In December 2004, Dave and Ann Marie of BeyondEarCandy.com had a chance to speak with Henrik Weimedal, bassist of Morifade, to discuss the band and get the latest updates.

Introductions:
DAVE: Hi, how are you doing?
HENRIK: I’m fine, how are you?
D: Great! Thanks for taking the call today.
H: Yea, I got the time wrong. Did you get my e-mail?
ANN MARIE: Apparently not. Did we get the time wrong?
H: Yea, YOU got the time wrong, (laughs) I didn’t.
AM: It’s one o’clock here now.
D: So maybe its’ 6 hours.
H: Yea, I thought it was 5 hours.
D: Well, I’m glad you’re still available. I did get your radio jingle that you sent over, we put it up on the radio already. That worked out great.
H: Yea? Thank you.

Band History:
AM: Maybe you could tell us a little about the band history, it began as what, Gothic, in ’92?
H: Ya, not very serious.  We were just a couple of guys who wanted to start a band, we didn’t record any songs when we were with Gothic, and I think in ’95 we recorded our first demo tape.  That wasn’t official really. We just gave it to some friends, you know.
AM: Oh, so you can’t get it.
H: Well, you can get it from me.
AM: Oh, well that would fun to hear, I think I would really enjoy that. That would be very cool.
H: Yep. At that time we had to change our name to Morifade.
AM: How did the name change come about, why did you decide to change it?
H: Well thought, well, you know gothic was a style, you know, so we didn’t want to be associated with that music.
D: Right, that makes sense.
AM: So how did the name ‘Morifade’ come about?
H: We sat down with like, two sheets of paper, and wrote down names, we uh, combined two words. “Mori” and “Fade”. We just thought it sounded cool, so…
AM: Yea! Doesn’t have to mean anything, right?
H: No, it’s kind of eastern and easy to remember.
D: Yea, it’s unique, that’s important.
AM: Yea, it’s cool because you know, if you search on the web, it always comes up! You know so I hate like, I really like the band Brainstorm from Germany, and just go ahead and try to search on that! Your not gonna get them.

New Vocalist:
DAVE: I guess one of the big things we hear going on is the new vocalist (Kristian Wallin), how you ended up finding him?
H: We advertised on the internet and stuff and he gave us a call and he was interested. He came to an audition. We tried several singers before him, but we thought he would be the best.
AM: How many other singers did you try?
H: About six or seven. We were gettin' tired of the songs we had to play in all the other auditions, we played them a thousand times or something.
D: Had you heard of his earlier band?
H: Yea, Rising Faith, yea.
D: Well, he sounds terrific on "The Second Coming" mp3, that you put up on your website.
H: Yea, well we looked in our guestbook and some people think that his English isn’t very good.
AM: Oh, really? I didn’t notice that.
H: Yea, well just the Swedish people I guess.
(Laughter)
AM: Oh well shoot we're Americans, we thought it was fine!
D: Yes, when I heard him I thought his range was very good, you know?
H: Yea.
AM: So you think he’s gonna do well with all the older material, as well as, the new stuff?
H: Yea, I think so we haven’t tried any old ones really, just a couple of songs, like the "Ending of Time" from Session of Power and a couple of songs from Imaginarium.
AM: Now this is your third singer though, didn’t you have someone named Christian in the beginning?
H: Yea, Christian Stinga-Borg
AM: Ok, now what was the reason that he left?
H: Mainly, he had some personal problems.
AM: Ah, ok—you don’t have to go in to it, these things happen.

Record Label:
AM: Just recently you left your label, correct?
H: Yes.
AM: But you haven’t found a new one yet, no?
H: No we're searching right now, we’ve been in contact with a couple, but you know it takes a very long time for the answers to receive.
AM: That was, what, your second label? Hehe, I forget the name of it—it begins with a K!
(laughter)
H: Uh, our most recent?
AM: Yea yea, that.
H: Karmageddon Media.  Our first record label was Loud N' Proud Records.
AM: Yea, and you ended up leaving them after Cast a Spell, right? There was some difficulty there? What happened with that?
H: The people that were in charge were some old friends of ours.
D: Oh, ok.
H: So yea, there were some big problems when they did the distribution of the album.
D: I’m sure you guys’l do great though, finding another record label. DOMI<>NATION was a terrific album!
H: Yea well we need to find someone that will work hard for us, you know we don’t have many contacts ourselves.
AM: Right, so you gotta find someone that can do that for you.
H: Yep.

Most Recent Album:
AM: Now DOMI<>NATION was released in the U.S. now, this was your first U.S. release, correct?
H: Yep, correct.
AM: Now, do you know how it’s doing so far?
H: Uh, not really. That’s the one thing with record labels, wiggle the numbers, you know, the sellings. Uh, we can’t found out much about that either.
AM: Yea, well you know it’s really so hard to track it now because, you know, we’ve been buying metal on the internet for years now. There’s really not a lot of releases in the U.S., especially because U.S. releases tend to be a lot later. So it’s hard to track those internet sales, so it’s hard to know how you really are doing.
D: I noticed on the DOMI<>NATION album, you have different people writing songs, you kind of spread it around among three of you. How did that come about? Was it sort of a conscious decision? Do you see yourself doing that more often going forward?
H: On a previous album, Possession of Power, the guitarist wrote most of the songs, and he has always done that before too, but then I started to write songs and uh, Robin, came in the band and he also had lots of great ideas and then we just wrote—all of us.
AM: And so before it was mostly, who - Jesper that did most of the writing? In the beginning?
H: Ya.
AM: Uh huh, and then I guess you guys felt comfortable enough, he felt comfortable enough having you all contribute?
H: Yea.
AM: And that’s the way it looks like your gonna do more of that in the future?
H: Yea, absolutely.
AM: Do you think it’s changed your style as a band, having more contributors?
H: I think so, it will happen if just one person writes all the songs they might be similar to each other, the songs. But it sort of spread it out among the band members, and also on DOMI<>NATION, our previous vocalist Stefan (Petersson), wrote lyrics, so…
D: That’s right, do you think as far as lyrics, going forward, do you have any idea on how that will work for the band?
H: On the next album you mean?
D: Yea, on the next album.
AM: Because Stefan left.
H: Uh, I don’t know really…
(Laughter)
H: We want Kristian to write all the lyrics. Also, the vocal melodies. I think there is more feeling to it if he sings something he has written himself, you know.
AM: Sure. Now DOMI<>NATION was basically a concept album, right?
H: Yea.
AM: But the others were not, correct?
H: No.
AM: So what was the concept behind that album?
H: It’s based upon two books, uh, 1984, and, Brave New World.
H: Yea, it was Stefan, he asked if we could, he wanted to do that concept, you know.
AM: Do you think you’d wanna do any other concept albums in the future, do you have any ideas?  Any other areas that you might wanna go into?
H: Oh, well, not now, you know we don’t know anything about what we’re writing (yet), so you know I don’t think we will write another concept album.
AM: Yea, and it’s hit or miss. You know, sometimes people love it and sometimes, you know it just doesn’t appeal enough to sell sometimes.
H: Yep.

Writing for next album:
D: Yea,  so you haven’t actually starting writing on the next album?
H: Oh yea, we did.
D: Oh you have, ok.
H: Ya well, a couple, you know three or four songs.
D: Yea I know your looking for the record label, but uh, when do you think’s the earliest, you could put out another album?
H: Maybe in late 2005.
D: Right, sure. That makes sense.
AM: Now DOMI<>NATION seemed to me to be a lot harder album then your previous ones was that the intention when you wrote it? Do you see yourselves continuing down that way? A little more progressive?
H: Yea, I think so. The new songs we’ve written are even heavier, I think, so, and more progressive, too!
AM: So is there anybody in the band that particularly took you in that direction? Or was that something you decided to do as a group?
H: It just happened, I think. We listen to many bands, different bands, and so you get your inspiration from different genres.

Tour Plans:
D: Do you have any tour plans coming up?
H: We’re planning for next year (2005). A tour, we don’t know when as far as dates or anything so we’re working on it.
AM: So, basically a European tour, is that what your thinking?
H: Oh ya, yep.
AM: Ah. No plans to come over this way (USA)?
H: Eh, we would like…
D: Heh, we gotta get you over here for ProgPower, U.S.A.!
H: Yea.
AM: Yea, you know that festival?
H: Ya, I know the festival. We’ve been in contact with them for couple of years ago.
AM: Well, the show's producer (Glenn Harveston) in the process of looking through bands now, we put you on our list we sent to him of who we’d like to see, so, we’ll see what happens.
D: Evergrey has played that festival quite a lot. You guys recently played for Evergrey, right? You warmed up for them?
H: Yes, we did! In our hometown.
AM: So, do you have anyone in particular that you think you’d like to tour with? You’ve toured with Evergrey, did you tour with Tad Morose?
H: Yea, well, not touring, but we played separate gigs with them. Yea, we’ve never been on a real tour, you know?
AM: Right?
H: That’s what we’re missing.  We could tour...
AM: So who do you think that you’d fit in good with? Do you have any ideas?
H: Tad Morose?
D: Yea. I definitely think your right there.
AM: That would be awesome. I think that would do well over here too. Hehe-of course I’m a little biased…
H: Our keyboard player, he played with Tad Morose.
D: Oh ok, yea.
AM: That’s right!
H: We’re good friends with them, we know them well.
D: That would be something to look forward to!

Live DVD:
D: Would love to catch you live, I enjoyed watching your recent concert DVD!
AM: Yea that was great, do you plan on doing any more DVDs?
H: Heh, if we get any gigs-we don’t have no more gigs (right) now…
AM: Yea well…
H: That’ also one of the main reasons we left Karmageddon, because they didn’t give us any tour support or anything, so that’s what we want to do, you know, to play live, that’s the greatest!
AM: Yea! And that’s the best way to get people interested in your music!
H: Yep.

 

 

Herik's music background & interests:
AM: So anyway, how bout you tell us how did you get started doing this music?
H: Uh, heh, that was a long time ago.
(laughter)
AM: Well it wasn’t that long.
H: I think that started out listening to Alice Cooper. And then, three or four other guys started a band called Thaliom. And, that was 1990, or something.
AM: Thaliom?
H: I think it’s uh, Latin or something, for uh, “The Best”.
(laughter)
AM: And were you always playing the bass guitar?
H: Ya, I was in playing bass guitar.
AM: So you’ve never played other instruments?
H: No, well, I played the mandolin.
AM: Oh cool!
H: Once!
(hysterical laughter)
H: I was six or seven or something. But that was my first contact with music.
AM: Oh ok.
H: But in a real band that was 1990 I think.
AM: So what would you consider your influences? What did you listen to, when you were growing up.
H: Well, from the beginning it was Europe, and a bunch over here.
D: Sure.
H: And my all time favorite is Iron Maiden.
AM: Oh yea!
H: I’ve written on the website, Steve Harris, bassist for Iron Maiden, was my reason for playing bass.
AM: So who do you listen to now? Any particular bands that your into right now?
H: I listen to very much Symphony X,
D: Oh yea!
AM: Oh I love Symphony X!
H: Yea?
D: A New Jersey band, their awesome!
AM: Yea, see, they're only live fifteen miles (24 kilometers) from us, we're big fans!
AM: And who else?
H: I’m afraid I don’t listen to much music. It gets too much when you play yourself. I only really listen when I’m driving my car, and then I listen to either Iron Maiden or Symphony X, mostly. Crimson Glory is another, actually.
AM: Oh! we love Crimson Glory! We actually got to meet Midnight and Ben Jackson in Atlanta this year they were at the ProgPower USA.
H: Ah yea, that would be cool.
D: Yea, we're always hoping for that reunion show. Hehehe, it never comes but we’re hoping.
AM: Midnight actually got up on stage and sung a song with Kamelot there.
H: Oh yea!
AM: Oh, it was really cool.

Interview Wrap-up
D: Hopefully you get a good record label that really supports you guys. Your definitely deserving of it!
AM: Yea, it’s time for your break for sure. The quality of the material…
H: Ya, we’ve been waiting a long time for that, sure.
D: I was just really glad to see you went out and got a vocalist quickly, because I was nervous for you, I was like, “I hope they’re going to continue, their too good.” You know?
H: I think uh, it will be hard to replace Stefan (Petersson), with any vocalist, but I think, well you know, when we started looking for a new vocalist we didn’t want a copy of Stefan, we wanted someone that sounded a little different, and I think we’ve done that!
D: Yea, oh I think he sounds real good. I think you’ll do well!
H: Yea!
D: We’ll put this interview up on the website and continue to play Morifade of course on our internet radio!
AM: Yea we’re on 24/7, all the time. We’ve got people listening to the radio from all over the world, so hopefully that’ll help.
D: Well thank you very much for taking the call with us!
H: Thank you!

---

Hear all the Morifade albums & his recorded station id on BeyondEarCandy radio!

Find out more about Morifade on their official web site
Morifade's latest album "DOMI<>NATION" is available at CDInzane.com

Thanks Henrik for the interview.