More Riffs For The Wicked

Our buddies at BW&BK tracked down Mike Wead and
Sharlee D'Angelo from MERCYFUL FATE during their 
sinful swing through Toronto recently, all in 
service of bringing you this little update. As
you read this, the band's North American tour 
with Nevermore will have finished up in Cincinatti
, after which Sharlee and Mike will head back to 
Europe. Two days later, Sharlee will join Arch 
Enemy for a flight to Japan for a few shows, after
which he figures we'll see a European tour with
Witchery, an Arch Enemy album or a Witchery album.

Sharlee regrets not being able to tour with his red-
hot Witchery band thus far. "The thing was I was 
already on my way to start the European tour for 
Mercyful Fate, when I got the offer to do the 
Witchery tour. So there was nothing we could do. We 
tried to figure out something. When the Witchery 
tour started, it was five or six dates before the 
Mercyful Fate tour ended, so there wasn't much we 
could do about it. The only other option would have
been not to do the tour, but it seemed important to
do it because it seemed to be a good one. And with
Witchery, there are no egos involved, so I don't 
care if I'm on the tour, as long as it gets done,
you know what I mean? For the best of the band. 
Although personally, it was a little bit like send-
ing your wife out on vacation with a good-looking
man (laughs). But you have to go past that and see 
what's better for the band."

Curiously, Mike Wead figures the next thing up for
him, and oddly enough Sharlee, is a project he's 
christened Hemisphere. "It's much more progressive
than Memento Mori (Wead's other main band), and not
as slow. It's thrashier stuff, with lots of weird 
melody. I wouldn't consider it power metal. I don't 
know what it is. It's sort of like a thrashier ver-
sion of Dream Theater, but not that melodic. It's 
me and Sharlee, and it's the lead guitar player from
my old band Hexenhaus playing some leads. The singer
will be Kristian Andren, the guy who sings on the 
third Memento Mori album. But he sings a lot different
from the way he did on that one. It's much harder, 
rougher and thrashier, more of a Tom Araya style, with
some melodic parts to it."

Meanwhile Memento Mori is caught in label purgatory. "I
don't know. We'll have to wait and see. We're kind of 
on hold at the moment, because we've been doing so many
things this year with Mercyful Fate. So I haven't really
had time and our old record contract is running out. 
There are a lot of problems there. Messiah Marcolin wants
to carry on. He's working on a solo album but he's not 
the fastest guy in the world. He's been working on this 
album for four years or something like that. So it's like
wow! It's his lifetime project or something like that. But 
he's really into Memento Mori, and wants to do another 
record. If we can only sort out some of our differences 
with the record label, and find the inspiration somewhere
to do a new album, we'll do it."