Machinae Supremacy pour l'album "Redeemer"

1. Hi! To begin, the classical question : could you present the band and sum-up your story so far?

The band is Machinae Supremacy, the current line-up is: Jonas Rörling (guitar), Tomas Nilsén (drums), Johan Palovaara (Bass), Andreas Gerdin (guitar) and myself, Robert (on vocals). We started in 2000 and skipped the whole “local band” thing by playing in London (GB) before we ever played in our own home town. From the start we put up everything we completed on our website for the world to download and enjoy, and now, in 2006 we've had over 3 million downloads and a record deal with the major metal label Spinefarm. Interesting times.


2. I discovered your music with the new album and I was surprised by your style which gather a lot of different kinds of metal (and more...). How would you define your music? How is born the "Machinae Supremacy" style?

We've heard our music referred to as many things, but most people agree that it's some form of metal with video game influences. Since categories and genres is such a mess, we've often just called it “SID Metal” (SID being the thing that makes all those cutesy video game sounds in our music). But to be more descriptive, I'd say it is melodic metal with non-default vocals (where metal is concerned) and video game music influences. The style just sort of happened, probably born from the merging of our different as well as common influences and musical roots.


3. Were you influenced by any band during your carrier?

Oh, probably a lot of different bands from a lot of different genres. It's hard to point out exactly but you should be able to easily hear a definite likeness to for instance Megadeth and Marty Friedman in the guitar play, or Switchblade Symphony in the vocals. We're constantly being influenced by bands we listen to, but just as much by the music in movies and video games, old and new.


4. "Redeemer" is already your third album. Can it be compared to your previous releases? Can you tell us more about them?

Well, technically it's our second album, being re-released by Spinefarm in a remixed, more condensed package. Our first album, Deus Ex Machinae, was heavily electronic compared to Redeemer. So much so, in fact that we in retrospect felt like we'd overdone it. The song material is great, but there was a lot we still hadn't learned back then, and it shows. A lot of people still love DXM though, so I guess we did something right. Redeemer is darker and more intense than DXM, more metal, but it also has its gentler moments.


5. How has evolve the band between the last 2 albums in a musical way?

I think we've found the skill by now to keep everything together more than before. The music and everything in it was all over the place before, but now, even though we make even bigger leaps beyond and outside our appointed genres, it all stays together in a better way. The electronic element to our music has also been de-emphasized a little, sinking back into the mix more now instead of being the dominant element like it was before. The vocals have improved greatly as well.


6. If you had to sell "Redeemer", what would you tell us?

It is something quite different from what you're used to. You should give it a try.


7. Can you tell us more about the lyrics of this new album? Where does your inspiration come from?

Lyrics inspiration comes from everywhere, games, movies, life experiences, and so on. We generally try to keep politics, love and plain poor-me-whining out of our lyrics, since those topics have been done to death, and still are, but sometimes even we let one of those topics slip through. Mostly, we write about things like taking pride in who you are, about fantastic stories and characters and about the human condition in general.


8. The new album will be available through Spinefarm Records but you've already released it in March through your own webshop. What is the difference between these 2 versions?

The underground version of Redeemer, which we released before signing with Spinefarm because we didn't want our fans to have to wait any longer for it, is basically the same album, but with a slightly different tracklist and somewhat inferior mixing (since we did it all ourselves). The new one was remixed and remastered by industry pros.


9. Since the beginning, you want to remain independant and use internet to promote yourself. Why did you make this choice? Do you think it has been more efficient for you than to give this task to a label?

We never wanted to sign with a record label that could do little more for us than we could ourselves. When Spinefarm contacted us, a real label with a lot of great bands already, we saw our chance to reach out in a new way, both via label funded tour support as well as world-wide distribution. Now, we get to focus on making and playing music, while someone else does the paperwork.


10. Have you some touring plans for the near future?

Nothing confirmed, but we hope to hit some festivals this summer as well as add some new countries to our list of visited. We're currently looking for a booking agency.


11. What do you do for a living apart from the band?

We all have jobs. Johan and Tomas work in stores, Andreas is a project manager for a youth business project in Luleå, and me and Jonne work with video game music production (since the beginning of 2006).


12. What do you have in your CD/MP3 player at the moment? Any recommandations for our readers?

I'm currently listening a lot to Bi f Naked and RX Bandits. I so recommend everyone to check them out, I think they're both awesome! Also, be sure to check out another Luleå band, Raised Fist, and the latest album Sound of The Republic.


13. I know that Internet is an important media for Machinae Supremacy but I would like your position about (illegal) downloading? Do you think it can serve the band?

We support filesharing, not only because we are consumers before producers, and we download music from the internet just like anyone else, but also because I believe that Machinae Supremacy would be nowhere without filesharing. Even though most of our music is available for free, I believe that the over 3 million downloads we have registered at our website is just a drop in the bucket compared to the amount that's been shared over the p2p networks. So yeah, we support it, and are grateful for its existence.


14. Thank you for your time and I really hope you'll come see us in France. The last words are yours!

Peace in the IRL (ndlr: "In the Real Life").