Line Up:
Johan Hansson - Lead Vocals
Per Hjalmarsson - Bass
Jon Hjalmarsson - Guitar
David Larsson - Drums
Hi guys, welcome on Aristocrazia Webzine. May we have a short presentation of your band?Massdistraction was formed in 2007 by Jon and Per Hjalmarsson. we then called the band Retribution. The name was changed to Massdistraction during a concert in 2009, due to the fact that there was alot of outher bands called Retribution.
we had several line-ups during the years but since the begining of 2009 we have found the members that feel completly right disregard the position for the rhythm guitarst that we have been changing allot during 2009 and we are still looking for a guy that fits.
I have listen to your last demo, you play heavy metal with thrash influences, which is the musical background of MassDistraction?
Me and Per has a very old school metal background, mostly 80's metal like Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Iced earth, Slayer, Metallica, Exodus and Megadeth. But I also love Lamb of god thats not a very old band. Johan Listen to everything that have distorted guitar and dubble kick and David is into the modern thrash but also old school metal.
But for al of us it is Thrash-metal, Heavy-metal and Death-metal that lies closest to our hearts.
Which are the project you have for the near future? Are you writing the songs for a first album?
We have written alot of new songs latley so will will continue with the rocording of our new demo soon that will contain about 7 songs. Including Succubus and live a lie that we have already released on myspace.
But we are not planning to release our debut album yet because we dont have a record deal. And we dont just want to sign with the first smal indie company that contact us, we want to have a good record deal with a company that actualy does something for us. there is alot of smal companies theese days that doesent realy do something for the bands that we cant do by ourself.
But when we get offered a good deal we will take it.
How do you write a song?
"Mostly it start whith either me or Per is writing a Guitar or bass riff, and then we work it from there. But Latley I have written a few song starting whith the vocal melody.
We do not write much thogether in the rehersal studio, mostly we writes alone by our self and then everybody can have their oppinion when we pressentating the song for the band. I writes most of the lyrics, but Johan is also writing some of them. He have written the lyrics for succubus for example. The lyrics is almost always the last thing that we writes on a song.
When i write a song I let David write the Drum arangements. But Per mostly likes to write al of the instruments by himself including the drums.
Can you tell us something about the lyrics of your songs?
It is mostly political/anti-political lyrics, but we dont like to just write word by word wath we want to tell, we like to do it metaphoric so the listeners have to think by themself.
You can say that we writes about what we are thinking of the world in general, our oppinions and thoughts.
You are a swedish act, your national scene is one of the most important. Are you in contact with other bands or do you share the stage with them?
We have a smal metal scen in our city, we are a couple of bands that usualy do conserts together and coroporates with eachother. Everyone are freinds and so on. But unfortunaly Malmš is more of a glam rock city so metal bands do not get to play that much in the bigger clubs. We have to stay in the smaler clubs, and are more of an underground scene.
Why did you choose to play metal music? What has made you think: this is what I want to play?
It is the music that we love. We are playing music that we would like to listen to ourself. I would never play any music that I aint proud of and cant stand for. For us there is only Metal, we could never think os doing something else.
What do you think about social networks? Do you think they may be useful to the scene or not?
"fcurse it is useful, I meen I think that for example myspace is the biggest thing that hapened to the music industry ever. Because a smal unknown band can marketing themself and make people from al over the world listen to them whithout even having a record deal, and that have never been posible before.
Do you think the new acts could be damaged by the use of file sharing?
No on the other hand i think it is good for the smal bands, because the more peolpe that gets hold of the song the more heare them. and that is always a good promotion for the band.
Can you tell us the best things that happened you on-stage? Do you have a special live performance you would like to repeat?
We had a couple of concerts last year when it started some huge mushpits in the audience and that is a realy big adrenaline kick to stand on stage and watch people moshing to our music.
And one concert that i will never forget is our second concert ever, the first with Johan on vocals. We got realy good response from the audience. People sang along in the chrous and headbanged al the time. That will stay with me forever.
Would we ever see you live in Italy?
As soon as posible, we just have to get some money for the trip. It would be great to play in Italy. We want to play in as many countries as posible as soon as posible.
Thanks for the time you spent with us, the last message for our readers is up to you:
Our message is: play the music that you truly like youself and do not just follow the trends. You should do wath you are best on doing.
Best regards/ Jon Hjalmarsson Guitarist in Massdistraction
