When Eden’s Curse (who, by the way, feature an American, a Scottish, a German, an English and an Italian – I think I mentioned all nationalities involved) released their sophomore album, “The second coming”, melodic Hard Rock found a wonderful ambassador... The album was loved worldwide and the “multinational” band toured Great Britain... They keep touring and the road brought them to North Wale and Hard Rock Hell festival. We meet with Michael Eden (lead vocals) and bassist and songwriter Paul Logue, a few hours before they hit the stage... Cool dudes and the nicest guys! Michael is kinda frightened we know all that stuff about him... “Know my address, too”? Actually, we don’t... On the other hand... We can always ask Pamela...

Interview by Costas Koulis and Dimitris Kazantzis. Photos from the  official band website, www.edenscurse.com

Rockpages.gr : “Condemned to burn” EP is out. Would you like to say a few things about it?

Paul Logue : “Condemned to burn” EP is basically a thank you towards our American record label; they are the guys who financed the tour with Stratovarius and Firewind in May. We wanted to give them something back by gathering something special to release to he fans... It’s more of an album, to be honest. It has some US bonus tracks, an exclusive version of “Sail on” acoustically recorded and some demos from the “Second coming”, like the “Angels & Demons” demo, which features a completely different female singer that no one has heard...

Rockpages.gr : And her name is...?

Paul Logue : Her name is – good question – Joanna Ruiz, she’s an English singer, a friend of our drummer’s... So we also had a couple of live tracks. It’s a nice package, it’s a collectors’ item. Even if you haven’t heard of the band’s music, it’s a good introduction...

Michael Eden : And if the fans get it from MelodicRock.com, they’ll get an extra disc with an extra four songs!

Rockpages.gr : Is “The Second coming” your breakthrough album?

Paul Logue : I really think, for us, the first album was the breakthrough album... We are, as I like to call it, an e-band. We formed completely on the Internet, it was a crazy idea...

Rockpages.gr : How did you guys meet anyway?

Paul Logue : Over the net...

Michael Eden : It was a dating agency! (laughs)

Rockpages.gr : I won’t write that one.

Michael Eden : No, no, you can... Anything I say you can write...

Paul Logue : I met him on a musicians forum... Basically we wanted to do some songs together...

Michael Eden : Phoned a couple of other people, put it together, I mean wham-bam... When you work with people like Dennis Ward and Doogie White... You can’t go wrong.

Rockpages.gr : That was magical, right?

Michael Eden : Anything that we do with Dennis Ward is gonna be magical... The guy is simply one of the best!

Paul Logue : I think that the first album showed it can work... I know what you mean by “breakthrough”, because the second one had made quite an impact... But the first one for us was a fresh field...

Rockpages.gr : It’s been almost a year since we talked about “The Second coming”... It was a crazy phone call, between some guy in Scotland, some guy in America and some guy in Greece...

Michael Eden : Some guy in Greece?

Rockpages.gr : Yeah... short guy in Greece...?

Michael Eden : Oh, yeah! For a minute I thought “We have another member”? (laughs) We are from everywhere else!

Rockpages.gr : What’s the feedback? I read that it sold 2.000 copies alone during its first week in the US...

Michael Eden : You know... I don’t know sales figures... I will tell you this... I don’t believe any of them. Even if they are coming from the record label. As far as sales figures, I don’t care what an album sells, because people that are loyal continue to come and see the band. Last night’s show, they were as crazy as the Glasgow crowd. That’s all we care about. If we were doing this to make millions of dollars, I wouldn’t be doing it. There are bands that do this for money and the bands that do it because they actually care about the fans. And that’s what we do. We care about the fans and the feedback for the record has been exceptional! Google the band name, type “review” and there are dozen of reviews of the record... The fans are very loyal to us and we are very loyal to the fans. We don’t take them for granted. They don’t have to buy the record... There’s always gonna be those who steal the band’s music, upload it and give it away for free. We’ve written songs like “The raven’s revenge” about that.

Rockpages.gr : Funny you mentioned last night’s show... It was in Grimsby, wasn’t it?

Paul Logue : Yes.

Rockpages.gr : Somebody’s birthday was last night, wasn’t it?

Michael Eden : Nooo!

Rockpages.gr : Michael?

Michael Eden : ( laughs) How do these people know this?

Rockpages.gr : Congratulations on your birthday!

Michael Eden : I appreciate it!

Rockpages.gr : So, what’s it like being on stage, on such special occasions?

Michael Eden : My favorite day is Halloween... Any other day, to me, is just another day. There might be some people saying “Oh, that’s very negative”! Well... Growing a year older isn’t a good thing... Last night, after the encore, I left the stage... So I’m in the dressing room and they tell me “You’ve got to get back! They’re singing”! They just didn’t want to leave!

Rockpages.gr : That’s the real thing, isn’t it?

Michael Eden : Yes, it is! To have people wanting more. I never had that in the States. They know the words here!

Rockpages.gr : You guys are scheduled for some more live dates in England...

Paul Logue : And Scotland... and Wales...

Michael Eden : We plan to take it to America, hopefully next year... Japan is on the list...

Rockpages.gr : Any chance this turns into a European tour?

Paul Logue : No chance, no...

Michael Eden : Not for “The Second coming”... It comes down to business, sadly. I would love to play in Chile or Sweden... I’d love to play in Wacken...

Paul Logue : I think the festivals are looking. Our management is talking to the festivals... We have nothing in paper yet but that doesn’t mean it can’t happen. Sadly for us, the European label had nothing to do with financing a tour for us... As much as we want to come to Greece or Germany, we can only come to an area when we have an offer. We have talked to people at Rock Hard Greece that wanted us to come with Doogie White...

Rockpages.gr : Doogie came to Greece.

Paul Logue : It was after that... So, if we get offers...

Michael Eden : Hopefully, we’ll go out with Firewind again. These guys are good guys!

Rockpages.gr : I read that you are composing material for the next album, which is gonna be released in 2010.

Michael Eden : Fall of 2010.

Rockpages.gr : Anything you would like to share about the new album?

Paul Logue : We’re going to call it “Trinity”. Titles at the moments... “Jerusalem sleeps”. We have one called “No holy man”... We have a fabulous keyboard player. He’s amazing!

Michael Eden : Stunning! His talent goes without question. Ale knows that this is not a jam band. You can’t find people like him very often.

Paul Logue : He was in Glenn Hughes’ band! He’s also an incredible singer! He actually sings Pamela Moore’s parts on “Angels & Demons”!

Michael Eden : He’s part of the team, part of the family, he’s a friend. He gets along with everybody. Our future is a bright one. Eden’s Curse has just started. We’re gonna tour the world. Where there is a will there is a way!