Interview with Fernando Ribeiro from Moonspell!

For the past 24 years Moonspell has been one of most present bands in my life, thanks to Vampiria I discovered them and I have been following ever since. So, I was thrilled when they announced a second run with Dark Tranquility following their tour last November and their show in Prague. So, on April 20th I headed to Ostrava to catch their set show and to have a chat with Fernando Ribeiro about their upcoming 30th year anniversary of Wolfheart, the album that has been the initiation for many that came across with that masterpiece since it was released back in 1995.

Their show in Ostrava at the Barrak club was sold out and their set was a roller coaster for the different eras of the band. From Wolfheart and Irreligious to Memorial passing by Night Eternal and Extinct. We got everything that the Portuguese quintet threw at us that night and we enjoyed every single second of their set, we wanted more but the already stipulated set times were in place.

Still if got us craving for more in the form of the Wolfheart 30th anniversary special show that will come to the Czech Republic at Basinfire Festival on the 28th of June, so just got to wait for that amazing set

Before the show I had the pleasure (as always it is) to speak with Fernando Ribeiro vocalist of Moonspell about Wolfheart and the upcoming 30th year of Wolfheart celebration summer festival tour.

Miguel (Metal Heart Radio): Fernando, welcome to Ostrava. It's been a long time. How has been the tour so far?

Fernando Ribeiro:  Great. I mean, there's still nothing new happening in the camp of Moonspell. So, I think it's important not to be stuck in Portugal, you know, hiding out and not meeting the fans. So, Dark Tranquility liked the experience of us touring together on the first leg, so he invited us for the second leg.

And we were entertaining the thought, because we are in the process of songwriting and also, we'll go on studio probably around October, November. But the tour is great, yeah. Great people, lots of people attending the show.

We can play different songs every night. And it's, I mean, what to say, it's in our blood to tour. I do this since I'm 21, so it's strange when I'm not doing it.

MHR:  This year marks the 30-year anniversary of Wolfheart. Pretty much the album that opened the doors for many people and from my experience, that was the first piece of music that I listened from Moonspell. And, I have talked to people and they always referred back to Wolfheart as one of the first albums that got them into the band.

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Wolfheart, Moonspell will be playing a special set for some selected summer festivals. Why doing it this way?

FR: Yeah, we don't want to do many. Also, Wolfheart is very important for us, but we never gave up on playing Wolfheart songs. There was always a couple of songs of Wolfheart.

In the past, for its 20 years, 25 years, we did some special shows.
But 30 years is a rounder number. It's funny because we came to a crossroad in Moonspell that we could turn ourselves into a legacy band. Because this year is 30 years of Wolfheart, next year 30 years of Irreligious, then 30 years of Sin/Pecado. And for some people those were our evergreens, our best years.

So that's why also, besides celebrating Wolfheart, I thought it would be important also to make new music. It took us a while to make this decision, because nowadays I think we can easily live off the legacy. Many people are asking, ‘oh, you're coming to play the full set of Wolfheart on the Dark Tranquility tour’.

But we don't think that's the place to do it, because we are special guests. And also, we want to save up, because we have these special shows too. So, there's not a lot of them.

I thought that the festivals would be more interested in them, to be honest. Because, as you say, it's a household album. But the festivals this year, they want the flavor of the day.

They want metalcore bands, they want music for the kids. And as you say, it's a bit of a shame that such an important album for European metal sometimes gets exchanged from big festivals. But you know me, I'm always happy with what I have.

And I'm not thinking or overthinking about what I could have. We're going to celebrate Wolfheart. The true fans will be there, like always.

We also have a special edition that came out now, through our label, Alma Mater Records. Now we got just a black LP, 180 grams, just to celebrate.

But in October we're going to have a book LP, something really special, really limited. And it's up to us and to the fans to maintain the legacy, I think. And that's what we try to do.

We're going to have a big show in Lisbon, we're going to play Wolfheart in its entirety too. The guests are Dark Tranquility, we extended them the courtesy. So yeah, I'm happy that the album had this story, this unexpected story, of course.

Nobody expected it, I didn't expect it either. But when it comes to celebrate, we're going to do this. Let's see if we can reach 40 years of Wolfheart, you never know.

but you know, it's just for us curious. And I think it's an anniversary that it's worth to celebrate or to remind.

Because actually it was the introduction to Moonspell for many, many people, as you rightly stated. Yeah, that's for sure.

MHR:  let's go back 30 years ago, what was going in your life at the time that you started writing Wolfheart? What were your influences? I mean, what was happening? How was the metal scene in Lisbon? What was happening at the time?

FR: Well, the metal scene in Portugal back then, we were not really into it. Not that we didn't like the bands, not that we didn't come to the shows, but we wanted definitely to do something different. And since Anno Satanae and Under The Moonspell, we set the record straight.

We didn't want to be the Portuguese Metallica, the Portuguese Sepultura, or the Portuguese Pantera, the bands that were influencing very much the Portuguese metal scene. Almost everybody was trying to emulate them. And there was very little black metal, very little gothic.

So, we were kind of more into these musical tendencies when we were starting to do Wolfheart. So we were, to be honest, minding our own business, and trying to manage also all the creativity that comes with the debut album. Because we thought that Anno and Under the Moonspell were alright, they opened some doors to us, but he was too weird and he was too experimental in a way.

We wanted to make a more homogenic album, better songs, and with a straight concept. I mean, we just wanted to improve, to be honest.

We kind of had a different line-up, different songwriters, and it was difficult to write Wolfheart, because one of them wanted a bit more of a folk approach that we had in Ataegina and Trebaruna. I wanted something already more dark, romantic and gothic, like Erotic Alchemy, Wolfshade, Vampiria, for instance. Some other people wanted straight metal, and the result was just like there was a hydra with many heads, and everybody got its piece.

And the main breakthrough with Wolfheart was that we signed to Century Media, and we could work with Waldemar Sorychta, but even that was a difficult process. So, Wolfheart was not a walk in the park for us. They had the pains of birth, in a way.

It was probably one of the most difficult, challenging albums we did, because we were still coming from Under the Moonspell, and our musicianship was better, but it was still not up to the point of the Wolfheart ideas. It was always a problem we tried to correct with the band. And also, I mean, we were switching to something more elegant.

The fact that we've been in Century Media also helped us, because they were releasing, in my opinion, the best music. Sentenced, Samael, Tiamat, The Gathering, you know, other bands, more extreme bands. So, we kind of also tapping into that vibe that wasn't very popular within the Portuguese metal scene, but we were in contact with that since the beginning, really, of Moonspell, through tape trading and letters and etc.

MHR: That's interesting. I remember listening to this album 6 years after its release, in a bar, in Bogotá. I was just drinking a beer, and they played Vampiria over the sound system. I asked the bartender, what is this? He said, ‘it's this band Moonspell from Portugal’, and I was like, show me the whole album. Then I asked him to play the whole thing, I was fascinated, like you said, it was a hydra with many heads. So, when I left that bar, I said to myself I need to find this record. It was difficult to find in Bogotá at the time.

FR: I bet it was. I mean, to be honest, it's like, to debunk a little bit the history of Wolfheart, it wasn't like, we released the album, and six months into the release of the album, it wasn't, anything was happening.

I mean, there were some good reviews, there were some people that were listening to the album, but only after we did the tour supporting Morbid Angel, Immortal, and were playing those songs live, even if we had a very short set, we had just Wolfheart songs, so it was only Wolfheart songs. We started with Wolfshade, played Love Crimes, which I think is one of the best songs of Wolfheart, etc. And I remember when I came back to the office of Century Media in Germany, in Dortmund, Robert, the guy who signed us, Robert Kemp, one of the owners and founders of Century Media, he told me, ‘congratulations, you just sold 50,000 albums in a month, that's the best-selling debut ever of Century Media’.

And I would say, ‘I don't care, I mean, I just want to take a shower, and I want you to buy me a meal, because I'm starving for two months of tour, eating shit, and no showers in a van’. So, we kind of had the same feeling, it was not like everybody was out in the streets, or in the record shop buying it, we had to fight for it. And it's still the Moonspell reality.

Whenever I go to a show, people say, what's your motivation? And I say, well, my motivation, it's probably to make some friends, because I'm going on stage, and I don't expect anyone to befriend me, or anyone to be crazy about, even though we are Moonspell, and we have a legacy, and we have great songs. I was talking the other day with Ricardo, because we had a show, there was a lot of people to see Dark Tranquility, I don't know where, but on this tour, and after half an hour, everyone was out in Moonspell, we just turned them over. And of course, we are happy, but on the other hand, we would like to have a break, like any other band.

So, yeah, that's the story of Wolfheart in a nutshell. Then it became really popular everywhere, like a kind of underground culture symbol, you know, a band from Portugal, not from Scandinavia or England, so people in Colombia related to that, people in Central and Eastern Europe related to that, because I always say, Wolfheart was like the black horse running off tracks, you know, nobody believed in it, our producers didn't believe in it, Century Media didn't believe in it, because it was true all over the place. Maybe sometimes we had doubts as well, but I remember also the experience of me listening to Wolfheart for the first time, on tape, on the plane to Lisbon, from Germany, and I was like, wow, it's good, it's actually well done, and it's actually us, I can listen to my voice finally, we can listen to the drums, we can listen to guitars, and even if it was troublesome, I think it's the best thing we did so far.

So, like anything, nowadays it's a big household album, and everybody knows it, and there's tribute bands, the other day I was checking a tribute band from Bolivia, called Abysmo, and they were like, oh, we're going to celebrate 30 years of Wolfheart, we're going to play it, and they have a female singer and everything, and I said like, well, I never expected this to happen, but that's the true proof that Wolfheart came a long way on these 30 years, but it wasn't something like an overnight success.

MHR: Going back to this tour with Morbid Angel, which was pretty much the first couple of shows in the UK, and it kind of opened the doors of Europe for Moonspell, what are the vivid memories that you have from that tour with the guys of Morbid Angel and in general the whole tour?

FR: Morbid Angel was one of our favorite bands back then, I mean, I love death metal, and I've been listening to Morbid Angel since 88, 89, so we got offered a lot of tours back then, because we were supposed to be on tour, because Century Media knew that we had to be on tour, so they supported us on that aspect, and of course, other tours would have been more comfortable, we had Kreator, because Mille was a huge fan, especially Wolfheart and Irreligious, we had Skyclad inviting us, we were booked for that tour, and on all those tours, we were supposed to travel on a tour bus, but we chose the shortest path, we chose to travel on a van for nine weeks.

I think, all around Europe, except Portugal, actually, to support the band that we loved the most, also Immortal was in between, and it was a very harsh tour for us, I mean, the musicians are always the musicians, they are cool, of course, for me, David Vincent, Pete Sandoval and Trey, and also Eric Rutan, who was playing guitar. For me they were like gods, especially David Vincent, so just the fact that we were stepping on the same stage with them, even not with an extreme death metal album, but a melodic album, Immortal, there was Abbath, and Demonaz, and Hellhammer, fitting for, I don't know if he had a drummer back then, so it was all this black metal circus sometimes, you know, bringing fire, burning the hair, like many stories of good old Abbath.

But he respected us a lot, because he was in the tour bus, and we were in the van, I remember we got very popular during the tour, selling more merchandise than headliners, everybody was crazy talking about Moonspell, and you know, sometimes we got in trouble with the Morbid Angel management, because they forbid us to take showers, they forbid us to eat, it was really... It was crazy! Yeah, it was a bit harsh on that aspect, but we prevailed, you know, we prevailed, we just missed a show in Italy, I remember that because of the border, and the police, and everything was very complicated back in 1995, but we prevailed, we gave our best, we thought that everybody would hate us, especially coming out from the UK into Europe, the UK was hard, London was super great, but then in Europe we received already, I think with some people discovering, some people with open arms,

Actually it was a magazine back then called Aardschok, from the Netherlands, they printed a report, it was on the internet back then, and the biggest photo was mine, with my arms open on Vampiria, I was like, wow, you know, we probably, very naively, we are striking a chord here, but I have great memories, I mean, it was a hard tour, but Moonspell did what we always do, we rely upon ourselves, we had no tour manager, we had nothing, you know, we just had ourselves, our instruments and our music, and that did the job, and it's something we still rely up to the day, whenever there's a problem or a situation, we don't go and ask anyone to solve it, we solve it ourselves, because that's the way we've been brought up.

MHR: Resilient, resilient. From what I've researched, I think you guys played Ostrava at the end of 1995, you remember, yes? I don’t know if I am pushing your memory too much here, do you remember anything about this area?

FR: So far, I have great memories, maybe in a few years I won't remember anything, so it's good to exercise the memory. Yeah, because we did it during the Morbid Angel tour, and then we did a couple of tours with Tiamat, Crematory, The Gathering also.

Which I really love to see. I would love to see them, I never thought this would happen, but it's great. Maybe I'll see them this summer or next summer.

So, yeah, there was, at the end of the tour, we were still in the same van, we just got invited to play a couple of festivals, one in Katowice, I think, Metal Mania, the old festival, and one in Ostrava.

So, we came to this ice hockey hall, I think, arena, there was like thousands of people, there were big bands playing, and we arrived in our little van, you know, Kreator was playing, Testament was playing, other bands, and I remember there was a big confusion, because everybody was surrounding us, and, you know, not everybody spoke English.

So we went on stage, and it was amazing, and I also remember to get the first contact with the true East of Europe, you know, because there was two guys over there, I'll never forget them, the other day I was telling a friend that we were getting back to Ostrava, there was two guys, fully naked, in the winter time, like drunk as, you know, mad men, they were just there, like, you know, on the festival, and I was like, fuck, you don't see this in Portugal.

So that's my memories of Ostrava, yeah.

MHR: That's a great memory, Fernando. What's your favorite song from Wolfheart to play live?

FR: It depends, it really depends on the mood, because as you see, it's the mood, nowadays, on our set, we're just playing Alma Mater, sometimes, like on the other tour, for instance, we will throw out Love Crimes, Vampiria, but also the Of Dream and Drama , And Erotic Alchemy, I mean, there's the Moonspell crowd too, but they appreciate that, but sometimes it's just, like, something that won't work with the flow. So, one of the songs I really like to play now is Love Crimes. Yeah, I think it's a fantastic song, it has survived the test of time, really.

To be honest, we kind of got fed up with playing Vampiria, because we thought it was a bit childish, we thought it didn't work on the daylight, so we kind of make it for special occasions. We play it once or twice on the tour, randomly, and nowadays, of course, it's going to be on the Wolfheart set. And also, I watched the new Nosferatu movie.

MHR: Did you like it?

FR: I loved it, I think it kind of rescued the vampire theme after all, the backlash with Twilight, vampires, etc. I was a fan. It's an old school movie, it's romantic and ugly. It's like the dark version of the original.

Yeah, I mean, I love the Murnau movie, I love the Herzog movie, but this one, it speaks to our times, but it's kind of timeless too. I really like the vibe of the movie, because it's not as romantic as Coppola's movie. It's a bit more ugly, it's a bit more dark.

And when I listened to it, and when I listened to his voice, the way he was with his voice, I said, I mean, I did that in 1995, you know, with a bad accent in English, and I kind of say, I kind of had the feeling that Vampiria is not dead, you know, there's still room for this kind of, yeah, a bit juvenile, romantic vampire song.

MHR: To be honest, Fernando, every time that I listen to Wolfheart, I go back to that moment at that bar, I'm like, that's where it started, that's where this band became my childhood.

FR: Oh, that was your get-in song?

MHR: Yeah, that's the one that got me into Moonspell, at that moment, I was like, I need to find this. I must.

MHR: In 2010, Wolfheart was added by the Portuguese Postal Service as a special stamp.

FR: It did, yeah.

MHR: How was the feeling of having Wolfheart in as an official stamp on the Portuguese Post Service as a representation of music from Portugal?

FR: Well, it was a big surprise, to be honest, because Portugal doesn't give a shit about music, not the fans, they love us, but the institutions, they completely, they mostly ignore us, you know, all the legacy, all the international success. So, when we got a call from the Portuguese Post, I was like, well, I think there's no better band than us to represent this, especially to a stamp, because our career, in the beginning, the Post Office was our internet, you know, that's where we spent most of our money, most of our time.

Mailing albums, mailing demos, so we knew better the jobs of people that worked there than the people that worked there, because we were there quite often.

So, it was kind of a poetic justice, you know, because our stamp was the most expensive. It was two euros, two-euro face value, but if you buy it on the day, it was like, more than that, maybe 500, 600 for the collectors, because if you buy the stamp and stamp it on the day, that creates more value.

So, it was a really cool thing. I think it was one of our biggest achievements outside music, you know, and our fans were very happy. They're always trying for our president to recognize our value, to give us a medal, because he gave to a lot of artists, but to be honest, I don't like politicians, you know, so I don't even know if I will accept it.

I'm much more comfortable with this. It's more meaningful for Moonspell to be in a stamp than to have a medal from the city hall or from the government, etc, because we are too punk, too metal, too non-conformist to do that.

And exactly, we never needed any institution in Portugal to get abroad and to play our music and to sell our records, but I have to say, I was really, really, really happy.

They gave us a lot of collections. It was in news all around the world, because it's not very typical for a metal band to get these recognitions, more for queens and saints and popes, or politicians too. So, yeah, it was a really great moment, and I still have my stamps, because they gave us, like, you know, stamp sheets. One of the best-selling stamps was Wolfheart.

maybe the best.

MHR: I think that's very important to represent Portugal and represent the music of Portugal, which is connected to my following question. When you talk about metal, you know, outside festivals, and, like, everybody connects Moonspell with Portugal. There is nothing else after that. After that, it's kind of cricket sounds.  What is your opinion of the Portuguese metal scene, and what are the bands that you see that kind of, like, follow the legacy of a band like Moonspell.

FR: I think that people in Portugal, especially other musicians, they were kind of processing what happened to Moonspell, and they didn't take the chance as fully as they could to get in the door with open. Nowadays, I think that the band that is already, like, you know, doing that, not like Moonspell did, but in a kind of way braving into the scene, is Gaeria, the black metal band with the hoodies. I know Guilherme, he was directing our videos, and I'm very proud of them.

They have very great aesthetics. I love their music. I'm a supporter since day one.

I help them out with contracts, tips, etc. So, I think that will be the next Portuguese band. Not the next, because they have their own value, but I think it's the household name now, and the upcoming name from the Portuguese metal scene.

We had Sinistro, too. Okay. But they kind of fell out with each other, so they are on my label now, a brilliant band, not a typical metal band, more of a kind of doom metal. These kinds of new things, like Chelsea Wolf, you know, Godflesh, this kind of bands. So, they probably have a chance, and I trying my best.

Of course, there's many legendary bands, like Tarantula, Sacred Sin, The Coven, you know, Massive Roar, Desire, many, many bands from Portugal, but I never know what happened to them, you know, because they were, like, not, in my opinion, not doing probably enough what they did, and, you know, Portugal, we grew up with our parents, we have our food, we have our comfort, and sometimes, people don't like to go nine weeks on a van, or to suffer, so, I think, most of the musical career is also about taking opportunities, which I hope that the Portuguese metal scene does now.

Having said that, I mean, I'm doing a job, exactly, to make more for Portuguese bands and create more awareness. Yeah, more awareness. So, my label, we've just signed, so far, Portuguese and Brazilian bands.

And from Portugal, we have Tragedium, which we released their last album, they were upcoming in the 2000s, and then they gave up, because they have nowhere to go, if you're stuck in Portugal. So, we got a cool death metal band, Female Fronted, called Occultist, I think they're going to be great, they're already played Czech Republic. When I talk with them, there is still some problems. that I have to say, you have to be patient, you have to think long term, you have to do things about yourself, there was always competition, now it's another competition, the other, in the other times, it was other, different kind of competition.

So, I try to bring something, into the scene. To be honest, the Portuguese scene, didn't bring me much, right. as a person, as a metalhead.

I went to the shows, I supported the scene, but when Moonspell was out, there was a lot of envy, which was very bad, because it was very shocking. It was nice. It was very shocking for us, because we thought, well, now, if we do it, let's try to do it.

We took many bands to, we took many bands to Century Media, for them to listen, etc, but they never, pick it up. There was another band, I forgot, Evanwood, they were on a cool career, but then they just, I don't know what happened, they just strayed from the path. They still exist, but, not very relevantly, outside Portugal.

It's understandable. I mean, sometimes that happens, and it's sad, sad that, I mean, the jealousy gets you over that. Yeah, it's a daily work, you have to work on this daily, you cannot just go, show up to the rehearsals sitting down waiting for that.

MHR: Is there anymore Wolfheart material? maybe, locked up, somewhere, in the Moonspell, secret vault, Is there anything else, that you have in there, from that time?

FR: Well, we're releasing some lives, that we had on, the DAT tapes, the digital tapes, we always made a lot of tapes, we always made a lot of recording, as you say, our own vault, our own archive, yeah, and, for the book, album, that we're going to make, because it's like a big book, with a vinyl inside, so, I'm trying to, get, some, rehearsal demos, or something like that, that would be cool, so there's still something.

Yeah, the cow is still not fully milked, but it's our cow, so yeah, I think there's, I can still find, some stuff, some pictures, some demos, I mean, the sound won't be state of the art, but it has the collector's feel, I think we can do that, I just have to, you know, be in Portugal, and have a week, at our studio, because, yeah, because Peter has a lot of tapes, laying all over, and, of course, for sure, there's a rehearsal tape, or something like that

MHR: now let's go back, talk about the new material, you said that you guys are writing, for something, coming up, following the latest Moonspell album, what are we seeing here, I mean, do you have any planned date?

FR:  Yeah, 2026, of course, we should have recorded an album, already, even, our label tells us, well, normally, the regular thing, it's two in two years, so we can go on tour, but we don't wanna be a regular band, we don't want to do this, like an office job. That doesn’t work for us, so, we gotta find our way into it by telling the truth. I wasn’t inspired, the guys weren’t inspired to make a new album, you know, it happens.

We just have a lot of ideas but our hearts were there, so we have to find the direction and the theme. I had many lyrics that I throw out, I had ten album titles. It happens, it never happened to us but it happened this time. So, right now we found the direction and the enthusiasm. The question is Why making new music, why do people want a new Metallica album or a new Slayer album.

Some people just go online a bitch about it, about the past about the legacy, so it’s a very complicated position for bands that have made albums that people consider to be masterpieces like Wolfheart for instance, so that kind of place into your mind. You have to let it play a little bit and then find within yourself why do you want to make new music. What’s the catch, what does it bring you, and I think we found everything after Hermitage, we found our flame again.

The songwriting still the same team, Ricardo, Pedro and me with the other guys helping. So, we haven’t change members, we didn’t have new blood for songwriting, so we needed to find between the three of us what is going to be. Everything that we did so far, like, four of five songs they really sound like Moonspell and more gothic I have to say, still need to find out which Moonspell do we want to be? Extinct, Wolfheart, Irreligious, something new?

So, for me a new album is something complex, I think the new album it’s a big responsibility. That is why we are taking the time, so we have to talk to Napalm Records to define in between the first semester or the second semester of 2026, it doesn’t matter, we are going to make the music, and focus on the music and then when is ready its ready, but it’s coming out in 2026. Because we also have to man up and start playing legacy shows, and be responsible for the new music wherever it takes us and our fans

MHR: great, we definitely are looking forward to this new Moonspell album, but we are also thrilled about the Wolfheart tour and the show at Basinfire festival in June.

Thank you, Fernando, for the time, super excited for tonight’s show and for the upcoming Wolfheart special show at Basinfire Festival later on

FR: No problem, thank you too for the interest, see you at Basinfire Festival as I think they were one of the first ones to book it.

 

Foto by Martin Huf.