|
Discography (Lion Music)  Marcus Jidell - Pictures from a Time Traveller  1. Please tell me a little bit about your musical background and your main influences. I started at an early age to
take cello classes and to study classical singing. A few years later I
picked up the guitar to learn modern music. I'm influenced by
players like: Leslie West ,Chuck Berry, Ritchie Blackmoore,
Yngwie Malmsteen, Johnny Winter, Jimi Hendrix, Carl Perkins, Mark
Knopfler, Joe Satriani, Muddy Waters, Miles Davis, David Gilmour, Gary
More, Jerry Douglas, Angus Young, Albert King and B.B.King.
2. Please tell me about your current gig with Avatarium, how you got the job and what yiu have been doing so far. Leif contacted me less then a year ago and asked me if I could help him to record some demos he made. Being a big fan of Leif’s song writing I gladly said yes. As soon as we started to work together in the studio I think we both felt that we enjoyed to work together so we started to talk about forming a band. Lars and Carl where both easy choices since we new they were great musicians and luckily for us the said yes to participate on the album and lately to join the band. Now we had a great band and a few great songs, the only thing we needed to make everything perfect was an amazing singer. That is usually the biggest challenge. Leif and I talked a lot about different singers and we know a few great ones that we talked about. We felt that we wanted to find someone with a lot of blues and jazz feel but also someone able to sing hardrock. One day Leif said “imagine if we found a singer with a kind of “Robert Plant feel” for this heavy music. When he said that I immediately came to think about Jennie-Ann. So I said: “well I know a singer with that kind of approach against music but it is not a guy, it’s a girl”. We tried her out in the studio and where totally blown away when she sang Moonhorse and Lady in the Lamp. We have released one full length album and one EP called "ALL I WANT" and we will release our second full length album, 23 oct 2015. 3. Please tell me about your time with Evergrey and why you decided to quit. Evergrey was a great time in some ways and a very confusing and absurd time in some other ways. In the end Tom asked me to leave the band and so I did. I am very proud of the album we did and I think it's a pity that we couldn't do another one together. I wanted to produce the next album since I felt that we could do better but I don't think Tom wanted that and that might be one of the reasons he asked me to leave. It's his band at the end of the day so he's the one to make these kind of decisions. 4. Please tell me about your time with Royal Hunt and why it ended. Royal Hunt was a great time where I learned a lot in how to be a professional musician. Andre is one of the greatest musicians I ever played with and the rest of the guys who where in the band at that time where also extremely talented. I wanted to play more guitar oriented music though so that's why I had to leave the band. 5. Please tell me what equipment you use both in the studio and live. I mainly use old school guitars , Fender, Gibson but I also have two Caparison that use now and then. My main guitar at the moment is a Gibson SG custom and a Fender stratocaster 59'. Amps are mostly Marshall. Pedals: xotic ep booster and compressor. Raptor (distortion pedal by Tommy Folkesson). I love the Mad Professor pedals as well and the latest pedal I bought was a great Rotosound Fuzz that sounds extremely cool!!  6. Have you ever had a chance to play your solo music live? Yes I have played Huldra live a few times with the great band Astrakhan. 7. Do you prefer the stage or the studio and how do you approach each of them? I like both. I always try to reach the level where you are not thinking of what you play but where it just happens. Live or studio it's the same in that way. Some days it's extremely hard to get the contact with the "higher spirit" and some days it's totally there. I guess that's the challenge. 8. Pictures from a Time Traveller is an excellent album. but very short, how come? I had to finish the album or just give it up. There was no time or inspiration to write more music since every song takes a very long time to write for me. Hopefully I can get the time and inspiration to write another one!! 9. What was your goal with making your solo album? To make musiC with stories without having any lyrics in them. 10. How do you feel about the guitar oriented music scene of today? I think there are many great players out there indeed but to be honest I don't listen that much to "modern" music. I have always been a sucker for 60's and 70's music so that is where i usually gets my inspiration. 11. Where do you see yourself in 5-10 years? I hope that I still can make a living of playing guitar and that the bands I play with ( AVATARIUM and SOEN) are going places. I love to play guitar and I love to see the faces of people when I sometimes find the right note and I sense that they feel it to. Anyway, music is something I've always done and that I will do 'til the day that I die.  12. In what way do you think your album is different from all the other instrumental guitar albums that are out there? Can't say. You listen and tell me.. hehe.. :-) 13. How much time to you spend practising and rehearsing music per day or week. I play guitar every day but I still feel that I want to have more time for it. When I'm on tours I usually get more time to just sit down and play and I love to do that!! 14. Do you think that music will survive the current "everything for free" mentality and do you think that people in general care? I think that musicians really need to get paid for the work we put in. It is very hard to be in the right songwriting mood when you are thinking about how to pay your bills, you know. But I am positive and I think people are starting to understand that it's not very nice to steel things. 15. What are your future plans? I will tour with SOEN in october and with Avatarium in November and besides that I'm also involved in writing songs for the new SOEN album. |