Lars (Manticora's singer) : I am calling from Copenhagen, Denmark.

Lars : The story begins in 1996, when me and Kristian Larsen (guitar) we were playing in another band called Fear Itself. We split in April 1996 and we found out we wanted to pursue the power metal style. After a month, we found Mads Volf, our drummer, and two months after that we found René Nielsen, our bass player, who is actually the brother-in-law of Mads (laugh). So, we started doing power metal music from July 1996. In summer 1997, we've recorded the fast track demo "Dead End Solution". It sold about 1000 copies. Based on that demo, Intromental Management truly believed in us and send out 150 copies of our mini CD and about half year later, the Greek Label "Black Lotus" came out with the best offer. In the mean time, we enlisted Flemming Schultz, a new guitarist as a member of the band, to allow me to concentrate on the singing part because our live performances weren't that good (MR note : on their mini CD Lars was performing on vocals & guitars and since 1997 Lars has been taking lessons in voice control and singing). It became better when we had Flemming as a second guitarist. A month before getting into the studio in February 1999, we brought on Jeppe Eg, our new keyboard player, because we wanted to have this extra dimension in our sound. In the studio, a couple of things went wrong, I got sick when I was supposed to sing, a machine "fucked up" and it took us 3 months to record "Roots Of Eternity" (it took 14 days over a period of 3 months) and this album was released finally in July 99.

Lars : Actually, when we started out we were still called Fear Itself, but as our music changed from the old style, we started first with the name of Dreamscape, but fourteen days after, we found out that another band had that name. So we changed to another name, but fourteen days after we found out again that another band had that name.

Lars : Yeah bad luck. I was reading about this mythical creature and suddenly I came over the name of Manticore : 'Well, yeah, that's a good name for a band' and the other members said "OK". Unfortunately, a year after we made the first demo CD "Dead End Solution", we had a letter from a German record company who said that they had a band who have released four CDs under the name Manticore. So we finally changed the last letter to an "a" and it became Manticora. We didn't want to change the name totally.

Lars : It is basically the 80's power metal wave such as Helloween and Gamma Ray. And later on of course, Blind Guardian and the American power metal scene, such as Savatage. Kristian, our guitarist is a big fan of Savatage. Nevermore and Iced Earth are also our influences. We have the German way of playing power metal with the American sound, that's make us a little bit different from everybody else.

Lars : I can't say I am not happy about it, because I am proud to be compared to these bands. But then again, it would be strange if it didn't sound a little bit like that, because we all (in the band) listen so much to these bands. It explains what I said before "German style, but the American sound" and that's the two bands we could compared us to.

Lars : Absolutely (laughs). It couldn't actually be better.

Lars : Actually I don't know. We haven't heard much from the record company. But I believe the last time we heared was in November I think, we've heared that it has sold about 5000 copies.

Lars : We had various offers from American labels, and a French label too, but the offer from "Black Lotus Records" was the best sounding offer. They were willing to pay for our recordings and they were willing to do promotion for the record. All the band and management (Intromental) believes that promotion is the most important part. I don't give a shit if I earn any money from this record, because I am gonna earn hopefully some money on the second or third record, but promotion is the issue, that's the only way to sell a lot of records. The other labels didn't want to pay for the records and no really good promotion. "Black Lotus Records" give us a very good offer and that's why we've chosen them.

Lars : No, absolutely not (laughs). It is pretty impossible to live from the first record... even think that I am gonna to live out of the second record. We have the same contract for two records with "Black Lotus Records". So, we are not gonna make any money from that... not much anyway.

Lars : We took all the lyrics and gave them to the guy responsible for the cover and told him to do something just with the lyrics. We look at it and say "This is very, very great". On the front you can see this big wave thing, coming from the right and goes to the left, and into the middle, that's symbolizes the flood.

Lars : Thank you.

Lars : Sorry guys, it is not. Its based on Cthulu (RPG). It deals with the "dark side of the mind", the depressed part. Lyrics talk about evolution, the fact that we are such small creatures, in such a big world, in a such big galaxy. We cannot do anything about it, for example, a comet coming down on Earth and destroying Earth, but anyway, even if Earth was destroyed , that would be a kind of evolution too, because it will generate something else and eventually new life being created... ... but it isn't a concept album. However, concerning "The Saga Of The Exiles Part 1 & 2" (MR note : actually song No 6 & 7, Nowhere Land & The Flood), I can tell you there's gonna be part No 3 and No 4 on the next record.

Lars : That's different for me to be objective, but I would say that... ... production wise it will have to be "When Forever Ends". When we stand in studio and mixing all the songs, we have this feeling about "this one is great, this also sounds great", but when we mixed "When Forever Ends" we're all look each other and it was like "Hey, this is 'fucking' great". But I believe that the title track "Roots Of Eternity" is the greatest piece of music we have ever made, because it is hard to create a song of twelve minutes long and keep the intensity of the song and not make it boring. I believe it is a special song (MR note : it starts with a very slow intro, then a thrashy Iced Earth riff and just after that a great Maiden solo takes you to the beginning of this epic song. Just amazing).

Lars : Do you know a band called Invocator ?

Lars : That's an old Danish band who has released 3 records. He is the old singer of that band. Jacob has also produced Wuthering Heights (MR note : we will review their record next month) and a lot of other Danish bands. He is a guy that nobody outside Denmark knows. But here in Denmark, he is well known. He is a really good producer. You just ask him : "hey, we want this sound" and he does it in five minutes. We went in studio with the Iced Earth CD "Something Wicked This Way Comes" and we said "Hey Jacob, this is the guitar sound we want". It took him five minutes and we had that sound. He is really impressive.

Lars : The Danish scene ??? It sucks very much (explosion of laughs from all of us). Manowar, Motorhead, Dio came to Denmark and only 1500 fans came to that show and it was in Copenhagen. For a town of 1.2 million, only 1500 people !!! It is so ridiculous. We're having this Stratovarius, Rhapsody & Sonata Arctica live in April and we expect to be about 350-400 fans, that's all. (MR note : bearing in mind that Paris is sold out for the same show). The same thing in Sweden and Norway. The whole Scandinavian scene is "fucked up". It has something to do with MTV destroying the whole scene and also those Danish journalists. They don't say "Woaaw, you're Danish, you're really good", they say "You're really not that good". Typical Danish way of thinking.

Lars : Frustrating to read those reviews from all around the world "This is a good album, this one is a masterpiece, this one is so great..." and all the Danish guys here saying "This is not very great, this one is boring, this guy can't sing...". I want to kick their asses, but that's their opinion, so we ignored them.

Lars : I started in 1990. I was playing songs in clubs. I listened to a lot of Metallica at that time. I was singing for fun, but after a year or so, this was the kind of future I wanted. That was ten years ago and that was James Hetfield from Metallica who inspired me.

Lars : Metallica "...And Justice For All". Absolutely the 'Best' album ever made.

Lars : Yeah, my opinion too. You're actually the first one who's seen that. Number two will have to be Gamma Ray "Land Of The Free"

Lars : It's very hard, because there are so many ones I like...(thinking)… Blind Guardian "Nightfall In Middle Earth", is a great album too. But I have one more : Nevermore "The Politics Of Ecstasy". But I can't forget to mention Iron Maiden and King Diamond.

Lars : I listen to everything almost. From Slayer to George Michael (MR note : betrayal... just joking of course). I have about 2000 CDs here and I keep getting new CD's as I write to Intromental home page (reviews section).

Lars : Good album. We received it yesterday and I was impressed because I think they have their own special sound, but also the average age of the musicians is below 20. Pretty good.

Lars : I think its good for us, even for power metal bands, but it is also pushing other bands and other styles on the outside and I don't like that. We are passing from one revival to another. Couldn't we have just a heavy metal revival in general, instead of those naive campaigns (MR note : we couldn't said it any better).

Lars : Yeah, also because today there are so many bands. If I have to chose a record in the old times there were like Metallica, Iron Maiden, King Diamond, Slayer to chose from... basically. Today there are 600 hundred different titles that I can chose from. Every record company in the world wants to be representative in all styles with different bands, which means that they sign a lot of "trapped" bands. There are too many bands out there in my opinion and too many untalented bands... ... then of course people can have their opinion about us, but I believed we are one of the challenger bands that have earned the possibility to get forward.

Lars : No, absolutely not. I believe it was a good thing in the age when not everybody was listening to heavy metal, but it was a great deal of the population in each country that listened to this kind of music. Today you have like 3000 people listening to heavy metal out of a population of 5 million, that's ridiculous. I don't think that this underground view about metal (the way a lot of people want it to be) is good….Either for heavy metal bands or for the audience, because no big bands are able to go on big tours today. We will never gonna tour South America for example, even though we know we have big "die hard" fans there. We will never be able to play for them because bands today cannot get very big, because it is an underground music. I believe it will be cool to have heavy metal back again (MR note : who said on MTV ???).

Lars : Keeping the band together. Kristian, our guitarist, is doing most of the riffs and is creating most of the music and I'm the one writing most of the lyrics. The other guys in the band are not involved in keeping the relationship with the management and the record company and I'm the one doing all that. All the practical things and that's my main job in the band beside singing.

Lars : (laughs) I play football (MR note : now we know how Denmark defeated Germany at the Euro in 1992....football's players were heavy metal musicians :-) )... and I train a lot in a gym, building some muscles... and drinking a lot. Actually heavy drinking sessions with the bands or my other friends (laughs).

Lars : I am a bit split in my mind about that, because it is probably a good promotion. But it is also too easy for people to just put them on a web page, and others to burn a CD from it. Maybe our CD is put out in hundreds of different MP3's files and we don't know about it. I think it's dangerous that people can just use your things without paying the rights of your music.

Lars : Yeah of course, but again it is the question of this mini disk or CD. It is too easy for people to come and you have this good quality on mini disk or CD. In the old times you bought a record and you put in on a tape and your friends was saying "Ok can you record that one for me", but finally he was buying it for the quality. Today you can copy it on CD or mini disk and I think it explains why the records sales are going down, because people take the easy solution.

Lars : The day I see some money from our copyright company I will be very happy (laughs). I haven't seen anything so far.

Lars : After the next album, I believe we will go on tour. We actually had a tour scheduled for this record, but I was been mugged by three unknown people here in Denmark and they broke my jaw and my nose. We were obliged to cancel that tour. They didn't like the way I look, so they beat me down. But anyway, after our next record we will have to do an European tour and I don't care about the costs. Right now there is a "very very very little tiny" chance of getting us on a support tour for Iced Earth (MR note : really hope you'll get it guys, because you deserve it !!).

Lars : No. Actually we are pretty split in the band too, because I wanna go in the studio as fast as possible and some of the other guys really want to wait and see if the songs are good enough in front of a live audience. But as of today, we have ten songs ready. That's about 55 minutes of music and the other guys wants to make at least five more songs before we go back to the studio. I believe we will go into studio about the end of May or beginning of June and that should bring out a new record in the beginning of next September or something like that.

Lars : A little bit more keyboard, a little bit. Because Jeppe, who is now a full time member of the band on the keyboard has of course also his own influences. Its going to be a bit more symphonic, but again its approximately the same style : full speed drums on most of our songs and I don't think we will make a "bad luck this time". It gonna be pure power. We have six of the songs that are totally power / speed metal in the style of "When Forever Ends" and "Nowhere Land" and we have this new song called "Intoxicated". It is funny ; we'll do a song on the next record called "Intoxicated", which means we will have two songs called "Intoxicated". Absolutely original. We were thinking of calling it "Intoxicated 2", but everybody has done that. So doing the same song title, but a different song….that's cool. The music will remind you of the first one, we're gonna follow the same path.
(MR note : we're gonna die here waiting for the next album).

Lars : I just wanna say that even though we are not a very big band , I would like people to go out and at least check this out in your record store. Get the guy behind the desk to play just one song for you and I am sure you will be caught by the music immediately. Stay heavy and support heavy metal !!!

Lars : I am the one thanking you guys. See you.