Interview with Stevie Janevski from Black Majesty

Black Majesty's journey now includes 3 albums, the latest being 'Tomorrowland', which will be released shortly. A couple of years ago I spoke to Stevie Janesvski (guitars) about their debut and figured it was about time to catch up again. Being a very busy guy I appreciate Stevie taking time out to answer a few questions, especially with a major European festival tour coming up. And that is where the conversation started, with an insight from Stevie on why the band are mainly doing festivals, rather than club gigs. "We are playing one headline show in the Czech Republic at a place called Kain which went over really well back in 2005. But this time ‘round we had a game plan to play more of the big Euro Festivals. Club gigs are great but they don’t compare to festivals when you’re playing alongside great packages/bills and to bigger numbers of people. People in Europe like to go and see a bunch of bands at festivals so we’re happy to be part of it. No complaints from us. We’re really looking forward to playing Wacken, Masters of Rock and Metal Universe aswell as the other dates. Another bonus of playing metal festivals is that we get to see a lot of bands we like!"

I also enquired about Black Majesty playing with any big name acts coming to Aussie in the future. As Stevie points out, Black Majesty's main focus is the current tour and then they will look at touring locally once they get back to Australia. "We’re playing with some huge bands in the coming months such as Stratovarius, Blind Guardian, Motorhead, Rage, Children of Bodom, Hammerfall, Sepultura, Masterplan, Iced Earth, Hammerfall etc. so in all honesty all of these are pretty mega! It would have been cool to be part of the upcoming Heaven & Hell Black Sabbath tour of Australia but we get back to Australia from Europe in the middle of the tour which makes it hard. Fortunately both Hanny and myself will be back to see this! I guess we’ll concentrate on doing proper launches of the Tomorrowland album throughout the later part of the year and hopefully expand from there. We’re keen to get over to New Zealand also so hopefully if there’s enough support then we’ll get over there also."

Although Europe is regarded as the centre of the universe when it comes to melodic metal, the USA and Japan are still have a strong fan base. As it turns out Black Majesty has sold well in both markets. "Sales in Japan and America have been great for the first two albums, which surprises us, especially since we signed to a German label and we play more of a Euro style of metal. There was talk of about playing both countries in the past but again things need to be done right. Otherwise it’s not fair to ourselves or our fans. We definitely hope we get the opportunity to promote Tomorrowland in the U.S and Japan. Fingers crossed!"

The band has had plenty of good press and reviews for 'Sands Of Time' and 'Silent Company', but that does not always translate into sales. Thankfully for Black Majesty that is not the case. As Stevie points out, for a band/business to grow you need to put something back in. "Sales for both albums have been very good. In all honesty we’ are very overwhelmed with the sales figures we have and we hope we can keep building on our fan basis. It’s very good to hear that we’re ome of the best sellers on the Limb Music Products label. Yeah we'’ve had royalty cheques but we’re happy to put money back into the band to build on spreading the word about the band. For instance a lot of the money we’ve made off the last album goes into help paying for our upcoming tour of Europe to help promote the new Tomorrowland album. Living in Oz is quite a way to Europe so things like flights, accommodation, basic living expenses need to be covered."

Getting back to the current album, how long did it take for it to get written and recorded? "It took about a year of on and off work between gigs etc. to write the follow up to Silent Company which is Tomorrowland. We started recording in February of 2007 and finished everything by the end of March 2007. Things went pretty smoothly as we already had an idea of what we wanted to put down – we demoed all of the songs before hand." And what about the guitar parts? Is it a collaboration between yourself and Hanny? "Hanny and I pretty much split the things in half. We normally work on ideas alone but sometimes we’'ll come up with things together from time to time. After the initial skeleton idea is there we then work together to do what suits the song best. We’ve pretty much worked like this in the past and we’re very easy going. We’re happy to bounce ideas off each other and I believe that’s the way it should be." Is there a particular key you prefer writing in? "A lot of our songs are in ‘E’. I know John likes singing in this key and it’s pretty fat sounding for guitars also. Then again the song Faces of War is in ‘F Sharp’and we also experimented with the key of ‘D’ and ‘A’ a bit also on this new one. Personally I like soloing in the key ‘A’. It’s very central on the neck and very comfortable to play in. I know Hanny likes soloing in the key of ‘E’. Most of the time Hanny and I will have solos worked out. For instance we’ll often copy what we played on our demos. But as I said earlier there were two songs that we jammed on this album which was something really cool and something we hadn’t really done before. The solos were Evil In Your Eyes and Kingdoms (which is only available on the digipack version as it is one of two bonus tracks)."

The band put in a lot of work before entering the studio, such as demoing the whole album. That does not mean, though, that spontaneity and improvisation are banished. Sometimes what works in the demo needs further work once the band gets into the studio. Stevie elaborates. "We demoed up all of the songs before hand and even left a few demos off the album to keep the quality level as high as we could. Most of the time we use the demo guide and stick to it but occasionally if we think we can better the ideas we’ll rework the ideas and at times improvise. Hanny and I did this with two solo leadbreaks which came up really well and have that special life about them which we like. Some tunes needed more work than others. For instance Forever Damned was rewritten a lot. We weren’t 100% on where the tune was going or how it was going to sound until the very end when we were recording it in the studio. We tried a bunch of things and for some reason it didn’t come together until the last moment. Evil In Your Eyes was another song we reworked in the studio. For some reason what we demoed up vocally/melody wise wasn’t transferring to how we wanted it to sound like in the studio. We tried a few alternatives and finally came up with something we liked."

Black Majesty have been working with producer Endel Rivers for a while now and even worked with Piet Sielck (Iron Savior) on 'Silent Company'. They would have liked to work with Piet again, but his schedule and the deadline for the album's completion worked against that idea. "Yeah Endel has done a great job on all three albums. We would love to work with Piet again in the future. He’s great! Unfortunately this time around we needed to have the album finished by a deadline and time didn’t permit to work with guys such as Piet. All of those guys are busy so you need to book studio time well in advance. We just didn’t have that kind of time. We needed the album all finished by March so it could be out for the European Summer to coincide with our tour."

Something else I wanted Stevie's input on is the imagery used on the 3 album covers, specifically the meaning behind the Knight and Lion characters. Here he explains their relevance. "The knight is the ‘Black Majesty’. I guess she has become the identifiable character on all of our albums. We like the idea of having the ongoing theme on all of our albums – kind of Iron Maiden’s Eddie or all of the Dio covers. Pretty old school but that’s what we’re into! She’s kind of the worlds saviour. As for the lion we again like the idea of the ‘majestic’ element and the lion signifies that for us. Our artist Dirk Illing has continually come up with the goods and has outdone himself on each album."

Back when we last spoke I asked Stevie to comment on the healthy state of Australian melodic metal. At that time Black Majesty, Dungeon, Vanishing Point were the main purveyors of melodic metal Down Under. 2 years on nothing has really changed, with few newer bands coming through. Stevie addresses that issue. "There are a few young bands coming through. The tough thing for bands is that unless you are with a label it’s hard to generate interest and even then it can still be hard. There’s Anarion who have done pretty well and In Malice’s Wake – but they’ are a bit more heavier and thrashier. But yeah there’ are definitely some new bands out there. Touring with DragonForce opened our eyes how successful playing our style of metal can be. Back in 2006 all dates we played with them were sold out around Australia. I think that shows that if labels and the media get behind a band playing melodic metal it can be a real success."

During our discussion Stevie and I touched on his new endorsement with Jackson guitars, specifically how that came about. "I was with my former company for years and I’d been approached by companies such as Jackson that if I ever wanted to use a Jackson they’d be interested which was very cool. So when my former company went bankrupt that’s exactly what I did. The other guitarist Hanny has played Jackson for years and I always liked his guitars, so the natural thing for me to do was to jump on board. Jackson has already been mega cool to me – even at this early stage. It’s awesome!" And the new album cover paint job done on his touring guitar looks amazing. Stevie agrees. "Definitely. It’s really comfortable to play and has the art work of our new Tomorrowland album cover on it which looks fantastic."

My thoughts on how Black Majesty have progressed are outlined in my review for 'Tomorrowland', but I am always interested to hear what the band themselves think of the album and how it relates to their previous work. "I see Tomorrowland as a natural progression and in some ways has elements of Sands of Time and Silent Company within it. I think there’s a few progressive parts that we added on Tomorrowland kind of reminiscent of what we were doing on the first album and some straight ahead power metal stuff like what’s on Silent Company also. Then again we upped the pace on Tomorrowland too. This album has some of the fastest songs we’ve ever played and recorded. I also think it’s probably our most consistent album. We’re pretty pleased all up."

Just like his solo's on 'Tomorrowland', Stevie is right on the money with that comment. Thanks again to Stevie Janevski for giving me his time. If you are reading this and going to any of the Festivals that Black Majesty are playing, I have one thing to say........... You Lucky Bastards!!!!!