Interview Evil Masquerade

The pleasure is all mine.

We came as far as we could with the former line up and needed to move on. It’s as simple as that. Now we have new-motivated blood in the band and you can really hear it on the new album. There are two new faces to be more precise. The most noticeable change comes in form of our new vocalist Apollo Papathanasio. Many probably know him already and I’m sure you will like his entrance in the band as much as we do. He has sung some really amazing stuff on "Third Act" and everything feels very natural. We also have a new bass player. His name is Thor Jeppesen and he started out as a stand-in player when the former guy wasn’t available at a gig. Thor is also an old friend with Dennis from his previous band. Evil Masquerade has never sounded better than now, so we couldn’t be happier. Sometimes alternations are necessary to avoid stagnation.

Everything turned out just as we had hoped for. The songs are really good, the production is dynamite, individually we have made some of our best performances in our careers and even the artwork is great. We really couldn’t ask for much more. Stylistic we’re still in Evil Masquerade land but this time we have added some heaviness and the song structures are a bit more direct. I look at "Third Act" as the next chapter of Evil Masquerade and the album that are closest sounding to where we might go from here.

People keep telling me that it’s a concept album, so I guess they must be right [laughter]. I think a lyrical common denominator is that many songs deal with the real world even though we still present them in our usual fictional way. The third act of the masquerade is when people start to realize that all our actions were already written in the manuscript on beforehand and that we now descry the marionette strings that have been guiding us through life. And the only reason to why this becomes clear is because the one at the end of the strings feels so certain to win, that it’s no longer necessary to keep it a secret. But is everything really too late…?

The majority of the album is written at night. I wrote material for two albums and kept only one of them. It was very easy to compose and I basically alienated myself from what was going on around me at the time. I did this to avoid some negative inputs that tried to force themselves upon me during that period of time. It turned out to be a good way of handling the situation, because it allowed me to focus on much more interesting and creative thoughts. I have never been this productive before. Hopefully I triggered something inside myself that can be used again and again. I cross my fingers.

Easy choice. They are two of the best out there. Richard has been playing on all our albums so it couldn’t be more natural to invite him again since we still haven’t found the perfect permanent player. I’ve known Richard for about 12 years and I like to be working with the same guys as long as it’s possible. We always got along very well and now when Apollo is with Evil Masquerade it makes even more sense to have Richard participating. As you might know they did several great albums together with Majestic and Time Requiem. David Rosenthal makes his first contribution to the band on "Third Act". I asked him if he was interested in making a guest appearance on a Rainbow inspired song I wrote called "Far Away". He heard the music and was happy to be a part of it. We did a really cool keyboard/guitar solo duel.

It’s closer to perfection and how Evil Masquerade possibly might sound in the future. The whole vision is much clearer now and everyone around the band knows one another much better. We have added some new faces to the staff of co-workers and the evil family have a good time working together. It’s easier to achieve what we want since everyone have a pretty clear idea about where we’re heading. This really shows on the new album because there’s a new kind of playfulness and freshness present in every song. I’m very pleased about how this album turned out.

None of the songs would have ended up on "Third Act" if they weren’t special to me. They are special because they made me smile when I had written them. My favourites change every time I hear the album. Tonight it could be "I’ll Make You Burn", "Far Away", "Under the Surface of Water" and "The Final Goodbye". Ask me tomorrow and get another answer.

The Danish artist Katja Handberg painted the front cover. It’s a bit of a pity that not many get to see the full sized canvas because it’s really amazing. The original size is about 1 x 1 metre and I hope to get that as a wall decoration in my studio one of these days. She will do our future front covers and artwork paintings as well. As I told you before, I like to work with the same people as far as it’s possible. The remaining booklet is created by Gunbarrel Offensive Design together with photographer Thomas Trane and Katja.

Right now I live and breathe Evil Masquerade. I have been involved in different projects and bands before but circumstances made me quit those. I’m however not opposed to the idea of doing guest gigs or writing for others, as long as it doesn’t take too much time away from Evil Masquerade. I work fulltime with this band and will continue so as long as I feel happy doing it. There are still many Evil Masquerade albums waiting to be written.

I think it’s high class. Really good musicianship and album productions pop up in new constellations all the time. This is great. The downside to it is that not many bands survive the rough economical situation. The dilemma has two main issues. One of the problems is that there are too many bands competing for a limited amount of album sales. People don’t get more money to buy albums with just because the numbers of bands increases. That just results in less sold albums for everyone and the prolongation of that is that many bands looses their drive. If you don’t sell enough albums you need to have a fulltime job on the side. That will obviously prevent you from being a fully dedicated musician, if you don’t have an endless source of energy to dig from. The other part of the dilemma is that it became widely accepted to rip music from the Internet. This obviously made the situation even harder for the bands. I’m pretty sure we would see civil wars around the globe if people were forced to go to work without pay. That’s basically how it is for many bands today. It’s a sad situation that needs to change - or we will lose many potentially good long-term bands. The bright side of the whole situation is that a change for the better is starting to happen. The record labels seem to have understood that there’s no point in signing every band with a decent recording. It’s harder to get a record deal today and some labels are actually firing some of their old bands. This is of course very sad for the bands that get rejected but probably necessary for the metal scene to survive. Another good thing is that we can see a change in attitude concerning illegal mp3s. It looks like many metal fans have understood the problem and have decided to buy albums again. People still want the magic feeling of holding a real album in their hands and to be able to see the artworks in the booklet. And many are actually starting to realize that it’s not that smart to counteract the music we love by stealing it. I have a very optimistic feeling about the future of heavy metal. It will always survive because of the huge interest and good will amongst the fans and musicians. I feel proud to be a part of it.

My first rock gig ever was a complete disaster [laughter]. I was about 15 years old and was in a local band with some classmates. I had written all the songs and we performed at a mid-sized concert hall that was in the same building as the local youth centre where we used to hang out and rehearse. We were very ambitious and had arranged with pyrotechnics and explosives to really get things going from the very start. The plan was that our singer should trigger a couple of bombs with a stomp box on the floor when the first song started after a short drum fill. Unfortunately he had problems figuring out when that was - so he triggered the bombs far too late and out of sync. We started out in true Spinal Tap manner and stuck to that disastrous way of performing till the very end. That was pretty embarrassing for our initial high expectations about ourselves.

Yes. We have no dates yet, but we certainly are going to do some live action with the new line up.

Most strange things about us are best untold. What to tell? Our bass player Thor collects skeletons and human skulls. He keeps them in his living room. Dennis, our drummer, is afraid of bugs and spiders, so he wasn’t that exited about us having 10 centimetres large cockroaches on the set when we recorded the video for "Black Ravens Cry" last weekend. He can also drink huge amounts of beer if given to him freely. Apollo has started to learn Danish since he’s now in a Danish band. The only sentence he has learned so far is, translated to English: "-STOP, it’s the police! We’re here to get your computer?" I’m the only one in this band that is completely normal.

And as a conclusion, some words for my radio show Metal Choc ?

You should put "Third Act" on heavy rotation for a year [laughing]!!!!!

Websites of relevans:
http://evilmasquerade.com
http://henrikflyman.com




Photographers name: Thomas Trane

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