Sabaton frontman Joakim Brodén looks back at his 2019 BABYMETAL collab, Oh! MAJINAI, as well as the time the band shot him through “the floor of the stage with a bazooka and a cigar…”
Following the release of BABYMETAL’s new collab-tastic album METAL FORTH, we rewind the clock to 2019 and find out from Sabaton’s Joakim Brodén what it was like to work together on Oh! MAJINAI.
How did you first come across BABYMETAL’s music?
“It must have been many, many years ago. They were quite new, and I sort of disregarded them instantly, only based on the name. I didn’t give it a fair chance, to be honest – too much old-school metalhead prejudice! I had to totally reconsider that as time went on. I didn’t realise how good they were until I saw some live stuff on YouTube and I realised, ‘Wow, that’s a show, for real.’ We had the lovely opportunity to join them for a couple of shows in Japan some years ago [in 2018], and it was an awesome show and production to be on.”
How did Sabaton and BABYMETAL first connect properly in-person?
“It was around the time when we were supporting them in Japan. BABYMETAL wanted me to guest on one song [for META! Meta Taro] during the Tokyo show, and I was shot up through a hatch in the floor of the stage with a bazooka and a cigar. I had the weirdest soundcheck – it barely involved me touching a microphone, but it was rather me practicing crawling in a small hatch. I’m supposed to sort of unravel myself from a little Swedish meatball into some sort of thing while I’m in the air and landing looking cool with a cigar and a bazooka. That was my introduction.”
How did that lead to you working on music together?
“They asked me if I want to sing on the song Oh! MAJINAI. I knew there were specific things they wanted, so instead of me just recording it and sending them files, I asked them, ‘Can we do it together when we’re in Japan?’ and they were nice enough to do that. They rented a studio in Osaka on a day off, and they played me the song and directed me how they wanted it. It was quite hard, because between every take, they were super-polite – obviously, being Japanese – they were trying to explain, ‘Yes, we like that, but not that.’ I said in a not-so Japanese way, ‘Guys, if we’re gonna be this polite, we’re gonna be here for-fucking-ever.’ I said, ‘Treat me like a slave. Stop the tape, say, “Again, harder,” or, “Again, you’re off-key.”’ By the end of that day, I barely had any voice left!”
This interview originally appeared in the special-edition Kerrang! Presents BABYMETAL magazine.
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