XANDRIA: Marco reveals he receives song ideas in his dreams

#interview #symphonicmetal #xandria 

THAT METAL INTERVIEW presents Marco Heubaum of XANDRIA (recorded July 2026). Xandria founder Marco talks about receiving special messages in his dreams revealing melodies for new music; talks about the start and progress of the band. Heubaum talks new record, Eclipse'.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:01

Hey, this is Marco from Xandria, and you're watching that metal interview.

SPEAKER_04 2:16

Down middle interview. Okay. So we'll start by welcome to the podcast. Appreciate your your presence here and your uh acceptance of the invitation.

SPEAKER_03 2:33

Your lifetime, I mean. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_04 2:36

Marco of Alexandria, for those of you just joining us, uh tuning in. Uh we are here to promote uh Eclipse, which we'll get to in a bit, dropping August 7th. Uh first of all, uh, where are you, Marco? What part of the world?

SPEAKER_03 2:51

I'm in Germany right now, which is my home country.

SPEAKER_04 2:54

Germany? Okay. I thought you lived in uh Sweden, but you're in Germany, okay.

SPEAKER_03 3:02

Yeah, um, but no one in the band lives in Sweden, so um you might mistake it with another band probably. Um Sina comes from France originally. She's half French, half Greek. The rest of us is from Germany.

SPEAKER_04 3:23

Okay, we'll get to her uh in a bit too. I got a couple of questions. I won't keep it too long, I'll keep the interview short. Um talk to us about your start in music, Marco. Uh what made you pick up a bass guitar, uh guitar, or any type of instrument?

SPEAKER_03 3:41

Yeah, I think that was was mostly my father. He was playing the guitar when I was a kid, and uh seeing that was was showing me that making music uh is something that you can do yourself, it's not just the people on on television or that you hear on the records. Um and after becoming a fan of um some of the bands that that that I got to know in that time I was starting to do that too.

SPEAKER_04 4:15

Cool. So uh can you name some bands that uh first got your attention as far as rock hard rock, heavy metal goes?

SPEAKER_03 4:25

Yeah, my father was listening to a lot of 70s hard rock at the time, you know, like um Deep Purple, um Black Sabbath. Um there was Jimi Hendrix also for sure, that's his favorite. And uh Pink Floyd, very important influence for me. Um finally I got into ABBA by someone who introduced me to that band, which is a complete different thing of course. But it's interesting because it gave me both uh um the power of of rock music, you know, the heaviness of some darker kind of rock music, you know, from the likes of Black Sabbath. Uh but also, you know, the sweet side, you know, from ABBA, you know, the sweet voice, yeah, sweet vibe of it. Um that was also influencing me at that time probably, and later got picked up again when when I was uh listening to film scores and uh I was influenced to uh by bands like The Gathering in the 90s. Um, you know, these metal bands that came from Bath Poon Black Metal act here, Mark Paradise Lost, and who uh partially or completely introduced a female singer on the mic. And uh I think that's that was the last thing that really got me into onto that track that I've been on since then. You know, metal music but with a lot of uh atmosphere with with some sweeter storytelling side to it, but still also the the dark sides of it. Because it's like life, you know, it has both sides, so I also always wanted to express it in my music.

SPEAKER_04 6:21

Um Alexandria uh pops up around what year? How long has it been around for people that don't know?

SPEAKER_03 6:28

Uh it's a bit hard to pick one year, you know, because it's the beginnings of of a band are sometimes a little bit hard to grab. Since when has it been that band that people later knew as that band? I had uh the idea for the band's name, Sandria, in I think 95 or 96 something. At that time I was just jamming with some friends and uh um it was just it was only years later that that I was really seriously um forming a band around that and what what at that time really was my musical vision that I was seeing quite clearly then was maybe around ninety-nine or two thousand.

SPEAKER_04 7:17

So about twenty twenty-six years, give or take. Yeah. When I first heard when I first ran into your your band uh years ago, I thought it was a a w a woman or a girl because of the name Alexandria, right? And then I look into it it's a symphonic uh metal, right? So where does the name come from and why Alexandria? It's cool to me now, you know.

SPEAKER_03 7:44

Yeah, um I think I got it from the you know the ancient Egyptian city called Alexandria. And somehow I just cut off the ale in the beginning of the name and uh I thought I found a really cool word that has not been used before. Um at least it wasn't in music, there was no other band at that time, but I remember when I was um trying to register um the domain xandria.com um I think it was around the year 2000, I found that it had already been taken, not by anything related to music, but it was in the Dolph Poy mail order. Which which of course um yeah um was letting me hope that that people would not be like connecting these two things together too much in the future and fortunately they they have not. Um so yeah, we we got to stick to the domain Sandria.de, which is for Germany until today, of course. The comm is still taking, although I think that maybe all that's not existing anymore for years. But you know how it is, you know, they keep those domains until someone asks if they can sell it for a shitload of money.

SPEAKER_04 9:15

Um people do that.

SPEAKER_03 9:16

And I won't do that, yeah, and I won't do that because nowadays fans are much more on on the social media anyway.

SPEAKER_04 9:25

Yeah. Yeah, people do that, huh? They buy what you just said, they buy domains and things and they sell it, you know. Wow. But that's business to some people it's money and business, so I guess you know, it is what it is, right?

SPEAKER_03 9:39

Uh for sure. I mean, there's more for less honorable ways of making money, and uh that's how I see it. Like after all, it's the business, of course.

SPEAKER_04 9:49

It's true. Eclipse dropping August 7th, Marco. Uh where does that name come from? There is one other album that's called Eclipse, and it's one of my favorite uh Malmstein records. Uh that dropped in 1990. I think the Momstein. Uh so yours is Eclipse?

SPEAKER_03 10:07

Right. I didn't know that. Yeah. I mean, uh our uh other guitarist Rob, he's a big Momsteen fan, but uh I I don't know anything about him at all, I have to say. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 10:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:19

Apart from seemingly being a difficult person, you know, the rumors people tell, but uh I was never into the more technical uh side of music. For me, it always needed to have a lot of emotions, and for that I love a guitar player like David Gilmour much more than you know anyone who is just fast as fuck. And I'm not that interested in that. Yeah, I need to feel something. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 10:46

Yeah, after a while you're like yeah, me too. I'm like, after a while, I mean okay, he's fast, he's fast, and after a while it's like, okay, let's change it. It's too much, he's too fast.

SPEAKER_03 10:56

So anyway I didn't know the the album was uh album title was taken by by Mount theater already. Um I think I think but I know an album that I also really love. Uh but I was only remembering that after we already did it and uh we were you know like setting everything on its way for album to be to have that name. That's the Amorfus album from 2006, I think. Um great album. Amorfus is also a favorite band of mine, I really love them. Um yeah, it was only later that I thought okay, they have that name too. Um I mean it's yeah, I I I don't think it's a big problem. It's it's not at all it's not that that easy to find names or album titles or phone titles even that are like super original that no one ever came up with, you know. You just uh you have that idea and then uh you type it into Spotify and then you see oh already 50 songs, right?

SPEAKER_04 12:01

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, I I I I didn't mean it like that. I didn't mean it like that. Uh it is an awesome title. Actually it's one of my favorite months in records, and and then I saw you guys with it and I was like, oh wow, nice, and I have two eclipse now.

SPEAKER_03 12:13

Oh cool, yeah. Talk about the for me it has a different meaning probably anyway than than it had for that name. Um I mean what it is is like the the moon is you know it's shifting in front of the sun so you don't see the sun's light anymore. Which is for me uh a symbolization of something that can happen to civilization. You know, like our civilization that has come a long way, like developing things that uh I think we can all agree on that things like introduction of democracy is good, that uh balism of slavery is good, uh that you every civilization has uh can rely on on laws being um uh valid for everyone equally, and not just for some who are in power or have the money. These kind of things it has been um centuries long fight for people who were having uh these ideals of humanism and uh respect empathy for other people. We've come a long way and we we still have a long way ahead. Uh I have the feeling that we we reached a good point like in the last one or two decades, and now I have the feeling that there's some dark thing shifting in front of that civilization is and uh that gave me that picture, and uh as many songs on that album deal with these kind of topics I found it's it's a nice picture, it's a nice um symbol for an album title.

SPEAKER_04 14:11

Yes, the the album cover is also cool. I like the cover, I like the title. The songs are that I've heard so far. Uh North Star my favorite, it's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 14:23

It's the high name of the it's the same.

SPEAKER_04 14:49

I read somewhere that you got that melody in a dream for the song North Star. Is that true? And can you talk about that?

SPEAKER_03 14:59

Yeah, definitely. I was waking up in the middle of the night, like having it's rare, but it happens sometimes that I am writing a song or having a melody in a dream when I sleep. And most of the times when you wake up you don't remember it, or if you remember it, uh you're like, okay. When in the dream it seemed like this could be the next big hit, you know, filling stadiums. But uh when you wake up, you found uh it's actually not that great, or it's already existing or something. But um that time I was waking up having that melody still in my mind and thinking, oh, that's actually nice. Um I was super tired, so I was thinking, uh, should I just go back to sleep? Or should I get up and record it? And uh fortunately I did the latter. So um I pushed myself out of bed and recorded that idea, and uh only after that I went back to sleep, and it was just At some point I was taking picking up that idea and made a whole song out of it, which is usually what I do. I'm uh usually because usually ideas come to me in the weirdest situations. I'm like uh I'm driving a car, I'm on a plane, you know, touring with a band somewhere. It's mostly being in other places, situations, being out there, being with people, having having a good time, or something like that, that somehow is giving me the the spark for for new ideas, song ideas that just come out of nothing, even situations that have nothing to do with music. Um sometimes it's a bit of it's a bit difficult because um because you don't want to lose that idea, you don't want to forget about it. So I I take my phone and I record it, which sometimes uh gets me into awkward situations, you know, because I need to get up from the table in a restaurant, go somewhere where it's quiet, and everyone's like, okay, what's what's up with that guy now? But or when I'm having that idea in a car, you know, how how dangerous it is to have your phone while you are on a speedway, you know, it's not a good idea, so sometimes I have to stop and just hope I don't lose the idea until then. Even though it's probably not that good anyway, if you forget it after one minute. But yeah, it's often like that, and then later on when I'm at home, I can really start working on song here in my studio. Uh I'm recording a demo, I'm seeing, you know, putting a few layers with the keyboard, um, you know, putting some riffs on it and see how it all comes together, and then then the song really develops. It's this was the same for North Star. Yeah. It was only a bit later on that that I really was building the layers that you can hear now in the song.

SPEAKER_04 17:50

Where do you think this comes from, Marco? I mean, uh, I don't want to call it paranormal or angels guiding you, or because I believe in uh people, everybody has a journey, right? I think. And uh you think somebody or something is throwing these things into your mind at these awkward or or different times of your life and all these melodies, right?

SPEAKER_03 18:13

I mean it's it's it's it's a psychological thing that that if your mind is um in a different setting, it's it opens up to to new things. When you stay at home for weeks every day and you just don't go out, how can your mind get on new things, you know, because it's always in the same environment. Uh I think that's the easiest explanation for that. And I'm thinking music every day, anyway. Um I have some melody running in my mind. It's also songs that I like, not necessarily ideas that I'm having for new songs, but sometimes uh this happens, but really in situations that just spark something new. And uh I think when both comes together, the brain is just working that way.

SPEAKER_04 19:06

Uh I want to give you props for uh I don't want to say being original, because that's kind of cliche. Uh when I when I hear your music, you don't sound like the other symphonic metal bands or metal bands. You don't I know it's you guys. I know it's ombre. I know it's you guys. It's it's unique. Uh you don't sound like the other bands at all. Uh there's touches of this and that, of course, but how do you maintain that when you sit there in your studio and okay, uh, I can't sound like Epicra? I don't want to sound like this band or that band. How do you maintain this sound?

SPEAKER_03 19:44

That is a very interesting question. A very good question. Because um you know I know it's from the time when when when I was only a fan of of fans back in the nineties when I was listening to all those bands that I loved. On the outside, you look at those fans and you put them in drawers, okay. They do that kind of style, they do that kind of style. But even in that time, the bands that I loved, you know, TMR as well, they were changing on every island they tried out something new. Sometimes they they got shit for it, you know, because people would have loved them to say how they were, but I guess that's just what a real artist does, you know. You want to explore something and this this was what I wanted to do as well later. Um I was never sitting down thinking, okay, uh we are a symphonic metal band, so I need to sit in the studio and make symphonic metal the way it's supposed to be. Um not even the word symphonic metal comes to my mind because it's just something that people hold on of, you know, because they hear metal and they hear orchestral arrangements. But that's not even how I look at us uh with a term like this, because um I love all kinds of metal, you know, a lot, you know, from from um you know classic metal of the age. Uh I love Judas Cleaf, but I also love fans like Emperor from from the black metal. I love uh um creator or yeah, at the gate. You know on on the last one even on the new one there there's a riff on like a guitar that could have been from at the gate, you know. I'm I'm picking this inference from everywhere and I'm not thinking, okay, I I need to write a funny metal song. I'm just I love that the way how at the gates are writing guitar riffs. And I just have an idea like that and I think let's let's do a song with that. And this is actually a whole um the whole new album came to be. It was just the single ideas and every idea was different, you know. And I was just um putting them together and I think when when I'm developing the thing further, it automatically happens that it gets these attributes that people recognize the further from because it's then of course all the things that I like um um are being put into the code of that uh idea that I'm working on while the idea itself in the very beginning might have been something specific that uh could have been something completely different also. But uh if I could add layers to it, like vocal melodies and of course uh if all when all things are um it gets in found of course because uh vocals are very um defining of course for some like how all people perceive it and the life it's having and um so it's so it's super diverse, you know, ideas come from everywhere and somehow in the end it it sounds like fun real, but at no point on this way uh we are like okay, we got to make it for funny metal, you know. I think it's more like um like from different kinds of metal and I love film scores, you know, like similar John Williams um or you know um great composers of our time. And I'm I'm a big fan of of movies, and at some point I realized how much I love the music in those movies and how much it it actually sticks with us and makes the storytelling uh much more colourful of the movie. And uh when I realized it, I was like, oh I want to do that thing to with my phone. So it had so metal got that extra dimension with the film scores. You have everything, you have the orchestra, of course, mainly uh that's what people take the symphonic form. And uh then you got also all the other elements we use. There's also electronic elements in film score, and someone is great in combining those two, you know. Uh electronic elements with with orchestra, just listen to to the dark knight soundtrack in order to that end the second movie brilliant. Um and there's in the uh you know the gladiator soundtrack, for example, you have these eastern influences, or sometimes you have Braveheart soundtrack, you you got all the Celtic elements and uh and John Williams, you know, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, uh Harry Potter, uh there's also those more uh a bit more classical. He he he's a little bit more traditional, he's influenced by classical composers even more modern, like Gershwin, for example, who brought all those words together and then everything about that I love too, and I love to to combine and put into familiar songs. And I I would probably call it if someone asked me what what is the style you play, I would probably say film score metal because it's metal, and I pick it pick something from from everywhere metal that I love, and and then the big world of film score, and that's coming together and that.

SPEAKER_04 25:30

Wow, it's a it's a gift, Marco. Uh congrats on that. I mean, you can put uh it sounds like a movie, like a film score, as you say, with uh a metal band and on top of it, you know. That's awesome. It's it's a gift you have there where you can mash uh those two things, uh those two worlds together, you know. And you can hear it on the album and all that. So there's some comments on on some of your videos. Some people say, I can't believe I'm just discovering this band. And there's another guy that said uh with Epica and Nightwish Asleep, this is a band that can take over now. So what what do you have to say to these fans? And do you see are you seeing a growth in in the audience? Because you guys are out there, you know. Uh I see you guys uh your name out there more often.

SPEAKER_03 26:20

Yeah, it's it's it's not that easy uh from the inside where where we are in the band to see how we look from the outside. It's it's a bit difficult um to see if if for the people it seems like uh okay we are we are just uh on more corners, visible, you know, like we did maybe ten years ago. So I cannot really judge that. We do notice there's new fans, um which is great of course. It's it's really amazing to see that that a band which um under the name Sunria existed for decades already and can still excite people, you know, new people with uh with new albums. We are not just we are not a band that just tries to f uh you know uh to speed from recording from our classic albums 20 years ago, you know. Yeah it's not it's not we don't feel like that. We like every new album we do, also it clips, we we still have that fire, like like a band that's is doing their second or third album. It's awesome. And just grabbing for the stars still, you know, because I still have the feeling there's still so much uh to reach for, musically, I mean that, you know. I I'm not sure if we we would probably never fill a stadium on our own, but uh that's okay. I mean we never say never. Never say never. We s yeah, but I mean it's it's great. We we tour the world and um we we have an audience everywhere, and then that's so great. I mean, how many people who make music on this planet can say that? We we uh consider ourselves very lucky for that.

SPEAKER_04 28:04

For a first-time listener for a a a kid with his phone uh checking out Spotify and Apple Music, a first timer, which song would you recommend if somebody he's barely discovering Alexandra, you know, which song would you point to him?

SPEAKER_03 28:21

Yeah, that's of course um what from the stuff that I said before, you probably will expect me to say that it's difficult because it's it's not like that we have that one formula that you can recognize in every song. Um so that's difficult. Especially with that new album, I think it works best as a whole album, but that's not really an answer to your question, of course. I think I think you need at least two songs, so that's maybe something uh that I'd be given here at this point. Yeah. And maybe from the new album, if if we are just talking about the new album, uh I don't know, uh then maybe the title song, because it it combines uh a lot of different I think dynamics that that we do, like it has those calm parts, it has very heavy parts, and it features a lot of different vocal styles from all. Yeah. In you know, the title track Eclipse. It has um uh powerful uh vocals, rock vocals and in the chorus, it has uh softer vocals and some softer ethereal parts, it has gold, and it has operatic voice, you know, operatic vocal style, all in one song, and uh all by a single singer also. Yeah, which is something that that you also like often um when bands do different styles, they they have different singers for that, and that's the great about on that she can do all of that on her own. That uh that is just really amazing. Yeah. Yeah. So that song maybe, and maybe um to have a little bit of a different side, maybe North Star would be a good good other song because it also it it's it discovers a little bit different words, it's a little bit more um maybe you have to get a little bit of fantasy movie vibe in it, uh it has the Celtic influences a bit. Um yeah. Uh from the new album before we name those two, of course. You can probably pick some some older songs from previous albums also. That's really a difficult question.

SPEAKER_04 30:33

There's too yeah, sorry about that. There's too many songs. There's just too many goods. Uh it's like try to pick your your favorite kid, your favorite baby, or just that it's always it's like that. Uh so you got a tour starting in September on September 16th, to be exact. Seven spires, Secret Rule, and Tulip. Are you excited for this? The dumb question is are you excited?

SPEAKER_03 30:56

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this is probably the longest headline tour that Xandria ever did. Um, and we are planning uh uh to put on a really nice show, you know, with some visuals and uh good set list with the new songs with with the old classics. Um I think it will make people really happy, and I'm looking forward to see that every night to to bring that to the people. And uh I think it's it's a great package also with the other bands. I think people will be really happy to see all those bands together. And of course, we are also looking forward to to bring that package to to North America for sure. Uh of course we have that in mind. We have been touring um North America um every year in the last three years. Yeah. So of course, that was supposed to be going somewhere, of course, that that we want to come back, of course, with a new album, and uh we hope to do that next year.

SPEAKER_04 31:57

I'm in Texas in the in the US, so I'll catch you sometime in Texas. Uh wait for you guys, and hopefully I can uh uh go say hi to the band and uh yeah. So congrats uh on the band, Marco. You guys have an awesome band. Not to mention uh Ombre, great vocalist, awesome, as you know. Uh so congrats on on this project, it's awesome. So whatever you're doing, whatever you're recording, whatever messages you're getting, keep going, man. It sounds great.

SPEAKER_03 32:24

Thank you. Thank you so much. It means really uh it means a lot for us to get this this great people uh people's feedback for what we are doing. It's it's it's uh heartwarming and it's it's what carries us further for sure.

SPEAKER_04 32:39

Awesome. Thank you for your time, Marco. I'll let you uh live your life and uh we'll see you in Texas sometime. For sure. See you there. So there you had Marco of Exandria, one of the original founding members of the symphonic metal band Alexandria. As I told them, the first time I heard that name, I thought it was a girl because it sounds like Alexandria, sounds like Xandria, it sounds like a girl, right? Then I go into it, I study the music, check it out, and it's a symphonic metal band. Very, very cool band from Germany that you guys have to check out, stream, download, support the guys and girl ombre. Uh, who I've had on the show before, ombre, I'm sorry, last name, great vocalist uh who has been there since 2022, give or take, with Alexandria. So, thank you, Marco, for your time. Don't forget, guys and girls, to support the band, the newest album, Eclipse, which will be dropping on August the 7th. Uh, it might be in your hands if you are listening to this after or on August the 7th of 2026. If you are listening to this before August 7th, you can pre-order and uh check out the videos that they put out for us uh so far. Uh, you can find the Shannon's home colors and north star, which are available on YouTube and other streaming formats for you guys. So, anyways, for the symphonic metal band fans, you have been rocked. Don't forget to subscribe, download, share, and follow us, like us on social media. You know the trail, blah blah blah. Don't forget to keep it metal.