Interview with BLACK ROSE From Sweden: It’s always been great fun to play and perform our own songs

Black Rose is a Heavy Rock Metal band from Sweden formed in 1990. By listening to their music you would start a journey from Heavy Rock through Heavy Power Metal. They released a new album, “Rise Again” in 2011, which includes 8 tracks and the album is following the same themes and music that they used in their previous albums.

The story of my knowledge about Black Rose started 8 years ago, when I found a half length song named “Everlasting Rain” by Black Rose. The song started with such a great Heavy Power Riff and I liked it from the first time I heard it. The song continued with great riffs and vocals but it ended when the guitar solo was about to start. Perhaps you understand how frustrating this was for me, so I started searching for them and for a full length version of that song. But in those days, the cyber world did not have a huge amount of data about the world of Heavy Metal like it does today. I kept seeking and searching for months but couldn’t find any clues, so I gave up for 8 years, until a month ago when I found them on facebook ….

Hello guys, How are you doing? Any Shocking news?

Black Rose featuring Kee Marcello & Churchchoir (Fagersta Church in Sweden- Sept. 25th 2011) Photo by Gerry Helders

Hi Mohsen! We’re all great, hope U are the same 🙂
We recently did a gig in a church with Kee Marcello (ex. EUROPE-guitarplayer)
and a big choir where we played EUROPE-songs. The church was packed, approx. 600 people. Great and very fun gig. We’ve also had a release party for our brandnew cd ”Rise Again”! That gig also went great.
From “Lady Luck” to “Our Wisdom”, It took 18 years, how do you see those days now, when you look back?

It’s always been great fun to play and perform our own songs and this style of music, nothing’s changed in that aspect.

There were/are 2 bands with this name, Black Rose, even they are older than your band, one of them is a British Heavy Metal band formed in 1976 under the name ICE but changed it to Black Rose in 1980 and the other one is a Danish Hard Rock band started in 1979 with legendary King Diamond on vocals, but what’s the reason that you choose this name? and would you tell me the story of how you chose that name’?

Anders had an idea for a band named ROSE in the early eighties, that name later transformed to BLACK ROSE. We thought the name suited the band’s sound.

Peter Thederan and Thomas Berg

It seems “Black Rose” is your first signed studio album but you released other albums before it, like “A NEW BEGINNING” that was released in 2001 and also you released some promo cds and demo albums independently. can you tell us about those previous albums?

Our first cd was released in 1993 by a Danish label named Bums-Records (a shitty label by the way…). The title of that album is ”Fortune favours the brave” and is out of stock.
It featured 10 songs that we recorded in Denmark. Every now and then the cd surfaces on Ebay for a ridiculous amout of money 🙂 The other releases were ”only” meant for promotional purposes.

Tell us about the roles of promoters companies and record labels in Black Rose band history? it seems you didn’t get a good support from them for years!

We had a Swedish management called PA-Promotion, run by our dear friend Osmo (R.I.P.) that booked our earlier gigs. We also had a good German record label (Shark Records) that released two Black Rose-albums (S/T and Explode) and Our current booking agency is called Musikevent (Musikevent.se).

Black Rose, Release Party 2011

Anders Haga

Would you like to tell us about your last shows, especially if you have any particular memories of them. And feel free to promote your upcoming tours or concerts!

See first question/answer 🙂 We’re currently trying to book more gigs to support the new album.

18 years on from the formation of Black Rose you must have had some line-up changes. Could you tell us about them, especially your last one when Peter Thederan took the place of your last vocalist Johan Spinord?

We’ve had a few lineup-changes over the years. Our current guitarplayer, Thomas Berg, is actually the original guitarist of the band. He was out of the band on the Shark-releases but is now back on track. We’ve had two different keyboard players over the years, now we have none!
We found our singer Peter by accident.. He walked past our rehearsal room as we were playing the Yngwie song Trilogy. He entered the room and said he was a singer, so we asked him if he’d like to sing a couple of cover-tunes then and there. The songs were Scream of anger (Europe) and Bark at the moon (Ozzy) among others. He did a great perfomance and was offered the leadsinger-role on the spot.

Let’s talk about your new album “Rise Again”, The first thing i like to ask is about your artwork, who designed it? It reminds me of a resurrection, but what’s your opinion behind that artwork?

The artwork of the album is designed by our friend Morgan Sundell, he’s also our webmaster. We had the title for the album, Rise Again, and it’s meant to be seen as a resurrection of the band. We gave him totally free hands to create the cover-concept.
He did a great job!

Peter Haga

How was the recording process, did you use your private studio for recording the songs? and would you tell us about the producer and the releasing process?

The basic tracks for the album were record at a friends (Anders Gustafsson) studio called ”The Smithery”. All vocals and mixing were done in a different studio by Johan Gren (a great allround-musican and sound-wizard) och Peter Thederan. We’ve released this album independently so we can have total control of the album. We’re using some really good distribution-companies to help us out. Follow this link if You’re interested in purchasing the album, physically or digitally:
http://goto.glocalnet.net/black_rose/riseagain/rise.htm

Have you any plan to shoot a video for one of your songs? if yes which of them would be your choice?

We have talked about shooting a video but there are no definite plans yet. The song we would choose is the title track of the album Rise Again.

Can you tell me what feedback you have had from the fans about your latest album, especially after the line-up change?

We’ve only had great feedback from fans, they seem to really like the lineup-change, so do we

As i see, you are still influenced by Yngwie Malmsteen and Rainbow in your new songs, and also i recognise the same Heavy/Melodic Power Metal elements that you used before, but can you tell me if you are influenced by other artists and kind of music? Also it seems with the new singer you are going to be more of a Rock band than a Metal band, do you agree?

We still have the same influences as before, but of course we have alot of new influences as well. Our style of music is still the same as it’s always have been. Our new singer has brought in some new angles and influences for the vocalmelodies and we think they fit our style just perfect.

BLACK ROSE from Sweden

For your final words, please feel free to send a message to your fans around the world.

Thanx for reading this interview and we hope that You’ll get interested in Black Rose and will check out our latest release RISE AGAIN!!!!
Hope to see U at a gig somewhere 🙂

Thanks for giving me your time. Wish you a great year full of Rock and Metal.

A BIG thanx to Mohsen and Metal Shock Finland for Your interest in Black Rose!! 🙂