HammerFall:How Swede It Is   Something a little different. Lucas Aykroyd of Vancouver, Canada talks to Sweden's HammerFall. Lucas recently interviewed HammerFall guitarist Oscar Dronjak for a Georgia Straight preview of the band's August 25 concert in Vancouver. There was a ton of left over material, so Lucas kindly sent in the full interview for fans to check out. HammerFall jumpstarted the European power metal revival with their 1997 release, Glory to the Brave. Since then, they've released four more studio albums (Legacy Of Kings, Renegade, Crimson Thunder, and 2005's Chapter V: Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken). Their hook-laden sound, melding elements of Judas Priest, Europe, and Accept, has resulted in worldwide sales of more than 1 million albums. Interviewer Lucas Aykroyd caught up with guitarist and songwriting mastermind Oscar Dronjak in early August 2005, just after the start of the quintet's Canadian tour. How did you hook up with fellow power metal artists Edguy for this leg? Edguy are old friends of ours. We toured together in '99 in Europe. If you play a similar style of music, you tend to end up at the same festivals. So we kept in touch over the years. Most importantly, we have the same booking agency in ...

Harem Scarem: Classic Harem keeps taking melodic rock higher. The voice of Harem Scarem, Harry Hess, talks about the new album Higher, all things to do with the band and other stuff like producing and screaming on new tracks for Jack Frost. Hi Harry, good to talk to you as usual. Thanks for sending me a preview of the Jack Frost track. He was in a band called Sabotage or Savatage, I guess, for a while. He was the guitar player. He's done a bunch of different projects. I think one is called Seven Witches or something like that. That's right… He's from New Jersey. He's a guitar player and he called me up and asked me if I'd do two songs on his solo record with him, so I'm doing that. It's kind of funny. It's metal, and I'm yelling. It's hilarious. I thought, "Well that would be funny; I haven't done anything like that in like 20 fuckin' years." So I thought that would be entertaining and it sure is. Not since Blind Vengeance! That's right, exactly. I haven't yelled like this in a long time. I love your comment on the track rundown you did for me for ...

I am totally floored at the quality of the album. Really? Yeah it was above and beyond what I was expecting to hear. Oh thank you. We're huge rock fans and I gotta tell you there were a lot of ways we could've done this record. The musical climate right now in the U.S and I'm pretty sure around the rest of the world and the thing we were up against when we made this record was to either do what we'd done all along and pay attention to our roots like early Van Halen, Aerosmith, Kiss and AC/DC or we could have gone the other way and totally gone industrial with loops and all different kinds of stuff and make that kind of record. But you know what we couldn't have done that because we're not that kind of band. We're a real rock band. I'm so pleased to hear that because several years ago there were a lot of bands making music influenced by the early '80's and the '70's and making records in that vein, but bands today, I don't know who they're influenced by. I wonder what did they grow up on. ...

Heartland: Moving On To Better Things Heartland's Steve Morris and Chris Ousey discuss the band's cracking new studio album Move On. Steve is highlighted in green and Chris in blue. G'Day Chris and Steve, Great to take this opportunity to talk to you about the smashing new Heartland album - one which I have a lot of enthusiasm for. Chris - to you first - not too many people are still in the business closing in on 20 years since their debut album. We all know this business doesn't work on talent alone - how have you managed to stay in it for so long? Has it been that long? That's truly scary, but I don't think a passion for music can ever be discarded. I also class myself as very lucky that there's always been people interested enough in what I do, to want to help and encourage me to continue. I know I certainly hold this opinion, but do you consider yourself unlucky not to have broken into a wider audience and acclaim? You have a great standing within the melodic rock community, but with a voice such as yours, I think you are unlucky not to be a ...

Hobbit: Standing Two Feet Tall! Hobbit are one unique band - and their All For The One concept album has been hailed by pomp and prog fans as a masterpiece. So those unfamiliar - here's the story behind the band, their influences and that legend of an album. You guys have a most unusual history if I dare say so. Your first foray into the business started out well, supporting a range of bands and creating quite a buzz. Why did it go wrong and where did it go wrong? Probably every rock n roll band that didn't become hugely successful will burn out one day. Hobbit had great potential and some good opportunities back in the early 80's. One thought is that we didn't have the right material for the time, but it was the legal problems with management that plagued us, as we look back. What was the last frustration to cause you to split? There wasn't really a single event or conflict between any of us. We pushed very hard for about 7 years. We four did not split on bad terms at all. We simply reached the end of our mission; it didn't work, and we all ...

House Of Lords: A new decade, a new sound. The new House Of Lords album has a lot of people talking. Everyone has an opinion on this record, especially two of the people behind the record - bassist Chuck Wright and vocalist James Christian. Here is what they had to say about the recording and release of The Power & The Myth! Both interviews make for an interesting read.   CHUCK WRIGHT Hey Chuck, thanks for your time. First off, let me say that I know your web site is probably the most read melodic rock site on the net - congrats on helping to keep the genre alive…ok now the questions. The House Of Lords album is done....and it's about to be released. Did you think it would ever happen at some stages over the last year or two? There were a couple points when we almost threw in the towel. In the beginning, we had to deal with the name usage problem which was a major hurdle. We had serious logistical issues having everyone spread all over the country, coast to coast, and scheduling problems to deal with not to mention a tug of war with ...

Helge Engelke T h e Dreamtide I n t e r v i e w     xx   To the outsider, it seemed Fair Warning were on a roll in recent years, with both Japanese and European deals in place, plus some successful recordings behind you. At what point did it seem there was some unhappiness within the band? We started out in 1990 as a five piece band. In 1995 Andy became seriously ill and it took him more than two years to recover. During that time Andy didn't have much input in FW. Even after Andy got better, his interest in FW seemed to have ceased. After the recordings for "Go", the original drummer CC left. In 1997 we toured to promote the "Go" album. Due to his physical condition Andy could not play all of the set and we had a guest guitarist (Henny Wolter). Most of the set was played by Henny and Andy joined for the last three songs of the concerts. On top of this we had a new drummer (Phillippe Candas) who, even though being a great drummer, proved to be not the perfect match for FW because of personal animosities after a second tour ...

HAREM SCAREM - RUBBER RELEASED IN JAPAN SEPTEMBER 29th. RELEASED IN CANADA IN FEBRUARY 2000     It's Gotta Be Probably the simplest song on the record. Basically 4 or 5 chords in total. It's very descriptive of the new sound. It's bare bones rock. Who-Buddy Is a uptempo kind of Cheap trick thing. People have called it just that. Coming Down Is a ballad. It's got a bit of an Eagles/country sound to it, dare I say! More of an Eagles / southern rock kinda of feel. Stuck With You Is the first single in Japan. It reminds me of old ELO. It's not necessarily sounding like that, but that's what it reminds me of. It always struck me as coming from something like that. Sunshine Is the biggest production number on the whole record and will actually be the first single here in Canada. That's more of a mid tempo number and the most production in terms of sounds and things like that going on. Face It Is the most uptempo song on the record. It has been described as a Cheap trick / Jellyfish type of thing. Trip Pete actually sung and wrote on this! That is something new for people ...