• About a year ago just a while after we started this ezine I made an interview with Lars the singer of Manticora. This interview proved to be one of the most read and succesful and brought us luck. So, now after the release of their new album, I now had the chance to have a talk with Kristian, their guiatrist, which was very interesting and in fact was one of the most interesting interviews/converstaions I made. I am sure that you'll think the same once you start reading it.

• It took about 3 weeks to record this album and we recorded it in the same place as last time, where we recorded our previous album with a guy called Jacob Hansen as producer and we mixed the album at another studio this time together with a producer called Tony Hansen who also made Helloween albums. So, it was a new thing for us. We wanted to make a new sound, still the same but a little better.

2.THE TITLE OF THE ALBUM IS "HYPERION". HOW DID YOU NAME THE CD THIS WAY?

• It's a concept album...

• I can tell you some things about it, cause it's a big book...hahaha
• It's a science fiction novel by an American author called Dan Simmons. It's about 7 people travelling to a planet called Hyperion, they are all travelling towards something called the time tombs, it's some graves in this planet that travel back through time and the legend tells that certain pilgrims journey on this planet towards this graves and each one of them will have his or her wish fullfilled and on this journey these 7 pilgrims they tell each other they story of why they are travelling there and this book Hyperion is actually about these 7 stories and thet are actually 7 different stories and 7 good stories and this is what our album is about...these 7 stories, these 7 people telling their stories.

3.I'VE LISTENED TO ONLY ONE SONG OF YOUR NEW ALBUM AND I HAVE TO SAY THAT I LIKED IT A LOT BUT I DIDN'T SEE TOO MANY DIFFERENCES FROM YOUR PREVIOUS ALBUM. CAN YOU TELL ME IN YOUR OPINION IN WHICH FIELDS THIS ALBUM DIFFERS FROM YOUR PREVIOUS ONE?

• Yeah!First of all the production is a bit different. Is more agressive this time. Second of all we made it without keyboards. The making of the numbers of this album was done without any keyboards, they were put in the studio later, so instead of making the album with keyboards, was made only with the 2 guitars and the drums. It's been a little more agressive this album. A lot more agressive, but it's still the same. It's still Manticora, we still have the same influences, but these circumstances have occured on this album and made it more agressive and in my opinion this is our best album, we did so far.

4.YOU ARE A POWER METAL BAND BUT YOU HAVE A VERY PERSONAL MUSICAL STYLE. I THINK YOU'VE MANAGED TO COMBINE THE BAY AREA THRASH WITH THE EUROPEAN POWER METAL.

• Ooohhh!!!Thank you very much!!!!

• It's always been our dream, because we all like German power metal (e.x.Running Wild, Blind Guardian, Helloween, etc), but still all of us in Manticora tink that's something missing. I think it's not agressive enough and we all grew up listening to the american bay area thrash back in the '80s (e.x.Overkill, Metallica, Forbidden, Slayer and so on). It's our greatest influence and our goal is to combine the american bay are thrash with the European power metal because that's what I think is lacking in the European power metal, it's the balls in the music. It's our dream to take power metal to a new, higher level.

5.THIS PERSONAL SOUND OF YOURS MAKES YOU DIFFER FROM THE OTHER POWER METAL BANDS. DON'T YOU THINK THAT DIFFERNCE SOMETIMES SCARES PEOPLE? WOULD YOU DO ANY COMPROMISES TO WRITE "EASIER" FOR THE EARS MUSIC?

• I don't think any of us is capable of doing that...I don't think we can do something like that because none of us in the band is interested in making this music because there are too many releases and many bad power metal albums. it's really annoying because you hear the same song on and on and it's just another band playing this song and I don't think we will ever be able to play typical power metal. Of course you can always say that Manticora plays typical power metal, but not that way that many bands do today. I don't think we can do that!

6.YOUR FIRST OFFICIAL ALBUM, I AM TALING ABOUT "ROOTS OF ETERNITY" WAS RELEASED FROM BLACK LOTUS RECORDS, HERE IN GREECE. WHAT MADE YOU LEAVE THIS LABEL?

• It's a very long story and a very sad story, because we had a very good relationship with Black Lotus in the beginning but along the way many problems appeared with them. they didn't answer our calls and so o and we just had to quit all our negotiations with them. It wasn't professional enough. We haven't heard from them. However, it was a very important thing for a new band like Manticora back then. The record company keeps the contract with the band especially when we are in denmark and you are in Greece. It's a long way and it's very important for a new band to keep the contract with the record company. They didn't do any promotion, so we just had to quit with them.

7.ARE YOU SATISFIED WITH YOUR NEW LABEL SCARLET?

• I am! They are very good to us and they are working very hard to promote us the best they can.

8.THE PREVIOUS TIME I DID AN INTERVIEW WITH LARS, HE TOLD ME THAT YOU HAVEN'T DONE MANY LIVE SHOWS (WHEN YOUR PREVIOUS ALBUM WAS RELEASED). NOW AFTER MORE THAN A YEAR HOW ARE THINGS? IS THERE A CHANCE TO SEE YOU FROM OUR PLACES?

• We are working very hard on this specific matter, because it didn't work out on our third album. We really wanted to come out and play on "Roots Of Eternity" and on our second album, we also tried very hard to come out, but it's very expensive for a band to get ut the Dennish borders and play. It's very expensive and it's very difficult, because if you tour with bigger band they need a lot of money from us to pay them in order to play for them, so it's even more expensive for a new band with no audience like they have. I think this time we'll definitely come out and play in Europe, but I don't know if we will reach Greece. I can't say that, but I know that right now we are working very hard on touring Europe.

9.YOUR FIRST RELEASE WAS A SELF FINANCED CD UNDER THE TITLE "DEAD END SOLUTION", WHICH IS VERY DIFFICULT TO BE FOUND NOWADAYS. ARE YOU THINKING OF RE-RELEASING IT IN THE NEAR FUTURE?

• We've got think about that. It depends on a lot of things. Of course if we have an audience that wants our demo releae been released again we will definitely do that, but you are the first who tells me that so it's a new thing for me you said...

• It's a funny cd. It was made in a weekend. It took as 3 days in the studio to make these tracks and me and Lars and Mads and our old bass player, we made these songs in 3 months I think, then we went into a studio on a weekend and we recorded it so it's a very fast cd.

10.IF YOU HAD THE MONEY TO MAKE AN EXPENSIVE VIDEO CLIP, WHICH SONG OF YOURS WOULD YOU CHOOSE AND HOW DO YOU IMAGINE IT TO BE?

• Hhhhmmm...Right now we are working together with a camera man and we are actually right now planning on doing a video clip for a new song from our new cd and this as well is very expensive...hahaha
• Everything has money and we have to figure out how much that is, before we do anything.

• Well, if we ever made a video clip it would be a very dark video I think, because we want to make an impression that this is not happy power metal from Germany, this is more the dark side of power metal so if we ever made a video it would be very dark and evil.

11.DO YOU REMEMBER WHICH WAS THE FIRST METAL ALBUM YOU LISTENED TO AND MADE YOU RELAISE THAT YOU ARE A METALHEAD?

• My first metal lp was Savatage "Power Of The Night" and after that it was Iron Maiden all the time!

12.WHAT DO YOU THINK OF PEOPLE JUDGING THE ARTISTIC VALUE OF A CD BY THE NUMBER OF CD'S THEY SELL?

• I don't think it matters how many cd's you sell. I think it's all about how good you make cd's. Take for instance Metallica, they are a very good band and it takes them a lot of time to make one album and in my opinion I'd rather have less cd's than a lot of cd's with the band.

13.IF YOUR MUSIC WAS AN EMOTION WHAT WOULD IT BE?

• It would be a mixture of pain and love I think.

• Very dark! Yeah!hahaha
• It's a cold country Denmark and we keep it dark.

• Yeah! I hope so! It's very difficult for a heavy metal band in Denmark to come out because almost no one listens to heavy metal. MTV is ruling everything. When my friends ask me what kind if music I play and I answer them power metal they say "What?!!?!", because they only know what's on MTV so they usually say "is it something like...and they mention a stupid band from MT" and I say "No, not like that!". So, it's very difficult for bands from up here to get out in Europe because no one is supporting this genre up here.

14.WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU WEREN'T ABLE TO COMPOSE MUSIC?

• I don't know really!hahahha
• Composing music is my life! I've always done this, so if I couldn't compose music, play computer I guess!hahaha

• Yeah!!!It's becoming good! But again it's a small country and the other teams are really bad!hahahaha

15.WHICH IS THE BEST PART IN YOUR MUSIC AND IN THE BAND IN GENERAL AND WHICH THING YOU THINK YOU SHOULD CORRECT.

• The best part in Manticora I think is the atmosphere of our music combined with the agressive parts. I think this is ou strength in Manticora, to combine beatiful atmosphere with really agressive music. If I could change something, then it would be in the vocals. We don't have money enough and money is time, so we don't have time enough to make these really beautiful choirs that we've always wanted to make, because we can't afford it since it'll take too much time. If I could change something then it would be the entire vocal section in Manticora.

16.WHICH IS THE BEST AND WHICH IS THE WORST REVIEW YOU HAVE RECEIVED? ARE YOU SATISFIED TILL NOW BY THE FEEDBACK ON YOUR LATEST RELEASE?

• Yes!Actually we are quite astonished by the reviews around in Europe because they are all very positive. We are all very happy about that. The worst review would be I think a Dennish review from the biggest newspaper in Denmark. They gave us a hard time in our previous album. He disliked it very much, he actually said that he hated this kind of music, so that would be the worst review of our music ever!

• Exactly!
• hahahaha

17.IF SOMEDAY YOU HAD THE CHANCE TO MEET THE CREATURE THAT CREATED THE UNIVERSE, WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO ASK HIM?

• Eeehhh...hahahhaahaha! Question??
• Why are we here? Why? Actually, why all this life? I think that would be my first question and I think I would have a million more afterwards!
• hahahaha

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

• If I had a time machine, I would definitely go forward in time. I am very science fiction minded, so if I could ever get forward in time to see what happens, I would go a very very long distance forward in time to see what's going on and I really don't know what I would miss from today!
• hahahaha

19.THANK YOU FOR THE INTERVIEW...

• I thank you!

• I hope that people in Greece like our music...I really don't know about it...

• Ok! We are actually very close to come to Greece to december with SHAMAN and TIME MACHINE, but it's nice to know that there are people in Greece that listen to our music! That's really nice to hear!