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Power, energy, intensity. Shadowside can be defined by their and
passion for Rock and courage to take risks and pursue goals and
dreams. Bringing together the four members' influences of Hard Rock,
Thrash and Heavy Metal to create songs with strong hooks, heavy
guitars, catchy melodies and a vigorous performance with a hint of
modern. Featuring Dani Nolden, one of the most powerful and
charismatic female vocalists ever heard,
they leave fans totally enthralled night after night with a highly
vigorous performance.
PoM: Tell us about the recording of the album and the work with
Inner Wound Recordings and Fredrik Nordström?
Dani: Working with Fredrik was a blessing. He's
a perfeccionist and says things straight up to your face. This is
exactly what we hoped from him. We wanted a producer that wouldn't
act as our number 1 fan. We wanted someone that would point out the
flaws in what we were doing and that's what he did. If we came up
with something that he thought wasn't good enough, he'd say it and
still let us keep creative control, he wouldn't just write something
else for us, he'd tell us ”go do something better”. He'd never take
”no” for an answer when we told him weren't capable of performing
something he wanted... he had to put up with a lot of that
especially from our drummer Fabio and myself, the two insecure
bastards in the band (laughs). But that's mainly because this album
tested our limits which I always find very interesting... the songs
demanded more from all of us, and Fabio and myself had no idea we
were capable of some of the stuff we did on this album. Fredrik
wouldn't even hear it... he'd pretend we had said nothing and start
recording. We arrived in Sweden with complete trust in him and we
didn't want to disappoint him because he recorded with many great
artists so whenever he'd tell us ”of course you can do it”, we felt
the obligation to at least try and it usually turned out we really
could do it. You can hear the results of that if you compare all our
albums. What helped greatly was also literally living in the studio
during the entire recording process. You see, we were all born and
raised in Brazil. Two of us are from an island called Santos, a very
warm place with temperatures that rarely go below 15 degrees Celcius
in the coldest winters. Gothenburg was absolutely freezing for us
and we were a bit far from the fun part of the city so we were never
really interested in going out. We'd just stay in the studio and
work. It wasn't rare to find one or two of us in the studio at 3, 4
in the morning, working on arrangements or on a part of the song
Fredrik didn't like. We had the chance to focus on the album and
nothing else, for 3 straight weeks and it didn't feel like a lot of
work, it was exactly the opposite... it was a very fun and relaxed
process, because we had no pressure and we had a studio available
24/7 to do whatever we had to. We ended up recording so fast that
during the last week we started to intentionally delay stuff just so
we'd have something to do on the last few days (laughs). We went
there to create music and nothing distracted us, it was awesome.
PoM: What have the guys in Gothenburg contributed on 'IMO' that you
not had on the previous albums?
A
Dani: Their experience helped us greatly, of course. That gave us
peace of mind just to start with. We knew that whatever we came up
with, we'd have a great sound because that's what Fredrik always
delivers. We knew the guitars would be heavy, the drums would sound
great and we'd have top notch production.
We also knew he'd never tell us something was great when it wasn't,
and he'd never tell us something had to be changed just for him to
be the big producer that had to say something. If we delivered a
song that was great as it was, he wouldn't change a thing. And we
knew he was being honest. So we were allowed to do our very best.
Also the change of scene gave us a new perspective and a whole new
“competition” level. We arrived there
as a new band that had a lot to prove while it's not like that for
us in Brazil anymore. I feel that working here in Brazil would have
kept us in that comfortable position of national stars and it
wouldn't have challenged us. Changes are always good to keep a
band's sound fresh. Musicians should always challenge themselves and
not only musically. Being in a city we don't know, with
a weather we're not used to, speaking another language nearly
all the time, all that kinda makes your brain work differently. For
me, keeping everything the same kills inspiration.
PoM: My favourite track on the new album (besides the awesome title
track) is 'My Disrupted Reality', Which song on this album does your
heart beat extra for?
Dani: My Disrupted Reality is actually one of
them! I have a great time singing that song, I took my time writing
that piece and then we demo'ed it and worked on it while we were on
tour. We ”battled” a lot about it, especially the instrumental part
and then decided to leave it a bit chaotic because the song is
supposed to be chaotic. It's a ghost story. Basically it's about
reality being unique to each and every one of us. If I see a ghost,
you can't tell me it isn't real. Maybe it
isn't, but for me it is pretty damn real because I saw it, you know?
For a schizophrenic who saw a legless man grow back a leg, that was
real. So we thought it would be cool to keep a little bit of ”crazy”
going on in there (laughs). It's really hard for
me to pick a few favorites but if I really
have to, they'd be Angel with Horns, Habitchual, I'm Your Mind, A
Smile Upon Death and Waste of Life. Those are my favorites because
they're the ones I have the most fun singing, but just to sit there
and listen, I love the whole album. I don't skip any of the songs
yet. Maybe after the next album I will, but I haven't gotten sick of
anything on Inner Monster Out yet!
PoM: Have you any musical sources of inspiration or role models?
Which bands or persons has
ment anything special for you?
Dani: My role model as child/teenager was Angra, basically because
that was the first Metal show my parents allowed me to go to. I
thought “these guys are Brazilians... so if they can be
successful, maybe someday I can be too” and whenever people told me
Brazilians could not make a living out of Heavy Metal, I'd think of
them. Their music didn't inspire me all that much but I'll always
have a special feeling for them because of that. Then Michael
Weikath of Helloween, who gave me lots of advice when I was starting
out that was very important. He's also a
role model. My favorite bands are many and I think all of them
influence me somehow. I started out with Queen, then moved to Guns
n' Roses and Skid Row, then Iron Maiden and Just Priest, nowadays I
like some modern stuff like Rammstein and Disturbed. I never listen
to those bands and think “I wanna sound just like them” but I'm
pretty sure they all molded my musical personality somehow..
PoM: How was it to be on tour for 2 month with
W.A.S.P in 2010, can you tell us something funny or odd
from these days?
Dani: Well, funny and odd at the same time was
the amount of times we got stuck in snow before we figured out we
needed snow tires (laughs). Everyday we'd get asked from the W.A.S.P.
Crew ”so how many times did you guys get stuck in snow last night?”
(laughs) It got so bad to the point of their driver asking ours to
follow them at all times so he'd be able to help if something
happened. But then we finally bought the damn snow tires! We had a
guy in Poland trying to give us his sister. He said if we wanted, we
could take her with us, no problem. I think if there wasn't a girl
in the band, the guys would have said yes... (laughs). And of
course, we were all terrified of Blackie before the tour started. I
read somewhere that he didn't like being looked in the eye, which
obviously turned out to be a silly rumour, but we were so scared of
all the stories we heard about him that we'd say good morning, good
evening always looking down (laughs). Until we realized that he's no
monster. He wasn't mean to us at all, nor was anyone in the band or
crew. Blackie is a reserved man so he isn't there bonding with
everyone but he was never disrespectful and never gave us a hard
time. During the tour, we always had the perfect conditions to do
our thing, we had plenty of time for soundcheck and I can say
nothing bad about anyone that worked on that tour. We had a blast!
PoM: Who writes the music and lyrics in the band?
Dani: We all do... well, lyrics were written by
me on the past 2 albums but that's only because the guys got
lazy (laughs). I never asked to be the only one to write lyrics in
the band and they know that whenever they feel like, their lyrics
are welcome. In the meantime, I just try to keep the topics written
about stuff they wouldn't disagree or at least wouldn't strongly
disagree. On Inner Monster Out, I took a dive inside my own mind and
inside the minds of people I know, people I admire and people I
fear. This album is about perversions, fears, personality issues,
escapism, feelings, dreams. It's about how everyone has a bit of
disturbed within themselves. But we all write the music. Raphael and
I came up with half the songs each but none of our original demos
sound like what you hear on the record. We all changed everything
and that was encouraged, we brought our ideas to them expecting them
to be changed so it would be a work of everyone. We all wrote guitar
riffs, melodies and structures.
PoM: It's a long way from Santos, Brazil to Scandinavia, but do you
have any plans for gigs or shows in Eupope this year, or
what's the plans for the band?
Dani: It sure is... I know Finland is not in
Scandinavia but I just mention it now as an example of how far we've
been... and how crazy it felt. I remember during soundcheck in
Helsinki I thought exactly that ”I'm REALLY far from home”. That
said, I would absolutely love to play Scandinavia. I've been to
Sweden, Denmark and briefly to Norway and it makes
me quite sad that I've played everywhere around that area but
haven't had the chance to play those countries yet. I really hope it
will happen this year, there is nothing concrete yet but we sure
have plans to tour Europe and if we have a chance to include
Scandinavia, you can be sure we will! We live to play live. I
wouldn't mind going on tour for 6 months non-stop at all. It would
be no sacrifice for me
to live in a tour bus.
PoM: As I mention in the review of Inner Monster Out, your vocal
contribution lifts the album from something in the middle to a top
class album on it's own. Tell us your personal history? Have you got
any special vocal training or are you a self-taught talent?
Dani: I come from a very musical family,
my mother and I would sing along to Queen every afternoon when I was
8, 9 and both my parents really encouraged any music interest I ever
had. I've been self-taught all my life for the simple reason that I
had never found to right teacher or coach. My hometown has no
tradition whatsoever in Rock or Metal music and most music teachers
here perceive it as being a genre dominated by idiots who know
nothing about music and just know how to scream. So I got tired of
her trashing Metal in every single class and left before we even got
past breathing exercises. So I started studying on my own, reading
about vocal technique online, trying to sing my favorite songs and
just basically trying to listen to
myself and improving. I started changing that just two weeks
ago when began studying at Berklee Music. I believe there's always
room for improvement but I also wanna
study the theory behind what I do. So many people ask me for lessons
and I have to tell them no because I
have no idea how to explain what to do. Teaching is something
I wanna do someday... it's not even about money but because I know
how useful it can be to have someone give you the shortcuts and I'd
love to help develop some new talent. But maybe part of my secret is
that I always sing for the song, you know? I don't try to stand
out, I just do what I feel the song is
asking for. And if I feel the song is asking for something I can't
do, I'll practice until I learn how to do it. You have no idea how
much it annoys me to not be able to perform something I want to have
in a song (laughs). It disturbs me to the point that I spend a night
awake thinking about it. I know it's crazy but that's me
(laughs). Most people would just accept it, change it and move on,
but I prefer to accept the challenge and try it. I'm my worst
competition. I don't practice to be the best singer in the world or
to be better than a singer I admire... my goal is always to sound
better today than I sounded yesterday. That makes you improve
without making you beat yourself up... I see a lot of singers sad
because they don't sound like Bruce Dickinson but that's an unfair
comparision because you'll never be like Bruce Dickinson. Not
because you're not talented, but just because... you're not him.
Just take solace in the fact that Bruce Dickinson can't be you
either. Accepting your own voice is the hardest thing for a singer
but it's what we all should do.
PoM: Tell us something about the artwork - who made it and is it
important for you with a cool artwork?
Dani: Felipe Machado from Colombia made it and I
do find artwork very important on an album, yes. It should represent
your music, it gives
people a visual idea of what your music is about. No Black Metal fan
would buy an album with little pink hearts and flowers (laughs). I
feel it's easy to make an album quite unsuccessful for simply
sending the wrong message but maybe it's because I used to buy my
cds because of the cover, actually. Whenever I thought an album
cover was interesting, I'd buy it and rarely, very rarely I got
disappointed. That was before file sharing so whenever I wanted to
discover new music I'd go to the store and do that. Nowadays I feel
artwork is less to get you discovered, but just to give your fans a
complete experience. Sometimes when you read an awesome book you
want to see it as a movie so the artwork for me
is kinda like that. The Inner Monster Out is about your own mind and
about all the different facets of it. It's about you taking a deep
look inside your own ideas so that's why you see a man entering that
head with faces showing several emotions, feelings, fears and
thoughts.
PoM: Can you tell us how the Brazilian metal scene is for bands like
Shadowside nowadays?
Dani: For us it's pretty good, we don't play live as much as we'd like because there isn't a touring culture in Brazil so most traveling has to be done by plane and it's insanely expensive here. But whenever we do play, the shows are packed with awesome fans that go crazy so I can't complain at all about that! There's a lot of new talent going on here but I think everything is hard and unfair for them. If it's hard for us to tour, imagine what it is like for them. They hardly are able to find a place to play in their own hometown. We always try to get a new band on board with us when we play so we can at least give them a chance to be in front of people. However it's safe to say we've played much more internationally than in our country.
PoM: Thank you for taking the time answering on my questions. Do you
have any last words for our readers?
Dani: I just hope everyone likes Inner Monster
Out and I'm really looking forward to seeing you all on tour showing
your horns and going crazy. Cheers!
© 2012 Patrik Skoglund | ||||
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| Interviewed by Patrik Skoglund | |||
