With:	Marcus Hammarstrom [All Vocals and Instruments]
Conducted by:	Undercraft
Published:	28.01.2005
Band profile:	Elvira Madigan

01. Heya! Even though you just released your third album I bet there are some lost people that doesn't know a bit about Elvira Madigan, could you resume your band in a few words for us?

Hi. OK, I'll try "in a few words". I am a notorious "babbler" you know...
Elvira Madigan is the result of a desire to do my very very best practically, and a personal revelation I had some two or three years after my previous band split up in '95. I came to a rather abrupt conclusion that - although many of my riffs and ideas were really good - the songs themselves were just a bunch of typical compositions lacking in originality. I started seeing other peoples work in my own and especially within the English lyrics I wrote in the middle of the nineties. I mean one does subconsciously pick up phrases and a certain use of the language and then just apply the same formula to ones own compositions. There are so many typical phrases out there that gets reused that none today can claim they were the first to use them. And then there are tons of unwritten laws You abide by without second thought and especially song-structure wise. I just figured I wouldn't give a damn about all that and just write and record what I myself could do best completely unhinged from all exterior interference - and without being tied within genres. I didn't have plans on the songs ever leaving my living room at first and then things just moved on. Like the first launch of my site which in itself spawned interest in others of my music which in turn led me to starting my own little record company "Northlore Records". I released both my previous albums under that label. "Blackarts" (2000) and "Witches - Salem (1692 vs 2001)" (2001/2002). The latter gave Elvira Madigan an unprecedented amount of attention and landed me some deals. So the albums then got re-released and now I can finally see my new covers album "Angelis Deamonae - Wiccan Aftermath" see the light of day two years after the actual completion.
But in a few words... Well Elvira Madigan is an attempt to create art as creative as possible. Is suppose that's a rather nice way to put it.


02. Your last album is a recollection of cover songs, how come you came with this idea, why record only cover songs

The reasons are many really. When I finished the mixing of my last CD "Witches - Salem (1692 vs 2001)" I had been busy creating and recording the most original and demanding music I myself can spawn for four years without a break. These four years had resulted in three separate recordings of which one is yet unreleased in it's entirety (the second being "Blackarts") - and I was completely worn out!! In truth I didn't really like many of the last hours I spent recording "Witches...". It might sound silly but the fact is that recording EM music is enormously draining on mind and spirit for me. When I wrote and recorded stuff previously to Elvira Madigan - although always very serious - it didn't involve the high amount of "feeling my way through" the recording sessions/composition. I write and record all the stuff at the same time now and I sort of fuse together with the music and work until I drop dead feeling I can't do it any better. Previously - abiding by all those unwritten laws - I took a much more "straight forward" approach to my songwriting, which is easier to do.
So anyway, I really needed a break but Elvira Madigan started to get attention and it felt stupid to not do anything for six months or more before starting work on the next album. I knew I'd have to surpass "Witches..." with my next original CD (which I am currently recording) and for that I would need at least two years again dedicated just for recording sessions (which was the time needed to make "Witches..."), and it also needed extensive pre-production (a first time on an Elvira Madigan CD) if I was going to pull that kind of album (in the making) off. But that's not all, for I also needed to rebuild my studio completely to accommodate this rather large project (which my next CD is), and the cash for that wasn't going to come until early 2003. So I basically had a year to do something and I really felt I needed to put the "fun" back into recording again. So I thought of different rather unorthodox albums to do. An acoustic album was considered (with spoken poetry) or an instrumental piece. But none of these ideas seemed to work. I then remembered a trilogy by Chris deBurgh about the four horsemen of the apocalypse that I - ever since I was a young teenager - thought would make awesome metalsongs. And Voila! The idea of the covers CD was born and it fit the plan perfectly. Even though I interpreted all the songs quite heavily and though they all sound almost like original EM songs - one can't rearrange them by adding verses or stuff like that (or change lyrics either for that matter) so that gives You rather pre-written guidelines to work after and that in turn saves a lot of my sanity in the working process. The CD was perfect therapy for me although unfortunately released a little late since it was finished in January 2003.




03. Songs have nothing, or almost nothing to do with Metal, could you tell us why did you choose those songs? Why Chris De Burgh?, Why Mitsuda and Uematsu?, Why Tori Amos?

I really like really good covers if they are made properly. Especially from other genres because even though Metal is the ultimate art and musicform there are some really nice songs that aren't Metal at all - and by reinterpreting them into the Metalgenre they always grow into enormous proportions and always surpass the originals. I mean just look at EverEve's "House of the Rising Sun", Gamma Rays: "It's a Sin" or even most of the songs on the "Abba tribute" album that saw the light of day some years ago. I just think that covering other genres music into Metal once and for all proves that Metal is divine!
Besides, I don't see a point in doing a cover if it sounds rather similar to the original. Partly because the original would then always sound better (that is the version most people have already heard) and it's kind of a rip-off on the record consumer since there is no reason to buy secondary versions of songs they might already have spent money on.
Why I chose Chris deBurgh was mostly because he had the most songs I felt I could reinterpret in the most interesting ways. They are definitely not metal and that just makes it more interesting. But when the songs are reinterpreted they sound as if they were always meant for metal and that works extremely well. I discovered Chris deBurgh largely because of my father who liked that ballad "Lady in Red" mr deBurgh got known for. Now I hated that song but I liked some of the other tracks I was forcedly fed while riding in his car. He bought a compilation of his earlier work but didn't like that CD at all. I - on the contrary really found something appealing in that fairytale and theatrical stuff that sounded so different from the ballad that was pumping on radio stations worldwide at the same time. It dawned on me Chris deBurgh was quite misunderstood just because of the song that made him really big.
Why I chose Mitsuda or Uematsu is no particular reason other than that I liked the songs. It was nothing like I preferred the composers or anything like that. The "Jacob's Ladder" song was chosen due to the film being one of the very best I have ever seen and the soundtrack almost makes You cry (and it's a rather unpredictable melody as well - which is nice indeed in a world plagued by predictability).
I consider myself almost a fan of Tori Amos so a decision to cover a song from her was not a hard one. The hard part lay more in choosing a song which I could do in an interesting and really good way. Since the originals on her albums are really perfect I had to do her song in a completely altered way or it wouldn't work, so that was what I did

04. Personally, I love video games music, Uematsu is one of my favorite composers, and Chrono Cross has great music, (although I think Chrono Trigger music is much better). How come you covered songs from these games? Have you played them? Are you a fan of Squaresoft (now Square-Enix) games?

I am a huge fan of these kinds of games. I don't play shoot-em-up games or games like Counterstrike or Half-Life that is so enormously popular in Europe right now, but rather Japanese produced (and mostly anime based) games. Anime/Manga is very dear to me so that entire culture felt like a nice enough world to somehow incorporate into an album that consists only of other peoples work. I have played both FFX and Chrono Cross which featured the originals of which I cover on the CD, and I loved them both. I got a little disappointed on the FFX-2 title due to the overload of Britney Spears dancing and singing which felt completely out of place - but hey, that's just my opinion - I'm sure there were millions of teenage Japanese girls that liked that game.
Well since you like these games as well, you probably know the effect the music has while your playing them. It's like the music enhance the whole experience tenfold and that is probably why I get completely blown away by the soundtracks at times and simply feel I have to invest in those unfortunately rather expensive discs. When I was gathering ideas for songs to cover on the "Angelis..." CD I knew quite early that the album would be like no other covers CD out there. I was inspired by the first songs I recorded due to the fact that I was able to make them sound like original EM music, and original EM albums feature a lot of emotionally played instrumentals. So it was rather natural for me to look to the world of videogames and the music I am so impressed of. I had ideas to cover some folk/traditional stuff and also some classical work but I ended up with a selection that fitted my intentions better, and it just happened to be music from RPG games. But it is a quite original idea to include this stuff on an album isn't it!? I feel it is kind of cool and makes the music work on so many more levels than should I have excluded them. The opening to the game "Chrono Cross" (music and video sequence) just blew me away completely when I played the game but it was a hard song to recreate due to the fact that it already sounded perfect. I hope I made something nice out of it anyway since it is more metal in my version. Like all the other instrumentals - contrary to the song with lyrics - I wasn't driven by a desire to "recreate" the songs in better versions. I really just adored them and realized they would work perfectly as intros, outros and moody interludes.
Regarding Chrono Trigger, I haven't played the game! I know it's supposed to be great and there are a lot of people who really recommend that soundtrack - so maybe I should check it out! Other games I really liked were Legend of Mana, Xenosaga, Suikoden 3, FFIX, Grandia and Disgaea to count a few.




05. You have a thing for sexy illustrations, you used a Luis Royo work and in your official website you have links to artists like my compatriot Boris Vallejo, what's with this fascination for this kind of art?

To be honest, I drew and painted before I got into music and I'm nuts about the esthetics of women (!!!!). The kind of beauty one can provide through feminine exterior through art seems endless, and it is a riddle how alluring that imagery is to my mind. I still draw today and also paint but I feel the leap in quality between my stuff and what I need for cover images are too great so I haven't included any of my stuff (yet). I have done several sketches of the characters for the story which is told on the album I am currently recording and I really hope to show some of them in some form. How - I just don't know yet.
I am more into "sexual" and "dark" imagery than fantasy stuff with muscular barbarian figures and even though I have at times considered to perhaps use other imagery I have been persuaded not to since this kind of imagery fits well with my music and also becomes affiliated with the name Elvira Madigan - and I have no problem with that. I always seem to find just the perfect image within Mr. Royo's catalogue so there is no reason to change this feature.
This imagery can tickle a little more than normal fantasy stuff. And by that I don't just mean sexually. There is a lot of dark underlying features that speak to the primitive sides of the human drive and since that is what Elvira Madigan is about musically it should be featured graphically as well.

06. Maybe many people have asked you this but where does the name Elvira Madigan comes from?

It came from a romantic tale (of an actual person!! She's not made up) who was a tight-rope dancer at a circus and "Elvira Madigan" was her stage name. She fell in love with a married lieutenant called "Sixten Sparre" and together they fled to Denmark (from Sweden). This made him a deserter from the army and in the olden days (just as today I suppose) the penalty for this was rather harsh and when eventually facing the only alternative of returning home they instead chose to commit suicide while away on a picnic.
My little project has nothing really to do with her life story though. I took the name because it sounds "neat" and works well internationally even though it isn't English and because it doesn't mean anything. This means that I can record whatever music I want under the same banner and the name will work anyway. If my band name was to be something like "pink flowers and lovely smells" I couldn't really do Black Metal in a credible fashion. Should the name be "Deathskulls and rapeblood" for instance - I would have a hard time making my softer parts believable. Oh, by the way... I (obviously) just made up those names... ha ha.




07. How do you handle the composition process

I mostly have some riffs or keyboard lines (or even acoustic parts) that I start out with. I compose some kind of structure around them until I have a basic idea from beginning to end. I then start to program the drum machine and at this point anything can happen because I hear what works or not quite fast. Something might have been a good idea in my head but doesn't work in reality. At times I just need to change some details and sometimes I need to rearrange the entire song but when I eventually have a drumline that works I put it on tape and start to record. The first guitar gets put quite fast and from there I start to heavily improvise the second guitar (which doesn't play as the first on many occasions), solos, acoustics, bass and synths. I mostly jump between these instruments quite a bit. At times I put the entire second guitar and sometimes just working versions which I experiment with. The bass is rather important to me (since it is the instrument I started with) so I spend quite some time with that as well. Synths and vocals and additional details gets put quite simultaneously so that everything gets tied up neatly. There is always a great deal of polishing the song by adding or removing stuff and the process of finding out "what is missing" or "what is ruining" the song is quite demanding. But it is greatly stimulating when the final piece of puzzle for a song is found and recorded.
So there is an enormous amount of improvisation involved in my songwriting/recording but that is what makes the whole music so vibrant in my opinion.

08. Your music lies in terrains like symphonic, Black, ambient and others, do you have a term to define your work?

To be honest I don't really have one. But then again, I can't run around promoting music that I can not define, so I mostly say Speed Metal with Black Metal vocals, for that is what the more faster songs are to me. But I also have to complete that picture with Folk or Symphonic rather artistic music. It can be anything from very slow and beautiful passages to blistering Black Metal. It can be ballads but it can also be rather dark stuff. To people who don't like Metal I mainly say: "Very fast but melodic and non aggressive Metal".

09. Any band has drawn your attention lately? What kind of music do you listen at home? What music inspired you to form Elvira Madigan?

It's quite rare today that I get my hands on something that I really like. But I suppose "Einherjer: Blot" was one of the best albums I have heard for ages and I truly worship that one. At times I really get into a certain band or genre but right now I'm not listening to anything in particular. Recently I did delve rather deeply into "Subway to Sally" and "Muse" but that's over now and it seems I'm into rediscovering titles in my shelf. Even my old vinyls are getting dusted! It's great fun to hear stuff I really liked or I didn't quite understand back then but I seem to comprehend now. Like "Raging Steel" with "Deathrow" is a worthy rediscovery!




10. Plans for the future? What's the next step for Elvira Madigan?

The next step is to finish the album I've been working on for three years now (one year of pre-production and two years come April in the studio). That album will be called "Regent Sie" and will be full to the brim (and I really mean "full to the brim" - The playtime is somewhere just under 80 minutes!) with highly versatile Elvira Madigan art. It is a first album for Elvira Madigan to be fully conceptual storywise. I really want to make this thing properly or not at all so I do take my time with the lyrics and in the studio. I mean a lot of albums have seen the light lately claiming to be "conceptual" with a story but the tale is either too boring for anyone to care about or it is too poorly told that it is ungraspable. There are some albums which is claimed to be conceptual but need liner notes as long as the lyrics themselves just to inform the one holding the booklet what is really going on. And when You got that space in the lyrics to tell a story I figure You should use it. It does take an enormous amount of work and attention to make it work though but it will be worth it. My objective is to get a story as comprehendible as King Diamonds work but with my new found use of the English language in Prose and an Old-English kind of poetry. As I write this I am actually working on recording some vocals here and there and am finishing writing many of the lyrics but there is still quite much work to do. The synths and additional details need to be dealt with. But I hope to be finished this year anyway!

11. Any last words?

Yes! I'd like to inform everyone who has now gotten to know Elvira Madigan through this "Angelis..." album that I have done original CD's too You know!! Ha ha! I'm not too keen to be viewed upon as if my first album is one full of only covers! So please don't get the wrong idea. Anyway, thanks for reading.

Thank you very much for your time Markus, best of lucks!