Fortunately, the band survived with their artistic integrity intact, and has emerged this year as Lefay with possibly their best album to date, The Seventh Seal.  Vocalist Charles Rytkönen explains the current situation and leads us through the hurdles the band has overcome…

Now that the album has been out for a bit, what are your feelings about the album?
It feels good. (laughs)  We did another album and released it, so that's about it, I guess.  We are satisfied with the songs and with the mix.  I don't know how the sales figures have been, but I think it has been pretty good in Europe.  I'm really curious about the States, how it will be.

How have previous albums done in the States?
I think not so good…  Then again, perhaps you could blame the company we had at that time (Black Mark) a little bit.  I don't know if they had a good promotion in the States - I can't imagine they had.  Noise Records, at least here in Europe, is very good.

What does the title 'The Seventh Seal' refer to?
It's based on the story about the Seventh Seal in the Book of Revelations by St. John the Divine, in the New Testament.  It's based on that armageddon, doomsday news kind of story.

The cover art is quite beautiful.  Was the concept for it the band's or did you leave it up to the artist?
The basic ideas have always been the band's, but then we say to the artist, Kristian Wåhlin, he can do whatever he wants.  We really trust him because he is so good and he has the same kind of fantasy as we do.  So it's a combination between our basic idea and his talent and feeling for it.

How did you first get in touch with him?
I don't really remember that, actually.. (laughs)  I think it was a rumor from the beginning that he was really good and so on.  I remember that I called him up the first time, when we made the Knowing Just As I Album, and I asked him if he could do a cover for that with an angel holding something in his hand.  He came up with the sandglass, actually - that was his idea - and we thought it was a cool thing, so we've used it ever since.  It's like a story itself, the cover art.  I would like to collect the originals. (laughs)

I'm sure you've heard this one too many times already, but what exactly happened with Black Mark that resulted in the name change?
Mmrrrrrh - wrong question!  (laughs)  No…oh god, it was a mess actually.  We weren't satisfied with Black Mark and we felt like we were being fooled a little bit and we signed a bad deal from the beginning.  We were really green, we knew nothing about this industry at all, and we just signed it.  'Wow, we have a record deal here!'  It could have said in the contract that we would have had to run around naked in the city, whatever - we just signed it.  We have never seen any money from that company, so we were really bored.  Then we were on tour in '95 and some guy from Noise Records came up and asked if we wanted to be on their label, and we said, 'Yeah, for sure, no doubt about it!  We can go right away!'  From that moment we had hard times.  We had lawyers involved for nine months, struggling about something, I don't know what - I just want to play, you know.  In the beginning of that mess, three of the members decided that they wanted to move to Stockholm and get some real jobs so they could earn some money for once in their life.  It was okay with us and we told them they had to come to Bollnäs, that's our hometown, if you want to stay in the band.  You have to come to us and do the rehearsals.  They couldn't do that, so we had to take three new members.  Then we had to change the name to Lefay because of some stupid…I don't know why exactly, but we're Morgana Lefay under disguise now.

Was there ever a thought to change the name completely?
Yeah, a quick one. (laughs)  We thought about it, but then we were really pissed that we couldn't use the name Morgana Lefay because I invented that name a long time ago.  When I was a young kid, I wanted to have a band with the name Morgana Lefay, so I was really pissed.  We decided to just take away 'Morgana' and keep Lefay and Noise Records agreed with that as well.  We were thinking of names like 'Fuck You All' and "Fuck Black Mark'…'No Name'…(laughs)  Stupid names, you know.  But we're used to calling it Lefay now.

What was it about the name 'Morgana Lefay' that made you want to use it for a band name for all those years?
I have always been interested in fantasy stuff and old tales, occult things as well.  I was really into that story about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table for a while there and Morgana Lefay was like…wow, what a name for a band!  So we took that.  Before that it was Damage and before that it was Superstition.  Before that it was…something I don’t remember. (laughs)

Can you tell me a bit about the re-recording of your first album, Symphony of the Damned?
Yeah…  We made the original album in 1990 and we made it on vinyl, 537 copies, just to see ourselves on vinyl.  We didn't have a contract at that time and everyone was happy, every day. (laughs)  It was badly produced and everything was bad with that album, but now since a couple of years ago, there are some die-hard fans who have bought that album in Germany, even though we never sold it in Germany, and they are willing to pay 1000 Swedish Krona (about $122) for it.  They were telling us, why don't you re-release that album?  We had thought about that from time to time, but we've lost the master tape.  Perhaps that is good luck, since it was so badly produced.  Now we decided to re-record it instead, plus we have four cover tunes on it as well.  We did this for two reasons.  It is a dedication to all the former members of Damage and Morgana Lefay and it is for our fans.  And perhaps it will buy us some time to make some new material for an upcoming album here. (laughs)

What are the covers that you chose?
It's "Crazy?!" by Nazareth from the Heavy Metal soundtrack, "Captain Howdy" by Twisted Sister, "Strange Ways" from Kiss and "Cocaine" by J.J. Cale.  It's some odd covers, perhaps, but we think they are good and a little bit…you can really relax to the last song, "Cocaine." (laughs)

From what I understand, you've never had as much success in Sweden as in other places like Germany and Japan.  Has that improved any in recent times?
Mmm, Sweden is a tough market when it comes to heavy metal.  There are bands like HammerFall, for example.  They had good luck - they were doing what they did at the exact right time, so they are really big in Sweden.  Big is not BIG like Metallica, but very well known, even for people who don't listen to heavy metal music, while we are well known among the people who are really into heavy metal music.  So there is a bad metal scene in Sweden.  It's okay underground and I think it is growing, but the people of Sweden are really fast to fall into the trends that come from the States and England.  So there is a lot of fuckin' techno and hip-hop and Ricky Martin shit.

Do you keep up on the metal scene much?
Nah.  The rest of the band does, but they are single or perhaps they have a girlfriend.  Me, I have a house and a family, a girlfriend of 15 years and we have three kids together, so I'm a busy man actually. (laughs)

Does that make it difficult to tour?
Yeah, of course.  You have to deal with your brain all the time, having a bad conscience and stuff.  But I have a wonderful girlfriend who is behind me on this 100%.  Our oldest child, she is 8-years-old and she's also used to this, even though she thinks it sucks when I go away for a month.  I'm really scared about going for a long tour, like 5 or 6 months.  I actually don't know if I am capable of doing that.  One month or five weeks, that's about the limit for me.

I've heard that you have an interest in blues.  Who are some of your favorite artists?
Almost all the black artists, like Howlin' Wolf and…whatever.  The really old, original blues.  Then I also like some blues mixed with rock and I am still quite fond of some of Janis Joplin's songs.  I mean, I don't sit and listen to blues all day long, but it's really relaxing to listen to when you're in that mood, it's perfect.  Mostly, I listen to metal and hard rock, especially old hard rock like Uriah Heep.  The 90s is almost totally unknown to me, I'm more into the 70s and 80s as well.

When did you first become serious about singing?
I never became serious about it. (laughs)  It was in school, in the 8th degree and some friends of mine said they were going to start playing in a band and were like,' I will play the guitar and he will play the drums and he will play bass and he will also play guitar - do you want to sing?'  'Okay," I said and then I started to sound something like…I don't know, it's really embarrassing to think about how it sounded. (laughs)

So you were self-taught?
Yeah, definitely.  I don't know if I can do this, but I've come to accept my voice since a couple of years now.  I'm doing my best and I really like it, but then there are a lot of singers that I really admire and I'd like to sound like some of them, like Rob Halford.

How do you get inspired to write lyrics?
It can be I wake up and I've had a dream, which was really weird, so I have to write something about it.  Or it can be from a book that I've read.  I read a lot of fantasy books and horror books.  I was really into the occult stuff when I was like 18-years-old and I'm still very interested in it to this day, but at that time I read just about everything I could about good and evil and all kinds of unexplainable things, and that has given me a lot of things to write about and to think about as well.  Is good that good and is evil that evil?  There's a lot of questions and that inspires me to write about such things.  And also just fairy tales, about goblins and elves and stuff like that.  Everything that is not so common.  We live in reality, we can see reality on the news every day.  Of course, I can write about stuff like that as well.  Like David Koresh, the mad messiah thing over in the States, that is a real thing but it is still so strange and that people can be affected by one person so much that they commit suicide, I think that's amazing.  It's so sick and it really pisses me off, actually, because one should have a distance to everything, even to oneself.