LIONS SHARE
Thursday 7th May 2009
interview By Metal Mick (The Beard) Staley
MG: Firstly I would like to congratulate you on your new album ‘Dark Hours’ , I can’t get enough of it and I recommend it highly to everyone and I’ll certainly be checking out your back catalogue.
LS: THANKS A LOT!!
I really like the artwork on the album; does the band have any input on this? Lars: Before we released “Emotional Coma” we decided we wanted to come up with a mascot like for example Iron Maiden has, that we could use on our album covers, on merchandise etc. We had this Swedish artist making drafts until we were happy with the result. For “Dark Hours” we told him the album title and what the lyrical content of the album was about. He came up with this cover and we loved it.
MG: Patrik, I think your vocals are very Dio like, have you ever been compared to the great man before? Patrik: Well, in almost every review, interview or whatever, hahaha. It does not bother me, he’s a great singer and one of my biggest inspirations.
MG: The music industry has changed dramatically since you started in 1995, especially the advent of the internet, have you had to change the way the band is promoted?
LS: We don’t have to rely on the record labels as much as back then. These days we get contacted directly by journalists etc through our website. We can also promote the album ourselves by doing video vignettes and put on YouTube, on our MySpace and the official site. We’ve done a couple of track by track vignettes that’s up on www.youtube.com/darkhours2009 that people can check out.
MG: Whilst we are on this subject, has the free sharing of music on the net changed the way that a band earns money and can you still make it pay!?
Patrik: It has robbed us. I’d say it has destroyed everything.
MG: You have written about some controversial subjects, such as ‘Space Scam’, about a fake moon landing, is this from personal views of yours or was it just a case of that would make a good song?
Lars: All lyrics on this album are about historical events that took place in the late 60s. A couple of songs are about Charles Manson, the Vietnam War, Martin Luther King, The Presidio riot in San Francisco etc. “Space Scam” I believe Patrik wrote more as a fantasy thing about a guy who questions if we really went there. I’m 100% sure it happened, so it’s not the band questioning this.
MG: Can you tell us Brits something about your home country, Sweden that we may be surprised to know?
Patrik: Sweden was the super power in Europe back in the 17nth and 18nth century. Not many know that outside Sweden now days.
MG: Have you any plans to visit the U.K. and play live?
Lars: We got the offer to open up for Saxon and Iced Earth on their European tour. Unfortunately we hadn’t rehearsed for a long time, we didn’t have the shirts ready and it was still a couple of months until the album release, so we had to pass. We’ve toured with both bands in the past and musically it would have been perfect, so it really hurt my heart we couldn’t do it because of the short notice. Right now we are doing headline shows in Sweden and we might do some festivals. Hopefully we can find another tour in the fall that makes sense musically and economically that will bring us to the UK. Or if we get invited by some promoter reading this interview???
MG: If you could be a member of any band living or dead who would it be and why?
Lars: That’s a tough one. I’m happy being me actually. Of course being a member of KISS wouldn’t suck.
MG: Do any of you have any annoying habits or silly superstitions?
Lars: I’m sure we all have in different ways. We get along great and have an amazing chemistry so it’s not a problem or something we think about at least.
MG: Metal music is really popular again at the moment why do you think metal that is?
Lars: Because this music has everything. It’s not just music or a trend. It’s a life style. Once you’re hooked you’re in it for life. What we see now is probably that many metal heads that grew up in the 80s are bringing their kids to the shows and there’s a whole new generation that’s been listening to Sabbath, Priest, KISS, Maiden etc since they were born into this fantastic music. I think it’s awesome to see all these young kids look and act like we did in 1983 or whatever. Metal will never die!!
MG: Who would you say were the biggest influences in your lives and why?
Lars: The reason I started playing at age 8 was because of KISS. From there it was all playing and listening to music for me. I was heavily into the NWOBHM thing. My favourite bands are KISS, Black Sabbath, DIO, Judas Priest and that kind of stuff. My favourite guitar players are Michael Schenker, Gary Moore (in the 80s), Uli John Roth, Georg Lynch and Marty Friedman.What has been the highlight of the bands career to date? Lars: We did a big arena tour for a month, opening up for DIO, Manowar and Motörhead. As a kid I could never dream of hanging out and sharing the stage with these legends. The first ever tour we did waswith Saxon which are also an old favourite band of mine, so that was very special too. We’ve kept in contact with these bands since and two years ago we got invited to play Manowar’s own festival “The Magic Circle Festival” in Germany. We have two songs from our show on their DVD with the same name.
MG: Finally have you a message to your fans in the U.K?
LS:We are very excited by the great response we’ve gotten worldwide on the new album. Hope you will support us by buying it instead of grabbing it from the net. Check out our sites www.lionsshare.org and www.myspace.com/lionsshare for samples, news and info. Hope to see you soon on tour later this year. Keep in touch and Cheers!!
Keep It Real !
