Out of the continental Scandinavian countries, Denmark's metal scene is currently getting the least international press hands down. So when a Danish band starts getting noticed, they tend to stand out a bit. Such is the case for Mnemic, a young band on the Nuclear Blast roster. By the end of 2005, they will have completed three U.S. tours, an impressive feat for any foreign band. Hopefully, with this kind of exposure, their star is just starting to rise.

Tomas: Well, first off it was a great shock to us that Michael decided to leave the band, it was only four weeks before we had to leave for this U.S. tour, so of course that was a fist in our face. But I think we found our way to adapt pretty fast with Tony. Tony joined the band four days later; we actually called him the day after Michael's departure. We took him to rehearsal four days later, we had a jam on three of our songs and it was just awesome. We felt the connection and the good vibes pretty fast, so the transition has been very, very smooth and Tony is doing excellent on this tour, you know. He's brilliant and Tony's an even better vocalist, I think. He can do the songs from our first two albums without problems and we're going to expand on the third album.

Tomas: I think it's been very exciting to play the U.S. We first did a tour with Soilwork in the spring which was awesome. My first time, personally, in the U.S. And this time with another great package. We've been received very well over here; that's also why we're here - we're here to spread the word about Mnemic. I know there's a lot of people still not knowing about us, so it's been awesome and definitely the upcoming tour with Arch Enemy will be even better. It's just a new step for us, it's the third tour here and once again, hopefully, a new audience. All the tours have been great so far.

Tomas: Yeah, I don't know why the Arch Enemy tour doesn't really cover all of the U.S. like the other tours have done. I don't know what's up with that, but we just want to hang in there and hopefully, we'll hook up with the fans around the places we're going to play with Arch Enemy.

Tomas: We of course had a great time with Peter Tatgtren on the Soilwork tour, playing with Hypocrisy; he's a good guy and he's a great producer. This is a new step for us. We used Tue Madsen, the Danish producer, on the first two albums and we've been very pleased with these productions and what we basically want to do now is try something new and I think Peter Tatgtren and his way of producing is… it's a new step for us. I'm very excited and I'm very excited that peter is going to help us make our third album with Tony on the vocals. I'm very positive that we're going to put some really great songs on the third album here.

Tony: I know Peter Tatgtren, but I'm not so familiar with his production skills, so I hope for the best.

Tomas: I must say that all the arrangements for the production were made before Michael's departure. We haven't really been consulting everyone on this, if you know what I mean, and I'm just very positive that Peter Tatgtren will make our cooperation with Tony to a first class production. I'm very positive about that.

Tomas: I don't know, actually.

Tony: I don't know either. (laughter) But I'm very pleased with it. (more laughter) That's the only thing I can say. I'm not saying that I'm not pleased with Peter Tatgtren, he may be marvelous, but it's unknown to me. But I know exactly what this other guy does when he mixes and those things have just been incredibly awesome.

Tomas: This guy mixing is just a legend in many metal productions. Not only metal productions, but he's an awesome producer and mixer and we just need the official confirmation on this before we can announce it.

Tomas: Personally, I just don't know what the fuck is going on with these guys, you know, who want to spend their entire life destroying everything for everyone else. I'm very mad at these guys who want to destroy a very honest thing, a very positive thing as a fan forum. I cannot believe a guy would spend all his time trying to destroy the interaction between fans and bands. This is so fucking stupid that if that guy was right here, right now I'd pull off his head and then beat his balls, (laughter) because such a mother fucking idiotic thing, I cannot believe it, so fuck you! (laughter)

Tomas: Well, the nominations for the Danish Metal Awards has been like a website nomination the last couple of years, but we had good nominations for our two albums. Personally I've been nominated as Best Bass Player for two years in a row and actually won it, which I'm very proud of. (laughs a little) Now the Metal Awards has been made into a real show, like a live show. We're not going to be back home for this one because we're touring with Arch Enemy, which is kind of sad because it's like the premiere of something new on the Danish metal scene, so of course I wanted to be there to back up this event, but I think this upcoming event is made to happen at the end of November. It's not a way to make awards, because normally you do it as one of the first things in the new year and I don't know why they didn't do that, but they do it in November and it's going to be nominations for the year we're in, 2005 now. So the only nomination we have this time is for our video to "Door 2.12" because we made it this year. So our albums are not at all nominated this year, but hopefully next year our third album will be presented at the awards.

Tomas: Well, everyone in the band is very much into science fiction, comics, new technology developments, experiments; all kinds of shit. A few years back, we went to this convention in our hometown in Denmark and the local university was part of developing this system called "3-D sound". Actually, the basic thing is that they molded a human, they made an exact copy from a human head and placed very high definition microphones in the ears, so this can actually make recordings of sounds and the way a human being hears the sounds around you. So that's the way we used it, actually. You can also now simulate it in a computer program, of course, from the recordings from this head, you can make 3-D simulations. It's a new thing that I think maybe you will see in movies, too. It's made basically in computer games, you know, all your guys sitting out there with headphones playing "Counterstrike", "Battlefield", "Halflife", all these computer games; you experience from your left, from your right, from your back and hear someone coming up, footsteps. This is actually the basics of "3-D sound". It is the way that we hear sounds of the world, around us, so we tried to make recordings this way. So when you put on your headphones, you should be able to hear our intro and hear things moving around in your head.

Tony: Well, I have no experience of crowd reactions with Mnemic, but I have experience with other bands. I don't think there's much difference, in my opinion. I've been playing a lot of festivals in Sweden, I've played Dynamo festival in Holland. There's not much difference. Maybe you guys are a little more crazy, like a little bit, but otherwise it's the same, you know?

Tomas: I like the dedication from the American audience. I would say that you guys come out earlier to shows; you also want to check out the newer bands like us; we open this package and of course we're here to present our music to you guys and it's very nice to see that so many people come out to the shows early and actually to check out what's going on. In Europe, as openers, you can easily miss out on two-thirds of the audience, so that's a bit sad. I just want to say to you guys, keep on coming to the shows when the doors open because you're going to discover new bands that you might like, actually, so it's a good thing.