MNEMIC Guitarist: 'We Will NOT Have Any More Lineup Changes'

Andi Althoff of Germany's Metal1.info webzine conducted a short interview with MNEMIC guitarist Mircea Gabriel Eftemie about the group's latest addition, ex-SCARVE singer Guillaume Bideau, and their upcoming third album, tentatively due next year. Read on:

Metal1.info: News [recently] spread that former SCARVE frontman Guillaume Bideau filled the vacant role as MNEMIC's singer. For how long is he part of the band now?

Mircea: "He is the new singer of this band, and he will be with this band untill this band will be dead, buried and rotten — we will NOT have any more lineup changes, I can promise you that."

Metal1.info: How did the band and him come together?

Mircea: "Well, actually through one of my good friends, who is related to the SOILWORK/SCARVE drummer Dirk. We got the word that Guillaume was really interested in auditioning.

"At first we said that we didn't really want anyone outside of Scandinavia. We tried a lot of singers, but none had impressed us with their vocal abillities. We auditioned singers in our rehearsal, doing old songs, and we auditioned them in the studio, layering vocals on a new song. So we basically tried out their abillities, their streangths and weaknesses and how they would work in a live and studio situation.

"To begin with, the plan was to get someone from Denmark, due to the language barrier, but there was absolutely nobody from Denmark. We tried out a couple of singers from Sweden as well, but none had impressed us 110% — either they could shout and scream but didn't really have a melodic tone, or they had a melodic tone but no power in their vocal chords. So we kind of came to the conclusion that we really needed someone who could do everything we asked for in regards to the vocals, and on the other hand we needed some one that could work on a personal level as well. We flew Guillaume to Denmark and he basically nailed everything. The old and new songs — plus all of his sources of inspiration were practically the same as ours, and we were completly on the same page. On the other hand, he's had experience on touring and being in a band for some quite some time, so it couldn't be a better fit for us."

Metal1.info: Your next album is planned for early 2007. How are things going on? Are there any first titles you could offer?

Mircea: "Things are going really well. We've just arrived in Los Angeles a couple of days ago, and we have begun pre-production for the album. Guillaume will be here later this month, due to some visa issues, but that's getting worked out as we speak.

"We are still writing songs, and we are trying to get as many as possible nailed for this next album. As far as titles, here are some working titles: 'Shape of the Formless', 'Pigfuck', 'Into the Nothingness Black'."

MNEMIC's second album, "The Audio Injected Soul", was released in North America by Nuclear Blast Records on October 5, 2004.

(Thanks: Andi Althoff / Metal1.info)