DANIEL PALMQVIST OF THE MURDER OF MY SWEET INTERVIEW

8th February 2010

Having been involved with numerous bands and projects over the last  few years it seems the members of The Murder Of My Sweet have found a vehicle that may well bring about worldwide commercial success.  We caught up with guitarist Daniel Palmqvist to get the background info on the band, the making of their debut album 'Divanity' and what the future holds for the band.

Daniel, many thanks for taking the time to chat with us again at Virtuosity One and congratulations on the release of the new album from The Murder Of My Sweet
Thank you very much! My pleasure.

Can you tell how the band’s formation came about, and when did you become a member?
Our producer and drummer Daniel Flores had the initial idea for a new band, and I was asked to join early on. Considering I was a fan of Daniels previous work and that we had worked together on several projects prior to TMOMS, it was an easy decision to make. Johan Niemann is and old friend of both of us and Daniels brother in arms from Minds Eye, so he was our first pick for a bass player. Andreas Lindhal is also an old friend to both of us and a phenomenal keyboard player so he was also our first choice.

Who found Angelica and where?
Daniel had heard rumours of this very talented singer and decided to try her out on a couple of tracks and she really fitted perfectly for the band. And she’s also new to the business and this is her first album which is quite remarkable in my opinion since her vocal performance on the album is outstanding.

You’ve signed to Frontiers who seem to be doing a good job at promoting the album.  The band are probably the most modern on the label, how did you end up Frontiers and what was it that made you feel they were the right label for the band?
Frontiers took an interest in the band early on, and after we had been discussing with several labels back and forth, they came up with the best deal in the end. And we’re very happy with the decision of joining with Frontiers and they’ve been very supportive of us and have done an excellent job.

How long did the album take to write and record and where did this mostly take place?
It took about two years. What made this possible is that Daniel Flores has his own studio and, and that gave us the freedom to let the whole production take time, to really experiment and fine tune the bands sound and direction. If we had to pay for studio time and an engineer and so on, this album would probably have been too expensive to make. Also the studio is where most of the writing and recording take place, of course.

The guitars on the album are what I would call textbook in terms of modern, commercial rock music, I know you are a player with a lot more technique than is shown on the album thanks to your solo instrumental album, so is it still a challenge to play in the style of TMOMS and how do you go about approaching it?
Well, it is challenging in a different way compared to some of the more technical and “classic” style of hard rock guitar playing than I’ve done in the past. It’s really a “playing for the song” approach. The riffs and the guitar parts need to be interesting and catchy, but the priority is always on the song, the arrangement, and of course on Angelicas vocals. My job is pretty much to “paint the metal” on the bands musical canvas, to add energy and heaviness.

I am presuming you are working with a different guitar/amp tonality here as well to fit in with a band sound, how easy has it been to find a sound you are happy with – and are you happy with it?
Yeah, I think the guitar sound we came up with has the right combination of heaviness and punch to it, and still fits nicely in our arrangements. I used a bunch of different guitars on the album, mainly an Ibanez RG series and a Les Paul, but also an PRS and an ESP Eclipse. A bunch of different amps and preamps where also used, and then another important factor is Daniel Flores’s “studio magic”. He really tweaked many of the sounds and came up with some really cool tones.

As I stated in my review, this is not the type of rock I normally listen to, yet I was pleasantly surprised and impressed by the quality of song and catchiness, its infinitely more pleasing to my ear than say Evanescence, is this type of positive reaction quite typical amongst, shall we say, less mainstream conscience rock fans such as myself?
We’ve had very positive reactions both from fans of more traditional metal and hard rock and also from pop/mainstream music fans who normally doesn’t listen to heavier music. It’s really nice to find that the songs, the production and the over all vibe of the music seem to appeal to a wide variety of people.

Band mastermind Daniel Flores has again done an excellent job with the production and indeed song writing, it seems he is finally being recognised as much more than a session drummer being an all round musician.  How long have you two been friends?
That recognition is well deserved and long overdue in my opinion. Daniel and I have known each other for over 10 years. We met while studying music at the Music Conservatory of Stockholm, and although we’ve collaborated on a number of projects over the years it’s nice to finally be in the same band. 

The first single ‘Bleed Me Dry’ has been doing well on YouTube and also attained chart status in your native Sweden, you must be proud of this, how did you feel when you first heard the chart news?
It was a bit unreal, actually. We are all very proud and happy about this, of course.  And I also think it shows that people have a much more opened mind to different styles of music than “mainstream” radio think. Metal has been very neglected in the Swedish radio and TV for a long time, so it’s really cool that a metal song could make it to the charts.

How easy was the album to make in your eyes, and is there anything you would do differently on album number 2, or learnt from the making of ‘Divanity’?
I think we all have learned a lot from making this album, and I think we can use that to make an ever stronger follow up. With Divanity we have found a sound as a band that we can build upon and refine.

Any touring action lined up yet?
There a definitely plans of touring and we are discussing with promoters but nothing is official yet.

What else in store for the band, or for you personally in 2010?
For us as a band the no 1 priority is of course to go out in the world and play live. We’ve done a couple of gigs in Stockholm prior to the release and that was a blast, so hopefully 2010 has more gigs and possibly some touring in store for us.

For me personally I’m currently working on an album with Norwegian singer Johannes Stöle. It will be in the style of classic melodic rock and we also have been collaborating with several great songwriters for this album, Robert Säll of Work Of Art and Sören Kronqvist of Crash The System to name few. The album will be produced by Daniel Flores who also will be performing the drums. It will be packed with cool songs and big vocal arrangements, so fans of AOR should keep their eyes open for this one:)

Daniel, thank you very much once again.
You’re welcome!

WEB LINKS
http://www.themurderofmysweet.com
http://www.myspace.com/themurderofmysweet