Interview by Negru (December 2001 - Web only!).



01. Hello Skyfire! How are you?
Hi there, just fine thanks! Nice to see that our album has reached all the way to you guys in Romania ;)

02. Could you present us the band for the beginning, the members, releases, history…
Okay, I think it started back in ’96 when our two guitarists Martin Hanner and Andreas Edlund got together and started writing music. At first it wasn’t very serious, but later on Tobias Björk (drums) and Jonas Sjögren (bass) joined and Skyfire was born! We rehearsed in Andreas’ basement and eventually we recorded a demo called Within Reach. We didn’t really send it to anyone since we thought the demo sucked. The next demo was recorded in ’98 and this time we found a great singer in Henrik Wenngren who did a fantastic job on the demo. Now being a 5-piece band Skyfire sent their newly recorded The Final Story to people all around. Eventually we were contacted by Hammerheart Records who had a contract waiting for us….About a year later we entered Abyss studios to record what was to become Timeless Departure.

03. How would you describe the music from Timeless Departure? Do you agree with the comparisons with Rhapsody, Tranquility or Dark Children of Bodom made to describe your music? Do you enjoy these bands?
We sometimes say that we play melodic, orchestral metal with some influences of classical music in it. I guess that’s one way to put it, but certainly not the only one. To be compared with the bands you’ve just mentioned is a great honour for us. Although I think we have managed to find our own musical sound, I have to agree with you that we sometimes sound a little bit like them.

04. Are you satisfied with what you done on this album? Could you explains us a little bit more about your intentions towards it?
Right after we had recorded the album, I must say we were very satisfied with most of it. Now, almost 6 months later after hearing the album a hundred times there are some things I think we could have done better. For example I wish we could have used better sounds for some of the Keyboards. Our intention with the album was probably to make a fucking great album with catchy melodies mixed with brutality and a heavy sound. Shortly, just a pure metal-album with many refreshing ideas.

05. How about the lyrics? What are they dealing with? I don't think you have that Epic approach through the lyrics as well, so what do you think?
The lyrics are mostly written by Tobias and Martin and deals with anything from atheism to destruction. They tend to be somewhat depressive, but I think this is a great contrast to the music. We wrote some of the lyrics just a week before we entered the studio and that is perhaps not the best thing to do. I think we will spend more time with writing lyrics for our next album.



06. I saw you already have the Skyfire track. Why did you choose to do that on the first album? Could explains us a little bit more about this track, both musically and lyrically?
Tobias wrote lyrics for a song, and as we hadn’t come up with a name for it, we thought Skyfire was a suitable title for it. The song was already featured on The Final Story demo together with By God Forsaken so it is one of the oldest songs on the album. Both of these two songs are a bit different than the rest of the tracks on Timeless... They are more straightforward and since they were written we have developed a lot. The lyrics are a metaphor for the rise of Skyfire!

07. To tell you the truth I think this album of yours shall be a huge success from the very beginning. The question is more what shall happen from than on with you? Do you think the success shall change you, or make you play something more based on the public request, like in some other 'famous' cases?
Thank you! I hope you are right in you predictions! But I think it’s very hard to reach a huge success with a debut album especially in this genre of music. If this album is successful we will continue with the same kind of music. Even if the album only sells in 100 copies, we won’t change towards more popular music, since this is the music we all love! We have all been disappointed in bands who have become “sell-outs”, and that’s one thing we wouldn’t want to do.

08. How would your happiest version for the future evolution look like for Skyfire at the moment?
The dream is to one day earn money from our music so that we can focus all your energy on writing, touring and drinking beer. Although I think this will stay at just a dream. In the nearest future we would love to tour around the world, meeting a lot of people and bands.

09. What are your plans for promoting your new album? Will you do a tour or something?
We don’t have any touring plans at the moment, but hopefully we could hit the road this autumn. Maybe as an opening act for some bigger band would be perfect. Our record label Hammerheart is currently handling all the promotion and it seems they have done a great job so far!

10. Do you enjoy playing live? Is that an easy job to do considering the complexity of your music?
We haven’t done any gigs with Skyfire yet, but we are VERY anxious to. Right now we have problems with rehearsing since we all live in different parts of Sweden and that makes it hard to do single gigs. I don’t think it will be easy to play live, but with one or two session-keyboard players it would be much easier.

11. What kinds of other musics do you enjoy listening to?
I think we like everything from classical and prog rock to some of today’s popular music. But of course metal has always and will always be the main music for us in Skyfire.

12. How did you get in contact with Hammerheart Records?
It was when Swedish viking-metal act Thyrfing got a hold of our second demo. We are really into their music and Thomas Väänänen of Thyrfing liked what we had done, so he sent the demo to their label Hammerheart Records in Holland. We had no idea that Thomas had done this, so therefore we were very surprised when Hammerheart contacted us. So we consider ourselves very fortunate!

13. That's all for the moment! Thank you very much for the trouble and good look with your album! And if you have anything to say in the end…
Thanks a lot for this interview and thank you for you kind words drink beer and stay metal! Check out our album on March 19 if you’re into Swedish Melodic Death metal and watch out for Skyfire in the future!