INTERVIEW: Christopher Davidsson – Majestica

After a six-year hiatus, MAJESTICA have risen from the ashes of REINXEED and have released their new record Above The Sky (read our review here). The Swiss group were founded by Tommy Johansson, who more recently has been renowned for his involvement with power metal heroes SABATON. Bassist Christopher Davidsson has been with the band since 2012, and sat down recently with Distorted Sound to lift the lid on the new record, and the band’s reincarnation.

Chris, this is your first album is six years and is released today, first of all how does it feel having a new record again?

Chris: Amazing, as you said, it’s been a really long time. The whole recording processes and everything have been very, very long and I almost thought that this day would never come! But it’s here at last so it’s awesome, and I almost forgot all the songs so it’s interesting to listen to it again!

What sort of things can we expect from Above The Sky?

Chris: I think you can expect everything that the genre of power metal has to give. You have more of the old school sound like the old HELLOWEEN, early STRATOVARIUS and stuff like that. And you also have more modern symphonic elements, you have some progressive elements. There’s also an 80s tribute song Night Call Girl and a more heavy metal tune Motley True. I think it’s a wide range of songs and there’s something that will appeal to anyone who loves power metal.

What were the writing and recording processes like?

Chris: It’s been the coolest recording process I’ve ever done because we rented a studio for a week or two, then we took a break, and then we rented it again and again. We went in there all together all the time, even if we had all the demos – it took a while to get the demos done. And then, when we got to the studio, we had prepared some stuff. We could discuss everything, like every little detail, so for my bass lines I could say “I have this, what do you think?”, and then someone could say “well, that’s pretty good but try this out, or because that’s going to fit better with my guitar, or that’s going to fit better with the keyboards or with the drums”. We had this opportunity to try everything out so it was really cool to be together and discuss everything for a couple of weeks, and then take a break, listen to it, and then go back in and check it out again. We also did write some of the lyrics together at the same time in the studio, which I think it’s pretty cool.

Are there any particular influences or themes that feature in the record?

Chris: Well definitely the likes of HELLOWEEN, STRATOVARIUS, that kind of old school power metal, that was when we started writing. We were all listening to them a lot and we were jamming to some of their tunes. I think we all agreed that we really wanted to play something similar on a few tracks so they became a huge influence. But of course, all kinds of newer power metal were inspiring as well, but we wrote the demos five, six years ago, so it’s not any of the latest records.

What are your own personal aspirations for the album as well as the aspirations of the band?

Chris: That’s a good question! For me, its mainly about the bass lines; I have a lot of inspirations from a lot of different styles so I kind of brought it all together. I’m a huge fan of BLACK SABBATH and all that stuff, and then you have the power metal bands like HELLOWEEN – Marcus is a great bass player. I took a little bit of everything in this album, because there are bass solos, and there are bass lines and bass grooves and all this kind of cool stuff. As a band we want to achieve something that people will remember, as well as hearing that we actually had fun in the studio recording this. It’s not going to be a scenario like we didn’t even see each other like a lot of records today, and even our older ones, as REINXEED, we never saw each other in the recording process. we never got this feeling that we are doing something we like, and that is what we want to tell and achieve with this record that we tell people we love our metal.

MAJESTICA have seemingly come out of the blue and many people believe you’re a new band but in actual fact you’ve been performing since 2004 under REINXEED – first of all what prompted the change?

Chris: Well we took the break after six records, and it happened because of different reasons, there were a lot of negative reasons. We decided that this is not fun anymore, we’ll take a break and see if we ever play together again. We started writing some new music and when we got to the studio, we felt we want to feel fresh, and it has to be something new otherwise it’s going to be the same thing as before and we’re going to go into this negative thing and it’s going to be boring. We started to think about that different names, and MAJESTICA was not one of those names at all. The first name was Motley True, which was just for fun. That was like our working name in the studio and then it became a track title of the album. At the end, when we were getting closer to the release of the record, we felt like we want to keep something from REINXEED. We looked at the older album titles and song titles and the third album was called Majestic and we thought that was pretty cool. We tried it up with a lot of different majestic names but decided to go with MAJESTICA, because that sounded best.

And your founding member Tommy has of course been involved with SABATON since 2017, how difficult has it been for MAJESTICA to write and record in between SABATON’s own upcoming album and their tours?

Chris: Most of the stuff was actually recorded before he joined SABATON, so I don’t think the workflow really changed. But of course, it was harder to get Tommy to do the vocals, you need to find studio time at the same time that SABATON aren’t on tour which was a bit harder, but it didn’t really change the workflow. It’s been a really, really long and slow process anyway. When we come to the live shows and touring it’s a bit of a problem to plan, but if you plan ahead it’s going to be possible.

From listening to the record there is definitely a more traditional power metal sound throughout the record, which bands in particular have influenced both yourself as an artist as well as MAJESTICA on a whole?

Chris: Well for me, I really like 70s rock and blues music so I listened to that a lot. When I play bass at home, I mostly play that kind of music – BLACK SABBATH, DEEP PURPLE, LED ZEPPELIN, all these huge bands. Then also there’s BLACK COUNTRY COMMUNION which is a pretty cool thing that’s been going lately. I’m a huge fan of BLACK LABEL SOCIETY as well and CANDLEMASS. When I was younger, I listened a lot to bands like HAMMERFALL and stuff like that so they have been a huge inspiration for me as well. As for the band, of course the old school power metal has been huge and also some more modern metal but don’t forget that we are also heavily influenced by film themes, movie themes and stuff like that, so Hans Zimmer has been an inspiration for us with the symphonic parts. There are also bands like MANOWAR and HAMMERFALL for the lyrics, especially for the Motley True track.

How do you feel the power metal scene has grown over recent years, not just in Sweden but across the globe?

Chris: I think that the peak for power metal was maybe 10/20 years ago for HELLOWEEN and those bands, but today, I think it’s growing really fast. A lot of the power metal bands adopt other styles into their power metal like symphonic metal, progressive metal, heavier metal, speed metal, everyone is taking a little bit and expanding the boundaries of power metal, so they can attract fans from all styles of metal into power metal right now.

Looking ahead to touring now, when can fans expect to see you on the road?

Chris: Well we’re not playing any shows until at least later this year or early next year because SABATON have a new record and a really heavy schedule for the rest of the year. We have some ideas and offers for later this year and early next year and we do have a couple of festivals booked for next summer.

What future plans are in store for MAJESTICA?

Chris: We already have a few new ideas about demos and things we would like to achieve with recording music, concept albums and things like that. We would really like to hit the studio again pretty soon – even though this record is new, we haven’t been in the studio for a couple of years so we really want to do that, there’s a few demos already and then the live shows will hopefully happen as soon as possible.

Above The Sky is out now via Nuclear Blast Records. 

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