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To be honest the release of Dreamland's debut I missed somehow, but Eye For An Eye got to me and it was time to learn more about the Swedish!
As far as I know you started as Infinity... Please tell us a bit about the beginning of Dreamland!
Well, Dreamland was born in late 2003 from the ashes of my old band Infinity! A band which I started together with a friend of mine - back in the late nineties named - Fredrik Josefsson.
We released a CD single named The Call in 2000 which was followed up by loads of gigs in Sweden an one of them at the Sweden Rock Festival.
We were close to signing a contract after we released this CD-single, but then we had a lot of difference of opinions in the band which led to huge changes in the line-up and finally it resulted in that the band took a break for six month and when we went back together with a new line-up and a brand new name Dreamland.
So far so good, but unfortunately there were some differences of opinions in the band and finally it went so far that me and Fredrik had to go separate paths.
I moved to Gothenburg and I changed the whole line-up again except the bass player Mats Rendlert which is the only member in the band that has survived all the line-up changes through the years!
With a new line-up we decided to start over under the name Dreamland and we started a cooperation together with Hammerfall singer Joacim Cans.
We recorded a demo in 2003/04 and it resulted in a contract with the German company Dockyard1 and in the end of 2005 our debut album Future's Calling were released.
In the middle of everything I got a call from Fredrik Nordstöm of Dream Evil and was asked to be their new singer. So for a couple of month I was in two bands.
Why did you choose Dreamland as the new name? And what does it mean to you?
I guess that it was something that we at that time felt was a natural name for the band. We thought it would represent the style of metal we're composing and I still think it is!
If you hear the band name for the first time I would say that you would guess it belonged to a band playing some kind of heavy metal.
On your debut Future's Calling you already worked with Joacim Cans and Andy LaRocque. How did you get in touch with them? And how is working with these guys?
Joacim is the main reason were we are today.
He was the one believing in our music when no one else did at the time when we didn't had a record deal. He helped us out getting one and also gave us a lot of advice how to manage to stay alive in the music business!
Andy is an old friend to some of us in the band, but he's also a big fan of the music we're playing and he's a great producer, so it felt natural to ask him to help us out on our debut. And when the result was high above our own expectations it was no doubt that we wanted to work with him again.
When you look back at your debut, is there anything you would like to change?
Well, maybe some of the lyrics, I could have put some more effort in some of them, but I think that I've evened it by putting down a really hard work and research on Eye For An Eye. But at the same time you learn by your mistakes! But I still think that even if it's a debut album, it doesn't sound like one!
It seems that your music is inspired by 80's hard rock / melodic metal bands. Which bands influenced you most?
I must say that Europe and Joey Tempest have been great icons for me growing up, but the reason I started to sing was when Hammerfall released Glory To The Brave in 1997..
I've been stuck to heavy metal since I first heard Helloween's Keeper Part II and bands that's influenced me during the years, just to mention some is: Kamelot, Dokken, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden & Hammerfall.
Do you write songs as a band? Or is someone coming up with a song and then everybody gets involved?
I write most all of the lyrics and vocal lines. And on Eye For An Eye I also wrote most parts of the music. But all of the members contributes with ideas in the writing process.
On the first album Johan wrote most of the music, but on this one Eric and Jesse took a step forward in the music making. We have now rules about who's the main writer. On next album it may be Mats who will write the songs!
We usually write the material in each home studio and when a song's finished the other member's gets a copy to make an opinion about it!
What inspires you lyrically?
My lyrics is mostly influenced and inspired of things that we've been through on the road or things that happens in my surrounding, I think the contents of the lyrics are really important and I put a lot of effort writing them.
On this release I also got some input and ideas from my dear friend Olof Mörck (Dragonland) that also is one of the ones producing the album.
Please tell us which songs are lyrically most important for you on Eye For An Eye!
I would like to say Children Of Tomorrow. It's about how we destroy and polluting this earth. But we're continuing to postpone the problem's and in the end it's our children that will have to clean our mess.
The new album is called Eye For An Eye. Did you choose this title, because you think that the song is most representative for the album? Or does it have a different meaning for you?
I must say it represents both the album and the band in several ways. First of all it's a strong meaning behind the written sentence, but also you read the lyric to the song. Why we choose it as an album title is, because we want to say that we're in this business to stay.
Of course we don't mean that we as a band in any way would have someone to revenge, but we want people to see it as a statement that heavy metal is back and with our and all fans of heavy metal it will stay that way!
The cover artwork is done by Marco Jacobi - as far as I know - and he also did the cover for your debut. How did you get in touch with him initially?
It was through our record label Dockyard1 we got in touch with him. And we really liked the first cover he made for the debut, so it was an easy choice to let him do the new cover as well!
And after following our concept on our second release I guess that we've got ourselves a mascot in the blond girl!
And I think that's pretty cool and it reminds me of old covers of bands like Warlock in the 80's!
Did you had an idea for the artwork he 'just' realized? Or was it his idea?
As I answered in the last question, Marco came up with the idea on the first album and on the second one we brainstormed together.
Why such a dark cover? Is Dreamland that dark for you?
I wouldn't say that it just a dark cover, I would prefer to call it something between dark and mystique.
But that's cool for me that everyone have different opinions about what they see.
On the other hand the lyrics on this album are a bit deeper and I guess you could call some of them dark as well. But usually I wouldn't place Dreamland as a dark band. No.
As the album is out a few weeks... Any live shows ahead? Festivals? A tour?
We're working with thing's like that right now. We have been booked to a couple of festivals that's not official yet, but anyone that's interested of booking us is welcome to contact us through our home page www.dream-land.nu
We are still searching for a booking agency. We've done most of the work by ourselves, but we've got to a point where it's time to let someone else help us with it!
Jesse Linskog is also playing in Dragonland, does that have any influence on your schedule? What about the rest of you? Any other projects?
Yes, Jesse is a superb drummer and a really nice guy! We are close friends with Dragonland and we're actually sharing the same rehearsal room together.
Jesse have a tribute band together with Jonas Heigert (Dragonland) Oscar Dronjak (Hammerfall) and Mats and Eric (Dreamland).
Me and Olof Mörck (also from Dragonland) have just decided to do something together and this project will be called Avalanche.
But all of us always have the main focus on Dreamland (expect Jesse), but there's still haven't been any problems with shows being at the same time as Dragonland, so I hope it will stay that way.
Any guest musician you would like to work with in future? Ever thought about asking one of the musicians who influenced you to do a guest appearance?
We've had a couple of guest on the past two albums that no one knows about...
Jonas Heigert (Dragonland)
Olof Mörck (Dragonland)
Elise Ryd (been singing on albums with Falconer, Dragonland etc)
Andreas Solveström (Within Y)
Oscar Dronjack (Hammerfall)
Joacim Cans (Hammerfall)
Elias Holmlid (Dragonland)
On some of our next albums I would've loved to work together with Joey Tempest or Michael Kiske. I know that Eric would have chosen Zakk Wylde and Jon Norum.
And ho knows maybe this dream will come true some day?
Famous last words? Anything you want to add?
Thanks for a great interview and that you took your time to make this questions for us!
For more info about the band check out our myspace site www.myspace.com/dreamlandmetal or or homepage www.dream-land.nu
Hope to see you all on tour and till then let's hope 2007 will be a great year for Heavy Metal.
Take care //JAKE E DREAMLAND
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