Gasp.com recently sat down with UNLEASHED frontman Johnny Hedlund to discuss their latest album Hammer Battalion, as well as Christianity and Christmas. An excerpt follows.

Gasp.com: I have to say I absolutely love Hammer Battalion, to me it's one of the best albums you guys have put out in awhile. It has some of the best playing I've heard from you guys. When I put the disc in I had it cranked and it scared the shit out of me when you scream on the beginning of 'The Greatest Of All Lies'.

Hedlund: "That's exactly the effect we wanted and we talked about that and when I buy a new record I make sure it's exactly that level of volume when it starts and it's funny you say that because it's exactly what we talked about. We said maybe we should put a slow or mid-paced song but then we said no we want to have that effect. You know, right from the start, set the pace right there. We did battle about which song to be first because that's always a problem. Everybody thinks differently in the band but finally we came up with that song. I'm happy you guys said that because I voted for that song (laughs)."

Gasp.com: It was a good choice. You have a lot of anti-christian themes on the album like 'The Greatest Of All Lies' and 'Long Before Winter's Call', I mean in general there seems to be a lot of nihilism within that whole wave of Swedish death metal. Is that a reaction to how you were raised? I know personally I felt that way because I was raised in a Christian family and taught that the bible was the absolute truth and when I hit like 15 or 16 I pretty much became a nihilist. Do you feel the same way?

Hedlund: "No, not at all. Actually my dad and my mother don't even know what Jesus Christ is, they could care less. So my grandma and grandpa were probably the only people back home that didn't go to church because they weren't interested and they don't see the advantages of going to church. They don't have anything against Christian people, that's not the issue, but I was not raised like that at all. But the society I live in is Christian and most of the Western world is based on Christian morals and we're raised that way whether we like it or not, it's either that or something else. Our entire law book is written because of what happened long ago when Christianity took over the Western World. So in that respect I don't have anything against Christians, that's not my task in this world, my task is to ask questions and criticize and acknowledge what they would call fact, that is more my task these days and I'm not into throwing darts at Christianity any more, that's not funny any more and I know I did that when I was younger but what I do think is funny is looking into Christianity or Islam for that matter, and take what they say is fact, what they say is correct because then we're talking about politics or science and if we take what they are preaching as science then we want to question that and see if it's correct and that is what I do with many of my lyrics these days, I want to dig into it and see if they are correct. I mean you can put out a very, very simple question to something they call Christmas Eve and Christ and if you look in the bible it is very hard to find any evidence at all that Jesus Christ was born even in the Winter time and as a matter of fact if you DO believe in the bible you will see that if Jesus had lived he was probably born around September or October and a lot of the intellectual Christians these days would agree to that. So it is a pretty fuckin' big lie that people still celebrate Christmas Eve on December 25th and for what reason I ask? But I do know the reason that's why we call the previous album Midvinterblot  because the Winter Solstice has always been the reason for the Winter season and that is when the sun turns. All the native tribes long ago had always celebrated the sun even before the VIkings actually, andthe Vikings were people that lived in the cold climate and they needed to celebrate. Even the Mayans celebrated the sun in some fashion and that is done on the 21st or 22nd of December which is what we call the Midvinterblot or the Winter Solstice. And so two or three days after you have Christmas and that's more of like a bonus day, a commercial day as I see it and we probably celebrate it much the same way but it is a Pagan tradition and has nothing to do with Jesus Christ and it's funny because today a lot of the intellectual Christians would agree to that but only 20 years ago when I grew up nobody would ever agree to that and they would say "of course it's the birthday of baby Jesus and blah-blah" and it was a fact, as much as fire is warm and water is wet (laughs) and its just we're talking like 20-25 years ago and it's things like that that surprise me and it's funny that people go so far to push a lie that they almost believe in it. Because it's science, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to look into these facts. (Anders comes in and asks Johnny in Swedish if he wants a drink). It's nice that people come in and offer me a drink (laughs). So I hope that answers your question."

Head to this location to read the interview in its entirety.