Mikael Stanne of Dark Tranquillity shares a deeper insight about his relationship with Tomas Lindberg

Dark Tranquillity and The Halo Efect leader Mikael Stanne discussed the recent death of At The Gates vocalist Tomas “Tompa” Lindberg in a recent interview with Chile’s PowerOfMetal.cl. He was asked about Lindberg’s significance to the Gothenburg, Sweden, metal scene. This is his response, as reported from blabbermouth.net.

More than you could explain, actually. I met him when I was 14. I went with a friend to their rehearsal room in the basement of Kristian Wåhlin, [also known as] Necrolord, who’s the cover painter for ‘The Gallery’, for instance. And they were rehearsing with Grotesque that later became, or before At The Gates. And it blew me away. I saw a band that played music live in a basement. And I’d never seen that before. And it was crazy, insane black metal stuff. And I was so inspired by it and kind of awestruck by it. And so we started hanging out, and Tomas showed me tons of music that he had found through his fanzine and through his kind of tape-trading and record collecting. And yeah, we became instant friends, and [we’d been friends] since then. More than anything, I think Tompa really inspired the scene, because he was kind of that central figure for everything that kind of went on in Gothenburg at the time. He was so passionate about it, and he was so into it, and he knew every band, and he knew about everything that was going on in the scene. So, if you needed anything, if you had any questions or you wanted to know something, or you wanted to kind of be inspired, you just go to him. And he was always there. So without him, there would be no Gothenburg death metal scene; that’s just a fact. [With] his kind of integrity, he took this music very incredibly serious. And when I kind of discovered extreme metal through bands like Kreator and Cannibal Corpse, whatever it was, I was kind of, like, ‘I don’t know what this is. I love it, but I don’t know if it’s serious or not.’ But he showed me that, ‘No. Come on. This is serious.’ There are some bands that take this very seriously, and there are lyrics that matter. It’s not just horror movie stuff. And so when I started writing, I wanted it to matter and be serious and with serious issues or problems or what have you. And it’s because of how he showed me what music could and should be. So, yeah, without him there would be no [Gothenburg] death metal scene. So we’re eternally grateful. And I miss him like crazy.

Tomas was fighting an aggressive illness.

It’s been a horrible two years knowing that he was struggling and kind of battling this disease. And everybody thought, of course, ‘Yeah, it’s gonna be fine. [He’s] gonna power through [it].’ But a couple months ago we realized that it’s worse than we thought. And now this happened. And, yeah, it’s devastating.