Interview: Magnus Lindberg (Cult of Luna)
Words by Jonas Appelqvist, pics by Martin Eriksson
First off, let me know what you thought of Roskilde and your gig there?
It was by far the best festival gig I've played. The crowd was awesome and the festival crew was great as well. This was my first visit to Roskilde and it was indeed a fine experience.
If I was to categorize your music to the IAT-readers who are not that familiar with you or your music, how would you describe it? I'm having a hard time describing it as metal, you know...
Yeah, I understand that. And to be honest, we're not that keen on people calling us a metal band really. I'd like to say that we play dark and heavy rock with some ambient touches to it. In general, I think it's a bad idea to categorize music.
I'm with you on that one. If people ask me what kind of music a certain band plays I often points them in the direction where I name a few bands they in some way sound a bit like. Like in Cult of Luna's case: Isis and Neurosis to mention a few.
But in a way, when people see what kind of label you're on (Earache), you're often placed in the metal genre right?
That's true. But, on the other hand, we are probably the only ones on Earache that sounds like we do. The rest of the label bands are, more or less, strictly death-, black-, thrash- or plain heavy metal bands. And I dig that, it's just not what we do.
Comparing Earache to the label that released your first album, Rage of Achilles, are there any differences?
Well, Rage of Achilles... We were never signed to them. It's just an independent record company that got to hear us, liked what they heard and wanted to release an album. No strings attached. Earache is, of course, a completely different label with a different approach. It's larger and we haven't had any problems with them. So I'm pleased. But then again, this is like the only record label I've had to deal with this far so I'm not an expert.
Your latest release, "Somewhere along the highway", have gotten great reviews in almost every media. How did you guys approach the songs when it was time to record it? Compared to the critically acclaimed 3rd album "Salvation"?
In a way we recorded just like we did when "Salvation" was recorded. With the difference that we focused on doing lots of it live and, you know, more rough. It was also a lot quicker to finish "Somewhere along the highway" due to the live feeling and recording. And speaking of great reviews; people seem to like what we're doing and no, I haven't seen so many bad reviews myself.
So your touring days are over this time right?
Yes. We did a southern European tour and now we're just doing some separate festival gigs. I think we will take some time off later on and focus on writing new material for our next album.
Cool. I'm looking forward to that. Lastly, name three of the worlds best albums ever released?
Oh, that's a tricky one. I'm going to have to go with "Appetite for destruction" by Guns n' Roses, the Massive Attack album "Mezzanine" and... This is hard. Oh yeah, "Daydream nation" Sonic Youth is always up there among the top albums so I'll say that one.