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Mayadome started out as Mellow Poetry and recorded
"The Flat Earth" for a compilation CD "Swedish Power" (OHCD001) back in
1991.After numerous line-up changes, Teddy switched to drums in '94 and
recruited Fredrik Kjörling on guitar , Erik Grandin on bass, Jonas Hägg
on keyboards and Björn Holmquist on vocals. They recorded a 6 song demo
"Government Denies Knowledge" and later re-released four of the songs
on a demo CD called "Welcome to the surreal world". In December '95 they
got a call from Shrapnel Guitar guru Mike Varney who was very interested
in the band. In October '96 Mayadome released their world wide debut "Paranormal
Activity" on Shrapnel Records (sh10982) . It was released in Europe and
Japan through Roadrunner (rr88412 & rrcy1029). Mayadome asked Björn to
leave the band, and I started May -97. We spend a couple of months in
the rehearsal studio and recorded lather the album "Near Life Experience"
sometime at winter 97/98. Just a couple of months after that we had finished
the recording of NLE, Jonas Hägg had to leave the band...We then thought
that finding a new keyboard player, that was even close as good as Jonas
would be impossible. But I asked Sebastian Okupski who had played with
me years ago in a Dream Theater cover band to try out, and he filled the
spot perfectly!
Early '99 Mayadome signed to Siegen Records, the
label owned by Keith Menser (bass player of Mystic Force and one of the
long-time driving-forces on the progressive metal scene), and released
"Near Life Experience" (sr-0013) on May 5th. So far the album has been
very well-received, both by the press aswell as the record buying public.
In aug. -99 we went to USA for a mini US tour... We played at the prestigious
Festival, Powermad '99 in Baltimore ML where we also recorded some stuff
for our live album "A True Life Experience" (soon to be released by Siegen
Records).
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"Near Life Experience" was recorded at Prime studios
In november -97, and took us about 2 months to finish. As we didn't have
any record deals at that time, we could record the album In our own tempo.
First when I recorded the vocals It took very long time. I was extremely
petty that all vox should be perfect, and I did a lot of takes on every
song. I worked with the vocals for about 2 weeks before I was satisfied.
I stayed away from the studio for a week, and when
I came back and heard the vox with fresh ears, I got disappointed with
my performance. I had done what so many others often do, done so many
takes that the "live" feeling had disappeared. So I decided to redo all
vocals and I did just that, and It took me 4 days this time. We wanted
to do something different with the vocals on NLE, and I think we did get
quite successful with that. Teddy who's got a great voice, sang a lot
of backing vocals and we used a some cool effects on my voice. We used
a little chorus, and Teddy's voice added a kind of dubbing feeling to
It. There's been a lot of discussions about the effects on NLE, some think
Its great and others don't. But the rest of the band and I really think
we used the right tools to create the mood we where after on this disc.
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