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Interview with

Barry Halldan (vocals) of The Weakening

During this year’s Hultsfred Festival we spent some time at the Rookie stage to check out some of the new bands playing there. THE WEAKENING impressed us and after the show we grabbed the singer Barry Halldan for a spontaneous interview. THE WEAKENING is a metal band from Gothenburg, Sweden with members Barry Halldan (vocals), Jani Stefanovic (guitar), David Wedegård (drums), Johan Ylenstrand (bass) and Marcus Bartilsson (guitars).

Reflections of Darkness (RoD): How did you come up with the name THE WEAKENING?
Barry: When we forming the band and were still seeking for band members we were thinking of all the cool guitar players that are out there. We wanted to make project that was a combination of PANTHERA and MESHUGGAH. It was when the drummer David Wedegård joined the band we started to discuss band names. I had written some lyrics and then somewhere the words “the weakening” just came and we thought it was a good band name.

RoD: What inspires you when you write/create music?
Barry: I am not that involved in making the music but I write some lyrics. I get inspiration from my work with teenagers - I am a youth leader and an educated recreation leader so I work a lot with teenagers and I think that a lot of their world…or how to say this. The Weakening is very critical to this world and we point very hard with the whole hand at different things like religion, politics, philosophy, it can be everything. Then I have a Christian conviction and belief in me and in a way I put everything that I see in the world against this. When I come here to the Hultsfred festival and walk around here and see all these drunk, half naked 16 year old girls then I feel really, really bad. I also know that when they go home they sit down and cut themselves because they feel so bad. This is something that I want to address, both them and the cause is what inspires me.



RoD: The way you sing, can we call it growling or what is it you do?
Barry: Yes I am growling.

RoD: Can you tell me something about it, how you growl and so on?
Barry: I ehrm don’t really know how I do it, the other guys in the band want to learn so they are on me all the time. They are starting to get better and better and the bass player is really good at growling too.  I have been singing in bands since I was like 11 years old, I have been into Punk, Rock, Jimi Hendrix and all that and then it only gets worse and worse *laughs*. My singing has been thicker than it is now but well I sing Rock song but I push it all down into the chest, then I get a vibrator and then I push with my stomach and then it comes out heavy...

RoD: Has someone taught you how to do this?
Barry: Nah I have taught myself. I am 29 now so I have been doing this kind of singing since I was like 13-14 years old and somewhere I just learned how to sing like this.



RoD: Is it hard to sing the way you do and do you work with your voice before a concert?
Barry: Well actually you need to exercise your voice but I don’t do that. The light screams they strain a lot on my voice and makes me hoarse but if I sing somewhere in the middle of dark and light then it’s ok. I should take singing lessons…

RoD: Do you have any more shows planed for the summer?
Barry: No not at the moment, we have had a couple of shows but now we are going to focus on recording all of our songs. We had plans on releasing an EP but then a company was interested in us and wanted to release a full length album. We have the material but had not started working with recording it. We don’t know yet how things will turn out but if the company says they want to release our album then we want everything to be ready so we can just send it to them. So we are going to record everything now and put a little extra weight on that.



RoD: Ok good luck with everything! Thanks to Barry Halldan for taking the time to do this interview. For more information about THE WEAKENING please visit www.myspace.com/theweakenin

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Pics by Martina Törnemyr

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