The Riven: ‘For this album, we decided to throw all those prejudices out of the window and let the songs steer it – we broke all the rules’

Stockholm-based power rock quintet The Riven will release their third album Visions of Tomorrow tomorrow (25 April), fusing rambunctious rock, doom metal and a dash of pop, inviting listeners to crank it right up and belt it out in their car.

The band, which formed in 2016, comprises Totta Ekebergh (vocals), Max Ternebring (bass), Elias Jonsson (drums), Barcelona-born Arnau Diaz (guitar) and Joakim Sandegård (guitar). Ekebergh, Ternebring and Diaz met in London in 2016 when they were studying at the Tech Music School, although the band has undergone a few lineup changes since then. Of their band name, Ternebring says: ‘It was Totta’s suggestion because we wanted a band name that had ‘The’ in it. She found this word called ‘Riven’, which means the same thing in English as in Swedish (to tear or split apart violently) and we thought that was a pretty cool name!’

The album is a real melting-pot of musical flavours, bringing together vintage 70’s rock, a good dash of soul, a sprinkling of doom metal, carried along by hard-hitting and sharp-shooting riffs and licks. Notable for their melodic and catchy twin guitar arrangements and Ekebergh’s commanding vocals, it’s the kind of album begging to be played live.

The title track ‘Visions of Tomorrow’ encapsulates all of this, both sonically, and in terms of shining a light on their view of the world, highlighting their frustration with how the world is run, who’s in charge and what is about to happen to the rest of us. The band describes it as ‘honest and fast-paced, it’s calling you, and it will make you shake your fist and bang your head – all while thinking about where we are and where we are going’: ‘I would describe it as having a lot of energy,’ Ternebring said. ‘That comes from us recording everything live. It has a lot of catchy hooks in it and for me, at least, it has a deeper meaning. Lyric-wise, I think we have tried to focus on things that we all face in our daily lives. There’s no fantasy theme, it’s just our own observations about where we are.’

As the track goes: “From the light of yesterday and away, I see visions of tomorrow. Oh, we try to break away from the life led in sorrow.”

‘Visions of Tomorrow’ is one of my favourite songs, I think it’s nice that we made that into the title track because it sums up the whole album’

On the day we chat, Trump’s tariff war is in full swing and I say that the album title feels prescient and Ternebring laughs: ‘When we released our previous album, Peace and Conflict (2022), it was a week after Russia’s full invasion of Ukraine, so there was a bit of timing on that one as well! I think we’re all aware about what’s going on in the world and I think for us, it’s natural to write about it. ‘Visions of Tomorrow’ is one of my favourite songs, I think it’s nice that we made it into the title track because it sums up the whole album.’

I ask him if he has some kind of crystal ball that the rest of us don’t have to predict global events unfolding and he laughs. ‘Exactly! Actually, when we started to make the album, we didn’t really know what it would sound like at all but we knew that we wanted to experiment with the process. In the past, when we’ve been writing stuff, we could be quite harsh about it and say: “Is this a rhythm song? Is this how it’s supposed to sound? Is this on brand, so to speak?” But for this album, we decided to throw all those prejudices out of the window and let the songs steer it – we broke all the rules.’

‘Far Away From Home’ is the kind of high-octane opener that reels you right in with fantastic vocals from Ekebergh: ‘That’s one of my favourites from this album,’ Ternebring said enthusiastically. ‘It started out being a love song to a person but then we twisted it around to be about love for your hometown or another geographical location. I think it has this longing in it, which I really like. And I’m also happy that I get to start the album as well with my bass riff there! The intro riff was actually the last thing we added to the song. It started with the chorus riff, when Joakim brought it to rehearsal. We thought that sounded cool and we started to build from that. It was not the first song we wrote for this album. I think it was one of the middle ones that we wrote. With all the songs, we kept adding stuff or taking it away right up until we were actually recording them.’

As the song kicks off: “Mesmerised by your sweet talking. Spoken as it was a vow. You didn’t have to ask me to follow, I’m stumblin’ by your side from now.”

I ask him if there’s a song on the album that he views as the anchor and he nods: ‘Definitely. ‘Crystals’ is the anchor song for me. I wanted that to be the main song of the album because I think it represents everything we wanted to put into it. When we wrote this song, we knew for the first time that we’d have an album. We thought: “Now we have the heavy riffs. We have the interesting lyrics. We’ve got the psychedelic middle eight (laughs), this is a proper song!” It represented the album in that sense because it had all these ingredients.’

‘I started writing that song based on people that believed in a lot of conspiracy theories, I found that a very interesting subject – we all have people around us that are hooked on them’

Fascinatingly, ‘Crystals’ taps into something that doesn’t often make its way into songs: conspiracy theories: ‘We talked before about watching what’s going around you, obviously you’re judging a bit (laughs). I started writing that song based on people that believed in a lot of conspiracy theories, I found that a very interesting subject – we all have people around us that are hooked on them. They have this worldview where they see conspiracies everywhere! For me, it’s one of our main challenges in our society. I have loads of friends who get stuck in that kind of stuff. That’s why towards the end of the song, we’re describing how this works but it’s supposed to be a bit more inspiring. We’re saying don’t give up hope on these people. They can come back from it, you know?’

I ask him if his conspiracy theorist friends have heard the song yet and he grins: ‘They haven’t heard it yet but I’m looking forward to them hearing it and seeing it open up their worldview. I doubt it will but that would be great!’

As the track goes: ‘A page from an open book. A shimmer, a knowing look. The truth is always in the eye of the beholder. Hear it calling strong, don’t care if it’s right or wrong. Away from the troubled road, indifferent to life…”

Growing up, he was particularly inspired by big 80’s heavy metal bands like Iron Maiden and Judas Priest: ‘I’m also a huge Rush fan, so metal, progressive rock and that kind of stuff are really my inspirations. As a bass player, I started just wanting to sound like Steve Harris of Iron Maiden but as I grew older and I started listening to a bit more music, I think my favorite bass player of all time is James Jameson, a bass player (from Charleston, South Carolina) who played on all the Motown records. The way he makes all those melodic bass lines is out of this world. I’m trying combine some techniques from Rush frontman Geddy Lee and Steve Harris but at the same time, keeping in mind like what makes a good bass line – the melody. It’s not the instrument that gets the most glory (laughs). A band can get away with having a guitarist that’s not so good or even a singer that isn’t but I think if the bass player is really crappy, it’s very hard to make it sound good.’

I agree and say that I’ve been playing The White Stripes ‘Seven Nation Army’ on the guitar recently and that the bass line is utterly addictive, the take away element that you remember in the song, and he gets very animated: ‘I think that’s one of the best bass lines ever! There’s a reason why people are going to football matches and singing to that bass line because it’s sooooo good!’

‘I love it when you do a little stop before a little guitar lick that goes up into a proper solo!’

Given the band’s very varied influences, it’s hard to pigeonhole them, something that delights Ternebring: ‘We don’t want to be just one genre because I think it can limit you in a sense. We don’t want to be just metal or retro rock or whatever. We just want to write songs, although obviously we are inspired by a lot of retro stuff. We all have so many different inspirations in this band. Like me, for example, I’m from the Stoner Doom kind of world (laughs), I love that stuff. Whereas Totta loves Journey and Foreigner. We all bring in our different genres and our different backgrounds to it and just try to make it blend. If you’re trying to sound too much like a band, it will just be boring because that band you’re trying to sound like, they have already done it. And they’re probably going to do it better than you anyway!’

‘Set My Heart On Fire’ is one of the standout tracks on the album, a real tour de force of a song featuring impressive vocals from Ekebergh and a guitar solo from Sandegård designed to ring out across big stadiums. ‘It’s one of my favourites, too. When we recorded it, I was like, all right, this is probably going to be the most popular song on the album because it has this almost poppy cheesiness (laughs), it would definitely be a song that we would have discarded previously.’ I say that I’m very happy that they didn’t and he grins: ‘You always have this “All right, well, we’re supposed to be this cool rock band but here’s a cheesy pop song!” But in the end, I’m very happy with it. Totta came to rehearsal with the “set my heart on fire” lyric idea, which I thought was great, then she wrote most of the lyrics for that one. The solo is also one of my favourite ones, I love it when you do a little stop before a little guitar lick that goes up into a proper solo!’

As the track erupts: “Sitting in a bar at night. People come and people go. Downtown in the city lights, I try to forget but I can’t let go. I gotta see it right. I got you on my mind tonight.”

‘Killing Machine’, which is the first single they released from the album, takes the listener on a very different journey, exploding with the kind of squealey riff that will have all wannabe rockers reaching for the heaviest duty hairspray. Ternebring’s chuggy riff underpins the whole song, pulling it along with some serious oomph and with the kind of energy that would make it a brilliant theme song for a TV detective show: ‘It’s another one of those songs where we’re watching the world and all these conflicts around us,’ he said. ‘It is very much of a challenge to remain true to your ideals. It’s also about the escalation now in Europe with the war in Ukraine and NATO expansion, with Sweden joining NATO (in 2024). It’s us watching this thing without being able to do anything about it, that feeling of being powerless in that process. So the “killing machine” itself is a metaphor for all of this that’s going on.’

That comes across in the lyrics: “Selling peace for fear. Shipping the war out here. The smell of gun smoke is rising. Have we got no sense? We’re all at the commence for a blood red sun on the horizon.”

He describes them as a ‘very, very democratic band’: ‘We don’t really have a set template to write songs, someone has an idea and then we all start to work from it. I think that’s good in a sense but sometimes it can be really annoying because we always have to discuss everything in this band! So there are a lot of discussions but I think that’s important for us since we don’t really have a band leader. It also reflects on how we write songs because we all want to add our own parts. That’s why every song is not the same because we’re all contributing. Sometimes we have to vote on ideas, yes, really! It’s really, really annoying (laughs) but it’s also good if you can get the majority behind your decision. If you want to do something and you discuss with two people and you’re like, right, now I know the bill is going to pass!’

‘I wish I would have been able to play the drums but I have the worst coordination in the history of mankind!’

Ternebring formed his first band, aged just 14, with a couple of friends: ‘I’d never played an instrument before. And two of my friends were like: “We’re going to play guitar”. I was like: “All right, cool.” So I either had to choose playing the drums or playing the bass. And I really did not want to play drums! During my first 10 years when I was playing bass, I never even picked up a guitar, so for me, bass is really my first and only instrument, even though I can get around on a guitar and I can play some piano as well. I wish I would have been able to play the drums but I have the worst coordination in the history of mankind! So I’m not able to play the drums, which is sad because as a bass player, the only thing you listen to is basically drums. I’m a huge fan of drummers. But I have no idea how to play them. When I play the bass, I’m quite all right with keeping time!’

‘Seen It All’, for its part, takes us on more of a hard rock journey with a big pinch of punk, largely thanks to ferocious drumming from Jonsson: ‘It’s one of the last songs we wrote before recording the album. Arnau had this riff idea, the “do-do-do-do-do-do”. It’s probably one of Elias’ favourite songs because it has a really busy drum part, so he’s very happy to play it! For me, it’s not one of my favourites. I think it’s a bit too punky for me (laughs) but it also has a bit of the garagey, Hellacopters feel to it as well, which some people in our band really, really like. My favourite part of that song is the solo section, which I think is really cool. The lyrics are about when you’re down on your luck, you’re really down, it’s hard to get up.’

I ask him if there’s a book that he’d love to write the film score to: ‘That’s a great question. I’m really into old classics, I think it’s amazing just to be able to read things that were written a hundred or two hundred years ago. Right now, I’m re-reading Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ because I watched the Nosferatu movie (2024). I’d try to make it a bit dark and menacing! I’m not a huge goth fan, although I think Type O Negative (an American gothic/doom metal band) is great but for now I would say ‘Dracula’.’

If he could go out drinking with any musician, he is quick to say Geddy Lee: ‘I know you’re not supposed to meet your idols because when you meet your idols, it always turns out not to be so funny. Whenever I’m at a concert and I get the chance to actually meet them, I never want to do it because I don’t want to be disappointed by them but I would love to go out and have a drink with Geddy Lee. I’ve read a lot of his books, I think he seems to be a very nice person. I don’t think I would be able to keep up if I went out with Jim Morrison or Janis Joplin, I think that would be a terrible time! My liver would need a month to recover (laughs). I would also love to go out with Phil Collins, I think he is a musical genius. It would be great to have a chat with that man and say: “How do you do it? How can you go from being in a progressive rock band to writing all these amazing pop hits and, at the same time, maintain your musical integrity?”‘

Collins is his idol in more ways than one and he gives me an endearing example: ‘Speaking about Phil Collins, I think a lot of us musicians have anxiety being on stage, we worry about playing the wrong chords and whatnot. When he was playing at Live Aid, he was sitting down playing the piano and he played the wrong note, you can see it on his face, he’s doing the stank face, the “Oh no I played the wrong chord” but then he shakes it off and does a great concert. And for me, that’s inspiring as I know it’s ok If I play a wonky note. The most boring thing is when something is perfect, I lose interest in that kind of music because I want it to feel real. With jazz, for example, you’re on the edge of what is good. When I was younger, I thought the bass line in the Rush song ‘YYZ’ was amazing, I tried to nail it but was failing! When I finally got it, we played it once at a gig and I was very, very happy about that. That’s different to the slow songs, you have to make them sound good because you’re more exposed. That’s why I love James Jameson, he made every melody make sense, that’s the most amazing challenge.’

One thing that none of them could have predicted was that they would pick up an adorable namesake along the way: ‘One of the funniest moments was when we were playing in a super small village in France, it was just a couple of houses and a few shepherds,’ Ternebring said. ‘We loved it there and had a great time! The sound guy was also a shepherd and the day after the show, we got a message to say that one lamb that was born during the night of the show was baptised “The Riven” – we thought that was super cute and often think about the baby lamb called The Riven!’

(Top photo from left to right: Elias, Joakim, Arnau, Totta and Max. Photo credit: Gustaf Blixt, @rawphoto on Instagram.)