MNEMIC Guitarist: 'We Made A Really F*cking Great Album'

HardcoreSounds.net recently conducted an interview with MNEMIC guitarist Mircea Gabriel Eftemie and drummer Brian Rasmussen. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

HardcoreSounds.net: Are you pleased with the new vocalist [ex-SCARVE singer Guillaume Bideau] so far?

Brian: "Hell yeah. He does an awesome job. When I started listening to our new album I was pretty confident that people will like his voice. He is a really good singer."

Mircea: "He is much more diverse singer than our last singer Michael because he has very original voice. From the first time we heard him he totally blew us away. We are very happy with him."

HardcoreSounds.net: He was in a death metal band before he joined your group, yeah?

Mircea: "Yeah, but he really is not a death metal guy. He incorporated all the clean vocals in SCARVE. They had a screamy, clean vocalist and a growler. He was more into our music so that was like a perfect fit for him and us."

HardcoreSounds.net: During your career you have had few vocalist changes. How has the numerous vocalist changes affected the band, or have they?

Mircea: "It has, definitely. We got to a point where we were like asking ourselves 'Should we continue?' Everybody was really down because like when our first singer left we were like, 'What the fuck just happened?' He just sent us an email out of the blue saying 'Hey, I don't wanna do this anymore.' Fuck, we are about to release our third album, our most important album in our career and we don't have a vocalist. We already had that MESHUGGAH tour booked and we definitely wanted to play some shows with them because we are huge fans of MESHUGGAH. After when we got separated from Tony [Jelencovich; ex-TRANSPORT LEAGUE, currently in M.A.N], it was rough. We had to work for the future and we didn't know what was happening. But we found a perfect person on a musical and personal level. Now it feels like a band [more] than ever. We are really happy about the new singer because he is so good and we made a really fucking great album. Let's see what happens in the future."

HardcoreSounds.net: How was the recording process of the album?

Mircea: It was very very different. We used like three studios for it. One place to record drums, another place to record guitars and bass, another place to record vocals. Then we mixed it in a fourth studio and recorded some more vocals to it. It took such a long time because we really wanted to concentrate on the album. We wanted to make the best album ever so we did a lot of different stuff for it. I would say it was pretty painful."

HardcoreSounds.net: I read that Jeff Walker (CARCASS) and Shane Embury (NAPALM DEATH) will be doing a guest apperance on your new album. How was it like to work with these two gentleman and how did you end up doing cooperation with them in the first place?

Mircea: "Well, basically, I met Jeff Walker at the airport in Copenhagen. He had short hair at that time and I was looking at him and I was like, 'What the fuck? That's Jeff Walker from CARCASS!' I got to go and say hi to him. I turned around, followed him and he was going in to the bar of course because he is English and he drinks a lot. I stopped him and said, 'Hey, you're Jeff Walker from CARCASS. It's such an honor to meet you.' He said, "Hey, mate, it's all good. You wanna have a beer?' I got his phone number and email and we kept in touch. I asked if he would be interested in doing guest vocals on our song and he was like, 'Fuck, yeah, I will do it!' He had some shows with BRUJERIA in L.A. and Shane from NAPALM plays in BRUJERIA too. They came out and did their stuff. I was such an amazing experience to be in the same studio and listen to Jeff's vocals. It was a fantastic experience and turned out great!"

Read the entire interview at HardcoreSounds.net.