A year ago Snowy Shaw was the first and last interviewee of Rockers Digest. On the eve of the release of Notre Dame`s "first & last" live album, Creepshow, Freakshow, Peepshow, we couldn`t resist catching up with Snowy for a second interview.
When we last spoke you were gearing Notre Dame up for a lot more live shows, but now the band has ended. What happened?
I was indeed really excited about going out playing live shows with Notre Dame again. I had designed a complete new stageshow, we had a new album out and a new drummer in Daniel "Mojjo" Moilanen who was a big fan of me and Notre Dame, so things looked very bright there for a while.
But in truth Notre Dame was on its last leg and I tried to cover up the fact that the original band was falling apart and had been doing so for years. In retrospect it would turn out to be a very wise decision to have Mannequin and Jean-Pierre start wearing those masks back in 1999, which meant that I could later on have temporary session guys filling in for them when they were not in a condition or mood of making the gig. When playing France in 2002 some fans got quite upset that Jean-Pierre De Sade didn`t respond and that he seemed like an arrogant prick. When in truth, behind the mask was my Swedish guitarist friend Jan Strandh who simply couldn`t speak a word of French.
We did half a dozen of successful festival shows in Sweden and had an upcoming tour in Spain and Portugal, and some dates in Finland and a few planned in Italy, which we had to cancel because as a single mom Vampirella`s priorities were elsewhere. At some point I said fuck her! I`m busting my ass here trying to get as many and as good gigs as possible and she prefers going on vacation, celebrating someone`s birthday or whatever other stupid excuse. So we went on doing shows without her, with a female bass player who also handled some of Vampirella`s vocal parts, while I switched to guitar for about half of the songs and just singing for the rest. Having occasional session guys for De Sadistic bros is one thing, finding a replacement for Vampirella would be far more difficult. Not necessarily from a vocal point of view, but finding a femme fatale who`d willingly strip naked and bring on that kind of performance she did is practically an impossible task. Despite all that, some of the best shows Notre Dame did last year, was done without her and with me as the sole frontman.
I had already started to drift off from the Notre Dame concept both musically and visually years earlier, and the way I figured, no Vampirella - no Notre Dame.
The CD is being released on your own label. Do you intend to use this a vehicle for just your own stuff or are you considering releasing other bands?
Of course, I intend to compete with EMI and all the other big major labels who won`t leave me alone, Ha ha! Basically I just wanted the fans to have one last Notre Dame album, that I had promised them. So I invested some money and started in a small scale, like some sort of experiment and we`ll see what happens down the road. For good and bad the whole music industry has changed so drastically since the internet made it`s entrance into every household, that the old routine and rules don`t apply no more. There`s a whole new world of opportunities out there, so I thought I`d give a shot. I`ve had some really bad experiences with some small independent labels in the past, so that I don`t want anymore and I figured I couldn`t do much worse on my own. And so far things are going great and the album has so far received only top notch reviews 10/10 and 9/10! It`s a lot of hard work but it`s starting to get picked up by distributors in different countries around the world.
The exclusive limited digipack edition can still be purchased through my website snowyshaw.com or ordered directly at whitetrash_records@yahoo.com
What of the DVD to accompany Creepshow Freakshow Peepshow?
Initially that was never the plan, just a misunderstanding with our former record company. Creepshow Freakshow Peepshow was meant as a live album from day one, and therefore recorded not filmed.
Last year we had a couple of shows filmed, but I will keep all that material in a safe in my vault for the future. it remains to be seen if I ever decide to release that material.
I`m really disappointed I never saw Notre Dame live. What have you done with all the stage props?
Yeah, you should be, our stageshow was a seldom seen spectacle! Best thing I can offer you at this point is this live album Creepshow Freakshow Peepshow and the liveclips in the Munsters! video.
After that last Halloween show in November 2004 in Gothenburg, we left all the gear on stage and had a big wet farewell party. By dawn we returned and in a sort of ritual way we made a bonfire and burned what could be burned of the stage props. Although a bit sentimental, it felt pretty good and sort of marked the ending of an era and the beginning of a new. Still have the church fences and a casket in my living room though, that one I use as a bookshelf. I`ve heard rumours that one of the backdrops is in circulation on Ebay though. Other stuff like candelabras and shit have come to use with my girlfriend`s fire performance show Burn Bitch Burn (where also Vampirella is included) and in videos where I`ve assisted director Patric Ullaeus of Revolver Film Company.
I noticed from your site, www.snowyshaw.com, that your White Trash Inc portfolio of photographic work has really taken off with some great shots of bands such as Nightrage, Falconer and of course Dream Evil. Spill the beans!
Well, taking pictures of bands and artists is something I enjoy doing on the side, along with designing logotypes and making artwork in general with my little company White Trash Inc. Up until recently my clients have just been friends of a friend who have happened to hear about my other skills, but lately I`ve had some decent offers. We`ll see what`ll happen with that. The bands have always been very happy with the results, so the word gets around you know.
Apart from at times making my chuckle, the images portrayed in your own and Dream Evil photos is really cool. It`s obvious that you enjoy dressing up, but was there any resistance from the other guys in Dream Evil?
Maybe a little, I can`t remember really. There are always people who are reluctant and who show very much resistance when you first mention the use of stage clothes, make-up and so on. I`ve been through that with a lot of bands in the past. That`s part of the reason I made Jean-Pierre and Mannequin of Notre Dame start wearing masks early on. For some reason guys in metal bands instantly think you will look like transvestites or Twisted Sister, Poison or something. Then they usually change their minds completely when they see the effect and improvement.
I remember hearing about how Bowie managed to lure the Spiders into wearing make-up and stuff, by reversing things saying that they looked kind of green on stage tonight and would probably look more natural if they would wear make-up. And when they saw how many girls they could pull by doing so, they took to it like fish to water ha ha!.
Taking a quote from our last interview, "When opportunity knocks, Dream Evil don`t answer the door,.. unfortunately." It seemed to me Dream Evil`s profile really grew with The Book Of Heavy Metal but now Niklas & Peter have left the band. What happened and can you tell us about the new guys?
I guess you haven`t heard the great news yet, they both rejoined the band last week! Like a lot of things here in life, you don`t realize what you have until you`ve lost it. They came crawling back into our welcoming arms. Things look very bright now and we will try to do things all little differently from now on. We have a new management, or more correctly, a management for the first time, so things look very positive for the future. A new chapter is about to be written in the Book of heavy metal
I understand that you have a project, S&M, with Mats Leven. What`s the story?
Well, now that we`ve gone public with the departure and return of Dream Evil`s Niklas and Peter, I might as well confirm what some people have suspected for some time. At one point Mats Leven was to fill the gap Niklas had left, but in the end he decided to turn down the offer. Meanwhile, Mats and I had discovered that we shared tons of the same influences and I`m talking a vast variety of music that stretch from Bowie to Manowar via Abba, Plastic Bertrand, Nazareth and Sparks or U2. Anyway, we decided to join forces and put both our individual projects aside. Prior to this junction I have never been that fond of co-writing with people but with me and Mats things work perfectly. So far we`ve been writing and recorded some very rough demo songs which seem very very promising. Unfortunately we are both so extremely busy with other duties, so I suspect I will take some time to produce a real demo and start shopping around for a deal. He`s about to tour America with Therion shortly and I`m up to my neck in work. It doesn`t help much that he lives in Stockholm while I`m in Gothenburg either. Look forward to our next get together in November though. If we can find time this will be fucking awesome!
What's happening with K2?
Don´t think anything have happened really since February when we participated in the Swedish leg of the Eurovision song contest and ended up in the 2nd last spot ha ha! The last place would have been perfectly fine with me, then at least we could have said we were too heavy and that the average Swedish viewers don´t understand our music, but the 2nd last position is kinda lame.
We shot a video with Patric Ullaeus a couple of days after that, for our song while Alannah Myles was still in Sweden, but that was it. I assume Kee´s intentions are to keep on going with his K2 project, but I´m done with that.
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