The Dead and Living are a 5 piece rock band from Karlstad in Sweden. Having toured relentlessly throughout Scandinavia and Europe with stops at Sweden Rock Festival and Arvikafestivalen, they have also provided tour support to acts including Deathstars, Chrome Division and Marky Ramone’s Blitzkreig. Their brand new ‘Damage’ EP lands on February 28th and e caught up with vocalist ‘Coroner’ to have a chat about it….

“DAMAGE” was heavily inspired by ‘A Journey to the End of Time' by Melodysheep. Tell us a little more about what you drew from?

Coroner (Vocalist) - Hi. Thanks for having me. Watching ‘A Journey to the End of Time', with its visualisation of the universe extending beyond our comprehension, I was struck by how incredibly insignificant we humans are. Our entire existence unfolds in what feels like mere moments, perhaps even seconds. The video attempts to illustrate the likely fate of the universe, from what we believe we know about it. While it may sound deeply unsettling and even panic-inducing, the final quote from the film struck me like a full stop.

“At the end of the universe, nothing happens, and it keeps not happening, forever.”

Although it’s, of course, very existentially disturbing, it somehow also makes me feel some kind of relief. You can’t think or overthink any longer than that. It’s where all thoughts and concerns end. As a constant seeker and very knowledge-hungry human being, it was like I found the holy grail.

What themes do the singles, ‘DAMAGE’ & ‘DEMONS TILL I’M DEAD’, explore and do they contribute to a wider narrative?

Coroner: I would say all the songs on the EP are in a cosmic, universal perspective. Though some lyrics and themes travel far away and some are more close to home. In the title track, DAMAGE, for example, it’s not obvious where ground control is actually situated. What’s beyond the black holes? What’s the ultimate fate of our planet? It also touches concepts like faith, creation vs evolution in light of new scientific discoveries like dark matter.

DEMONS TILL I’M DEAD is more about worldly relations, struggles, and human conditions—earthly stuff. The usual devastations of being a citizen of Earth.

There’s no big though-out message in the EP, it is, as most other lyrics in our songs, more chaotic, and in the eye of the beholder.

How has the response been to the singles so far?

Coroner: So far, it’s been pretty good. We’ve noticed a significant spike in activity following the release of DAMAGE, our first new single in five years. While the numbers aren't exactly off the charts, we’ve seen them double, triple, and quadruple. Which of course makes you want to octuple.

We'll see what the reviews will say. It's definitely one giant leap forward from our last full-length album, and really, a departure from anything we've done before. The previous album was very well received, both by the press and the fanbase. But in somewhat fear of stagnating, we always aim to challenge ourselves and to try new things. It’s fine if some people have mixed reactions to the musical and thematic changes from our past work. The one thing that we’ve always stuck to throughout the years is to avoid stagnation.

Had the various large-scale world events played have an impact on the record?

Coroner: it depends on what large-scale world events we’re talking about. All the songs and lyrics for the EP were written around 2020, so the pandemic probably had some impact on the writing process. But other than that it’s completely disconnected to any other events over the last four years. The themes of the EP are really in a far more universal perspective. However, we were hit pretty hard by inflation, which was pretty high in Sweden for a while, which meant we had some trouble financing everything, the Swedish pressing plant where we were going to press the vinyl went bankrupt, and we’ve had some logistical problems during both the pandemic and the following recession.

What inspired the band to reunite?

Coroner: We were actually never really on pause or hiatus. I think a lot of people would agree it’s been a rough couple of years. We also sadly lost family members and friends during this time and some of us became fathers. We were also never into these ‘live streams’ and all that. It just didn’t feel like our thing, and it would have felt a little desperate if we would have done the whole cycle of this EP digitally, without any live shows in front of an audience. But now that there’s a new digital EP and vinyl on the way, and now that we’re able to play live again, we’re really looking forward to pick up where we left off back in 2019.

What was your time in the studio like? Was there anything that changed drastically between the writing/rehearsing phase to the recording of the record?

Coroner: Since this a pandemic time EP, the recording and mixing process was a bit different this time. We were in different rooms sometimes, there were facemasks, not cool ones, the blue hospital ones. One difference though was that Salem, our guitarist since 2017, contributed to the writing process. We wrote some things together that I think is pretty different from the previous stuff. We also used a new producer and mixer, Andreas Mood, who added a lot of atmosphere in a way that we haven’t had before. He’s a great producer and a great guy. So having Andreas involved in the project definitely had an impact on the EP.

We’ve lived with these songs for a few years now and it feels good to finally be able to release the EP into the universe and I hope some people out there will enjoy it too.

Over and out.

Beep…….

Pre-Save/Pre-Order/Download their DAMAGE EP HERE

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