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Building Blocks Of Mystique With MORTEN LOWE SORENSEN From AMARANTHE · HEAVY Music Interviews

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  Hello, thanks for listening to Heavy. This interview has proudly brought to you
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  thanks to Road. You're leading a strain based audio technology company. Today we
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  have the pleasure of speaking with Yeah. I'm Morton, the drummer of the
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  Danish Swedish or Swedish Danish band Emmorand yeah, that's all I have to say.
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  You want to know, that's enough. We know who you are now,
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  where you're from. That's enough for us. Hey you don't well?
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  Pretty good here, just enjoying the cold weather here in Denmark and sipping my
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  morning coffee and yeah, having a good time. Very good man, a
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  run prepare. I'll lend you a sixth album, The Catalyst on February twenty
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  third. So how you feeling about it? Is it the sixth? Is
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  it? Is it not? The seventh? Said sixth in the in the
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  press release, but we'll go with seventh if i'm if. Let's just count
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  for a moment here, Let's make sure that the facts are right. Let's
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  one, two, three, four, five, it's the seventh, well
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  they they basically yeah it's the seventh. Oh that's so wow. Seventh album?
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  Okay, good enough? Then good enough? How you feeling about the
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  seventh album coming out right, Well, I'm pretty stoked actually, it's a
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  I mean very proud of this album. It's a it's been a lot of
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  work, not not very hard work, but a lot of work, and
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  it's been a very rewarding and super creative process for all of us. And
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  yeah, I mean we're doing better than ever. I mean we're a happy,
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  happy band at the moment, have a great album and people seem to
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  already like it. So that's very positive. And what what's this period life
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  for about? Like I can imagine the album would have been finished for a
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  little while now, so you're just sitting back and waiting for it to come
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  out, Like do you put it to better or do you go over it
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  and think maybe you put it on this bit better or different or what sort
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  of things go on? Well, yeah, it's actually been a while.
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  I think almost on the date is one year since I recorded the drums.
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  Yeah, no, I mean when of course, there's always something that you
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  could have maybe changed or done done in a different way. But that will
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  that's that's usually something that will happen once we start playing the songs live,
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  is that that certain things will just happen, and at least for me as
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  a drummer, I also have a little bit more freedom, you know,
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  I can maybe change a few things here and there and and it might happen,
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  you know, like organically throughout the like a tour, and then I
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  maybe like, ah, I should have been like this and or that,
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  and just small changes might start happening, you know. And doesn't mean that
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  it should have been like that, but it certain things sometimes work better live
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  than on on a on an album. But no, I mean I'm super
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  happy about the production and everybody is playing and like everything is Yeah, I
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  love it. I love the I love the album. As always, when
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  you release a new album, it's always the best one. I'd be disappointed
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  if you said anything else, right, Can you tell us me more about
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  the album from a musical point of view and what are you actually going for
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  with it? Well, it's from a musical point of view, it's a
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  it's been a very fun album to to to create. There's been a lot
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  of like freedom really in a in a in a it's been like it's it's
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  been like I said before, it's surprisingly easy album to do. Didn't really
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  analyze things too much, just kind of followed the like the god feeling and
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  yeah I didn't. Yeah, it was more like an emotional kind of writing
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  instead of like a cerebral kind of overanalyzing stuff, you know. So it
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  was a yeah, surprisingly easy to do. I'm sorry, no, I
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  mean it's it's a very obvious. Obviously we always set up like to every
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  album has a certain reaction to the previous album, and this time we felt
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  that, oh, maybe we should have a few more faster songs, like
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  more energetic. So I would say that the biggest difference between this one and
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  the Manifest is maybe that there's more like faster, high energy songs in this
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  one. Yeah, so you've released to sing those Revision Incitiable, Out of
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  Dimensions and Damnation Flames, what you say, over all their sonic representation of
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  what you expect, Yeah, for sure. I mean there's also completely different
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  elements in other songs. It's probably the most diverse album actually, not that
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  I think about it. There's like there's some symphonic elements, even more symphonic
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  elements in some of the songs that hasn't been released yet, and even like
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  more high enity songs as well, and as well as like super heavy songs
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  and a ballad. Of course, it's always has to be a ballad,
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  has to be very, very, very different kind of ballot. This time
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  it's like really yeah, exceptionally, I mean the performance of Elisa and Nielsen.
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  This ballad is the next level. Yeah, I would say. Yeah.
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  The album opens with the title track, which is applause a catalyst to
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  it. It's very operatic and got a lot of electronics and atmospherics in it.
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  Like it's a good choice ope in the album because it starts off like
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  that and sort of lulls you in and then just goes bang. Yeah,
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  it's the first time we ever actually have an intro on on the first song,
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  an actual intro, you know. It's like, I don't know,
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  it's like forty to fifty seconds of of intro before. I mean, it's
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  it's music. It's not just like ambience sounds or anything like that. But
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  it's not something I think we've never done before. And yeah, it's a
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  kind of like a classic ever and the song obviously, but it's it's it's
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  also has some completely new flavor to it. I would say, yeah.
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  And our life for it has been quite a little saying we've never been as
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  theatrical as we've gone this time. Can you can you elaborate on what he
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  means by that? Yeah, I think it's it's the fact that every song
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  has its own characteristics, you know, it's it really has its own personality
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  to to to a much higher degree than before. So I mean theatrically.
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  I mean you will have to go to a show as well, obviously to
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  to really get the expression I would say, But yeah, I mean from
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  from the video perspect if you can, you can you can see that the
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  first single, Damnation Flame, is a it's obviously very theatrical in the fact
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  that we are vampires. It's a vampire video and that's something we've never never
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  done before. And that as a complete sharp contrast, we have Revision,
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  which is like a sci fi dystonia, this kind of atmosphere, you know,
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  like evil robots and resdistant fighters fighting each other and this then not so
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  nice future where AI probably have taken over or something, you know, along
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  those lives might like. The press release says that the catalyst is you're most
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  conceptually coherent piece of work yet. But can you elaborate on that? What's
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  what's the concept well, first of all, the catalyst, it's like,
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  represents change on a on a like a on a global scale and on a
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  personal scale. So I would like it represents the world we live in right
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  now. You know, you can you can look at the future, depending
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  on your which glasses you wear, you know, it's gonna be a good
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  future or it's going to be a bad future. It's like, it depends
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  on where you are, maybe where you're living. What if you're like living
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  in Ukraine or something right now, it's probably not a very heavy outlook.
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  On the other hand, if you're living in I don't know, Australia might
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  look good. I don't know. But I mean it's it's it's all a
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  choice in a way. I mean, we create this choice. We create
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  our future with every thought we are having in a way, so it's kind
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  of empowering, you know, to to to to think of like, Okay,
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  so yeah, there's this big future happening out there, decided by politicians
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  and all that, but it's also up to us individually to create our little
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  the little bubble we live in, you know, make this a positive bubble
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  and affect our environment in a positive way, you know, not don't pollute
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  the air, you know, with negativity, but try to create positive change.
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  And this is the catalyst. You know. It's like this, it
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  can be whatever, it can be whatever you want it to be, and
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  it probably is. It's like AI. I mean, there's also obviously parallels
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  to AI in this whole concept that it kind of divides people. You know,
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  some people are scared. Some people are like, oh, this is
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  gonna ruin everything. Like the worst consequence would be that it enslaves us.
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  You know. That's pretty much what we kind of this only we show in
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  the the revision video, like you know, like the evil robots you know,
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  have taken over like obey us and you know, but it might not
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  be so it might also be the best thing that ever happened. But it
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  can also be the two things at the same time. You know. It's
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  like any technology, you know, Like I don't think anybody wants to live
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  in a world maybe we want to live in a world without internet sometimes,
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  but it's both the best thing and the worst thing at the same time,
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  right exactly, it's whatever we want it to be. It's it's it ultimately
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  depends on us. If it's it's not there's no absolute like it's good or
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  bad. It depends on the context. So this Catalyst thing robot represents this
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  ambiguity of like change and and I mean it also gets more like it doesn't
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  have to be abstract. I don't I don't want to sound too I don't
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  want it to sound too far fetch. But you will have to read the
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  lyrics and listen to the songs and and and I think you will. You
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  will, you will find these themes and and whatever it represents for you.
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  It's it's it's the truth for you, you know. I mean, it's
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  it's such a big subject, you know, like there is no like the
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  world we live in, there is no one. I mean, people are
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  trying to direct that. Ah, you have to think like this, you
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  have to this is right, this is wrong, But ultimately it's up to
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  us. So it's a yeah, basically it's too it's it's it's to empower
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  people, you know, Okay. Cool. The Catalyst also sees the band
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  welcome new Greula Mikhail sailing into the band, So tell us a bit more
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  about him and what he brings to you. Sound. Yeah, we got
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  the most am amazing vocalist in in Michael. He's fucking great and he's a
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  good, good guy as well, good friend. And actually we knew him
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  from way back in twenty fifteen when he was supporting us on a European tour
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  with his old band Angle, So we already knew that he was he was
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  he was was probably the best best person we could choose for this. Yeah,
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  he came into the studio and completely surprised us. All we knew he
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  were he were good, but we didn't know that he was that good.
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  He just completely nailed some of the most difficult parts, like some of the
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  some of the the vocals can be pretty demanding, right, really like fast
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  and you have to have the articulation and actually pronounced the words. And he
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  just was a fucking machine, just complete deliveries. Yeah, amazing, very
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  cool. And you've got a chal coming up this year with a Dragon Force
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  and Infected rain Mate, like that sounds like it should be a lot of
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  fun. Yeah, yeah, for sure it will. Yeah, we have
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  a tour in a couple of weeks, I believe it is in Europe,
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  all of Europe. And yeah, we already toured with the Dragon Force in
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  the in the States and it was it was great. Almost all shows were
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  sold out as well, so like tons of heavy people everywhere in the crowds,
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  and every day was a big party. And I mean not party party,
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  but on stage at least you get on how you get on with Sam?
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  He likes the party, oh Sam, Yeah, Yeah, he's a
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  fun he's fun. Yeah, he's a I mean that they're all very very
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  nice. They're pretty chill. Pretty last time he was out of here in
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  Austraire and it was he was drinking beer at ten o'clock in the morning.
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  That God does know how to party. Yeah. Yeah, he liked he
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  likes beers. That's that's that's for sure. We were more I think emmerand
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  in twenty twenty four now is more like the drinking coffee and drinking tea and
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  maybe have the occasional nice Scotch or something. Maturing maturing pretty boring watching movies
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  and you yeah, we get out of my friend. Alright. Well,
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  thanks very much for you talking and it's been a pleasure speaking with your seventh
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  album, The Catalyst, is out February the twenty third, so I've heard
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  it today before this interview, and she's an absolutely cracking mate. Well done.
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  Thank you very much and what's a pleasure talking to you? This podcast
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  was brought to you thanks to road intro music by Frank from the album That
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  X Files Volume one. For more heavy interviews and goodness, check out www.
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  Dot heavymag, dot com dot AU.