• This is an interview with the progressive metal band PAIN OF SALVATION.One of the most promissing progressive bands. Check them out!

1.How did "Perfect Element Pt.1" go? Sales, reviews, etc. Are you satisfied with the result ?

• I feel that everything goes well. We only had good reviews and the correspondence of the media and the fans was amazing! If we are satisfied? Well, always things can be even better. I don't know how the promotion is done, but i think we are still far from approaching all the fans we can. But those who we 've approached they seem to like it a lot!

• Just today (26/5) we received a message from INSIDE/OUT that they want the successor of the first part (or at least something new) before the end of this year. This will happen if we want to do a bigger tour next spring. We haven't got anything sure yet but most probably we will start soon.

• Every one of these three albums was created under different circumstances. "Enropia" includes material from different times. Newer and older songs which weren't created in the first place to be in the same album. "One hour by the concrete lake" was created from the beggining as a concept album. Most of the songs were created by Daniel Gildenlow and our previous guitarist Daniel Magdic. "Perfect element pt.1" was entirely created by Daniel Gildenlow and that's why it's more unique. But the fact that we knew the concept of each album made us create songs which could fit with each other.This is what makes every album seem different. They say different stories.

• It's just a matter of promotion. You can become famous from the first single or after three albums or  never. We were always famous for our quality and beautiful songs but never as a great name. To become famous you must show yourself. The biggest part of our promotion was made underground , through internet and from mouth to mouth. Now we start to approach bigger number of fans out there and things become greater as time passes by.

• We are not expecting anything, just hoping. We hope that even more people will listen to our music. We hope that we will start selling a lot, to make the difference. We hope our name will become so big that it will be refered in all the great music events. We hope all the people could listen to our music.

• Basically, I don't know how we achieve this. It just happens. We start with an idea, we jam, we rehearse, we record and suddenly it's there, but it's not our sound if it's not 100% ready. I think that vocals (lead and backing) make this difference mainly.

• It varies! Sometimes we jam on a main theme and later we try to keep it and to form it into a song. Other times some have different ideas and rhythms and we simply put it all together in one song or sometimes somebody has a whole song ready and all the others make it better.

• We were fighting and dreaming. We started in 1995 but Daniel was working on it many years before. As his brother I was always watching his big dream and his trials to get somewhere. Little by little we' ve gone closer to our aim. We had of course our ups and downs but the whole image was moving slowly upwards. After our first contract we had a clearer aim to hunt for and since then we are devoted to this. But we are always sure taht we'll manage to make our dreams come true one day.

• We always believed that sentiment and melody have priority. We play technical music, however we never liked musical masturbation! Just listen to "Ashes" three accords going back and forth for five minutes! Not very technical, don't you think? "The Perfect Element" I could say that it's simple technicaly.

• We play covers every now and then. Not live (well, not that often) or in an album but there are some really amazing songs out there and it's very nice to play them. Sometimes we jam on cover songs or even prepare some cover gigs to get some extra money. It's useful to see how the other musicians compose. To learn how to receive different sounds and play in different ways. So i recommend you to play cover songs!

• Well I don't listen to new music that much... I think. I listen to some radio and find some nice songs. However they are more mainstream. I have Eminem and Destiny's Child in my cd collection and I like them enough. Mostly I listen to relaxing music such as Pink Floyd, Seal, Davis Sylvian, Mike Oldfield, also jazz, fusion and folk music are nice to listen. Bands such as Weather Report, Garmarna, etc are my influences but I am also influenced from other things such as anture, animals, events, tv shows, friends, etc.

• We listen to everything when we record! We are always in a search of new influences and ideas. We can change a whole song in the studio if we find better ideas! We haven't done it yet but it can happen in the future.

• I have no clue, truly! I think taht we have many good bands in all kinds of music cause we have a good musical education in schools. We pick later a genre and we become better to that. We have good musicians but it's a pitty we don't have good medias for the promotion of swedish music and maybe that's why we are trying to become famous outside of Sweden. We export plenty and good music but we don't care about it inside Sweden.

• We tend to narrate huge stories. When we write the lyrics we want to say something. Music is a great medium to geat near to people and we feel that we have to grab hold of this chance and to write for something important. And always the important things seem to take enough place and time. Therefore, it's natural to use a whole album for one or two themes in thsi occasion.

• Unfortunately nothing yet but we' d surely want to come for a live. It's a beautiful country and we have great correspondance from greek fans. If we have a good offer we'll come there in no time!

• If I could choose one of our songs to make it succesfull this would be "People Passing By". I love this song for a reason. If it wasn't a Pain Of Salvation song I couldn't choose!

• I always liked your greek hero, Hercules. Since I was a child reading greek mythology. He is still my idol that's why I haven't seen the Disney version cause I want to keep him in my mind the way he is. The marvellous, huge, half god. He is the best!

• I adore musicals and most probably I'd choose one of them. Some of my favorites are : Jesus Christi Superstar, Nightmare Before Christmas, Little Shop Of Horror,Starlight Express. I don't know if Blues Brothers is considered to be a musical but it's one of the best movies ever made!

• I'd be satisfied just playing live my music. To be recognised as a good band, people to respect us and become famous in the music industry. But if we manage to get some more money we'll have a greater stage show and some extras for our fans and we'd help organizations which fight for this world and for nature.

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