Rockezine.com interview with Morifade on May 06, 2002

with Henrik Weimedal on May 06, 2002

For a little while ago the Swedish melodic power metal band Morifade released “Imaginarium”, the second full length of the band. And with the help on Andy la Roque (King Diamond, Death) the final result could be best defined as refreshing. Due to the fact that I did not hear of the band before I thought this was an opportunity to do a round of questions and answers.
		Why was found back in 1992. Why did it took the band so long before the debut MCD “Across the Starlit Sky” was released? From the beginning we just played for fun and had no thoughts about releasing anything at all. And that was the case for a couple of years but then we were contacted by Loud N’ Proud Records and they wanted to release a MCD, this was 1996 I think and in 1997 we started the recording of “Across the Starlit Sky” which was released in 1998.
		Congratulations with the new “Imaginarium”. The record has been released as we speak and I wad wandering how the reactions have been so far? The reactions have been great both from media and fans and we are satisfied. It’s always hard to know how the reactions will be after the second album because everyone always compares it with the debut album and that’s the case with “Imaginarium” too, but the response has been good so far.
		How was it to work with an experienced musician as, Andy La Roque, as producer? Andy is very easy to work with, as you say, he’s an experienced musician and he knows what he’s doing, we first came in contact with him when we recorded “Cast A Spell” and during that time we decided to record “Imaginarium” with Andy as well.
		What do you think are the main differences between Morifade and other melodic progressive metal acts? Hard to say, I think we create our music with many different styles of metal, not just power metal or speed metal, we mix a lot of styles and that’s probably the main difference.
		How would you describe Morifade`s music, and what are the band’s influences? I would like to call our music melodic power metal with a touch of progressive elements. Our influences are many, for instance, Helloween, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Dio etc. etc.
		Can you tell me how Morifade composes their songs? Is it a band thing or are there certain individuals responsible for the compositions? We never create a song from the beginning together, most often someone in the band has an idea or even the frame of an entire song and then we start to work and develop that idea together.
		Can you tell me something more about the title “Imaginarium”. What does the title mean and how did it infect the rest of the song titles or the artwork? The word “Imaginarium” as you might know isn’t a real word (i.e. you won’t find it in a dictionary.) and our idea with the word is that each person will be able to form their own opinion about it. The artwork is also a kind of “fantasy-image”. It’s pretty hard to really see what it is supposed to show at the first glimpse. And that makes a cover more interesting, I think. But we didn’t write any of the songs in the way to make a “red thread” through the songs and the title, on the other hand, the artwork is created after the artist were given all the lyrics and the title together with the songs from “Imaginarium”.
		How is the power metal scene in Sweden at this moment and is it hard to get some gigs for a band like yours? The scene is pretty good in Sweden. But the interest isn’t very big if you compare it with for example Germany. Concerning festivals, there are only two great metal festivals in Sweden, “Sweden Rock Festival” and “2000 Decibel”, of course there are other too but they aren’t that well-known so my answer is, yes, it’s hard to get gigs in Sweden.
		What are the plans for the near future and can we expect a European tour in this year? We were supposed to do a tour in Spain/Portugal in May. But sadly it was cancelled and postponed, perhaps it will take place later this year but we don’t know when, other than that we have some gigs and festivals in Sweden but we really hope to get a tour very soon!
		Any other things you want to tell the fans? Yeah, I want to thank all our fans and also the media for the great interest in Morifade, hope to see you all out there! Bye!
		(Teun Jans)