After listening to their brilliant album Never Seen Again, I was fortunate enough to interview the guys in Starblind.
- What inspired the name of the band and what are your influences?
In the beginning of time when the band started to form, we had a couple of different suggestions for a great band name. At that point we actually couldn’t agree which to choose, so we made an internal voting in the band and the majority choose “Starblind”.
The influences in the band are as many as we are members… We actually listen to a lot of different types of music, mostly of the metal- and hard rock scene. Besides the obvious bands from the 80s metal scene we listen to band such as Helloween, Europe, Accept, Scorpions and Heavy Load.
- How do you approach writing and recording?
Usually one of us has an idea or fragments of an idea. This idea might be an audio file recorded at home or something showed for all at the rehearsal. We try the song and see if it feels right, and if it does we keep on working on it and improves it as far as possible. It is a cool thing to see (hear) how the song develops as time moves on and when we rehearsed it several times.
When there are enough good songs for an album we rehears the as hell to be prepared for the studio recording session. We record all our albums live in the studio just to get the right feeling. The only thing recorded afterwards is the singing and keyboards.
- Could you talk through the process of recording Never Seen Again, is there a specific theme throughout the album?
The main theme throughout the album is stories about people disappearing, leaving or dying in one way or another. Some are about questioning the choices you´ve made in life, and the quest to change your destiny. And of course, as on previous albums, we managed to put in some H.P Lovecraft as well.
For “Never Seen Again” we got the opportunity to work with the talented Robert Romagna at Audiostahl, who mixed and mastered the album. We’re very happy with the result and really think it match our ideal sound for the album.
- Which songs are you looking forward to playing live?
All the song will be a delight to preform live, but I believe the most fun songs will be the odd ones, such as “The Last Stand”, “Eternally Bound” and the faster “The Everlasting Dream Of Flight”.
- Future plans?
Now we eagerly wait for the album to be released (24th of November) and then we’ll start the planning on events in 2018. Unfortunately, we can’t tell you more than that we have a release gig planned in Stockholm in the beginning of next year, but keep looking at our Facebook page and home page www.starblind.se and stay updated!