Review Fix Exclusive: Aspherium’s Marius Skarsem Pedersen Talks Goals for 2020 And More

January 5, 2020 Patrick Hickey Jr. Music 0

Review Fix chats with Aspherium’s Marius Skarsem Pedersen, who discusses the band’s origin and goals for 2020.

Review Fix: How did the project start?

Marius Skarsem Pedersen: Our bass player Torgeir, and I wanted to start a new band back in 2007 after our previous band stagnated. We wanted to take things to the next level, and needed some new people to make that happen. We found our drummer Bjørn Tore right away, but we didn’t find our guitarist Morten until 2009, so that took a while. 

Review Fix: What’s your creative process like?

Pedersen: The most common way is that I make a demo based on riffs and ideas we have lying around. We have so many ideas, so we never run out of stuff. When I’m happy with the demo, I send the song to Bjørn Tore and he programs drums. Then we make any necessary changes, and we jam on the song together in the rehearsal space. 

Review Fix: What’s your standout song? How was it written?

Pedersen: That would probably be Reality Unfolds from our 2014 album The Fall of Therenia. I had the first couple minutes of the song for a long time, but didn’t know how it should go after that. Then I sat down when I was on vacation, and it just started flowing. I wrote the rest of the song really quickly, and it was just one of those times where everything came together in a great way. It is one of our most popular songs, and also our longest song. Very proud of this one! 

Review Fix: What are your goals for 2020?

Pedersen: To do a lot of live shows, get our new album out to more people, and to make more videos. We are also going to start working on new songs for the next album. We have a bad habit of taking a long time between albums, hope to make the wait shorter this next time. 

Review Fix: How do you want your music to affect people?

Pedersen: I want our music to connect with people on a deeper level. I don’t want to be a band where people just listen for a bit and then move on to the next thing, I want the music to mean something to you. And it seems like that is what is happening with those who really like our music! I want our music to be therapeutic in a way, so it will make you feel better when things are difficult, like it does for me. 

Review Fix: What’s next?

Pedersen: Going to start working on some guitar videos now after a Christmas break. Our drummer is going through wrist surgery, and when that is done we can start doing gigs again after a break. We will promote our new album The Embers of Eternity as much as we can. Hope you will take the time to check it out! 

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 14316 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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