Interview with Roine Stolt of The Flower Kings

So, Roine, it's a huge pleasure to talk to you on behalf of DPRP and congratulations on your 17th studio album, which is, once again, absolutely brilliant.

Roine Stolt: Thank you.

Could you give us some insights into the creative process in relation to Love, maybe the inspiration behind it?

Oh, my goodness. Well, I should say something magical now. But I mean, to be honest, making an album is lots of hard work, it's lots of preparations. Everything starts with writing songs, because if you don't have any songs, you can't record anything and you can't really make an album. And I'm the type of guy who sometimes just writes songs. I mean, it's not like I always write for the songs to be on the next album. It's more like I write songs because I have an idea.

I write songs, then I put them on a hard drive, and then I can go back and revisit, listen to stuff I have. So many of the albums we've been doing over the last five or six years has been going back to hard drives to revisit ideas I had and see what I liked, what I didn't like, if anything could be developed further, or sometimes needed more lyrics or even fully vocal parts.

But for this album, if I remember correctly, I started writing about a year ago, looking at small bits and pieces I had and seeing what I could develop. And in my case, it's usually setting up a microphone, singing something. If I have a piece of music, usually like piano music I've written, I sing and I see what comes up and if I get inspiration and whether I like it, hopefully I still like it the next day!

That's how we slowly start building an album day by day, actually. That's been the work process lately. I don't think much about it, really. I do what I feel I need to do.

So and I spend an awful lot of time in here, in my studio with all the gear and pianos and synths and stuff like that. Let's say I have a few song ideas that I like and develop further, then I usually send it out to the other guys in the band to see if they react, if they have any preferences or if they maybe don't like it at all. So that would be the next step.

We just take it from there. Everything comes very naturally. We keep on working on the stuff that most of the band like. I ask around the other guys, do we have anything? Then they send over stuff. Everyone is listening and coming up with advice and preferences.

Lots of discussions also, of course, about what kind of direction we think the album should be going in. And in my case, I feel that the Flower Kings are maybe more or at their most unique when they focus on the melodic stuff and not so much riffing and not trying to be a prog metal band, because I think there are many prog metal bands out there.

So I think that the melodic stuff isn't that common, really. And that's where we shine the most.

Absolutely.

promo photo by Photo Toby, Sweden

Some of the songs are maybe do not sound very complicated at the first listen. But from my point of view, they're actually quite complicated because certain songs have melodic themes that come back in different keys and sometimes different time signatures. And you even lift something from one song into another song.

It's almost like Lego, we have all these bits and pieces that you piece together to build something grand. That's pretty much the way we work our way towards what we feel could be the album. For this one, actually, once we got into a big studio and recorded drums, tracking drums for the songs, we tracked drums for at least one and a half albums.

So we had stuff that we haven't used. Good songs, but we didn't want to do a double album. We tried to select the bits we wanted to develop further and then work on that and then leave the rest for maybe the next album, see where that takes us.

The lyrics I found very striking and very evocative. You have wonderful lines like “Scratching the backs of rancid liars” or “History repeating itself, Despite the vows we made”. Is the album in some ways a diagnosis of everything that's wrong with the world today?

Well, not everything is wrong, but the lyric you mentioned right now is actually written by my brother Michael and Jannica, who is the co-writer for that song. And so I can't really answer, but I think I know what the song is about, let's just leave it at saying crazy world leaders or people that are not really fit to lead a big country. So that's what that is about.

In my songs or my lyrics, I try sometimes to be a bit poetic, but sometimes a bit to the point and sometimes more political, but not so much in your face, if you know what I mean? It's because the way I see it, it doesn't really go well together with the music. We're not like protest singers like you had in the late 60s, we're not Joan Baez or Bob Dylan or something like that, even though I like them.

It's more reflections on the time we are living in and whatever comes naturally and sounds right to me and works with the music is what I prefer, actually.

Yes. Do you think that the political has a place in prog in general terms?

Someone's got to do it. I don't know so much what other bands write about. I haven't really studied other prog bands at the moment. I know a bit about the prog bands back in the day, like Genesis or Yes. Jon Anderson has his very typical style of writing, in particular back in the day. And Peter Gabriel was probably writing most of the lyrics, perhaps Tony Banks, too. But Peter did write lots of the lyrics, and I wouldn't say they were political, but they were writing of all sorts of things, you know, and even King Crimson, even on the first very first King Crimson album, anything from I Talk To The Wind, as Pete Sinfield wrote the lyrics for Crimson back then, and it's a beautiful song, with beautiful lyrics fitting the song. But then you have 21st Century Schizoid Man. That's the other end of the spectrum.

In The Court Of The Crimson King, I don't remember the lyrics right now, but I do remember reading them back then, and I was struck by how clever the lyrics were and how they were evoking scenarios in my mind. I was seeing pictures of things that weren't there really. I think Pete Sinfield later went on to write for Emerson, Lake and Palmer. So I do like that type of lyrics, but I also like lots of Beatles lyrics, very simple stuff.

I liked when John Lennon went on to be maybe not political, but he was trying different angles and different ways of writing lyrics, you know. On the White Album, even on Sgt. Pepper, he saw this poster For The Benefit Of Mr Kite, something like that. And Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds. I can't remember what that was about. Looking at it in the big picture, you can't really find a lot of love songs in the Flower Kings' music, but so many other people are writing love songs. So someone's got to do the hard work and write something else, you know.

promo photo by Toby Photo Sweden

One thing that I did also notice about the lyrics on Love is that there's a profoundly spiritual dimension to it. Where does that come from? Is it more general spiritual love of the planet or is it more Christian-orientated?

I don't really view myself as a Christian. Maybe I should, but I don't really because I don't belong to any community, and I don't go to church every Sunday. Not like that, you know. I don't know. And I frankly don't care that much. I think it's up to each and every one to read the lyrics, to listen to the lyrics, to listen to the songs.

Then they can make whatever they want to make of them, you know. There's some spiritual leanings, I think, in some of the lyrics. But then again, it's going back and forth and sometimes it's bordering on the political. And sometimes it's more like general thoughts I may have about life and family and my being and my family. And I don't know. I don't plan too much, I have to say. I think I usually just listen to the music and I sometimes sit down with a pen and paper and sometimes don't even do that. I just put up a microphone and start singing.

It's pretty much as the same as the way I do my recording of guitars. It's not like I have a plan of where I'm going to play a fill or a solo or what kind of rhythm guitar I'm going to do. It's just I plug it in and then I listen to the music and I play and I do the same thing with lyrics pretty much. Because there's always something in the harmonies in the song or the rhythm, maybe, or the melody, the way the melody and the harmonies work together that take me to some special place where I come up with these words. And it happens, but I don't know why.

And I don't, frankly, care that much either way. If it sounds right, it's right.

It's the same with music, you know, and I mean, it's totally the same way because I don't have any musical education. I mean, we have this on the other end of the spectrum. We have people like Lalle, who is a trained piano player and plays with sheet music and can read and write music. But we can communicate anyway. But for me, I don't have much of a plan.

It's whatever comes, you know, and just the same way, I suppose, if you ask a painter, you know. If you asked Picasso, why do you put the green over there? Why do you put that line, you know? And he's supposed to answer to you. What was this supposed to be? What do you see? I mean, what do you hear? I never question anything, you know, I have no idea what Jimi Hendrix sang about.

There are some Beatles lyrics I don't understand, or I don't understand what they meant. There are certain love songs you can figure out, you know, they met a girl or blah, blah, blah. But I think lots of the music and, in particular, in prog, how could you describe a Yes song, or certain Genesis songs?

Indeed.

Even Frank Zappa is kind of weird. Sometimes you don't know what he meant with his lyrics. Some are very, very strange and all. But you don't always tell a story, you know, you tell something, but it doesn't have to be a story about someone or something in real life. It's abstract, you know, it's like art in general, I think.

Yes, it's painting a mood and an atmosphere. And that's what helps to make it timeless, I think.

Could be. Yes. True.

One of the things I really love about the album is that you have to listen to it as a cohesive whole to fully appreciate it. Why did you decide to do it that way in an era where people's attention spans are not what they once were?

To be honest, that's the way it is. It's true, but it's also true on the other end of the spectrum you have people that feel that a long piece of music is always a better piece of music. Prog fans usually look for epics. They look at a record cover, and they see the longest song is probably like 11 minutes or so. But if you look at a record cover and you see something that's 18 minutes or 27 minutes, then you instantly think, “Oh, this must be a really great piece of music!” So, I don't know, I don't think too much about whether the piece of music is long or short. It's the content that matters, either you like it or you don't. But I think you're right in that listening to just one song from the album may not tell the whole story. It's just like a fragment of music, just like listening to a symphony or seeing 10 minutes of a movie in the middle of the movie. You can't really figure out what the movie is about.

So what I would recommend is that people who listen to the album listen to it and if they put it in their play or maybe put it in the right order, because there's a reason why it's in the order it is. You can just shuffle them, it is still music, it's still good music. But I think it works in a better way if you play the songs in the correct order, I have to say.

Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. I think sometimes musically, it almost has a playful feel in places such as in World Spinning. To me, the album is innovative, but also harks back to the best of progressive rock from the Golden Age. How do you manage to keep your music sounding so fresh and vibrant?

Oh, what is the trick? I don't know. I think one important thing is to let people be creative when they record. I mean, let's say the song you just mentioned, that's actually Lalle Larson's song, that's something he wrote, and he just came up with the song. I think the only thing we did was that I put a little bit of guitar in it, but then we just left it as it was, because that's something he came up with spontaneously at home.

And if you then start mapping it out too much and want to have an arrangement or develop the song or make it bigger or put drums and bass and stuff, maybe you destroy the spontaneous feeling of it, so to speak. And I think with the rest of the songs too, I don't spend too much time doing guitar. I think some of the guitar solos may actually be the first take.

Some of it may even be from the basic tracking of the song. I could go back and do it again and play 50 different guitar solos. But if you have something... I was talking about it the other day with my brother, about the final song on the album where I played lots of guitars. I just put up the microphone and put on the amp and guitar, and started playing. He said, it's funny because now I really like the guitar parts you did, all the fills and stuff. When I heard it the first time, I thought it was a bit crammed and a little bit too much, you know. But then you learn to recognise the bits and pieces.

promo photo by Toby Photo Sweden

It's pretty much like when you hear Shine On You Crazy Diamond. I don't know how they did it, but David Gilmour is playing his guitar. I'm sure he was improvising, you know, just playing something that was nice and bluesy with a nice sound. Or when Steve Howe is up for putting guitar on a jazz piece back in the 70s, he was just probably plugging in and playing, you know, whatever comes up in his mind. And then these parts become part of the song. But you can hear it in the playfulness and the invention in the playing. And to some extent, I would say that even goes for vocals, as I mentioned, I'm sometimes singing without knowing any words.

I just sing the words I feel at the moment, you know, and some other parts I have to maybe rewrite and even sometimes sit down and think a bit about. But I think the element of improvisation in this album is kind of heavy. It may not sound that way. It sounds very organised. But, you know, the level of just pushing the play button or the recording button and then fiddling around with the synth or with the guitar and whatever comes up and sounds interesting, you keep it.

And it stays that way. And I think it keeps the music fresh.

So it's not like we have sheets of paper with notes written down. We've got to do this. We've got to do that. And we've got to put a second harmony. Just go for it. And what feels natural, just do it.

Yes, I guess if ever there was a genre where there's a tendency to overthink, it's probably prog.

Yes. You try to be clever, you try to be smart, you try to be, well, better than anyone else, you know. Sometimes you just overdo it and do too much. There are really good musicians in the band, and we can just rely on their way of inventing stuff and playing. You can sit Lalle down by a piano or a synth, and he can just go and play all night, new stuff and coming up with amazing things. So whatever I get from him, I say, “Oh, that was great. I love that organ thing, or I love the synth solo you did or the fills you did”. Because he usually says, “Well, you can take away the stuff you don't need”. I reply, “Oh, we need everything! We have all your synth fills underneath the vocals”.

You mentioned Yes earlier. The final song on the album does remind me a little bit of Awaken. I love that song, by the way. I love both the final song on the album and Awaken.

Yes. I mean, again, it's my brother who wrote the song and the lyrics together with Jannica, who's also the backing singer on that track. I just asked him if he had a song for the album, and he said, “I may have something here”. He was fiddling around for about two weeks and then finally sent it. We told him we need it now because we're going to track the drums. So he can probably speak more about the song, but I'm sure he's heard Awaken.

I listen to Yes, of course, but he's also kind of a rock and roll guy. Him and Hasse are the rock and roll guys in the band. I'm a little bit of everything. I'm a rock and roll guy, too. But I think I'm probably a little bit more eclectic and sometimes go towards jazz and classical music. And I even went to see Alison Moyet. So I'm open to that side of music and synth music also. Stuff that's been happening in the 60s, in the 70s, in the 80s, 90s.

I'm happy to be listening to not only prog albums, but like Bruce Springsteen, a good Bruce Springsteen album is fine, because I think you can feel the passion, you can feel the song-craft and the lyrics. And yes, he's just a great guy to watch playing, you know.

Absolutely! There has to be room for music other than prog, too. You're absolutely right.

Totally, totally. Yes.

So it's been over 30 years since you played your first gig as a band in August 1994. What's the secret to your remarkable creative partnership?

Oh. I wish I could answer that. I really don't know.

What would that be? I think in general, I've been in the band all the time. Hasse has been in the band. He wasn't in the band the very first shows that year, but he came into the band, I think, in 1996. He's been singing on albums from the very beginning, but he wasn't in the live band. But he's been in the band, and Michael was in the band back then also. We have had other people coming in, in and out, you know, like Zoltán and Jonas Reingold and Robert Engstrand, lots of other people.

I've sort of been the headmaster of this.

promo photo by Toby Photo Sweden

The continuity man.

Yes. I will keep going as long as I enjoy it.

Honestly, there have been a few breaks. We had one break between 2009 and 2013, maybe. Three or four years. Then we had another short break also.

It's not like I've been sitting at home, doing nothing! (Laughs) In the breaks, I've been playing with Transatlantic or with Agents of Mercy or the Sea Within or made the album with Jon Anderson and stuff like that. So I keep busy all the time, and I'm at my most happy when I can work and be creative.

I like playing music live. So we try to do that also as much as possible. It's fun to play music together with nice people and good friends. And to have realistic expectations, I think it's also a good thing to have.

You have to be realistic. It's progressive rock. I mean, some of the guys that came up in the mid-70s, like the Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Yes, and all these guys, they were lucky because they came at a time, everything was right for that music. And they were, of course, very, very good songwriters, all of them and great performers.

And I mean, just look at these singers like Jon Anderson or Peter Gabriel or Greg Lake was a fantastic singer. John Wetton. All these fantastic front-men, and great singers and great players. Today it's we keep on playing progressive rock, but there will not really be a mainstream progressive rock thing, I can't really see that happening.

Maybe some similar style. But I mean, you sometimes see you see bands like. For instance, I can hear elements in Muse. I think even Coldplay had a song that was 11 minutes long or something like that, that had small elements of progressive rock in it. But I think the creativity that you had back in the 70s and even bands who were a rock group, but looking back, I remember hearing Queen for the first time, I heard the song Killer Queen, you know. It was fantastic.

It is.

And then you heard Bohemian Rhapsody. And that's like a symphonic rock piece, I would say.

So, I don't know, but it seems unlikely that progressive rock would be coming back to that with a scale of topping the charts and stuff like that. But I'd like to be realistic about it, you know, and just be happy that we can do what we do and we can sell albums. We can go on tour and play and have fun for a while. That's good enough for me.

And on that note, many thanks on behalf of DPRP, it's been fantastic. And good luck with the tour!

We need it! Thank you so much.