The band was formed in the beginning of the 21st century by our vocalist and guitarist Simon Berglund. From the beginning we were called SEAL PRECIOUS for some unknown reason. Shortly after the band was formed i joined on the guitar. At this moment, all members in the band were 15 years old. That means we have been playing together for quite a while now. I think it was about one year after i joined that we changed name to ZONARIA. At this point we also had some member changes. Our latest line-up change was when Jerry Ekman joined on the bass about six months ago.

I have to many influences to mention them all. But for the music we write it comes mostly from bands like Hypocrisy, Strapping Young Lad, Arch Enemy, Centinex, Dimmu Borgir and some more. Even though you don't always want to, you get influenced by everything you listen to. It could be an emo-song or a j-pop track that you hear on the radio. Even though you don't want to admit it all the time, haha.

I would describe ZONARIAs music as an atmospheric and heavy kind of metal. A dark and heavy version of melodic death metal with dark keyboards and heavy guitars. It is simply dynamic music with an evil touch.

The new demo Rendered in Vain was recorded in the beginning of this year. The drums were recorded in the Star Friut studio here in Umeå. The rest of the demo we recorded in Dimrakk studio (guitars and bass) and in Simons home studio (vocals and keyboards). When all stuff was recorded we sent it to Jonas Kjellgren (who also mixed Scar Symmetry, Steel Attack, Centinex) so that he could do a mix and master of the demo.

95% of all our tracks starts of by Simon writing a bunch of riffs and puts them together to one complete song. After that everyone in the band gets to say what they think of the songs and then all the compositions are kind of perfected until everyone in the band is satisfied with the composition.

Since I don't write any lyrics I'm afraid I can't say where the lyrical inspirations are found. But most lyrics are about people loosing their minds or world annihilation.

The Artwork is done by a really talanted artist called Seth. I don't know his real name, but we really enjoyed working with him.

Personally I'm not involved in any other serious projects. I don't think any one else in the band is eather. We want to put all focus on ZONARIA, to make sure that everything gets done well.

It's made by Standard Film Team who are friends of ours. We did not have a big budget as you might want for a video, so we had to think carefully when planning the video. We ended up shooting it in a big black concert hall with assistance from a good light technician. We actually only shot the video on one day, so we are quite satisfied with the final result. Of course things could have been done better but it's really professional and gives the viewer a sense of what the music of ZONARIA is all about.

My all time favourite band are probably Blind Guardian, and their best album is probably "Imaginations From the Other Side". Other bands I really enjoy listening to is Scar Symmetry, Darkane, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Auberon, Masterplan and Jorn Lande. And I like all releases done by all these bands.

The metal scene keeps getting better for every year. But as time goes, loads of crap bands are formed that only copy other artists and bands. Some of the copycat bands do it well, but too many have not got what it takes. I like when bands take the genre one step further, kind of what Darkane, Hypocrisy and Scar Symmetry have done with the melodic death metal scene. Even though there are other bands that are quite similar, they have their own sound and own style - which i like. Even though most of my favourite bands are swedish, there are some really good international bands as well. Finland has some really great death- and power metal bands. The italians have a great power metal scene as well.

Well, when we are on the road we are never serious, except while performing shows. But nothing really strange comes to mind right now. We mostly do small things - and all the time, like taking a shit from a bridge over a beautiful waterfall, haha.

First of all we're working on a swedish tour which we hope will go on as planned. But you never know until it's finished. After that we will finish every arrangements to the full-length album and all promotion to that release. When that is done no one knows what will happen. The future will tell.

Keep supporting Zonaria and metal in general and help promote all the bands that you like!