Thanks to Adam Dahlman, the bassist of Grayscale Season, we had the opportunity to read the extraordinary journey of a band and a man. Music is the pillar of this path. The storm that tries to overwhelm us is the vortex of emotions within, while our salvation is the will to fulfill our desire of happiness. Join us to feel something new together!
Interviewee: Adam Dahlman (bass, clean vocals)
Richard (on the left), Adam (in the middle) and Eddie (on the right)
Grayscale Season
Eddie Lejhagen - vocals
Richard Sörensen - guitar
Adam Dahlman - bass, clean vocals
Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey, when Grayscale Season was created. What inspired the band and what is the reason for the musical direction you have taken in terms of genres? Who were your big influences?
We are 90’s kids, so I think all of us were raised on Nu-metal and Grunge, alt. rock/metal. At least to me, that it very prominent in our music. Where are suckers for eerie melodies and melancholy vocals. Combining the heavy with the beautiful. For me, Grayscale Season is a big sandbox, we aren’t constrained by anything, we are able to play within any style of music we want.
In terms of influences, there are some classics; The Acacia Strain, Deftones and Superheaven. But for “feel something new”, we took inspiration from bands like: P.O.D., Limp Bizkit, Ethel Cain and HUM.
Your first record, a self-titled EP, was released in 2014. How different do you feel what your band embodies today compared to what it used to be then? Is there something that hasn’t changed since? What impact has the music had on you? To what extent has it influenced the person you have turned out to be? Was it primarily a way to express your creativity or was it more of a therapy?
I just need to start by clarifying, I wasn’t in the band at this point, we played the same venue one night and I became fast friends with the guys. They invited me to be a part of singing on the opener “These Heavy Eyes”. I joined a year or so later. But we have talked a lot about the early years, so I’ll share my thoughts on that.
I look at our self-titled EP as a proof of concept. Can we make Grayscale Season work? We have improved in our craft immensely since then. But the goal never changed. Make music that combined everything we love and still be cohesive. I doubt the actual release had any impact on us, but the process did. It became self-evident that we need to make music. You could call it therapy, that is fair I guess, but I say it’s more important, it is to be able to live. What else would I do with my time? This is what we want to do, we have to do it.
Your first album, Head to Mist, debuted in 2016. What are your memories of this album? What inspired the themes of Head to Mist? Is your goal to make your songs different not only musically but also in terms of their meaning?
With Head to Mist, we had more wills in the room, more shared responsibility towards the entire process from writing to release. I look back on those nights in the rehearsal room with a great joy. We wrote music we loved, simple shit to say it plainly. One thing that I think we have learned since then was, don’t care if something will be perceived if it’s lame or not. We were young and put a lot of thought into “will people like this?”. We played it safe with Head to Mist. That didn’t affect the songs in a bad way, but you can hear on Everything Hurts that we started to truly embrace the idea of making the music we want to hear.
Do you tend to play your older songs at your concerts or do you focus almost exclusively on newer tracks? Which of your old songs do you enjoy playing the most?
Not really, but Queenmaker of Head to Mist is still banger, so that might get thrown in there, for sure! I think the short answer for this is that from Everything Hurts and forward, those are the songs that we feel are truly us.
Clearly, your album from 2019, Everything Hurts, has taken you to a higher level than your previous releases. How much of a stepping stone did you feel the release was? What kind of feedback have you received? If you hear any criticism from anyone, how do you handle it? Do your followers determine your direction or do you want to do only what is self-identical with Grayscale Seasons?
The reason Everything Hurts is called what it is, is because we decided to really put the time in to do that album. It was the first time we did proper demos and preproduction.
At one point we just said: “Allt gör ont” and wrote that on the wall in our studio/rehearsal space. That became the mantra, even if it’s hard. Just do it. “Allt gör ont” means Everything Hurts in Swedish. Fun fact, that line can be heard on Kobayashi Maru.
We started playing to our strengths, but man, we had no clue how to write an album, not really. What I know we got out of that process the most was the knowledge that we aren’t all too great with doing prepros. We don’t have the technical savvy to be quick enough to make it as efficient as it can be. But I’ll get to how we solved that later.
Everything Hurts was a new step in the aesthetics, the songwriting and a confidence in ourselves. So it was of course huge for us as a group of friends/colleagues.
Now we come to another aspect of the band, marketing is not a strong suit. We are musicians, so the feedback we got, was fantastic, but we just didn’t reach enough people.
I’d say we only do what is self-identical with Grayscale Season, for sure. That being said, our choice of singles more than often are based on what we think people will like. And we are often wrong here, which is a great lesson, that we never seem to learn. 😉
It was already apparent with Everything Hurts that you are not soft with your topics, and that you like to use a more abstract approach, portraying very tough situations in life as if they were paintings. Where do you draw inspiration from when you write lyrics? What does it look like for you to create a song? With relatively many songs behind you, how easy is it to write new tracks?
First off, thank you for that terrific compliment! There’s a great collaboration within the band with how we write lyrics. Me and Eddie wrote most of the lyrics, but Richard has a fantastic sensibility and helps out a ton when we get stuck. I can shorty speak to Eddie’s process, he writes straight from the heart, there’s a nakedness and candor to his words. And a reason why his lyrics are so abstract at times is that he usually writes them in Swedish and then translates them into English. Making the choice of words very different from how I for instance write.
On the song “Hands” from our upcoming album, Eddie has a line: “I just wanna be loved all kinds of ways”. Who comes up with something that desperate and hauntingly beautiful? That speaks to his bravery of being that naked.
My approach to lyrics varies, Richard has been great there, I used to be hyper literal. I didn’t sugar coat anything. We discussed a lot that we should let people make up their own mind with what the lyrics are about. That being said, I can still by very direct, at least at first glance. But I could most likely talk for hours about the lyrics and all the hidden double meanings or play on words that I throw in there.
The process for me is fairly simple, it can start with a single word of context that happens out of the blue and an idea is born. I have a list of topics I want to explore or just sentences that I need to understand more and make into a song.
At this point, writing a song is fairly easy, making it good, that’s the tricky part. And trying to exceed our capability each time. Gold, the second to last track of “feel something new” came together, final product with recording in about 6-8 hours for instance. When something makes sense it just works. “Still Hurts” and “Dolour” took so many rewrites to get right. You just get stuck, knowing there’s an idea there, but the execution is lacking. The important things are two: one, kill your darlings, two, work really hard on something.
Sticking with Everything Hurts for one more question, the song “Invite Me In” received its own music video in 2022. What is the meaning of this track? Can you tell us something about the video? Was it intentional to create an ambivalent atmosphere with the more upbeat, nostalgic visuals and the heavier, more painful lyrics?
Invite Me In is a special one, I wrote the first version of the track when I was 15 I think, it was a song I knew had something there, but I couldn’t make it work to become cohesive enough. Then at a party I showed it to Richard and this speaks to his brilliant mind. He basically said; “F*ck you, we are doing this song, I know exactly how to make it work”. What we basically did was add drums and distorted guitars and some vocal layers to the new version. But it made the song. If you were to listen to the first draft I did 15 years ago, it’s 95% the same song, we just added layers to it.
Regarding the music video, there’s something so profound about childhood. I had all of those old childhood tapes made digital for years, but I couldn’t look at them. The idea of that innocent child that I managed to mess up so badly for years was just too raw at that time. Then when we agreed on a theme for it, I needed to take back that ownership. I spoke with you last time regarding the lyrics for “Now Let’s Make Those Teeth Leave Your Pretty Mouth” and that whole journey. It’s closely connected to all the bad choices done by me and done to me. But I don’t like placing the blame on others. You are responsible for your own happiness. So it was cool editing that video and watching a fairly big portion of my idyllic childhood. When I see the video, for me it’s very sad, like you said, juxtaposition hurtful lyrics with something that is very beautiful.
The next milestone in the life of your band was the release of Do You Like Violence. How does this album differ from its predecessors? With Pink Mist and Now Let’s Make Those Teeth Leave Your Pretty Mouth, you gave the album a great opening and ending. How challenging was it to bring these songs together in their final form? For an album, do you prefer variety or closer connections between songs?
Do You Like Violence changed everything for us. We didn’t have a drummer at the time, we needed to start to figure out how the hell do we write music without that fundamental aspect in our band. So we just practiced. And the programmed drums sounded like shit, but we were able to vocalize ideas and make them into reality. A couple of months into that process I started speaking with Buster whom we basically had just had email contact with previously. We pitched the idea of him joining us as a producer, something he had never really done before for other bands. He agreed and that is when we became GS 3.0.
Buster, except for all his musical talent, his friendship and humor. One of his biggests strengths are: “I hear something in my head and I can recreate it musically and technically in the computer”. This make the speed of finishing an album from around 4000+ hours collectively on Everything Hurts to just a couple of hundreds of hours in total.
We were able to bypass our own shortcomings in music production and explain to Buster the ideas we had, and he has the tools, the talent and knowledge of how to make them into a reality.
And he taught us a ton about simplicity, make things that makes sense and sound good, don’t over do it. And if it sounds a bit off, that is because it is. Kill your darlings and do it right instead. It will make a better product in the end.
Funny thing with Pink Mist, it was also a song I wrote back when I was 15-16 years old. It was an acoustic song. I can still play it today and it would pretty much be the same. What we did was that we make the foundational instrument a piano and I spiced up the melodies a bit. And at this point, you’ve guessed it. Richard comes in with a “I know how to make this good”. So we added some heavy guitars and vocal layers at the end. Pink Mist was born.
The credit for the song placement goes to Richard, he was clear from the get go that Pink Mist was an opener and for a closing song, it needs to be a proper send off.
The songs were not actually too hard to write, the thing that took the most time was writing cohesive song melodies and not overdoing it. But those songs were some of the easiest on the album. Calm was the song that took so much time… Jesus! 😀
As I already mentioned a video connected to the previous album, I wouldn’t miss the opportunity to do the same here! For Pillow Grin, a special clip was made. Why did you choose this song for the filming? What experiences and lessons did you learn during the making of it?
Pillow Grin has become sort of a meme at this point with some of our awesome fans. Should we have spent the time on making a video for it? Nope. Fun fact, my parents and their friends love that song, so it is always awkward when we meet for dinners and they want to listen to it…
We were honestly hoping that it would get a reaction and hopefully create some traction. That being said, so many people seem to love the song and that makes me super happy. It has a very special place in my heart. And some people cringe at it. Art will always divide people. The lesson learned there was, don’t pick singles based on a reaction. Pick the ones you like the most. Which we tried to do better with “feel something new”.
As for the album covers, you made sure that the visual impact of each release is intense and powerful. What inspired the artwork of your albums?
Head to Mist came about from my love of Watchmen. And the visuals of a Rorschach are great.
For Everything Hurts, it this beautiful painting from Francisco De Goya that hangs in a museum in Madrid. I’ve loved that painting for so long and when I showed it to the guys it just made sense. It represents the soundscape of that album so well.
Do You Like Violence is our “Mechanical Animals” era. It’s polished, posy and face/body-centric. We got help from a fantastic human being and artist called Robert Merrick.
“feel something new” are all Richard and Eddie’s ideas. And it works so well with the songs, we are going back to the aesthetics of the 90s and early 2000’s, which inspired this release so much. Covers and band photos are from Jakob Ivar Ekvall.
Speaking of albums and artworks, in January, it became official that your upcoming LP, “feel something new”, will be released in March. This album will be noticeably different from the previous ones. What can you tell us in advance about it? What was the key factor in deciding which songs should be released as singles?
We are so excited about this release, it’s a big step up for us, that’s for sure. Originally, we planned to just write 5 songs and release an EP. But we couldn’t stop writing and basically had to stop before the project got too big.
On “feel something new” we have written the songs without any particular plan, which is a first for us. We had a couple of cues, for instance on Custom Painted wanted to write a song with big beautiful chords or on Verified that the call and response of me and Eddie would be a fun idea.
A couple of things to share before the release, there are a couple of curve balls on there, a few tracks that are completely new to us, and was extremely fun to explore musically.
For the singles, we just wanted to showcase the variety of the release. Go out strong with a heavier track like “Verified” and end the single cycle with “Still Hurts”. Which will be the opener of the album. Excited for you the hear the closer, hopefully it lives up to our previous release.
Beyond the album release, what are your plans for this year? Are there any chances that you will perform in countries other than Sweden in the near future, even as part of a tour?
We are going back into the writing room pretty soon, I have had an itch for a couple of months now, so I think we will start writing again soon. Well, I really hope we get to do a couple of tours in the future. We need to get into contact with people who promote shows and bookers. Do you know any? 😉
Thank you for your answers!
Grayscale Season
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GrayscaleSeason
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/grayscaleseason/
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/grayscaleseason
- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7vkn8n6j3FIOVuRmVVYzA4
by: Wolfy
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