Veni Domine

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Back in 1987, Torbjörn Weinesjö, Thomas Weinesjö and Anders Olofsson decided to start the band that was going to be Veni Domine in 1989.
The rest is history and the subject of this interview with Torbjörn. 
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Your biography has been covered in your ProgArchives profile so let's
bypass this and go straight to the albums. But why did you choose
that name ? 

We wanted something that pretty well described where we came from
when starting the band, our approach and so forth, I guess like all
other bands with a few exceptions. We wanted the name to hold the
depth and the epic I guess. So we decided to look for names in the
latin bible and found it in the end of the last book, revelations. In
English it means "Come, Lord"

Please give me your
(long or brief) thoughts and lowdowns on.......

Fall Babylon Fall
from 1992

Debut cd, I was in my earliest 20´s. Went to Eastbourne, England
for about 3 weeks. I mean we had the time of our lives in a way,
ofcourse a lot of work. Fredrik caught a cold or something so we had
find a studio in Sweden to complete the recordings. Enter Thunderload
studios, one of few studios we found that could handle the rather
large reel that held "the cronicle of the seven seals", an
epic 22 minute thing. Added vocals, additional guitars and the mix.

Material Sanctuary
from 1994

Switched labels and again entered Thunderload studios for a
massive session, can´t recall the amount of time we spent but it was
extreme, soundchecking drums for 10 or 12 days. We fullfilled our
goal to make the heaviest cd possible.  We started to
glitch with the record company or vice versa. It was so draining
having a full time job and then enter the studio in the evenings
working, sometimes to 4, 5, 6 in the morning, get an hour of sleep
and then on it again, for months, ofcourse some evenings you just had
to get home to crash. Looking back it's just plain stupid, I'm
grateful that we didn't start doing drugs or drink just to get by. We
got our power from elsewhere.  

Spiritual Wasteland
from 1998

Not a happy recording, alot of anger and mistrust, we decided to
let Magnus Thorman go as this cd required a more progressive touch
and he wasn't there. Painful in many ways as we always had a good
time together. The record company didn't quite like the songs, we did
a preprod to avoid just that and I somewhat thought we did that for
nothing as we never heard word about it before half the cd
was recorded. So alot of rewriting on the set, many odd arangements
took place as well, not a favourite cd by the band. Even though it
have it's moments. The relation with the recordcompany never really
got back on track after this.

IIII-The Album Of
Labour from 2004

Yeah, this was my personal Via Dolorosa in many ways. We started
the sessions late 90's Fredrik got a throat disease, we recorded it
ourselves as the record company didn't wanna take part in the same
way, last cd in the contract. In the middle of the recording the
record company said they probably gonna rent the studio out long
term and I felt forced to find other solutions to complete the
recordings. The first version of my studio " Room of doom"
was born. I transferred the 24ch analogue tapes to my computer on
rented equipment, reading up on the technical side, after many hours
of fiddling I started to find my way around things. From this day
all of the recordings were funded by myself. Fredrik's throat had bad
and good days, the really bad days we started his warming up, had a
go at a textline said let's call it a day. The good days we
could nail half a song, far from the hours and hours of hitting
hipitched screams a few years back. Anyways we finished the mix and
presented it for the recordcompany thinking they would be happy
to have a cd out with no effort or cost from their own side, but
for over a month I heard nothing. So I got back to them asking and
they had small issues with the mix, ok no problems. Then dead
silence. So we tried and tried but nothing happened us assuming they
were not interested in releasing that's when we contacted our
management who wanted to release on his label. After that they had a
huge interest and in came laywers and I wont go into that. After we
decided to draw back our offensive approach it calmed down to
nothing again. Scratching our heads......anyways some year or years
later I called them and asked how to do it we found that Rivel
records could do a license release just to get the stuff out. The
record comapany would get the normal rating and we're left with
the non profit license. Of course we we´re a bit upset as they
did nothing to get the cd either done or released. Even though I'm
over that today I was pretty angry back in the day, more or less
killed our business blocking the release for so many years, but I
guess they thought we deserved it, being a bit cranky at times
with how things were handled. I´m proud we made it, though I still
find it difficult enjoy the disc as i tend to head down memory lane.

23:59 from 2006

The record company still had an option left and we felt determined
with this one, funding it ourselves doing all ourselves just to keep
the record company out so that they couldn´t claim rights on
anything. The most gothic cd for us by far, really like the
soundscapes and the feel on this. I'm proud that we went our own way
again not asking permission to do anything. Remember how I watched
the clock that night when the month of decision on the option was
about to end. I seriously thought they would call the last minute to
take it just to hurt us. 23:59 was a very, very long minute that
night. I slept like a king no less.......

Tongues from 2007

Free at last, so they say but without a
baseplayer. Going back a bit to the early Veni Domine a bit more
uptempo here and there, such a joy to have the excellent Ez Gomér of
Jet Circus on a couple of tracks and Peter Carlsohn of the giants and
pioneers Jerusalem, Andreas Passmark now with Royal Hunt and
brilliant multimusician Gary Kusthoss on the fretless base. Man that
was a treat, these guys truly added to the cd!! So different in the
approach of the base but so brilliant!! I can't say enough good about
the guys. A bit more complex in it's form than 23:59 but still quite
few fun angles in terms of songwriting I think.

Who is Veni Domine
anno 2010 ? 

Thomas Weinesjö - drums

Torbjörn Weinesjö - guitars

Fredrik Sjöholm - Vocals

Bass and keys come and go a bit and has during the years, the core
remains.

Just to give those of us who are unknown with your band a bit of a
reference point or two: How would you describe your music ? 

These days I would say hardrock, some say symphonic, progressive
doom. Back in the day I think we were labeld progressive doom. Take
one piece of Rush a piece of Black Sabbath and a piece of Depeche
mode....perhaps?

In the mid 1990s, Veni Domine was a big name and held in high esteeem
by the market leading record label managers who spent Monday to
Saturday pushing satanic black metal bands and went to church every
Sunday morning. And that is a fact, btw. 
 You have never hidden your Christianity and have been dealing with
both the Christian and the secular market. What is your memories from
this time and how did you deal with this pretty wild black metal
situation ? Bands like Horde really went up some people's noses at
that time...

You know, we never had a problem with
the secular market or bands, sometimes they had it with us wich is
kinda ironic as most of the time those guys are the one calling
belivers of God the narrow minded ones. We met Satanic bands and "so
called Satanic" bands putting up an attitude, we always came in
with a smile you know, we have a tendancy of always trying to see the
good stuff in situations and people, and I guess not all apriciate
that. It's such a strange world sometimes, it's ok to believe in
whatever, but if you believe in God according to the bible you're
a nutcase you know. But yeah belive in stones or stars or whatever
thats soooo cooool man ;)

People can say what they want, I know for a fact that someday in
your life you're gonna have questions about life and God and stuff. I
had many, many conversations of such kinds with guys I couldn´t
dream of turning around and it's ok, we all do the journey. Often
people see Jesus as the prosecutor but in fact He is our laywer,
but 
let´s not get into that right now.

How is the availability of your records and what is your experience
with the music industry ? 

Well, the first three is out, our old
record company have no intresst in having them out on the
market, the price for me to buy the rights is, well, let's say on the
offensive side. And would take me a few lifetimes to earn back.

The last three are available.

My experience is that you should have all your papers in order and
to know that either you pay a laywer to check the contracts before or
pay a laywer in court afterwards ;) Seriously, we havn´t been on the
top floor dealing with the big ones so I can´t say anything about
that. But in the middle ground I would say that you're dealing with
people and people normally like to be treated well and with respect
so as long you have that going for you I would say you're almost home
free.

What is your view on this new internet prog/metal scene where
nerds/human beings from Vladivostok to Los Angeles is suddenly
popping up in your inbox based on some minutes of music on Youtube
and Myspace. Is it easier to run Veni Domine now than back in 1990
when cassette tapes and CD-Rs were the ultimate of human inventions ?

I think it's great that all and everyone can get their stuff
published to the masses in no time, that's the good part of
evolution. The sad part is that fewer bands get paid, and normally
that would lead to less expensive recordings, a higher rate to get
tickets to shows, I guess it will level out in a few years time,
something have to change, let´s see how it turns out. You can't make
rules to level it out that's for sure.

What is your plans for the rest of this year and next year ?

We will probably start the next recording session with the band
"Audiovision", also do shows with a stripped down version
of that as a trio, we have songs in the works for the next Veni
Domine cd, also I have a few questions about producing also a few
questions of guitarwork on cds, have to wait and see how
much time I can spare. Beeing a father of three with fulltime work
and heavily into the church I'm in, time flies so to speak.

Is any of you involved in any other bands or projects ?

The last year I've been the
guitarplayer for classicrock band Audiovision, recording 1 cd and
three videos ( check Youtube), highlight was to open up for Stryper
on parts their European leg of their 25th aniv. tour. So,

Audiovision ( Thomas and I), Veni Domine, my studio "Room of
doom", also I have my own project yet to be released "The
red stone project", we also helped Zia ( Swedish rock/pop
sensation) out on a show this summer, we keep busy.

Anything you want to add to this interview ? 

Just a hughe thanks for the support
from our friends over the years, we've gotten some incredible mails
from all over the world, showing us that our work was not in vain,
we're very fortunate as a band. And......check the three last Veni
Domine cds out or the first three as they in a few years only will be
rumours ha ha ha.

Thanks and God bless

Torbjörn

Thank you to Torbjörn for this interview

Their PA profile is here and their homepage is here

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toroddfuglesteg Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Reviewer page Forum Senior Member Retired Joined: March 04 2008 Location: Retirement Home Status: Offline Points: 3658	Topic: Veni Domine Posted: August 30 2010 at 09:51
	Back in 1987, Torbjörn Weinesjö, Thomas Weinesjö and Anders Olofsson decided to start the band that was going to be Veni Domine in 1989. The rest is history and the subject of this interview with Torbjörn. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Your biography has been covered in your ProgArchives profile so let's bypass this and go straight to the albums. But why did you choose that name ? We wanted something that pretty well described where we came from when starting the band, our approach and so forth, I guess like all other bands with a few exceptions. We wanted the name to hold the depth and the epic I guess. So we decided to look for names in the latin bible and found it in the end of the last book, revelations. In English it means "Come, Lord" Please give me your (long or brief) thoughts and lowdowns on....... Fall Babylon Fall from 1992 Debut cd, I was in my earliest 20´s. Went to Eastbourne, England for about 3 weeks. I mean we had the time of our lives in a way, ofcourse a lot of work. Fredrik caught a cold or something so we had find a studio in Sweden to complete the recordings. Enter Thunderload studios, one of few studios we found that could handle the rather large reel that held "the cronicle of the seven seals", an epic 22 minute thing. Added vocals, additional guitars and the mix. Material Sanctuary from 1994 Switched labels and again entered Thunderload studios for a massive session, can´t recall the amount of time we spent but it was extreme, soundchecking drums for 10 or 12 days. We fullfilled our goal to make the heaviest cd possible. We started to glitch with the record company or vice versa. It was so draining having a full time job and then enter the studio in the evenings working, sometimes to 4, 5, 6 in the morning, get an hour of sleep and then on it again, for months, ofcourse some evenings you just had to get home to crash. Looking back it's just plain stupid, I'm grateful that we didn't start doing drugs or drink just to get by. We got our power from elsewhere. Spiritual Wasteland from 1998 Not a happy recording, alot of anger and mistrust, we decided to let Magnus Thorman go as this cd required a more progressive touch and he wasn't there. Painful in many ways as we always had a good time together. The record company didn't quite like the songs, we did a preprod to avoid just that and I somewhat thought we did that for nothing as we never heard word about it before half the cd was recorded. So alot of rewriting on the set, many odd arangements took place as well, not a favourite cd by the band. Even though it have it's moments. The relation with the recordcompany never really got back on track after this. IIII-The Album Of Labour from 2004 Yeah, this was my personal Via Dolorosa in many ways. We started the sessions late 90's Fredrik got a throat disease, we recorded it ourselves as the record company didn't wanna take part in the same way, last cd in the contract. In the middle of the recording the record company said they probably gonna rent the studio out long term and I felt forced to find other solutions to complete the recordings. The first version of my studio " Room of doom" was born. I transferred the 24ch analogue tapes to my computer on rented equipment, reading up on the technical side, after many hours of fiddling I started to find my way around things. From this day all of the recordings were funded by myself. Fredrik's throat had bad and good days, the really bad days we started his warming up, had a go at a textline said let's call it a day. The good days we could nail half a song, far from the hours and hours of hitting hipitched screams a few years back. Anyways we finished the mix and presented it for the recordcompany thinking they would be happy to have a cd out with no effort or cost from their own side, but for over a month I heard nothing. So I got back to them asking and they had small issues with the mix, ok no problems. Then dead silence. So we tried and tried but nothing happened us assuming they were not interested in releasing that's when we contacted our management who wanted to release on his label. After that they had a huge interest and in came laywers and I wont go into that. After we decided to draw back our offensive approach it calmed down to nothing again. Scratching our heads......anyways some year or years later I called them and asked how to do it we found that Rivel records could do a license release just to get the stuff out. The record comapany would get the normal rating and we're left with the non profit license. Of course we we´re a bit upset as they did nothing to get the cd either done or released. Even though I'm over that today I was pretty angry back in the day, more or less killed our business blocking the release for so many years, but I guess they thought we deserved it, being a bit cranky at times with how things were handled. I´m proud we made it, though I still find it difficult enjoy the disc as i tend to head down memory lane. 23:59 from 2006 The record company still had an option left and we felt determined with this one, funding it ourselves doing all ourselves just to keep the record company out so that they couldn´t claim rights on anything. The most gothic cd for us by far, really like the soundscapes and the feel on this. I'm proud that we went our own way again not asking permission to do anything. Remember how I watched the clock that night when the month of decision on the option was about to end. I seriously thought they would call the last minute to take it just to hurt us. 23:59 was a very, very long minute that night. I slept like a king no less....... Tongues from 2007 Free at last, so they say but without a baseplayer. Going back a bit to the early Veni Domine a bit more uptempo here and there, such a joy to have the excellent Ez Gomér of Jet Circus on a couple of tracks and Peter Carlsohn of the giants and pioneers Jerusalem, Andreas Passmark now with Royal Hunt and brilliant multimusician Gary Kusthoss on the fretless base. Man that was a treat, these guys truly added to the cd!! So different in the approach of the base but so brilliant!! I can't say enough good about the guys. A bit more complex in it's form than 23:59 but still quite few fun angles in terms of songwriting I think. Who is Veni Domine anno 2010 ? Thomas Weinesjö - drums Torbjörn Weinesjö - guitars Fredrik Sjöholm - Vocals Bass and keys come and go a bit and has during the years, the core remains. Just to give those of us who are unknown with your band a bit of a reference point or two: How would you describe your music ? These days I would say hardrock, some say symphonic, progressive doom. Back in the day I think we were labeld progressive doom. Take one piece of Rush a piece of Black Sabbath and a piece of Depeche mode....perhaps? In the mid 1990s, Veni Domine was a big name and held in high esteeem by the market leading record label managers who spent Monday to Saturday pushing satanic black metal bands and went to church every Sunday morning. And that is a fact, btw. You have never hidden your Christianity and have been dealing with both the Christian and the secular market. What is your memories from this time and how did you deal with this pretty wild black metal situation ? Bands like Horde really went up some people's noses at that time... You know, we never had a problem with the secular market or bands, sometimes they had it with us wich is kinda ironic as most of the time those guys are the one calling belivers of God the narrow minded ones. We met Satanic bands and "so called Satanic" bands putting up an attitude, we always came in with a smile you know, we have a tendancy of always trying to see the good stuff in situations and people, and I guess not all apriciate that. It's such a strange world sometimes, it's ok to believe in whatever, but if you believe in God according to the bible you're a nutcase you know. But yeah belive in stones or stars or whatever thats soooo cooool man ;) People can say what they want, I know for a fact that someday in your life you're gonna have questions about life and God and stuff. I had many, many conversations of such kinds with guys I couldn´t dream of turning around and it's ok, we all do the journey. Often people see Jesus as the prosecutor but in fact He is our laywer, but let´s not get into that right now. How is the availability of your records and what is your experience with the music industry ? Well, the first three is out, our old record company have no intresst in having them out on the market, the price for me to buy the rights is, well, let's say on the offensive side. And would take me a few lifetimes to earn back. The last three are available. My experience is that you should have all your papers in order and to know that either you pay a laywer to check the contracts before or pay a laywer in court afterwards ;) Seriously, we havn´t been on the top floor dealing with the big ones so I can´t say anything about that. But in the middle ground I would say that you're dealing with people and people normally like to be treated well and with respect so as long you have that going for you I would say you're almost home free. What is your view on this new internet prog/metal scene where nerds/human beings from Vladivostok to Los Angeles is suddenly popping up in your inbox based on some minutes of music on Youtube and Myspace. Is it easier to run Veni Domine now than back in 1990 when cassette tapes and CD-Rs were the ultimate of human inventions ? I think it's great that all and everyone can get their stuff published to the masses in no time, that's the good part of evolution. The sad part is that fewer bands get paid, and normally that would lead to less expensive recordings, a higher rate to get tickets to shows, I guess it will level out in a few years time, something have to change, let´s see how it turns out. You can't make rules to level it out that's for sure. What is your plans for the rest of this year and next year ? We will probably start the next recording session with the band "Audiovision", also do shows with a stripped down version of that as a trio, we have songs in the works for the next Veni Domine cd, also I have a few questions about producing also a few questions of guitarwork on cds, have to wait and see how much time I can spare. Beeing a father of three with fulltime work and heavily into the church I'm in, time flies so to speak. Is any of you involved in any other bands or projects ? The last year I've been the guitarplayer for classicrock band Audiovision, recording 1 cd and three videos ( check Youtube), highlight was to open up for Stryper on parts their European leg of their 25th aniv. tour. So, Audiovision ( Thomas and I), Veni Domine, my studio "Room of doom", also I have my own project yet to be released "The red stone project", we also helped Zia ( Swedish rock/pop sensation) out on a show this summer, we keep busy. Anything you want to add to this interview ? Just a hughe thanks for the support from our friends over the years, we've gotten some incredible mails from all over the world, showing us that our work was not in vain, we're very fortunate as a band. And......check the three last Veni Domine cds out or the first three as they in a few years only will be rumours ha ha ha. Thanks and God bless Torbjörn Thank you to Torbjörn for this interview Their PA profile is here and their homepage is here

Finnforest Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Reviewer page Special Collaborator Honorary Collaborator Joined: February 03 2007 Location: The Heartland Status: Offline Points: 16914	Posted: September 06 2010 at 09:07
	true.....and I'm not even religious It's such a strange world sometimes, it's ok to believe in whatever, but if you believe in God according to the bible you're a nutcase you know. But yeah believe in stones or stars or whatever that's soooo cooool man ;)