From his Cobra Studio, Martin “Konie” Ehrencrona has been churning out records by the likes of Tribulation and Refused – to name a few. On the back of the release of the Undergrund EZX, which he of course engineered, we checked in to ask a few questions!
To take us back to the very beginning, how did you discovered music and ultimately what fascinated you about the process of recording and producing so much that you made it into a career?
I had an older brother that brought ‘80s hard rock and ‘70s punk to our house when i was a kid. I was crap in school, felt different and started to get interested in odd music and watching horror movies. I discovered Roky Erikcson in 1985 through a horror movie and then “13th Floor Elevators” and so on. In the ‘90s, I was into ‘60s garage rock and black metal. I think the punk scene with the DIY mentality was an eye-opener for me when it comes to recording. The death/black metal scene back then had the same kind of DIY mentality as well. In the ‘90s, I bought a Fostex Portastudio which I made black metal and weird rock music demos. The Fostex and other vintage synths and instruments I got my hands on were a perfect place to start and there my career sort of started without me knowing it.
Your style of mixes and productions all have a sense of raw, gritty energy. What do you think shaped your preference and style?
When I was maybe nine years old, I was in my Grandparents’ summer house and found the first album by The Who. I got it and I remember thinking it looked cool. i can still see myself the first time i put it on the record player. I thought the drums sounded so wild and raw and I had never heard anything like that. Looking back, that’s probably where I got my preference for how drums should sound – the open and singing toms, the distortion and the lively and not perfectly tight drumming style. So good!
You’ve recorded anything from indie to extreme metal. Is there one genre or sound you generally prefer? Do you tackle a production differently depending on the genre?
A diversity of genres is good, then I don’t get bored easily. I don’t think I tackle genres differently production-wise, it’s more about how the people in the bands are and how they want to work. I try to be responsive and research what they listen to and why. Of course, sometimes different genres demand their special microphones and techniques.
For this EZX, you teamed up with David Sandström of Refused. How did your paths cross before this project and why was he the perfect drummer for this EZX?
The extreme and underground music scene in Sweden is tight-knit, so I of course knew of David before we collaborated on our first joint ventures a few years back, Refused’s “War Music” album and the band’s music for the video game Cyberpunk 2077. After that, we got really close and now we are doing a really dirty depraved metal album together.
Listening back to the final product, what are your thoughts and how do you see yourself using the sounds in your own work?
The things you are able to do in this program are amazing. The more you learn about it, the more creative you get. I was skeptical at first because i have a studio, work with recording drums and love it, but after having sat down and really dug into it when doing the demo tracks and presets for this project, all my prejudices about software of this kind were blown to pieces. It sounds very good. It’s just inspiring to have my personally engineered and mixed drum sounds from four different drum sets recorded in my own studio to work with. I’ve actually already used it in some mix work I did. I got raw material from an American band, but their bass drum didn’t sound like I wanted, so i replaced it. I’m sure I’m going to use it to produce demos and full productions going forward since it’s so fast and sounds so good.
