"I try to get the songs shorter, more intense and exciting - from the very beginning until the very end."

Morten Veland - former vocalist, guitarist and main songwriter of Tristania - talks about the third full-length studio album of his current band Sirenia, "Nine Destinies and a Downfall", and introduces the Norwegian gothic metal quartet's new singer Monika Pedersen.

Vassil Varbanov: Morten, how are you doing?

Morten Veland: I'm very fine, and you?

V. V.: Great. Obviously, all around Europe everybody's excited about the new Sirenia release, "Nine Destinies and a Downfall". How do you feel about it in the band?

M. V.: We have a very good feel about it. It's an album that we put a lot of time and effort in - we spent more than 10 weeks in the studio and worked really hard on it. Of course, we're excited to see what people are gonna think about it - are they going to be as happy with it as we are, shall we get the usual feedback from the audience...

V. V.: This is your fourth release, as far as I remember, right?

M. V.: Yeah, it's the fourth release, but the third full-length album by Sirenia (after "At Sixes and Sevens" [2001] and "An Elexir for Existence" [2003], and the EP "Sirenian Shores" [2004]).

V. V.: How would you compare the newВ CD to your debut? Where do you see the main difference?

M. V.: I feel that this album has become a whole lot more melodic than anything we've put out in the past. This was my main goal when I started writing material for this one, so it came pretty natural for me to let the female vocals getting a more important part in the music. I also wanted to arrange the songs in a slightly different way: In the past I used to write songs that could be 6-7 minutes long, and this time I wanted to try to say what I wanna say in about 5 minutes and get the songs shorter, more intense and exciting from the very beginning until the very end.

V. V.: Could you please tell us something more about your new female vocalist, Monika Pedersen?

M. V.: We got in touch with her about 10 months ago. Our previous singer (Henriette Bordvik) decided to leave two years ago, so we started searching for a replacement for her. It was a process that took quite some time, and it was first about a year ago or so that we got in touch with Monika. We worked a bit together with her and what we found out pretty soon was that her voice fitted perfectly into the new Sirenia song material.
Monika is a very laidback person. She's been into the metal scene for many years, so getting into a metal band comes pretty natural for her. We get along and work together really well.

V. V.: The first single off your new album is "My Mind's Eye". What's it about, and what inspires you for your lyrics in general?

M. V.: The song "My Mind's Eye" is about the split of personality, and the inspiration for writing my lyrics I can get more or less out of anything I see, or of experiences from my daily life, things I hear or see on TV, movies I watch, books I read... And also, of course, if I listen to some music that gives me a special feeling.
As for "My Mind's Eye", it's a song with a lot of the typical ingredients for our music. However, at the same time it shows the fresh and new side of Sirenia.

V. V.: Are you expecting to have a second single coming out?

M. V.: It's not decided yet. In case there will be, I'll make sure it's gonna be the song "The Other Side". The reason for this is that we already shot two videos for the album - one for "My Mind's Eye" and the other for "The Other Side".

V. V.: Finally, could you please give us your message to the Bulgarian fans?

M. V.: I just would like to say "Cheers!" and "Horns up!" to all the Bulgarian fans. Hopefully we'll be able to come by and do a show on our upcoming European tour. We've never played in Bulgaria before, so it would be cool to finally do this.

Copyright: Tangra Mega Rock