Myspace Site: www.myspace.com/edenscursemike &
www.myspace.com/edenscurse

My relationship with EDEN’S CURSE Michael Eden started off with a sour note but ended in a friendship. Our site attended the MelodicRock-fest in Indiana this year and wrote about the show and The All-Star band CLUSTER FUCK that Mr. Eden was part of. Their set did not get rave reviews, but understandably the band only met hours before the show, its members were coming from different parts of the US. Yet if you listen to the EDEN’S CURSE album, you will know Eden is a force to be reckoned with as a vocalist.

So I e-mailed Michael after our review figuring he would not respond. My e-mail stated:

‘I am sure you read our review or heard about it and if I have big enough balls to e-mail you, you should have bigger balls to respond or you can tell me fuck off and die?’

Michael replies:

‘That line is classic, I guess you get, I like you.’

So read below, the interview follows:

Michael Eden: Hey Brian, what’s up? This is Michael Eden of EDEN’S CURSE. How’s everything going today? I am very much the punctual one 99.9 % of the time. I had a flat tire, I said oh well fuck I will track him down. So here I am, we did hundreds of interviews and I’m waiting for someone to come up with something unique instead of the standard questions. The weirdest most insane question I ever got was,

“What if I woke up in the morning and I was a woman, what would I do?”

I thought to myself Dear God! And this was on the radio. I said I really don’t know what I would do; I hope that would never happen. I’ve never been asked that. I've never been married and there’s a reason for that (laughing). I was pretty freaked out. That was a very weird question.

Brian Rademacher: : Did you grow up in Indiana?

Michael Eden: I did grow up in Indiana about an hour outside of Chicago and it’s pretty boring. It’s a very laid back area, a lot of money here. We don’t get a lot of crime here. Indiana is basically in the middle of a corn field. It's not the Rock N' Roll capitol of the world and there were no serious musician’s around here.

Brian Rademacher: What kind of kid were you growing up?

Michael Eden: I got into a little trouble (laughing)! I hung out with a very bad crowd of kids. Yet it seemed like I always stood on a straight and narrow path without getting involved with drugs and a lot of the crazy stuff running with a bad crowd brings. Without a doubt I partook in a lot of activities I shouldn’t have, like smash and grabs. We didn’t hurt anybody but I robbed a couple houses when I was fifteen, sixteen. I had damn good parents growing up and knew better, I got stopped for shoplifting in 1985 and that was the last time I stole. My Dad had to come down and get me in Merrillville, Indiana at a Sears’ store. I stole a TWISTED SISTER cassette “Under The Blade.” A lot of the bands attitude back then was if you can’t afford it then just rip it off. Well I did and I got popped at Sears, it was not a good situation. That night I had just bought tickets to see STARSHIP with Mickey Thomas and Grace Slick, it was the Knee Deep In The Hoopla tour and when we got in the car, my Dad said you might as well kiss those tickets good-bye. There wasn’t any STARSHIP concert and I was lucky to walk away from that unscathed.

Brian Rademacher: What kind of kid were you in school?

Michael Eden: : Not good!! I didn’t like school what so ever. I had a lot of problems. I wasn’t a good student and learned a lot of lessons but it took until I was twenty–five years old to figure it out. I blamed everyone for the problems I had except myself. School is not a good subject to me. I would have liked to burn the school down with all the idiots that caused me trouble. When you are told by a teacher at the age of twelve that you are human trash that’s probably not a good thing, and I am not human trash. I think she’s dead now and if I could find her grave, I would go piss on it (laughing).

Brian Rademacher: Do you remember the first record you owned?

Michael Eden: The first one was TED NUGENT “Ted Nugent” back in 1976 on vinyl. I had one helluva vinyl collection a lot of music, and then I got into the cassettes. I found out they were a lot easier to rip off then vinyl. My buddy and I would go into these stores we would hit. We were bad like little demon trolls. That was before video cameras were installed in stores. So we would hit them for 30, 40, 50 cassettes at a time. We did this for a coupe years. But, I was a big TWISTED fan and Dee Snider got me through many shitty nights. Back in 97’ at the House of Blues in Chicago, I talked to Danny Stanton his road manager during Dee's SMF solo show. I went up to the green room and got to talk to Dee. I got in there and he told me to sit down and he proceeded to talk to everyone else and sign things for 20 minutes. I was the last one left and he talked to me for forty-five minutes. I am sitting here with the real deal. TWISTED were big in New York, New Jersey and Long Island. They went along with the American Flag in my world. I had “Under The Blade” on Secret Records and I love The “Stay Hungry” record. By the time they got to “Love is for Suckers” that was a whole different situation.

Brian Rademacher: How about the first concert you attended?

Michael Eden: Probably right back to TED NUGENT in 1976.

Brian Rademacher: A comment you made about MTM records, mentioning they made promises that they didn’t deliver that was posted on Rock Detector in June what were the promises ?

Michael Eden: Yeah, MTM was one of the first labels we contacted. We were dealing direct with MTM and the bass player Matt Sinner from PRIMAL FEAR who was the A & R guy for MTM. They told us one thing and did another, and then we started to hear rumors from other artists on their label that MTM was in financial trouble. So we decided to confront them because their not going to tell you this. So we said we heard this and they said you must have some inside information, they were pretty surprised. We executed our right to walk away. We already had a contract with them, and we had a deal. They were very honest about it in that aspect and they were still going to pay us our advance. The owner didn’t think the album would receive the kind of attention that was due to it. As he told us you might as well go looking else where. It sucked not having things in place working that hard and have record labels fuck you in the ass. We had a very hard time finding the right people and we think we got it right with AFM Records, time will tell. I think about the many discussions we had with MTM and I knew there was a problem If I have information I’m happy to give it, I don’t want another band to get screwed over like EDEN’S CURSE did.

Basically we caught them in a few lies. Ya know it was funny, our drummer Pete Newdeck met up with Sinner at a gig and Matt was pretty shy, let’s just say the EDEN’S CURSE story didn’t come up and the conversation was basically Hi and good bye, but it might be a little different story if I meet up with him.

I don’t harbor ill will but at the same time, don’t waste six months of my time and not tell us because we found out. A few bands contacted us by letter; one of the bands was CRYSTAL BALL.

Brian Rademacher: Now on Youtube there were three videos two were the making of EDEN’S CURSE and one was part of a song from The MelodicRock show in Indiana?

Michael Eden: The making of EDEN’S CURSE is a very small bit that Paul Logue made up that we were going to put on DVD. We were going to release it with some live footage so Paul decided to post a clip on Youtube and it got a helluva lot of plays. We got about ten hours of footage. It was just an idea to get press out of it and it worked. The MelodicRock footage is actually cell phone footage pretty trashy. Not quite the footage of the quality I have.

Brian Rademacher: So did they send that footage to you, or was permission granted for them to film you guys?

Michael Eden: No they don’t need my permission, any press is good press. It was just cover songs, a blow off show. You know you guys wrote about it. It was a cool gig and the fact he (Andrew) is going to do it again in 2009.

Brian Rademacher: You got to work with DOOGIE WHITE?

Michael Eden: We did. Originally Paul and I put this together on the internet. Paul wrote me a letter in January 2006 telling who he was-- I received hundreds of letters and I thought he was just another asshole. So I wrote him back and asked what do ya got. He responds with I’m friends with this guy and that guy, I just said yeah right. I sat back because I was kind of stunned because he said he was friends with Dave Readman from PINK CREAM 69. Within two weeks, we have Paul, myself and Pete Newdeck aboard, next came Thorsten Koehne. Dave Readman did his parts for the background vocals and he said we should get a hold of Dennis Ward. Dennis heard our presentation and he said he knew we had no label and no money. We wanted a keyboard player and we got Johan Berquist from MILLION and he recorded six or seven songs for us. He had some other obligations and he couldn’t give EDEN’S CURSE the time he needed so we had to let him go. Out the door he went as the little white van drove away. Everyone was on board and there were a couple of people contacted outside the people that were on board already. Some bigger names and one bigger than all of them-- He ended up in a band called JOURNEY, for some reason JSS had to pass ..ing the cause out. I think it had to do with the bag of potatoes that Neal Schon had him stuffed in.

Brian Rademacher: Now Europe got one less bonus track then the USA release and the Japanese got one more called “The Voice Inside” (Acoustic Demo Version), why is that?

Michael Eden: In order to get anything out of any of these guys, these labels want more and more. We actually were offering it up so I went to Paul and we told each label we will give them this and that. We were singled out in the beginning that we were whores trying to manipulate the fans. It has nothing to do with that. It has everything to do with Japan insisting that they get an extra track. They insisted they get great stuff. My opinion and only mine is that the United States version is the best because it has two acoustic tracks that are stunning. We had to think of creative ways to give each label something special. The band has had positive feedback and is getting lots of press from the release. There is even a magazine in Hungary called HammerWorld that we did an interview with. The reviews are sensational so far.

Brian Rademacher: Have you started working on the next album?

Michael Eden: We have something special planned already for the United States, which is going to be happening in February or March and something that is just for the United States label Metal Mayhem. After that we going into serious mode for the second studio record which is already written and the third album is already written. Yeah EDEN’S CURSE is ready to go in the studio and record. The drum tracks are started, songs are written, and I am putting touches on the lyrics as we speak.

Brian Rademacher: With Thorsten and Ferdyliving in Germany and Pete in the UK, was the CD recorded with wave files or did you actually get together?

Michael Eden: It’s very tough the way it’s all done, but worked to our advantage. Paul and I write over the computer. Paul is like a family member to me and everyone else is sent the files over the computer and they all worked on them in their separate locations. It was a strenuous process.

Brian Rademacher: Seems that most fans favorite track is “Eyes Of The World” track why would you think that would get attention?

Michael Eden: No, some of the people that are posting on the message boards say that. I didn’t write that, “Eyes” is a great song with catchy lyrics and that initially was my brother’s favorite track and it use to piss me off because we didn’t write it. It was a left over EVIDENCE ONE track and I think they should have used it. Dennis and his production skills took that song to another level from the original demo. Nothing on the album is a throw away track. We love the websites big or small and they have all been giving us positive press/feedback.

Brian Rademacher: “Fly Away” to me is in comparison to THE POODLES, very high strung song that burst out?

Michael Eden: I’ve never heard of THE POODLES, it’s a fucking dog where did that come from. Where did they get that name? Regardless, I listened. They can rock believe me. “Fly Away” is one of the heavier tunes on the album and AFM decided that song would be the single off the album and that wouldn’t have been in my opinion, but that’s ok.

Everyone wants to see the band live and I want to see the band play live. I’m growing bored watching people e-mail us wanting to see the band live. I want to play to the people who get it.

Brian Rademacher: Another great tune “Judgement Day” has good harmonies which I am a fan of.

Michael Eden: Yep, yep I am a fan of harmonies too. Well are sticklers on big harmonies and fans of that huge production like DEF LEPPARD. Even though I'm not as big of a LEPPARD fan as say Andrew McNeice is, I still know great harmonies. The production of Mutt Lang with the background vocals was just huge. Like FIREHOUSE or WHITESNAKE that is what we wanted. We had a plan to knock people in the teeth and knock em out from the get go. We wanted a song that not only had huge vocals from the beginning but had ripping ass guitars.

That song had three guitar solos on it. EDEN’S CURSE will never be dictated to write a certain style of music. That’s the song on the album for me. There were issues I had with family members when my Dad passed away I had issues with my sisters and that song is basically about them. Yeah so you think your better than me, be the first to cast the stone as they say. I had to tell ‘em to fuck off and say that we are all basically the same. Everyone needs to get along in everyday life. Nobody is any better then the next guy.

Brian Rademacher: You did the MelodicRock.com Festival in Indiana what was your favorite moment?

Michael Eden: It was a pain in the ass man I am going to be very honest. If I were a drug addict which I’m not I would have been completely out of my mind by the end of it. It was a lot of stress. The SOTO BAND had no idea. The SCRAPMETAL guys knew a little about the day-to-day struggles. The facility did a really good job considering that the Intel wasn’t a hundred percent perfect. That’s no slag on Andrew. It was cool that I helped arrange a lot of stuff with Andrew. All of a sudden we started working on it and I’ve been accused in emails that I tried to worm my way in with EDEN’S CURSE. Well if the ones talking did their homework they would know I knew Andrew ten years ago. Andrew is honest and a great guy. Andrew has to love a product and has to love a band to get behind them. He tried real hard to make everyone happy. He didn’t even get to see most of the show. If you were an artist or affiliated with MelodicRock in anyway at the show you were treated like a fucking king. The guy is my brother from another mutha. He busted his ass for the cause of Rock N' Roll. That building was over $50,000 to rent. You’re talking ALICE COOPER, SAMMY HAGER have all been there. Even Harry Houdini himself played that building. There were two people besides Andrew that really helped the show be a success. One was of course myself and the second is Jim Peterik. Jim was huge in his helping out and without him there would have been issues. Jim even let Andrew use his car to drive around in. Jim Peterik is the coolest guy on this fucking planet and Andrew and I appreciated everything he did, without a doubt one of the greatest songwriters in the world. Jim treated me like a king; he bought me dinner and didn’t have to, A very stand up dude.

Brian Rademacher: Last question, if you can back any cause what cause would that be?

Michael Eden: Cancer!! Both my parents passed away because of Cancer. My mom passed in 2001 and my dad in 2004. If I was a Robert Plant or Paul Stanley type and had that kind of money I would give half of it away to help the cause. I am not calling it buying ten steps to heaven. It breaks down a family and it makes that family sometimes go from bad to worse. I would rid this planet of that disease. Obviously, I don’t speak to my sisters and there are a few reasons for that because people who think they are better than I am, often judge me I don’t go along with that. My younger sister has a child that is autistic and regardless of what she thinks about me, I very much care about that kid. I don’t know if I will ever see that kid again but I hope whatever happens to her I hope kid ends up ok. It’s a situation that I’m not a part of, and have no control over because people don’t want me in their lives. I'm cool with that!!

Honestly, the things that have touched my life are Cancer and Autism. I would like to stop them both. The kids are the most important thing in the world. It’s always good talking to people who get, and you get it. Thanks for your support with EDEN’S CURSE. It was great talking with you. Talk to you soon dude.
Later-