INMORIA - Dan Eriksson
In Lord Of The Rings the dwarfs mine is called “Moria”. However if you\r\nadd “In” you get a complete circle of one of the best sounding bands\r\nyou’ve heard in years! The atmospheres in the mines in the movies are\r\nso dark and\r\nbrooding and that is a reflection of Inmoria’s music.\r\nAfter they had uploaded some of the tracks on their MySpace website,\r\nthe response was phenomenal and they were overloaded with emails from\r\nall over the world. After a while they signed a deal with German based\r\nrecord company Massacre Records. When Metalzone.gr’s Nicoleta Sarantou\r\ngot to review their debut album she spread the word and we are all now\r\nastonished by the Invisible Wounds Of InMoria. We couldn’t help it. We\r\nhad to interview them!
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\r\nMetalzone: Hello Dan and welcome to Metalzone.gr. First of all, would you like to introduce us to Inmoria? When and how did it all begin?
\r\n Dan Eriksson:\r\nHello and thanks a lot!!!
\r\nIn April of 2008 I moved back to Sweden after living in Oslo (Norway) for some years. I was fed up with my job and in my head I started to “hear” music again after about a ten year abscent from the musicscene after I left Tad Morose. I bought a house in my hometown and build my self a studio so I could get the music out of my head. After I had recorded about six tracks I called up my longtime friend Christer Andersson from Tad Morose and asked him to come over and listen to some tracks.
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\r\nHe loved the songs and we started to talk about putting a band together. We asked Peter Morén (drums) and Tommi Karppanen (bass) both from Tad Morose to join the project and they did. Then we started to talk about singers and the first name that popped up was Morgana Lefay vocalist Charles Rytkönen. He entered the studio and blow the walls down...haha!! His special vocalsound together with the musicconcept was amazing and then Inmoria was born.
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\r\nMetalzone: So we have you, Danne Eriksson, on the keyboards, Charles Rytkönen on vocals, Christer Andersson on guitars, Tommi Karppanen on bass and Peter Moren on drums. Most of the band consists of, let’s say, Tad Morose-related musicians (members, ex-members), which pretty much defines your music style. How did you come up with that choice?
\r\n Dan Eriksson:\r\nWell, here in our hometown of Bollnäs, there are a lot of talented musicians and everybody knows everybody. But when I started the whole thing I knew that I wanted musicians that had the experience and on whom I could trust. So the obvious choice was to ask my former bandmates in Tad Morose and Charles wasn’t doing anything special at the time so we just asked him.
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\r\nMetalzone: You were out of the music scene for a long time. So, what motivated you to form a band and start composing again?
\r\n Dan Eriksson:\r\nI don’t really know actually, suddenly it just came to me…….the will to write again. It wasn’t any special moment or something that had happen, it just came like a lightning from heaven, haha!!! Or maybe I was on my way to loose my mind over something because the first song that popped up in my head was “Come Insanity” J
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\r\nMetalzone: What intrigued you to choose Charles Rytkönen (Morgana Lefay) as a singer?
\r\n Dan Eriksson:\r\nWe really didn’t have any other singer in mind when it was time to record the vocals. Charles wasn’t doing anything at the time so we just asked him to come over. And he is also from Bollnäs as the rest of us so I just call him and say: “Hey, come over and try some new ideas man……..- right I’ll be there in five, put the coffee on”…… and it takes about five minutes for him to drive to my home, so sometimes it is nice to live in a small town like Bollnäs…haha!!
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\r\nWhen Charles first came to my studio for some vocal recording he was a little bit worried that he couldn’t do some of the parts that I was explaining to him. I mean not like he couldn’t fix it but he hadn’t done that kind of “melodic” music before but when he started to sing……goddamnit, he just blew the roof off. It worked out so well and now he is a huge part of the sound. You have no idea how big Charles is in the metal world, we receive so many emails from people all around the world telling us that they love Charles voice and for what he has done in Morgana Lefay and they hold him as one of the top five metal singers of all time.
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\r\nMetalzone: Is Inmoria a full line up band or just a project for you?
\r\n Dan Eriksson:\r\nYes, Inmoria is really a band now and not a project anymore. From the beginning it was just meant to be a project, just for me to get some shit out of my head. But now that the response has been so great we are now a fucking band.
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\r\nMetalzone: If Inmoria is a full line up band, do you think that it would that affect Charles’s carrier with Morgana Lefay?
\r\n Dan Eriksson:\r\nNo not at all. Morgana Lefay has taken a break, nobody knows for how long and neither does the bandmembers themselves know. So we just have to wait and see.
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\r\nWe would often talk about if all three bands would go on the same tour, then the only thing we would need is a small minivan and a hockeycoach that stands on the side of the stage with a whistlepipe and throwing people in and out of the stage, haha!!
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\r\nMetalzone: if you were asked to put a label to your music, what would that be?
\r\n Dan Eriksson:\r\nHmmm, that is a really hard question but I think that I have to say “Dark Power Metal”, that is what they call us in the press anyway.
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\r\nMetalzone: There’s a dark feeling surrounding the compositions. Who is responsible for the lyrics and the compositions in general?
\r\n Dan Eriksson:\r\nI write all the music and all of the lyrics. I record every instrument first in my studio then I call up the rest of the guys so that they can come and put their personal touch to the songs. Off course when we sit there and listen to the tracks, they can come with suggestions if something sounds a little bit strange but overall they just come and do their thing. So that is the way we work, it is not a traditional way that we all hang out in the rehearsal room and jam.
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\r\nThe writing progress is pretty easy. I usually start with some keyboard chords but sometimes I start by playing some riffs on the guitar. Then I end up in some weird state of mind and I can hear the whole song, from the start to the end, in my head. So I don’t leave the computer until the track is finished. I just record every instrument one by one until it is finished. I just go back and change some small parts if I have to.
\r\nWhen it is time for the lyrics I often fall even deeper into this weird state of mind where a movie takes place inside my head. I see characters, dark and depressing, almost like shadows, and they are running around and “talking” to me, begging me to help them out of their misery. So what they “say” to me I write down.
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\r\nSo you see, if Sigmund Freud were alive today then I would be his only patient, haha!!
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\r\nMetalzone: “Inmoria” is a name taken from the movie “The Lord of The Rings” which is one of your favorite ones. So what else inspires you, what are your influences as a musician?
\r\n Dan Eriksson:\r\nYes, the name comes from the dwarfs mine called “Moria”. But I don’t have the books as an inspiration for the music.
\r\nThe biggest influence is my own personality and also the things that goes around us out there. I feel sorry for people nowadays when society is more or less based on beauty, success and fast money. I mean, here in Sweden the second largest deadly disease is actually suicide, and mostly younger people can’t live up to those high expectations. So there is no question about from where I get my inspiration. And that combined with my own thoughts we have a ticking bomb, haha!!
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\r\nMetalzone: There definitely was a surprising feedback from your very first steps as a band, so how easy or how difficult was for you to sign with Massacre Records?
\r\n Dan Eriksson:\r\nYes things have really gone fast for Inmoria. But that feels really awesome, since we not getting any younger, haha!! No seriously, I didn´t expect that at all when I first started to write the songs. I knew and felt that the songs were great but I couldn´t realize that it would take this porpotions in such a short time. Just go to our website or our Myspace and check out some of the reviews that we have received so far, there you have it in black and white.
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\r\nWell, Massacre contacted us really fast after we had uploaded some of the tracks on our Myspace site. And with these well known guys in the band the rumours travel very fast and finally it reached Thomas Hertler at Massacre Records who signed us immediately. So basically it was pretty easy.
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\r\nMetalzone: There are some very charming female vocal parts as well. Who’s that singer?
\r\n Dan Eriksson:\r\nYes, we have a female vocalist on “Haunting Shadows” and on “The Other Side”. And she also does some backing vocals on another track. Her name is Lotta Norell and we knew that she hade a cool voice so we just called her up and forced her to come and sing. She is not in any band what so ever, she just sings in a church choir. It was a little bit strange because she works for the church and she has a Christian belief so we hesitated for a second to call her at first, because we didn’t know how she would react about singing “Inmoria stuff” but her brother told us ”well, she it not THAT much of a christian”….haha!!
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\r\nMetalzone: Tell us a few things about the recordings. How long did it take you to finish the album?
\r\n Dan Eriksson:\r\nWell, all the tracks were basically already finished and recorded at my studio when we got our recorddeal in December -08, and we entered Studio SoundCreation here in Bollnas in April -09 for the final mixing and mastering. So between December and April we just sat in front of the computer and “bounced” each track to audio so we could bring it to the other studio, and then we just chilled and waited. Off course we had some technical problems as always, but with the help from “Mr Magic” Per Ryberg at Studio SoundCreation it all worked out very nice.
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\r\nMetalzone: How do you plan to promote your new album? Do you think that myspace helps?
\r\n Dan Eriksson:\r\nIf it wasn’t for Myspace we probably wouldn’t be where we are today, since it was there it all started. And we also have faith that our label do whatever it takes to promote us. And now we have joined forces with Dragon Production, who is a Concert and Promotion company.
\r\nWe do not have any particular strategies for promoting Inmoria by our self’s, so we really need a management…….do you know about any, just let me know, haha!!
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\r\nMetalzone: Why would you recommend “Invisible wounds” to someone who is not familiar with your music?
\r\n Dan Eriksson:\r\nWell, if you like a mix of dark and brooding music with haunting melodies which take you on an emotionally charged journey that will wrap its spindly fingers around your mind, subconsciously pulling you in a direction you may not want to go in, yet you cannot turn away from.
\r\nAnd if you like hard and heavy riffs with “melodic” choruses…..then Inmoria is the right stuff for you. And also if you are a fan of Charles vocals you should defiantly listen to Inmoria.
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\r\nMetalzone: Dan welcome back, thank you very much for the interview and your time and we wish you and Inmoria all the best!
\r\n Dan Eriksson:\r\nThanks a lot, it was my pleasure!!!Hope to see you sometime on tour!
\r\nPEACE!!!!
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\r\nInterview by Nicoleta Sarantou & Dimitris Karantounias\r\n
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\r\nBand Links:
\r\nhttp://www.myspace.com/inmoriamusic
\r\nhttp://www.inmoria.com \r\n
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