Interview with
Robby Rockbag (guitar) and Alex Vega (guitar) of Steelwing
Formed in 2009, Sweden's STEELWING is a band of fiercely talented young musicians armed with a reckless disrespect for the physiological consequences of extended head banging. They currently released a new album, ‘Zone of Alienation’, and will be touring beginning of 2012 together with GRAND MAGNUS. Reason enough to ask a few questions…
Reflections of Darkness (RoD): Why did you choose ‘Zone of Alienation’ as title for the new album?
Robby Rockbag (Robby): The term itself describes the area around Chernobyl. It’s a safety zone in which no one can enter without permission from the government. However, in our story, we use the title to describe the place where the last survivors from Earth end up. 
RoD: Where was the main focus on, when you produced the album?
Alex Vega (Alex): The main focus was on the vocals, and the main reason we chose Rickard Löfgren as producer.
Robby: We wanted to improve on the first album. Most importantly, to write better songs, and also make it sound a bit more professional.
RoD: Why is it a "semi"-concept album and not a whole concept album?
Robby: We don’t want to limit ourselves when we write. Half the songs revolve around a concept, the rest are based on different things. That way, we can cover different topics.
Alex: I think we didn’t have enough material and a good enough storyline for nine or ten songs, so four was a good compromise.
RoD: Where do you see the biggest changes in your music on the new album towards ‘Lord Of The Wasteland’?
Robby: Everything has been taken to the next level. The playing is better, since we’ve become better musicians from all the touring. And of course, the songwriting has improved. We really tried to push ourselves as writers this time.
Alex: The writing is more mature and the songs are a lot catchier.
RoD: Are the song titles Alien nation an Running Man related in any kind of way to the late 80´s TV series and movie?
Robby: ‘Zone of Alienation’ has nothing to do with ‘Alien Nation’, which was both a movie and a show, if I’m not mistaken. However, ‘The Running Man’ is inspired by the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie with the same name. It’s one of his best movies, and a perfect concept for a heavy metal song!
RoD: Why did you decide to put with ‘They Came From The Skies’ a pure instrumental track on the album?
Alex: The song has awesome riffs and it’s really fun to play so we kept it that way, with focus on the instruments instead of the vocals. It came out as one of my favourites, no offence to Riley, haha!
Robby: I was always a bit sceptical of doing an instrumental track. You need strong riffs and melodies to keep the listeners attention, since there are no vocals. But this song turned out really well and it’s a cool addition to the rest of the tracks. Surprisingly, there are only two guitar solos! One might expect a band like STEELWING to put a shitload of solos on an instrumental, but we decided to do just one each.
RoD: Is this track inspired by the old play station game?
Robby: I’ve never heard of that game, actually. The title sounds like a sci-fi movie from the 1950s, and it fits the song and our concept well.
Alex: Never heard of that game either. But old video game music is fantastic, especially on 8- and 16-bit consoles. There are incredibly innovative and creative melodies and tunes, made with small means. I would say that video game music inspires me in all my melody- and songwriting.
RoD: What were the reason to do with Tokkotai (Wind of Fury) a song about the kamikaze bombers from Japan?
Robby: Riley said that he wanted to write something about kamikaze pilots, and I was really inspired by that. I came up with some riffs which became the foundation for the song. Later on, Alex and I developed it into what you hear on the album, with some input from Riley as well. It’s such an interesting, and macabre topic. Imagine what was going through the minds of the pilots just as they’re about to crash into an aircraft carrier!
RoD: What are the results from the work with Rikard Löfgren for the new Album?
Alex: A more natural vibe to the record. He brought out the live feeling we wanted. We recorded everything except the vocals live in one take, and I think that really comes out in the production. We didn’t pick around too much on small things.
Robby: Rikard’s greatest strength as a producer is the way he works with singers. Obviously, he cares about the actual music as well, but producing vocals is where he puts most of his effort. He really wanted to push Riley’s voice and he worked a lot with him on the vocal melodies. Riley sounds fantastic, and delivers a world-class performance on this album.
RoD: What changed after Nic Savage came to the band?
Alex: Our bass player changed from a finger-playing, non-tattooed blond guy to a pick-playing, tattooed, crazy, blond guy. He brought new energy and charisma to the band. He is going to be a heavy metal legend, believe me!
Robby: Nic was originally a big fan of STEELWING, so we had met at shows in the past. Since touring and recording is all new to him, his enthusiasm has given us all a much needed boost, and we’re lucky to have such a great guy with us. Not to take anything away from Skürk, though, since he was also dedicated and hard working, but he realized that touring isn’t his thing.
RoD: What makes STEELWING to a Heavy Metal Band of the year 2012 and not only to a Metal Band playing the 80´s style in 2012?
Robby: Our style is obviously influenced by 80s heavy metal. But what we care about is good music, regardless of what period it originated in. It just so happens that the sounds and looks of the 80s are what we consider to be the best era of metal, and that’s what we draw inspiration from. It might as well have been the 70s, or 90s even, but we would have sounded a lot different, then!
Alex: We are a 21st century band, writing songs about 2097 A.D and playing heavy metal that’s timeless but were most popular in the 1980s. The music was great back then and that’s the reason we have that sound.
RoD: Does traditional Heavy metal still have a chance nowadays?
Robby: Of course! It’s not just a trend, this type of music will always have a strong following, particularly the underground scene. People are getting tired of hearing the same overproduced, computer engineered, auto-tuned crap on the radio.
Alex: Always had and always will. But it will never be as big as in the late 80’s.
RoD: Part of the story at ‘Zone of Alienation’ is following the eradication of the Earth after religious wars have gone nuclear, mankind set out to find new worlds to colonize. Why did you choose religious wars in your scenario as reason for the eradication of the Earth?
Robby: Man will always kill man over religious beliefs, and natural resources. The possibility of a nuclear war is quite slim, and I seriously doubt it will happen.
RoD: Which message do you have for your audience?
Robby: The idea was more of doing a cool story, than actual political commentary. But still, if we do have a message, I think it would be to embrace logic, reason and common sense…and don’t start a nuclear war! Don’t kill anyone over things you cannot prove, or disprove.
RoD: Have you ever been thinking about your home country Sweden? And if so-why?
Robby: Fundamentalism is a global phenomenon. Luckily, it’s not very common in Sweden, although it surely exists.
RoD: How would your planet look like?
Robby: A nice, green place where everyone listens to heavy metal!
RoD: You’re gonna be touring with SKULL FIST in 2012 and you’re scheduled in the line-up to play after them. They earned a big success in 2011 in Germany, so people think it’s courageous for you to play on this position because it could become hard to convince the crowd with your performance after SKULL FIST and VANDERBUYST. What do you think?
Alex: I see it as a great package and we’re all there to entertain, not compete with each other. Doesn’t really matter which band goes first and which band goes last. It ended up like this because it’s our album tour. SKULL FIST and VANDERBUYST are fantastic and will probably rock as hell live. But we will do exactly what we do best. Looking cool and playing kick-ass heavy metal with awesome riffs and high-pitched screams!
Robby: After four tours, three of them as a support band to some of the biggest metal bands today, we are highly capable live performers. These are all quality bands, but we always deliver, no matter whom we play with.
RoD: Any specials planned for the shows?
Alex: The setlist will for sure be more special then the last years. But otherwise on these small club stages we can’t do much more than play the hell out of our instruments and give the audience a hell of lot of metal.
RoD: Do you see the bands more like a team or do you think there’s a bit of a challenge for the best performance always?
Robby: I think there’s going to be a strong team spirit. We’re all roughly the same age group, roughly the same musical tastes, so we’ll get along great, I think. It’s a fantastic line-up, anyone who comes to the show is going to get a night to remember. But I think we all know that we need to give 110%.
Alex: There’s always competition among bands in the same genre, but I would like to see us as a good team and friends.
RoD: What’s your biggest dream when it comes to making music?
Alex: My dream with STEELWING right now is to expand to other parts of the world and ending up touring there and show them who we are.
Robby: My dream is to play guitar in STEELWING and make a decent living out of it. Secondly, to go on tour with IRON MAIDEN!
RoD: Which dream did you give up already?
Robby: Having music as my job, and touring with MAIDEN are highly improbable, but not impossible things.
Alex: Nothing is given up. It’s too early to give up, even if the music business looks like crap these days. Make the best of the situation.
RoD: When there’s a question you always wanted to be asked, but no one asked, what would it be and what would be the answer?
Robby: I have no idea, actually! Probably something about my guitars!
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