Can you give a brief introduction to Magenta?
Magenta was formed in 1995 by Anders, who was a well known name already for playing in bands like Apoptygma Berzerk, Satyricon and Celtic Frost, why the need to start a new band?
A: At the time I had been in a band named JETMOTOR nr. 1 which was signed to Sony Music in Norway. We had this really cool thing going with a mix of punk, industrial and melodic metal, but it went into the sand as the singer decided to leave on to a solo-career and leave me on my own. I had no band then even though I was playing in Apop as a liveguitarist, but we didn’t tour that much back then.
I had many ideas of my own which didn’t fit my old death metal band Cadaver and decided to form a new band where I could get out “my other” influences and get something going that was a continuation of JETMOTOR nr. 1. The gig in Celtic frost came in 2006 and I played guitar for Satyricon on some records and livebass this summer, but that is a different story.
Untill 2003 you released one ep and two full length albums, who were received really well, yet you decided to take a break, why did you do this?
A: Well – we had this golden deal with a publisher that sold our song ALL OVER to launch Sprite Zero in Greece and then the rest of the world.
To cut a story short someone stole all our money in Greece and left us penniless and disillusioned. Also, our recordcompany at the time then went bankrupt and we didn’t have any energy to go on right after this whole thing.
In 2006 Daniel Hill joined Magenta, was this the rebirth of Magenta? What did he bring to magenta that made you decide to start working on new songs?
A: In 2006 I left Apoptygma for Celtic Frost and realized I had left a huge thing behind by not working on Magenta for a while. Even though we had been writing some songs Daniel came into the band with his ideas that worked too and we have one more to lean on in the creative way of the band. We always had that in the past too with Vegard Blomberg who also produced Apoptygmas album “welcome to earth” and our “little girl lost”, but he left the musicbusiness for a career in the movies and I lost contact with him. Daniel works as someone who bring band focus to us as a band and that is important for us to continue.
Your latest release is the album “Art and Accidents” how are the comments on is so far?
A: We have never received such great critics ever. It is nice to see that so many people out there like and enjoy the music if it’s from the CD or from the internet.
How did the recording process go? Did it all worked out as planned or not?
A: Yes and no. We started to work on this album with Geir (Ex-Apoptygma Berzerk) back in 2005. We did two songs in his home studio, but could never find time to get it done the way I wanted. Then we got hold of a guy named ELEC THIS who was working on the music for over a year until he fell out with us and left the band in 2007. I then took control, bought the new Logic (studio software) and worked out the record more or less on my own. All the vocals was produced by Jonas Groth (Now Keyboardist in Apoptygma Berzerk) and most of it was mixed in Germany in 2008. I learned a lot from this process and the next album will be done in a much shorter timeframe.
The album is a great mixture of electro and rock, is it hard to find the right balance in the songs? How do you find the balance?
A: I guess this album have more electro than what we will have in the future. It is hard to say with us as we always progress from the previous album. The next one will be harder and more minimalistic than Art And Accidents – that is my goal anyway.
The album contains 2 collaborations, one with Gothminister and one with Jonas Groth, how did you realize these collaborations?
A: Well – Jonas produced the vocals so he was all over the songs with ideas. I let him do what he wanted and then I kept what I liked. This one song he and Vilde did what they wanted over my music and it is beautiful.
