STEEL ATTACKSTEEL ATTACK
Out of Sweden comes STEEL ATTACK, a sensational melodic Power Metal band, and they have just released their third CD 'Predator of the empire' on the Spanish label ARISE RECORDS. This album sounds absolutely perfect, and therefore it was time to have a conersation with the band, here's what went down...
Please introduce us your band, when did you form STEEL ATTACK and did any of you play in bands before STEEL ATTACK?
It all started out 1995 when Steve and Dennis who had been playing together since 1992 formed the band Mayer’s Eve. The band played under the name Mayer's Eve with different members coming and going, at that time Steve was playing drums. When the bass player and the lead vocalist of the band had to leave the only that where left was Steve, Dennis and the other guitar player Mike. And since we are from a very small town with just 20.000 people it was not easy to get new members. The best thing they could do was to ask Andreas de Vera who played drums in another band next to Mayer's Eve if he would like to join them, and when he did Steve decided to go for the lead vocal and the bass. When the band got complete they decided to change the name of the band as well to state that this is a new band, so Dennis got the idea to Steel Attack by combining the words Steel = Metal and Attack = the sound. Steel Attack was born 1997 and they played together till the very first beginning of 1998 then Mike had to leave and I (John) got asked to join them as the lead guitar player for the band. And since I just
2 months earlier left the bands I was playing in, I thought is would be very cool to join them since we where sharing the same kind favourite music as a inspirational source. So when the band got the contract with AFM we recorded the Where Mankind Fails album 1999 and just short before the actual release Andreas left the band and moved away from our hometown, luckily we knew the drummer Roger Raw and he was playing the drums on the Fall into Madness who was a friend to all of us in the band. And he joined the band as the new drummer for the band.
Roger stayed as the drummer till short after the W.O.A gig 2000 because he was a single parent back then and had an impossible time to get the rehearsals, gigs and his own practice routine going. But Roger stayed till we wound an “old” drummer, yes Andreas dropped by for a weekend visit to our hometown and asked if we could just get together and jam on the songs and have fun, we did and it turned out that we asked him if he got plans to start with the drums again, he was going to move back to our little town but if we where interested then we had to wait for 3 more months so he could get everything fixed, we thought that it was the best we could do and wait him out, and then he rejoined with the band in the end of 2000. in the mean time Steve let us know that he was going to quit as the lead singer and we had to search for a new singer, we got in contact with Dick because he had been in another band next to our rehearsal studio, I called him up and asked if he was interested to try out for the band as the lead vocalist. Dick did a great audition and got the lead vocal position in the band. Dick joined almost at the same time as Andreas got back as the drummer.
Next one to leave the band was Steve Steel and that was short before the W.O.A 2001 when he told us that he was going to leave because he didn’t like the way we was treated of AFM and he also told us that he was going to focus on the drums with Carnal Forge with 100% and couldn’t be in two bands. When Steve left we had to audition a new bass player and we did so and the one that got to be the bass player for the band was Patrick “Psycho-Pat” Späth and he joined the band in the end of September 2001. Andreas stayed for a year and in the end of 2001 he left the band and the music scene for good, at least what he told us and we get together for party etc and he never talk about the drums anymore.
So now the start of the
New Year 2002 started out with audition a new drummer and the one
that we got for the band was Mike Stark. And he joined the band
in February 2002. Now the band is complete and looks like this.
John Allan – lead guitar, Dick Johnson – Lead vocal,
Dennis Westman – Guitar, Patrick Späth – Bass and
backing vocal, Mike Stark – Drums.
Please tell us all about your first two CDs?
The first release of
the first album Where Mankind Fails 1999 and the second release
Fall into Madness 2001 was the albums we did for the German label
AFM records. We had another lead vocalist on those two albums
(Steve Steel) who is not longer with the band the other two
members that where involved on those two albums where the drummer
Andreas de Vera on the Where Mankind Fails album and Roger Raw
who was the drummer for the Fall into Madness.
You have just released a new CD through ARISE RECORDS; please tell us all about it.
Since we had several
members coming and going this new album is the result of the new
band. There is only me (John) and Dennis who are left since the
first album so with the new lead vocalist Dick Johnson, bassist
Patrick “Psycho-Pat” Späth and the new drummer Mike
Stark this is the sound of the new band. We always write the
songs together, by that means everybody in the band got to try
their ideas out on the songs and then we all end up with songs
that we all enjoy to play together. We left AFM since we could
not work together in the way as it should been done and there is
more to it to, but it will take up to much of space here to go
into it real deep. So after we got free from our former label
then we decided to record a 3 songs demo on my D- 1600 to get
more of the right feeling of the final result of the songs and
when the songs turned out to be working good as a demo then we
sent it out to several labels. Arise Metal was the label that
offer us the best and was very clear in what they
wanted and what we wanted as well. The new CD is the first we
done together with this line up and we feel very satisfied with
the Predator of the Empire.
Are there any stories behind the songs, if so please share them with us.
The song Arise was done
several months before we sent out the demo and the story the song
start like this:
Five warriors raise their steel (that is us in the band)We are
free, no longer sealed (we left the past problems)
We arise with a different face (new members, new sound, new logo
new label, new album) that is all I will reveal now, you see the
lyrics works best if the listener make their own story out of the
lyrics.
Your music is Power Metal with a lot of melodies, which sounds terrific, which bands influenced you?
Thank you very much! I
cant say any kind of band cause there are so many but the old
school metal bands are for sure there and what make us influenced
is any great melodic metal.
The past 20 years Sweden has established itself as a real musical country with lots of Hardrock and Metal bands releasing fantastic records and, do you feel there's a lot of competition between the bands nowadays?
I don’t think
there is a competition between bands, if there is, then there is
nothing that I know of, I guess it’s more of the bands
attitude toward other bands that make the competition thing
going, or not.
Basically, what are the future plans for STEEL ATTACK? A tour? More CD releases?
Play live as much as
possible is the top priority for us and yes there will be more CD
releases.
Finally, do you have anything to add to our readers?
Thanks a lot all of you that supported us since the first albums and to all of you that been keeping in contact with us over the internet etc. To all new ones that not know the band, check out our official site at www.steelattack.com for more info.