BraveWords caught up with Dark Tranquillity and The Halo Effect vocalist Mikael Stanne recently to chat about his life in heavy metal which dates back to him fronting In Flames for a brief period in the early ‘90s when he sang on the Swedes debut, Lunar Strain in 1994. In an excerpt from our upcoming major feature, during the BraveWords’ Rapid Fire questions, he was asked about the moment that changed his life, when he decided music was going to be his career.

"May '89 in Gothenburg," Stanne begins. "A place called Kåren. Kreator played, and I was so excited. It was insane."

BraveWords: Which album … Pleasure To Kill?

Mikael Stanne: "No, Extreme Aggression. Right when it came out."

BraveWords: The big Epic Records record. That was a big moment for thrash metal, to have a major label sign Kreator.

Stanne: "Yeah, and I went and it was the coolest thing I had ever seen. I was standing in the back. We had kind of just started, you know, like I was thinking about getting a guitar and stuff. Then I saw Tritze, you know, the original second guitar player. And I was like, "I want to do THAT. Where you just go like (mimics tremolo picking) and you headbang the entire show without caring. Yep. That's what I want to do. And then two months later we started the band. Kreator, and especially seeing them in our our hometown, in a venue that we kind of knew, that was magical. Because every band played in Stockholm or Copenhagen or somewhere like that -  somewhere close, but not Gothenburg. So, when we got cool extreme metal shows it was mind blowing. And that show, yeah, it started it for me. And I went to art class when I was 19 or whatever, and I did one of those kind of layout experiences, and I used all the stuff from Extreme Aggression, because it's a pretty stylish album. I did this whole thing, and I won some award in class. It was displayed in my high school, in the cafeteria or whatever, the lunch area, on the wall for years, what I did out of Extreme Aggression. So I'm pretty proud of that."

BraveWords: Does Mille know that?

Mikael Stanne: "No."

BraveWords: Have you met them?

Mikael Stanne: "Yeah, yeah we toured together. I've told Mille a lot of embarrassing things. I called him once when I was 14."

BraveWords: You called him?

Stanne: "Yeah. When he lived with his parents. I wanted to know the lyrics for ‘Flag Of Hate’, because we wanted to do a cover when we just started. And I called him to ask him about the lyrics, and he said, 'I don't remember'. And then he hung up."

Watch for the entire BraveWords chat in the coming days.