Mindshift

Sweden is home to some of the greatest metal bands in the world. From the same land, comes another extraordinary Melodic Metal band, Mindshift. With the perfect combination of powerful melodies and aggressive groove, Mindshift is one band that is sure to make your head bang! While managing their latest tour of India, I sat down with the guitarist of the band, Johan Lund and talked about their music, touring India, metal culture in Sweden and more.

- Sumit Suvarna

Tell us about Mindshift

We are a melodic metal band from Stockholm, Sweden. Formed in 2006 by me (Johan Lund), the band consists of singer Marcus "Mao" Uggla and drummer Fabien "Fabz" Perreau. The current lineup is also enhanced by live guitarist and bassist Michael and Andy Siegrist who also play in the band Source Of Ignition.

Your last release was a full-length album titled 'Horizon'. How was the overall reception for the album?

Johan: Yeah, the reactions to the album have been great! From both song and production perspective, which feels really good since we produced the album ourselves. And one thing that has struck me when reading the reviews and hearing what the fans have had to say about it is that what people consider their favourite song varies from person to person, which is great because that means the album appeals to a wider audience.

And was that intentional or a coincidence?

No, that was totally a coincidence, we just write what we wanna play basically. Although, since the album was written throughout a longer time period, and the inspiration when you write differs from time to time, that could have been a factor here.

Interesting! Which artists/bands have influenced your music the most?

We listen to a lot of music but to name a few, our biggest inspirations are bands like Killswitch Engage, Soilwork, Gojira, Machine Head, Meshuggah, Architects etc.

You've mentioned before that you sounded very different when Mindshift started off. How did it sound back in the day compared to the Melodic Metal sound you have going right now?

Yeah, the sound back then was more towards "regular" metal, like a 'heavier' Metallica if you had to compare it. Mainly because the vocalists we've had before Mao sang with clean vocals and we wrote the music to fit that style of vocals.