
