by Alexandra Mrozowska
— Senior Columnist —
Live albums have a special place in each band’s discography – more of a complementation than just an addition to a string of studio EPs and full-length albums. For some bands, KISS being probably the first that comes to mind, releasing a live album was actually a long-awaited career breakthrough after a handful of not-so-successful LPs. For others, carefully planned and selected recordings of their live shows – which were, more often than not, enhanced in the studio afterwards – cemented their star status in the music industry. But what if the live album wasn’t planned at all, and everything happened just by coincidence…? That’s exactly what the story behind the double live album Viva La VicTOURia released this November by Eclipse was. Accidental or not, it’s nevertheless a very special release for the fans of the Swedish four-piece. Not only is it the first live album in their discography. It’s also a sort of a substitute for a live show for those who haven’t managed to see the band on tour yet and a souvenir for those who have. Hardrock Haven caught up with the band’s mastermind and also one of the most prolific songwriters of the European Hard Rock scene, Erik Mårtensson, to get all the details behind the release. But as coincidence would have it (again), we happened to talk on the release day of the new single and videoclip by a supergroup W.E.T (including Mårtensson alongside Jeff Scott Soto, Robert Säll and Eclipse bandmates Magnus Henriksson and Robban Bäck). That’s why we had to mention W.E.T’s upcoming album – as well as other projects Erik’s involved in…
Hardrock Haven: It’s more than two decades into Eclipse’s history and almost as much since the first studio record, but your first live album Viva La VicTOURia saw the light of day just yet. How long have you been considering releasing such an album?
Erik Mårtensson: We discussed releasing an album like that – a live album – not because we really wanted to do a live album, as we play live all the time. But I know fans have been asking us for years and years to do something like this… We always wanted to do it in the right circumstances though. And there wasn’t supposed to be a live album this time, either. It was just that some friends of us were just filming one of the concerts we did in Sweden, and at the same time we recorded the whole show. When the pandemic hit, it was like, “What are we gonna do now?” And then we started looking at the video that’s been shot from the gig and listening to what we had recorded, and we were like, “This is a really good gig – it sounds great, we play live, the crowd is great,” so we started working on the material. It happened by accident almost.
Hardrock Haven: And do you think it’s possible at all – in case of Eclipse, but not only – to capture the band’s energy during a live performance on recording?
Erik Mårtensson: That’s always hard, because being at a live concert is fifty percent the music and… well, maybe forty percent is music, forty percent is seeing everything around and then twenty percent is just being annoyed that people standing next to you are screaming too much and jumping up and down (laughs). So it’s hard. But we kept everything live here – the vocals for this whole live gig are completely authentic and they haven’t been redone in the studio at all… We wanted to keep it as real as possible. We left even the mistakes. If it’s bad singing or bad playing, we left it because that’s how it is like. No one’s perfect.
Hardrock Haven: With such an approach to authenticity on Eclipse’s live album, what’s your general opinion about many live albums by other artists being secretly enhanced in the studio afterwards?
Erik Mårtensson: Well, if the original recording doesn’t cut it, if it doesn’t sound good enough, I don’t think anyone will be happy listening to a poor performance or bad sound. So if people enhance it to make it sound good, I have nothing against it. Do whatever you want. But for us, as the whole performance was so good and the energy was there, there was no use in making it better than it actually was.
Hardrock Haven: Even though Viva La VicTOURia is a live album, it also contains some acoustic studio recordings…
Erik Mårtensson: We’ve done them because we always had these acoustic versions for the Japanese market, and I kind of like it because it’s fun to have these bonus tracks on separate territories. But at the same time the rest of the world’s not able to hear them, so for the first time we released them so that everyone gets them on CD or on Spotify or wherever you’re listening. It’s a fun thing to do, and I think a lot of songs that are great as Rock songs also work very well on acoustic guitars. Not all the time, but usually if it’s a great song, it usually works great both with a full Rock band and just acoustic guitars.
Hardrock Haven: The new live album also features highlights of Live From The Quarantine [a pay-per-view live concert recorded in HD and streamed by the band in Studio Gröndahl, Stockholm, Sweden on April the 1st, 2020]. How did the idea for it started and what was your initial attitude towards it?
Erik Mårtensson: At the beginning [of the lockdown period] everyone was just sitting down with acoustic guitars and their phones, recording at home, and we got fed up with it pretty early on as there were so many of them… It seemed like every person with an acoustic guitar was sitting there and singing live on Facebook or Instagram (laughs). I couldn’t stand it anymore. So if we were going to do it, let it be proper rock’n’roll – let’s try to do it with a full band and to make it look good, to make it more interesting and something different than that phone and an acoustic guitar which we were pretty much fed up with. And I think we pulled it off, but if you want to have it [this way], it takes personnel to do everything and prepare the studio. That’s why we had to have this pay-per-view. Everyone in the crew had to get paid.
Hardrock Haven: Perfectly understandable. And what kind of experience was Live From The Quarantine in comparison to the regular Eclipse gig and what was the feedback?
Erik Mårtensson: It was like we were rehearsing in a rehearsal room. We knew that people were watching, but we couldn’t see them or interact with them in any way (laughs). It was kind of a strange situation, so that’s why we stood like in a ring, facing each other, rather than trying to make it look like a concert. That’d be a nonsense… So we played to each other and for each other and tried to enjoy it as much as possible. We didn’t take it too seriously, we just rocked out and had a good time. I think it turned out pretty well. And we were just overwhelmed with the feedback… After the gig we went out and had a couple of beers and we started looking at reactions from people… It was especially evident in countries that had real, hard lockdowns – people were almost crying and it was so special to them… You know, in Sweden we never had real lockdowns, but in place like Italy early on they had serious lockdowns and then it went all over the world. People there really needed something to be excited about and to see there’s an outside world. That had nothing to do with the pandemic, it was just music and good times.
Hardrock Haven: Do you think that one day, for whatever reason, performances in this format may replace normal concerts entirely?
Erik Mårtensson: No! Not at all. It’s boring for the fans and it’s boring for the band (laughs). I’m dying to get on the tour bus, go out, see places, meet people, shake their hands… you know, go back to as it was before. I’m tired of social distancing (laughs).
Hardrock Haven: I can imagine (laughs). Speaking about Live From The Quarantine, during it you also unveiled your new song “Driving One Of Your Cars”, which is a cover version of Lisa Miskovsky’s 2001 song. Why did you decide to put your stamp on it?
Erik Mårtensson: I really liked this song when it came out and I think one of my bandmates heard it on the radio or something like that, and he told me, “That’s a great song. We should do a cover of it.” And I went on, “Yeah, that’s a great idea.” Because a lot of good songs has been an influence on us in some sense. So I sit down and did a quick recording – a demo version – of the song. And I was like, “It sounds almost like Eclipse.” So we went on and did it. Nothing serious, just doing a cover song to see what happens.
Hardrock Haven: In another interview you said you’d love to see an upcoming band re-recording some older Eclipse tunes. Would you like it to be a band from your genre, or an act that’s entirely different stylistics?
Erik Mårtensson: Oh yeah. [I’d prefer it to be] completely different. Maybe from a Rock band or a singer-songwriter… but something very different. That would be awesome to see how something can translate from one thing to another, like we tried to re-do Lisa Miskovsky’s song to sound like Eclipse. It’s not a huge difference, but still there is a difference. It would be fun to see what happens.
Hardrock Haven: Do you think that Viva La VicTOURia may be a good starting point for someone who hasn’t heard about Eclipse before?
Erik Mårtensson: Sure, absolutely! It’s a great collection of songs. If it was supposed to be the big live album that we planned, maybe we should’ve make the setlist a bit more diverse. This was just in the middle of the tour for the new Paradigm album, so the whole set was really focused on the new album. That’s why there’s so many new songs on the live album. We always try to play as many new songs as possible, because we don’t wanna turn into a “greatest hits” kind of band… But if it we were about to do a planned live album, for real, maybe we would add some other songs. That’s how it went down, however.
Hardrock Haven: Do you prefer to discover bands through studio or live albums? And what’s your favorite live album ever and why?
Erik Mårtensson: Studio albums. I guess I listened much more to studio records than live records. When I was a kid, I listened a lot to AC/DC live albums, and of course Deep Purple and these older classic KISS live albums. But the eighty percent of what I listened to, that’s studio records. My favorite’s got to be If You Want Blood You’ve Got It by AC/DC. I’ve listened to that album a million times. Or better yet, Let There Be Rock also by AC/DC, recorded in Paris in 1979. I bought it on a VHS cassette when I was a kid and when I watched it, the gig was electrifying. Even today, when I watch it, I get goosebumps ‘cause it’s so extremely good. It’s so rock’n’roll, uncontrolled and the energy is amazing. And great songs of course.
Hardrock Haven: It’s AC/DC after all! And if you could go back in time to record and release yet another Eclipse show that was special for you for whatever reason, is there any that comes to your mind?
Erik Mårtensson: There’s been a lot of great gigs in the past. I think it’s probably a 2016 gig we did in Stockholm. We played this venue I’ve been in many times watching other bands. I love the venue and I’ve seen really big bands there, so I was like, “One day it will be awesome to play there.” And in 2016, it was sold out by Eclipse. When we went onstage, the place was packed. It was unbelievable, almost unreal that it could happen. And we asked ourselves, “Are we a big band now…?” We couldn’t believe that there were so many people there, like hundreds and hundreds of people standing and screaming to Eclipse songs. So I’d probably pick that one.
Hardrock Haven: As you’ve already mentioned, Viva La VicTOURia captures what’s best on your most recent studio album Paradigm. Do you think this particular album was, as many reviewers have already suggested, an opus magnum of your entire career so far?
Erik Mårtensson: Yeah, I think so. Even though it’s been more than a year now since it was released, I still think it’s really good. It’s not that I don’t listen to the record all the time (laughs). I don’t listen to it much to be honest (laughs). But I’m really proud of that record, also because we have taken some steps in developing our sound. We always try to develop the sound for every album and try to find something new to incorporate into our music. We don’t wanna be… you know, I’ve spoken so well about AC/DC and it’s my favorite band, but we don’t wanna be AC/DC that do the same album over and over again. ‘Cause eventually you’ll end up doing just worse and worse records. And we always try to move our positions to different places all the time so we don’t fall in that crap. And I think we did a big step on Paradigm to develop the sound but still sound like Eclipse.
Hardrock Haven: Which of the songs off Paradigm works best in the live setting, and why?
Erik Mårtensson: “Viva La Victoria”, without a doubt. That’s a song made for the crowd.
Hardrock Haven: While writing songs, do you do it with their future potential in a live setting in mind?
Erik Mårtensson: No, not really. It’s just songs that we enjoy listening to ourselves. And sometimes they’re perfect live and sometimes not. But usually the songs we really enjoy recording for the album are quite simple – we always try to make as simple songs as possible – and I think simple songs are the best live.
Hardrock Haven: And as we’re speaking about concerts, what is the status of the seated Eclipse concert under the “Sit Down And Shout” moniker that was announced to be held in December in Stockholm?
Erik Mårtensson: It’s still on, but things has become way worse in Europe, Sweden included. So they’re talking about the second wave [of COVID] hitting us. They imposed a lot of restrictions, and if they continue with them, we’ll have to postpone this concert. Fingers crossed we will do the gig, but looking at what happened during the last weeks, the chances are very slim.
Hardrock Haven: Unfortunately so… And in general, what’s your approach towards the way organizers tried to re-introduce live concerts – with social distancing, masks, seated audience… Does it make sense at all?
Erik Mårtensson: Well, it’s what needs to be done. It’s a bad year, bad for quite some time, and there are no other possibilities to do it. So we have to do it like this and it’s better to do something like this than do nothing at all. But sometimes it’s also better to wait until this whole thing settles and we can go back to having proper concerts. Because a concert is about standing close to each other, in a crowd, with a beer in your hand, screaming and singing along to the band after all. That’s what it’s all about.
Hardrock Haven: Exactly. But moving on to another topic, just an hour before our interview we’ve seen the videoclip to the new single “Big Boys Don’t Cry” by W.E.T. Obviously, there was always an uplifting vibe to the band’s songs like “Rise Up” or “Still Unbroken”… But do you think that – especially in the current worldwide situation – this positive message behind the new single is twice as important as normally?
Erik Mårtensson: Absolutely! The album is much more positive in general. It’s much like an uptempo Rock party album, more than ever before. It’s not serious – not that we were ever that serious, but it’s more tongue-in-cheek than before. If that’s possible of course (laughs)
Hardrock Haven: Any details of the songwriting or the recording process of the new W.E.T album that you can reveal that early?
Erik Mårtensson: Well, I did a lot of stuff myself as we couldn’t hook up as we usually did. Usually I’ve been writing with a guy called Miqael, and Robert [Säll, of Work Of Art] of course, and Jeff [Scott Soto] as well. But this time there was no chance to hook up and write together. So a lot of the stuff has been written by myself, with some lyrics written with Jeff. Most of the recordings has been done here, in my studio in Sweden, except of Jeff’s parts [recorded] in the US.
Hardrock Haven: And what about your other projects? Is Ammunition put on hold because of Wig Wam reunion, or are there plans to go on with it?
Erik Mårtensson: Yeah, it’s been on hold for quite some time now. I don’t know… Åge [Sten Nilsen] has been releasing a lot of solo records and he’s been all over the place. I think [Ammunition] is on hold until sometime in the future… To be honest, I have no idea about when and if. I think time will tell. The band hasn’t split up or anything, it’s just that we did the last gig and we said goodbye and then everyone went into their own direction.
Hardrock Haven: With Pretty Maids’ Ronnie Atkins’ decision to keep working in the face of his health condition, are there any plans concerning Nordic Union too?
Erik Mårtensson: Not really. We’ve been discussing it of course, and I contacted him a few times on a more personal level, asking how’s everything is with him and stuff. Let’s see what happens, but there are no strict plans of putting a new Nordic Union. Let’s see how his health develops. It’s the most important thing.
Hardrock Haven: Absolutely. Fingers crossed for him. So, as we speak about W.E.T., Ammunition and Nordic Union, these are all supergroups by definiton. And the general assumption is that they usually don’t work out ‘cause of the ego clash and personal issues. So as W.E.T. for example continues for so long now, what do you think is the key to success of these three projects?
Erik Mårtensson: It’s that there’s no big egos at all in any of these groups and no one has any big ego at all. That’s the secret. Everyone involved, everyone I play with in all these bands – they’re just here because they love music. That’s the main reason we’re all in this business. We play Hard Rock and Melodic Hard Rock, and these are not genres where you make a lot of money… People are in this genre because they love this music, and I think that really binds us together. And I don’t actually know if these are supergroups (laughs) We are no big stars, anyone of us. We’re just guys who love music and we really like working together. I think it’s simple as that. Good songs are good songs and no one cares who wrote it, it’s just for us to enjoy it.
Hardrock Haven: And is there anything else you were up to artistically during these last months?
Erik Mårtensson: Well, I’ve been mixing a lot – records for Jaded Heart and Therion and several others. I’ve been also doing some records with Alien who were big in the ‘80s… who else? I’ve been doing a lot in my studio.
Hardrock Haven: So, do you feel more comfortable working in a studio or playing gigs?
Erik Mårtensson: Probably I’m more relaxed in the studio… Because before every single gig I’m always nervous. I’m nervous every single time and it’s like I always have this feeling I’m gonna fuck it up completely (laughs). Somehow we make it to the end of course, but… Especially as a singer, they always have these troubles with the voice… especially when you’re on tour and it’s like how many nights it’s going to last before the problems occur… We’ve been doing this for quite some time, but that’s how it works just every time. But I think that being nervous before the gig is also a good thing. It means that we care – that I care. I really care.
Hardrock Haven: No doubt… Any last words?
Erik Mårtensson: Just thanks for having me and writing about our music. That’s fantastic. Thank you so much.
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Photo credits: Edko Fuzz
