Morten Veland

AM : First how do you feel now your third Sirenia album is going to be released, and how do you feel when you think about the past and the Tristania-era  ?

Morten : It’s always a great feeling to have finished a brand new album. This time I guess it feels extra good since it’s been 3 years since our previous fullenght album. A lot of things has happened in these 3 years, a lot of things to take care of, and this obviously has been taking some time. Tristania-era is a faded memory, I tend to focus more on the present and the future these days.

AM : This is your third album with a third different female singer, do you think now this is the right one ? Why, in your opinion, is it so difficult to find a female singer ?

Morten : Seems like destiny has marked out this path for us, or something. Fabienne felt right for ‘At sixes and sevens’, Henriette felt right for ‘An elixir for existence’ and Monika feels right for ‘Nine destinies and a downfall’. Fabienne was living in south France and we in Norway so the distance made it impossible for us to work as a band. Henriette decided to leave two years ago, so here we are with a new singer. Hopefully Monika will be with us for many years to come.

AM : This is your first album for Nuclear Blast, the biggest metal label today. Do you feel this is a new start for Sirenia, as you’ll reach a broader audience, with worldwide distribution ? What are your ambitions with this new album ?

Morten : Well it feels like taking things to the next level. Nuclear Blast helps us getting our music out to every fan in every corner of the world. And they help us out with toursupport so we can go play places we’ve never played before. For years we’ve received mails from fans more or less all over the world, and finally it seems we will be able to play for a lot of them this year.

AM : The new album keep the Sirenia sound but I feel now it has a more direct approach and an even more efficient songwriting, how would you describe the evolution of Sirenia since the first album ?

Morten : Usually when I start composing material for a new album I try to pick up where I left off with the previous album. I did so this time as well, but began to realize that I had more or less done everything before, and got the feeling that I was repeating myself. So this time I felt a strong need to do some bigger changes when it came to the composing. One of the things I wanted to do was that I would like to take the new songmaterial into a more melodic direction. So it felt natural to give the female voice a bigger role in our songs. In the past I’ve also been writing pretty long songs, this time I’d rather try to say what I wanted to say in 5 minutes instead of 6-7 minutes. We also choose a different solution when it came to the recordings this time. In the past we’ve been recording and mixing the entire album in one studio, this time we worked in alltogether 4 different studios. I feel that this enabled us to renew ourselves and refresh our sound, which is exactly what we wanted. This is also the first album where we recorded the drums live in the studio, which has given us a more organic and acoustic drumsound. Furthermore we’ve switched from std 6 string guitars to 7 strings, which has given us a fatter and more powerful guitarsound. And with a new singer onboard I suppose this is the biggest changes compared to previous Sirenia releases.

AM : Tell us about the recordings of “Nine destinies and a downfall”, you still went to the Soundsuite with Terje Refnes, as he’s been part of your sound for many years now. Do you enjoy the French sun or wine that much ;) ?

Morten : Yes, as I mentioned we used 4 different studios this time. We worked with Terje this time as well because we wanted to keep a lot of the basic essence of Sirenia. We work well together and go way back so he helped bringing this element. Furthermore we worked in three more studios to add some new and fresh elements to our sound. We mixed and mastered the album in Antfarm studios in Denmark together with Tue Madsen. He did a great job for us and helped us achieve what we wanted. With all this said and done I must admit that I love the french redwine, but the sun is too strong for a Norwegian.

AM : “Nine Destinies and a downfall” is quite an enigmatic title, can you enlighten us a bit about its signification ? Are the “Nine destinies” related to the nine songs of the album ?

Morten : Everybody askes me this. It’s the kind of title I wanted for the album, but I feel that if I would explain into detail what it really means, the enigmatic and mystique aspect of the title would be lost in way. I’d rather let the fans and listeners try to figure out the deeper meaning behind it themselves.

AM : You’re on the gothic scene for many years now, you were one of the first to present “female fronted gothic metal”, so what do you think about the big evolution of this scene ?

Morten : I started with this kind of music in 1995, so I’ve been involved for about 12 years. In the beginning this was a small and narrow genre that only appealed to a very limited and dedicated audience. Over the years I’ve seen this subculture grow into something big. It feels good to have been a part of this process from the beginning, and realizing how more and more people got into this genre over the years. Today Gothic metal is obviously bigger than ever.

AM : Do you plan to expand the Sirenia team to have a full line-up ?

Morten : Maybe over time, the next step would be to include a session bassplayer. But in the same time we feel very comfortable just beeing the four of us.

AM : To end this interview, I’d like to know what are your plans for 2007 ?

Morten : We will have our kick off party for the album in Moscow in Russia on the 24th of february. Furthermore we are working on an extensive european tour for the spring. We have some festivals coming up this summer, summer breeze open air and metal female voices fest are already confirmed and a few more are on the way. In the autumn we have plans for touring north america for the first time. We will keep all of you posted on our websites. Cheers!