THE MEDUZA LEGEND AND HOW IT ALL BEGUN
The legend has it that Meduza was one of the Gorgon's - a breed of fantasy-creatures with female genders - that cursed all men and lead them to their death. Meduza was born to take other peoples souls and throw it into the sea of damnation ... And just like the old Greek legend, the Swedish metal-band Meduza is out there to claim your soul. Enchanting you with their brilliant use of melodies, fast soloing guitars, beautiful vocal lines and awesome rhythmic patterns, Meduza is the latest offspring from the Swedish school of classical heavy metal bands.
THE EARLY DAYS BEFORE MEDUZA
Born and raised on hard rock and metal, guitarist Stefan Berg started his career as a drummer (!!) in a high school band, but soon decided that guitar playing was more of his style. After listening to the first Yngwie J. Malmsteen album it was obvious to Stefan that this was how he would like to make his own music, and after extensively rehearsing the soloing skills of Malmsteen and Blackmore, Stefan soon had his own thing going. In the early 90's Stefan played with the band Laudamus before forming his solo project, which in the beginning was called Minds Eye and later Autumn Lords. Under the last name, the band took it's shape and joining Stefan was bassist Jonas and drummer Ola, who both had been playing together for 15+ years. With the awesome demo "Now And Forever" from May 2000, Autumn Lords caught the attention of Danish based metal agency Intromental Management, who decided it was time to put the band into a real studio to record a proper album. In the wintr of 2000/2001 the band began recording their promotional CD "Meduza", for which they decided to adopt the more original name of the Greek demon-goddess. For the recordings of this demo CD and all future purposes, the band included keyboardist Jan Larsson. On that demo CD the vocals were performed by session-vocalist Kristian Andrén (ex-Wuthering Heights, Tad Morose, Street Talk, Memento Mori, Fifth Reason).
THE MEDUZA MUSIC STYLE AND SOUND
The Baroque style music is the main inspiration, (mainly J.S Bach who according to Stefan is "The champ ... Bachs fuge in G minor still blows my mind!". Some Mozart, Hayden, Beethoven and even later virituoses as Wieniawski, Paganini and Chopin is in there as well. From the hard rock side of things, players like the mighty Ritchie Blackmore is more of a song writing inspiration than a guitar influence, but his use of classical elements has had a great impact on Stefan's song writing. Nowadays, Stefan's guitar playing is mainly influenced by violin playing and flutes! Where, especially some of the later stuff Uli Jon Roth has done (with the sky-guitar) has it's impact on the sound of Meduza - very beautiful violin like stuff! The main focus of Meduza is definitely the one towards the melody and the song itself. This is the most important aspect, so even if a part is difficult to play it should sound obvious and very pleasing for the ear of the listener. There is no need for technical overkill, and the band would never play something difficult, just to do something impressive or progressive ... everything has to follow the "feel" of the song! Watch out, 'cause Meduza is waiting for you ...
MARCH 10'TH 2003: NEW MEDUZA WEB BANNER ADDED
A brand new Meduza web BANNER has been added. The banner is intended for use in your own website or portal. If you want to use it then please send me a MAIL with the URL to the website so that I can see how it fits after the banner has been added. Please be sure to point the link of the banner to http://www.meduza.nu. You can also find the banner at the bottom of this page.
THE DEBUT ALBUM - "NOW AND FOREVER"
The recordings of the debut full length album, "Now And Forever" took place in the fall/winter of 2001, and the disc includes 11 great neo-classical heavy metal tunes. On this fantastic CD, the singer is Greek-born powerhouse vocalist Apollo Papathanasio known from symphonic metal act Majestic. Apollo has found a new home with Meduza where his fantastic singing style fits in perfectly. However, Apollo will still be a part of the Majestic (or as the band is known now, Time Requiem) line-up as well ... what a busy man :-) For the debut CD, Swedish artist Kristian Wählin (a.o. King Diamond, Mercyful Fate, Tiamat, Dissection, Hollow, Tad Morose, Morgana Lefay) has been asked to do the front and back cover. The layout and all other graphic details are done by the Irish artist Niall Parkinson. The booklet is an astonishing piece of work. By the summer of 2002 the debut album finally saw its release, and is now out in Europe (through MASSACRE RECORDS), Korea (through SAIL PRODUCTIONS, South America (through HELLION RECORDS) and in Japan (through TOSHIBA-EMI)
Source: http://www.meduza.nu
