Well, the music of Doctor Weird was also melodic metal with progressive touches just like Cloudscape, but less melodic and less varied songs. Doctor Weird recorded a CD containing 4 songs in 1995 and a self-financed full length CD finished in 1999 which we tried to get attention from record labels with. The few replies we received were saying: "the songs on the album sounds good, but there are too many songs in same tempo" or "we can't sign any more bands right now, come back later' and so on... You know, the usual uninterested label excuses. This led up to some member changes, because it was a very frustrating time for all of us, so in 2001 we decided to start over from scratch again with new songs as a new band... Cloudscape. All members of Cloudscape has a history in Doctor Weird, but we consider Cloudscape as a new band since we don't play any songs from the Doctor Weird setlist.

Indeed. (Laughs) If I remember correctly the idea of that band name came from a Spiderman comic book where Spiderman fought a bad guy called Doctor Strange. So, all of a sudden someone in the band said that exchange "strange" with "weird" and we'll have a band name, so that's how the idea of Doctor Weird came true. (Laughs)

All members of Cloudscape were part of the band Doctor Weird. I joined Doctor Weird in 1996 as a keyboard player, but when we parted ways with the Doctor Weird vocalist I got the opportunity to step back to the microphone again since I have been a lead vocalist in all my previous bands. Roger, Patrik and Bjorn formed Doctor Weird in 1992 and Hans joined the band in 1999. Me and Hans have also played together in a couple of local bands during the nineties, so it was me who invited him to join Doctor Weird after the departure of the original bass player.

Well, it has nothing to do with IBM. When we decided to form Cloudscape Roger came up with a couple of band names. Out of his list of names we picked out 5 possible names, so we handed it over to our manager, Thomas Wallen/Roasting House for him to decide which name of the 5 suggested ones that was best for us. Guess which name he has chosen. (Laughs)

When we formed Cloudscape our ambition was to be more varied in our composing style-wise compared to Doctor Weird, so I think we've managed to live up to that goal. Our ambition is not to bring anything new to the metal scene like a new style or something. We compose what we love to play. What I think makes us "unique" is the variations among the songs style-wise without losing the thread. Some like it, maybe some don't. (Laughs) Vocal melodies have also been an important aspect in Cloudscape compared to Doctor Weird. We have been more focused in all aspects with Cloudscape compared to Doctor Weird, so I think pay-day came by signing licensing deals with Marquee/Avalon in Japan and German label Metal Heaven for the European territory. (Laughs) When people ask us what kind of music we play we say "melodic metal with progressive touches".

My first favourite bands, when I was very young, were Helix, Whitesnake, Yngwie Malmsteen, Iron Maiden, Ratt and many others. I still like the music of Yngwie Malmsteen and Whitesnake, but nowadays I'm more into bands like Symphony X, Fates Warning, Kansas, Rush, Dream Theater, Yes and many more. I listened to Yes, Kansas and Rush when I was young as well, but back then I didn't consider them as my favourites. I am also very fond of soul-funk with bands like Incognito and Brand New Heavies, seventies disco music like Bee Gees, The Trammps and I'm also very fond of orchestral pieces like classical music and film music. Hans Zimmer is God. (Laughs) Sometimes I like rock/fusion as well like the music of Tribal Tech. My favourite singers are undoubtedly early David Coverdale, Russell Allen, Bobby Kimball and Jorn Lande. There are many, many great singers today, but the ones I mentioned are my favourites.

If I have to choose one I'd say Russell Allen. I love his voice and the melodies he sings. He is definitely one of the best metal vocalists of today.

We work separately. We have tried to work together with the actual composing, but we are way too stubborn in our own creative ways to work properly together, so therefore we prefer to compose separately. When I compose a new song I normally do it on the synthesiser. I program drums and bass, record the synthesisers and vocals in my music program in my computer. After that I'll have Patrik recording the guitars. Normally I have a vision of how I want the guitars to be played, but most of the time Patrik have better ideas or develops my idea of the guitar playing. Bjorn works the same way. He records his own guitars, but I compose all vocal melodies on his songs just like on my own. When I or Bjorn have a new song ready to rehearse, all of us listen to it and together we decide if the song is good enough to rehearse and include in our setlist. If the song is good enough we all work together as a team re-arranging the songs if needed. Me and Bjorn never say like, "THIS IS HOW IT MUST SOUND!" Me and Bjorn provide with the songs and after that we all work together in the rehearsal studio finishing or re-arranging the songs.

Life, love, movies, thriller books. Unfortunately sad things that are happening around the globe, experiences and so on. I could go on forever.

It is Roger who wrote lyrics for Aqua 275. The lyrics are inspired of the classic movie "The Island of Dr Moreau" and the more updated movie "Deep Blue Sea". The message in it reminds of the message in the "Moreau" movie, which is "Don't play God and experiment with animals and human beings", but instead of experimenting on an island the experiments are being done under water at a place called Aqua 275.

That's impossible to answer. I say like many other songwriters do: all songs are like kids. I can't choose one favourite, because every song is special to me in its own way and I love them all. Under Fire is the song on the album that I think tells the listener what Cloudscape is about style-wise, because that song has lots of the elements that we have in our receipt.

It was GREAT! He is a top-notch producer who really knows what he's doing. Everything went so great in the studio and we had no hang-ups whatsoever. He is one of my favourite producers, so it feels great to be able to work with him. We're really looking forward to record our second album in the Roasting House studio with Theo and Pontus as producers again. Pontus Lindmark is a young talent who handled the actual recording sessions while Theo was more involved in the mixing part and mastering. Pontus Lindmark has a bright future ahead of him as a producer! I really hope that Theo and Pontus gets the feedback they deserve no matter what band they're producing! They are awesome!

Well, we had to breach a contract with a label that we first signed to since they didn't fulfil the payment for our studio-time according to the contract. So, when we finished with our album our manager started to shop around for new interested labels so, this led up to us signing for Marquee/Avalon in Japan and Metal Heaven in Europe. There were a couple of interested labels that we negotiated with, but we found the ones we're signed to the best for us. Out of respect I don't want to get into detail of what happened with our old label or which label it is since they haven't treated us bad, they could simply not pay us, so therefore we had to do something about it. No hard feelings! That's why everything took so long. I can tell you it was a long boring wait, so the 16^th of December 2004 and the 31^st of January 2005 are dates that mean a lot to us since those dates are the release dates for Asia and Europe. (Laughs)

Our album was already recorded and finished as I said and as far as I know it was my good friend Niclas Olsson (Second Heat, Alyson Avenue) that gave Metal Heaven a tip about us. So, in July 2004 Georg the label's manager sent me an e-mail asking me for a promo as he was interested in working with Cloudscape if he liked our promo. Negotiations started and handled by our management and here we are, finally with the release of our debut album behind us. We are really happy to be signed to one of Europe's best independent labels.

We really hope so, because our main goal right now is to get the opportunity of touring and playing live. We'll see what happens. We have one live performance booked outside of Sweden, which is a festival gig, but I can't tell you which festival it is, because they haven't announced any bands officially yet. It'll be official within a few weeks. Our management is currently discussing with different booking agencies in Europe to get the "live-ball" rolling. (Laughs)