Rock Realms - Interview 2009

Check out the interview here: http://www.rockrealms.com/interrogation/inmoria.php
or read it here:

Questions asked by Jon Wilde, added to Rock Realms 1st July 2009.

Inmoria are a dark power metal outfit from Sweden. Their music is intriguing but jolly good... and you certainly have to give them kudos for not following the pack.

Founding member Dan Eriksson answers questions.

Hi Dan, thanks for taking a moment to answer these questions for Rock Realms. Hope you are well?
Dan: Eyyyyy, no problems it is my pleasure. Yes thank you, everything is just fine with me except that I have a fucking infection in my face so one of my cheeks is swollen like a hamster, and I look like the Elephant Man, haha!!!

The guys in Inmoria are known, amongst other things, for their work in Tad Morose and (in vocalist Charles' case) Morgana Le Fay. How did this project come about?
Dan: Well it all started when I was living in Oslo. I suddenly heard music again in my head after about a ten years “holiday” from the scene since I left Tad Morose. I quit my job, moved back to Sweden and built a studio in the house I lived in before I moved to Oslo. I sat my ass down and did not speak to anyone for a couple of weeks when I was recording the songs. I was very pleased with the result so I called up Christer from Tad Morose and asked him to come over and listen. He loved it and we started talking about putting a band together as a project.
So he asked Peter and Tommi from Tad Morose if they were interested in joining and they were, so then we just needed an excellent singer. Since we all live in the same town we called up Charles and asked him if he could come over and tryout a couple of tracks. He wasn’t doing anything special at the time so he came over…..and blew the walls down. His voice puts the final touch to our music and makes it sound so dark and melancholic. After that, the line up was complete.

How would you describe the Inmoria style to the uninitiated?
Dan: An incredible mix of dark and brooding music with haunting melodies which take you on an emotionally charged journey and wrap their spindly fingers around your mind... subconsciously pulling you in a direction you may not want to go yet cannot turn away from.
We focus on hard and repeating guitar riffs with pumping bass. No boring solos and weird and long breaks in the middle. We have one solo in “Circle of Memories” where Christer and I have a short “battle”, but that’s it. We don’t have to prove our skills by playing any boring solos…..haha!!
People have said that our music is a little bit monotone, but what the hell….that’s the way we want it!! To keep the music floating and just “hit you in the face”.

Do you think the album's style ties in with the sort of music the band members have played in the past, or have you deliberately decided to try something new?
Dan: Morgana Le Fay is harder, Tad Morose is more technical and Inmoria is more suicidal…….haha!! No seriously, Inmoria´s music is darker with darker lyrics and so on. I didn’t deliberately decide to make this kind of music, it is just the way that I am.

Are you surprised at how well 'Invisible Wounds' has been received or did you always know it was good?
Dan: Haha, well I knew that it was good but not as good as the reviews in the media tell me. I was a bit nervous about how the album would be received in the media. I have always said that I don’t give a shit about reviews but this time I was so wrong. Everyday I “Google” for something new about Inmoria. I am so proud of what we have done and all the reviews so far has been amazing... it feels so good. Hopefully the masses around the world will agree.

Do you see this as a long-term project or a one-off release?
Dan: I have already written about seventeen new tracks for another album so this is definitely a long-term project.

Are there any plans for live gigs on the back of this release?
Dan: That’s what we really want to do, to tour our asses off. We have a production company that is in the starting blocks to do something so we just have to wait and see what happens. But hopefully when can take our music out on the road.

Which songs are you most proud of on the album?
Dan: Well, I have to say that it is “Come Insanity” because that was the first song that popped up in my head before I moved back to Sweden.

Who have been your keyboard playing inspirations of the years?
Dan: My biggest inspiration for a couple of years now is Toumas Holopainen from Nightwish. He is just an awesome keyboard player and a great composer. Then I have to say that I really admire Children of Bodom´s keyboardist Janne Wirman. I was thinking about getting a doctors diploma writing about Janne Wirman because I can not understand how drunk you can be and still play the keyboard like a God, haha!!

How did you end up playing keyboards? Am I not right in thinking you were better known as a drummer?
Dan: Piano was the first instrument that I started playing when I was about six years old. I remember that my grandmother used to bring me notes and stuff and pushed me to the piano, haha!! I hated those little black dots and I still hate them. Then it was time to start playing drums because I grew up and thought that piano was boring and not so masculine. So I bought a drum kit and rehearsed and rehearsed like a maniac in my parent’s house. You can imagine the noise that I made and my parents were thinking about putting me up for an adoption, haha!!
Later I started Tad Morose together with Christer Andersson and I played drums for them for about five years. After I quit the band in 1995 I went back to play the keyboards again. It is easier to write music on a keyboard then on a drum kit, haha!!

Did you grow up in a musical family?
Dan: No no, the only people that I know of in the family that ever played something when they were younger were my grandmother and father so I can honest say that I do not come from a musical family.

What have you been up to in-between parting ways with Tad Morose and forming Inmoria?
Dan: At first, when I left Tad Morose, I played for a short while in different bands but I realized that playing music wasn’t fun anymore, so I sold everything and started to think about what I wanted to do. Then I got a call from Morgana Le Fay and they asked me if I was interested in working as their drum technician. I said yes and I worked with them for about eight years. I also started working for other bands that were touring such as Gamma Ray, Brainstorm and Solitude Aeturnus etc.
Then I basically told everybody to fuck off and disappeared from the music scene and took a regular job. Moved to Stockholm for a couple of years and then to Oslo. I was so fed up with everything that had something to do with music and I couldn’t basically even listen to music anymore. So I worked for a bunch of years by cleaning away poison……asbestos, pcb and other healthy substances, haha!!

Is there anyone else out there you particularly fancy working with?
Dan: I am a lone ranger, haha. No, I want to do things my own way but I of course listen to what the other guys in Inmoria think about the songs... and if they have any good suggestions that would bring extra life into the tracks. But me and Charles did an intro for a Brazilian band called Semblant a couple of month ago and that was really great. And recently I´ve been asked by another Swedish band to write some keyboard stuff for their upcoming album, so I will see if that will be “fancy”.

What's the best band you've ever seen live?
Dan: Hmmm, I have to say The Prodigy because the sounds they use are so fucking brilliant and heavy and the power in the music is something that you have to experience live. Then I have to say Dream Theater, because their technical skills are outstanding and give me goose bumps.

What are your top 5 albums?
Dan:
“Operation Mindcrime” – Queensryche
“Music For The Jilted Generation” – The Prodigy
“Hellbilly Deluxe” – Rob Zombie
“Danger Danger” – Danger Danger
“Dead By April” – Dead By April

What's the best/worst thing you've ever done when drunk?
Dan: Hahaha hmm lets see……well I crashed a car totally and that was my very first car. I had just paid off my loan to the bank when I did it, so fucking stupid!!! Then I was arrested for burglary and public disorder. I don’t think that I have done anything good under the influence of alcohol but I try really hard not to do something stupid, so that in a way is a good thing haha!!

Does the music industry reinforce or destroy your faith in humanity?
Dan: I think that nowadays to make it in the music industry you have to have good looks, big boobs and a common lack off brain cells. I mean especially in the softer genres where music producers hand pick idiots who can not sing at all but they have the looks. And when I hear some stupid song on the radio that constantly repeats some idiotic words that drives me insane... then I wonder where the hell everything is going to.
And when I hear all those rap artists that sample a beat, put some fucking bad lyrics on to it and then they sell a million copies, that really pisses me off. Fuck, try to do something on you own for a change. They “talk” about the hard life in the ghetto, shootings and shit, but the first thing that they do when the money comes in, they move away to a well secured area and to a house that looks like a castle, but they still talk about the “hard life”…….fucking hypocrisy!!!!!

What are your plans for the future, or do you take each day as it comes...?
Dan: As I said earlier, we want to tour our asses off. And I mean that, we want to take our music out to the masses and spread the Inmoria sound. Then hopefully we will release a new album as soon as possible. I am working hard right now writing new material and as I said, right now I have seventeen new tracks so we will see what happens.

And, finally, what are you up to once you've finished answering these questions?
Dan: Haha, well I am going to sit my ass down in my studio and try to do something creative but first I am going to finish my breakfast.

Thank you sir!