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Former SABATON Keyboardist Discusses CIVIL WAR Debut

June 26, 2013

Chad Bowar of About.com Heavy Metal recently conducted an interview with former SABATON and current CIVIL WAR keyboardist Daniel Mÿhr. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

About.com Heavy Metal: What led to you guys all leaving SABATON last year?

Daniel Mÿhr: We all had our reasons to leave. I was the last one to get out because I felt like the whole unit of friends that was SABATON had somehow ceased to exist. I didn't feel motivated to go on. So I took the decision to leave. Not that I have any problems with Pär [Sundström, bass] and Joakim [Brodén, vocals], I just felt it was time to move on with my life in some other direction.

About.com Heavy Metal: Describe the songwriting and recording process for [CIVIL WAR's debut album] "The Killer Angels".

Daniel Mÿhr: We write basic demos and present them to each other. It's mostly me and Patrik [Johansson, vocals] that write the music, and then the others add their own personal touch with their instruments. We complete each other quite well and manage to develop each others' ideas very well. The recording was quite backwards. Usually you start with drums, then guitars/bass, keys and vocals. We started with vocals. And then [Daniel] Mullback came and adjusted my programmed drums so it sounded more like the way he would play them in the studio. After that we did the rest, with the real drums being recorded last. Most of the instruments and vocals were recorded in my apartment, except for the drums which we recorded with Jonas Kjellgren (SCAR SYMMETRY, RAUBTIER) in Abyss Studios.

About.com Heavy Metal: What inspired the album title?

Daniel Mÿhr: The working title of the album was "Gettysburg", but we felt that the title was a bit too narrow when it came to the subjects that we had written about. Then we got to know that there was a book "The Killer Angels", written by Michael Shaara, that was actually about the battle of Gettysburg. So we found that title a bit more appealing. But the rest of the songs on the album has no relation to that book at all. So in a way you could say that "Gettysburg" is the title track.

About.com Heavy Metal: How would you characterize the style/sound of "The Killer Angels"?

Daniel Mÿhr: Traditional heavy/power metal. It has more heavy metal influences since we drew back on the use of keyboards. I can't really compare it to any other band completely; there are a lot of different influences on there.

About.com Heavy Metal: With your lineup's past and the style of music CIVIL WAR plays, the media will certainly compare you with SABATON. Do you?

Daniel Mÿhr: There have actually been less comparisons to SABATON than I thought there would be. I know that at moments there are definitely things that might sound a bit SABATON-ish but I think we have moved away quite a lot from that sound in general.

Read the entire interview from About.com Heavy Metal.

"First To Fight" audio stream:

"Saint Patrick's Day" audio stream:

"I Will Rule The Universe" audio stream:

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