Sabaton bassist and manager Pär Sundström has once again taken aim at a persistent misconception about the band — the idea that their catalog of songs about historical battles and wartime heroism amounts to some kind of celebration of war.
In a new interview with Ore Bihovsky of TotalRock‘s “Louder” radio show, Sundström made clear that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Asked whether writing so extensively about history has left him more hopeful about the future, Sundström kept his focus firmly on the past. “Well, I don’t wanna sound too [pessimistic] about the future, but it does sometimes look bad. I mean, we sing about history. So in this way we focus on that, and we don’t wanna talk so much about the future, what it’s gonna bring or whatever not,” he said (as transcribed by Blabbermouth).
“We sing about history,” Sundström continued. “History is set. It’s done. It’s settled and it sort of has shaped the world that we live in today, for good or bad. But there is nothing we can do to change the history, and that’s important. We can change the future, but it’s not up to us to say how the future’s gonna look like for everyone in this world.”
He also credited the band’s audience as a genuine source of material. “Yeah, very often. And a lot of the stories [we sing about] we would never know about if it wasn’t for the fans,” Sundström said. “They come with stories they tell us, and we’re, like, ‘Okay, wow, that was something we need to dig into.’ And we make a little note or we keep it in our minds. And then at some point when we are in the songwriting process, we’re, like, ‘Ah, maybe that story would fit here.’ And we look it up, and we do some research, and maybe it fits or something like that. So definitely our fans are very involved in that.”
The heart of the conversation, though, was the pushback Sabaton still gets from people who read their music the wrong way. Asked if he’d ever met a fan who didn’t grasp that the band is making a point against war rather than glorifying it, Sundström drew a line between fans and critics.
“Well, we have met people — I wouldn’t call them fans, but we have met a lot of people who have misunderstood the whole idea of Sabaton. There are some people in this world who don’t understand Sabaton. They think that Sabaton is sort of, ‘Yeah, it’s war. We think that war is cool. We approve of war,’ and these kind of things. And people are, like, ‘Yeah, you are profiting out of war’ and stuff. But it’s the opposite. It’s exactly the opposite,” Sundström explained.
He argued that, if anything, the band has every reason to want conflict to end. “I mean, if you talk about a simple thing like profit, okay? It would be better for us if all the war stopped because we still have enough s**t in the past to cover that mankind have been evil and killing each other. So there’s no need for anything new,” he explained.
“But every time there’s a new war or a new anything new, there’s less people for us to sing for. So there’s definitely no profit in us to celebrate war or weapons industry or anything like that.” Sundström summed up the band’s role as one more way of keeping the past alive: “No — quite the opposite. So we see ourselves as a kind of a branch. There you have history books, you have a museum, and then you have a heavy metal band. And we all kind of connect there to tell about the past that was. But what is current is not interesting for us.”
The comments come as Sabaton keep the momentum going behind their 2025 album Legends. This past June, the band announced a second part to their European “The Legendary Tour,” set for April/May 2027. Last year’s leg drew more than 260,000 people across 13 countries and, at 420 tons of equipment, was billed as the biggest arena tour production ever mounted by a rock band. The spring 2027 run spans 15 countries, with stops including Dublin’s 3Arena, Glasgow’s OVO Hydro and Birmingham’s NEC.
The band also recently locked in rescheduled dates for its previously postponed North American tour, which was pushed back to give Sundström time to recover from inflammation in his arms. Originally slated to open February 9 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and wrap April 20 in Vancouver, the run will now launch September 23 in Halifax, Nova Scotia and conclude December 12 in Fort Lauderdale, with Pop Evil and Wings Of Steel supporting throughout.
Earlier in June, Sabaton also officially announced an extensive arena tour across their home country. Scheduled for January and February of 2027, the trek is being billed as “Den Stora Sverigeturnén III” (“The Grand Swedish Arena Tour“.
Photo credit: Zorana Vujčič
