[Interview conducted February 2004]

When it comes to top-quality power metal bands currently on the scene, you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone better than Sweden's Tad Morose.  They've got a killer back catalog and their latest album, Modus Vivendi, is one of the best albums yet.  This is metal that embraces melody and intelligence without sacrificing heaviness or catchiness.  The highly talented and very affable Urban Breed called to update us on this criminally underrated band…

The new album is killer.  Did it turn out the way you expected?
I'm not sure (laughs)  We never know what to expect from whatever kind of material we are working on.  There are always kind of unexpected events and things turn out differently, but I think the songs I wrote anyway turned out pretty much the way I expected them to.  For once, we were more in control of what turned out than normally.  It's what we were hoping for anyway.

What made you feel like you were more in control?
I think it had more to do with this being the third album with the same line-up, having that experience and knowing what the other guys can and can't do, and writing according to that.

Do you pretty much have the songs finished and arranged before you enter the studio?
Absolutely everything is nailed down to the minute.  What we do is normally, Daniel and I are writing songs at home on our computers and we swap files.  Normally, I’m the one to edit down the arrangements just before we present them to the rest of the band.  Then we either get the stamp of approval or, 'Hey, guys, do this over again!' (laughs)

Did anything specific come up during the recording?
Not really - it's more like work.  That is why we love playing live so much as compared to going to the studio because when we go in there, we have this narrow time frame to do it in so we can't just experiment.  We need to know what we're supposed to do if we're going to do it right.  If we were given like a year or two months even, we might experiment a bit more, but the way that it is now with four or five weeks, we just can't do that.  If we need to do another take, that kills another hour or so, so we really can't afford it.  We do it as efficiently as possible which means we stick to the original formula and that's it.

Do you work on developing new things to do with your voice each time around, develop new techniques?
You always try to do things differently.  When I do vocals for one song, I try to do them slightly differently next time.  If I'm like, 'Okay this is the way I do things,' then I keep doing it and won't learn anything, so it's no use just sticking to the same formula with vocals or whatever you're doing.  You should try to expand your knowledge and skills - otherwise it gets boring.  Why do you ask?

Oh, it just sounded like the vocals were more diverse this time around, like you spent more time really working out each song more.
I did have a lot more time for it because I did everything at home this time, so that makes everything better and easier.  If you do everything in the rehearsal studio, then you have to stick with the other guys' time frame as well.  For Matters of the Dark, we did pretty much the same thing but we had a lot more songs going on in the rehearsal room then - I think we had three or four songs that went into the rehearsal room and had a whole lot of stuff added there - whereas this time around, we didn't do much of anything like that.  There was one song that was actually kind of written in the rehearsal room and that was "Unwelcome Guest."

Do you prefer working this way?
I pretty much prefer it.  For instance, I didn't have to take the time to do the backing vocals in the studio - I could do that at home.  It helps.  Daniel and I enjoy working that way.  I know Anders complains a lot because he likes doing things in the rehearsal room, but that takes a whole lot longer.  I mean if I go in here and sit down by the computer, I know what I want to do and can do it - it's pretty fast.  Whereas in the rehearsal room, there are five people and everyone has got their opinion, their way of working things - it takes at least twice as long.  Normally, it would take at least three rehearsals just to get one song into decent shape, whereas I can do it in an hour at home.  Then I can take care of details and work on more intricate parts.

I was also very impressed with the big choruses, the harmony vocals, especially when I read that you did them all at home.
Yeah, it's really easy to do them at home.  You wake up in the morning and fell, 'Oh no, I can't think today,' well then I don't.  Whereas if you're booked in the studio and you feel like shit, but I have to do them anyway - that's harder.  Also, if I do it at home, I can do it once, sit back and listen and just throw it all away, whereas in the studio if I've done it, it's like, 'This will either do or we won't have any at all.' (laughs)  It's easier and I think more and more people will be doing this.

What sparked the lyrics to these songs:

"Anubis"
That's an easy question really. (laughs)  It was a recurring dream that I had, I kept dreaming it over and over again.  In the end, it was Daniel's idea to begin with the music there and when he presented the idea, I just totally felt like it had an Egyptian flair and I was like, 'This is it - this is what I'm going to sing about.'  Ever since, that got rid of [the dream], so it was probably just waiting to happen.  Weird things happen.  I've done that before, but it was annoying this dream.  I woke up and felt kind of weird, so I thought it would suit the song perfectly and I think it did.

"Afraid to Die"
Yeah, I think that was one of the more fun songs to write because it's more of a complex situation where you have a dialog.  I have to do both voices, so it's rather confusing for everyone else, but it is a dialog between two friends.  One is on his death bed and they're actually having a row.  What I wanted to point out is, if you're really, really close friends with someone, you can talk about anything and you may disagree on things, but you're still friends.  This was pushing it to the limit, which I like to do. (laughs)

"When the Spirit Rules the World"
That is kind of like, in the afterlife, this guy reflects on it like, 'Why am I here?  What did I do wrong?  Why are things like this?'  It's all fiction - it's not my dad or anything. (laughs)

What made you decide to use Fredrik Nordstrom to mix it?
It's just a realization that, if we were to mix it at the same place we recorded the album, it would sound rather flat, like the other two albums.  We just went looking for somewhere close enough - which meant staying in Sweden…  we might have gone to Finland, but no further than that. (laughs)  It's too expensive, we don't have that kind of budget to go traveling all over the place.  We went looking and what better place to do it than at Fredrik's place?  He's done a wonderful job with everything he's done, so we just felt confident going there, it felt safe.  I think it turned out okay and he was a really fun guy working with.  I've never seen anyone work like that… (laughs)  During the mixing, he was standing up, doing poses, singing along and making up his own fancy lyrics. (laughs)  We stayed there for a week and it was great fun all the time, not a dull moment.

The album art is interesting, looks like something that should be on an LP.  How did you arrive at that cover and how does it tie in with the title?
They should have kept the format of the vinyl albums.  They could have put some kind of special pocket or something for the CD, so we could keep the covers, because that was half the experience of buying the new album.  The artwork was half of it, it kind of set the spirit for everything.  The CD format doesn’t quite do that.  It was a great piece of work and the best part was that he really captured the concept we were trying to purvey.  I was amazed, especially since he was given rather short notice.  It was sort of inspirational to see what he came up with because we told him the basic concept and he elaborated on it.  I don't know if you noticed but you can clearly see the resemblance of Jaws on the cover here - have you seen the cover for Jaws the movie?  If you have a look at the main gate and the two smaller ones on the left and right, he wanted them to look like Jaws because each of these doors would represent options, a choice you could make.  He put the main character in front of the bigger portal because we told him we were kind of a democratic band, so whatever choice we make is normally going to be, if there are three guys for one thing, then that's the choice we pick.  It kind of demonstrates that we normally go the main road.  Why did he put Jaws in there?  It's simply because every choice you make is kind of dangerous.  He made damn sure that he kept both the small doors and the main door to resemble Jaws because you may not be safe going along the main route either.  If everyone in the band agrees, it might still be the wrong decision, and you don't know what will come of it.  [That uncertainty] is represented by, on the dark side of the album, he placed a cherub, the angel, and on the brighter side, he placed the grim reaper.  That is to kind of tell you it is unclear what is behind - it may seem bright on the front, but you don't know what will be there.  Sort of a Dio-isitc view, I guess. (laughs)

That's really cool to hear someone putting that much thought into the cover art.
Yeah because the last album we made, we had an even shorter time, and it was basically, 'Okay, I've got these three - pick one.'  (laughs)  So that's what we did.  This was really fun because he had time to think things through and really do what we wanted it to be.

You've done four albums now with the band - was it difficult at all when you first joined the band, coming into an established band like that?
No, not really.  I think it helped that I had been in the same band as Peter and Anders before, so we really knew each other, so it was just getting to know Christer and Fredrik back then when I joined the band.  I had planned to take a backseat position and just roll along and do the vocals, but that was not what happened because they had kind of run out of steam so I brought along like 50% of the material.  So that was kind of great because I felt like, 'Okay, I am in the band.'  It wasn't a problem at all.  I guess it might be if you're in a band where everyone has their established positions and everyone is still going, 'This is the way we do things, could you please wait with writing songs until you know what we are doing' - that might make it harder.  But this is really smooth.

Tad Morose has never had a really distinctive image like some bands - is that a conscious decision, in keeping with the diversity of the music and lyrics?
It was in the beginning I think.  I wasn't in the band back then, but they wanted to just play music and let the music speak for itself.  Which might have been a bad decision marketing-wise (laughs), but it makes it easier, like you said - we can write about anything.  We don’t have to write about dragons or dark castles or whatever, we can write about anything.  Which, of course, we want to. (laughs)  It's a difficult decision to make.  If you have a very distinctive image, it makes it easier to sell the band in the media because people will have this clear image.  If you don't, that in itself is a strength, but it might be harder to get a great packaging to begin with.

I read that you guys toured with Demon - I have always been a big fan of theirs and always thought they were underrated.
I would love to do that again, they were great guys.  'Underrated' is a word that we've heard as well. (laughs)  I think a reason that maybe both Demon and ourselves are underrated is the material has sometimes been uneven - some songs are better than others and if people get to hear the wrong song, then they don't like it.  But going back to the tour, I'd love to do it again.  They've been around for a while and they taught us a lot, particularly when it comes to myself.  Normally, I kind of struggle doing the vocals if I have a bad day and I feel really bad about it.  He just told me that no one notices and it sounds okay and I'm like, 'No, I feel like shit!' (laughs)  But he was like, 'No, it sounds okay,' and pretty much, when the tour was over, he was right.  It makes me feel a whole lot better that even on a bad day, people like what I'm doing, and I didn't realize that before. (laughs)  Experience is a great thing, especially if you share it.  If you think about it, it was miraculous that we got back alive from that tour.  It was three bands in the same bus and everyone got along perfectly - that was a miracle.  You hear about bands almost killing each other - and that would be within the band.  In our case, we might kill each other in the studio when we have to make the instant creative decisions, but put us on tour and we're happy and every thing just flows along perfectly, the exact way you dreamt it would be.

You guys always get called 'power metal' which I think is kind of misleading as that term is associated more with Helloween rip-offs rather than the original bands like Metal Church and Savatage that started the genre back in the 80s.
When 'power metal' meant 'powerful metal.'  There's no use complaining really because you always get some sort of label stamped on you, no matter what you do.  It might be a very lengthy one and this one is short, so I'm happy.

What do you make of how the metal scene has evolved in the past ten years or so?
It has become a whole lot more diverse, it's spread all over the place.  If you say the word 'metal' today, it might mean pretty much anything.  It depends on what kind of label you put ahead of 'metal.' (laughs)  When we started out, it was beginning to spread out and that might be why it also took kind of a backseat because you'd say you're into metal and someone else would be like, 'No, this isn't metal - THIS is.'  It was easier when you could just say you were into metal and everyone was like, 'Yeah, all right!  Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest,' and that was easy.  Now you say you listen to metal and they're like, 'Right - Dimmu Borgir?'  It's a good thing for people listening because they can pick exactly the kind of music that they like, whereas for the bands it might be not so good because you get like 10% of the amount of people that would listen to you otherwise.  Who knows, I don't care really.  If people buy it, I'm happy, if they don't, I'm just happy if you come to the show.

I was reading some postings on your forum from people talking about how they got into Tad Morose and how much of an impact your music has had on them.  Are you ever surprised by how personally people take your music to heart?
Not so often really.  People tend to think they are imposing when they approach you and tell you what they think about things ,they think, 'Oh no, he'll have heard this a hundred times before, he'll just think I'm bugging him.'  So we don’t get that that often, so it was fun to read on the forum.  If you can come forth to me and just tell me what you think about the album or what you think about the music, if it changed your life or whatever it did, I'm just happy to hear it.  That's what we're here for, that's why we write music - we want to bring you something.  We want to tell you something, to make you feel something, and that's pretty much what we're about.  If you tell us that we actually made you feel something, made your day a little bit brighter or we kind of understood your mystery or whatever you feel, then I'm happy to hear it.  If this won't give me a whole lot of money, then I'm at least happy that I've touched someone.

I also read that you are quite into computers.  What kind of stuff do you do?
I'm sitting in front of two of them right now. (laughs)  I've got one particularly designed for the music and another one for gaming and general stuff, painting and whatever.  I'm actually a networking engineer, but I don't work as one.  I'm also sort of a web geek and everything - not the kind of guy you'd expect to be singing in a metal band.  That's life for you.  Normally, if you check people's backgrounds out, it's not what you think it is.

Can you tell me anything about the solo album I have heard about?
I'm working on it and it's about three quarters of the way there.  It's really interesting because I'm not really sure what it will turn out to be because I'll only know after I get out of the studio and have a week or two to think about it.  It'll be sort of like what we're doing right now.  I think it's a bad idea if…  Just because this time I get to do exactly what I want and you do it, and you do the different things that you want.  I want to do the things we do in Tad Morose, too, but there are so many things I like.  Sometimes I will write a pop song, but I can't use it, naturally, because if I would produce a pop album, nobody would like it.  If you were to buy my album when I put it out, you're expecting it to be at least somewhat similar to what I'm doing in Tad Morose.  You're not expecting me to sing like some Iglesias guy or something. (laughs)  And I feel that way, too.  Like Tony Martin - I just hated what he did on his solo album because I expected something else.  It might be good in its own right, but it doesn’t' match up because the people who check it out have normally heard Tony Martin in Black Sabbath and expected him to sing sort of like he did in Black Sabbath because that is what they loved him to do.  So pretty much I'll be singing like I do in Tad Morose, but it will be a little more varied.  Like you said, on this album it's a little more diverse and on my solo album it will be even more diverse.  The song "Take on the World," I wrote that for my solo album, but in the end I felt we could use it on the [Tad Morose] album, it's almost like a Tad Morose song.  So I pretty much cut out the intro and part two of it because I had more to it, but then again it wouldn't have been a Tad Morose song if we'd kept the first part and the last part.

Do you have a particular time frame in mind for when you'll finish that album?
When I do get the time and that is really hard to know.  I have a pretty good work schedule going here, so my finances are okay, so there is no problem there.  The only problem is I have to do a whole lot of other things, like right now we're producing a computer-animated video and that means I have to paint a whole lot of textures and stuff.  The good part of that is I don't do all the modeling and a lot of the texturing is done by this guy called Hank [?], he's a great guy and it will just be fun to see what it'll turn out to be because we've never done that before.

Any chance of a tour of the US?
We'd love to see it happen, but I doubt it.  It cost a lot.  If we're supposed to do a tour of the US, we'd better be prepared to do not just one tour but be prepared to go there pretty often because it's a really large country.  It's like a whole bunch of countries really, if you compare it to Europe.  Also, I'd love to do it because we've been over there and everyone is just great, it's just great meeting people.  We will be playing one festival, but I can't tell you which one yet.  Let's just pray that everyone in the US buys the album, then we'll probably be going there anyway, that will kind of kick start everything.

http://www.tadmorose.com