We talked to Amorth Bredlave, the guitarist and only member of the Swedish outfit Azure. He explained us his career, the projects in which he is involved and his plans for the future. He enlightened us also about the way he records and composes.

Yes, that is correct. I am the only real member in Azure and the reason for this is simply that I don't want any other people to get involved in the band. I have tried to have a full line-up but it didn't work out at all. Then I write all the music myself and I have all these ideas about arrangements and when you are in a regular band you have to rehearse all the time and you must come up with new songs etc. I prefer to write the songs at home and play them for myself until it's recording time.

How do you compose the tracks?

Well, as I said I write the music at home. But I don't use any computer to record the riffs compose the song in like Qubase. I come up with riffs on my acoustic guitar and then I put them together into songs, later on I add bass lines and melodies. Most often I write the music after the lyrics to get some kind of inspiration but not all the time.

When a song is finished I keep it in my head until I enter the studio to record it, which sometimes is a bad thing as I forget some of the parts, or a good thing when I can add something better instead.

"Moonlight Legend" is one part in a much larger fantasy story that I am writing. It's about two brothers that was separated as child's and is living very different lives. In this story we can follow one of them on his way as a black smith in a small town to become the great emperor of the whole earth. Of course it is a long way to get there and he has to sacrifice his both loved ones.

The next album, if there will ever be one, will tell about his brother - the true emperor. Also there will be a lot of changes in the story as I am discovering new stuff about the characters all the time.

But it is a fantasy story, and I have had that concept in my lyrics since 1995 when I started the band. Back then it was not so usual, but nowadays every other band is dealing with fantasy in extreme music.

I would have to say both of them. I have never studied classical music that much, but I was in school and learned notes, arranging and composing classical music for a few years. But most of that knowledge isn't useful in Azure.

But I also played classical guitar in this school, and mostly concentrated on Swedish folk music, and from that I have got many influences. Otherwise I am inspired by everything I listen to.

Is the new material different than that of "Moonlight Legend"? What motivated this change?

I recorded two new song for a promo-CD last year, and in a way they were very different from "Moonlight Legend", more experimental and so on. But the songs I am writing now is more back to the old demo-days and I will actually use a song from the last demo "The Eroican", but with some new lyrics and arrangements.

The reason for changing style a bit was simply because I listened to bands like Arcturus and Borknagar so much for a while and I tried to write such songs, but I found out that it wasn't the right thing for me to do. But still I am influenced by these bands in some ways, and I will try to combine the old and the new on the new songs...

Also I have a new logo now. Drawn by Christophe Szpajdel, and it looks really great I think.

No. I am not that satisfied with how the recordings turned out. The sound is good, and the songs are great but how we played them is not so great, if you get what I mean?

But actually I am planning to release a CD with a lot of different bands that I have been a part of since I began to play the guitar. All tracks will be recorded professionally and I guess it will be about 10 bands or something. The reason for doing this is that most of the old tapes we recorded on are starting to be bad, and in a couple of years they won't be able to play anymore. And it's fun to have all the bands documented in some way.

This will not be a professional release or something, but it will end up on CD with a thick booklet.

The styles of these bands also differs very much, from doom metal to melodic death and black metal and American death metal, grindcore etc, etc...

On the promo-CD "Shadows In Midark" Velvet actually played the drums on the two new tracks. But it was simply because Mattias is living 900 kilometres away from me. But I talked to him recently and he is excited to play the drums on my next recording. Hopefully he will also help me with some of the songwriting.

No. And Solistitium never seemed to be that interested either it turned out. They released the CD one year too late and nothing happened. I never got any royalty money, only CD's to sell for my self. But of course they covered all my expenses for the recording.

They told me that the sales was very low, but a few months ago when I was touring with Centinex as their session singer in Europe people on every place came up to me and was talking about "Moonlight Legend"... Strange... One guy in Spain (Zaragoza) even talked to me in Swedish as he had learned that in school, it was really strange.

For one thing I have learned to play a lot better, and I also have experienced more as a person and knows much more about music in general. But besides that I don't know really, I write the music in the same way but maybe I am a bit more critical now when making the songs?

No. I am not that interested to play live with Azure. Maybe if there were possibilities to arrange a short European tour I would go for it. I like it better to play live with my other band Relentless, as that is a real band rehearsing every week etc.

Yeah of course! I mean, I pick up influences from everything so all things can happen.

For the three first demos I used a simple portable recorder with eight tracks... The sound was awful on the two first ones so they were never released official. The third one "Dark & Mysterious" was quite good sound-wise so I could release it.

The fourth demo "The Eroican" was recorded in a small studio in Falun Sweden. It was the guys from Without Grief that owned it and it turned out great.

The MCD "A Vicious Age Lasting" was also recorded at the same place, on Peter Tägtgrens old 16 channels recorder, and the sound was even better this time.

For the "Moonlight Legend" recording I went the 900 kilometres to Umeå (north of Sweden) to record in a digital studio called XL. Unfortunately the sound wasn't as powerful as I wanted so I am a bit disappointed at this one.

For future recordings I guess I will use the studio we are building at my rehearsal place, it will be digital and with all new, very expensive, stuff. 24 channels.

If you are talking about my instrument so do I only own one guitar nowadays, my BC Rich guitar. I must buy a bass-guitar soon as I only borrows one when playing with Relentless.

Well, thanks a lot for the interview and the support.

Anybody can feel free to order the CD "Moonlight Legend" from me for only 12USD. T-Shirts are available for the same price, but not many are left though.

Over and out!!!

Dark and Mysterious - Demo (1995)

The Eroican - Demo (1996)

A Vicious Age Lasting - MCD (1997)

Moonlight Legend - CD (1998)

Amorth Bredlave - guitar, bass, vocals

Guest musicians:

Mattias Holmgren - drums

Velvet - drums