ION INDIE MAGAZINE June 2015, Volume 13 | Page 121

MOONSPELL: Over the years, we have always been writing our lyrics based on fiction, yet this new album
(“Extinct”) is a little different. I became a father 3 years ago, so not that I don’t care about werewolves and
vampires anymore, but I think that sometimes you need to progress and write with a gut feeling about what
you are going through, which is what happened with “Extinct”. One of my main sources for lyrics is
literature. When I came to Metal as a listener and a fan, I always liked the stuff like “The Ancient Mariner”
by IRON MAIDEN, or when Metal bands took a small bit of poetry and literature and introduced them into
their music. Because of this I was not only discovering some of my favorite bands, but also some of my
favorite authors.
MR: Let’s continue along this avenue and segue way into the new album, specifically the song
“Medusalem”…
MOONSPELL: I was reading a book by this Italian writer ITALIO CALVINO, “The Invisible City”. It’s a cool
fictional story of the explorer MARCO POLO meeting KUBIL KHAN. This book inspired me to write a song
that spoke of harmony, without any political intent. “Medusalem” is about a city that can embrace all
kinds of people and religions, and perhaps in some way it has to do with how I think that common guys like
us want to live in harmony. They don’t want to fight, they just want to be happy and go on with their lives.
Even if they disagree on religion, they still want to live peacefully and in harmony with each other. Ironically
when we produced the song we had a Turkish orchestra, a musician from Israel playing a traditional
instrument that he had designed, and we also had a female artist from Iran speaking Farsi in part of the
song. The coincidence that all of these people from countries that don’t have the best relations are all
collaborating with us, who are from Portugal, made the song that much more special.
MR: Why are your photos and videos shot in black and white?
MOONSPELL: We as a band like black and white, and I personally love black and white. The cool old look,
the way it makes things look impressive. If we could turn ourselves black and white we probably would. We
use this when we make our videos, as we want to tell a story that goes with our music and album, rather
than just put a bunch of instruments in a room and just play. I feel you have to do it from an artistic point;
you as a photographer understand this. For example, our video for “Extinct” was heavily influenced by
movies like “Mad Max”, 1999, and “Battle of the Bronx”. The director and I were both heavily influenced
by those films and we don’t mind spending a bit of money to mak e something of quality, rather than a
dodgy film.
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