NIGHTINGALE 

Please, close your eyes and give a chance to your mind to voyage in a beautiful world of melodies, sweetness, introspection and energy...The marvellous sensation of 80th hard rock mixed with real 70th rock´n´roll is the mark of this incredible band named NIGHTINGALE, a new name for the hall of the hard rock gods. The legendary Dan Swano(vocals, lead guitars & keys) from EDGE OF SANITY is the  genius mind behind this fabulous project and he count with another great musicians: Tom Nouga (guitar, Keys), Erik Oskarsson (bass) and Tom Bjorn (Drums). The new opus  „Alive Again: The Breathing Shadow part IV“ (released by The End Records in USA) is a kind of perfect album, a musical dream for hard´n´prog lovers! KREPUSKULUM interviewed Dan Swanö.

KREPUSKULUM: Please, talk to us about the NIGHTINGALE story from the beginning up to the „Alive Again" release. Where come from the idea to put this name in the band? 

Dan Swanö: Hi there. Nightingale started as my solo project in 1994. I Chose the name because it sounded a bit dark and gloomy, but the meaning was something bright and innocent, and these are the building blocks of Nightingale's music. Then I did another album with Tom Nouga as a co-writing Producer called "The Closing Chronicles". After the project was put on ice for a few years, then we teamed up as a 50% 50% duo doing "I" and after that one disappeared in distribution problems, it was either give it up or give it 11%. We went for the 2^nd choice and found Erik and Tom B. Started to rehearse and me and my brother Nouga wrote a bunch of great songs and eventually they all made it to our, in many ways, first "real" album "Alive Again"

The Hard rock isn´t a fashion now, it was a mainstream music in the middle of 80th but now it is a real kind of underground music. Do you believe in a new wave of hard rock music? 

You can always hope. But I find it hard to believe. Maybe if lots of bands get big hit singles, but I think the post-grunge and the signing of all bands like Puddle of Mudd is the closest we'll get to a hard rock revival in the mainstream. But I like it underground!! 

The music of NIGHTINGALE mixed great influences of 70th rock´n´roll & 80th hard rock, Am I right?

Yeah..I was born in '73 raised during the 80's. Nouga was born '63 raised during the 70's..it's all making sense… 

We can see some echoes of Deep Purple and Led Zep in your music, but the first band that I remember when I list the new album was WHITESNAKE from the best phase. Are you great fans of Coverdale & Cia? What you think about their return?

Cool. You're not the first one to compare, which is very nice!! I Like their stuff with Sykes. I Guess my brother would disagree and call that period pure crap. WE often disagree about the best periods of artist (Right now I Listen to Alice Cooper "Trash" I am pretty sure my brother would puke if he heard it!!) 

NIGHTINGALE mixed a lot of influences, but the band has personality, sound unique, your voice is simple marvellous and it is the best mark of your music (in union with the incredible power to create intense refrains). Talk to us a little about your voice, do you study chant? Do you realize some exercises to the voice? What are your influences in the rock scene, and in the pop music? 

Hey..thank you!!! I have no training whatsoever, I really need it though, I spend faaaar to much time singing in the studio (14 days for Alive Again!!) I am quite pleased with my voice, I'd like to have a greater range of course (Like all other vocalists) but for the time being, I am just enjoying the good reviews of my performance and like being me!! Fave singers are Lou Gramm, Dio, Steve Walsh (70's) Wayne Hussey, Dann Huff and many more, that I always forget..That guy from Enchant kicks ass aswell!! Steve Hogarth used to rock aswell. 

In the past (1991), you play in an hardcore band (Wounded Knee) and produced bands like MARDUK & OPETH, what do you think about this kind of music now? Do you listen another kind of metal like HARDCORE, DEATH METAL, BLACK METAL, GRINDCORE & THRASH METAL? 

Yeah. Since I grew out of the trend bit (where you listen to everything because it belongs to the trend) pretty fast, I have only listened to quality music lately. I still get goosebumps from a good "evil" metal song. But also from something really cyrupy I hear on the radio. I am a songman. I kill for a good hook, no matter what genre.. 

ETERNAL is a marvellous progressive song with 11:21 minutes and the keyboards remember sometimes the URIAH HEEP Byron´s phase, the soles are simple marvellous, it give an intense astral feeling to the listeners, Talk to us about the creative process behind this song and the another songs from „Alive Again“.

"Eternal" is a great piece of mix and match. I had these piece laying around intended for a progrock band called Antarktis that me and Nouga was about to form years ago. I used that and some other pieces from our only track as Antarktis, added bits and pieces of new written parts plus some stuff dating back to 1981, from my brothers band "Original". After a week of demo-ing, I made a final version and with the addition of the final part, that is the version we recorded for the CD. 

More info here: 

*Recollections

The first idea was to open the album with an unplugged continuation of the track "Alive Again" from the second album (The Closing Chronicles) but the sound of three acoustic guitars and a bass didn't sound epic enough to link with that track, so I went home and made a complete turn and recorded a bunch of synthesizers and weird samples and added my voice on top of that, and this turned out perfect. It sets you off in an epic mode from the first second. The basic rhythm-pattern is borrowed from another track off the second album (Thoughts from a stolen soul) and the overall feel is very much alike the track "Intermezzo" from the same album. So it was here tat the links to the second album really started to come together. (DS) 

*Shadowman

This is the first new track to be written for the album. There was a demo made of it around the time when we started the band back in 2000 and it became one of the key songs in the writing of "Alive Again". The track went thru many changes sound-wise. The first version had tons of keyboards, the second one had no keyboards at all, and the version that ended up on the album is the perfect blend of the two. Personally I think it is one of the best tracks I have ever written and I have nightmares about trying to top this one!! (DS) 

*The Glory Days

This track is one of those happy accidents that doesn't happen to a writer that very often (If any one knows how to make them happen more often, please call me!!) I was writing three songs at the same time and they all sounded a bit alike and I always mixed them up and in the middle of all that I remember a bridge that I thought I had forgotten to put in this song but it didn't fit because of the new tempo was higher. Anyway, after adjusting the tempo to match this forgotten bridge section the rest of the track got a completely different groove and I ended up using the bridge from first track, the verse from the second and the chorus from the third combined with a new intro that I wrote on the spot. The whole piece came together in maybe fifteen minutes. The problem was that I just scrapped three songs to write one, but I felt that it was worth it and that we had enough playing time anyway. From this moment on I knew that this album would be all about quality not quantity. (DS) 

*Falling

Written in -91 after a lyric by a guy called "Dr.Dark" after I wrote it I was very impressed with it and played the rough demo over and over in my freestyle enjoying the feeling of "I kick ass" Too bad another Swedish singer wrote a song with the same title ("Under ytan" )and got a big hit with it. It became a "Tom Nouga" classic. The song itself is very ZZ Top influenced but since no one understand what a great band those guys are (were) under their beard it's a safe act to steal from.! Great solo from Arjen. I still think it's one of the best songs I ever done. (TN) 

*Into the light

Also a bit ZZ top here on the main riff. The origin is from -92 but most of it was written for "A.A" as a "standard hard rock song". When we first started to talk about N.G being a real band our goal was to play basic hard rock ala UFO, Moxy, Judas Priest, etc. On this track we succeeded (TN) 

*Eternal

This track took over a year to complete and I am incredibly proud of the way it turned out. I have been amazed by epic tracks ever since I was like 7 years old and my brother (who happens to be Tom Nouga, with whom I co-wrote this track!!) gave me mix tapes with songs like "One for the Vine" and "Fifth of fifth" with Genesis and Mike Oldfield "Incantations". I had previously written a few lengthy tracks like "Hiding Again" (Unicorn) "Crimson" (Edge of Sanity) "Raagoonshinaah" (Pan Thy Monium) but I always felt that it wasn't the ultimate one, until now. The feel-good vibes I get from the penultimate section of this track is only comparable to the vibes from the slighty more carnal activities that only includes me and my wife (and not any of my bandmates!!) Tom Nouga wrote a lot of tracks like this around the early eighties and I always envied him when he was bashing out mega epics on the upright piano in the room (That I inherited later on to write songs like "When all is sa! id" and "The Dumb") next to mine. It was a great moment for me when he agreed to let me use certain section of these 20 year old classics and marry them with some of my better epic ideas ever. Eternal is a very special track to me and I really hope that you will give it the time it deserves and see the true colours of this epic masterpiece! (DS) 

*State of shock

For a while a T.N song about hard and soft things. The original refrain were very soft, almost country like, but it didn't work very well. I had the song up on mp3.com for about 15 hours before I deleted it. I knew a few people who downloaded it: they have a rarity on their hard disk I wrote a new, catchy, refrain to the and the rest is history ! Maybe the hardest N.G track ever. And a rare contribution from Erik on basboll. Thanks to Michael Schenker for inspiration! (TN) 

*The One

In 1991 I bought a Roland sound module called U110 It was already out-dated but pretty cheap. I tested the string sound and instantly wrote this piece. I always thought it was too soft for T.N so I never did anything with it. Dan heard it by accident on an old demo and insisted it being used for the album ("it's soft but not minor", were his exact words) Anyway, it's a good one and this version is far better than my, sombre, Swedish version. (also on mp3.com for about 24 hours…) Great vocals from Dan and i think this one is more his style than mine (TN) 

*Shadowland Serenade

Every album have a special track that stands out and feels a bit different from the rest. Shadowland Serenade is one of them and it went through a lot of changes and some parts of it was written while recording the vocals for the album at Studio Kuling. This track is as close to a "classic" Nightingale feel that you get on this album. It's very much a track that belongs to the same family as "Nightfall Overture", "Deep inside of Nowhere" and "Remorse and regret". We added the "Les Binks double bass drum" soloriff while doing the drums and I changed a lot in the vocal harmonies when I recorded the lead vocals, so this song still feels very fresh to me, and the fact that I haven't heard it as much as the other tracks makes me wanna listen to it again, again and again!! (DS) 

*Forever and Never

A big Genesis/Spock´s Beard influence on this one. Originally with a lyric by the same guy who wrote the words for "Falling" (and P.T.M as well) This was the first song to appear when we started to talk about the new album. A deep and mystic track with a strong refrain. The ending from the original "Alive again" works very well and watch out for Erik´s Hot and sexy samba bass and Tom B. rocks (TN) 

The rock & metal music are infested by the bad feelings, pain and death messages but the NIGHTINGALE music  has a kind of good feeling inside, I can feel that you believe in life and humanity when I listen music as „Into the Light“ and „Forever and Never“. Do you agree with me?  

Yeah. We are not a destructive band at all. We have so much fun just being in the same room together that it's scary! Even when we travel and find ourselves in boring situations, we laugh our asses off…We had a mega great time recording the tracks you mention, and that shines thru…Music is a great revealing source. You can also hear tension..not in out music (yet) but some of my fave albums have a tension (Clutching at straws/Marillion) and then total joy (Seasons end) Both emotions is very creative for some…

If possible, give to us the name of the 10 best albums of the rock history in your opinion and the 10 best bands live now?

Sorry. I am not a "list" guy. They come back to haunt you some other time…I consider MARILLION (85-95) RUSH (not the new CD) to be my all time faves…then there's goodies like KANSAS, UK, ASIA, SPOCK'S BEARD, GIANT etc. 

NIGHTINGALE is your full-time band now? Do you intend create another musical projects now, and about your producer activities, do you will produce another bands in future? 

I am currently recording the final Edge Of Sanity album. I chose to revive the project for a final album "Crimson II". After that I will do the Second Sky project demos and after that a new minialbum from Nightingale, some old stuff, some new, some covers etc. called "Still Alive". 

Talk to us about the „Alive Again“ tour plans. 

None! We just did two great shows, one at 2000 Decibel and 1 great headline show for 1000 people in Cyprus, TV filmed it, so watch out for us on your cable!!! 

Thank you for your time and big success with NIGHTINGALE! Give your final words to the south American fans.

Thanx and sorry for the delay. I Hope you publish it anyway!!! 

Dan Swanö 

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Contacts:

Label - wwww.theendrecords.com , jake@theendrecords.com

Band - > dan@swano.com