Interviews

Audio Interview: GUS G; “The new album is going to be very diverse, a bit more mellow and a bit more classic-rockish sounding.”

Posted by aliblackdiamond on June 17, 2013
Posted in: Interviews. Tagged: , , , . 1 Comment

135148_443220862423829_2019678610_oGreek metal guitarist Gus G certainly keeps himself very busy, being an integral part of FIREWIND and OZZY OSBOURNE, as well as delivering guitar clinics and working on his first solo album.

FIREWIND has recently appeared at Sweden Rock Festival and will be playing Bloodstock Open Air in August, their only UK date in 2013. The band also have a new album “APOTHEOSIS – LIVE 2012” due for release on 24th June, which is a celebration of ten years of FIREWIND.

Metal Shock Finland’s Blackdiamond had a chat with Gus last week and you can read a few excerpts below. The full interview is available to listen to on the audio player:

Discussing this year’s Bloodstock Festival, Gus said the following:

” This is our one and only UK show for 2013, so it will be pretty special. It’s also our first one in the UK with our new singer. We plan to have a full stage set-up – loads of amps and speakers onstage (laughs). It’s going to be a cool show, I’m looking forward to it.”

Gus described his upcoming solo album:

” It’s in the process now, I’m in between playing festivals and completing writing and gathering some of the guests for the album. I’m probably going to be recording it sometime in the fall and hopefully can release early in 2014. There are some people that are known and some people that are completely unknown, just great musicians. There’s going to be some instrumentals, some songs with vocals. A lot of the stuff is a bit more mellow, a bit more classic rock-ish sounding.”

When asked if he has the newly released BLACK SABBATH album “13” Gus expressed:

” Yeah I downloaded it the first day it came out and I love it, it’s a fantastic album. There’s a lot of great songs on it, they’ve done a great job. I mean what should I say? I’m such a huge Sabbath fan, I’m as excited as everybody else in the world about it! Tony Iommi, it’s unbelievable, this guy, what he comes up with on the guitar. ”

FIREWIND at Sweden Rock:

FIREWIND 2012

FIREWIND 2012

Audio Interview: Tommy And GL From EXTREMA Talk About “The Seed Of Foolishness” And Pay Tribute To Jeff Hanneman

Posted by tarjavirmakari on June 11, 2013
Posted in: Interviews, News. Tagged: , . Leave a comment
Photo by Emanuela Giurano

Photo by Emanuela Giurano

Interview by Tarja Virmakari

EXTREMA has been one of the most established names in the Italian thrash metal reality since the early ’80s, the first minialbum “We Fuckin’ Care” was released in 1987, followed by 6 studio albums, one live album and a dvd to celebrate their twentieth anniversary. At the beginning of May “The Seed Of Foolishness” was released via Scarlet Records.

Just a couple of days ago Tarja Virmakari caught up with GL (the vocals) and Tommy (guitars) from EXTREMA, who are preparing for the busy summer shows in Italy. EXTREMA has been seen on stage with Slayer, Metallica, Motörhead, Korn, Death Angel just to mention a few of them. In this chat GL and Tommy talked a lot about this new album, and how the band’s sound evolved in these past years. They also paid the tribute to Jeff Hanneman with whom they shared the stage for the first time already in 1987. One of the next occasions to see EXTREMA on stage is on June 25, as a special guest on Motörhead show in Milan. Join this likeable chat below:

Check out the recently released video “Pyre Of Fire”:

Check out the 4-piece Studio Diary, also featuring in the interview:

Web Episode #1, drum tracks

Web Episode #2, bass tracks

Web Episode #3, guitar tracks

Web Episode #4, vocals

More information at http://www.extremateam.com – https://www.facebook.com/pages/EXTREMA/51303509991

ExtremaCover

Audio Interview: Simon Johansson, MEMORY GARDEN; “It’s not like the traditional graveyard doom with one riff for ten minutes”

Posted by aliblackdiamond on June 3, 2013
Posted in: Interviews. Tagged: , , . Leave a comment

598369_10151439267478914_607646494_nSwedish doom metallers MEMORY GARDEN formed in 1992 and released their fifth studio album “Doomain” in April 2013 via Metal Blade Records. Lead guitarist Simon Johansson joined the band in 1996 and as he loves playing music so much, he is also in the metal bands WOLF and BIBLEBLACK.

Metal Shock Finland‘s Blackdiamond recently caught up with Simon to talk about the new MEMORY GARDEN album amongst other things. Some excerpts from the interview can be read below and the full audio can be listened to on the player:

Discussing the music of MEMORY GARDEN and the album “Doomain,” Simon explained:

“During the years we have developed and have taken bits and pieces from various styles. It’s not like the traditional graveyard doom with only one riff for ten minutes, it’s heavy and melodic and there are lots of things happening in the songs; we work a lot with harmonies and try to make interesting music.”

Simon explained about his early days playing guitar:

“I started playing for real when I was ten. I’m a close friend of Mike Wead (KING DIAMOND), he’s from the same town as I am and he went to school with my brother. He was like the rock star of that town, he was really good, I looked up to him a lot. Then he got the gig in CANDLEMASS and I’ve been following his footsteps. He’s been teaching me and been like a role model to my playing. We played in a band called ABSTRAKT ALGEBRA together in the ’90’s, then in BIBLEBLACK.”

“Doomain” has also been released on black and coloured vinyl. We discussed the role of vinyl in today’s music world and Simon expressed:

” I don’t have a crystal ball, but the way I see it, the CD will disappear and you will only have digital downloads and the vinyl LP’s as well, I think that’s what will happen. You see a lot of people buying vinyl again and it’s really getting popular, it’s excellent, I love it! It’s kinda like a piece of art.”

“The Evangelist”:

Memory Garden 2013_III_by Jens Sjöberg

Audio Interview: Mikael Stanne From DARK TRANQUILLITY On Jeff Hanneman: “He was just a fantastic dude, He had an amazing talent and He is responsible for some of the most important thrash songs of all time that have influenced the whole world of metal…”

Posted by tarjavirmakari on May 27, 2013
Posted in: Interviews, News. Tagged: , . Leave a comment

DarkTranquillity2013_byDanielFalk

Interview by Tarja Virmakari

For the release of DARK TRANQUILLITY‘s tenth album “Construct”, a couple of weeks ago, Metal Shock Finland‘s CEO Tarja Virmakari had a chance to have a sympathetic chat with their vocalist Mikael Stanne for Italian Truemetal.it. The opportunity proved to be useful not only to talk about the new album (out today on May 27th via Century Media Records) of the legendary Swedish melodic death metal band, but also to reveal some juicy curiosity about the past and the future of the band. Due to Jeff Hanneman‘s death only a couple of days before the interview, Mikael wanted to give his tribute to this great musician: “It’s a very sad thing and we will miss him very much, not only as a talented musician but also as a man. “He was just a fantastic dude, He had an amazing talent and he is responsible for some of the most important thrash songs of all time that have influenced the whole world of metal.”

Please, join the conversation below.

To read this interview (in Italian) on Truemetal.it, please go HERE.

https://www.facebook.com/dtofficial – http://www.darktranquillity.com

Interview: Daniel Myhr, CIVIL WAR; “It felt really good to do something that was more ‘us’…in SABATON we were directed what to play.”

Posted by aliblackdiamond on May 16, 2013
Posted in: Interviews. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

313_30052617594_4710_nAfter leaving SABATON last year, the four ex members – Daniel Myhr, Daniel Mullback, Oskar Montelius and Rikard Sundén soon decided to start a new band. They very quickly completed their line-up with vocalist (Nils) Patrik Johansson (ASTRAL DOORS, LION’S SHARE) and bass player Stefan “Pizza” Eriksson ( VOLTURYON) and CIVIL WAR was born.

The band are due to release their first full length album “The Killer Angels” via Despotz records on 11th June.  The album name is borrowed from the novel by Michael Shaara about the Battle of Gettysburg and the band have released two singles, ‘I Will Rule The Universe’ and ‘St Patricks Day’. Just today (16th may) CIVIL WAR have released the third and last single, ‘First To Fight’  before the upcoming album release.

Blackdiamond recently spoke to keyboard player Daniel Myhr about the band and new album. Some excerpts from the interview can be read below and the full interview can be listened to on the audio player:

Daniel described details about the band name and new album as follows:

“The whole historical theme of course comes from SABATON, but even before we decided on the name CIVIL WAR, we thought that maybe we should move away from the war theme a little bit. But when Patrik came into the picture, it seems he’s really interested in history himself. It doesn’t have to be as detailed as it was with SABATON, so we kind of flipped back to the history/war theme a little bit, even though we didn’t plan to. But some of the songs aren’t about war at all, we’re trying to keep a little bit of distance from it.

The sound is more traditional heavy metal, now we have Patrik he likes to write stuff that sounds a little bit like DIO. Then we mix it together with our style; a bit more typical power metal style, a bit of fusion between the older SABATON before Coat Of Arms and influences from power metal.”

Discussing the change from being in SABATON and moving on to CIVIL WAR, Daniel expressed:

“It felt really good to do something that was more ‘us.’ In SABATON, we were directed with what to play because Joacim wrote the songs. Now we work out all the material together, instead of just having material presented to us. We went from the basic to the finished material really easily, there was never any fuss about anything.”

 

CIVIL WAR

CIVIL WAR

 

For more information about CIVIL WAR check out the official website at this location and their official facebook page at this location

 

 

Legendary Wolf Hoffmann: “Not only was he [Ronnie James Dio] an awesome singer, everybody worshipped him … Coming back with Mark, that was to me the highlight of our career.”

Posted by Stargazer on May 16, 2013
Posted in: Interviews. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

 ACCEPT and Wolf Hoffmann are on top of a high mountain now. Releasing two successful albums and selling out many shows during their last worldwide tour are good examples of this claim. However they still have a shining career in their background. That’s why we call them legends. Blackdiamond recently conducted an interview with Wolf, some excerpts of which can be read below.

HeearNAid-RonnieWhilst discussing Ronnie James Dio, Wolf expressed the following thoughts:

“Not only was he an awesome singer, everybody worshipped him, he was also a very nice person to be around; gentleman like.

We toured with him in 1986, did a whole North American run, opening up for him. He was always very generous and let us use the stage, gave us sound checks and all that kind of stuff. I remember it was a very pleasant tour.

He wasn’t a guy who would hang around all the time – he would do his thing and keep to himself. Then we’d exchange pleasantries and say hi, then we had a beer together. That’s the extent of what we do when we open up for other bands, but he was very nice.“

Wolf revealed his opinion on the classic DIO album Holy Diver:

“Oh man, classic riffs and classic songs, it doesn’t get much better than that! From the ultra heavy metal era that I know, this is one of the classic albums. It doesn’t get much better than that.

Probably Holy Diver is my favourite track.“

Wolf-Hoffmann

Wolf explains the highlights in his and ACCEPT‘s career:

“Coming back after this long break with Mark Tornillo, that was to me the highlight of our career. It was such a crazy story, nobody thought it was going to work, everybody said ‘who needs ACCEPT with a new singer?’ Nobody’s expectations were high, everybody had written it off before it had started.

Then when the album came out and everyone saw us on stage and how on fire we were and how much alive we were, everything turned around and that was a crazy experience. That’s really a story that doesn’t happen very often.

Monsters Of Rock, Castle Donington, that was another highlight of my musical career, back in ’86. It was an amazing bill: AC/DC, Van Halen, Ozzy Osbourne, Gary Moore, Accept, Motley Crue, imagine that bill!“

You can listen to the whole of the interview on the audio player below:

Accept-2011