| TDE: |
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For those who don't know about Lions Share at all. Tell us some band history. |
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| Lars: |
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The band was originally formed 1987 by Kay Backlund and myself, and in 1988 we released our first singel "Ghost Town Queen". We started to record a follow up "Partners In Crime" the following year, but we weren't satisfied with the line up at the time, so it never got released.
We spent a couple of years trying to find the "right" line up (especially a good singer), but un-satisfied with what we found in our hometown Sundsvall, we split up in early 1991.
I moved to Stockholm (the capitol of Sweden), and all of a sudden I had actually a couple of good singers to jam with. A record company wanted to release some old LS demos, so it kinda felt natural to reform the band in 1993 with a fresh Stockholm based line up. We made our first demo and got signed to Zero Corp. immediately. In late 1995 Century Media contacted us with an offer for a worldwide deal. During the "Two" sessions we also recorded "A Touch Of Evil" for the "A Tribute To Judas Priest Vol.1" album (featuring Helloween, Saxon, Fates Warning, Gamma Ray etc.).
We did a lot of touring the following years with among others: Saxon (two times), U.D.O. (ex-Accept), Iced Earth, Nevermore and Dee Snider (ex- Twisted Sister).
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| TDE: |
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You have a new album out, 'Fall From Grace'. Tell us about it. |
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| Lars: |
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Century Media asked us to deliver a new album in 1998. They agreed on the budget, studio and engineer, but the first day in the studio we were denied entrance! The owner told us that CM owed him money for their previous recordings there, and the engineer (Ronny Lahti), had not recieved his advance money either. We begun to hear rumours regarding CM's bad economical status, and suddenly we saw our chance to get away from four options (we weren't happy with them anyway).
With the help from the studio's MD, and the engineers lawyer, we managed to get the contract terminated half way through the sessions. Already when demoing the material, I knew it would be our best album to date. Things went really smoothly in the studio and all the touring experiance really did payoff.
Avex released the album on february 24th (AVCB 66060), in Japan, and the response has been awesome so far. We have an American agent shopping for a deal in Europe and America, and so far he's recieved interest from for example majors like Geffen, Epic and Columbia. We have had some really bad luck with our record companies in the past, so this time we want to make sure we sign with a company we are happy with. I hope the album will be released here in September/October, but then again we want to get things right this time so you never know.
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| TDE: |
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What kinda of influnces do you all have in the band. Black Sabbath of the Martin/Dio era is obvious, but besides that? |
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| Lars: |
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Black Sabbath is a major influence, but we also listens to Megadeth, King's X, Rainbow, Queensryche, Ozzy, Rush etc. We will actually contribute to a Queensryche tribute CD (Taking Hold Of The Flame), that's being put together in the States for an August release. We will do "I Don't Believe In Love", from Operation Mindcrime. I believe our style is a perfect mix of heavy/doomy riffs, catchy melodies and some progressive elements to spice it up. |
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| TDE: |
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How does Lions Share usually work when writing new material? |
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| Lars: |
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We don't have a trade mark pattern, but we usually work with a sequenzer/computer rather than jamming the songs together in the rehearsal studio. I personally try to write riffs and melodies for a basic song structure (verse, bridge, chorus), then I present that idea, we program it and spice it up with instrumental and some progressive stuff. We want to make sure the song stand up on its own before adding the adventurous stuff. |
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| TDE: |
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Any great stories from touring yet? |
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| Lars: |
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Plenty! The best ones however can't go into print. One cool though, was at the last show of the the U.D.O. tour in Finland. Their drum tech. started tearing apart Johan's drum kit in the middle of "Scarecrow", we came to a point where we of course couldn't finish the song. Our revenge came right before U.D.O.'s encore, when we dragged the drum tech. on stage, tied him, stripped his pants and throw him to the audience. Both bands were up on stage watching his white ass dance over the heads of the audience all the way back to where it ended and he dropped to the floor naked and all tied up. |
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| TDE: |
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How do you look at today's music market in both Sweden and the rest of the world. Do you consider the mainstream to take over-hand, or is there a market for progressive rock and heavy metal? |
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| Lars: |
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The metal market has been pretty poor during the whole 90's I think. Everybody say it will soon start to change, but so far I haven't seen any bigger changes. Heavy Metal and Hard Rock will however never die, I think that's been proven from the 30 years of survival so far. |
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| TDE: |
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How much have "Lions Share" and "Two" sold in just Sweden and total over the whole world? |
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| Lars: |
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The first album I think sold better in all territories actually. It sold approx. 2500 in Sweden, and approx. 30 000 in Europe and Japan. On "Two", I think some people got scared away by the Century Media logo believing it was a Goth or Black metal album since CM had never released an album in our style at that point. |
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| TDE: |
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Your latest albums bought? |
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| Lars: |
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The new Pretty Maids album (their best in 10 years), Saxon "Power And The Glory" (a true metal classic). |
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| TDE: |
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Future plans? |
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| Lars: |
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We will do two shows with Dee Snider from Twisted Sister on the 6th (Östersund) and 8th (Sundsvall) of May. An Italian promoter wants to bring us down for a headline tour this summer, and we will soon enter the studio to record "I Don't Believe In Love" for the Queensryche tribute, so I guess were quite busy. |
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 Comments, remarks or ideas? Please mail us. |
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