Who noticed the glitch in our otherwise perfect system? None other than the world’s #1 Freak Kitchen FanBoy himself, J-Dubya  a frequent poster and all-round nice guy on the ProgPower USA Forum. Happy birthday, J-Dubya! 

This interview picks up where Part One left off. It was conducted early last summer, 2007.

BM: Would you say, if Nike came to your house with a dump truck full of money and said they wanted to make a Mattias sneaker, are you saying you’d turn ‘em down? [laughs]

ME: [laughs] Absolutely. I would have my French dog do nasty things to them. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

ME: Absolutely. I am not interested in anything but music, so. Well… [laughs] That’s alright.

BM: [laughs] That’s cool. Well tell me about this, the Jonas Hellborg Art Metal trio gig. How was that to put together? Was that a good project?

ME: Absolutely. I’m shit happy to be working with Jonas. It’s, I mean, he’s a legendary bass player, and almost like my bigger brother, kind of. So I’m learning all the time from the dude. And it’s a cool thing. I am possessed by South Indian rhythm and tonality right now and it will probably affect the new Freak Kitchen album, not in a bad way. It won’t be as insane as—

BM: It won’t be like a George Harrison album or something?

ME: Yeah, well… [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

ME: Not really, but we’ll see. But it’s a cool thing to play with Jonas. But he’s got the final word with the Art Metal stuff. And that’s cool, because I have so many other things to take care of and stuff like that. So it’s just cool, I’m very happy with it. It will turn into something neither of us have done before, and it’s just a fusion of many different styles, but we have the South Indian rhythm, which is the basic stuff. I lay down all the guitar riffs. Selvaganesh is this fabulous kanjira  player. Just his kanjira  playing and South Indian structures, and I record a guitar over that, and then Jonas added some bass, and we had Anders Johansson of Yngwie Malmsteen and Hammerfall and all these greats lay down some drums. Just, the only thing with it is the music has fused, or took a lot of different turns over the years. We started to work with it, about, over a year ago, and it’s just, we haven’t got a clue what is art metal. We look at one another every once in a while and go, “What are we doing? What kind of music is this? Can we actually release this?”

BM: [laughs]

ME: And then, “I’d better do something like this and make it slightly more, you know, commercial.” So we will see. We have a song called Art Metal, which is, I think it’s at least 12, 13 minutes long. It’s just one big, long kanjira solo, which sounds like a mess but I figure stuff out and Jonas figures stuff out and “How the hell do we play over this?” You know?

BM: [laughs]

ME: And, [laughs], yeah, you will see. You will see. We hope to have it done in a couple of months, so hopefully before ProgPower.

BM: Wow. Did you have any difficulty like adjusting to each other’s styles, or did you fit together really well right off the bat?

ME: We fit together really well, actually. You know, we played with Shawn Lane for many, many years, and my playing style is completely different. And that was, I think, you know, because I could never play like Shawn, he was one-of-a-kind, so I just did my thing and it worked really well. In the beginning, he was just, you know, afraid of all the volume. [laughs]

BM: Yeah. [laughs]

ME: The volume, he was like, “Man!” So but now he’s got a Warwick signature bass, you know, whatever amp and caps and stuff like that and it kicks as. And now we are insanely loud for being a low-budget, jazz metal trio from Sweden. So yeah, it’s great.

BM: You did another thing too. You were involved in that Artists for Charity project.

ME: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

BM: How was that?

ME: You know, I was just, I felt if you can help, you should help. And I was asked to do a song, and I just put something together, and that was it. I hope it’s done well. I haven’t got a clue, really. But anyway, if you can help by bending Swedish strings, you should. And that’s kind of it. And I haven’t got a clue, lots of other cool players were on that album as well, so I hope it went down well. We did good, as good as we can, so I’ll be happy to help out anytime. Yes.

BM: Yeah. That’s a neat thing about your attitude: You seem interested in, like you say, helping out when you can.

ME: Absolutely.

BM: Do you find that are you are drawn to helping out certain types of causes, or–?

ME: Absolutely. We, me and my wife, Camilla, we, my goodness, we, sometimes it’s very frustrating, [laughs] but we’ve spent a lot of money to left and right with everything from animal rights movement to Amnesty to Greenpeace to Unicef, all kinds of stuff. So every time I get shit-scared at the beginning of every month, because they take lots of money away from my accounts. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

ME: So, but I think if you have the money left over, you should be able to help them, because, well, we just try to do good things. Yes, we recycle. Yes, we are vegetarians. Of course, we are hypocrites, because we eat dead Swedish fish, but that’s kind of where I draw the line. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

ME: So, but it’s, we [laughs] we do what we can, and unfortunately we live, not unfortunately, but we live in the woods, so in the wintertime we can get a lot of snow. And I have a very, one of my cars is very thirsty and it’s a four-wheel-drive, big engine and all that stuff, so that’s kind of my big sin.

BM: Yeah, I know. [laughs] Yeah.

ME: A Prius wouldn’t make it five minutes out here.

BM: [laughs]

ME: [laughs] I wouldn’t get out of the parking lot. I have a hybrid van, but it just doesn’t work in the wintertime. We have, I don’t know, 60, 70 centimeters of snow. So, you know, you can’t be all good. [laughs]

BM: [laughs] No, I know. Tell me about the recent addition to the Freak Kitchen family. Will that, will the birth of the little one there affect anything with the band, or are things just gonna be status quo?

ME: [laughs] You were thinking of Bjorn’s son, or…?

BM: Yeah, Bjorn’s son, yeah.

ME: Yeah, yeah, yeah. He’s a kick-ass guy, he’s already drumming his brains out. He got a tiny drum kit, so.

BM: [laughs]

ME: And he’s just a very inspiring human being, a lovely, lovely boy. So it’s cool. He’s wearing his Freak Kitchen body kind of thing. I don’t know what you call it, dress, when you’re not very old. [laughs] So yeah, he’s a fabulous guy, so.

BM: Does that make you—do you look at the little one and say to your wife, “Gosh, you know, maybe it’s time for a little Mattias?”

ME: Absolutely.

BM: Really?

ME: Actually yes, there is one coming in two weeks.

BM: Really? Wow, really?

ME: Yep.

BM: Wow. Congratulations. [laughs]

ME: Thank you. [laughs] That’s one of the reasons we got married as well. We can’t live in sin anymore. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

ME: We have to, so yes, 16th of June is, well of course he won’t come on the expected date, but yeah a couple of weeks. And Camilla is as big as a house now, and she looks gorgeous. She’s wonderful. So yeah, there is a little Mattias Eklundh coming, or at least an Eklundh, daughter or son, I haven’t got a clue. I don’t care.

BM: Oh yeah, you don’t care, you haven’t found out yet which it will be?

ME: No, we decided we don’t give a damn, it’s fine. We’re just, you know, I want to give Camilla the extra energy to actually push the kid out and say, “Hey, what is it, what is it?”

BM: [laughs]

ME: Well you know, if you know today, then it’s available 24 hours a day. We both said, “We’ll just wait. Be patient. It will come out, and we will figure it out” you know? So, and we won’t have everything, you know, “Oh, it’s a boy”, everything has to be blue, everything has to be pink when it’s a girl, and blah blah blah. So I think we’ll paint everything just orange, whatever. [laughs]

BM: [laughs] Well, are you going to be there, at the birth?  You gonna–

ME: Absolutely, absolutely. I just got off the road. I’ve been clinic touring in Sweden, and I did five days of teaching in Germany, and the band, Chris and Jim, flew down and we did a nice week outside of Siskard, but that was it. And now I’m staying home. Gonna be a good daddy.

BM: [laughs] Well how ‘bout, one of the things you mentioned on the Prog Power DVD was, you said something about, “We got some complaints, no merchandise, we’re low-budget, Freak Kitchen, Viking bastards.” [laughs]

ME: [laughs]

BM: Are you going to bring merchandise this time, or is it—

ME: We hope to, because we have a lot of merchandise. My entire basement is full of hoods and caps and all kinds of stuff, because Camilla’s got the business and everything like that. So we need to. I think we will send the stuff beforehand this time, because we travel light when it’s only one gig and you can’t really bring it in, flying it in. So we have to ship it beforehand. But we will figure something out. Perhaps a signature dildo as well. [laughs]

BM: [laughs] Well, let me ask you a couple of things and I’ll let you get back to your busy life in the Swedish woods.

ME: [laughs]

BM: What are you working on, or what have you worked on in the last year since I chatted with you, that really challenged you? What was the most challenging project you overtook?

ME: Well, there are many things going on, as you know. I think it’s, I’m writing for a major concert. It’s gonna be just Mattias Eklundh in concert at the Royal Swedish Palace in Stockholm.

BM: Really?

ME: So I’m writing brand-new music for that, with a hand-picked orchestra. It’s gonna be a different kind of setup, I’m just gonna handpick various instruments that I dig and I’ll exclude the stuff that I don’t dig.

BM: [laughs]

ME: And in the actual, big, they call it the silver hall, I think, where you actually have all the kings of Sweden crowned over the years. So it’s a big honor, actually, to do it at the Royal Palace, so that’s a cool thing.

BM: Wow.

ME: We’re working on a big concert with, we’re gonna be 30 people on stage with Freak Kitchen and a big jazz orchestra, so it’s gonna be a big gig in next year as well, in March. So that’s a lot of orchestration, a lot of stuff going through that, but that will be, you know, already existing stuff. But the Royal Palace stuff will be brand-new things. Perhaps one or two Freak Guitar songs that would be orchestrated. I think “Midsummer’s Night in Hell” is gonna make it. [laughs]

BM: Really? [laughs]

ME: So that’s challenging, and it will continue to be until it’s the very concert, because you have to find out so many things about different instruments and pitches, and is this playable on say, a piccolo flute. And will the actual lick itself sound ugly, although you can play it within the pitch.

BM: Yeah.

ME: So, and it’s very time-consuming. And of course, you know the new Freak Guitar material and the acoustic stuff and figuring out the acoustic stuff is pretty—it’s not the same thing as picking up an electric guitar. You have to find new ways to do it cool. Otherwise it will turn into another acoustic album, blah blah blah, pretentious and hey, special shirt and lonesome writer cap. I don’t know. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

ME: I don’t know what I mean by that, but it just feels good that I say it. I think you get it.

BM: Yeah.

ME: Me and my guitar.

BM: So you don’t think you, you don’t envision yourself ever doing a sort of Mattias acoustic solo tour anytime soon?

ME: Nah. You never know. I’m gonna, I work together with Yamaha guitars. I work a lot with Silent Guitar, both nylon and steel string. So I probably will do some, you know, some kind of tours with playing acoustic. Because it’s good, I have to get my shit together, I just can’t fake it. I have to play. [laughs]

BM: Yeah.

ME: You can’t just pull a bunch of cool licks off, you have to actually play. So that’s good, but Freak Kitchen will always be the main thing, you know, always. So that’s my main thing. So, and we will focus on the new album, and—my goodness, did I answer the question? What was the question? [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

ME: Oh yes, the most challenging thing.

BM: Yeah. You’ve got so many things going on, you really do. Do you ever get to the point where you feel overwhelmed?

ME: Uh, every day. [laughs]

BM: Really? [laughs]

ME: But in a good way. It’s just woo! I can’t wait to get up in the morning. I set my alarm to seven, and then me and the wife take a walk in the woods, then she makes breakfast and I check my emails, and then I stuff food into my body, [laughs] and then I just get the coffee and go down and see what’s lurking around the corner, so to speak. And some days are very productive, some days it’s like, “Fuck this!” You know, it’s, nothing is happening. But those days are just as important, you know. You have to have off days as well. Generally, I don’t have many off days, I’m such an energetic, happy person, so I’m just happy to—

BM: Yeah, I was gonna ask you, where the heck do you get all this optimism? You sound like you have an ideal life, you’re an ideal guy, you’ve got an ideal wife.

ME: [laughs]

BM: You know, booming business. What could possibly go wrong? [laughs]

ME: Well, it’s, I’m, I don’t know. I’ve been doing the same thing since I was six years old, and finally, the last seven, eight years it’s, things are working good, you know. You’re making money doing the stuff that you like, and you’re spreading the Swedish disease every day by your sites and emails and you shake people’s hands and you have the MySpace sites, and you have all the community and you’re out there and sweating on people.

BM: [laughs]

ME: And I’m just doing what I’m doing, and this is what I want to do until I drop dead, you know, or that’s it. I’m just shit happy about it. I will always find new ways, because the freak stuff, with Freak Guitar, it’s, of course, one day you will just be too old or you will look like a complete moron when you get up on stage and rock out, and stuff like that.

BM: [laughs]

ME: But I will find new ways, you know, ok, let’s, Freak Kitchen in 15 years. We might be, I don’t know, say 40 people on stage, or we can be a neat, perverted, death metal, rock and roll orchestra of doom that no one’s heard before, you know? You find new ways to, as I grow older, to do my thing. So that’s cool.

BM: Wow.

ME: There are no limitations. It’s just in your head, you know. It’s, yeah, woohoo! [laughs]

BM: You are an inspiring guy, let me tell ya. [laughs]

ME: [laughs] Cool. Thank you. How are you, Bill?

BM: [laughs] Doing great. I can’t compare to any of that, that’s for sure. [laughs] It’s a pleasure to chat with you again. Really.

ME: [laughs] It’s a pleasure to talk to you too.

BM: Wonderful. I can’t wait to see you this time at ProgPower in Atlanta.

ME: Goody goody. Let’s have a beer.

BM: Yeah, we will. I’ll buy you a few. Have a really good rest of the day, and good luck. Drop some pictures, are you going to have some pictures of the little one posted on the website?

ME: Absolutely. Absolutely.

BM: Good.

ME: Absolutely. Goody goody. Well, we’ll just stay in touch, and thank you very much for calling.

BM: Thank you. Have a great day.

ME: Alright, thank you.

BM: Bye.

ME: Bye bye.

And that you have it: The second half of my Mattias “IA” Eklundh interview…thanks to J-Dubya who noticed its absence.

By the way, Glenn told me he’s picked one of the two headliners for ProgPower USA IX. Who? Read on…

GH: Hello?

BM: Is this Glenn?

GH: It is.

BM: Hey, how are you doing?

GH: Good, man. Boy, you are punctual!

BM: [laughs]

GH: [laughs]

BM: That’s what all those ProgPower guys would tell me. They’d say, “You’re right on time.” I’d say, “Well, yeah.”

GH: Did they really? [laughs]

BM: Yeah. It’s gonna be fun, a real pleasure, to chat with you this evening.

GH: Thanks.

BM: It’s about time.

GH: It’ll be interesting. I’ve had some interviews, but they’ve only been skimming the top.

BM: Yep.

GH: Nothing really in-depth.

BM: Well, this ought to be in-depth. [laughs]

CC: Hello?

BM: Is this Claudio?

CC: Yes, is this Bill?

BM: Yes, Bill Murphy.

CC: What’s up?

BM: How are you?

CC: Oh, doing fine. Fine, fine. You?

I spoke with Communic front man Oddleif Stensland in the Spring of 2007.

OS: Hello.

BM: Hi, this is Bill Murphy calling from the States.

OS: Yeah, cool. How are you doing?

BM: Good. How are you?

OS: [laughs] I am fine.

BM: [laughs] Good.

OS: Yeah, it’s good.

BM: What’s the weather like there in Norway?

OS: Well actually, they said today on the, on the weathercast that this was the hottest day so far. We had like 10 degrees today and the sun was shining, so it was pretty good.

BM: Wow, that’s good.

OS: [laughs] Yeah.

BM: Actually, it’s pretty warm here today too, actually. It’s probably around 55 degrees Fahrenheit.

OS: Ah, and that would be like 25, or …?

BM: A little less than that for you guys, around 18 I think.

OS: Yeah. That’s warmer than we have here. [laughs]

Tony, a nice guy in addition to being one of power metal’s most charismatic front men, called me at 8 a.m. the day after the listening party for Unia, SA’s latest album. Tony was in New York. I was in Michigan. All things considered, I’d rather have been in New York, too. But what are you gonna do?

BM: Hello?

TK: Hi, this is Tony from Sonata Arctica. Bill?

BM: Tony, yes. Hi, this is Bill.

TK: Hi, how are you doing?

BM: Good. How are you doing?

TK: [laughs] Just fine. Totally hung over, but otherwise cool.

BM: [laughs]

TK: We had a listening party last night, so…

BM: Yeah, how did that go? And isn’t this kind of early for a rock star?

It’s always a pleasure to chat with Shane. This interview was conducted earlier this year.

SD: Hello?

BM: Is this Shane?

SD: This is he.

BM: The nicest man in metal?

SD: Hey buddy.

BM: [laughs] How you doin?

SD: Fantastic. How you doin, Bill?

BM: Good. Wow, congratulations. A little girl, huh?

SD: Yes sir. As a matter of fact, I’m just on the computer right now. I’m sending out some pictures of Anna Jo on there, so you should get some pictures here shortly.

I spoke with Bill Hudson earlier this year.

BH: Hello?

BM: Hello, is this Bill?

BH: Yeah.

BM: Hi, this is Bill Murphy calling.

BH: Oh, from ProgPower?

BM: Yeah. How are you doing today?

BH: Good, how are you man?

BM: Doing well, doing well. Let’s cover some ground here. Let’s talk about your career in Cellador, and music in general, and ProgPower.

BH: Cool.

BM: First thing we could do–go ahead.

BH: So you’re not going to record and quote me right?

BM: Oh, yeah. All my interviews are recorded and transcribed just as is, basically, so everybody gets a chance to see who the people are that I’m talking to.

BH: Oh, ok. I see.

I spoke with Andy earlier this year.

AK: Hello?

BM: Hello, is this Andy?

AK: Hello? Yeah.

BM: Wow, how is this one? Is this one better?

AK: It sounds better. And nevertheless, we should try. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

AK: I don’t want to waste your time, ok? [laughs]

BM: [laughs] Thank you very much for your time this morning, I appreciate it.

AK: No problem, really. We waited so long, so.

BM: [laughs] Well, I’m looking forward to chatting with you, because you are such a multi-talented artist, that it’s going to be fun to ask you about all your pursuits. Tell me, before I ask you anything about your latest Vanden Plas album, how is it going with [the musical stage production] Abydos? Is that going well?

Suffice to say he possesses one of the best voices in metal and has, over the years, fronted many highly regarded bands, including Shining Star, Avian, Pyramaze, and Balance of Power. Now we can add Texas-based Krucible to the list. What’s the world coming to when two of the nicest men in metal find themselves in the same band (the other nice man being Krucible bassist Shane Dubose)?

Last year, Lance played ProgPower with Pyramaze. This year, he’ll be there with Krucible.

Lance owns the excellent Nightmare Records label based in Minneapolis.

I spoke with Lance earlier this year.

LK: Nightmare.

BM: Hey, is this Lance?

LK: Hey, is this Bill?

BM: Yeah, how you doin’?

LK: What’s goin’ on, Bill?

BM: Oh man. Lots and lots. Always things going on.

LK: Yeah.

BM: Sounds like there’s a lot goin’ on in your life all the time. [laughs]

LK: Yeah. Well, you know. [laughs]

Originally conceived by guitarist Nicolas van Dyk as a sort of one-off project, Redemption has since become known for crafting some of the world’s best progressive metal.

Currently touring with Into Eternity and Dream Theater, the juggernaut known as Redemption storms the stage at ProgPower USA VIII on Friday, October 6, in Atlanta.

This interview with Nick was conducted Spring, 2007.

NV: Hey Bill, how are you?

BM: Hey Nick, great. How are you doing?

NV: Good. Let me close my door here. [pause] Ok, my boss is on vacation, I’m all yours.

BM: [laughs] We’ll sneak this one in under the radar.