Category Interviews

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I spoke to Joakim Brodén, lead singer of Sabaton a couple of hours before they took to the stage for their show in London – the only show on the UK tour to get the full stage show with flames and pyros.

Festivalphoto: Your new album, Carolus Rex was released in May. It’s a change from your usual subjects of the 1st and 2nd world wars, and instead covers Swedish military history. Can you tell us a bit about that as I suspect most fans don’t know much Swedish history.

Joakim: As you say we normally cover the world wars or more modern conflicts, but many fans asked us why we don’t sing about our own history, because in modern times Sweden hasn’t been in war much. The album spans from the early sixteen hundreds to the early seventeen hundreds...

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Vi möts i ett kalt konferensrum i centrala Stockholm. Efter ca 30 min väntan i receptionen på Warner Music så presenteras jag för Jyrki Linnankivi, eller som han kallar sig, Jyrki 69. Sångaren i The 69 Eyes sätter sig ned mitt emot mig och börjar direkt prata om hur mycket han älskar Sverige, och det är något som han har gjort länge. Fast en sak är han missnöjd med, vi stänger affärerna alldeles för tidigt. Han som ska ge sig ut på julklappsjakt efter vår intervju har väldigt tight schema.

– Jag hade tänkt hjälpa tomten lite och försöka hitta något som jag själv önskar mig. Det kommer nog bli den nya boken om Yngwie Malmsteen (skriven av Anders Tengner), eftersom jag vill lära mig svenska lite bättre.

Man får ofta höra om att finländarna inte är särskilt glada ...

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I recently spoke to Kobra, lead singer of Kobra and the Lotus shortly before they supported Buckcherry at the Roadmender in Northampton.

Festivalphoto: Your new album was released in August. Can you tell us a bit about the album.

Kobra: The album is a very high energy album full of very driving riffs and fast and furious drumming followed with a lot of wailing. There’s also a song in the middle of the album thats more of a ballad at the beginning then picks up again with the same energy but is slightly different. There’s quite an eclectic variety of riffing and styles, all sorts of metal genres mixed together on this album.

Festivalphoto: You were planning to call the album ”Visionary”. Why the change to a self title?

Kobra: That happened when the record label signing came about...

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Four crazy rockers from Jönköping exploded in the studio as the cold winter reached Sweden-, mixing nostalgic feelings with heavy rock, spicing it with a touch of sleaze to wake us up! Their “best of“ album shows the public, once again, what rock ‘n roll is all about.

“Shakedown Suzies is still an unsigned band – although nowadays this may not be that important. Jon and Agust are pretty busy with their other band, The Embodied, writing songs, working on the new album, the touring… and since we all believe that they need to dedicate more of their time to fulfill their dreams with The Embodied, we decided to record our best songs before it is too late.”

This rock n’ roll formation was established by vocalist Erik and guitarist Jon on an early cold winter morning after party in ...

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I briefly spoke to Merlin and Chrigel from Eluveitie shortly before they played the HMV Forum in London as part of their tour with Sabaton, and asked them about their albums and touring..

Festivalphoto: Your new album, Helvetios was released in February. How has it been going down with the fans?

Chrigel: It’s going down great, reactions have been extremely positive.

Festivalphoto: 6 months after Helvetios you released the early years. What made you decide to go back and re-record your first EP (Ven) and release it with a remastered version of Spirit, as the early years?

Chrigel: On one hand both havent been available for quite a while so it made sense to re-release them, and also we’re celebrating our tenth anniversary this year we wanted to do something special for the fans...

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I recently spoke to Doro Pesch to talk about her new album, her forthcoming tour and her plans to celebrate her 30th year of metal in 2013.

Festivalphoto: You have two guests on the album – Gus G and Lemmy. How do you decide who to invite to guest on your albums?

Doro: I’ve loved Lemmy for such a long time. It was the early 80s when we met for the first time, 83, 84 in the UK, we did some festivals together, a tour together and on the ”Calling the wild” album, that was 12 years ago, Lemmy played me this acoustic guitar ballad called ”Alone again” that he wrote and I was so moved and so touched and I loved it so much...

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I spoke to Seeb from Orden Ogan to talk about their new album and touring plans…..

Festivalphoto: OK for anyone who hasnt listened to Orden Ogan before, can you tell us a bit about the band?

Seeb: We’re melodic power metal sort of band with orchestrations. We’ve got our new record ”To the end” coming out on AFM records. It’s our third album.

Festivalphoto: Your new album, ”To the end” is due for release at the end of October. Can you tell us a bit about the album?

Seeb: It’s got a loose kind of concept about let’s say after the end of the world, so the world is not five to twelve anymore but twelve to five, and its basically another ice age, and a lot of the songs are loosely connected with this ice topic but it can also be metaphorical – emotional coldness and whatever...

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Blodarv från danska ön Bornholm är black metal. Black metal sprungen ur ideologi, övertygelse och säregen begåvning. Dessutom stinker det ordentligt på deras spelningar!

På Bornholm bor det drygt 40 000 människor och jag tar mig dit på knappt en-och en halv timme med färjan från Ystad. Hugin, som bildade Blodarv är född och bosatt på ön. Vi har stämt möte i foajén på mitt hotell via mail och när han undrade hur han skulle känna igen mig svarade jag att jag förmodligen är den enda som bär en Mayhem-tröja, varpå han replikerade något i stil med:
– Du kommer att förstå vem jag är.
Det gör jag direkt jag ser honom och hade gjort i vilken folksamling som helst då han rör sig med remarkabel pondus och utstrålar en öppenhet som är ovanlig...

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Mike Tramp as a living legend tells his opinion and memories during five minutes at Rockmässan Malmö…

*Which was that moment when you decide to become a musician?

‘It was a kind of big surprise, because I have never planned that. Eventhough I’ve played a little bit of sort of guitar in my class, and things like that, you know. A guy had discovered me and decided he would move me in a band that was much older than me. But all before I knew it to join the band, I left everything, I left my mom, I left school, I was move out from the house, and I wasn’t even 16years old. And it just all happened. After you just look back, when you grow up, that you was only a teenager, and you say, oh my God..’

*Do you think that rocklyrics as ‘When the children cry’, could really help, or change ...

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Raubtier är mitt inne i en hektisk turnéperiod. Men för bandets frontman Per Hulkoff är det inga problem att hitta motivationen.
– Det är ganska enkelt om man jämför med det andra alternativet.

Att jobba som skogshuggare eller tar värvning igen är inget som lockar norrlänningen. Det verkar han inte behöva heller, sedan Raubtier släppte sin första skiva, Det finns bara krig, 2009 har de hunnit med två skivor till och otaliga spelningar runt om i landet.
– Det är hektiska tider, vi väljer att jobba hårt med det här, säger Per.

Livet på vägarna passar honom, medan det är värre för andra. Bandet har haft en rejäl omsättning när det gäller basister, en ny för varje skiva.
– Det ställer en del krav att nöta på vägen, men får offra det vardagliga och bekvämligheterna...