Interviewing Summoned Tide


Hello fellow readers, these past days I’ve been talking to a great band from Sweden, called Summoned Tide. For those of you who haven’t heard of them they play an epic rock/metal, kind of a NWOBHM more refined. Well, I hope you enjoy reading this interview but, more important, that you enjoy their music which is very good.

Davi: First of all let me thank you for accepting my invitation, it’s really an honor to be talking to such fine musicians. So, for those who don’t know you (yet), who are Summoning Tide?

ST: We are very pleased to be welcomed by such humble words; it’s a pleasure to collaborate. Summoned Tide is a bunch of friends playing and having a great time making good music. We've been described to sound like a mix of Helloween, Queensryche and Hamerfall.

Davi: Sweden is more known by the Gothenburg scene but the truth is a lot of other great bands have sprung up there, you included. Is it something in the water?

ST: There is definitely some kind of Asgard powers left in the waters of Sweden, but the real heroes are the local music schools who give everyone an opportunity to play and discover music at early age.

Davi: Formed in 2004, it took you six years to release “If We Fall We Will Rise” and only two years later “The Bringer of the Tide”. Were you refining things at first and now you’re on a swift or was something else?

ST: When we formed the band in 2004 we were all newbs. Jennifer, for example, bought herself a bass without any knowledge just because we needed someone to play the bass. Rickard has been tutoring her ever since that day and he doesn't really know much about bass either. Rickard's brother, Mikael, started to play guitar around the same time and jammed a lot with Rickard. So basically Rickard was taking classes from a music school and then shared it with the others. It took time to release the first album because we were just playing and having fun the first couple of years until we found out that we actually started to sound good. And with that came our visions and we really enjoyed playing together. Money was always an issue but we managed to do our first album thanks to our manager Mikael Norén and we had so much material that we could have easily released 2 more albums. Rickard created music all the time and in those six years he had quite the portfolio to choose from. So it sure was something else!

Davi: So, you were like teachers and students at the same time… I bet all that symbioses between members helped to create a more cohesive group.

ST: Yeah, you summarized that quite neat. We are like a family that love and respect each other. Trust is no issue and we can easily discuss any kind of problem that we have. What's even more awesome is that we all have a broad liking to music. None of us is narrow-minded about the genre and that's great. That's why you can hear that some song are different in style but with the same sound, if you know what I mean. It's a real fortune to have such wonderful comrades and this is the reason why we have survived as a band for so long.

Davi: Judging by the time frame there should be a new album coming out soon… or are you planning to promote more of your work with tours?

ST: You are right. We do have a new album that we are working on, but it will take some time. We are dealing with injuries and money problems. Our situation is that we live in the far north and the gigs are in the south. They don’t really pay us for coming. It's often in form of a free meal and some place to sleep and that's really fine, but the travel cost is high and we do have to pay out of our own pockets to get to the venues. Also in the north we don't get paid well either because we're not a big act, yet. We are basically paying to let people hear us for free! But as long as people like what they hear we're happy with it! We didn't start the band to get rich, but to grow into a well-known band and having the time of our lives! And for that, you have to make sacrifices. Rickard for example, hasn't had a real job longer than a few months since high school so that he can devout himself to reach his goals.

Davi: I guess the difficulties are the same everywhere. But being Sweden a place with such an history in underground and mainstream bands I thought it would be somewhat less painful to book gigs and get paid for.

ST: We have so many bands in Sweden so that the audience has become spoiled. They don't appear if it's not their favorite band or genre. Even if they are neighbors with the venue they rather check cat-videos on YouTube drinking beer. So the bookers rather not play the wildcard taking risks and by doing that almost no new bands survive when there's so little payback. Frustrating when you're eager to gig and there's no room for newcomers. Every place is already booked and when you finally get a spot, a few can show up but the audience is quite hard to catch. It's hard out there. Good thing internet exist so there're other possibilities to spread our music throughout the world, but nothing beats the feeling of playing live. It's so much more rewarding for your soul to express the music that you perform and if we can entertain at least 1 person we're happy. To hear that people like what we're doing is music to our ears.

Davi: Do all the members take part in the creative process?

ST: Rickard does all of the early work with the ideas and lyrics. Then we gather and play through the songs and make up things in the learning process that sounds cool, until we all agree that we've created a good song.

Davi: Releasing an independent album is not easy. You did it twice. For me, you’re one of the most talented bands I've listened in the genre, but not as known as you should. Are you waiting for a label invitation?

ST: A label invitation would be very nice to get, but it's not that important to us. What we really could use is an invitation from a good distribution company that can help us spread our music!

Davi: Again, I must thank you for your availability and for enriching my blog with your presence. I usually ask one final message for the audience but because you’re looking for more projection, make this one count. We never know who might be reading this…

ST: We have our music uploaded on torrents and free sites like Spotify,YouTube and Reverbnation. Just go wild and download some songs and merge them into your party playlist and tell your friends about us. If you like what you listen to please comment or support us by joining us on Facebook. There you can see updates from the band like Rickard Thelin's own music projects on SoundCloud, recently taken pictures and other updates. I hope you don't mind we post some direct links ... below to some of those things mentioned above. And with that I'd like to thank you Davi for everything and we wish you the best of luck, great blog!



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