Life as we knew it came to an abrupt halt following the COVID-19 pandemic. This has been a time of uncertainty where countless lives were lost, many have lost their jobs, and others entered a deep depression as everyone experienced seeing the globe shutdown. Pain, the brainchild of producer/Hypocrisy/mastermind Peter Tägtgren, has shared the group’s first original song in five years with the new single, “Party In My Head.” The track brings back that 80s party sound, which is a powerful track on the overall distress and depression caused by the pandemic.
Tägtgren comments:
“I decided to write a song about all the bullshit from the last year of lock-up and people’s struggle, including my own, to adapt to the new way of life. Suddenly, all of us had to deal with our inner selves in our secluded new life, so this is the cheer-up song for people. Each of us has our own party in our head. Musically, it’s a hell of a party song. I can’t wait to play it live.”
Metal Insider spoke to the Pain mastermind to discuss more about the song and their recent cover of Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter.”
“Party In My Head,” seems much happier than the Rolling Stones cover “Gimme Shelter” that you recently released. What was the inspiration behind this party track?
Being locked up for a year and a half, I would say. I don’t know, I had this “Party In My Head” thing, this line in my head, so I actually wrote the lyrics before I wrote the music. Mainly just how I felt, how it was and I just think everybody can relate to it no matter what. Because we’ve all been suffering from it. The lock up and everything that goes with it.
That’s interesting that you say that because I saw the “Gimme Shelter” cover as a reaction to the pandemic. Then I hear “Party In My Head,” how everything is starting to open up and it’s time to party, but now, how you said it as a party you developed in your head during COVID-19, I can also relate with.
Yeah. I think we all did. Everybody misses going out to the bar and hanging out with their friends or being home, having a party and things like that with friends and going to concerts and just socializing. I just wrote down what I thought, how it was for me. That I constantly have a party in my head because I can’t get it in real life. It’s like a cyber party and needs to come out soon.
The video for “Gimme Shelter,” I thought was a perfect description of everything that’s happened. I wanted to know what was the experience like putting the video together?
It was what I wanted. It was all these riots, chaos that’s been going on all over the world, there’s a lot of countries in there. Not only America or Sweden or whatever, it’s from everywhere. It’s interesting to see the comments there. People comment like, oh, you got my country in there, I’m ashamed, blah, blah, blah. I just wanted to show how it’s all over the world. We all know it, but the song itself was really about the Cold War in Vietnam, when Mick Jagger wrote it. He thought actually that he was going to die, if I understood it right, from what I read. He was so paranoid that they would all die in a nuclear war or something like that, so he wrote this song. I figured, with the uncertainty in the world nowadays that everything changed over a year and a half, not only because of the COVID, but because of all kinds of stuff that happened. People are fed up with being locked in and stuff from the government before this COVID really took action.
The world has definitely changed. There’s a whole new perspective, and there’s a lot to fix because this pandemic has done more than just COVID to people. It’s caused a lot of pain, suffering, addiction, people not knowing what to do with themselves because they can’t go anywhere. It’s interesting what you said about Mick Jagger, how he thought he was going to die, have you ever felt from the lockdown that you were trapped in your own bomb shelter?
Where I live, it’s kind of a bomb shelter because I really don’t live too close to anybody. I live in a small village, we have four houses around here and around the big lake. I don’t have to associate with people at all, I normally don’t. I go to the local store, but that’s about it. I’m not really a guy who goes out to the pubs and stuff like that in the city, that’s like 30 minutes with the car. We hang out, a lot of friends, sitting and drinking and talking shit and stuff like that. But that went to a halt over the last year and a half, but slowly it’s opening up again. So, yeah, I live in a bomb shelter anyhow.
That sounds relaxing.
But if you used to go out and play and hang with people and shit like that, it becomes really different. Last year or 2019 and beginning of 2020, it was a lot of gigs and a lot of people, a lot of meetings and things, and now suddenly it just stopped. I was burned out, so it was kind of good for me anyhow, because I took a half a year laying in bed and watching TV and then I started working again, picking up things that I was supposed to do over the last three, four years. I finished the Hypocrisy album that I would have been dragging since 2018. I actually got a new project going on with another guy that will be announced soon and also wrote this “Party In My Head” plus this Gimme Shelter and doing videos and shit, so it’s coming back again now.
That’s awesome, and I’m looking forward to the new Hypocrisy album. It’s crazy how at first, during this pandemic you’re just stuck, you can’t really do anything or you just take a break from reality and then once you get back into it, you have a new burst of creative energy.
Yeah, exactly. Since the Hypocrisy is done, just waiting for the label to set it up and everything. I can’t do any more than this. Maybe I’ll write another Pain song over the weekend, I don’t know, let’s see, and throw it out, who knows.
Speaking of parties and the Pain song, do you have any plans to celebrate the tenth anniversary of You Only Live Twice?
I usually don’t celebrate any of these because then I would be an alcoholic because it’s always five years, 10 years, 15 years, just albums from ’92, and there’s a lot of fucking albums. We were supposed to play Rockin’ this year and do a 30 year Hypocrisy show with bringing in some friends and stuff, but that didn’t happen. I hope we can do it next year and film it and do a DVD.
For me, it’s just a fucking sham, in my opinion. Bands going out, oh, a 20 year tour with this album. I don’t know, maybe I’m too small, maybe these big bands can do it, but for me, nah, it doesn’t work.
It doesn’t work for everybody and it can also be about moving on focusing on the next record.
I try to focus forward, never backwards. Of course live, you want to bring in your whole catalog. At least a couple of songs from each album, but other than that, I don’t know if I wanted to, we’ve been offered so many times to do 20 years of this album or 10 years of this album. Then it’s like, no, it’s just to fucking make money. Okay, if you’re Rolling Stones or something like that, I can understand, but not Hypocrisy or Pain.
Is there going to be a new album for Pain in the future?
Yeah. Let’s start with “Party In My Head” and let’s see what happens, now that I got rid of everything I had to do, that I didn’t do. A lot of things are off my shoulders now, so I can just smile and go into the studio as soon as I have an idea.
Is there anything else that you wanted to say or add to your fans about this whole crazy year and a half or the new single?
Yeah, for me, this is a positive song, it’s about seeing the end of the tunnel, we can see the light in the tunnel, so to speak. So let’s celebrate that with this song.
