MNEMIC Guitarist Looks Back On 2007

Guitarist Mircea Gabriel Eftemie of the Danish modern metallers MNEMIC has issued the following update:

"We have kept rather quiet since the Danish Metal Awards, which was our last performance for the year 2007, and now it's about time for an update from the cold shores of the north to let all of you know that all is groovy and peachy at the MNEMIC camp.

"2007 was a great year for us. We started touring throughout the United States and Canada, went to Europe, did the UK, Scotland, Holland, Germany, France, Czech Republic, Austria, Portugal, Hungary, Slovenia, Russia and of course Denmark. Headlined the Headbanger's Ball tour, supported DEFTONES, and played with none other than METALLICA! We are more than grateful and honored to have experienced these great tours.

"The DEFTONES tour was most definitely a great and fun tour. It was overwhelming to be playing every night in front of a crowd of 2,000 kids (something we are not used to as the 'metal midgets' we are). Throughout the tour we were very much looking forward to the last gig at the Brixton Academy. While we where were doing some warm-up with the MACHINE HEAD DVD in the comfy back lounge of the tour bus, we were unfortunately informed that the gig was cancelled due to Chino's [Moreno] throat infection. A very big disappointment for the band, who later that day turned into more or less a dream come true, considering the circumstances. After the bad news and being completely bummed out that we had to spend the last day of the tour in a parking lot in London, instead of rocking out at the Brixton Academy in front of 5,000 people, the mood was, as I am sure you could imagine 'shitty' and we all were disappointed until we get the call, not the call, but THE call!!! The call was from our booking agent telling us that we have been invited personally by Lars Ulrich and the mighty METALLICA to join them on their Danish date, to support them, as the only Danish band, alongside THE CULT (which later cancelled unfortunately and got substituted by VOLBEAT) — beautiful! No words could describe the high we felt. It was truly astounding and all of us were at a complete loss for words and in complete shock! Good shock, that is.

"After the UK DEFTONES tour we went for the first time to Russia and played Moscow for an insane crowd. We learned about the Russian culture and pretty much got annihilated from the large amounts of vodka we consumed.

"The day we flew home we did our very first European headlining tour with the support of NIGHTRAGE and SLOWMOTION APOCALYPSE (Viva la Figa!!!!).

"Overall, the gig with METALLICA stands out as one of the most memorable and exciting experiences in MNEMIC history — ever! I remember James Hetfield coming into our backstage introducing himself as 'Hi, I'm James' — being the coolest and most down to earth person — telling us how much he liked our album, and Lars Ulrich greeting us like we have known each other for ages. A special thank you to METALLICA and everyone involved for making a dream come true for us and for giving us an opportunity to slaughter 50,000 people with our noise.

"After the gig we unfortunately missed the 'TALLICA afterparty, because we had to catch some early flights for our headlining tour in Portugal. Once again, a very big thank you to the Alta-Tensão crew, all of you (João Paulo, Sérgio Mr. Animal and Ines (thank you for your hospitality!),Pedro etc.) who made that possible, and who were on the tour with us. We had the opportunity to taste the real Porto wine, eat some fantastic food, make friends for life and to top it all off, be the first international metal band to play the island of Açores! Which was a nice way to end a tour, by flying to an exotic island spreading some Danish metal, and to our amazement in a coliseum for a crowd of 700 people.

"At the end of the year we headlined the Headbanger's Ball tour (thanks to Jesper),and performed at the Danish Metal Awards alongside our buddies in SOILWORK, HATESPHERE and VOLBEAT. To our amazement we actually won the category 'Production of The Year' — there where definitely other productions that where way better than ours, but whoever voted for us, thank you.

"It has been a fantastic year for MNEMIC, fun and hard at the same time, but all in all amazing and most definitely an unforgettable year. We have visited places we would not have dreamt of going and played together with bands which we thought would be impossible to share the stage with. A big shout out and thank you goes to our crew who made everything smooth and fun, Franz, RasmusSølvpil, Andi (best busdriver ever!),Christof, Gump (TM from hell!),Dag, Christoffer and Konkhra-Carsten.

"At the moment we are back home with our families enjoying the time off and recharging our batteries. Furthermore, we will spend the next 12-months writing and composing a new album, which should redefine our sound and hopefully stand out to be the best MNEMIC album we have ever done. We are all looking forward to this challenge, and wish all of you a Happy Christmas and a Merry New Year!"

MNEMIC's latest album, "Passenger", was produced by FEAR FACTORY's Christian Olde Wolbers at Track Record Studios (KISS, MEGADETH, AEROSMITH) in Los Angeles. The CD features artwork by Asterik Studios (ANTHRAX, UNEARTH) plus guest vocal appearances by Jeff Walker (CARCASS, BRUJERIA) and Shane Embury (NAPALM DEATH, BRUJERIA). MNEMIC also completed a video for "Meaningless" with Revolver Film director Patric Ullaeus.

Watch fan-filmed footage of MNEMIC performing at this year's Brutal Assault festival, which took place August 9-11 at the Old Army Fortress Josefov in Jaromer, Czech Republic:

"Deathbox":

"Door 2.12":