Nat:   How are you doing, Stefan?

Stefan:   Just fine thank you, but my time is getting more fullpacked now with all the promotion and rehearsal with the new members for the livegigs.

Nat:   "Chapters From A Vale Forlorn" just took off into promotion, how are the reactions - if any - from the magazines and other listeners so far?

Stefan:   Well, it's really too early to say. I've only seen one review and that's yours and from that we can only get worse. In fact I have no picture of what the people think we'll see in a couple of weeks. Since we couldn't have expected the great response of the last album I don't know what to expect from this since it's a bit different in style here and there.

Nat:   Oh, I see. :-) Have once again all the music and lyrics been written by you or has for example Mathias (Blad, vocals) brought some ideas into the melodies and so on?

Stefan:   Even this time I have written everything exept for the tradsong "We sold..."

Nat:   I think the vocals are even more diversified this time, therefore it comes to mind that Mathias worked some of them out, because of his long practice and classical education.

Stefan:   I see what you mean. Maybe he brings some extra colouring to the vocallines, but all the lines are done by me. The thing he does is to make them sound better with his way of singing them. A perfect match I would say, maybe that is the "Falconer sound" him interpreting my vocal melodies?

Nat:   Yes, it's a important characteristic of your sound, I think. As we speak about Mathias; he had not been into Rock or Heavy Metal before you catched him, so how does he feel about playing in front of such huge crowds of metalheads like in Wacken?

Stefan:   We all think it'll be a memorable experience. I would dare to say that it's a bigger step for the rest of us than for Mathias since he appears on stage every week. Me and Karsten (Larsson, drums) haven't been on the stage for 5 years and before that we seldomly did. If the appearance is musical or metal isn't the big difference. He is an artist, I'm not.

Nat:   Have you yet found fellow musicians to rehearse with for the upcoming live appearances?

Stefan:   Yep. I got hold of 2 guys to handle the bass and the other guitar. Anders Johansson and Peder Johansson. No not relatives. Great guys. They haven't been in any Metalbands before, but are still into the Metal music.

Nat:   What are you going to do with the synth sounds like the ultra cool Hammond sound on "Busted To The Floor"? (You absolutely have to play that song - even on the album one can feel the fun and joy of playing it ;) )

Stefan:   Yeah it was good to just let loose and do a bit of freaked out song like that, but I don't think it represents Falconer and I can't copy Mr. La Rocques (Andy La Rocques, sound engineer and guestmusician) solos in that one. We won't have any keyboardplayer. I don't think we have that many parts in the songs that we would need a keyboardplayer, the songs won't be exactly as on the albums anyway.

Nat:   The songs and lyrics on "Chapters..." are very emotional sometimes. What are they about? (For example "Enter The Glade" is very interesting and "Portals Of Light" seems to be quite personal?)

Stefan:   More lyrics seem to be about my own thoughts about this and that, more personal you could say, but I still have the historical themes there. "Enter the glade" isn't that emotional, but is just a critical song towards the misuse of religion that some profit on, like sects and so. "Portals of light" is very emotional, it's about loosing a love to death. Very sad. I haven't experienced that my self but the feeling ought to be the same as when you get dumped by a girl only 10 times stronger.

Nat:   On "Chapters..." there is a wider variety of styles and speeds in the songs. Do you already have further ideas for new songs and will they follow this direction/development?

Stefan:   I don't have that many ideas at the moment, but I would guess that we will follow the same path and direction. I think my songs will unintentionally change in time, I don't know if you can see from the change from the 1st to the 2nd album how maybe the 3rd will sound, I don't think like that. I just do it, if it's good it's good.

Nat:   Finally I hope you will enjoy playing live, although you did not want to do so in the beginning. We are looking forward to meeting you in Wacken and on tour!

Stefan:   We're too looking forward to make complete asses of ourselves on stage. Ehhh. It feels a bit too early to play at Wacken, but it's a great opportunity for us indeed. I never have had a backstage pass, cool.

Nat:   Haha! Thanks for the interview and keep on rockin'!

Stefan:   Thanks for the interview and keep writing about us!