Band: Dragonland

Dragonland are a new Power Metal Band from Sweden. Although, "new" I wouldn´t call them, cause they are a fracture of the Death Metal Band Prophanity, who showed with their last release that they want to change their style… Dragonland play fast Power Metal with somehow unusual melody lines. I really liked their first demo-CD and contacted the band. In April 01 they will release their debut CD by Black Lotus Records. Amazing cover artwork, amazing songs, great band on a high level, interesting interview:

This is the first interview for Dragonland. How does it feel?

It feels great getting to do the first interview with Dragonland, things are starting to happen now as we just gotten a record deal too!!!

The reasons for me leaving Prophanity is mainly because I didn't live as close to the Rehearsal place as the other guys, I had to go by train one hour forth and one back every rehearsal for 3-4 years with about 2-3 rehearsals a week, so it was quite tiresome in the end!!! And it was also because that the last year other members started to quit in the band and a great lack of motivation had fallen upon the other guys! So the fun in it was missing in the end! So I decided to quit and form a new band (Dragonland) in the area I live in instead, and as far as I know the rest of the guys in Prophanity has put the band on hold for a while now, but it isn´t dead!!!

Well we have not been around for too long yet, we started the band in May '99 and have basically since then looked for band members and as soon as we were a complete band we recorded our demo-CD and sent out about 100 copies to labels and zines!!! we got response from about 3-4 interested labels and we chose the one that felt best to release our debut album on!!!

Yeah, we try to jump on a trend and become rich...NOT!!! In fact I play in a death/black metal band also Rapture and we have just gotten a record deal with that band, too. Dragonland is just a way to broaden my metal horizons, because I think you can express yourself in more and different ways with normal vocals!!!

Because compared to other bands we kick their ass, hehehe...

Well, maybe you misunderstood what tapping is??? The only place we use tapping is in the middle part of the solo in World's end, probably you're thinking of the sweep picking parts, which are more constant in our music and that's a bit of a different technique. (Oh shit, I mixed up Sweeping and Tapping; good nobody knows I play guitar…) I use it a lot because it sound's so damn cool!!!

Just my damn laziness, we were a bit stressed at the time getting the demo-CD out and didn't get hold of a decent printer for the cover, but if anyone wants the cover just print it from our homepage!

Black Lotus Records gave us a call after hearing our demo and they gave us a good deal!

We are quite sure we won't get too big during our first 2 albums on Black Lotus, we'll try to get on a bigger label on our third album! It is important to us in the way that this is what we want to be able to make a living out of it and it would be great if a lot of people could hear us!!!

Maybe, it isn't like it's something planned, I have another band kind of hardrock influenced folk-music, Trollskog it's called!!! Maybe Dragonland will also use it in the future but the songs for our next album doesn't have any folk influences!

To make fantastic and great metal!!!

The lyrics on the album are a long fantasy saga that will continue over a couple of albums; I know that Rhapsody and a couple of other bands already have done that, but what the hell, it's a good idea, and I think ours is very well written!!!

Well, moments arrive on occasions, I´m a great fan of RPGs on consoles and PC. I think the best ones are the Zelda games and the Ultima series and recently Baldurs Gate 1 and 2!!!

I'm a bit into it, it's not too big but it's growing more and more! There are also a lot of stupid people in black and death metal that are strongly against other metal styles like power metal, they just don't understand that ALL Metalheads need to unite to form ONE strong Metalscene!!!

Some bands I know are Prophanity, Immemorial, Taetre, Nightshade, Supreme Majesty, Eternal Grief, Kill and Jonas lives next to Micke of Dark Tranquillity/Luciferion! And you always meet people of other bands when you go out to drink beer in Gothenburg!!!

Dragonland has only made 2 gigs so far until we get a new drummer, so that Jonas doesn't have to sing and play drums at the same time! And with Prophanity we made a damn lot of gigs after we released our album, played in about all the bigger cities in Sweden, it was cool! If any drummer wants to play great metal with us get in touch!!!

We're ready with the songwriting and we'll enter the Los Angered Studio with Andy la Roque (King diamond) in 11-22 of December, it'll be 12 tracks (Dragondusk, Storming across heaven, A last farewell, Ride for glory, The orcish march, Draconian twilight, The battle of the ivory plains, Graveheart, Rondo ala turca, A secret unveiled, World's end, Dragondawn). All written in a fantasy story theme!

We'll first of all release our debut album, then get a steady drummer and play at any place we get a chance to play! If anyone wants us to do a show, contact us, we play for gas-money, something to eat and a place to sleep!

Hmmm...don't think so! Did you???

Ok, thanx a million times for the interview and interest, Christoph!!! And everyone that's into well played quality fantasy Power Metal check out our debut album and also visit our homepage for more info + soundclips at HTTP://fade.to/dragonland and drop a line in the guestbook!!! And most of all keep the flame of metal burnin' high...