Setting Sail with Robert Majd of Captain Black Beard (plus Metalite, Nighthawk, and Weapon)

Setting Sail with Robert Majd of Captain Black Beard (plus Metalite, Nighthawk, and Weapon)

I have been a fan of Captain Black Beard for a decade now – ever since Perris Records sent me a copy of their epically underrated It’s A Mouthful magnum opus.  Even through lineup and label changes, the rock and roll party pirates of Captain Black Beard have consistently delivered classic melodic rock in its finest hour.  Their latest album is entitled Chasing Danger, now available worldwide via Mighty Music!  Our interview is with Robert Majd, bassist and songwriter for Captain Black Beard – who also appears in other equally amazing collectives such as Metalite, Nighthawk, and Weapon!  Here is a recent interview we conducted with the omnipresent Robert Majd prior to the release of Chasing Danger.  Read on…

Is there any overall story or concept behind the Chasing Danger album title?
Not a real concept. The title was just something that came to me like maybe a year before we even started working on the album. I thought it sort of fit with all the lineup changes. It seems that we always get in trouble somehow. So, I kind of thought it seems like we’re chasing danger, even though we’re just trying to have a normal, happy band. That’s where we’re at.

You have a new singer, Fredrik Vahlgren. How did Fredrik become involved, and what is his background?
His background comes from shows. He’ll do like Christmas shows and even some theater and cover bands, and pretty much everything music except being in an original band, basically. When Martin left the band, my idea to try to find another guy was to use the method we did with Metalite – was to go outside of our circle of people and not look for a singer who has played in a band. Because usually, we all know each other, and there’s not a lot available. But if you go to like, find people who work in other parts of show business, there’s a lot of talented people who maybe just didn’t think about starting a band. I saw this trailer for a dinner rock show they had in Gothenburg with this tall guy with long blonde hair playing saxophone and singing Scorpions stuff. I’m like, that guy’s a rock star. What band is he in? Turns out he’s not in a band. So I made it my mission to go get him.

He sounds amazing. He sounds like he’s been in bands all his life.
Yes, exactly. Thanks.

You’re welcome. Let’s talk about the single When It’s Over, the inspiration behind it and co-writing it with Erik Modin from Wildness.
Erik was the producer of our previous album, and him and I go back a while. We’ve been cooperating on different projects. When I do demos at home, I’m not very good with the technical parts of it. So, they don’t always sound great. So, I asked Erik to help me out and just sort of beef up the demo, so they sound better for when the drummer is going to record, he’ll have something good to listen to. Most of the songs he just did that. But When It’s Over, he got a bit creative and changed it a bit for the better. That’s why he got a co-write on it. So originally, it was a tune I had written that, to my knowledge, was done, but he enhanced it a lot.

Then you also have another co-write on Piece of Paradise with John Lönnmyr of The Night Flight Orchestra. Tell me about that.
Yes, that was a late addition because we had recorded about 11 songs, and I had thought about having a ballad on the album, but I hadn’t done anything about it. When I started hearing the stuff that we added guitar to, I felt like the energy of – or the pacing of the album was risking becoming repetitive if we didn’t have a ballad to slow it down. I’ve been wanting to do like a piano ballad. The problem is I can’t play piano. But I’ve been playing with John in my solo project Nighthawk. So, I asked him if he could help me write the piano ballad.  He said, “Just send me a chord pattern and I’ll send you something back.” That’s what I did. What he sent back sounded terrific. I was like, was I even involved in this? Then me and Fredrik sort of worked out the melody and lyrics, and we added it sort of late in the process. But it’s really important for the album, I think.

Tell me about the song A.I. Lover and the inspiration behind it.
That’s a song that I’ve been the least involved in personally, because that was our guitar player Daniel Krakowski wrote at least all the music. I think he was involved in the vocal melody as well. But Fredrik wrote the lyrics. I’m not 100 percent sure if it was autobiographical – if he has some kind of A.I. Lover at home that I don’t know about. This is his way of telling us. That might be the case, actually. Who knows?

How does Nighthawk differ from Captain Blackbeard?
Nighthawk is meant to be a vehicle for me to sort of just focus on having fun and not worry about trying to please anyone or trying to do what’s expected of a band. Also, it’s a vehicle to work with musicians that I haven’t worked with. Even some they might be too busy, they can come by and just do a song or something. So that’s how it started. It was during the pandemic, so there were no live shows. So, I used it as a vehicle to meet and play with other musicians, basically. The songs I wrote was for me to play guitar on. That was important, too, because I play bass in all the other bands, and I sort of missed playing guitar. I didn’t put too much energy on the songwriting in the first place. I just wanted to make them fast and short. But as the time went on, I’ve been putting a lot more effort into doing good choruses and melodies as well.

How did you wind up working with Metalite?
I always joke around and say that it’s the only gig I’ve gotten due to my looks. But it’s not entirely untrue. Basically, the first Metalite album was more like a project that Edwin put together where he made the album with digital drums, bass, and keyboards, and all that. It was him and a singer. When the album was done, the label said, now you need a band. I want you to go find people who has the right look for a metal band. He basically stumbled upon my picture on Facebook and asked me to come and try it out. So that’s the way it happens.

You have another band called Weapon. Tell me about that band and how you became involved with it.
Weapon is a band by original singer Danny Hynes from Ireland. They formed in London in 1980, I believe. They’ve been around for a while. Then he moved to Sweden early 2000s. Him and I became friends, started going to concerts, and our family became friendly and had dinner. After the pandemic, his sidekick or songwriting partner in Weapon left the band. We’ve done a solo album for him during this time. So, when it was time to do the next Weapon album, I offered to co-write it with him. Off we went. We wrote the album. I served as a producer. I only played on one song, I think, because the band has a bass player called Tony Forsythe, who’s a great, great guy, who’s been struggling with cancer. I think it’s like five years now he’s been going through his treatment. So basically, I’m not like officially the bass player in Weapon. I’m filling in for Tony. At the same time, me and Danny are songwriting partners. So, I’m sort of just like helping out in Weapon. I can’t claim to be the bass player because I’m waiting for Tony to come back.

Let’s hope Tony does come back. How is he doing these days?
I believe he’s doing a bit better.  I hope he’s going to recover and be able to do some shows soon. But I’ll still be writing with Danny.  I’m still going to be involved and, you know, helping. We have a good chemistry with writing songs. In fact, I was just working on some Weapon demos this morning.

You’re not on the new Fans of the Dark album, but you were on the previous one, I believe. Tell me about your work in Fans of the Dark, and why aren’t you on the current one?
That’s a bit of what do you say? It can be confusing because I didn’t play on the first album. It was the same sort of deal as with Metalite where an album was done, a band was needed and the drummer asked me to be in the videos. I said yes. We took some photos to have in the booklet, even though none was played on it. Then, when it came time for a second album, they had another bass player, which was great for me because I had hard enough to handle four bands. So basically, I don’t play on any of the albums, but I’m on the pictures of the first booklet, and on the second album, I wrote a song. But I didn’t play on anything. But I did pretend to play in the videos.

Are you currently involved with any other bands or projects that we haven’t talked about?
I don’t think so. We did Metalite, Weapon, Nighthawk, Blackbeard. That’s about it.

That’s more than enough. It keeps you pretty busy.
Yes, I do new stuff and I might do something new. I just finished up writing the next Nighthawk album and writing the next Weapon album. There is a recorded Nighthawk album that will be released later in the year. I’m going on tour with Metalite soon. But the main focus right now is playing live shows with Metalite because we’re going on tour soon. Of course, the Black Beard album that will be out on April 4th because we worked really hard on that.  We can’t wait to see people’s reaction.

It’s a Mouthful is celebrating its 10-year anniversary. When you look back on that album, what do you think of it now in retrospect?
That’s a weird album for me because it’s one of the most fun we ever had recording because we all went to Gothenburg to record that. First, the drummer went there, and then the guitar players each went there. I was there the whole time and partied with all three of them. So I had the best time. We lived in the studio, and it was a lot of work, but just a lot of fun. The producer of the album was Chips Kiesbye, who produced some of my favorite albums ever. So the experience was amazing. But then, as it has happened with Black Beard a lot of times, the release was so disappointing because we released it, and the drummer left, and shortly after, the singer left, and we couldn’t promote it properly. Then, after a while, we didn’t really think the mix was sort of right. But every now and then, I go back to it and I enjoy the songwriting on it, even though I think we evolved a lot since. It’s sort of a fun album.

It definitely is. It’s also the first time I’d actually heard you guys. And I’ve really enjoyed everything from Captain Blackbeard ever since.
The funny thing is that our inspiration to doing it was a sort of obscure melodic rock from the very early 80s. It turned out, I think we succeeded too well – the album became really obscure, and no one heard it. Maybe like 10 years from now, people would dig it up like, “What’s this obscure thing?” So, yes, we hit the mark too good that time, I think.

Has Metalite or Captain Black Beard ever played here in the States or is that something that you plan to do in the future?
Captain Black Beard did three shows in the US. I think it was in 2011 or 12. We did it sort of as a vacation. We went to New York and we did a show in Manhattan and one show in Brooklyn and one show somewhere in New Jersey. Nothing planned with either of them, but we have great management now, and I’m pretty sure that sooner or later we’re going to hit the States with Metalite, because we get so many reactions from fans over there. We have to go there at some point. It’s quite difficult with the work with visas have gone up, and most fans, just the only way to do it is sort of to get booked on a cruise or something. So, I guess that’s what we’re waiting for.

Has Metalite and Captain Black Beard ever done shows together, or is that something you’d like to do?
I like doing shows with all my bands at the same time. Like in two days we’re playing in Sweden with Metalite, and we have Nighthawk supporting.  And I love that because if I’m going to go out and play, I might as well play all night, I don’t mind. But the combo of Metalite and Black Beard has not happened yet, but hopefully at some point.

Do you have any messages for Captain Black Beard fans here in the States and you could probably apply that to Metalite fans as well?
The message would be, “Thank you for listening to our music, and keep doing it.” Hopefully, we can go over there at some point, and if we can’t, at least we’ll keep on releasing music and meet you online. If you’re a Metalite fan, I’d just like to give an extra plug to our Patreon, where you can digitally hang out with the band. If you’re the kind of guy who goes on a cruise, a rock cruise, tell them about Captain Black Beard. What would be better on a cruise than Captain Black Beard?

Absolutely. You guys would be perfect.
Yes, exactly. I can’t believe I haven’t gotten any calls yet.

If anybody who runs cruises is reading this, then you know who to call. The amazing Captain Black Beard!
Where are you at?

I’m actually in Los Angeles, and I’m thinking it’d be great to see Captain Black Beard at the Whisky or something.
That was close to happening. I was talking to the Whisky about doing a show there a bunch of years ago because I have family in LA. So yes, at some point I’m sure it’s going to happen…

Lineup:
Robert Majd – bass
Fredrik Vahlgren – vocals
Daniel Krakowski – guitar
Vinnie Strömberg – drums

(Interview by Ken Morton)

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