This current interview is with another of Scandinavia's brightest hopes.  Sweden's 'Zeelion' made quite a stir last year with their self titled debut release.  In this interview I got the chance to discuss that album and where the band are now heading in the new millennium with their bassist Jonathan Oke.

Questions by Andy Craven

(L-R: Lenny De Rose [V], Fredo [D], Jonathan Oke [B], Mats Olsson [K], Sudden [G])

How did the band form and how long was it before you got a record deal?  
Actually it was our friend Mr hardrock himself, Janne Stark who came up with the idea to us... he thought it would be a great idea to put a band together in this style knowing us as musicians and our influences. So, I knew Lenny and Sudden from earlier days as we've worked together with producing/recording in Studio Underground. Lenny had played with Fredo (played drums in Schizofrenic Cirkus on a tour in Sweden they did with Saxon) and Mats (who plays keyboard in Lennys other band Zello, that plays progressive rock).

  First of all Sudden, Lenny and I discussed what we wanted to do and put up some frames for the work. Then we just started to work on ideas right away. When we had a bunch of stuff each we sat down togther and started to put everything together. As soon as we had all the songs we contacted Mats and Fredo and asked them to join us. This was in April 1997.

  We did it maybe a little different from what we are used to, we went into the studio right away instead of rehearsing all of the songs for a long time. ...Bam! Some arranging, then down on tape right away.

  When everything was mixed we sent it away and it took less than a week before we got a deal in Japan. In Europe it took a little longer as there were several interested companies and it took some time to sort everything out before we signed a European deal.

Your self-titled debut album has got pretty much widespread acclaim; did this surprise you at all?
Hmmm, I don't know. Well I guess we have had some good reactions, but if it has got "pretty much widespread acclaim" I don't know anything about. Our record company hasn't really been telling us what has happened or fixed any interviews or just anything. But if you say so, it's cool. Surprised, yeah of what you are telling. I think the first Zeelion turned out pretty much after the plan and we were satisfied with it at that time.

  The opening track ‘Lightning Strikes’ [after the short instrumental ‘Prelude In La Minore’] is a great Rainbow-ish track, was this always planned as the opening number?  
Sure thing, it was planned from scratch.

The second song ‘Crying’ is one of my favourites, it has a superb arrangement, how did the writing for this track take place?
Hehe, in the Zeelion song factory as all the other. When writing the songs to the first album we were very fast. Everybody had their material, so we sat down, drank beer and just put everything together in a couple of days. We did all of the songs in the same period of days.

  ‘Can This Be Love’ sees a more American vibe enter after the European qualities of the first few numbers, how come there are quite a few different styles on the album?
Yeah, you are right about that and it's because we all have a lot of differnet influences. It just came out that way, it wasn't planned. Zeelion is kinda a melting pot of some of our hard rock favourites.

  ‘Save Me’ features a great vocal performance from Lenny, how did you capture the great vibe displayed here?
Haha, maybe in the vibe of stress and lack of time! As with writing the songs, the recording procedure was pretty much the same. We didn't think to much just put the machine in full speed and went on, and on 'til we were done...

One thing that struck me most about the album was how confident everyone sounded, were the tracks recorded live as a band, or individually?
We put down each instrument by itself. Starting of with the drums and rhythm guitar and then adding the rest one by one.

  The album covers a wide field of rock sounds – neo classical to stadium rock to classic hard rock – Who are your main influences?
Well we all have different influences today. I listen to all kinds of music, everything from classical and pop to industrial and aggressive metal. Sudden is pretty much into the same. Lenny is into progressive and folk. Mats and Fredo I guess are more into the jazz and pop scene. But we all have some kind of heart to the more traditional hard rock that we in some way has grown up with. That's also one of the reasons of putting this band together. The influences we have are the seventies, early eighties hardrock. Bands like Rainbow and Deep Purple etc. And as Sudden has a classical trained background, the neo classical stuff.

You are currently in the studio recording your second album.  How is it going and what direction will it take?
Well, it goes well but terribly slow. We've been in the studio for ages now with the second one. We record a little period here and a little period there. Not because we are that lazy, but the studio has really been packed and is booked 7 days a week so we have had to wait to find time in the schedule for our stuff.

  Last week Mats finished off the keyboards. Sudden also recorded some acoustic guitar. We have also been working on the vocals. So what is left now is 3 songs for Lenny to record before we can start mixing.

  I think this album will turn out heavier. Both in the production and in the songs. The overall sound is fatter. I think the songs turned out better this time too. We spent a little more time when writing the second album. I guess there are some more faster songs this time too. But you probably find it pretty much in the same vein as the first one.

  Can you give us any song titles?
The song titles for the next Zeelion album are:

I'll Burn   
My kingdom of dreams  
King of all kings 
Shadows  
I remember  
Wind of time  
Black hearted woman 
Steel Attack 
Into the twilight 
Stars of orion  
Asia (instrumental)

  There might be an acoustic guitar piece, but we haven't decided if we are going to keep that one yet.

  Do you intend to do some touring on the back if it?  
Nah, I don't know at all right now. At the moment we only have the recording in our minds. We've to see what happens later on before we can start to think about touring. Now we have to finish off this new world record of being slow in the studio...haha

  Where do you see the band heading in the next few years?  
That's also pretty much open and we haven't planned so far yet. But I guess that we might become a little harder.

  Any parting messages for your fans?
Thanx for remembering us... if you do?! The new album is on it's way and will be finished as soon as possible. Stay cool, rock on, vistit http://welcome.to/zeelion and drop us a line if you feel like it at zeelion@telia.com. 

If you want to check out the studio go http://welcome.to/studiounderground.

Thanks to Jonathan for taking the time to do this interview.