Interview: HENRIK FLYMAN From EVIL MASQUERADE Discusses The Metal For Cancer Project

As October is the main focus for Cancer Awareness campaigns, though of course we are all aware all of the time, I wanted to conduct a series of interviews, focusing on the Metal For Cancer Dragon Slayer All Star Project.

The project is the brainchild of Australian musician Richard Ofsoski. Last year, Richard decided to get together an all star cast including such metal artists as Henrik Flyman (EVIL MASQUERADE), Mats Leven (THERION, YNGWIE MALMSTEEN), Snowy Shaw (THERION, MERCYFUL FATE), Tonny Kakko (SONATA ARCTICA, NORTHERN KINGS), Glenn Drover (MEGADETH, TESTAMENT), Stu Marshall (EMPIRES OF EDEN), Apollo Papathanasio (FIREWIND, EVIL MASQUERADE) plus many more. The aim is for as many music lovers as possible to buy the song from the Metal For Cancer website with 100% of the proceeds going to the Australian Cancer Research Foundation.

My first interview for this project was with Henrik Flyman, guitarist with Scandinavian metallers EVIL MASQUERADE. You can read a couple of excerpts below, followed by the full interview on the player:
When asked about how the song “Let’s Unite In Rock” was recorded, Henrik said: “We were trying to raise money not spend money, so we had to do it via the internet and sending demos to each other. The most difficult part for me as producer of the song was to gather all the parts from the musicians and put them together, so it sounded like we worked together. As you can imagine, you have a vocalist in the USA, then someone in Australia or wherever. Of course, even though the quality of the recordings were good, to be able to mix it I really had to do some work to do a normal mix. But looking back, it sounded really good. the song didn’t take much time to write, as I knew where I wanted to go with it. From starting to pre-production it was something like 3 days, but the difficult part was getting the material as people were busy or on tour. But that’s the good thing about going into a project like this, because you don’t know how it will work, but I really liked the idea so I went for it, which is often the best way.”

Discussing the style of the song, Henrik had the following to say: “Basically I wanted to make a song that would cross some borders, for example if you take the old songs from bands like Black Sabbath and Dio, most people into metal like those bands, despite what type of metal they are playing now. Most of the musicians involved grew up with that kind of ’80’s music. I wanted to make the chorus a melodic anthem style, but not too cliche. So I chose to make it as it is, it’s still people uniting, but not that cheesy. As for the lyrics, I didn’t want to make it sad, as it’s such a sensitive issue and it could still be a good rock song. If you read the lyrics it’s still 100% about the issue of dealing with cancer. I think people appreciate that and it would make it easier for people to buy it, as it’s just a rock and roll song.”

Listen to the full interview here: