 1) To be a project in solitary that so difficult the creative process is, so much musical as lyrical? Well I must confess to have these artistic aspects and visions with shameful ease. I have so many ideas and dreams of where I want to head artistically that there is defenetly no shortage of material or plans for the future. But what is very hard indeed, is the creative process to record it all. Riffs and lyrics are written quite fast actually but while recording things must be added to give a certain feel or general emotion and a lot of the material is rewritten due to the intitial ideas perhaps not being good enough. These recording sessions are endless and are unfortuanly very hard. But I defenetly don't want to complain since it is all so extremely satisfying when the result is perfect. What makes me wish for an eventual partnership is only because of the practical issues regarding the recordcompany, such as help with promotion and maintaining/getting new distribution partnerships (and it seems this issue will be solved in the very near future!). But the writing and recording of ElviraMadigan albums is unfortuanly something I will have to stick with in solitude due to the rather tyrannical visionaire I am! Haw! One might say that I have had great difficulties working with other members who have not been serious enough or have been able to share the same vision. But no hard feelings! I am more than happy to be blessed with the opportunity to have ElviraMadigan as my own little mistress in black! 2) In your biography in a principle your were influenced by the HEAVY METAL. Do you believe that your style is too far from that influence? Nah, not very far I would like to think. I do listen to so much different types of Metal (as long as it IS Metal and not some kind of bullshit Nu-Metal spewing out of the US via the mainstream media today), and all these styles eventually show up in one way or another on my releases. I did work rather hard in my previous band (that split up in 1995) with a more straightforward Heavy Metal. But this was more or less because of the fact that we all wanted to become Rock-Stars á la "Yngwie Malmsteen". But as soon as I realised that this kind of Metal wasn't my ultimate choice of direction (and as soon as one didn't want to become that glamorouse Rock-Star anymore) I more or less took a step back to focus on the vital issue, which of course is the music. I thought I wouldn't really care for what other people might think and thought I'd write and record a few songs which were to define my own music in the very best way and to the sole guidance of my own artistic freedom. These songs were recorded in 1998 and were the first to define my "first choice" of musical direction. But it sprung from a Heavy Metal band so I do have to recognize that. 3) In your label, what other titles apart from ELVIRA MADIGAN are available? There are no other titles available and I don't really see that there will be in the future as well. I did start Northlore Records with the sole intention of releasing ElviraMadigan in the most effective way. Northlore Records is only a vessel to help ElviraMadigan out. If I feel like taking a break from ElviraMadigan in the future (God forbid!) I might release some side project but that's basically it. 4) How is the recording process, what instrument recording first, in which you consider yourself of more expert? I mainly write the songs for guitar with riffs and melodies but also around certain arrangments (I do focus extremely much on the arrangments!), and then I program the drums for the song. The drums are mostly what first ends up on tape because it IS the backbone and what keeps the beat. Upon that I put one or two guitars but after that I put the instrument in no particluar order. Some times I might have the bass put on tape and sometimes some of the keyboards. It is very sporradically put on tape and I mostly don't get the entire picture of the song until almost everything is put. This is due to the melodies of the keyboards and guitarlines as well as how the vocals are put which colours the songs and decide for the tracks identity. As you may have notices, no ElviraMadigan song really follows an easy pattern or a prewritten songstructure such as: verse - bridge - verse - bridge - chorus - verse - bridge - chorus - solo - chorus x2 - end. I try very hard to create a more interesting concept without making the songs seem very strange or have them lose any melodies. This really demands extra efforts and make the recording sessions rather long since I might have to rewrite/rerecord certain parts in order to not ruin the song and make it interesting all the time. There are rather mazy song structures but I take great care in not losing pace in the songs by having too many interuptions while at the same time fill the songs with very much material and diversity. It is really a hard task but it is ectremely fun to have that finished song which is truly like a piece of art in itself. I started out playing bass in the end of the eighties and began playing other instruments in 1995 to be able to record in my own studio. I must confess to not really focusing on one instrument at all anymore much less seeing myself as an expert on any. I mainly gain enough ability needed to record my songs in the way I want them. This has for instance led me to beeing able to play keyboards like I never though I would, but at the same time led me to lose much ability on the bass. 5) Reason ELVIRA MADIGAN'S name, which is the person this influence inside your music? Elvira Madigan was actually a Swedish tightrope dancer who lived 1867 - 1889. She fell in love with the lieutenant Sixten Sparre who was married. So to realise their love they fled together to Denmark. Now leaving the country like this made him a deserter from the army and the penalty for desultory in these times were rather harsh, and after facing the grim fact of being forced to return home they chose to commit suicide while away on a picnic instead of being parted back home. This was done by Mr Sparres pistol-armed hand. Rather romantic eh? Well, to be honest, her life and crimes have actually had no influence on me what so ever. I merely picked the name because it sounded nice and because it was not in English and don't really mean anything. I started off with only the Swedish language in ElviraMadigan so it felt rather stupid to have a dark sinister name in English to use as the banner above it all. 6) Have you had the opportunity to present you in direct? Yes! I can't really play live (obviously) since it would only be me and a lot of playback music in that case - and that would truly suck. So I go away on promotion tours where I rent stalls and sell my CD:s. To date there has only been two of these tours and has only covered Sweden and England (and was supposed to take me to Germany this year but was cancelled due to many different factors). These are great opportunities to meet up with all those already familiar with ElviraMadigan. They really seem to get a kick out of meeting up. I know I do anyway! It's very rewarding and fun to meet up with people who like Your work and takes care in expressing that. Now I mentioned I write and record my music only for myself, and this is true although it does sound a little egoistic, but that defenetly doesn't change the fact that praise from other people trule warms the heart. Sales on these tours are not really gigantic since most people spend their hard earned cash on getting drunk (which is understandable), but these confrontations with those who like my albums is the wonderful part. 7) Why your liking toward the witches, the album " Witches " a conceptual CD that tries on this topic is? I started writing and recording a few songs for the "Witches..." album shortly after finishing "BlackArts". It just so happened to be that I wrote some tales of women exploiting men sexually through magic or dark arts. I referred to some of these women as witches or at least their dark art as "witchcraft". I knew at that point that I'd like to focus on women on the album in a erotic yet respective way. My despise for religion in general has grown stronger every year of my life and while feeding my desire to express these feelings in a non-satanical way I wrote a few lyrics about witch-prosecutions or witch-trials. And that was really the decisive moment when I thought I'd dedicate the entire CD to the witches who had their life taken away so ruthlessly because of the spread of Christianity. I also did some heavy research in order to know what I was talking about on the album which led me to naming the instrumental tracks in the signs of the inquisitions. Such as "Gregory IX" which was the pope who formed the first inquisition in "Anno Domini 1232". Personally I find this latter day witchcraft rather pathetic (and performed only by pink-dressed sugar sweet teenagers who want this or that man to fall in love with her or a heavily black painted asociapath who practically hates everyone), but the olden day craft and what it represent is truly what should define religion if one wants to endorse beliefs. All witchcraft that was persecuted in the olden days were really heathen religions that were to be extinguised for the sake of politics (politics and religion were very closely related and still is I suppose). Witches in the olden days were all just medecine women who turned to nature to cure deceases instead of to the cross (which obviously didn't do much to such inflictions as the Black Plague for instance). And anyway, who wouldn't want to share primal lust with a raunchy sexy witch!! Heck I know I would! But we can drop the old hag concept then... 8) Do you consider that the satanism is fundamental part of your band? No. I must confess to have studied quite much in the topic of Satanism but I am not a satanic person or wouldn't want ElviraMadigan to be referred to as a Satanic entity either. I am extremely hateful towards organised religions and can at some extend understand why people turn to Satanism to express their total disgust of the fact the practically all religions wants to do away with individuality and human desire and instead insert obediance and responsibilies. All religions claim to see hate as a sin for instance, but there is nothing that causes man to hate as much as religion does. So this is the biggest contradiction of them all. If one instead embrases hate and uses it as fuel for the fure inside one can truly be a very passionate person while not causing anyone any harm. One suddenly knows one's limits very well. You will instead be very egoistic, but no religious institute is anything else than egoistic anyway so the hypocrisy within religions is very obvious. One must also take into concideration that the Satanism we refer to today is mostly nothing else than heathen religions such as Norse/Celtic religions which were all designed so that one lives as closely to nature as possible in order to survive in the best practical way. As politics changed and priesthoods grew tired of living side by side with these heathen beliefs that people stubbornly clung to, the Church suddenly claimed that all these olden rituals were in fact Satanist rituals in order to scare people away from their heritages and gain legal right to exterminate heathendom by force. This explains why so many Satanist rituals are the same as heathen rituals. In heathendom there is no such thing as Good or Evil. Things aren't that abstract. This is something that alot of the Satansist today doesn't understand. One cannot embrace the Satanism in order to upset the Church and at the same time deny God. Because the Satanism of the Church is abstract in Good or Evil. So while saying You're a Satanist, one must also belive in God. But by rejecting Christianity in it's entirety one only has these ancient believes as Heathendom or even the invocations of the Elder Ones told of in the Necronomicon to fall upon. To have a good laugh about religious people one can only turn to the bible and how some people chose freely from the book what to believe in or not (which is very strange indeed - either one believes or one does not). A lot of people out there ACTUALLY believe than one man travelled around the world, collected two of every creature on the earth, built a huge boat on which he got them all aboard. Just imagine what this would mean! The size of the boat and how long it would take. I dare someone to undertake this task and we will just see how possible it is. And let's all say there is a God anyway. I'm pretty sure he wouldn't want us to lock ourself up and mumble riddles and praise him until we die, thus wasting our "God-given" lifes to no use whatsoever. And if he against all odds should be SO vain that this is his will, then please send me on a trip to hell. But anyway, as I said earlier. I don't consider myself a Satanist. 9) Which the foundation is to find in your musical varying so much CD, do fear as Haxor, Maror ach Vottror is brutal and quick, but is " Interludium " paused and ethereal, because the contrasts so big? It is due to what I listen to. I don't listen to only very fast metal for instance, but might at time dive deeply into latter day Marillion or Tori Amos. And when starting ElviraMadigan (as I stated earlier) I thought I'd focus on only playing music I would find perfect. This also means that the limitaions were to be eliminated. If I felt like doing something very "Un-Metal" and etherial I would do so. If I wanted to do a fast song with grinding drums - I would do so as well. It really helps in making the albums interesting all the time since tempos shifts so very much between songs. The trick is however of course to make it all sound as a collective "unit" and not as a compilation of songs that don't fit together. One still have to find that red line running through the album while never get bored. I myself get very bored if I do material that sounds very much alike and has the same general tempo or kind of agression. I really need to turn completely around to do songs very different from each other. But then again, in the course of writing and recording this is nothing I try to be aware of and use as guidelines since it all comes so naturally due to this "freedom" I have granted myself. ElviraMadigan is more or less a huge dough containing all what I am influensed of and it all shows in one way or another. 10) Do you consider like part of your influence the classic music which your favorite is? At some extent I do. I like the way classical music uses arrangements to create emotional outbursts and the general drama one can create with an orchestra. But I don't listen very much to classical music like on a dayly or weekly basis. Among my favourite composers I would count Beethoven, many russian composers and Gustav Holst. Much of the movie soundtracks of today is very nice as well, such as Maurice Jarres music for "Jacob's Ladder" which by the way will be covered on the next CD! 11) What bands of your country could you recommend which your favorite ones are and do you influence at the moment? From my country to recomend to others: Well, obviously "Bathory" up to and including "Twillight of the Gods", "Notre Dame" which is a highly artistic band with Snowy Shaw in the front. One of my all time influences is "Hexenhaus" which is Mike Weads (now in "King Diamond") previous band. My favourite bands in general... OH my! This is a tough one. I thought wouldn't make this list endless so selecting a few is a really hard job. But "King Diamond" up to and including "Conspiracy" defenetly makes the list. As well as Black Sabbath with Tony Martin, Cradle of Filth up to and including "Cruelty and the Beast", Marillion with Steve Hogarth (period signed to EMI as well), Ayreon, Blind Guardian, Slayer My influence right now: I would probably count "Ark", "Subway to Sally", "Crimson Glory" and "Slayer" as main bands for the moment. 12) Do you that a similarity can find in your form of vocalizing with CRADLE OF FILTH that opinion has about this band? I can respect that opinion. There are quite a few similarities. I myself find alot of the black metal with only mid-pitch vocals quite uninteresting and an easy way out to solve the vocal issue. I want to create drama with my music but on the other hand not copy Dani's way of using vocals. He has more screetching vocals as well as fast paced alitteration. And I also sing with clear vocals which he does not. But CoF is a very versatile and addictive band and their concept - although somewhat watered out (at the same time as Nicholas Barker departed), is very seductive. I don't see CoF as a huge influence right now but I do see Dani as the best Black Metal vocalist - whether they sell a million copies or not. 13) You want to add something. Nah, I don't know. I'd like to thank You for the attention of course and hope for many South American friends in the future. I did spinn off quite a bit on a few question so I bet it is the best thing to wrap this up without delay. But thanks to all for the support and please check out the website at www.elviramadigan.com (which I by the way run myself) for all the facts and updates, and I answer all emails send to me so don't be a stranger. Cheers! |
