“Regardless of all the pyros, backdrops and videos, what always has to work is playing well, playing tight and give yourself into the show.”

On May 19, 2008 we witnessed the birth of the long-awaited new full-length studio album by Portugal's metal leaders Moonspell, “Night Eternal” - a wonderful reason to get in touch with the band's frontman Fernando Ribeiro again...

Vassil Varbanov: Hello Fernando, how are you tonight?

Fernando Ribeiro: Fine, fine… And you?

V. V.: Good. It’s good to have you with us again after something like 8 to 9 months, even less - last time we spoke about the Portuguese rugby team and the Rugby World Cup… What are you guys up to with the band now?

F. R.: Well, we are getting ready for the first show in a while. It’s going to be on Saturday on the Azore Island, which is an island in the middle of the Atlantic that belongs to Portugal.

V. V.: Yes, we know. Nuno Bettencourt of Extreme was born there.

F. R.: Nuno Bettencourt is from there, yeah… And so we are quite excited that we get back on the road and we are getting ready also for the summer festivals and getting ready to release “Night Eternal”, so that’s what we are doing now.

V. V.: Are you preparing something special for getting back on stage or it’s going to be something you used to do before?

F. R.: We always try to come up with something different for the shows. We were thinking about what to do with “Night Eternal”. Last gig we had we used a lot of video projection and it was killer, but there was a large crowd and those 3000 people were watching it, so we could, you know, get away with it for awhile.  We would like to do something along those lines for the new stage show. We always try to improve it and in a way, let’s see how we can put our ideas and our visions into practice.

V. V.: Do you think the bigger the band gets, it’s in the same time more demanding for the kind of show you are presenting to the audience?

F. R.: I think so, but we play to every kind of audience- we play to sold out venues, but we also play to 200 people, so I think nowadays our reality is to be prepared to give it all in any kind of situation. The only kind of way… crowd or any kind of contact that we are supposed to play live. Well, that’s our challenge really, to keep it interesting with little number of people, with lots of people. I think the material that the band has made depends on how you can handle situations. Obviously, when you give a good show, obviously, when you impress people with your stage and everything, next time people will demand more. But I believe there’s something that regardless of all the pyros, all the backdrops and all the videos you can use that always has to work, which is playing well, playing tight and give yourself into the show and I think that’s what most of the times happens with Moonspell.

V. V.: You have 9 new tracks on “Night Eternal”. Which of them are going to be featured in your live show?

F. R.: I don’t know yet. Still we are not playing these songs right now. I’m just going to play them after the album is released, so we have a couple of shows, not many before the album is released, but we are not going to play new songs. We have to learn them properly ourselves, so I really don’t know… All songs are playable, really, from this album. That’s a good thing, I mean, it’s a little bit like “Irreligious”- we can always play every song and it will fit any set list that we make. But on the other hand I believe there are songs that are definitely will be a must live, “Scorpion Flower” for instance, where Anneke (ex-The Gathering) is singing, “Night Eternal”, the title track… I think it would be played live, it’s a very good song.  “At Tragic Heights”, the first song, I think it will be must too. But personally I’d love to play other songs like “Shadow Sun” or “First Light”. But let’s see, there are 8 albums from Moonspell. When you have a show you have to play songs from your entire catalogue. That’s becoming more and more difficult to create a set list. Sometimes we have to choose between songs like “Mephisto” or “Ruin & Misery” or “Nocturna”, so we all try to learn a lot of songs, so that we can even make different set list every day and to throw surprises to the audience more often.

V. V.: This album is being made with Tue Madsen. To what extent this Danish guy is clicking with a Portuguese band?

F. R.: Very much, I mean, We always work with foreign producers, because there are better producers outside our country than in our country. People can do good sound here, but I believe we still have to go abroad and the recorded results are a bit better for us. Our chemistry to Madsen is almost like he is part of our family in a way. We became very, very good friends and close to each other personally and when it comes to the technique, when it comes to the studio I think he is one of the best producers we have worked with and the result, “Night Eternal” is probably our best sounding album ever. For Moonspell, I mean. We were demanding about the final sound. Not always everybody in the band was happy with it, but it turned out that there’s nothing we would change really for the final mix.
We tried because Tue had an attitude that tried to serve the band with the best sound possible, to serve our ideas with the best sound possible. Recording with him is so easy going that sometimes it’s not like recording an album at all. It’s a special and delicate thing to record an album and that’s why it’s important to have a producer who takes the pressure out of you and is concentrating in you giving your best and is doing his best. And I think it’s a really, really good chemistry I have to say between us and Tue.

V. V.: You had the chance to work with other good producers before like Waldemar Sorychta or recording in London with this guy Andy Reilly… To what extent according to you the role of the producer in the modern music is really important and to what extent it has been overestimated?

F. R.: Well, I’m not sure if I get the question, but I think for us the producer has always been someone to help us and our vision. Not to compromise our ideas or music, but is open about it. Someone that has something to say about it. The producers, they come forth and say it, because otherwise we would produce ourselves.
So basically, I think, with Waldemar, we still work with him on the pre-production. He’s very good when he comes to Portugal and helps the band arranging the songs, because he is very talented in a way and I think the best we can with him is hard job with everyone, but he helps the songs to be stronger. I think that he never actually wrote anything for Moonspell. He helped us changing our parts so that the song to be stronger, while Tue, as I said, is much more into the sound. So I think working with a producer is important as long as this producer is not someone that will compromise your personalities.
Whether it’s under or overestimated, I think in everything that deals with music you have to try to find the balance between yourself, your ideas and the people, who are working with you. I think it’s very important even within the band. I think it’s important to find a ground that we are happy with, that we can live with and that we can work on and I think this is the most important thing about being in a band and making it strong and original.

Copyright: Tangra Mega Rock