With:	Michel Isberg & Johan Westberg
Conducted by:	Marcel Hubregtse (e-mail)
Published:	23.03.2007
Band profile:	Machinery

Marcel: Since you're an unknown band for 99% of the readers of Metal Storm could you please introduce yourselves by means of a history of the band, who you guys are and what bands you all played in before?

Michel- Woaw! That's a long one.... the band started in the summer of 2001.

Johan- Yeah... I met Michel at a party and asked him if he still played... I was a big fan of his former band Dimension and regarded him as a metal guitarhero... hahaha... it turned out that he hadn't been playing metal for a long time and got thrilled about the idea of starting a band together...

Michel- Well the thing is that both of us hadn't played for a long time... it turned out that Johan hadn't touched a drumkit for like three years, so the first sessions were more or less a rebirth for us...

Johan- When we started both me and Michel wanted to do something new and unique, but we were both very much into Rammstein at the time so most ideas were based on a steady beat and crunchy heavy riffs... but it was probably good to start that way since I was really crappy behind the drums at the time.... I didn't have any of the pace or technique that I had possessed four years earlier, when my former band Extricator (an At the Gates/early In Flames hybrid) was put to rest....

Michel- The thing is that I hadn't been singing before.... so we really were starting it from scratch...

Johan- The event that made us turn to the "dark side" was both a contribution from Michel's brother Markus who had become a fulltime member of the band and the introduction of Dimension's former singer Hans, he entered the band as a bassplayer and "co-vocalist"...

Michel- I think that it was a turning point for us... for the first time we had a solid line-up and focus on what we wanted to achieve.

Johan- Yeah but it also has to do with the fact that we'd become better musicians and could break our boundaries and progress...
This line-up was the foundation of what I believe to be the core of Machinery... an all-metal experience.
Sadly Hans parted with the band in 2005 due to lack of commitment, so Per joined us in the winter of 05/06.
He had been playing in numerous bands (Flagellation and Goatsodomizer for example) and was a welcome contribution and brought some enlightenment to the ways of "showbiz"

Michel- Fredrik didn't join the band until we were in the doorway of the studio to record Degeneration... he was a friend of Per's, and both me and Johan felt that some of our songs really could benefit from keyboards...

Johan- Yeah I'd heard some of Fredrik's music (Anima Morte, Rising Shadows etc) and knew he could do it in a nice subtle way. We wanted him to fill up the room with sound and bring atmosphere to the songs.
After the record was released in October 2006 the difference between Markus and Michel's musical vision was growing apart... so Markus decided to leave Machinery in pursuit of his own visions of metal and started Desultor (watch out for this project, cause it's gonna push metal to the limit).
So now the newest addition to the Machine has entered the stage....

Michel- ...Mano!!!

Johan- Yes! It's Mano... a fullbred guitarwizard that can shoot fireballs with his eyes and... and....

Michel-....and you'd better lay of the dope.

Johan- Actually we can't give you too much about Mano, he's only been in the band for a short while so we'll get back to him later hehe?


As I stated in my review, you guys remind me a lot of Nevermore/Sanctuary, especially the vocals of Michel Isberg are Warrel Dane like. But who would YOU say your influences are as a band and personally.

Michel- Hmm this question always deserves some thought since it's constantly changing. I'd say what influences us as a band is more of a vibe or a feeling we struggle to gain rather than relate to other bands. In this aspect its easier to say that we try to do music which has a sense of classic heavy metal in it but roots in strong driving riffs with thrashy feeling to them. Something like Exodus meets Iron maiden and takes a beer with Jag Panzer on the way.

Johan- Well we really don't think about what type of genre to stick to... and I think that can be heard in our music, we mix a lot of styles and I can honestly say that when we start working on a song none of us have a fucking clue about how it will turn out... we all contribute with our diversity.

Michel- As for influences concerning individually I'd say Testament, Suicidal Tendencies, Bruce Dickinson, James Hetfield has a great impact on what I do... Fredrik is more into Death, Goblin, King Diamond and soundtrack-stuff. Mano is a fan of Meshuggah, Frank Zappa, Fredrik Åkesson and Mattias Ia Eklundh?

Johan- Hmm... I'd say that Slipknot, Nevermore, Pantera and At the Gates are my "Household Gods" but I also listen a lot to bands such as Nine Inch Nails, Cult Of Luna and Bloodbath....the last is more in Per's taste, he is more of a Death/Black Metal guy who's into Venom, Celtic Frost, Immolation, Autopsy and of course Deicide...


In your biography you describe your style as a mixture of death/thrash and heavy metal. I do agree with the thrash and heavy metal part but not with the death part. Like said in my review I only hear that very very very sporadically and then only in the vocals as used in Unholy Demon. Am I missing something here? Or was the death metal influence much more prominent on your demos?

Michel- Yeah it was! I think a year before we started to do the album it was a lot more death metal involved. But we laid some of the songs to sleep since most of them felt too stereotypical... We recorded one song though when the album was made which had nothing but growl-singing in it but was discarded from the album for that very reason. The song is called "Grind You Down" and is going to be released on the "Thrashing The Masses Vol.2" though.




In Unholy Demon some growls are used, are you going to employ those more in future?

Michel- Yes and no!
We are at the moment in a writing process and have about 8 songs finished. The material is quite heavier and more frantic in some parts and the easy way would be to put a lot of growls everywhere...

Johan- ...Which I'm a big advocator of... I'm currently "pro-growl"

Michel- Hmm... well I'm kind of vague about to what extent I will be using growls but for sure there will be more on the next album than on Degeneration.

On the cd the variety really starts to kick in with Blacker Than Pain. For the sort of music you guys make I find variety a prerequisite or else it tends to become boring. So, that was not a moment too soon. But by doing so you also leave the standard Nevermore/Sanctuary path even incorporating an almost black metal riff in Rectifier. What I am getting at is, did you set out to start off with a couple of not so varied songs and then to end the proceedings with as much variety as possible? And what was the reason for doing so? Or not doing it on purpose?

Michel- Hmm it feels nice to hear outside views in how the album feels. When we recorded the album we only had a limited pair of ears judging the material. When the time came to decide which tunes to be where the main idea was to make the runningorder as balanced as possible. Trying to establish a natural flow so that the listener would not realize that all of a sudden he (or she) had listened to the whole album and not realizing that time flew by.

Johan- Yeah the thing is that we didn't reflect over the fact if the songs were more varied or not.... the main focus was to give the record a good flow.... and I don't think we failed on that one.

Michel- My personal view is that the album grows stronger the later you come in it and because of the structure in Satanic Hippie Cannibal it would have felt weird to have it anywhere else than in the end.

Which songs are the oldest on the album? And which the most recent? Will you be going along the lines of the more recent songs on future recordings? Personally, I hope you develop yourselves more along the lines of songs such as Rectifier, Falling Through The Grid, and Satanic Hippie Cannibal. These three were the stand-out tracks for me.

Michel- Good question!
The oldest songs in Degeneration were actually Rectifier and Blacker Than Pain. The newest were Salvation For Sale and Falling Through The Grid...

Johan- ...me and Michel wrote that one like a week before entering the studio, the other guys weren't that happy with the late arrival of the 8 minute epos... but I think it's one of the best we've written so far...

Michel- We have a REALLY big back-catalogue and that is always a topic of discussion.
Should we use the old material? Or should we chop it in pieces and use the best parts and put them in to new songs? For me it feels weird to take some parts of a song we did 3 years ago and do something new on it. I'd rather do something new and see where that material goes. But I think in the end we'll use 1-2 old songs on the next album and the rest of them will be new....

Johan- Yeah but the old songs have had some rearrangements... we've pimped them up...

Michel- hehehe... well as for the new material? It has definitely some more black metal vibe in it AND more heavy metal which is kinda weird?but I like it.

Johan- I think it has a more direct approach.... it's more METAL.....

Michel- We have one tune which has kinda the same vibe as Unholy Demon and to some extent Falling Through The Grid but overall it feels like the next chapter. Hopefully it's gonna be less Nevermoreish but due to the kind of vocalist I am? I guess I'll have to accept the label that goes with it.

Were you happy with the final result of Degeneration? And how was it received by the press?


Michel and Johan- NO!!!

Michel- I had some real high hopes in the production area since I think our music could be a studio engineer's dream come true (or nightmare) ... Since it moves between so many genres I thought that you could really experiment and do weird stuff. But in the end it came out too flat...

Johan- I think we underestimated the time it would take to do all the little tweaks we wanted, so the mix was done in haste and the final product was miles away from our vision...

Michel- I wished that the melodies were more prominent and that the sound was more dynamic. But overall it feels chunky and heavy which is good. The rhythm guitars are excellent which (in my point of view) is the most important thing of all in metal. The press has given us a variety of both good and bad reviews, which I think is good. It shows that different people enjoy different parts of our music and that we're not easily labelled. It's also fun to read that some reviewers get offended that we don't stick to the usual boundaries within the metal genres....

Johan- Well to those guys all I can say is... rules and laws are for uncreative fuckups.... Music should live, transform and break boundaries....

Michel- There was one in particular (the name escapes me) that was really pissed off that we had some clean singing in this kind of music?. I guess there are conservatives everywhere.

If you ever have the chance to choose your own producer, who would it be and why?

Michel- Andy Sneap no doubt!! Simply because he's the best of the best of the best!

Any chances of you guys leaving Sweden for tours abroad? If so who are you going on tour with. If there aren't any plans along those lines which bands would you really like to tour with?

Michel- That's the plan. Nothing is done yet but I'd be thrilled if we could do a tour before the end of the year in midland Europe.
Haha?if it weren't obvious?.of course Nevermore would be cool and then bands like Communic, Mercenary, Scar Symmetry....

Johan- ...the Haunted or Machine Head would suit me fine.... the list can be made long!

Michel- But to be frank?.I think our first tour will be a small one with a headliner not too expensive. We'll see, maybe one of us wins in the lottery and can afford to pay of Slayer! Haha


Have you already started writing new material for the next release? Is there a time frame you're working along? I know it is still quite early after the release of Degeneration but when can we possibly expect any new releases?

Michel- Yeah! Like I said earlier?we have about 8 songs finished and about 7- 8 more in writing process.
We are entering the studio in June and hopefully the next album will be out by October?precisely one year after the debut. I'm aware that its quite soon but the way I see it, since we are an unknown band, we need to have a quick pace so the name gets printed in everybodys skulls!

In conclusion, is there anything you would like to share with the readers of Metal Storm?

Michel- Teach your children metal and buy our album!!

Johan- ...and don't drink and bake.

Thanks for taking the time to answer these questions. Hope to hear from you, so our readers will get to know more about you and your music.
Cheerz, Marcel

Thank you Marcel, the pleasure was all ours
Cheers, Michel and Johan