Hypocrite

This interview with singer/bassist Johan Haller appeared in issue #16

I don’t have a band photo of Hypocrite, so I have to ask… is anyone in the band gay-looking?
Ah yes… all of us is really good-looking for boys.

Any short-haired members?
Yeah. One of us is really short-haired. We put him in the middle of the photo.

What happened?
I don’t know, really. He lost all of his hair.. preparing to be a big dick. It worked out really fine.

Is “Johan” the Swedish way of saying “Peter”?
Yeah.

You don’t have Abyss Studios?
No, that’s Hypocrisy, not Hypocrite. Hypocrite is another Swedish band.

Peter, from Hypocrisy, was not available for interview, so I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind to pretend to be Peter.
Yeah, no problem for me. I can tell you anything you want to know about Hypocrisy as well.

Is it true that you had a girly little cat fight with Andy Laroque about t who is the better producer?
Yes, of course. We always have these small minor fights. But, as everybody knows, he’s a real fuck-up when it comes to producing. So the Abyss Studios is ten times better.

Has the band Hypocrite recorded in Abyss Studios?
No, they recorded in another studio called “Das Boot”, and Fred from Dismember is also now trying to be a producer. So they went there and fucked me up.

Entombed decided to play gay music. Dismember sounded like them when they were death metal, and continued sounding like them after the gayness transformation. What is this web of gayness over there?
Ah, you know, Swedes are big gays… all of us. We’re very into that right now. During the weekends we go out and fight with the gays. But during normal weekdays, we are the gays. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday we are the big killers of gays. Monday through Wednesday… Thursday is day off… but Monday through Wednesday we are all the time fucking each other in the ass.

It is like the Oriental concept of yin and yang, except in Sweden it’s yin and wang.
(laughs) Yeah, I couldn’t say it better.

You still have to pretend to be in Hypocrisy, for this next question.
Sure.

I would like to talk about the new self-titled album… Hypocrisy…. Why are the vocals like Rod Stewart?
It was the best thing that we can come up with, and I tried to sound exactly like the Rod himself, because he always gets the pretty girls… so I was wondering if I can get some small boys.

Wasn’t Rod Stewart homosexual?
I don’t know, really. I hope. I want to meet him, though.

All right, Peter. If The Final Chapter was left as the last Hypocrisy album, it would have been a glorious ending.
Yeah, it would have been, but we get lots of big checks from the label. I was wondering if we open up a shop only for gays when we receive the money for the new one. Why not? It’s a good opportunity to open up my biggest dream in the world.

If The Final Chapter would have been the last album, it would have been the band’s choice to end. But this new album, which is total garbage, has killed the band.
Yeah, but could you find a better way than to destroy with a bad album? We get rid of the record deal, and everything is very good. Nobody wants to touch us anymore.

OK, you can become Bjorne again… sort of like a Bjorne-again christian… or are you a born-against christian?
No. I bury christianity into me. I love, like, god. Jesus is my best friend. You know.

Are you attracted to Jesus?
Yeah, very… long hair, and he drinks lots of wine.

Are you the kind of person who blames homosexual tendencies on drug effects… like Ecstasy?
Yeah, it’s exactly gay thing. All the drugs are especially for gays.

They enhance the gay experience?
Yeah. When you take something like Ecstasy, you become a really big gay because you want to fuck everything that moves… only in the ass, of course.

Who is the idiot who told Dan Swano that he could sing?
Maybe Black Mark.

Have you heard Dan Swano when he’s trying to sing with clean vocals?
No. I don’t want to. Maybe I have done it before when he has solo project. But just looking at the covers makes me sick. So fuck that.

Is Dan Swano a big celebrity over there in Sweden?
Maybe in the gay business. He’s the gayest guy around. He’s the gayest guy on earth, maybe.

Dan Swano butchered the Mercyful Fate song Melissa on a tribute album by Still Dead Productions.
Yeah, Mercyful Fate will play here on Friday. And he have these love handles on his…. how do you say it?

Hips?
No. On the face… how do you say? Like, gay handles… you know, when you can hold on to the mustache…

In America, the love handles are on the hips.
Y
eah, but over here it’s when you can hold onto the hair on the cheek, for pushing backward and forward on the face.

Swedish women don’t have too much facial hair. But there’s a lot of immigration from third world countries into Sweden. Do you think that might change the hairlessness?
Yeah, from Poland especially. We give them money and we can do them all night long.

I had no idea.
You should come here.

I don’t want to. I think I interviewed too many black metal bands. I don’t think I will survive over there. The Swedish band Deranged played in Poland, and they said that the women were very friendly.
Friendly? Of course they were. If they get laid, maybe they can take them to Sweden for free. Of course they were friendly.

More friendly than Swedish women?
Yeah, because a Swedish woman probably understands what you say.

Is blonde hair in Sweden as common as Americans are led to believe?
Yeah, it’s very common. But the polar bears you can also forget about. That is totally bullshit. We don’t have any polar bears at all.

Would you agree that Dan Swano and Peter from Hypocrisy would make a very cute couple?
No. No way. They are no the same. They wouldn’t be so good together.

You don’t think they would make a good album together?
Yeah, but it should be released on some techno label that only produce French gay techno. That would be nice. Then they can tour all the French, spreading the disease.

What is the pop music in Sweden like? Is it dance oriented, or is it commercial rock ‘n roll?
It depends what the releases are. The KISS album went #1 for like 6-7 weeks. But then we also have this band that’s like Back Street Boys. It’s all kinds, but mostly dance.

The reason I am asking about that is because I am curious why styles like Dan Swano’s solo work have come into existence. It seems that they reflect some sort of trend somewhere.
Yeah, they try to do something to earn some money. To earn any money on Edge of Sanity is really impossible. So he tries to do his best on some normal kind of shit.

I think that there are small places that aren’t in contact with the outside world that never seem to break away from the 80’s. So I was trying to discover the #1 area of the world where this gay kind of metal still thrives.
He lives in a town called Oreero. But this 80’s kind of metal, like Hammerfall… that’s from Gothenburg.

Hammerfall… one of the people in the band has a long leather coat, and the sleeves were cut off and replaced by bracelets that are connected by little chains, and it looks like a woman’s nightgown. Does this person think he looks tough in that?
I guess he thinks he looks very cute.

There is a person who works at Nuclear Blast whose identity I must keep secret. He told me that he made a valiant effort to try to appreciate Hammerfall because the band is on his label, but the lyrics were just so unbelievably stupid that it ruined every attempt to enjoy the albums. What would make a Swedish band write such ridiculous words?
They really want these ridiculous lyrics. That’s the big problem. Everybody buys the fucking album. Big problem.

But they are keeping certain stereotypes alive, namely that of stupid metalhead. The lyrics of Hammerfall just prove that the stereotype is true.
Yeah, but the truth is, this type of music… ‘80s metal, was born in Germany… and have you ever seen one German band write good lyrics? No, never. So that’s probably why. They invented the power metal scene with bad lyrics.. sometimes good music, but, you know.

The English love to ignore a lot of letters in words too. Only a total fag would think that the letter “r” can sometimes be silent. No wonder New England is called “New England”. It has the same gay language tendencies. Didn’t England christianize Scandinavia?
I don’t know.

I think that Scandinavia should take revenge against the humiliation.
Yeah, but we take it out on other things, like sports, music… which they really fuck up, especially black metal.

There seems to be a misconception that Americans have about Sweden because of all the bands that are signed from Sweden. We are led to believe that there is a thriving metal community there.
Yeah, they go to buy the records, but they don’t go to see. In Denmark is the other way… everybody goes to see the show but they don’t buy the records. That’s why all the bands go to Christiania to play.

A very ironic name for a place that has metal.
That is a free state for smoking pot in Denmark.

Is it not ironic that America tries to tell the world that it is the most moral nation, yet the greatest advances in humanistic thinking occur in Europe? Does not Norway have that vacation from prison program?
Yeah. We had one right now… this vacation, he robbed a bank, shoot two policemans, and go to Costa Rica. Now he’s back in jail.

Well I’m not saying that humanism works. I am just saying that America pretends to be humanistic, but humanism is only found outside of this country.
They want to be the worldwide biggest cop. If anybody fights, they come into the country and say, “Hello, what’s this?”

I heard from some bands that there is resentment toward foreigners in Sweden.
Yes, in some parts we have skinheads and nazi’s. But it’s not that big.

Did you know that some of the stories of the bible have changed over time?
Yes.

The Jews were going to stone a whore. But Jesus intervened and picked up a stone and offered it to the crowd, saying, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” Everyone dropped their rocks. The bible story ends there, but the part that was censored out was that Jesus smiled wickedly to himself and said, “I am without sin” and he wailed the stone into the bitch’s face. The church decided that the additional information was too uninteresting to leave in the story. What do you know about crucifixion?
Really nothing. Just nail into the cross.

Did you know that dogs were not permitted in the crucifixion area?
Nope.

It appears that dogs are unable to resist the lure of upright objects. To them, it is a sign of a bathroom. It causes quite a stench, which could be a problem. Crucifixion was a big tourist attraction. Dog urine odors could very well turn away business. Vendors sold little crucifixion dolls and other mementos. Does Hypocrite sell any odd merchandise?
Maybe we do some cats. I don’t know. Cats or butterflies. Butterflies would be nice, with a big “H” on the back.

I don’t have any more questions. To be honest with you, I don’t know what Hypocrite sounds like. I don’t know what happened to the album.
It sounds like In Flames and At The Gates. If you need any more interviews, just tell me, because as you probably know, I can do the interview for Hypocrisy. I can do the interview for In Flames. It doesn’t matter. Just give me a call. It is no problem

Exploitation

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