Interview mit Eclipse

First of all congratulations to your new record. It is in my opinion by far the best work you’ve done til today. Tell us a bit about its development process?

Magnus: Thank you! People seem to really like it so far which is a big relief cuz we didn’t have much time to complete it. Writing and recording an album in 3 months is quite stressful. It’s always nerve wrecking waiting for the reviews cuz you never know how it’s going to be received.

Erik: Thank you. We did this album in the same way we always do them. Plug in a guitar into an amp and start playing and usually the ideas start coming. The key to make a great album is to have great songs so that’s where we put down most of the time and energy.

The Band history began in 1999 and the first release “The Truth and a Little More” came out in 2001. If you look back in time what changed since then?

Erik: Everything and nothing. We are still the same hard rockers as we were back then but we have learnt the craft of writing and playing. And we now have the self confidence to go our own way and write and record just the way we want it without thinking about what others want from us.

For many fans seeing you live for the first time it seems like you are a newcomer band. What is your opinion about that?

Magnus: In a way that’s true cuz we haven’t been on the live scene for many years. We didn’t start touring seriously until 2012. That’s when we got a name for ourselves. The first albums weren’t successful so we didn’t get much recognition back then. It’s good to see that our fan base is growing rapidly with every new album.

Can you tell us a bit about the musical changes from album 1 to the new one?

Erik: As all artists you start by copying others. That’s the only way to learn how to do something. Now we’ve broken free from that and have developed our own sound in the genre. We’ve gone from small kids wannabes to something real.

“Monumentum” is the sixth album you’ve done. Are you goin‘ on tour to promote the record?

Erik: Of course. We have a spring tour that will start in the UK on the 19^th of April and will continue to Germany amongst other countries in Europe. And during the summer we will do festivals and also open up for Aerosmith.

I saw you last year performing at the H.E.A.T. Festival with a great performance. In my opinion you deserve more than playing in front a few hundred people. What about your future plans?

Magnus: The plan is to promote this latest album for the rest of the year. That means touring. Playing live is still the best way to promote yourself. The good thing about playing festivals is that you reach a lot of new people and gain more fans. When we’re gonna open up for Aerosmith this summer we’ll be playing for 31000 people. That’s a great opportunity to reach out to more people.

Erik seem to me like a very busy singer as he worked with so many different bands and artists. How do handle things as a band?

Magnus: We don’t see any problem with that. As a matter of fact, all these side projects are bringing a lot of attention to Eclipse. That’s great promotion for us as well.

Erik: Having many projects is not the same thing as being out and plying live. I do music for a living and write a lot for others, I produce records and do loads of mixing and mastering for other bands. This is my 9 to 5 work but Eclipse is the reason I do music.

If you listen to the new record it’s a mixture of typical scandinavian melodic rock with a modern hint in my opinion. Do you agree?

Erik: That is absolutely correct. I think we have one foot in the classic rock from the past and one in the here and now. We don’t want to sound like the bands from the past but we don’t want to sound like a modern metal band either.

What, as a band, are your musical influences?

Erik: From the past it’s for me Whitesnake, AC/DC, Megadeth, Deep Purple etc. Nowadays it can be anything from pop music to folk music.

What are your expectations for “Monumentum”?

Magnus: First of all, our expectations was to make an album that would appeal to ourselves. Next to that we’re hoping for it to appeal all you rockers out there. We’ve only gotten thumbs up so far, so I think we did ok. And we also hope for it to reach a new audience. We wanna appeal to any rock, pop or metal fans. And of course we hope to sell 5 billion copies.

Any last words you want to say to our readers?

Thanks for reading this. We hope you will check out our new album and dig it. If you do, make sure you catch us on tour this year. Cheers!

Thanks for this little interview. Good luck for the future and I hope seeing you live somewhere soon.

Thanks for having us! See you soon.