The singer and guitarist Hans Magnus "Snah" Ryan is very balanced these days: As if the relaxed mood of the current Motorpsycho studio factory had been transferred to the musicians. Or was it the other way around? In the interview "Snah" talks about the advantages of purifying songs and why it's liberating that the big hype around the trio from Trondheim has diminished a bit.
eclipsed: Behind The Sun" unmistakably gathers influences from all your creative periods. Were you trying to please everyone? Have you given up your intransigence?
Hans Magnus Ryan: That's what journalists keep saying when we release a new album. Of course, various elements from past albums reappear. It's like painting a painting: sometimes you find a new approach to familiar things. Frank Zappa called it "Conceptional Continuity": You write a song and forty years later you come up with an answer.
eclipsed: Are you making compromises today that would have been unthinkable for you in the past?
Ryan: You could say that about our albums shortly after the turn of the millennium. Back then we were moving towards pop, thinking of classic studio albums and making more compromises in songwriting. Now we're trying to play back how we sound live.
eclipsed: But the new songs also seem as if you felt the need to throw off ballast.
Ryan: Absolutely, especially after the unrestrained bombing on "The Death Defying Unicorn". Nevertheless, this experience was a great satisfaction. With the albums afterwards, we deliberately set a contrast.
eclipsed: Motor psychologists have always absorbed influences like a sponge. Who or what is especially influencing you right now?
Ryan: A huge influence comes from guitarist Reine Fiske, who has been with us for two years. In addition there are many unconscious influences from our favourite bands. Anybody tells me I sound like Ritchie Blackmore, he's absolutely right. (laughs) That's inside me, that's my way of expressing myself. I'm still trying to find my own language.
