I found one more Interview with Legion.
http://www.powermetal.de/interview/inte ... ,1571.html
Sorry, but it's in german. But..
It just took me 2 days to translate it
I just hate it when the Interviewers use german phrases which are totally impossible to translate into english
I'm sorry, I might have some grammatical mistakes in there. Here you go:
Erik „Legion“ Hagstedt, once frontman from the legendary band MARDUK seems to be able to link easily with DEVIAN to old heydays of his former formation. “God to the Illfated” the second just released album of the band, the just solved Winterfest Tour together with heroes like DEICIDE and VADER but also several memorable anecdotes from the early days of DEVIAN and some rudiments for the future offered enough topics for Legion, who turned out as an eloquent but also sympathy dialogue partner.
Since their departure from Marduk, Erik „Legion“ Hagstedt and Emil Dragutinovic have with DEVIAN a new band on the start which proves to us that they count as one of the Grand Masters of the Death-Thrash scene. Last year they hammered in their second album “God to the Illfated” together with the 2 guitarists Tomas Nilsson and Jonas “Joinus” Mattson as well as stepped in bassplayer Carl Stjärnlöv which has been released short before the last year ended and which could impress mightfully. And to drum up business for it the guys just went a few days after the official release date together with DEICIDE, VADER and SAMAEL on the “Winterfest Tour” through our latitudes and knew how to impose with their hefty melange.
To getting started with the Interview which just has been arranged a few days after the Tour I of course had to ask singer Legion about his perceptions about this journey.
Legion:
It was a fantastic time we spend on tour. Everyone involved had their fun and it also went exceptionally good regarding the gigs. We didn’t have to register any deficit and the whole tour certainly brought as a lot of new fans. For me personally the last show has been the absolute Highlight when I had the honour to be part of the Decide stage appearance as Special Guest. Performing together with this band was a real impressive experience. Glen Benton on the bass besides me while I was allowed to sing „Lunatic of Gods Creation“… I won’t forget this for my whole life.
Walter:
I bet the venue was boiling. How did DEVIAN appealed basically?
Legion:
Optimally! We had pretty much self confidence because of our last tour with Vader, but we really didn’t expect such euphoric reactions. Even if we just focused on our actual Album and just put “Scarred” from our Debut on the Setlist everything turned out really good. In the beginning we admittedly rehearsed several more songs from “Ninewinged Serpent” but we didn’t have to recourse of them but will keep them when we’ll invade europe once again in autumn. I can’t wait to play live again!
Walter:
The euphoria is really not stoppable so Legion and Devian really have had a successful concert journey. This Enthusiasm s a little surprising though, since „God to the Illfated“ was just available for a short time at this point of the tour and the feedback was not really available in abundance. How were the reactions of the press and the fans afterwards?
Legion:
By now we almost really just got positive resonance. It seems that the people take it what we do, how we do it and also feel and conceive similar as we do when they hear our music so just as it happened to us when we record the album. It also seems that we really made it to present DEVIAN in the actual sense. But it was really amazing that on this tour, so by a time where the album was more than less brand new, many fans in the front rows were already able to sing the texts of our songs. I never expected such an enthusiasm! Just as little that at some places the fans came a long with big banners in the audience to honour us! What a sight, an indescribable feeling!
Walter:
So much about the extremely pleasant “Status Quo” in DEVIAN. So let’s move on from the present and let’s talk a bit about the past. What was the main reason you have left MARDUK, and to start this, first just as project planned, venture?
Legion:
It was simply as this, that nothing could motivate me anymore in Marduk so it was just a logical Step I had to do. Personally there was completely nothing anymore what Marduk could give to me. In the past of this band something really fantastic and sensational has been created which was hard to top. But it doesn’t make any sense to me just to appeal on the past of a band and just to live on the slowly but surely withering laurels. Besides that the chemic inside the line up wasn’t good at all anymore and I started to ask myself everyday for several times what I still should do in this band. So I decided to quit Marduk. Emil felt quite the same and he followed me. We came to the conclusion that we still want to create music together but we was sure from the beginning that something totally different has to turn out of this.
Walter:
The venture was first entitled by the short living name Elizium which has been changed quickly into DEVIAN. Why?
Legion:
We realized already during the songwriting for the first tracks that this initially name, where you rather thought about something Ambient-Metal like, seems to be completely inappropriate, so it came to a spontaneous renaming. The first compositions already turned out as hefty Black - / Death – / Thrash Metal bastards, regarding the stylistic and so we just couldn’t do anything else to give our baby another, better suitable name. Apart from that we noticed that the name Elizium has been used for several other combos so no one was waiting for another band with this name to come.
Walter:
Did you have certain expectations for DEVIAN or did you just waited how the thing will turn out?
Legion:
Since me and Emil have been in this business for a long time we exactly know what we want but also what it matters and so we didn’t waste any second to think about what could happen to us. We’re two tremendously ambitioned musicians with almost identical goals and regarding this aspect we have something like an “Arrangement” in DEVIAN which says that the personal interests always have to subordinate to the interests of the band. When you can call that an expectation then these is exactly ours. But when you mean that we make music in an eventual calculus, then I simply have to answer this with a “No” because such a thing doesn’t exist in my case.
Walter:
But someone can expect that even matured musicians as you guys are influenced by other bands and styles. Which inspirations can you mention for DEVIAN?
Legion:
A lot. But we never ha din our mind to copy another band or to do something similar. Metal has to emerge on its own, in fact from creativity and emotions. Since I’m infected with the “Heavy Metal Virus” since I’ve been a Teenager, to be exact since I discovered bands like Iron Maiden, I couldn’t do anything else as to take a look in this scene and find out which bands makes music in the way how I conceived it to be. For me personally it has been, besides Iron Maiden, especially Judas Priest, Mercyful Fate, Mayhem and Slayer, the bands which creative output touched me the most. Sure there are numberless other bands I started to appreciate but these mentioned ones are for me the most important and most influential ones of all time.
Walter:
What do you think of the development of your actual band?
Legion:
I think we’re on the right way. When we started to write “God to the Illfated” some passages developed almost naturally which hasn’t been the same as we did “Ninewinged Serpent”. This development will be more comprehensible in a similar way for the third album at least we feel so in our current procedure. Usually it takes like five years until a band is solidified and I think this period is also the right one for DEVIAN. Meanwhile we’ve been growing together as band and that’s why the songwriting is much easier. The flow is just present since the recording of “God to the Illfated” and will still be in the future hopefully.
Walter:
Were the tracks of „Ninewinged Serpent“ already existent before the forming of DEVIAN or did you started with the composing for it later on?
Legion:
All songs accrued between spring 2006 and spring 2007, excluding “Remnant Song” which Emil already composed for the Marduk album “Plague Angel”. Since we had the opinion that this composition is just too good to get rotten in the archives, we integrated it on our debut. Otherwise all tracks were fresh and brandnew, at least at that point. We didn’t plan at all to get an album on start where we can just present surplus material out of our archives.
Walter:
How has it been with liv shows in the first period of the band, before you went on tour with Vader?
Legion:
We really accepted all offers to play some gigs and already realized in this early stadium how entertaining it was to play in this line-up together. We felt immediately that we were all able to radiate the same Rock ‘n’ Roll Vibes and that’s why our gigs have been something really special from the beginning. Admittedly it has just been the really small clubs we ere allowed to play but the imposing thing was how crazy the audience became when we stood on the stage. Even if you just played in front of 50 guys it felt like we would play in front of 5000 freaks, all hell breaks loose! One time I’ve even noticed that we infected our local sound man with our euphoria, he took off his shirt, neglected his job just to throw himself slamming into the crowd. What a picture! One more highlight was our gig at the “Namrock Fest”. Although I honestly can’t remember of all happenings, because I had to recover at a hospital due to an alcohol intoxication but I remember that our gig itself was sensational!
Walter:
After a little journey to the past we now want to focus on the present and also the future. How would you separate our both albums? I hear much more Aggression on “God to the Illfated” but at the same time also enhanced melodies and especially obviously more hooks.
Legion:
There you’re quite right. We had in our mind to create a logical successor of our debut and due to the development of DEVIAN these exact features, so the melodies but also the increased and more intensified Aggression emerged. We actually didn’t know really in which “genre” this was going to go but we all worked on our weaknesses and strengths, everyone just for himself. The tour last years has also been a big step forward since we could recognize on which songs the fans were going crazy. Regarding this aspect, concerts but especially tours are a really important experience for a band and you have to consider that during the songwriting even if DEVIAN would never “prostitute” themselves just go down well.
Walter:
In which countries became the fans really crazy, so to say: Which nations would you consider as „yours“ regarding the resonance?
Legion:
Germany and France seems to love us! Each show we played there so far became a success. Same goes for Italy but not in such intensity. Indeed you don’t know anymore how the metal-scene will develop but Germany is and will always be the stronghold of Metal it definitely won’t change in the next upcoming years.
Walter:
You bet! The Metal fans here are not just really loyal but also enthusiastic in abundance. But even you made it to impose with your music on a high level, there are much more components which matters in the general view of DEVIAN. First there are the lyrics I’d love to get explained.
Legion:
Regarding the inspiration for that I have to say that our daily routine is giving us so much input that you don’t need any other influences anymore. Although I have to say that these things are rather the obscure themes of our lives which are fascinating me. “Summerdeath” for example which is about the bestial murder of “Black Dahlia”. I got myself into the situation of the offender, I wrote the lyrics out of the viewpoint of him. That’s maybe sounds a little morbid but was really interesting and regarding the theme it has also been intensely thrilling especially because I felt so magically attracted to it that I couldn’t do something else as ventilating this theme for myself and writing lyrics about it. Indeed there are also a lot of personal rudiments to discover on our album. The main features of “When the vultures have left” for example came into my mind during the funeral of one of my best friends.
Walter:
Besides the lyrics, also the artwork (from the greek grand master Seth Siro Anton perfectly drawn into attention) is not an unessential aspect regarding the general impression of “God to the Illfated”.
Legion:
This guy is just fantastic! He already hustled himself in a hugely way for our first album and he agonized about the implementation about the theme. I really liked his rudiments but apart from that it also was an intensely ambitioned and professional approach which I was really impressed with. We just needed to convey the most essential contents otherwise we gave him plenty of scope. His creativity is likewise so exceptional as his work itself that’s why the realization turned out to our utmost satisfaction. You don’t have to give him any presets what he has to do, Seth is simply “our” man for it!
Walter:
Is your new album going to presented once again at a tour soon?
Legion:
But of course! Soon we’re going to team up with Unleashed for a tour through scandinavia. Furthermore we have some concrete offers for festival in this season but they’re not confirmed yet, that’s because I’m not allowed to bewray anything yet. I hope that we’re able to go on tour again in autumn since we couldn’t play in England or on the Iberian peninsula yet. The requirement for DEVIAN seems to be present, at least we got this impression due to the reactions from the audience during the Winterfest tour.
Walter:
It seems that you already have a big fanbase in europe, so how is it on other continents?
Legion:
I can’t say anything about that yet, but I’m sure it will come. At the moment we’re eager to go on step to another. We don’t need to rush anything and according to that we can start considerably more targeted and more concentrated. Since we already “conquered” Europe fairly we also focus attention on it. At all other places of this world we first need to establish ourselves with our new record. Just then it makes sense to tour there.
Walter:
Okay, then we’ll talk about that in the next Interview when you released your third album. Even if it’s quite too early for it yet I would love to get a statement on that and about the future of the band
Legion:
Although it seems that we’re just focusing on concerts exclusively at the moment, I’m sure that we’ll enter the Studio this year to record “Devian III”. Prepare for it! Furthermore I want to thank you in the name of the whole band for your interest in DEVIAN!
