ALL THESE GREAT ANSWERS: CORONER from THE DEAD AND LIVING
(All photos used in this article by Erik Hansen)
1. What’re your highlights of the year so far?
Coroner (Vocals) - Hi, thanks for having me. 2024 has been quite an eventful year for us. In September, we released DAMAGE, the first single from the EP of the same name, which is coming out in February 2025. In November, a second single, DEMONS TILL I’M DEAD, dropped, and within a week, I think, the Kickstarter campaign for the vinyl release of DAMAGE was fully financed. We have a new guitarist, Lord, who’s been a real energy boost for the band, and we’re planning to return to the live scene early next year.
2. What’s in the pipeline for 2025?
C - Our full EP is due out in February. From March onward, we have some live shows planned, and then maybe some festivals. We’ve unintentionally been away from the live scene for a few years, but starting next year, we plan to play live a lot more. Ideally we’d love to do cross off our first show on Iceland, or maybe Japan and those bucket list stops, as it seems we won’t be able to play in space or on Mars for a while.
We’re also writing new material, so hopefully, the gap between releases will be shorter next time. As in the lyrics of DEMONS TILL I’M DEAD: "All meters red and full speed ahead."
3. Musically, what inspired “DAMAGE”?
C - Musically, we wanted to do something heavier than before. We don’t really listen to other bands when we shape our songs or our sound. It’s more of an organic process based on who we are and where we want to go.
The DAMAGE EP takes a giant leap forward from our previous work and goes further beyond our punk roots. It’s for the same reason we started the band in 2008—to break away from what we’d been doing for the past decade. With this release, we felt we needed to distance ourselves a bit from our previous work. It’s always been important for us to reinvent ourselves every now and then to keep things interesting, both for us and for our listeners.
4. AI has become a bone of contention among creators. What’s your view of it?
C - Since it’s such a widely popular opinion to demonize AI as a fatal danger to the human race, that fear mongering, I’m going to have to go against that a bit by intuition. We’ve had these big paradigm shifts before, and they weren’t the end of the world. I think AI will either get heavily regulated or we’ll learn to counter it or live with it. But we’ll see.
After living with AI for a couple of years now, I have to say it’s not always as smart as you’d expect. But I’ve learned it’s going to improve a lot in the coming years, and at some point, we’re probably going to encounter some very scary, world-changing stuff.
As for the band, we used a little AI for the artwork of the upcoming DAMAGE EP, as an extension of the more futuristic theme and vibe of the EP. Otherwise we probably wouldn’t have used it. We were pretty early adopters, so it would have been a bit cooler and trendier had we not run into logistical problems releasing the EP in 2020-2021 during the pandemic and inflation, which got pretty high in Sweden for a while.
It was important for us, though, not to just prompt stuff into AI. There’s a lot of human editing done in the singles and EP artworks.
AI in music and songwriting though. Hell no. I can’t think of a single reason whatsoever why that would ever be an even slightly good idea.
5. Was there a pivotal moment in the studio that impacted “DAMAGE”?
C - It’s really been a while since the songs were written and another while since they were recorded. Most of the writing and production was done at home, outside of the studio. So rather than a pivotal moment in the studio, going in to the studio itself was a game changer. Once in the studio we pretty much knew what to do. Or studiOS actually. We recorded the drums in Leon Music Studios and the rest in a studio called Speedball studio and in our own studio environments. Haha. Everyone has a studio these days. But yeah, taking the songs into the studio was the pivot.
6. What inspired the lyrical themes behind your new record, “DAMAGE”?
C - The lyrical inspiration for the DAMAGE EP came from our usual drive to write, express ourselves, and, to some extent, hopefully entertain. However, this time, we wanted to shift away from our usual nostalgic 19th-century vibe and push toward something more futuristic. We asked ourselves: What would The Dead And Living be like in space? How does our band’s universe connect to the vastness of space?
While our own world may feel like it’s falling apart, DAMAGE takes you on a cosmic journey. In the title track, "DAMAGE," for instance, it doesn’t seem certain where "ground control" is actually located.
While DAMAGE seems to take place far beyond our galaxy or supercluster, the EP’s second track, "MAGMA HEART," is an ode to Earth—its light and dark, its beauty and destruction—yet it also reflects on the somewhat dull fact that our planet is just a lump spinning in the dark, surrounded by space debris circling aimlessly around it.
DEMONS TILL I’M DEAD is more about worldly stuff, human relations, and struggles.
The EP’s final song, "ARMY OF MANKIND," could symbolize surrender to something like dark matter in space—an ever-expanding darkness that eventually devours everything. A war that can’t be won. It’s important to mention that the song was written in 2020, and that it isn’t referring to any specific army, war or conflict. The song is set in a far more cosmic or universal perspective.
7. What’s the story behind the artwork for the EP and singles, ‘DAMAGE’ & ‘DEMONS TILL I’M DEAD’?
C - The artworks were created after the songs, so they’re closely tied to the music. We knew we wanted to use the glitch effect and had a rough idea of what it could look like. We also aimed for a more modern or futuristic style, as a complete departure from our previous releases.
The glitchy black hole on DAMAGE was part of the concept from the start. It could symbolize the unknown and the distant.
For DEMONS TILL I’M DEAD, we wanted something abstract that allows interpretation. To me, it shows movement—maybe dancing—and I also see a snake in it. When you see it, it’s pretty cool, I think. But that artwork is definitely in the eye of the beholder.
I guess that’s all from me now. Thanks again for having me. Over and out. Beep.
