FATAL SMILE - Know Thy Unknowns Page 2
By Martin Popoff

"Well, I really like the whole album. If I should mention some of my favourites it would be tracks like Bad Kharma, The Saviour, Circle Of Fire... It's really hard to pick out certain tracks. As I said I think that we have ten killer tracks on the album. So, I'll say that all the tracks on the album are my favourites. We wrote The Saviour and Beyond Reality the second time we got together with H.B Anderson (ed - vocalist). And that was like back in 2000. I wrote Bad Kharma and Scene Of A Crime like five, six years years ago, and I felt that the time was right to do something with these tunes. They were all too good to just waste away."

One of the aces in the band's deck is the lush, warm, but ful spectrum production job. "I totally agree about the production; it's a really killer production," sez Y. "And the main reason for that is the producer Jonas Ostman (Yngwie Malmsteen). He was just great to work with and he did an awesome job. We wanted a clear sound but still heavy and with an edge to it. I mean, some bands work in the studio for like two years and come up with a record that still sound's like shit. I think they have too much money and that they have lost the feeling for how to make good music... Even if we were near a breakdown 'cause the pressure he put on us. Recording the album took like two weeks and then we had some work with the mix and the production; four weeks to complete the whole album. Jonas had some cool ideas and it was really a challange to work with someone that's not in the band. It was an experience that we learned a lot from... plus we drank a lot of beer."

I asked Y about his guitar influences. "I started to play guitar after seeing John Sykes and the Love Ain't No Stranger video with Whitesnake back in 1984. My influences have been Sykes, George Lynch and Zakk Wylde... these guys kick's ass! But there's a lot of great guitar players that I like, guys like Eddie Van Halen, Jake E. Lee, Warren DeMartini, Steve Vai, Ronnie Le Tekro, Reb Beach, Jerry Cantrell, Joe Satriani, Yngwie Malmsteen..."

FATAL SMILE - Know Thy Unknowns Page 3