Moon Safari

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Moon Safari is one of the more popular symphonic prog bands from Sweden right now. They have released three albums. I got in touch with Johan Westerlund for their story.

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When,
where and by whom was your band born ? Did any of you have any
experience from any other bands before forming Moon Safari ? Why did
you choose that name and what does this name means to you ?

The
name was just a name that appeared at the end of a MTV video back in
2000, I had no idea what the band Air was all about, and I don't
think any of us did when Petter and I decided on the name, we just
liked the sound of it, it has a dreamy feel that we probably felt
would go well with the style of music we were contemplating. But to
be honest the name came about before we were even a band, we did'nt
get together with Simon, Anthon and Tobias until 2003, when we
recorded the first demo that Tomas Bodin mixed. That was when the
band really started to come alive, before that it was just an idea.
When we first got together Simon sang in a progressive metal act
called Kharma Cosmic,with Anthon and Tobias, and Petter sang in a
band with quite similar style called Questionmarket. I played in a
Tool-inspired grunge act called Stones in Bloom. But in all honesty,
when we started making Moon Safari music I think we all felt like
that was what we were meant to do, and the constellation of people
seemed to work better than what we were used to, so it was a winning
recipe. The combination of Petter and Simon as the main writers also
brough a new level to both their songs, they have a kind of
Anderson/Wakeman relationship that make songs just appear out of
nowhere, some kind of magic that I don't think they knew before Moon
Safari. 

How
was the music scene in your local area when you started ?

It
was not really in existance. Besides the exception of a huge summer
festival called Trästockfestivalen that's really amazing there's not
really much happening in terms of live music, there's not really any
stages that attracts any crowds in the winter anyway, so I suppose
you could say we started as a studio project. To date we've just done
5 gigs in our hometown, and an equal amount in the U.S, that kind of
puts things in perspective, I think. We actually did our first gig
after
we had recorded our first album, and even then, the gig was in a
neighbouring town. But to be fair Skellefteå only has a poplulation
of 35000 people, most of which just follows the local hockeyteam.
People with an interest in music or arts in general tend to move to
bigger cities to study or to try their craft for real, something
that's probably typical for a small town. 

Over
to your three albums. Your debut album was A Doorway To Summer from
2005. Please tell us more about this album.

The
collaboration with Tomas Bodin of The Flower Kings is something that
certainly marks that period in the bands existance, he gave us the
confidence to just go for it and try our wings. None of us had really
made an album before and none of us had recorded anything  with that
scope in terms of complexity and also minutes, so it was really a
learning experience for us all. I believe it was Tomas first venture
into the world of producing as well so we were all out on thin ice,
but in the end, especially in retrospect, we all love the album and
it truly serves as a time machine that brings back alot of great
memories when we listen to it. Musically, we did have the core sound
of Moon Safari already in place, and I don't think those five songs
are any better or worse than those we've recored since, but they were
our first songs and that fact probably made us struggle with the
final arrangements and perhaps overdo certain things in a way that we
don't do now. 

Also,
we may at certain points throughout the album have misplaced the
basic groove in the songs and gone to far in to structuring details
at the top of the sound images. But, we stayed within the lines and I
think we all feel it's still a very strong album, the songs are
interconnected in our typical way and the entire thing certainly
feels like a whole when you play it from start to finish. Childhood
and Enthusiasm are two words that I feel captures our experience with
A Doorway to Summer.

Your
second album was [Blomljud] from 2008. Please tell us more about this
album.

This
was an album with an even greater scope than "Doorway", and
this was our first experience doing everything on our own from start
to finish. This meant that we could'nt really sit back and just
repeat what we did on the last recording, once again everything was
new and exciting and the ice was still thin. I can remember times
when we probably wondered if the album would feel scattered and
broken up because of the amount of songs and the length of it, but
once we got further into the structuring and we realised that: "Oh,
that moment in that song is better than what we've done before"
or "These lyrics actually make sense all the way through",
than we sort of realised that the band had grown up and then we just
rested in that feeling and went all out in every aspect.

The
thing that probably stands out most with Blomljud from a band
perspective, is the fact that we had a new member, Pontus Åkesson,
who came in to fill the void when Anthon Johansson left to join Black
Bonzo. It was a natural move and both bands grew stronger when that
happened. I don't think BB's Sound of the Apocalypse of Blomljud
would have been as good if we had not made that change. Pontus is a
highly structured individual, much like his older brother, and now we
had a lead guitar and a lead keyboard that behaved and sounded like
they were family. Go figure! Also, me and Petter wrote more lyrics
together with eachother, something that we kind of had to do becuase
of the sheer mass of the compositions. That also helped strengthen
the record as a whole and it also made it more diverse and hopefully
more interesting for the listener. From a Prog standpoint Blomljud is
still as far as we've gone in that direction; it was adventurous and
imposing in spirit and we all had alot of freedom when writing. As
always we had a great time together. There was a lack of limitations
present in all of us that for better or worse made the album what it
is. Freedom and Love are two words that represent Blomljud nicely.

Your
new album is Lover's End from last year. Please tell us more about
this album.

This
was an album on which we could collect are thoughts; musically and in
our real lives. We knew we wanted to make it sound like an end to the
beginning stages of the band, and now our three albums put together
do create a line of thought that's easy to follow. Together they
represent the beginning, the middle and the end of a relationship.
This is true whether you think of the more obvious relationship like
'boy meets girl', or something as abstract as a life cycle; there is
that move from nothing to something and then back to nothing that I
just love about our whole catalogue.

Additionally,
there is a cander on Lover's End that really only can come from
really achieving knowledge about ones place in the world. From having
listened, seen and been every side of story, from every side of the
story. I do believe it's important to step back and look at things in
the way that we did on Lover's End, take a breath and describe the
past, introvertedly. It certainly made us appreciate what we have as
a band, and as friends, more than before. Musically it was once again
a challange, but this time we knew what we were doing in a way that
made us skip all the bumps in the road. We knew what short cuts to
take without losing track of our goal, and this also made it easier
to focus on the story side of the music. There was no battle to be
won before we knew where we were going. Everything just fell into
place. Afterthough and Memory makses sense of Lover's End
beautifully.

For
those of us unknown with your music; how would you describe you music
and which bands would you compare yourself with ? 

We
once got a review in a Swedish newspaper that simply states: They
must have been brought up on mixtapes with Lasse Holm and The Little
Mermaid" 

Now,
if you knew the music of Lasse Holm you'd know he was trying for an
insult, but he failed miserably, as we like both Lasse Holm and the
type of music that frequent the Disney soundtracks. But if we got to
choose maybe we'd say:" Equal parts Beatles, Springsteen,
Hi-Los, Yes, Meatloaf, Steely Dan, Jellyfish, E.S.T, Tom Petty,
England and many many more.

You
did Rosfest 2011. How was your USA experience and are you going over
to USA again ? 

We
really feel at home in the U.S. Both times we've been over we've
stayed with a wonderful family in Queens, New York who really helped
with this feeling, they have taken care of us in the big apple, and
we've also played shows with two of the sons in the family, they have
a band called And You And I (debut album is soon to be released,
wink, wink). So we've always had a great start to our trips, and once
you get to Rosfest you want for nothing, George Roldan and his crew
and just amazing people. It's a wonderfully professional festival,
and it always takes place in great venues. So the U.S is like our
second home nowadays, and he will try to go back next year and tour
properly, hopefully on both coasts.

What
is your plans for this year and beyond ? 

We
are releasing a live cd from the Rosfest gig before Christmas, it's
being prepared for mixing right now. Also, in the spring we'll focus
our attention on a new album that we want to release in 2012, but the
date of course depends on the scope of the music, if the epics start
to form again it might take a while. But there's brilliant material
waiting to be turned into songs, so whatever the shape and size of
the product our fans will be satisfied! 

To
wrap up this interview, is there anything you want to add to this
interview ? 

We
really enjoy progarchives.com and we hope our fans take us up on that
illusive "Top 100" list that you have got going. We'd like
to be at number 1 before we quit the genre!

Lots
of love to anyone who reads this and helps our band reach more
people!

Thank you to Johan for this interview

Their PA profile is here and their homepage's here