Euro rockers share a double bill
Jon Larsen of Volbeat says of coheadlining with Ghost: “I think it’s a pretty exciting bill.”
Normally, drummer Jon Larsen can be found in his “little toy museum of a house” in “a small, small town about an hour outside Copenhagen.”
The atmosphere will be considerably more frenetic on the tour his band, Volbeat, is now co-headlining with Ghost, which will visit Nationwide Arena on Feb. 7.
The mysterious Ghost appears as a heavily made-up priest-like leader along several “Nameless Ghouls,” rumored to be a different set of musicians than those who appear on the band’s albums.
Ghost, which has a new album coming out in March and just released the ironically titled single “Call Me Little Sunshine,” promises an indelible spectacle.
Volbeat, while just as dramatic sonically, is less visually striking. Basically, the band is four guys playing rock ‘n’ roll. Their latest album, “Servant of the Mind,” was released in December, featuring songs such as “Shotgun Blues” and “The Devil Rages On.”
Volbeat began playing more than two decades ago
Volbeat got its start in 2001. Jon Larsen and lead singer-songwriter Michael Poulsen have been with the group from the beginning. They’re now joined by Danish bassist Kaspar Larsen and American lead guitarist Rob Caggiano, formerly of Anthrax.
“When people were asking us years ago what kind of music we played, we’d say, well, you can call it whatever you want, but for us it’s just music,” Larsen said.
“Honestly, I would just say it’s rock and roll. I could say we’re a metal band, but if we are a metal band, what is Metallica? If they are a metal band, then we’re definitely not a metal band.”
Band members musical tastes span genres
All of the band’s members grew up listening to rock.
“Michael grew up where his parents were listening to a lot of the ’50s stuff. My parents listened to some of the ’60s stuff. Kaspar’s parents as well,” Larsen said. “Later on, when we discovered our own genres of music, for some reason, all three of us gravitated towards the metal scene. Bands like Iron Maiden, Kiss, etc. Once we started playing, all these elements came together. We never really gave it too much thought.”
By now, the group has put out eight albums. Their latest circles back to their earliest sound.
“It’s a throwback to some of the earlier stuff that we did. It’s not like we sat down and said, ‘Oh, Michael, you’ve got to write songs like you did on the first album.’ Because he probably couldn’t do that.
“I think some of the inspiration for this one came because he was doing a lot of podcasts, where they would talk about his musical past, his previous bands and some of the earlier stuff that we did. Maybe that triggered something inside him. Maybe he got some inspiration from some of his past heroes or maybe some of our earlier stuff,” Larsen said.
“Michael writes 99.9% of everything, but then he would come out to the rehearsal room and show it to me and Kaspar. Rob (who was in the United States) obviously couldn’t be there. Sometimes we would say, ‘Maybe you should change that bit into this bit, or maybe put this bit in front of that bit.’ And sometimes he would say, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s a good idea,’ and sometimes he would say, ‘Well, shut the (expletive)
up, you don’t know anything.’ That’s basically how we’ve always worked anyway.
“Then we did some demos in the summer of 2020 and sent the demos to
Rob. In the end, we recorded the album in the fall of 2020. It came out a year later, but that’s how it is.”
Volbeat eager to perform on bill with Ghost
By now, with a couple months of rehearsals and several performances per week, Larsen is back in shape for the physically demanding job of drumming in a rock band. In the nearly three years off, he didn’t have too extensive a routine to keep in shape.
“I’m a bit conscious to what I eat,” he said. “I have two dogs, so I walk them for a couple miles a day. I have a rehearsal kit at home that I sometimes sit and hit on for five minutes before I get bored.”
Larsen and the others in the band are looking forward to co-headlining with Ghost for he first time.
“They’re from Sweden and we’re from Denmark. Apart from that, Ghost has a more theatrical side than we have, but the music is not that far away from each other,” Larsen, 51, said, speaking by phone from his home. “They have a lot of melodies and hook-driven choruses, and so do we. I think it’s a pretty exciting bill.”
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