KONKHRA/DAEMON Update From Lundemark

KONKHRA/DAEMON mainman Anders Lundemark has offered the following update on the two bands' current status via KONKHRA's official web site at www.konkhra.com:

[On KONKHRA]
“Well, Johnny [Nielsen, drums] and Kim [Mathiesen, guitars] got back in the band, so now we are intact in our old line-up. We had some differences in the past that lead to the break-up in '96. It's a long story but we all got together before the KING DIAMOND tour and talked it over. We have a lot of common ground musically and the chemistry in the band has never been better. We all grew up a bit, and the songs we got [for the next album] are killer. The next record is almost written and I can't wait to put it out. We dug out the old beast that was KONKHRA before Weed Out The Weak and Come Down Cold, and I can't wait to get the album done. Johnny's been sick this fall, he had to be operated on for hernia, and once he was almost well his moraine bit him. It's a big moraine — 1,2 m and 4 kgs. But he'll be back in the saddle in January and I expect the record will be out in the fall. There is no label yet, but we had a lot of good talks with people and I know for sure we can get the record out. I hope it will be out on a label with great distribution, but we'll see. I don't expect to sign anything before the record is 100% done, so we can get the best offer available to us…We are also talking about doing a 'best of' record, with remixes of some of the older songs, possibly a couple of new ones as well. We are looking at the possibilities for releasing this in the spring, but if it looks like it can't get out before the summer we'll probably wait 'till after the new record [has been released].”

[On DAEMON]
“The [new] DAEMON record will be released soon, Dave KcKean is working on the cover art right now, I've seen some roughs and it look absolutely amazing…I started writing songs after [KONKHRA] got off tour with NAPALM DEATH in ´99. Our relationship with Diehard [Music] had deteriorated, and we didn't expect to tour more for Come Down Cold. I had a couple of new songs that was written, but I got in touch with [STRAPPING YOUNG LAD/ex-DARK ANGEL drummer] Gene [Hoglan] very early, and after he was interested, I kinda wrote the [DAEMON] record for him. I had certain beats in mind that I was sure he would execute to perfection, and being the drum-god that he truly is, I had exceptional freedom in the songwriting process. I've always been more of a 'rhythm' guy as opposed to 'melody', and the songs were all finished with Cubase programmed drums, so I could send it to Gene in advance. The stuff is sort of demanding for a drummer and I think Gene was a little surprised of the severity of the songs. But he got it all in the summer of 2000 and we fit in drum sessions between STRAPPING tours. I think Gene was at my studio in October of last year, he was here for about a week and he cut three songs the first day. I mean, the man is unreal. Hearing the songs played like he did was just astonishing. And his tracks lay a solid foundation I could record to on my studios downtime.”