Linus Melchiorsen

Position: Growls, Vocals, Bass & Drums
Born: May 1980
Influences: A lot!
Listens to right now: Bloodbath "Unblessing the purity".
Family: Kicki & the four devils; Gizmo, Sabbath, Svinto & Amadeus "ahmad"

Side projects: Los Sin Nombre, drums, co-producer & co-songwriter

Martin Fogander

Position: Guitars, Clean Vocals & Keyes
Born: June 1980
Influences:
Listens to right now:
Family: Julia

Side projects: Los Sin Nombre, guitar, co-producer & co-songwriter

-We never decided from when Maitreya was formed. It just happened... (Linus Melchiorsen)

Background
It all originates from the metal music scene in Linkoping Sweden, when Martin Fogander and Nils Holmqvist met up at Linus Melchiorsens home to discuss the buildup of a studio. The three guys had previously been in the same powermetalband called Powerdise a couple of years prior to this, and were all keen on doing this project together. There were no plans at this early stage to start to produce songs together at all. Linus were already a vocalist in a stoner band called Demental at this point and he saw the oppurtunity to start a studio to be great, not just to learn more about the technical aspects of it, but also a great place for his band to benefit from.
The studio project started up in early 2004 and soon, due to various problems, Demental decided to split up.

-When Demental layed down to rest I never even considered to stop writing songs. For me it is simply a call that I can not live without... (Linus Melchiorsen)

Reclab
The studio project started for real as soon as Johan Goomba Nilsson, an educated sound engineer joined in. It developed from now on to better equiped studio and Goombas knowhow about sound was something that both Martin, Linus and Nils were very interested and excited about. The co-operation with Goomba was something they all felt was productive and showed results they never could imagine, both in the perspetive of sound and the production of songs. The studio was named Reclab and some testrecorings were made. Nils unfortunately decided to leave the companionship with Reclab to move to another city. The testrecordings carried on and started to sound more aggressive. Linus tried for the first time in his life to add growl voclas to it. Linus had written some material back in the Demental days that was much harder than the stoner act could use, and now he saw the perfect oppurtunity to record these songs with Goomba and Martin. Though nothing of this material were ever released on the (yet unreleased) New world prophecy album (except a different version of Leave this place), Martin and Linus felt that this sound was something they simply had to continue to develop.

New world prophecy
Martin and Linus started the same year, 2004 to write and compose the complete New world prophecy album and due to a equipment upgrade in Reclab, the recordingprocess started some ten months later to early summer 2005. Martin, Linus and Goomba were completely alone in the recordingprocess exept a hired musician; Stefan Isebring (fomely in Spiritual beggars) to add some odder instruments like psalmodicon, citter, hurdy gury etc. All guitars, keyes and clean vocals were preformed by Martin and all drums, bass and growls were done by Linus. The complete production were recorded, engineered and mixed by Goomba.

-We never saw Maitreya as a simple studio project. Though we were mere two members, we have scince we started seen this to become a complete band... (Martin Fogander)

In search for members
Previously, before the recoring of their debut album New world prophecy a few auditions with both drummers and guitarrists had been made, but it never resulted in any new member of the duo. Linus and Martin tried a longshot to mail a drummer they've seen on the internet who played in a band called Terminal function they thought excisted in a nearby town. It showed out that this band actually excisted far away from Linkoping and because of lack of time for the drummer had to decline Maitreyas offer. Soon the guitarist in this band (Mikael Almgren) contacted Maitreya and informed Martin and Linus that he was in search for a band to play in. Maitreya suited him fine because he had recently moved down to the region. He also informed Martin and Linus that he knew a dummer, Lars Soderberg who ironically lived a block away from Martin. The duo became a quartett and the coming months they started to rehearse the New world prophecy album to be able to play it live, though it never happened with this line-up:

Maitreya (Mark 1):
Linus Melchiorsen, Growls and Bass
Martin Fogander, Guitars and Clean vocals
Mikael Almgren, Guitars
Lars Soderberg, Drums

The new lineup
Due to a decission to move back to his hometown, Mikael left Maitreya. Before Lars made the decission to leave the band aswell, he contributed with finding a bassplayer Vanja Hadzic (in an add) and guitarplayer Enes Sabanovic who were a former friend at his work. The first rehersals with this new lineup was with Linus on drums, but because of Linus skills behind the microphone and to sustain the sound of the band a search for a new drummer started. Vanja informed the band the news that he had a friend in his school, Jonas Olofsson who were an awsome drummer and without hesitation the band immediately tried him out.

-When finally Jonas entered the band, we felt complete not just only in the sense of the line-up but in the scense of finding our sound... (Linus Melchiorsen)

Maitreya (Mark 2):
Linus Melchiorsen, Growls and Backing vocals
Martin Fogander, Guitars and clean vocals
Vanja Hadzic, Bass
Enes Sabanovic, Guitars
Jonas Olofsson, Drums

Maitreya going live
The band started to book gigs in early 2007 and it felt like an liberation for all five to finally alow the music to connect with an audience by playing live. The band also recieved bookings for gigs abroad, but they all unfortunately got canceled the very last minute. Maitreya did however gigs all around Sweden for the following months with this lineup.

Part ways
In early 2008, the band took a break from the music and from eachother for a while. As the band started to get together again, after a few weeks sleep, there were differences in opinions about the band and how to run it. One part of the band were exhausted going live and felt lack of will to do it, and another felt the gigs that came up were to "small to even consider". One other part felt he could give up everything in his life to do gigs and another felt the music we played didn't feel right anymore. The writing for the second release "Gemini" had started the previous year and there were also different opinions about the new material that came up that put even more pressure to the situation.

- Something didn't feel right in the band, it's just that simple... There are no hard feelings. We decided this toghether all five, and it is probably the best for all of us at this moment... (Linus Melchiorsen)

The duo never part
Once again the band consist of Martin and Linus, the core and founding members of the band. In the sense of the songwriting for "Gemini", the parture of members feels just positive between the duo.

-Now we can do whatever we feel right, without any obstacles... (Martin Fogander)