www.facebook.com/drownintime
From: Sweden
Sounds like: Alternative Rock/Metal
1. How did you get started with music and how did you develop your sound? Who thought of the name “Drown In Time" and is there any meaning behind it?
Music has always been around me growing up as my dad plays guitar and both my parents are music lovers. I started singing a little bit when I was 5 or so and started playing guitar at 6, which is also when I got the big realisation of what my mission in life was. At the same time when I was 6, I started taking group acoustic guitar lessons but was so bored of it that I only stayed for one term and learnt only one chord. I was always very creative with drawing and creating melodies as well as scripts. I had a keyboard in my room at the time and was jamming with it. At around 9 I started taking bass lessons and around the same time I started my first band with my brother and a friend in my school. A few years later at 14, I joined a band in my hometown and started taking guitar playing more seriously and also developed my singing. On the side of that band, I was playing with others as well and trying to form another band. At 15 I started to take guitar lessons and was also practicing singing on my own at home. Everyone in that band grew a lot as musicians during those teenage years and my playing, singing and writing ability grew to a professional level. We parted ways in 2015 when I was 17 years old and that is when I really started to push myself even more as a musician. Around the same time and during the darkest time of my life at 17, I created Drown in Time.
The sound developed from combining influences and searching deep within without any thoughts about how things should be done “because it has always been done in that way”. It started off with learning how to write the same type off songs as the songwriters I look up to and that then developed in to creating something new by asking myself what I would like to hear when combining all my different influences together and thinking without barriers outside the box. This later outside of the box thinking started when writing on the last, second album ‘The Way’ and it was a very creative, liberating and challenging writing process to go through. The sound will continue in this direction and to fully reach that sound I am aiming for and have not heard anyone else do yet is a goal that I am working towards. Besides all of this, my songwriting is often a long perfectionistic process of putting things together since I am aiming for a special feeling and touch of nerve with the way the melodies are put together. There is a special feeling I can get from some music and it comes a lot down to how the melodies are arranged together with the chords. I am aiming for this special feeling in my songwriting and know that it has become a bit of an ID in Drown in Time’s music. It is not about having the same melodies in every song but about building the songs in such a way that it becomes extremely catchy and emotional at the same time and I am diving deep in to the building of the melodies to reach that special place. When listening to a couple of Drown in Time songs in a row, you as a listener will get in to this special place and feel this different landscape. The musical vision that I am aiming towards will unveil itself as time goes.
The name came about after years of trying to come up with a name for a new band that I wanted to start and I had ended up with a couple of good names and words that I liked in my notes. I wanted to create something that was meaningful, deep and fit the music well. I was a bit inspired by the movie Inception and thought that it would be a cool idea to use the concept of time. In the car on the way home from watching a concert, my friend who was trying to come up with a name for his new band was texting with his bandmates and I wanted to help out so I brought out my notes and one of the names I suggested they could use was Drown in Time. Seeing the amazing reaction everyone got from it after plenty of time and suggestions of no interest, I realised that it was a good name and instantly decided and told my friend “I’m having it, that’s the one”. It felt great to finally after years have come up with a name that I was very happy with. The meaning behind of the name is the same as the purpose for the music project: To help and inspire to live life to the fullest and keep fighting through hard times. “When we are being fully present in the now, we are being fully aligned with time and that is when we have drowned in time”.
2. What do you want people to take away from your music?
That it is always possible to reach happiness and fulfilment (be aligned with time) no matter how deep in to darkness we are. No one is alone in suffering and it is a big part of life that helps us grow, appreciate, learn and become stronger. Musically to be taken on a floating journey in another dimension whilst being motivated.
3. How would you describe your sound to the average listener?
Deep, Emotional, Heavy, Melodic. Alternative, Conceptual, Cinematic Metal.
4. Who are three bands you’d like to tour with?
Hard to pick three so here are five bands: Foo Fighters, Coldplay, Green Day, Pink Floyd, and Guns N’ Roses.
5. How has Covid affected what you do as a band?
If Covid didn’t happen then there would have been more time spent on playing live so because of the pandemic, that time has instead gone towards making alot of new music.
6. What’s your take on the current state of Progressive Rock?
It would be nice if more artists focused made concept albums like Pink Floyd did. Overall with all music nowadays it is very common to try and write something that is trendy and suitable for the radio rather than having a concept or strong vision that pulls out the music and tells a story. Both of Drown in Time’s albums are concept albums and a journey that will be continued on the next album.
7. What’s the current music scene like there in Sweden?
There is a big amount of talented musicians and bands working hard in Sweden. In Scandinavia overall, there is a very large amount of metal bands, which is cool. Sadly the possibility of building up a band to become big by playing live with other bigger bands does not exist in Sweden as it does in a city like London in the UK for example, as there are less people living in Sweden.
8. What’s your take on the royalties that streaming services pay out to artists?
The good thing about free streaming is that it is good promotion for artists but the bad thing is that the payouts are not the best. I think that Youtube and Spotify for example does an ok job when it comes to paying out to artists seeing as they are also platforms to promote and grow bigger on and that people can listen to the music for free. On Apple Music/Itunes on the other hand, when fans actually pay their own money to buy a song or album, so little of that money actually goes to the artist. Like, what has Apple Music/Itunes actually done here to deserve about +90% of the intake? All artists should probably look for other better platforms that are better than that one. But hey, if people decide to upload their music to a streaming service then they have accepted what comes with it. Overall I think that music should be a bit like where the film industry is at right now. Netflix for example is a good idea where people pay a subscription and the film industry then can be kept alive from all the money coming in. Luckily, movies generate so much money that they can have insanely high budgets that creates wonderful movies for the human race to experience and enjoy.
9. What’s next for Drown In Time?
Next for Drown in Time is to continue writing on the next album and to play live.
10. Any shoutouts?
To everyone that has gone through something challenging!
