WILDNESS was originally intended to be a studio project by drummer and songwriter Erik Modin, but together with guitarist Adam Holmström, the project developed into a real band in 2014. The first year, Wildness performed live with various session musicians playing bass, The Swedish band started rehearsing and performing live diligently and in September 2015 and January 2016 the digital and self-produced singles "Collide" and "Turning The Pages" were released. After the second single, the band got in contact with record company AOR Heaven and was offered a record deal by Georg Siegl. In 2018, the band performed at numerous festivals internationally and shared stages with well-known acts such as Dokken, H.e.a.t, Dee Snider, Crashdïet, DragonForce, Arch Enemy, Warrant, Vixen and others and also had the honour to open for Pretty Maids, among others. Singer Gabriel Lindmark left Wildness in the autumn of 2019 due to musical disagreements. After continuing to work on the second album during the rest of 2019, Wildness was finally able to announce Erik Forsberg (ex-Blazon Stone) as their new frontman in the spring of 2020. The album, produced entirely by drummer Erik Modin, is titled "Ultimate Demise" and is - thanks to song material, Erik Forsberg's powerful vocals and Erik Wigelius' magnificent mixing and mastering - an album to be reckoned with in the melodic rock universe in 2020. Find out more about the band and the album. Here's ERIK MODIN...

Your latest offering to the Gods of Melodic Rock is entitled 'The Ultimate Demise' can you explain the meaning behind this?

- There was no sole purpose in the album title, we simply named the album after the track ”The Ultimate Demise” that sums up the album. And then we found the front cover image for the album and felt that the match was perfect! The song itself is about an astral journey from a dying earth to restart humanity on a distant habitale planet. It’s a bit inspired by the movie ”Knowing” with Nicholas Cage.

Does it capture your 'typical day-in-life' or the more outlandish and ultimate rock n roll fantasies?

- I would say both. Unlike the fictional theme on the title track I mentioned earlier, there’s another song on the album with sci-fi lyrics that depicts an alien invasion that takes place in the 1930’s. The aliens hacks the radio frequency to inform humans that their last moments has arrived, just like the chorus says: ”We’re coming to get you”

Kindly tell us something about the writing process and what you're trying to capture on the album. That 80's feeling?

- The writing process differs from song to song, anf we sometimes work together as a team and sometimes individually. I try to grasp those sudden bolts of inspiration that strikes you every now and then and try to develope a cool idea into a song as quickly as possible. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

Are we in 'Denial'? What's the story behind the song?

- The song is not about humanity, it’s more a reflection of dealing with energy thieves that lacks self-insight and the feeling of responsibility in general. You’re running into those people every now and then, and the biggest problem about them is being in denial for their own shortcomings and problems.

How did you hook up with new vocalist Erik Forsberg, and what did/does he bring to the table? [and no, you can't reply: chair :-)]

- After looking around for a new singer for a few months, we stumbled over an ad he up on Facebook where he was looking around for new projects. After meeting up in our rehearsal space twice and trying out the songs we felt that he was the right guy! He is very professional and takes his voice as an instrument at a very serious level. He also helped us out to finish two songs on the new album where the lead vocals wasn’t written yet which, at least from our perspective, raised the overall level on the song material on the album.

There's always been a lot of AOR/Melodic acts from Sweden. Are Swedes unashamed of their love for music? [it's not always "cool" to be AOR?].

- Kind of hard to tell. Sweden is also known for great pop bands, artists, producers and song writers. There might be something in the water? It might also be the fact that it’s dark and boring over here during 9 months a year, so we need to be occupied with something to keep ourselves going. Ther’s also a lot of opportunities to get rehearsal spaces trough student unions and stuff like that so that might be another reason.

Would you say it's difficult to breakthrough in today's internet media and overkill of hard rock albums and acts?

- No and yes. No, because it’s easy to get youself heard and seen by a lot of people who’s probably your target group trough social media, Youtube and stuff like that.
And yes, because all of the reasons I mentioned above because everyone is doing it and you need to really stick out and be good at marketing and networking to get yourself enough attention to break trough the masses. And you also need to be good at what you’re doing.

Do you get any stick for your album art-cover? It screams 'B-movie of the eighties'? No? :-)

- No, we’ve only had positive reactions on it so far. We all agreed on that we wanted an album cover just like that to catch that pure vintage vibe. It’s also gonna look badass on vinyl later on!

It's a completely different world as of 2020. But what about your best live memory or gig? Any fun/weird behind the scenes anecdotes?

- Our best gig so far was probably HEAT Festival in Germany 2 years ago. The place was packed, we met a lot of fans who were there to see us, we met a lot of other great bands and had a great time overall! Our live set went great as well and we were treatet so well by the crew and promotors. After the gig, we hung out with Kee Marcello and his band Kee Of Hearts backstage and had a verbal competition on who could tell the sickest and most bizarre jokes. All of a sudden, our guitar player Adam turned to Kee, looked at him dead serious and told him that he really loves his solo album ”Total Control” and that it was his favorite record. The room went dead silent for like 1 second, before everyone including Kee started laughing their asses off.

I know about the wilderness (I live there), but what about WILDNESS? What's the idea and thinking behind your monicker?

- I wish I could give you a good story behind the band name here, but I just thought it sounded cool and decided to name the band Wildness. One reason was that I liked the idea of having a band name that started with the letter ”W” for some reason.

If there's anything you'd like to add, say, please do:

- Sit back, relax, listen to ”Ultimate Demise” with Wildness and dream yourself away to another world and don’t lose hope for the future or faith in humanity! We’ll be back on the road to perform our songs for you guys as soon as the world is back to normal again. In the meantime, follow us on Facebook (facebook.com/wildnessofficial) and Instagram (@wildnessofficial) to get our latest updates and stuff regarding the band and the new album. Cool stuff is coming soon!
Stay safe where you are! Cheers! Erik Modin.

Interview by: Urban Wally Wallstrom

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