Quintessence Interview
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Answers: Henrik Weimedal

The first powermetal band on Hammerheart Records, who just released their second effort.

First of all, could you tell me something about the history of Morifade?
-Well, Morifade was formed in 1992 by Jesper, Kim and our first guitarist Fredrik Johansson and at that time we called ourselves “Gothic” and played plain speed metal. We changed our name to “Morifade” pretty soon since we didn’t wanted to be associated with goth metal or whatever, then followed a lot of member changes in the band but finally we got in contact with Stefan, Frippe and Kim’s younger brother Robin and we were finally a complete band line-up.

How are the critics about the new album “Imaginarium”. It’s been out now for about 3 weeks.
-So far we’ve seen positive response from magazines and our fans, the album hasn’t been out very long time yet so we have to see and wait for more results in the future, but we are satisfied so far!

What does the title of the album mean? It’s completely unknown to me.
-“Imaginarium” isn’t a word that you will find in your dictionary, it’s a fantasy word and the meaning of that is that the listener/reader will be able to make/imagine their own opinion about the word.

How would you compare the new album with your debut “Possession of Power”?
-“Imaginarium” is more heavy and darker than "Possession…”, we have discarded the big choirs and done all the choirs ourselves and the music isn’t very orchestral or bombastic anymore which makes it more live friendly and of course, the production is more professional, I think this album is more mature.

What are the main influences for Morifade?
-Our band influences is Helloween and Iron Maiden but many other bands have had a great influence to us like
Black Sabbath and Dio.

Andy LaRocque produced Imaginarium. Why this man? Is he like an example for you?
-We contacted Andy when we were about to record the MCD “Cast A Spell” and after the time with Andy in his studio we decided to use him and his studio again for “Imaginarium”. Andy has been working with music for a long time and he knows what he’s doing and that’s he main reason why we choose to work with him.

Most of the people compare Morifade with bands like Rhapsody and other Italian bands. I don’t, cause you’re music sounds much rawer. It’s not that bombastic (no choirs for example). Do you agree with that? What do you think about bands like Rhapsody?
-Yeah, I think we were more comparable with Rhapsody at “Possession of Power” but not with “Imaginarium”. Many people often say that when you listen to a song you can hear that it’s Morifade and Hopefully that means that we have a little of our own sound.

You’ve changed to Hammerheart Records as label. Why them, and how is the contact so far?
-We weren’t satisfied with our former label’s work, the promotion was very poor so in the year 2000 we broke free from them and later signed with Hammerheart Records and we chose them because they had the best offer regarding our claims of studio budget and promotion. We started to send out promotion packages all over the world after the break-up with Loud N’ Proud Records and one day a letter from Hammerheart Records was in our mailbox.

I think you’re one of the first bands in this genre that signed with Hammerheart. While Hammerheart signed mostly death, thrash and black metal orientated band, at least in the past, do you feel any risks to be perhaps pushed to the background?
-I think Hammerheart wanted to broaden their offer of band genres and that’s why the signed us probably. I don’t think there’s any risk of being pushed aside since we don’t have very much in common with any of the other band at Hammerheart, so we don’t have to “compete” or whatever with any band and so far we have got the response from Hammerheart that we wanted.

Can we expect you on a festival this summer somewhere in Europe, or maybe a tour later this year?
-Actually we had a tour almost finished in Spain and Portugal in May but in the last minute it was cancelled unfortunately. We have gigs in Sweden and we’re working on getting a tour somewhere in Europe this year.

The artwork for the cover of Imaginarium is very cool. Who came with the idea to create that cover, or was it already been made and used without any thoughts?
-We gave the artist (Reload) some of the songs on “Imaginarium” and also some lyrics and after a short while he came up with an idea which we approved and he worked on with it and finally the cover was finished and that’s the one that you can see on the album.

What can we expect in the future? Are there any new songs ready? I know you covered a Helloween song (Judas) for a tribute album. Any more plans in that direction?
-Yeah, we have a couple of songs almost finished for a coming album and that’s what we are doing right now, making new songs. We don’t mind participating at cover albums in the future, it’s cool but I don’t think we will put a cover on any of our albums, only in case of a bonus track maybe.

Anything more to add?
-Well, I just want to thank all our fans over the world and I hope to see you out on tour somewhere, sometime! Bye for now.

Interview by André

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