interview: Assassin's Blade

Assassin's Blade issued Agents of Mystification in 2016 on Pure Steel Records from Germany. The album was the band’s first, but was it no novice effort at all. The work illustrates a certain class of skill and a particular love for the art of traditional heavy metal. As it turns out, there are some very specific reasons why the band sounds so experienced. They are veteran musicians, with lots of years under their belt making music in other bands, including cult Canadian act Exciter, and Swedish groups Devil Lee Rot and Void Moon. After listening to the album recently, the question arose: What is next on the agenda for Assassin's Blade? Another important matter is that supporters of traditional, cult forms of heavy metal should really consider Assassin's Blade if they have not taken a look at them yet. The band’s bassist Peter Svensson answered the questions.

Hello, this is Metal Bulletin. We wanted to get an update on the band’s activities. Pure Steel Records released your album Agents of Mystification in 2016. What are your plans for the summer of 2017 and the rest of 2017?

Hello and thanks for this interview! Two weeks ago we played our debut show at Metal Magic Festival. It was a great experience and we got a really good response! For the rest of the year we will be working on our second album. All the songs are written and we are in pre-production right now, arranging the songs and planning cover art, etc.

Can you confirm for us who the members of the band now are? For instance, on Metal Archives I see that there is a picture of three musicians. Is that correct?

Assassin's Blade 2017 is:

Jacques Bélanger - vocals

David Stranderud - guitars

Bruno Buneck - guitars

Peter Svensson - bass

Marcus Rosenkvist - drums

At the moment of the photo shoot, Marcus was not available and Bruno wasn't in the band.

In your opinion, how have things gone for the band since your debut album came out? Was it as positive or negative as you expected?

I think we got a lot of positive feedback and I am quite pleased with that. It is very difficult to be original in metal music today. But that is not our aim either, we want to write good songs that we enjoy playing and listening to. With that being said we really try to not sound exactly like anybody else, but of course you can still hear our influences from the classic bands.

You live in Sweden, right? We in the U.S. often hear how Sweden is big for metal music. What has been your experience? Is that true? What about trends? Are the gigs for local bands good?

There are a lot of great bands from Sweden. But the scene is not really big here, it is very difficult to get gigs and it is more of a competition between bands than any sort of brotherhood. Sweden is big on trends as well, during the 90s you couldn't find anybody listening to Maiden or Priest. A couple of years ago the trend of glam bands appeared and ruled the metal scene for a year or two before it disappeared.

Do you have information for us about new music? How does a small band deal with the finances of recording and making an album?

We are in pre-production of our second album at the moment, hopefully that will be out mid/late 2018. Since there is very little money involved in our releases we have to pay for most things ourselves, like most other bands. We are recording the bulk of the material in my studio. I have built a studio in my basement and we have used that for several recordings. For gigs we get some money, but considering that we need to fly Jacques from Canada and the rest of us travel from Sweden there is not too much left. But we do it for the love of music and not money. ;)

Do you have any other news for us to publish?!

More music is coming from Assassin's Blade soon! Be on the lookout for a promo track in a couple of months! Also we hope to put together a small European tour next year! See you there!

Thanks for the interview and thanks for your support! We really appreciate it!

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puresteel-records.com/bands/view/396/Assassin_s_Blade