Although Heavy Metal isn’t my biggest metal passion, you always have some bands that are more interesting than others. Morifade from Sweden is one of those bands. Time for a little chat with Henrik Weimedal who is handling the bass guitar in Morifade….

Although that you are not a new band, you are ‘new’ to me. Can you introduce the band to the Pitfather visitors?
-Sure, we are a Semi-Progressive Metal band from Sweden, formed in 1992 under the name Gothic, to later be changed in 1995 when we released our first demo-tape called "The Hourglass". In 1997 we got our first record deal with LNP and under them we did "Across The Starlit Sky" (MCD 1998), "Possession Of Power" (CD 1999) and "Cast A Spell" (MCD 2000). The last one was only released as license in France by Nothing To Say before we left LNP and they later on went bankrupt, however, it will be included as bonus tracks on the limited digipack version of "Domi<>Nation". In 2001 we signed for Hammerheart Records (Now Karmageddon Media) in The Netherlands and with them we’ve done "Imaginarium" (CD 2002) & our newest album "Domi<>Nation" (CD 2004). The last two albums are also released as license by King Records in Japan, Candlelight Records in North America and Encore in South America.

You just about to release your new album on Karmageddon Media. Your second album on this label. How did you get involved with them, because they are not really known for their heavy metal releases.
-After LNP went bankrupt we started the search for a new label and we were in contact with many great ones, but the choice fell on Hammerheart Records/Karmageddon Media simply because they gave us the best offer concerning recording budget and so on.

Wouldn’t it be better for Morifade to be on a label that is specialised in Heavy metal? The reason for this question is that I think that you guys are much better than a whole lot of crab in this genre that are pushed forward because of their label.
-Maybe so, Karmageddon Media has done a pretty good job for us with the promotion part but of course there are some issues that we are less satisfied with, for instance their effort in getting us out on the road, and that should really be in their interest because they will certainly sell more records if we show ourselves live.

Your singer is one of the few singers in this genre that actually good sing. If I’m not mistaken he was not part of the band in the beginning. How did you get in contact with him?
-Our previous singer, Christian Stinga-Borg who sang on "Across the Starlit Sky" had some issues that we had a hard time dealing with and also he didn’t fit for the new song material that we wrote for "Possession of Power" so we decided to give him the sack and start looking for a new singer.
When we were signed to LNP one of our label mates were Stefan Lundgren who has a one man project named "Sobre Nocturne" and he knew a great singer named Stefan Petersson´, so we contacted him and here we are!

If I’m not mistaken your lyrics aren’t the standard heavy metal (steel and woman) kind. Can you tell us a bit more about the lyrics?
-Some of the songs on "Possession of Power" contains the standard "Sword-in-the-night" lyrics but we got tired of this kind of lyrics and they are pretty worn out nowadays. "Domi<>Nation" is a concept album and the lyrical theme is based on two novels; "1984" by George Orwell and "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley. In short the theme is about mind controlling, submission to supremacy and our growing approach to the surveillance society. All lyrics on "Domi<>Nation" is about this theme. Stefan wrote all lyrics for this album that really gives the vocals more feeling than if for example I would have written them.

The album has a great production. Where did you record it and can you us a bit more about the whole recording process?
-The album is recorded at Los Angered Recording in Gothenburg, Sweden.
The studio is owned and operated by Andy La Rocque (known from King Diamond). And is a great producer who we really enjoy working with.

Your album is also available in a digi pack. On that one you put some extra songs and a Helloween cover (Judas). Why is that done only on the digipack and what kind of songs are that?
-I don’t see any point in putting bonus tracks on the regular cd, it’s more attractive I think to have the extra track on a nice digi pack cd. In 2000 our MCD "Cast A Spell" was supposed to be released worldwide by LNP but then they went bankrupt as we know, this resulted in that the MCD only was released on licence in France, so we decided to include the entire MCD on the digi pack version of "Domi<>Nation". "Judas" was recorded at the same time as the "Cast A Spell" MCD, we recorded that one for the "Helloween" – tribute album "The Keepers Of Jericho pt.1" released by Arise Records.

On both versions is a videoclip of the song ‘Lost Within A Shade’ added. The clip is the original song with a live registration. Where is that taken and with what purpose did you shoot a video? Because here in The Netherlands it won’t played on a MTV for example…
-"Lost Within A Shade" is the opening track on "Imaginarium". In 2002 we did a live show at "PDOL", a big popular festivity in a town called Pitea in the north of Sweden, the entire show was video recorded and we didn’t really know what to do with the stuff, but when we recorded "Domi<>Nation" we decided to put some of the video material as a bonus track. I don’t think it will be played at MTV anywhere in the world and that is not our intension for the video, it’s just a fun thing and a way of showing people what we look like live.

The power/heavy metal scene in The Netherlands is not really big. Especially when you look at countries like Japan and Germany where it is huge. On the Wacken festival in Germany there is even a so called true metal stage, where 80% of the bands really suck and just play like every other heavy metal band. Can you give an explanation why this genre is popular in that areas?
-Almost anything sells in Japan, at least that was the case a couple of years ago, the metal interest in Japan have faded pretty much since then, even Yngwie Malmsteen have lost some status. A lot of metal bands are coming from Germany, maybe that’s why the interest is so big there? I don’t know.

Are there any plans for promoting Domination live?
-Yeah, we are planning a tour in Germany(!) right now and also there will be some gigs in Sweden, we don’t know very much right now so we’ll just have to wait and see what will happen.

Good luck with the band in the future and thank you for this short interview.
-Thank you very much!