With a good and unespected debut album, Clouscape represent a big surprise for every heavy/prog/melodic metal lover. A very kind Mike Andersson, singer of the band, introduces you to their world…

Hi guys, first of all congratulations for your new album, a great effort for real! Since it's only your debut, let's start from a short Cloudscape biography...

Thanx, we´re honoured! Cloudscape was formed in summer 2001. All of us played in a band called “Doctor Weird” before forming Cloudscape but, since we didn´t managed to get attention from record labels with DW we decided to scrap all DW songs in order to compose new ones as a new band (Cloudscape) instead. The difference between DW and Cloudscape is that, Cloudscape is a bit more melodic and less progressive musically. I was playing keyboards in DW but, the DW singer left in early 2001 so, the opportunity of replacing the DW singer was given to me and I took it since I´ve always been a leadvocalist in all my previous bands. Playing keyboards in DW was a fun thing for me at the time but, I missed being the vocalist shortly after joining DW in 1996.

The music you play is a good mixture of different elements: we find progressive, heavy and also very melodic parts in it. How could we correctly describe it?

Well, when people ask me what kind of music Cloudscape play I say “melodic metal with progressive touches”. Sometimes this question is easy to answer and sometimes it´s tough depending on who is asking. Our ambition is to play variated songs stylewise combining the heavy elements with the softer parts without making it sound too progressive and without losing the structure.

I've noticed Cloudscape was compared with lots of famous metal bands: from Dream Theater and Royal Hunt to Malmsteen and Evergrey. But finally, let us know, what are your true musical influences?

Well, we have lots of influences musically but, my song ideas for example often sees it´s light because if the weather or things that I have experienced in life. I mean, I never listen to a band that I like and say: “lets compose a Yngwie Malmsteen-like song”. My compositions are based on my mood, the wheather, if I´m sad or happy, watching a beautiful sunset sky in purple. The bottom line is that, both me and Bjorn Eliasson (guitar) have lots of different inspirations when composing songs. However, our musical influences reveals themselves in our songs which is natural since we play the kind of music we like and listen to. Bands that we counts as influences are Rush, Yngwie J. Malmsteen, Kansas, Deep Purple, Dream Theater, Symphony X, Yes and so on, and so on, and so on, and so on....hehehe

What about your lyrics? You seem to be very into social and personal matters, aren't you?

Yes indeed. We don´t have a certain concept or anything but, I like writing lyrics that “normal” people can relate to. Sometimes I feel like writing “spooky” lyrics like “The presence of spirits” but, normally I write about things that could be experienced for real so to speak. Roger Landin (drums) has written 2 lyrics on the album (“Aqua 275” and “In these walls”) so, he is more into writing “unnatural things” which I think is great since our lyrics doesn´t become “one-sided” and predictable. Roger will be more involved in the lyric writing for our next album.

Your songs are very well composed and arranged, talk us about your songwriting process...

It is me and Bjorn Eliasson that composes the music for Cloudscape. The songwriting for this album started in 2001 so, we have had some time to “polish” the songs before entering the studio. When I compose my songs I normally start by playing the keyboard. Bjorn normally get his ideas by playing the guitar. Me and Bjorn are composing separately since we are way too stubborn to work properly together so, when I´m composing I program drums and bass, records the keyboards and vocals. After that I´ll have Patrik Svard (guitar) recording the guitars for me. Bjorn does the same recording process in his songwriting but, he records his guitars by himself. When Bjorn is finished with a new demo-recording I record the vocals and composes the vocal melodies. When me and Bjorn are finished with new songs we listen to them together with the rest of Cloudscape and decides if the song(s) are good enough to rehears and include in our setlist. When we decide to rehears a new song we are working properly as a band re-arranging parts or changing parts if needed since our ambition is that, the majority of Cloudscape shall be satisfied with the song before we say it´s finished. What I mean is, me and Bjorn never say like: “This song must be played like the demo recording”. We provide with the songs and the rest of Cloudscape executes them, hehehe…

In the limited edition of your album we find also a very professional video clip: why did you choose exactly the song "Under Fire" for this operation?

We had discussions with our management about a couple of songs that would be good filming a video for so, the simple reason for choosing “Under Fire” is that, we think “Under Fire” tells the listener what Cloudscape is about stylewise and represents our album best.

In this video we find also lots of crude war scenes: what's the meaning behind these images?

The meaning with the horrible clips is that people should open their eyes and be aware of what´s happening in the world before they complain about small personal problems. We are not a political band at all so, the message in “Under Fire” is very simple. Director Rainer Holmgren captured the meaning of the lyric perfect into images.

Have you already planned some tour to support your new album? Give us some more information about...

Unfortunally there´s no tour planned at this point. We hope that there will be but, it ain´t easy to get a decent tour when you´re a debut band but, we really hope that we will get the opportunity of touring Europe and your fantastic country Italy since we love to perform live. We have 1 gig confirmed thou and that is at the “Progpower Europe festival” in The Netherlands the 2:nd of October together with bands like Pagan´s Mind and Wolverine to name a few.

Thank you very much for the time you granted us. There is a final message you would like to spread to our readers?

Thank you for letting me doing this interview! To the Italian rockers I´ll say that we really, really hope to be able to visit Italy for concerts or festival performances. If you havn´t listened to our album, don´t hesitate buying it if you´re into melodic metal with progressive touches, hehehe. We are here to stay and we really hope that YOU are there to support us. PS: I´m an addict to ”Lavazza Rossa”....the best espresso coffee in the world....the only coffee I drink nowadays, hahaha!

Dario Adile