(1) Could you tell our readers about your band CONFESS ? – What kind of music do you
perform, when was it established, etc.?
We are a Swedish sleaze metal band from Stockholm established in 2008 by John Elliot. We have always seen ourselves as a hard rock/metal band, but I guess the makeup and bandanas shoved us straight into the sleaze department.
(2) Which bands or artists inspired you to play music?
When I started playing drums, I was probably most inspired by Iron Maiden, Metallica, Ozzy Osbourne, Symphony X, Sonata Arctica and other bands. Later on, when I joined Confess, we had those kinds of influences to the band, but also a lot of influences from newer Swedish bands like Hardcore Superstar, HEAT, Crazy Lixx, Sister, Crashdiet. Those bands were our default party music, and we partied pretty much back then…
(3) Who came up with the cover art for the single Wicked Temptations?
The cover art for Wicked Temptations is also the cover for the whole album. It’s inspired by the title track “Metalmorphosis” which obviously is a mix between “metal” and “metamorphosis”. So, I got the idea of a moth that went through Metalmorphosis. I wanted to make an album cover with a centred object, in contrast to our previous
album covers. This cover is more like a crest symbol and matches the epic album title.
(4) Who wrote the lyrics for your new album, how did they come to be?
I wrote most of the lyrics for this album which is new for us. Usually it’s John, me and Lucky that writes together.
John wrote lyrics for “Beat of My Heart”, “Silvermalen” and a track that ended up as a bonus, the rest is written by me. It started with the lyrics for the previous single “Spitfire” where John had written some lyrics which I couldn’t understand, and I wanted the song to be relatable. I wrote some new lyrics for it pretty fast, which surprised me. He totally approved me changing the lyrics by the way, we are always open for changing stuff in our songs.
Since Lucky hadn’t written in a long time and John was swamped with other things during the writing process I started writing the lyrics, and the more I wrote the easier and better it got. But I realized that I had to give the writing attention and not multitask. Long walks in the forest with no music/podcasts in my ears, just thinking through the lyrics is a part of my writing process, but I mainly write lyrics in the morning with a lot
of coffee by my side.
(5) Who created the logo for the band, and who takes care of the graphics and the
website?
The logo was drawn by Lucky back in the day and worked through by John’s dad. We wanted to have a logo that was inspired by death/thrash metal, and it came out great. We also wanted a symbol, and we came up with the idea of a pentagram combined with a C. Lo and behold, the “Centagram” was created. Intern The logos were recently re-drawn by the Chilean illustrator Bastian Velásquez and became even better. He even included some chrome variants which I always wanted. John is a graphic designer, and I always loved editing images and videos, so we do a lot by ourselves. Blomman (our previous guitarist) did most of our music videos, and
the website is managed by our guitarist Asser.
(6) How many Shows have you played? Which type of gigs do you prefer, whether (Venues
or festivals) and which of your performances would you consider as the best?
I have no idea how many shows we have done, we have mainly done festival shows the last couple of years, which we love. We did some touring for the first albums; that’s a lot of fun too. We played in Los Angeles in 2015, that was a good time. A lot of good festivals around Europe like Wildfest, Indoor Summer, Call of the Wild.
(7) What is your songwriting process?
The writing process is usually me or John making demos, which we we rework together with the band a bit before recording. Our songs are usually close to done at the demo stage, but we are almost always adding the vocal melodies and lyrics last. That can change an awesome demo to a boring song, so we try to get an idea of how the vocals should be as soon as possible. I’m a big fan of synths and sound FX, so those things are usually in the
demos from the beginning.
(8) Why did you pick the song Wicked Temptations for your new single?
That was a no-brainer when picking the first single, it’s a catchy party anthem and probably
the “poppiest” song on the album, so it also serves as sort of a “peace offering” as Devin
Townsend once put it. It was also a bit of a goodbye-song for Blomman who left Confess during the recording of the album since he wrote and recorded the cool double tracked guitar solo. He did a cameo in the music video where he appears out of nowhere and plays the solo.
(9) What are the main themes or messages in your lyrics?
Oh, the themes of the lyrics are all over the place. The new album has lyrics about everything from Vikings to fiction, love, war, day drinking, and even about the classic movie The Warriors from ’79.
(10) Do you have endorsements that you want to talk about or share?
I have been playing XCEL Drumsticks with the Confess logo on them for ages. Great
American drumsticks! We have recently opened our official web shop at Dead Fashion Industries which is a great
company.
(11) Would you like to share any shows or festivals coming up?
We are playing in Oslo January 24 th with Eclipse, and the Mayhem Rock Festival May 16-17 where we play Nottingham and London. We have some more stuff coming soon as well.
(12) How and where can your fans contact you? What about you and social networks?
My Instagram is samuelsamael.
We are mostly active on Instagram and Facebook.
mail: Info@confess.se.
Instagram/fb: confessofsweden
Web: www.confess.se
Booking: david@megalomanium.com
