• Axenstar is a new rising force of the Swedish power metal scene, who try to give us their own perception on how metal should be played.Those of you out there interested in taking a trip with Axenstar, you are more than welcome. read the interview and learn some more things about them.

• It all started in ´98 when Peter Johansson and Magnus Ek decided to form a metal-cover band. After some line-up changes and a change of the band's name from Powerage to Axenstar we ended up with a record deal with Arise Records. Todays line-up is Pontus Jansson (drums), Magnus Ek (bass), Peter Johansson (guitar), Thomas Eriksson (guitar) and Magnus Eriksson (vocals and keyboard).

2.WHAT DOES AXENSTAR MEAN? HOW DID YOU CHOOSE THIS NAME? HOW IMPORTANT DO YOU THINK IS FOR A BAND TO HAVE THE RIGHT NAME?

• Axenstar doesn't mean anything really, we just tried to come up with a name that hadn't been used before, and so far we haven't heard of any other band called Axenstar. It's is important that your name somewhat represents the music you play, and in our case we think it both sounds and looks great. But in the end it is the music that counts.

3.YOU ARE A NEW BAND AND THIS IS YOUR DEBUT ALBUM. TELL US A FEW THINGS FOR THE EXPERIENCES YOU GAINED WHILST RECORDING THIS ALBUM. DID YOU FEEL AT ANY POINT THAT YOU LOST CONTROL OF YOUR COMPOSITIONS? DID YOU THINK THAT IN SOME PARTS THE PRODUCER TOOK CONTROL OF YOUR MATERIAL WITHOUT YOUR PERMISSION?

• As far as the recording goes we realized that you can't be to prepared when you go into the studio. We know now what we can do better the next time and we also know how to get around problems that can occur. We never lost control of the compositions but in the mixing process we should have stood up for our opinions more.

4.WHICH ARE THE TARGETS YOU WANT TO ACHIEVE WITH THE ALBUM AND AS A BAND IN GENERAL?

• First of all to get the album out to as many heavy metal fans as possible and that is one thing we can thank Javi (Arise Records) for, he has done a great job distributing our album. Then of course it would be nice to make some money on the album because we have put in a lot of time and effort to get this far and we hope to go even further.

5.WHAT ARE YOUR LYRICS TALKING ABOUT? WHAT INSPIRES YOU AND WHAT CAN TAKE THE INSPIRATION AWAY FROM YOU?

• The topics in the lyrics varies a lot but one thing that comes up several times on the album is the environmental issue, how we destroy our planet and that we should take more care of it before it blows up. Inspiration comes from a lot of places, one of the things that inspires us is listening to other bands, that usually make us want to play and write music. One thing that can take the inspiration away is to get reviews that doesn't focus on the music.

6.WHICH DO YOU THINK IS THE BEST AND WHICH IS THE WORST PART OF YOUR MUSIC? WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU NEED FURTHER DEVELOPMENT?

• We don't think that there are any bad parts of our music, but as far as development goes you can always learn more.

7.WHICH WERE THE REACTIONS OF THE FANS AND PRESS ON YOUR CD? ARE YOU SATISFIED WITH IT?

• The reaction varies but over all we have gotten good reviews and a lot of good reactions from fans all around the world, we are very satisfied with it, it is not every band that get the chance to record an album so we are very happy with just the opportunity we have got to release our album all over the world.

8.THE COVER ARTWORK OF YOUR ALBUM IS GREAT! HOW DID YOU MANAGE TO CO OPERATE WITH TRAVIS SMITH? WHAT DOES IT SYMBOLIZE AND HOW IS IT CONNECTED WITH THE MUSICAL AND LYRICAL PART OF YOUR MUSIC?

• We got an e-mail from Javi at Arise Records and asked us if we wanted to let Travis do the cover artwork, and we were of course very pleased with that choice. We then sent some lyrics to Travis and he came up with some ideas for the cover, and from that we worked our way to the final result, we think the cover turned out great and it really represents both the musical and lyrical part of the album.

9.YOU USED TO BE A METAL COVER BAND. CAN YOU TELL US WHICH BANDS YOU WERE COVERING?

• It was a very short time that we actually were a cover band, but some of the bands we were covering was Iron Maiden, Dio, Accept, Yngwie Malmsteen and so on, just big heavy metal acts.

10.IN THE TRIBUTE TO HELLOWEEN YOU COVER THE SONG ³TWILIGHT OF THE GODS². HOW DID YOU CHOOSE IT? WHAT DID YOU ADD TO THE ORIGINAL COMPOSITION?

• When it comes to choosing a good Helloween song you have like a million songs to choose from, but we finally decided to try to cover the song ³Twilight of the gods² everyone in the band agreed that it would sound good if we played it in the Axenstar fashion, we didn't change the song in the structure but we played it like it had been one of our own songs.

11.I WANT TO BE ABSOLUTELY SINCERE WITH YOU. I'VE LISTENED TO YOUR ALBUM AND THOUGH I THINK YOU ARE EXCELLENT MUSICIANS YOU KINDA DISAPPOINTED ME MUSICALLY. NOT FOR ANY OTHER BUT JUST BECAUSE YOUR MUSIC IS FILLED WITH CLICHES, MAKING YOU SOUND TOO CLOSE WITH SO MAY OTHER BANDS FROM UP THERE. IS IT BECAUSE IT'S YOUR FIRST ALBUM AND INFLUENCES ARE OBVIOUS THERE? YOU ARE THE ARTISTS, SO I THINK IT¹S BETTER FOR YOU TO TELL ME IN WHICH FIELDS YOU THINK YOU DIFFER FROM THE OTHER BANDS OF THIS GENRE.

• It's really hard to stand out when your playing this type of music, but we have strong melodies and we hope that it is enough to make people recognize us as an own band with an own sound, if we had recorded this album in the early 80's we might have been in the position that Helloween are today and everyone would have said to the new bands ³you just sound like Axenstar, don't you have any ideas of your own?² and we think it would be sad if there were just one or two bands that were allowed to play power metal in a certain way, as long as the music is good everyone can play whatever they want. We will probably sound different on our next album, but there will always be someone that will think we sound like someone else. We think that our sound is great!!

12.WHAT ARE YOU PLANNING TO DO IN THE FUTURE? WILL YOU DO ANY LIVE SHOWS?

• In January we will do two live shows in Stockholm (Sweden) at Club Anchor. Hopefully we will be able to play some festivals next summer and of course we will enter the studio in May.

13.NAME YOUR 5 ALL TIME CLASSIC ALBUMS.

• Helloween ³Keeper of the Seven Keys part I &II²
• Sonata Arctica ³Ecliptica²
• Lost Horizon ³Awakening the World²
• Iron Maiden ³Somewhere In Time²
• Slayer ³Reign In Blood²

14.IF SOMEDAY YOU HAD THE CHANCE TO MEET THE CREATURE THAT CREATED THE UNIVERSE, WHICH WOULD YOUR BIGGEST QUESTION BE?

• What is the meaning of life, if it isn't to play metal?

15.IF TIME TRAVEL WAS POSSIBLE, WHICH HISTORICAL PERIOD WOULD YOU LIKE TO VISIT AND WHY? WHAT WOULD YOU MISS THE MOST FROM OUR TIME?

• Perhaps to the time when the Swedish Vikings were on their crusades across the world spreading fear. The one thing we would miss is the metal music.

16.WHAT PROLOGUE AND TITLE WOULD YOU LIKE THIS INTERVIEW TO HAVE?

• Axenstar ­ Power metal for the 21st century!

17.THANK YOU!HAVE I FORGOTTEN TO ASK YOU ANYTHING AND YOU'D LIKE TO MENTION?

• Check out our album ³Perpetual Twilight² and visit our website at www.axenstar.com where you¹ll find the latest news and updates. Hope to see you on tour!