Transcript of an interview with Maja Shining of FOREVER STILL - 8/03/19. Full article here. MAL-
On the line with me right now, Maja Shining from FOREVER STILL, Maya thanks for taking my call. MAJA- Thanks for having me, Mal. MAL- It's, it's a great pleasure. Tell us about the band, if you can. Give us a brief history, brief background. When did you first form? How you started? MAJA- Yeah, I'll try my best. Well, I met my co writer and bass player Mikkel at a show and we started talking about making music together. And we put out our first EP 'Breaking Free' together in 2013. So it's been a while now. And since then, we put out a full album on Nuclear Blast. And now our second album is coming out March 29 called 'Breathe In Colours. MAL- Yes, we'll get to that in a moment. The first album 'Tied Down' in 2016. How did that go? MAJA- Well I think it went rather well. It's always subjective but I mean we did have some songs out already that Nuclear Blast caught on to so obviously it was well, it was good enough for them. MAL- How's the scene in in Denmark? Did you find it easy or hard going early on? How was it? MAJA- I mean there's so much life in it especially in the underground as of recently you know but it's mainly a bit heavier metal whereas you know some of the more modern rock or you know the kind of style we do it has done a little bit better out in the world. So quite early on, we started touring in, you know, the UK and Italy and you know, our neighbouring countries. MAL- How easy it to tour Europe? Is it a whole passport thing? I'm always fascinated with the European thing. Can you just like wander over to Sweden? MAJA- Absolutely. Yes. That's the thing. The only thing you need to worry about are some special permissions on the highways and stuff like that. But, you know, other than that, you can just drive around it's in that sense of like, it's one big country, right? MAL- When did you sit down and say, right, we got to start working on the secondalbum? When did that come about? MAJA- Well, we started writing slowly as soon as we got back from our tour with CHILDREN OF BODOM, but, you know, things got a little interrupted by festivals and all these things we had to do. So I guess it wasn't until last winter, we really sat down and started writing. At that time, we didn't even have a place to live because our apartment was being renovated. All the building it was in at least so we had to rent this this small room and just bring, you know, the essentials like an old drum machine and a guitar and a microphone. So it was this very basic setup that just allowed us to focus 100% on well the songwriting. MAL- What was the vision for this album? MAJA- Well, Originally, it was inspired by, you know, just looking out on the world as it is today. And we're watching the news and just, you know, you get to see all these horrors of the world and our climate collapsing and the corruption and and all these things where there's being preached fear towards anything that's different. And you know, a lot of that just reminded us of those 70s, 80s cyberpunk novels and movies, and just that we're looking out on the future and didn't see that, you know, fancy, shiny, utopian future, but was actually looking more at a world like we see right now. MAL- Okay, so you've come up with the vision. Where to next? Who was who was writing all of this, and was the whole theme of that carry right through the album? MAJA- I guess it's more of an overarching theme. And a lot of it translates, you know, from visual things and into sounds. So it's never you know, direct inspiration where he's like, Oh, so we heard this. And then we replicated it. It's more as an interpretation, and I write all the songs with them, Mikkel who plays bass, live in the band, and for me, you know, the lyrics were also taking a more personal approach this whole ordeal and not only looking out on the world but also you know, focusing on your own place in it. So it was both both about fighting that outer war as well as the inner war. MAL- Where was it recorded? MAJA- It was recorded in our own studio in Copenhagen. MAL- Tell me about the theremin. I love the theremin. Tell me about working with one. MAJA- I'm glad you do. Well, it's been a duck, isn't it? I feel like people have been very, very split in the reception of that because some of them like what why does she even doing that video we should practicing magic or what's going on there? But for us, it was just when we had like put down this overarching theme for the album, we wanted to figure out a way to actually obtain what can you say sound wise, what we saw visually. And Mikkel just came up with this amazing idea of using the theremin and I was on board right away because I had already been (?) theremin videos on YouTube because it's just it's such an odd instrument, I was so intrigued by it. So we bought one and I started practicing and practicing and we just started trying things out and running it through some analogue equipment as well, and these glitchy effect pedals that randomize the sounds and made it something different every time and well, what you hear is on the album, yeah. MAL- See, I didn't see the film clips before hearing the songs, so I didn't initially pick it as a theremin. I just thought, Oh, that's a bit weird. Then I saw the video and I'm 'Right, Yes'. They're a bit smaller than they used to be. MAJA- Yeah, well, you can, you can get a lot of different things now. So this is just, you know, one of many options. And for us, we wanted something we would be able to also transport and possibly bring on stage but it's still work in progress. It is very sensitive to her surroundings. So fingers crossed, we can make it work for the stage as well. MAL- I think you definitely should take it out on the road and put it on stage. Rich Ward from FOZZY uses one on stage. MAJA- Oh, cool. Yeah. MAL- The new album 'Breathe In Colours' out very soon on Nuclear Blast. What happens for FOREVER STILL? MAJA- Yeah well going to definitely tour this album was very much written to be performed live and after playing the 'Tied Down' album quite a few times now we're all really dying to get out and explore this new music on stage you know it just gives you a whole new energy when when you pick up the songs on stage from when you do it in the studio. So we're currently nailing down some tour dates for unfortunately not Australia yet, but definitely all over Yeah, all over Europe. We're going to keep pushing and expanding so hopefully it'll get to you guys quite soon I hope. MAL- Maja Shining from FOREVER STILL, absolutely magnificent of you to take my call. Best of luck with the new album which will be out very soon on Nuclear Blast. Best of luck with it. Best of luck with the tour and thanks for taking the time again. MAJA- It was my pleasure Mal and hopefully sometime soon we'll see you in Australia. Comments are closed.
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AuthorMetalhead who hates bad parking. |