“In a time not long ago great musicians crafted great music out of nothing. Today the guys in H.E.A.T follow their footsteps, having one foot in the past and the other one in the future. Hailing from Sweden, H.E.A.T was born in January of 2007 when two different bands with the same singer merged.
The vision was to create something unique that would move people and help them understand what it’s all about. About havin fun and live your dreams and to always make the present a past that you can be proud of in the future to come.”
Hey guys, firstly we have to ask how your experience playing at Sweden Rock went? It sure was a classic lineup, with the likes of Def Leppard, Whitesnake, Poison, Ratt, Judas Priest, the list goes on and on....did you get a chance to check out many of the other bands? Who were some of your favourites?
Hey man. Well, first of all, just playing at Sweden Rock was pure magic. We delivered a great show to a massive crowd in the Gibson Tent, and it was a fantastic feeling playing in front of thousands of screaming Swedes! We checked out some other bands, but we were pretty cramped with interviews and signing sessions and stuff. But of what we saw, Def Leppard was undeniably best!
For the benefit of our readers who mainly originate
from the USA & Australia, can you give us the history of how H.E.A.T came to be together as a band? And where did the inspiration for the name come from?
Acknowledging that many of our readers will not yet be familiar with your music, how do you think best describes the H.E.A.T sound?
The H.E.A.T sound is melodic rock crafted in 2008 with inspiration from the 80’s. H.E.A.T is all about giving you a wonderful feeling.
At least in our interpretation, to us "H.E.A.T" has a classic 80's "movie soundtrack" kinda vibe to it. From the imagery of the CD cover to the flow of the songs themselves, not to mention the intro track
and the uplifting style of your music. Are we just imagining this, or is this something that may of influenced you?
Funny that you mention that! We are all inspired by the music from the 80’s and 70’s, but we also love the movies that came out at the same time, and I would be lying if I said that that hadn’t influenced us. Movies like Beverly Hills Cop and Rocky just makes us wanna write songs man! But overall, we just want EVERYTHING to give you the same vibe as the music does; the album cover, our t-shirts and so on.
As hard as it will be for you to speak individually about the songs on your album, we will ask anyway! What were a few of the tracks that you were particularly pleased about the way they turned out in the end? Personally, the real growers have been Cry, Feel It Again and Straight Up. And thanks for a new song of inspiration in Keep On
Dreaming that is now a personal anthem along with Don't Stop Believin' by Journey :)
For us, in a song it's all about the key change and your album sure is full of them! When it comes to songwriting or even from your personal views when listening to music, what do you enjoy most, a key change where that song goes to another level or a tasty guitar solo (depends on who is answering this, haha)??
Haha. How about taking the best out of two worlds and make a key change into the guitar solo? Nah, but I feel that that question is really song specific. Some songs don’t need a key change, and… I can’t belive I’m gonna say this haha… some songs don’t necessarily need a guitar solo. As long as you get a musical orgasm out of it, use whatever tools you need!
Everything about your album from the production to the songwriting to the vocals to the musicianship is of a standard that you would expect of a far more established band. Without giving away your secrets....were there any particular classic albums or bands that influenced you during the making of this CD?
We would like to pay particular recognition to something that might think unusual...your CD booklet, it's awesome! Not only can Eric Rivers play a mean guitar, but he is a CD booklet design guru, haha!
Haha, thank you very much! The booklet took a REALLY long time to make, but it was totally worth it! Like I said earlier, we want EVERYTHING to give you that vibe, we just didn’t want a boring booklet with black letters on a white sheet, we wanted something more extreme… And if you ask me, music and design are basically the same thing, you just use different senses to experience it!
It's obvious from the footage we have seen on your website, that you put on a kick ass live show and you can back up the awesomeness of your CD on the mainstage! Is your live show something that as a band rate just as important as putting out a quality CD?
You are signed to a Swedish label called StormVox Records. Here is a chance to tell the world what a great label they are, haha! But seriously, what are the intentions as far as releasing the album in other countries as well, eg. in USA, Asia, UK etc.
Kids, StormVox is the best label in the world and they give you tons of money and they… Haha, just kidding…
The plan is to release this album worldwide, we’re looking for labels who can release it in other parts of the world as we speak. But we’ll start off with Europe, and I hope that USA will be the next stop from there… And of course, the plan is to get big in Japan!
You quite obviously have a loyal following in Sweden and hopefully soon throughout Europe. Are you aware of fans scattered in other parts of the world? Did you ever think when you started out with H.E.A.T that one day your music would end up being listened to at parties by people in Australia for example?
Not at all man, we didn’t believe it would go this fast! This is so fantastic, we get emails each and every day from people ALL over the world.. Spain, Australia, USA, Japan… It’s sick! I guess we have the internet to thank for that.
Just in the last 6 months or so, it's our
observation that AOR/Melodic Rock is really starting to make a resurgence again. Bands such as yourselves, Brother Firetribe from Finland, White Widdow here in Australia who do covers of songs from bands like Treat, Stage Dolls and Icon...Journey have a killer new album out. What are your thoughts on the current state of the AOR/Melodic rock scene?
Speaking of the current music scene, what are some other bands in Sweden at the moment who you think are worth checking out? We always love discovering new bands we may not of otherwise heard of...
A band worth mentioning is Degreed who are great friends of ours. These guys are really great in every kind of way… Not exactly melodic rock or AOR, but it’s fresh and just really great!
Finally, you now have your own time and space to pass on a message to existing H.E.A.T fans or potential new fans or anything else you want....marriage proposals, donations, how awesome Toto are, the choice is yours!
And as always, Keep on Dreaming
