One of the most lauded, well-respected, dynamic and prolific hard rock/metal guitarists and songwriters on the planet, Sweden’s Magnus Karlsson has returned to his solo project, Free Fall, with the release of the hard-hitting and dynamic new album, We Are The Night.
The album was released in June on Frontiers Music Srl.
Karlsson built his reputation for compositional excellence and as a producer working with acts such as Allen/Lande, Allen/Olzon, Kiske/Somerville and more. For 12 years, he has been a member of one of the most successful European classic metal acts, Primal Fear, and seeking a way to express other facets of his creativity, formed Magnus Karlsson’s Free Fall in 2013.
The premise behind the band was for Karlsson to indulge his songwriting and production prowess, bringing in a wide array of vocalists from throughout the metal and hard rock world to interpret his songs. We Are The Night is the third such release and features guests Dino Jelusick (Animal Drive), Renan Zonta (Electric Mob), Noora Louhimo (Battle Beast), Mike Andersson (Cloudscape), Rainbow and Vandenburg’s Ronnie Romero, and former Black Sabbath frontman, Tony Martin.
“I first ask the singer if they want to do it and then I write for them, so I have their voice in my head when I write. I almost always work like that. In Tony Martin’s case he wanted to write with me; he wanted to do the lyrics and melodies and that’s okay with me when it’s Tony Martin. I do the lyrics for the other singers,” Karlsson explained from his home in Sweden.
“When I first started with Free Fall, the plan was for me to sing the whole album and maybe have one or two guests. But then the list got longer and longer, and now it’s okay for me to have all these singers on there. It is kind of cool, especially with the first one, because almost every one of the people on that first album was someone that I worked with before on a project and also on the second one.
“But now on the third record, I tried some new singers that I had never worked with, and in some cases, never heard before. With Renan, I just saw a video of his band Electric Mob and I thought he was really good, so I wanted to try new guys like that. I am very happy with how it turned out. I am very glad I worked with these new people, because I made some new friends, and now I have more people I can maybe work with down the road.”
Karlsson still does lead vocal work on two tracks: the title track We Are The Night and Don’t Walk Away.
Queen of Fire was written for Finnish metal goddess Noor Louhimo of Battle Beast, and is said to be her personal theme song the way Karlsson captured her attitude, her strength and cinematic presence as well as composing the song to perfectly showcase her remarkable voice.
“I had never worked with her before, but I listened to a lot of her band Battle Beast and she has a voice like a young, angry Ann Wilson of Heart. I asked if she wanted to sing on the record and she said yes. So, I wrote a song for her and she liked it, so that’s kind of how I worked for most of the songs. She came over to Sweden when we recorded the video and that was actually the first time that I met her in person. She asked me about the lyrics because she said she could really relate to them. It’s all from my own imagination, but I wanted to write from a woman’s point of view. And its about a breakup, but that moment, and I think everybody has this, where you feel this intense anger. Some can have that moment and it lasts only a couple of seconds, but others it can linger there forever, but well have had that anger at some point from being treated badly or being betrayed,” he explained.
“And the song and the tone were perfect for her, both the lyrics and the way she sang it. There are different levels in the song; at points it seems quite soft and then it builds to unleash her full power. It could not have come out better. I am happy, and she is happy with it too and she said that her mother cried when she heard the song for the first time.”
One of the vocalists tapped for the album is Ronnie Romero, who is both the lead vocalist for the re-constituted Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow, as well a for the new Vandenburg album, along with many other projects. For We Are The Night, he is featured on the track One By One.
“We actually have a band together called the Ferrymen with Mike Terrana on drums and we’ve done two albums together already, so I know Ronnie well. He’s a great guy and he is also one of the fastest singers and workers I know. If I send him a song to lay down his vocals, I will have it back within an hour or so, which is pretty cool. It’s always great to write to his voice because I don’t have to think about the key or anything, because he can sing anything. I remember last year I saw Rainbow with Ritchie Blackmore at Sweden Rocks and Ronnie was basically singing all the parts of all the singers of Rainbow over the years, like it was nothing for him. He does everything so effortlessly and can be like a vocal chameleon for that kind of thing,” Karlsson said admiringly, adding that it was a true treat for him to be able to collaborate with Martin, who spent more than a decade as part of Black Sabbath, singing on five studio albums and one live DVD. Martin powerfully expressive voice appears on Temples and Towers and Far From Over.
“I am a big fan and listened to all his stuff with Sabbath. This whole thing is not really an experiment, but it’s a way for me to work with all these singers that I want to work with because I want to write music for them and then I want to be able to listen to our collaboration and their voice when I am driving in my car. It’s really as simple as that. With Tony Martin, he does not release a lot of stuff these days and I want to hear more. The time he was in Black Sabbath [essentially from 1987 to 1996], I was at the right age to discover it. And honestly the first time I ever heard Black Sabbath was when it was with Tony Martin. And then I went back and discovered the Ozzy Osbourne and Ronnie James Dio stuff after.
“When I listened back to some of the stuff we did, when he sang Far From Over, I had a guitar part and he did some backing vocals over it and I got goosebumps because it sounds like some of parts on my favourite album he did with Sabbath, Tyr, when he sings the Latin part and all that at the beginning [Anno Mundi]. I remember saying out loud to myself, ‘wow, that’s Tony Martin.’ But here’s the interesting thing, I never talked to him. We just emailed back and forth, but he was very nice, and he would always tell me, ‘look I will write this and sing this and if you don’t like it, I can do it again.’ So, it wasn’t like ‘here you go, this is the way I am doing it and it’s all you get.’”
Another superlative track on the album is Dreams and Scars, which is one of two songs performed by Electric Mob’s Zonta.
“That was a bigger risk, and I took a bigger chance with Renan. I really, really liked his voice, but if you listen to his band Electric Mob, that’s a very different style than what I normally do. It’s still hard rock, but it’s a lot more bluesy, and it’s great. I remember I got this feeling when I heard Jorn Lande on the first Master Plan record that when you mix German power metal with a bluesy guy, it’s magic. I wanted to mix my style with Renan’s soulful, hard rock voice,” Karlsson explained.
“I remember getting the first song back from him, Dreams and Scars, and he said it was a bit high for him. I sing on all the demos, but I can’t sing like him, it sounds like Bee Gees metal when I sing it. But he can do it with his full voice, and he did a fantastic job even though he said it was too high for him.”
Besides his work with Magnus Karlsson’s Free Fall, the guitar maestro has a number of other solo projects in the works, including an ambitious metal opera, featuring only female vocalists.
“If you listen to my stuff, I am doing more and more orchestral material, and I wanted to do something all the way into that style, with epic 10-minute songs with long parts, but still metal. I have worked with a couple of female singers and I wanted a lot more of that. Frontiers Music has signed a lot of great singers, so that was an idea I had, and I have about seven or eight singers to work with, and they are all very different. Some are very classical, and others are more rock and metal,” he explained, adding that his other main gig as guitarist and songwriter for legendary German metal band Primal Fear, is also about to bear fruit, as a new album is expected July 24.
“Free Fall is more of a recording project; we don’t play live. Primal Fear is a real band and tours a lot when we are allowed to tour. But I actually don’t tour any longer, I just play on the albums and in the videos, because they tour so much, and I don’t want to leave home that much anymore. When I get back my family doesn’t recognize me. If I was 20 years old, I wouldn’t think twice about it, but it’s a different time in my life, but I have toured a lot with them before.
“And it’s still a special experience for me because we write a lot as a team: I write a lot with [bassist] Mat Sinner and also with [frontman] Ralph [Scheepers] and [guitarist] Tom Naumann It’s very easy working with those guys. When I am alone I can take my time and I have to make all the decisions on my own, but with Primal Fear, I can just record some riffs and play them for Mat on Skype and we work really fast, and we have a lot of fun.”
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- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, ON, who has been writing about music and musicians for 30 years. Besides his journalistic endeavours, he now works as a communications and marketing specialist. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com.
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