|
Two days
before the band hit the UK to perform at the legendary Firefest Festival
in Nottingham, we catch up with guitarist Hal Marabel to find out how
preparations for the weekend are going and find out what the band have
been up to.
MM -
Firstly I’d like to congratulate you on a superb album in 'Above and
Beyond'.
Hal - Thank you,
Thank you!
MM - This
album is more like the bands ‘Adult Orientation’ more melodic than
[Hear Say] was this the bands intention from the off
?
Hal -
Yes in a way, after the last album we had to make
a decision to go on in the more heavier route or go back to the more
core Melodic sound of the band. We decided that that was
what that album was about, so the challenge was to go back to the sort
of emotion and feeling we had back then.
|
MM
- It's been some four years since [Hear Say] album, what have
the band been doing in between albums?
Hal
- It’s very special with this band
because we have different careers outside the band, which take a
lot of time. But when we get together and start talking
about a new album then we can get into the Bad Habit mode again.
So it's not like we’ve rehearsed continuously between albums,
it’s kind of been that way from the start.
MM
- Once again Jonas Reingold produces the album?
Hal
- Yes we recorded it
together. We have a good process of how we record, we set
up the sound and actually do the mix. It works quite well,
we compliment each other well.
|
|
MM - What
does he bring to the table as a producer?
Hal -
I sort of control most of the recording. We do that in my studio
as with the demo’s and stuff. Then when we have everything recorded,
it’s at that point in time, it’s perfect to have someone else come
in with well, different ears. Someone who knows what the
band is all about but can translate what they're hearing in a demo into
how it would sound as a recorded track. So he’s very good at
taking it to the next level.
MM - The
band are playing this years Firefest, how are the preparations going for
that?
Hal -
We actually played Madrid last Saturday, so that was a good start up for
Firefest. But in Madrid we played for one and a half hours, so the
challenge was for Madrid to take so many songs and make it into a good
set. Now for Firefest it's all about getting it down to forty
minutes, that’s really challenging.
MM - The
last time the band played just an acoustic set at Firefest III, what can
we expect from the band at Nottingham? Will you be concentrating
on the new album or will it be a "greatest hits" style set
?
Hal - I think you
always think your last album is more fun to play, but we’ve been
pretty much in agreement on which songs off the new album and which of
the older songs we're gonna play. I think we're pretty much gonna
do something off every album, although it’s quite condensed. We
do put two songs together at one point. We’ll be doing two or
three songs off the new album and that’s it. That’s a good mix
because people wanna hear the older songs, where they know the lyrics
and wanna sing-along on the choruses.
I don’t know what this University is like, we'd love to be
playing Rock City. We’re just coming to have fun, rock the house
and have a great weekend.
MM -
After Nottingham do you have any more shows lined up for this year?
Hal - No.
Again this is something special for the band, we don’t really tour
around, like I said we all have other things going on and a lot of us
have small children. I think this winter we will do something
regionally here in Sweden. We did a gig here at the end of June
also.
|
MM
- Getting back to the album Hal, it was released in January this
year, what's been the reaction from both the media and fans?
Hal - Well it's been
interesting. If we do a heavier album then that part of
media reacts well but the melodic react differently.
Although this album is more melodic and those melodic fans have
really warmed to it and they loved it from the beginning, some
of the heavier fans thought ... oh it's good, but a little too
mushy for us. The most important thing for us is that we had fun
recording and we think we have a good album.
|
|
MM - The
album is Melodic through and through, with some great tracks like
‘Don’t Want To Say Goodbye’ and ‘Just A Heartbeat Away’ being
a couple of the more melodic tracks.
Hal - We tried to
make the whole tone and feeling of the album more melodic, although
there are some heavier songs and heavier parts of songs, we still felt
that more organic sound still fits in the mix.
MM - I
think ‘A Lot To Learn’ has more of a modern edge to it, there’s
something about that one.
Hal - Yeah,
that’s actually the oldest song, we wrote it quite a few years ago.
What we did we pulled out demo and refreshed it up and improved the
production and the arrangements a bit, and it worked fine. Yes, we
played it live in Madrid last Saturday and it was good.
MM -
After listening to the album I can hear why the Melodic Rock fans warmed
to it straight away, I think this was the album they were expecting
after ‘Adult Orientation’.
Hal - Yes, after
[Hear Say] the fans got back to us, they liked the album but they missed
that organic feeling of our roots.
MM -
Yeah, I hear a lot of bands and some are returning to their roots
musically.
Hal - I think
there is one big difference though; you find a lot of bands going back
to their musical roots and how they played then, but sometimes they go
exactly back to the same sound
...
MM - Yes,
they don’t give it a modern edge
.
Hal - Exactly!
I think that is quite important. You need to show you’ve
progressed as a band. Even though you’ve tried to catch the
ambiance you had, you also need it to be repackaged a bit.
MM - The
band have now released seven albums since your incarnation back in 1987,
with some notable gaps in between albums.
Hal -
Yes between ' Adult Orientation' and [Hear Say]. Bad Habit as I
said is something special, we only make an album when we feel the vibe
together and things are right in our day to day lives, that’s not
easy.
MM - So
in between albums were the band still writing songs
?
Hal - On both
[Hear Say] and this album we started writing about six months before we
started recording. With ‘Above and Beyond’ we started recording the
end of last summer, so the beginning of last year we started writing for
the album, and that worked quite well, as it did before with ‘[Hear
Say]’.
MM - That
way the songs are still fresh
...
Hal - Yes, when
it's time to record, sometimes the songs have progressed and you start
changing things, then you lose that original vibe.
MM - In a
scene that's not as trendy or vibrant as it once was, what keeps you
motivated to produce great album after great album?
Hal - Well
both Sven, myself and our drummer Jaime, we do play music continuously
outside the band. I write songs for other artists, so basically
I'm at it all the time with music. When we talk about doing something
together, usually it's because we’ve been doing something else for so
long, it’s like a breath of fresh air to do something with Bad Habit
again.
|
|
MM
- So do you get much time to listen to other bands within the
Melodic Hard Rock genre? Do you know what’s around at
the moment?
Hal -
Yeah, we don’t have very much AOR over here in Sweden and the
radio stations don’t play much of it either. So you have to
look it up, so I go to some of the sites and listen to clips
from bands new albums and try to form an opinion there. I
try to stay on top of the AOR scene, but I do listen to other
styles which I find helps me with my song writing.
|
MM -
That’s what I find strange, with a country that produces some great
Melodic rock bands, that there isn’t a much larger rock scene or rock
club culture there.
Hal - Yes
that’s really strange. The rock clubs we do have, they are
usually on the heavier side, they don’t seem to have many Melodic rock
clubs. I mean a lot of the songs that they play on the radio are
more pop. There are lots of artist playing that type of music that
have their roots in AOR. All the songs writers that are writing
songs for the famous pop acts around the world they are all old AOR
school.
MM -
Getting back to the band, Hal you’ve said that Bad Habit isn’t
really a touring band but if the offer of a European tour came up, would
you take it?
Hal - It
depends. We’ve talked about this before and we’d definitely be
up for a leg of a tour, because that would be able to work around our
timetables. Something where we could get home in between.
MM
- Are the band all prepared and hyped up for the weekend?
Hal – Yes,
it was perfect sense to do the show in Madrid. Actually it was
good to do such a long set as well, we really got a chance to check out
every single song and get everything together.
MM
- Where do you see the band going from here?
Hal - I think with this album behind us, we’re more motivated to
try play live in some form even between albums. We will try to get
into some more festivals because I think that is the perfect forum for
us as a band.
MM -
Finally any words for all those fans coming to Nottingham this weekend?
Hal - Yes, it's
gonna be great, I can't wait to meet the fans. We do have a lot of
contact through email and facebook.
MM
- We'd like to thank Hal for taking the time out of his busy schedule to
chat with us today and wish him and the rest of the band every success
both with the new album and also their forthcoming Firefest show in the
UK. |