Nice guys...

with Best regards, Daniel Flores of Mind´s Eye

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Mind´s Eye

Daniel: Yeah! I'm trying to work as much as I possibly can. You never know when things are going to stop and then your out of jobs. I have lots of different things going on right now.

>I unfortunately didn´t konw you before the new release. Did you change the record company?

Daniel: That's right! We changed from Round records to Rising Sun Records. These guys can really do the job, you know! It's has been by far the best record company we have ever worked with, honestly. Everything they promise they deliver in time. That's not something we can say about former labels. Round Records was just a temporary solution that didn't work out the way the partners involved wanted to. Unfourtunally for us it ment not selling to much records and not going to tour. Sad story really.

>This is your 3rd release now. What are the main differences between all your cds?

Daniel: The main difference is us maturing. On the first CD "Into the unknown" we where kind of young and naive, so we didn't care about the quality of the songs and production. We just cared about our own instruments and shops. The vocals on the first CD are handled by another singer than our last two album and he does not fit all the songs. Some songs are soft and in my point of view he didn't bring out the warmth out of them. Especially the song "Wishes in the wind" that I wrote. These days I'm having lot's of trouble trying to get through this album.

The second album"...Waiting for the tide" is like a mixture of the first and the new one. There are some emotional songs in there and there are some instrumental like songs, that bring out the shops in us. The main difference are the vocals. Andreas joined our band and made us sound more mature. Sadly we had already recorded all the music when we came in contact with him so there was no possibility in re-arranging the songs for his voice. He worked hard on that album. Songs like "Calling (father to son)" and "Circles in the sand" and the one of our best works today in my opinion.

Third album "A work of art" has what we always wanted to bring out in an album. The feelings of warmth and kindness. This is what we want to do in the future. We really have found our own sound on this one, both lyrically witch is really important and musically in terms of arranging and producing. It's going to take allot of work from us to even do such a thing once again I think. But you know we are not known to give up. On next album we'll kick our asses, that's a promise. Favorite songs? All of them!

>Did you tour the planet, or are there still places you haven’t been until now?

Daniel: No, as I sated above. We have not even been out of Sweden but we are hoping for the wind to change in our direction and give our sail a little push into other countries.

>When you’re on the road, do you really have the chance to meet the people or see the town where you are?

Daniel: In Sweden people pretty much give a flying f%#“k about us. So really we are not big here and progressive rock has not allot of listeners. Even though bands like Evergrey and Pain of salvation are from Sweden they don’t get the respect deserved in my opinion. Music styles like Rap and R’nb are much more respected as is has allot more listeners. Mind’s Eye is like something in between you know. It’s not METAL, it’s not JAZZ and it’s not PROGRESSIVE ROCK so there are not much places for us to gig on. I guess the situation is way better out there for bands that aren’t from Stockholm. We have only played in Stockholm I’m afraid.

>Will you come to Germany?

Daniel: I really hope so. Rising Sun may bring us over, you’ll never know. I think it all depends on the sales numbers really. We are really positive. I would just love to go there. keep your fingers crossed!

>Where exactly are ya from? What’s going on over there in the metal scene?

Daniel: Mind’s Eye is from Stockholm. But Fredrik, Johan and me originally came from a town called Tyresö. This little suburb town is about a half an hour from Stockholm. We have our Studio there and our rehearsing room too. Regarding the metal scene then i don’t really know what to answer. As i don’t really listen to much of what’s coming out of Stockholm. Many bands from Stockholm have to much of the cool stuff to attend to. You know there are movie theaters, lot’s of party’s, lot’s of girls, pubs, ext…
So most bands don’t do more than one album and then they split up. Too many choices you know. We’ll never split, we are different. We are not here for the chicks or money, we are just here for the music.
So my answer is nothing is going on here.

>How does it look like, when you work on an album - from the beginning of the songwriting until it’s done?

Daniel: It usually starts with somebody doing a riff , singing a melody or just from lyrics. Then we start to jam out the songs trying to play with them as much as we can. If you heard us rehearse you’d think that we where a couple of nuts rehearsing, because it really sounds awful from the beginning. We try out allot of things before we are comfortable you know. Then we record the song, we do a demo of it. We bring it home and listen to it for a month or so hen we come back with fresh ideas. Usually this is where we start to produce and compare the songs. When you have an album with 12 songs you have a firm responsibility to make the record sound versatile. This is where I keep my mouth shut because I’m not going to reveal all my secrets or way of working….ha ha ha like anybody cares!
The themes are more clearer in this stage of the production. For me, hell breaks loose you know. I must arrange and program the keyboards, produce, sing all the vocal harmonies and record all the instruments including my drums. Then we mix the song, some things usually turn up in this stage but not much. It can be something like a guitar solo that does not ring in the mix or a vocal arrange that makes the songs sound way of. Also, I create some sound FX’s and samples for the intros or for stuff in the song.
After that we master it and then send it to the record label. That’s pretty much it.

>Was the cover your idea?

Daniel: No, It was Mattias Norén who came up with the cover. I love it by the way. MATTIAS RULES!
He’s the best in Sweden in my opinion. He’s also a great friend of the band. He will surely do the next album.

>Where do you get the song ideas from?

Daniel: Lyrically I get ideas from stuff that I have gone through. Nowadays we use the music to dress the lyrics and melodies you know. So if it’s a sad lyric we do a soft like ballad song and if it’s a lyric about something brutal we do something brutal.

>I only get promotion cds without lyrics, but it´s intersting and important for me to know. How could you explain to me what the album "A Work Of Art" is about?

Daniel: Good question! And and a hard one to answer. To wrap all the lyrics in one sentence I would say that „A work of art“ is about soul searching. Kind of like be your self and you’ll be successful enough. That's how I live my life anyway. Finding your own path in life is what most people want in life. This is something we think we have now achived. Especially with the new album. I think we'll stay in this direction on next albums. We'll put upp all the lyrics in our homepage http://www.roundrec.com in the future.

>Already new song ideas for another album?

Daniel: Yepp! I have written about 7 or 8 songs for the new album I even have a working title for it. I'm feeling really ispired these days. The summer is here in Sweden and you get all those fantastic ideas. I'm a happy persson, so I do my best work when I'm happy. Here are some of the names of the songs:
Sahara in a Hourglass, Heal my karma, Umbrellas under the sun, Last man on earth, Clairvoyance, Visiting son, Canvas smile, Carefull Tom and some other songs that I don't yet have names for. We'll probably start producing these songs in late fall.

>How many hours are you working per day for the music?

Daniel: I usually go to our studio right after work(I teach in sound engineering in college). I work about eigth hour a day with both Mind's Eye and other musicians music. I try to at least to make as much progress as I can during the one week.
I also try to practice my drums when I get the chance. I do too much nowadays I think.

>Don´t you have your own label? Did you sign bands?

Daniel: Round Records was a temporay solution for Mind's Eye. The new label is Rising Sun, they are great!
We and Håkan Kaneberg started the label just to make the hole thing sound more profetional. Some bands sent some demos but I think Håkan did not find something that fitted his tates. Round Records was Håkan Kaneberg, he's not with us anymore though. We wish him good luck and many thanks for the help during the "...waiting for the tide" album.

>What´s coming up next?

Daniel: We are enjoying our time off during the summer. But soon we'll start working on the new songs. A new album maybe late next year I guess. I'm working with another band now with Göran Edman (vocals)and Benny Jansson(guitars). Some other smal projects are coming up during the summer to. We hope to go on tour also, but as I sated in other interviews and above then it all depends on the sales numbers.

>Do you have an internet address?

Yeah we have! It's www.roundrec.com visit us if you want more information about us. You can also find our e-mail contact addresses there. We have some samples of the new and last abum. Be sure to read the "Diary" department of our website. There we have pictures from the recording sessions of "A work of art".

>Last statement?

Daniel: Yeah, people should stay way from drugs! I hate drugs! Don't ever give in for that kind of stupidity. I know to many people who wasted their lifes with this crap. Make music don't do drugs! I just found out that an old friend of mine died taking an overdose. He was 26 years old, and had his hole life in front of him, now it's all wasted down the drain. It's really sad.
Hope I changed some minds there.

Daniel: Thanks guys for the interview, I really enjoyed this interview. Please inform us when you'll put it up in your website.

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