1. You recently were on tour with Testament and some dates with Wasp. How did that go?
MEMNOCK: Hi man. Well the Testament gigs happened a while ago, but nevertheless it was great. It was fantastic to be part of their comeback tour with the original lineup. The response was massive and the Testament guys were so cool to us and gave us nothing but a good time heheheh. They are so down to earth. The WASP tour was a good one for us also. We played to more people then we had ever done before and we won a lot of new fans. Unfortunately we didn’t get to hang out with the band too much. Blackie kept to himself most of the time, he’s a very private person and we really didn’t get to talk to him. But the tour really helped Susperia get to a bigger audience. It was hard work for us to make it work. Our drummer Tjodalv broke his ankle about four weeks before the tour was to start. We didn’t want to lose the tour so we had to audition drummers- we eventually chose Anders Haave from Blood Red Throne. Then it was intense rehearsals to get it all to happen. It was worthwhile in the end.
2. “Cut From Stone” is your fourth album. Tell us about how the music grew from album to album.
MEMNOCK: As for the new album. I feel it’s just natural progression to where we are now. The first album was a new adventure for all of us and I guess it reflected the musical backgrounds we had come from. But as we grew and bonded as a band, we started finding our own style. The music has grown because all the band members started to have more input. The early albums were more or less all written by Athera and Cyrus, but with ‘Unlimited’ we all had an input and that has continued on ‘Cut From Stone’
3. Susperia’s formula borrows from the many classics of Thrash especially the likes of Testament. You are also one of the very few newer bands where your singer sings instead of screams. Tell us about that.
MEMNOCK: With the vocals it is the exact reason why he sings, because nearly everyone else does the screaming thing. We just thought that it is not very original any more. Susperia like to do their own thing and it’s not necessary to copy every one else. When it comes to the Testament resemblance I don’t quite agree. It’s a big compliment to be compared to them but we have never tried to copy them. We get the Testament thing all the time, we just have to live with it. So far the comments have never been made in a negative way. It’s like Testament blah, blah, blah, but hey what a great album. So that’s ok with us heheheheh.
4. Why has Susperia not played the States yet? What happened to the tour with Edguy?
Any plans for the near future?
MEMNOCK: We actually got over their a few years back when we played the Milwaukee Metalfest, but yeah we need to really get over there. The Edguy thing was announced before we had confirmed that we would do it. There were some misunderstandings between the parties involved but basically it should not have bee announced. We are trying to go on tour as much as possible both in Europe and the USA, but it comes down to everyone working together to make it happen. We are now looking at the USA for early next year.
5. Why the title “Cut From Stone”?
MEMNOCK: Susperia feel that the title reflects what we are as a band. We don’t come and go with different line-ups on each album. We are solid and have been from the day we formed, almost like we were ‘Cut From Stone’. So we felt like it was a good title for the album.
6. You have two promo videos “Bitter Man” and “Chemistry”? Any planned for the new album?
MEMNOCK: We also have a promo for ‘Devil May Care’ which was made when we released the ‘Devil May Care EP’. I think the EP was only released in Europe though. It is always nice to have a good video, but we have to see what will happen. We’ve been talking to a couple of directors but we all have to agree on a song first :-)
7. When writing songs what comes first the riff or the melody line? Which works better?
MEMNOCK: Hmmm.. very often the songs are made first then the vocal lines come later. Nothing is really decided in advance. The way Susperia works is that Cyrus comes to us with basic ideas for songs. He has his own studio so he is always putting ideas down, riffs melody whatever. He puts them into a basic song structure and then brings it to the band, at which point we rip them to pieces and have our input hehehe. It can get very heated when everyone has an opinion but it works out in the end. Athera will then put his vocals on once the song is more or less complete.
8. What are some of the newer more extreme sounding band you like?
MEMNOCK: I’m a big fan of My Dying Bride but they have been around for a while now, so I guess they don’t count heheheh I don’t really go for listening to the newer extreme bands. I have however recently got into a band called Spastic Ink, which is kind off instrumental fusion metal.
9. You did a cover of “Wild Child” by Wasp. Why that song?
MEMNOCK: We’ve been listening to that song ever since we were kids man and it just happened out of the rehearsal room. Sometimes during rehearsals we would take a break from the Susperia stuff and for some light relief, we would mess about with covers. One of those songs was ‘Wild Child’. It would get played at every rehearsal and just got better every time. So when it came to releasing the EP we thought let’s put it on there. Anyway it is a nice song (dont you think?) hehehehe.
10. Plans for the rest of 07 into 08?
MEMNOCK: Make a new album and we always want to tour. I guess we need to do whatever it takes to get us over to the USA. It’s about time it happened, just need to get the right situation.
Regards :Memnock
Official website: www.susperia.net
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