Rockezine.com interview with Freya on Apr 11, 2007

with Karl on Apr 11, 2007

A few weeks ago I should have a phone conversation with Karl from Freya, Earth Crisis and Path Of No Resistance. Unfortunately there went something wrong with the connection, so I sent him my questions by e-mail and he answered them.
		Hey how are you? What are you up to these days? Freya just returned from tour dates in the midwest with Sworn Enemy and Kataklysm. The shows were awesome and the response was great when we played songs off the new album.
		The new Freya album, are you satisfied with it? We took two years to craft the songs and spent the summer recording at our friend Dean’s studio Atomic in Brooklyn. He took a lot of time getting everything as close to perfect as I think anyone possibly could have.
		Why did Darien left the band? Darien moved to California.
		Is this also a reason why the sound is different? We are still friends with Darien and had he stayed I still think we would have returned to the straight forward ultra aggressive approach.
Scott Crouse wrote 95% of all EC songs		This sound is more in the line of Earth Crisis, was that an accident or did you choose to sound more like Earth Crisis? I think the heaviness is comparable to that of EC but ultimately it is different. Between Ian and Erick and Ethan everyone contributed equally to the song writing on Lift The Curse. Scott Crouse wrote 95% of all EC songs.
		Can you give me some inside in the writing process? The goal was to do something that we hadn’t before, and that was to simplify and streamline our song structures. With EC things were very technical.
		What’s more important for you, the lyrics or the music. One compliments the other. They are of equal importance.
		Who made the artwork for this album and what does it express. Raff has done artwork for EC, Path, and Order Of The Unholy, thankfully he agreed to do our cover. The imagery of the paintings mirror the lyrical theme which traces a timeline from Eden to Armaggedon.
		Why did you choose to cover the song war pig from Black Sabbath? Do you like to play cover songs? The lyrics to War Pigs make that song perfect for concluding the album. It’s about mans inhumanity to man through warfare.
		What can we expect from Freya in the future? Touring Europe, Asia? More albums and more tours. We are going out next in the states with Damnation and hopefully To Pure To Die.
		What’s the best part of being in Freya for you? One of the most amazing things for me to see is for people who supported and appreciated EC all the way back at the beginning and are still coming out to the Path and Freya shows all these years later.
		When I’m correct, you did a reunion show with Earth Crisis, how as that and with which members? The EC reunion show was amazing we headlined the Maryland Metal Fest and there were 1500 people there. All the bands were awesome, it was a perfect day.
		Can we expect more Earth Crisis shows in the future or maybe a new album? EC is going to headline a festival in California in May. After that we are going to do festival dates in Europe this June. As far as a new album goes there is nothing planned the time is now to support the new Freya and Path albums and take the good oppurtunities that are coming to us.
		Some successful bands are named after a song from Earth Crisis, for example All Out War, Born From Pain. Are you flattered with that, do you know these bands or did you play with them in the past? We like all those bands, there is a lot more than those two that have named themselves after our songs.
		What’s your favourite album? Currently I have been enjoying Crimson Thunder by Hammerfall.
		Is there anything I forgot to ask? I think we covered everything thank you very much.
		(Jeroen Habets)