The debut album ‘Days Of The Lost’ created an explosion of interest and success. How did you feel about that and how do you look back on it?
I looked back at that with a big smile, because I didn’t know what to think when we started out. I did not have any expectations or did not know what to think of it. I thought: ‘okay, let us see what happens, let us go with the flow and have fun with it’ and then I woke up the day when the first single ‘Shadowminds’ was released and I was like: ‘what the fuck happened?’ People started to text me and phoning me up. I did not see this coming! It was a big surprise to a lot of people and I think that was really fun. And then we got such beautiful feedback and response from the press or media and the supporters of this genre were really, really happy about the album. So these were really happy times and all we achieved when we played 96 shows and we did a lot of touring and played festivals, huge stages. The first tour, I think we had four singles out by then, the people hadn’t heard the album, but they were still very curious what we could do together. I found it very interesting and intriguing.

You were the one who took the initiative to do this, so it must have meant a lot to you… to see that there were still warm hearted people ling this style really. I think it has created a kind of pressure when writing the second album, isn’t it?
I have to be brave and bold here. I am not bragging, but I have to say no to that. I never stopped writing music, because I always write music, even though I don’t sit in front of my studio or computer or writing. I just absorb things and I am always open-minded to where I am and which culture I am in. It is always so inspiring to talk to people overall. I had great conversations, just hanging out. That is inspiration to me. So I think the whole writing process started like one month before the first ever show for The Halo Effect, which was at the main stage of Sweden Rock. That was crazy! I mean, we had an hour to fill at the main stage in Sweden Rock. Okay. By then we had just released three singles, so what would we do? We had an album that is close to 42 minutes, okay we can play that. Shall Mikael bring poetry the rest of the 18 minutes? No, we cannot. So I wrote an intro and an outro and for the intro I thought: ‘why not making a song of the intro?’ which became ‘March Of The Unheard’, the song. As soon as I had a vision and a goal, it is much easier to do the writing. You know where to go. So that was the starting point of the writing process for ‘March Of The Unheard’.

When listening to the album, I had a feeling that in the middle of the disc, during ‘This Curse Of Silence’ and then the title track, that they are close to each other, united in some way, even in words. It is a kind of sequel to one another…
Exactly like that Vera. The funny thing is, when we played these shows, this tour, I saw people jumping. They really love the intro and they really took it to heart. So for me, writing a full song from the intro, was quite easy because I got really inspired by the reaction. Nice to see that people felt really good from the intro.

It grows. You get one reaction, you get a second reaction, all these experiences give the inspiration probably?
Exactly and that led finally to a third song, the last song on the album is the acoustic instrumental track ‘Coda’ which I thought of: ‘why not make a medley of all the melodies, some of them at least, on the album, put it together and play it acoustic?’ and add violins and cello to it. And on top of that, you use a female vocalist and Mikael’s soaring on top of that. I think that ended the album quite nice. You have a breather while you are listening to it. It is moody and it is still melancholic.

That is true and it is quite original to end the album that way in that mood… The lyrics from Mikael go a bit in a slightly different subject than on the first album of course. What about your personal experiences? Did you feel that way too – being different – when you were twelve years old and you started to have a more than usual interest in music? Did you already have dreams to make it as musician at a young age?
When I was a teenager, I was heavily into soccer. I played soccer a lot and I played a little bit of sort of ice hockey. I was a sport’s guy. All my friends who were into sports, they all listened to metal. Judas Priest, Kiss, Iron Maiden and all that stuff. We used to have it in the background all the time and then I used to hang out with an older guy or older crowd where I grew up and they took me under their wings. ‘Hey on Sunday we are going to the rehearsal room. You are going to be our mascot’ and I went there with them almost every Sunday. There I started feeling the power and got struck by the lightning of how to hear actually instruments and how it has been played. It is very powerful when you are at that age. You absorb everything, it is like a sponge. It was the coolest thing ever. They showed me how to play the guitar, Van Halen songs or Mötley Crüe, stuff like that. And one of them was becoming my youth leader when I was going to the 7^th grade, I was already there and said ‘let’s go, let’s do this’ I was so blessed that they took me under their wings. Then, when I was in the eighth or ninth grade, I had to choose, because then the soccer team geared up. They wanted me to do this more games and everything, but I wanted to play like Glenn Tipton of Judas Priest and so I choose metal by then. I never thought of making a career out of music, until I was thirty or something like that. Very, very late. But it is never late for that, but I did not take it that serious, if you know what I mean. It was more: ‘this is cool, this is fun’… If I was around 29, I thought: ‘If I am going to do this, I am going to do this properly’ and put some proper effort behind it.

So there was not a generation clasp when you were twelve with your parents, because you wanted to become a rock star…
No, I have been going to shows and have seen Dio, Iron Maiden, Accept, they were like super heroes. It was like Iron Man or Spiderman to me, they were untouchable. So I could not even think in those terms and when I had played these arenas myself, I had to pinch my arm sometimes. Where I saw Dio for the first time and now I was standing there for the fourth time, doing the same thing as he did, back then. I am so blessed, I am so humble for that opportunity to do that. It means so much to me, to be able to do that and also you get to think: ‘yeah I also have supporters, they like my guitar playing and the way I write songs’. That comes to mind after, you know. Because I don’t think in those terms. It is more like a bunch of friends of mine, they hang out and talk about music. I am very thankful that I have supporters.