As latest news we could read, that Jonathan is not able to join the tour. What is the reason? I hope he is not ill or do we have to worry about him?

Morten:   No, it's just a practical stuff. He is a busy man, he has also a job on the side. And he had some complication with his other work. Any problems turned out there, so he wasn't able to get free.

  So he is well and not ill?!

Morten:   Yeah, he's all well, and he still is a member of the band.

  As substitute you have Roland Navratil (Edenbridge) with you. Did he had enough time to rehearse the songs?

Morten:   Yes, we had a rehearsing in Norway, we flew him up to Stavanger, to the town were we live. We did a lot of intensive rehearsings there. And it worked up very well, so we had the time he needed to get the songs as good as they should be for the tour.

  Since 2003 you have 3 regular members: Henriette, Morten and Jonathan. Bjørnar Landa now joined up as a session guitarist for this tour. Will he stay in the band after the tour? Or will the band further on consist only of you 3?

Morten:   Right now, he is joining as a session musician. We will work a bit with him in the future to see, if he is happy with being in a band and everything works out well. There is the possibility, that he becomes a steady member, but we will take the things at the time. We will see, if he is happy with the situation and everybody else is happy with him.

  Henriette, how do you feel as the only woman in the band?

Henriette:   Oh it's great.

  Do you all have some other job's or is Sirenia your only work?

Henriette:   Yes, I have a job beside the band as a graphic designer.

Morten:   I also have jobs on the side. I had a factory work, I was working a little bit every now and then. But now they closed down the factory, so right at this moment it's only the band.

  So it is a lot of work with the band?

Henriette:   Yeah.

Morten:   Yes, it is a lot of work. But it is difficult to live from, so I guess I have to search around to find a job, when I get back to Norway. Some people do an addition to the music.

  We saw you on the Summerbreeze Festival, there we got in contact for the first time with the music of Sirenia. After that on some websites it was announced that Sirenia will tour with Leaves' Eyes and Atrocity last autumn. Why were these shows cancelled?

Morten:   The shows were not cancelled. They were gonna do the tour and they asked us, if we are interested in going as a support band. But we never really confirmed this. Our record company contacted us about it, but we didn't get any concrete offer or anything.

Henriette:   So we did this tour instead.

Morten:   I think, that they were a little bit too fast with the advertisement.

  Do you want to play some festivals in the coming year?

Morten:   Yeah, I hope so. We always like to play festivals and I hope to play a lot more of them the next year if possible. We just have to see what will happen.

  So you can say, that live-shows are very important for you?

Morten:   Yes, absolutely. Making music, recording music and playing it for the people it's what we like the best to do.

  Do you like small gigs better or do you prefer the live performance on big festivals?

Morten:   It's a little bit hard to explain, because they're really two different things. Playing on a big festivals is always like a big challenge. Because the audience is more like a big general audience. A lot of people come to listen to one type of band and some people for another kind of music. So there is a lot of different people with a lot of different musical taste. So it's always like a big challenge for the artist or the band to try and get well the people's attention and make a good show. I think, it's really something special to play on big open air festivals, which I really like. On the other side doing the smaller clubs the whole gets a lot more intimate and personal and you can get eye-contact with the crowd etc. It's also a very cool thing. It's two very different things actually. It's something cool about both of them.

Henriette:   Yes, I think the same.

  Could you see something of the environs here today?

Henriette:   Today, no! Just in the middle of nowhere? (allgemeines Gelächter)

Morten:   No, yesterday we got out of bed really late, as well as we went to bed at seven o'clock this morning.

  So you didn't have the time for some sight-seeing?

Morten:   No, not really.

  Let's talk about your latest work: the MCD which ist called „Sirenian Shores“. It contains 5 Tracks. And among other things the coverversion of „First we take Manhattan“. How did you have the idea to cover this song?

Morten:   Leonard Cohen has been one of my favourite artist as long as I've been a musician. I always wanted to do a coverversion of one of his songs, but I never felt that I was able to get it the way I wanted. To get it into a sort of adapted to the kind of style which were conforming with the band and everything. Until I started I tried several of the songs. And when I started with „First we take Manhattan“, which is also one of my favourite songs of him, then I started to feel that I was coming up with something, that sounded like the original, but only with more power and a Sirenia-touch, too. Also I don't like to release coversongs on our full-length CD's. I think, when we release CDs, then it only should be only our own songs and brandnew songs, so I was waiting with releasing it until we did these MCD. I think a MCD is more a kind of a release where you can experiment around a little bit and do something a little bit different to what you may be normally doing on your CDs.

Henriette:   We saw it as a playground.

Morten:   Yeah, a musical playground for artists.

  Do you already have any plans or even songs for a new album?

Morten:   Yeah, new songs are coming up, but we didn't book a studio yet. Hopefully everything goes out as we hope and we will go to the studio at the end of the next year. So the album will probably be out very early the year after.

  So we have to wait a long time, unfortunately.

Morten:   That's also a reason why we decided to release that MCD to shorten down the waiting period. Also we have to take care of a lot of practical things. Our contract with Napalm Records is over now with this MCD. So we need to negotiate a new record deal, and all these things always take time and you need it to get it fixed before you can book a studio. So we have all the financial things sorted out. We need a little extra time to make sure to get everything right.

  Will you work further on with large-scaled production with orchestra? Or will you go „back“ to the straight gothic metal/rock sound from the beginning?

Morten:   There will be a little of both. Some pretty and big string arrangements and some huge bombastic songs and also there will be songs which are more simple. We take away a lot of the extra elements and just make it really very good stuff. I think our next album is definately very variated with a lot of different things in there. Everything from just playing gothic rock to this huge bombastic metal parts with choirs, big string arrangements and everything. That is we work for.

  Henriette, are you involved in the songwriting?

Henriette:   Morten does the songwriting, the lyrics and everything. But we work out together my vocal lines in studio. We try out different things, to give my voice the best sound.

  Thank you very much and have a nice time!