MOUTHY ISSUE ONE
February 2003
DREAM EVIL
interview by Ian C Stewart

Swedish metal superpower Dream Evil was formed in 1999 by guitarist and producer Fredrik Nordström (HammerFall, In Flames, Dimmu Borgir, Spiritual Beggars, etc.), who drafted a young Greek guitarist, Gus G (Mystic Prophecy & Firewind). Singer Niklas Isfeldt was drafted after impressing Nordström as a backing vocalist for HammerFall in the studio. Isfeldt brought his cohort Peter Stålfors in on bass and on drums is "Gothenburg Rock drum legend" Snowy Shaw (ex-King Diamond, Mercyful Fate, Memento Mori, Notre Dame).

How does your material originate?
When it comes to song writing we all write songs, so you can't say that there is a dedicated song writer in the band. Fredrik is in charge of the recordings of course since he owns Studio Fredman and as he is a professional producer. Usually someone comes up with the general idea of the song and then he showes it to the rest of the band. Then we work on the song together with the arrangement and the lyrics. On our new album Evilized, we wrote a lot of songs by ourselves at home and introduced them as finished songs to the rest of the band. Some arrangements and vocals were written together to make them even better.

Where did the name Dream Evil come from?
We sat down in the studio one day when we were recording the Dragon Slayer album and had a discussion about what name we should have, a lot of strange suggestions came up of course like "Dragon Tail", "Metal Spine" etc. But then Fredrik looked at this Dio album which was lying on a table. A song called "Dream Evil." We all thought that that was a cool name, so we took it.

When did the band form?
Fredrik and Gus met in the summer of 1999. In december Niklas joined the band, in February 2000 I joined and in January 2001 Snowy joined. So it wasn't a full band at the start, it took a year and a half until the full lineup of Dream Evil was formed.

Who are your biggest musical influences and why?
Soundgarden - Chris Cornell, great vocalist
Iron Maiden (until 1987) - Great songs and of course a great bass player
Queensryche (until Empire) - Great songs and great musicians
Judas Priest - I love the guitar riffs and the cooperation between KK and Glenn.
Megadeth - Great riffs and great solos

What's the biggest show you've played so far?
I guess it must have been Wacken Open Air in Germany August 3, 2002, or maybe it was in Gothenburg, August 16, 2002, it's hard to say since I really don't know how many people were in the audience. We had a lot of fun at both shows though.

Crazy road stories?
After we played at the Sweden Rock Festival Fredrik got so drunk that when he took the shuttle bus back to the hotel his mouth wasn't working too good. So he pronounced the hotel's name totally wrong and ended up 70 kilometers away in another town. He walked into this hotel but he couldn't find his room because this hotel didn't have as many rooms. He ended up sleeping on a small couch there and when he woke up he went into the restaurant and had some breakfast. Then he called Gus and told him to meet him in the lobby. They didn't meet, so Fredrik called him again and told Gus to go outside the mail entrance. They both did but they still didn't meet, so Fredrik started to describe the surroundings, then he realised that he was in the wrong hotel. He took a cab 70 kilometers to the right hotel were we all were waiting for him in the lobby laughing like hell.

What's next for the band?
We're releasing our second album titled Evilized and in February we're going on a European tour with Hammerfall and Masterplan.


www.dreamevil.mu


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