The Plague

STRATOVARIUS

Interview with Jens Johannson by Daniel Hinds

(conducted May 2003)

STRATOVARIUS

Interview with Jörg Michael by Daniel Hinds

(conducted April 2000)

Stratovarius are an amazing success story.  First, they came on in the scene in 1989, just as their style (melodic speed metal) was on its way out of fashion.  In the ensuing years, metal in general became less and less popular, but Stratovarius stuck to their guns and defied the odds, increasing their fanbase with each album.  Incredibly, their songwriting got better with time, too, bringing us to their latest masterpiece, Infinite.  The mix of power, speed, melody and musicianship has never sounded so good and the album debuted at #1 on the national Finnish charts.  So, in a world of Korn clones (and Korn for that matter…), there is hope!

The incredibly enthusiastic drummer Jörg Michael (the lone German in the band) practically talked my ear off, giving some great insight into this standout band…

I was very impressed with the new album, Infinite.  Are you happy with how it came out? It's like giving birth to something.  After such a long time preparing this album, writing this album, getting down to rehearsal - this time we actually rehearsed quite a lot, for about three weeks.  I injured myself in a football match just three weeks before the recording, so we had to delay everything a little bit until my leg was in order.  So like in the first rehearsals, I couldn't play any double-bass drum stuff.  Then we had a very nice time during the rehearsals and during the recording and at the end you can see how it came out.  You don't really questions yourself like, 'Will this be an economical success?' or whatever - you just listen to the record yourself, you let it sink in.  I must admit during the first days after it's finished, you have such a close relationship to it that you can't really judge it.  It takes a few weeks afterward.  So, now the record has been finished since the beginning of December and we all have a very, very good feeling about this album.  And I'm not saying this in general about every album because I can tell you honestly that wasn't the same with the Destiny album, where we weren't quite sure if it's good or not and we got a lot of fan mail saying that they liked the Visions album much more, for example.  But this time we are very happy and everything worked out like we planned it to be.  We have now this flying[?] equipment, so we can record wherever we want.  We went to a very nice house in the suburban area of Helsinki, Finland, directly by a lake.  It had nice sound and daylight in the rehearsal room and it was really nice to live there.  We had so much fun and we really enjoyed working there.  The guitars, the bass and the vocals were recorded there.  Of course, I myself had to go into a clinical studio again because you need quite a lot of channels to record Stratovarius drums, but everything else worked out perfectly.  At the end of the day, you see the result and everybody gave their best and we're very happy about it.

That kind of answers part of this questions, but did you do anything differently this time, in terms of the writing or the way you worked in the studio? I wouldn't say so much with the song writing.  As you know, Timo Tolkki writes about 90% of the stuff for Stratovarius.  He is the man, the bandleader, since 1984 working on this band.  Jens Johansson and I joined the band in 1995, so we just worked on the last four albums.  I would say that the song writing changed a little bit in the matter that Timo Kotipelto and Jens Johansson this time were involved as well.  And of course because of the long practice/rehearsal time that we had, it was possible for me to sneak a few arrangement ideas in there, so that gave a little bit of a different vibe to it.  In general, Timo Tolkki always writes the songs.  He has it all in his head, but then he comes out and writes the whole album in about 3 or 4 weeks.

I just saw that Infinite debuted at #1 in the Finnish album charts.  Was that a surprise? I'm a German guy and Jens is Swedish and the rest of the band are Finns.  They achieve a level of being #1 in their home country and for them it's like heaven. (laughs)  We did achieve the same thing with Destiny and that was a big surprise.  This time, we didn't have so much hope, as there was a few big Finnish bands coming out.  For example, there is one called Apulanta that sells about three times as much as we do in Finland.  They sing in Finnish, so it's this folk rock thing.  So we didn't expect it, but then it happened again and was another surprise like it was with Destiny.  I feel very happy for all the Finns in the band.  For me, it would be the same as being #1 in Germany.

How is it selling outside of Finland? I can tell you the album was released worldwide on the 28th of February, so we expect the first results to come in maybe next week.  Me and the band aren't really that interested to know how it goes… You can tell after a tour in a few months how it was.  I don know that the advance sales of Infinite have already topped the sales of the Destiny album after one year.  I know that we hit the charts in Europe, in almost every country, but it is especially surprising in countries like France where last time we invested in a tour with Angra.  Angra are Brazilian rockers who are very popular in France and we toured there with them for the Destiny album as a support act and we had played there before only about twice.  So this is nice because France has like 55 million people, so it is quite huge, for Europe.  In south Europe, like Italy and Spain, we are already very big there, so I don't think it will be a big surprise if we hit the charts there, top 10 or top 20.  What looks even more promising is that we put our tour on sale at the beginning of December in some countries and by January, our show in Paris was already sold out so we had to add another show.  The Swedish show, where we've only played so far once, are also sold out.  So it is going really good and we still have like up to 2 or 3 months before this tour happens in these countries.

You guys seem to always be touring or working on an album or promoting it.  Have you guys had a real vacation in a while? You observe right.  Since I joined the band, we did the Episode record, had a normal tour, then put out the Visions record about Episode came out.  From then on, Stratovarius became a full-time job.  We also try to control the whole business side of the band.  We have our manager, but we definitely also work behind the curtains to keep control of the band.  Sometimes, it's not so good to not have a big management, because they don't have the power to put you up with really big bands, playing support, but we're really happy with doing it our way and at least we have the control over everything and aren't filling the pockets of other people we hate anyway (laughs).  So for every one of us, Stratovarius is a full-time job.  Besides the playing, for example, I take a little care with the tour organization and I'm also in charge of the merchandise.  Mr. Kotipelto is doing the accounting and booking.  Mr. Tolkki has kind of an overview of everything and is, of course, the most creative member of the band.  Everyone puts his own talent and time into the band.  You have to give respect to other people because you can't do everything and we have a really good relationship between us.  For me, personally, it's a big change because I was always playing so much as hired gun in other bands.  It feels great to be part of a real band! (laughs)

I understand there is a special version of Infinite that includes a multimedia CD.  Can you tell me a bit about that? (pause)  What is a multi-media version?  I don't….

Like a CD-ROM? Ohh…..I'm the right guy to ask that question…  There's so many different configurations of the album coming out.  You've probably heard that we moved from Modern Music to Nuclear Blast, almost worldwide.  We are doing direct deals to Japan, France and parts of South America, but the rest is in the hands of Nuclear Blast.  They are known for putting out certain configurations to make something special for the fans and especially at the beginning, they are a lot of limited editions.  I know for example that there is a limited edition CD box with photo booklets, a sticker and additional CD-ROM, where you can watch our videos and see an interview with Mr. Tolkki by some guy in Germany.  I also have to tell you that I can't open it so far! (laughs)  It only works on Windows 95 and somehow they made a little bit of a mistake.  It's difficult to deal with these copy protections and stuff.  There is also a limited edition in France with a second CD in the first 3000 copies.  There are also a lot of bonus tracks in different countries, they are requesting that.  I think we have to bring out a CD with all these bonus tracks that everybody can buy on one CD at a special price, because [these different versions] give me a little taste of being a rip-off, to tell the truth. (laughs)  On the other side, I have to say that when we were with Modern Music and we only brought out one CD at a time, so many fans were asking us for more material: demo versions, live versions and whatever.  So we don't know what to do and this time we tried it differently, with 5 or 6 different configurations.  And I don't even have them all myself!  What I like is this picture disc, on vinyl.  We were very happy that they made this as well and a lot of people on our home page were asking for it.  We've tried to put our controlling hand on things so, for example, they don't sell all of a sudden these CD digi-packs for double the price - that I would really hate.  It's understandable to make it a little more expensive if the fans are interested in having some rare material, but just to double the price and rip these fans off who have been supporting the band for so many years, it's definitely not in our interest.

Are you getting more response from the U.S. these days? Yeah…  I can't tell so much about the other albums.  I think they were released by Modern Music and one got released by Century Media over there.  We have the feeling from observing our e-mails coming out that there are much more people from the States interested in this kind of music.  Not in particular Stratovarius, but I would also list like Gamma Ray or Iced Earth, for example.  I still think it's not enough interest to really put up a headlining tour over there.  Our label there said, 'We really like this album, would you like to promote it?' and we were like, 'Of course!'  That's what we are here for, to spread Stratovarius Finnish attitude worldwide.  On top of that, there was coming from the Iced Earth camp, asking us if we would be interested in supporting them on their next U.S. tour in November or December.  At the moment, our managements are negotiating that, because it is a question of economic survival (laughs) because when we tour there with Iced Earth, we don't get a fee.  If we tour for one and a half months in the States, from what I've heard, that doesn't really mean anything.  You can tour there for six months, you know, it's so big.  Let's see what they come up with.  If it makes sense to play the shows with Iced Earth, I'd really like to do it.  The only time I've been in the States was about 2 years or something.  I visited New York, playing in a band called Unleashed Power.  I really liked it, but this is the only thing I saw from the States and people tell me there are many completely different places from New York. (laughs)  For me, this is reason enough to give it another try.  To play there with my band would be brilliant, but it shouldn't be complete economic overkill.  Not just to say, 'Oh, we toured the States!" and then you come back and have like $120,000 minus. (laughs)  There is no point to do that.  I've heard that our record is selling or that the interest is quite big over there, but what does that mean?  Is it like we sold 500 copies before and now we're selling 1,500? (laughs)

You guys have always handled your own production.  Was there ever a time when you thought you'd like to work with someone outside of the band? (long bout of laughter)  That's a very…rare question, actually!  This is my personal opinion, but I think that Stratovarius has with Timo Tolkki one of the best producers in the world.  Even coming out of Finland and not having big success with producing other bands before, but I think that our records sound absolutely great.  All of the records I have played on with Stratovarius, I think have a very good sound and the old albums that I wasn't a part of, there is still already a high level of quality.  So, we are quite happy with what we are doing and there is no idea of changing anything.  We never even thought about it.  This time and with Destinybecause the band has gotten more popular and there is so much to do, like promotion, we have this guy called Mikko Karmila.  He is basically the engineer and this time he almost mixed the album alone.  There was a little bit of overview by Timo Tolkki behind him, but there was not really time and trust that guy so much because everything he does sounds great.  When you have a big producer like, let's say Bob Rock.  I think he's one of the best, I really admire his work and he did great, great records.  He does records like Metallica and they sell millions of copies worldwide, so you think you have to have Bob Rock to make it happen in the same way.  That's bullshit because he also does records that don't sell at all, but you don't know that.  Every big producer has these, what we in Germany call, corpses in the cellar.  Not to put him down in any way.  But if we were to try and get this Bob Rock, besides that it would explode our budget, we would end up spending so much money on a production that isn't even better in the end in my opinion.  Maybe different, but not better.  We know how we want to sound and I was always very happy with the sound on our records.  This time, Timo Tolkki and Miko tried to push up the guitars a little and the drums are a bit more quiet, but it doesn't actually disturb me so much because it gives such a powerful feeling.  We're not like 17 or 18 anymore where you go in the studio and the drummer says, 'The drums aren't loud enough,' and the guitar player says, 'The guitar is not loud enough.'  At the end of the day, all the levels are at the peak of the possibility and they still think, 'Oh, my drums still aren't loud enough!' (laughs)  So, it's really cool, no one has to prove anything now.  When I go to the studio, I listen to the whole song and how it all comes across, not just to my drums.  Of course, when it comes to like the toms sound, for me as a drummer, I'm very, very picky, but it's probably the search for the perfect toms sound that I'll never achieve.  Probably when I do, I'll retire. (laughs)

The cover art for Infinite is amazing.  How did you hook up with Derek Riggs? We were all very impressed of course by the work he did for Iron Maiden.  We have a completely different style with our album covers than Iron Maiden, but we still thought that Derek Riggs might be very interesting for us at some point because it might be challenging for him as well.  Then the Gamma Ray album came out, Powerplant, and Derek Riggs did this artwork.  It had some similarities to the Iron Maiden covers, but it also went a little bit away.  So we thought, oh, he can do different stuff so he might be interested in working with us as well.  We called Kai Hansen and asked if he would give us the number.  We got an e-mail address for Derek, sent our albums to him, told him what we wanted to do and the whole album cover concept is made by Timo Tolkki's brain.  The album was supposed to be called Infinity, but then we heard that Devin Townsend already released an album with that name, so we renamed ours to Infinite, since it means the same thing anyway.  The whole world, the whole atmosphere is divided into two parts - we have the spiritual world and we have the material world.  Of course, the material world is like the one we are living in now, that's why we have this polluted sea and everything is a little bit more dark.  The space and atmosphere, the heavens, are not so colorful or shiny, everything is a bit darker, because of the human beings who are doing a lot of harm to the world right now.  With our ability to think, we can't understand why the people are not stopping this, for example killing the rain forests because it gives us the air that we breathe.  It's like we are trying to kill ourselves.  Maybe not in our generation, but if you look a little bit further in the future, it will be that way if we don't stop it.  Then we have this infinity sign changed because normally it lies horizontally, but we put upright, like an '8', which also gives the relation of the eighth Stratovarius studio album.  Then you have the dolphin jumping from the spiritual world into the material world, which suggests birth.  And when you die you return to the spiritual world.  We believe that life in this universe is infinite, it never stops, and our existence right now is just part of that, the part in the material world, but that doesn't mean that necessarily after that all is dead.

It's nice to see someone put so much thought and detail into the cover art.  In the old days, with LPs, it seems like a lot more bands did that than now. I think a lot of bands making it very easy want to go into these old metal cliches and just shock as much as they can.  Even looking at the older Stratovarius covers, you can see it is completely different.  We never worked with this blood bath, cutting off heads or whatever, not at all.  It's a completely different image that we have and nobody in the band is like that as well.  And we get people asking, record companies especially, telling us we have to make the cover something that really shocks people.  But this is our style, take it or leave it.

Stratovarius seems to have a much more optimistic outlook than most metal bands.  Is that a reflection of how the band actually views the world and the future? I have to say that everyone in the band is a bit of a different character.  By explaining the cover artwork to you, you can see kind of the point of view of Timo Tolkki and also most of the other people in the band have.  Timo Tolkki especially is going into these esoteric things.  I'm not at all into that.  We are all not believing in religion - this is one thing where everybody is on the same wavelength.  As far as like life after death, I have a little different point of view about it.  I'm also a little bit more simple, I'm the drummer in the band (laughs).  I like to enjoy the moment and am not thinking so far into the future.  Nobody can prove anything to me what happens after death.  But Mr. Tolkki and Mr. Johansson talk a lot about that, they have a lot of discussions.  Also, Mr. Kotipelto wrote a lot of lyrics on the last albums and it has a lot to do with like Finnish mentality, living in Finland.  Everything is a little bit more frustrating, depressive, dark, sad.  They had a lot of problems with relationships to women, which is very easy to see with the lyrics on the Destiny album.  This time, it changed a little bit.  There is some of that here, but I think it is also a lot more positive.  Everybody leaves a little bit of the dark side behind and puts up some visions of the future.  We also want to take part, not to warn or pointing fingers, but maybe waking up some people and make them do something and live a little more by their conscience about everything.  Like I told you about the rain forests, or air pollution or plastic - all that stuff.  It's not that we can change it so much or that we're coming out as a new messiah or something, but this time we thought we'd just give a little bit of a different view to this whole concept.  Also right now, the band has become so big, so the band has some power…not influencing people, but people have started to listen to us a little more, what we're saying and thinking.  So we thought it would be good to tell the people what we think and they might just be more conscious of these issues.

U.D.O.

Interview with Stefan Kaufmann by Daniel Hinds

(conducted October 2nd, 2009 via email)

In the metal world, there are few individuals as long-lasting and hard-working as Udo Dirkschneider.  After fronting Accept for more than ten years, he began his solo career under the name U.D.O. and has continued it to this day, with only a minor interruption in the 90s for the Accept reunion.  The latest release is 2009’s Dominator, a colleciton of solid, heavy tunes that manage to fuse classic and modern metal quite nicely.

One of the key ingredients to U.D.O.’s success has been the additon of former Accept bandmate Stefan Kaufmann, who joined in 1996 on guitar and has taken on all the band’s production duties as well.  Since I chatted with Udo himself last time around (well, I guess it was back circa Holy, in 2000), I wanted to get Stefan’s take on things this time...

Starting with the new record, did you approach the writing and recording any differently for Dominator than previous albums? Basically, there is no big difference. The digital recording process gives you more possibilities and more flexibility, but the basic songwriting and recording work has been very similar. The best album is always the newest album, because you hope, that you didn’t do the mistakes of the past. In the end, I’m proud of every album we’ve made. They represent the state of mind we were in at that time. Dominator to me has a greater variety of songs and a much more modern sound compared to previous albums. We tried to connect the classical heavy metal music with up to date arrangements – and I think it came out great!

Is there any specific song on the Dominator that really stands out for you, either lyrically or from a musical standpoint? As all the songs on new albums are our “babies”, we love them all. At least so shortly after an album has been finished. Maybe in a year or so, after touring with the album, we might have some favourites. Right now I can listen to the album and say: “Yeah, they’re all great songs – well done!”

The video for “Black and White” is certainly one of the most original clips I’ve seen in a while.  How did you guys come up with that concept? Actually we didn’t come up with the concept for the video. It was our management together with the art director of our video company. The song “Black And White” drew already a lot of attention by our business partners when it was still in the production phase. So it was clear, that this song will be the clip. Some different concepts were going back and forth, and in the end we all together choose the concept, that you’ve seen.

When I interviewed Udo back circa the Holy album, he was very emphatic about not spending money on videos at that point.  What has changed since then, is it just cheaper to actually shoot them nowadays? It’s not only a question of money. True, to shoot a decent clip today is less cost intensive than it was some years ago. But what is much more important is, that today there are enough platforms around where music videos are played. In former times you only had the big TV stations like MTV or so, and those stations wouldn’t play heavy metal videos at all. Nowadays there are a lot of private music stations, internet stations and so on. So, for us it makes sense again to produce video clips, because they have a chance to be played.

What is the process like as far as writing and arranging songs for U.D.O.? We always start with a brainstorming concerning titles, hooklines, lyrics and other text fragments. After this process we have about thirty to forty text frameworks we start to work with. The whole band is writing constantly, so when we go into production, there are a lot of ideas to choose from. This time for example we wrote about 25 songs, recorded about 20 of them and in the end, 13 or so made it on the album and the single.

You’ve been producing U.D.O. albums for almost 20 years now.  Is it ever difficult being both the producer and a member of the band, playing that dual-role? Not really. I was always involved in the producing process even when I was still in Accept. Not officially, but I was always there when it came to recording the vocals, backing vocals or little other things. I have also been very interested in the technical aspects of recording in album, so over the years I had a lot of good teachers. The first album I did as a producer was the Faceless World album of U.D.O., and from that time on I did more and more productions. So, when Udo asked me to join U.D.O. in 1996, it was just natural that I produced the Solid album. Up to now, most of the people seem to be quite happy with my work, and to me there is no problem with playing guitar and producing the albums at the same time.

U.D.O. seems to have an incredible work ethic, as you guys seem to always be doing shows or releasing a new album.  What keeps you guys driven after all these years? The fun in what we are doing. We love our music, love touring and love playing for our fans worldwide. It’s as easy as that.

Have you had a chance to do production for any other bands in recent years? I produced some other bands in the past, but I don’t have so much time besides U.D.O.  I get quite a lot of requests, but very often I can not do it because of timing reasons. I just had to cancel a production for a Swedish band, because their deadline is the 15th of February 2010. But we are on tour in that period of time so it didn’t work out.

Going back a little in time, I never got the full story on the health issues that led to you giving up drums.  What exactly happened?  Was it difficult to make the switch from drums to guitar? Back in 1992 – in the middle of the recording process of Accept’s Death Row album – my doctor told me, that I had a serious spinal disc problem. If I would have carried on playing the drums the danger of becoming paraplegic was a pretty dark prospect. So I bought some bottles of booze and told everybody in the band that I had to quit. So the demo tracks of my drums were the final tracks on the album. I kept on working on the album until it was finished and then I left the band. End of story. The switch from drums to guitar was pretty easy for me. Actually, the first instrument I learned was the accordion (at the age of about 3), the second the guitar (at the age of about 8) and only the third instrument was the drums (at the age of about 14). The reason for it was, that the local band I wanted to join was looking for a drummer – not a guitar player. So my parents bought a little drum kit for me (big mistake!!), and I joined a small local band as a drummer (two weeks later I had my first gig …). But I always wanted to be a guitar player. So, finally, with U.D.O., I found what I was always looking for!

Germany has remained a powerhouse of metal over the years.  What is your take on the current scene and are there any particular bands you like and/or are friends with? I must admit that I am not very good informed about the German music scene in general. As you already realized, we are in a constant working process – producing albums and DVD’s, touring, playing festivals, etc. – and so we are always around somewhere. I’m quite sure that you are better informed about our music scene than I am ;-)

I’ve seen a few quotes from Udo about the current Accept reunion that is happening but I was wondering what your take on that is. Wolf and Peter are very good musicians. So I think it’s great that they decided to make music again. I’m very sure that they will produce a good album with great songs. I’m looking forward for the release and I definitely will buy the CD.

How different is the writing and recording process with U.D.O. compared to the old days in Accept? Well, there have been a lot of changes in the recording techniques and its possibilities. In former days you first had to write all the songs for an album, record the demos, then get together with the producer to do all the arrangements, record the arrangement versions of the songs and then do the final recording. Today it’s a constant workflow. Writing, composing, arranging and recording is one big process. There really are no separate phases like in the past anymore. That gives us much more possibilities, more flexibility, much more creativity and in the end a higher quality album.

U.D.O. has always done some cool, offbeat songs now and then, such as “Trainride in Russia” and “Devil’s Rendezvous” to name just a couple.  Is it important for you to incorporate some new elements like that into the band’s sound now and then? Those kinds of songs always come naturally. We never sit down and say: “Hey, we need a song like this or that”. In most cases the lyrics dictate the kind of song. So, if there are lyrics like “Trainride In Russia”, “Cut Me Out” or “Devil’s Rendezvous”, the music grows nearly by its own. And yes, to me it’s important to record songs like this. They still match our style, but they are always outstanding.

Do you have any time outside of the band to pursue any hobbies other than music? Of course. I couldn’t live without my hobbies. I have my six cats and I idolise them. I love to cook, I’m a heavy book reader, I’m shooting videos and photos and whenever there is time I’m building and flying my model airplanes. I never get bored!

What is next on the agenda for U.D.O. and is there any chance you might play in the USA on the upcoming tour? We will start our European tour in early November 2009 and it will carry on until February 2010. Then there will be some touring in Russia, South America and the Far East. In the summer we will hit the festival season and then start working on the next album. I know that our booking agency is working on almost every country of the world, so hopefully we will have a chance to hit the U.S. in 2010.

U.D.O.

Interview with Udo Dirkschneider by Daniel Hinds

(conducted April 2000)

Udo Dirkschneider certainly needs no introduction to anyone with even a passing interest in metal in the 80s.  His work as the vocalist for the legendary German metal powerhouse Accept set new standards for intensity, with the range to shriek like a madman or soothe with remarkable melody.  After Accept finally called it quits in the mid 90s, Udo returned to his solo band, U.D.O., which he had first started in the late 80s.

2000 sees the US release of his latest album, the metal to the bone Holy.  As the band continues their European tour and prepares to invade America, Udo took some time to give me a ring and answer a few questions…

Now that it's done and out, what are your feelings about Holy? Ohhh….I can't say that much for the US, but the album has been out in Europe since October of last year.  It's doing very well here in Europe and, looking forward, hopefully we'll have the same in the US.

What made you decide on 'Holy' for the title? The idea came up with… A lot of people have said they are very appreciative that we've stuck to the same kind of music.  In the studio, we were talking about religion and we came up with the name 'holy.'  Then we said, okay, that means in a way…one idea led to another.  'Holy' was the first thing there, then 'metal is our religion' and this kind of music is holy to us, but don't take it too seriously.  Then the idea came up for the cover and there was a little concept behind everything.

Can you tell me a bit about the artwork? The artwork for the album is by a guy named Andreas Marschall - he's quite famous here in Germany.  In a way, he's a little bit crazy. (laughs)  So when I was talking to him about the cover artwork, I told him we want to have a church but not a real looking church - it has to look like a metal church.  And he understood what the meaning was and started working on it.  Then we came up with the idea for the priest in the corner, as we wanted to do something funny.  There were a lot of scandals going on at that time at the Vatican in Italy.  I worked already two times with Andreas, as he did the covers for the Timebomb and Solid U.D.O. albums.

How are the songs written and arranged these days in UDO? Normally, Stefan does the music - he comes up with the rough ideas.  Then I start putting the melodies on it and start working on the final lyrics.  Then we start arranging it in the studio and sometimes we change some of the melody lines, and some guitar parts or breaks or whatever.

You've been writing and playing music for a long time now.  Has your songwriting method changed at all?  Do you find it harder/easier now than in the past?   I think I can say it is easier.  We are lucky because Stefan Kaufmann has his own studio.  So we don't have to book a studio - we can go in whenever we want.  And it's just five minutes from my home, so it's easy.  You don't watch the red light anymore, it's off (laughs).  There's no pressure.

Can you tell me a bit about some of the lyrics on the new album:

Raiders of Beyond The idea came from the TV series Stargate, so it has science-fiction lyrics.

Recall the Sin This one is about myself and if somebody asks me if I want to do the whole thing again, I will say yes.

State Run Operation The government in Germany about a year ago was making a law that they can now watch your apartment, they can put some cameras in there and listen to your television.  It's also a bit like a James Bond story, but it's also a true story.  So, yeah, I'm not happy with this! (laughs)

Are there things you can do with U.D.O. that you weren't able to with Accept? In a way, it is the same.  When we were writing songs in Accept, it was 4 or 5 people, but now it's just two people, so in a way it's much easier. (laughs)  I was very satisfied with the songs with Accept - not all of them, but you have to make some compromise.  Of course, I'm very happy with the songwriting with Stefan in U.D.O.

When you rejoined Accept in the 90s, did you always plan to return to U.D.O. afterwards? In the first place, what we had with Accept in '87.  That was…how can I say it in short words (laughs)…  The rest of the band listened to the wrong people.  There were a lot of people around Accept that said, 'Okay, now you have to be more commercial to break the US market' and they believed that.  So they said, okay, we want to be more commercial, we want to have a different singer who can sing more melodies and stuff.  And I said, 'Okay…if you want to do this.  I don't want to do this.  I don't want to sing too much commercial stuff.'  Then there was a point when I did U.D.O. for the first time and they were looking for a different singer, but we never had bad feelings between the band and me.  We were still good friends and ended up working at the same studio at the same time.  They were working on Eat the Heat and I was doing Animal House.  The re-union with Accept came up…it wasn't really planned.  I had already had 4 albums out with U.D.O. and had quite a good success with U.D.O.  In 1991, the Staying a Life album came out and this was a big success, so we got tons of fans letters from all over the world asking us to get back together.  So in '92, we had a meeting with all the members of Accept and were talking about re-union, but it was not easy for me to stop U.D.O. and do Accept again.  In the end, we did the reunion and after the Predator album, the atmosphere music-wise was not right anymore.  There were too many different directions and I think it was the right point to stop Accept.  For me, it was not planned to stop Accept, it was more Wolf and Peter who said they don't want to do it anymore, so I said okay.  I didn't want to stop making music, so I did U.D.O. again.

Are you going to shoot any videos for this album? (emphatically) NO.  To spend money for a video, this is a waste at the moment.  In Europe, we don't have any TV stations that play this kind of music.  They all play teeny-stuff and boy-groups and hip-hop or whatever, but they don't play heavy metal videos.  So to put this money into a video, maybe you could use it for touring and this would be much better.

How did you initially hook up wtih Nuclear Blast?   No, I have my own label called Breaker Records.  What I did was a cooperation with Nuclear Blast.  They handle everything for Breaker Records - they do all the promotional stuff and distribution, but the album is on my label.

Will you just release U.D.O. albums or are you thinking of releasing other bands? Yeah, I have already 3 bands from Germany.  They're very young and new in a way.  Maybe, I don't know when (laughs) the day will come when I stop being a musician and then I will want to work with young bands and maybe I can help them.

Do you keep up much with the metal scene at large? Yeah, if I have time, then I go to small clubs and see new bands.  Right at the moment, we have a lot of good bands around Germany.  It's interesting, they're all playing this traditional heavy metal stuff.  Also good bands are coming from Sweden and Norway, so at the moment, this kind of music is coming up again.

What kind of music do you enjoy listening to outside of metal?   Everything that is good.  Whenever I'm at home or in the car, I switch the radio on and listen to all kinds of music.  Nothing special.  I like a lot of Spanish guitar music and classical music, but the rest is just what is played on the radio.

Do you do anything to keep your voice in shape? (laughing)  No.  I think in a way I'm very lucky.  I've never had any problems with my voice, except when I have a cold, but that is normal.  There has never been a serious problem, you know.  When I go on stage, I never do a warm up.  I just go on stage and start singing.  I'm still smoking.  So, I'm lucky.  I know a lot of heavy metal singers who have had a lot of trouble with their voice.

Do you plan to tour the States for this album? Yes!  Nuclear Blast will try to get us over to the U.S. between the 27th of May and the 10th of June.  Nothing is confirmed yet, but they're working on it.  What they want to do is that we do maybe 8 or 10 shows, do more promotion, and see how the scene is going.  Then in October or November we'll do a proper tour.

What kind of material do you do in your set these days? Let's say 60% U.D.O. stuff and 40% Accept stuff, so the people get what they want. (laughs)

OLD MAN’S CHILD

Interview with Galder by Daniel Hinds

(conducted May 2000)

Old Man's Child has been on the Norwegian black metal scene since 1993, forging an ever more brutal sound with each release.  In the early days, OMC incorporated some acoustic and folk elements into their blackened sound, but later releases began to see some death metal influences in their place.

With the recently released Revelation 666: The Curse of Damnation, the band are prepared to take the stages by storm, both in Europe and, hopefully later on, in the States.  The creative force behind OMC has always been Galder, who I had a very pleasant chat with recently…

Are you happy with the new album? Yeah, we pretty much knew how it would sound because we picked Abyss Studio and they never disappoint when it comes to the sound.  We didn't have too much time on this album so perhaps we could have been there one more week and worked a little more on the sound, but this is the album that we are most satisfied with.

Why the move from Sunlight to Abyss? I think Abyss is the best studio for black metal bands here in Scandinavia.  It has very good equipment and Peter is a very respected producer.  He always gets good sound for his bands.  That was the main reason, plus it's pretty cheap for the quality

You mentioned not having a lot of time - why was that? Ah, it was just the budget thing, you know.  Also, [the studio] is booked for over a year and stuff.

Did you have all the material written when you went in? Yeah, all the music was finished, but I think we lacked 3 lyrics or something which we wrote in the studio, but it's always like that with us.  It's small things that we've done in the studios, too, like leads and keyboards part, but the main music was ready.

Do you spend a lot of time working on the lyrics? No, we usually do the lyrics like three weeks before we go in the studio and usually a couple while we are in the studio as well.  I think we used about a month and a half on the lyrics.

What inspires you when it comes to writing lyrics? We always write about judgmental and misanthropic stuff and that's what we've always done.  I don't think there is a lot of inspiration - life sucks and that is what we write about.  Just things in my mind.  I think we're pretty destructive people and that's what we write about.

Do you get a lot of feedback from fans about your lyrics or are people more interested in just the music? Sometimes we do, but the lyrics are in second place and aren't really our strong side.  Sometimes people comment about them and sometimes they don't, but mainly they just talk about the music.

Can you explain the meaning behind the new album title, Revelation 666: The Curse of Damnation? We wanted a title that is very judgmental and we've always had that as a subject on our albums, so that is also the case with this.  We also wanted a title that walked hand-in-hand with the lyrics.  The title refers to Armageddon and the cover has this girl hanging on this cross, representing humanity, and there is a clock in the background, ticking down to destruction.

Do you think that is something that will come for humanity? I'm sure it will come someday, I'm not sure about right now.  But if you look around at the world today and what Nostradamus predicted and all the wars going on, yeah, I think it's a suitable title.

The album art is pretty cool - who did it?  Did you have input?   It's just Century Media, they always do our covers, I'm not sure which one.  I never have anything to do with the covers.  They send me some ideas, I give them the titles, so I can't tell to o much about it.

You've been with Century Media for a while now.  Are you pretty pleased with their work on behalf of the band? Yeah, they give us the opportunity to do good tours and go to good studios and that's what we want.  Everything has its ups and downs, but we've had a pretty good relationship so far.

Your bio says it took the band a while to get started due to your time in the army.  Can you tell me a bit about that? It was a…strange experience.  It's mandatory in Norway, everyone has to do it, so it's nothing special really.  If you compare that to the life we were living before that, it was totally crazy and not really our style, but it was an experience.

What exactly happened that resulted in you having to do most of Ill-natured Spiritual Invasion on your own? First thing was that I couldn't really find a drummer who could do the album, and also I didn't have a bass player at that time.  So I figured, 'what the hell,' and did a demo by myself with a drum computer, sent it to Century Media.  I asked if I could do it with a drum machine, but of course it is always better to have a drummer. They said they could ask Gene Hoglan and he wanted to do it, so I said, 'Oh, fuck the others!'  I make all the music anyway and do all the keyboards by myself, so it wasn't really that much of a problem.  That was just a one time coincidence, though, there were just too many problems at that time.

Is there a solid line-up now or not? I get that question on all my albums and every time I say 'yes,' so I don't want to say too much about it.  These are really good musicians and Jardar is definitely in the band, but it really can change.  On the tour we are dong now, I am going to have to have a new drummer, it's going to be the drummer from Emperor, so it changes all the time.  It's a good line-up, but I don't know if it is steady.  It depends on the other guys

I understand you will start a European tour next month.  Who will you be touring with and where? Yes, it is with Gorgoroth, Krisiun, Night In Gales, Soulreaper…  It starts the 4th of May and lasts about a month, all over Europe.  We want to go to the States, but..  We actually planned to go to the States to play with Satyricon and Immortal, but unfortunately we had to cancel it because we didn't have any keyboard sort of stuff like that.  So that is our main goal, to go over there, maybe later this year.

Have you ever been over here? No, never been there, so that is first priority.

Do you get a lot of feedback from fans in the US? Yeah, it seems to be very cool.  I'm not sure what we sell in the States, but it seems to get beter and better each year, so that is good.

Hammerheart recently re-issued In the Shades of Light on a split w/ Dimmu Borgir.  Did you have any say in that release? No, Hot Records just sold the rights to them and they just did it.  I actually heard it from the guys in Dimmu Borgir (laughs), so I didn't know too much about it.  I really don't mind.  It hasn't sold as much, so it is cool that it has been re-released.

Now that you have some distance, what are your feelings about the earlier albums, Born of the Flickering and The Pagan Prosperity? I think Born of the Flickering, I'm not too happy with it because of the sound.  We only did it in five days and it is really too bad, because there is a lot of good song material on there.  Pagan Prosperity was our first album that we were really satisfied with.  I'm very happy with it.  I think it is one of the most original black metal albums out there.  It's a mixture of all these different styles.

When you play live, how much old stuff do you do? We do about four songs or something.

Have you ever thought of doing a live album? Nah…

Not something you want to do? It's up to Century Media really.  If they want to do it, but I don't think so.  We haven't really thought about it.

Have you been at all surprised by how the black metal scene has grown since you first started? Yeah, of course it isn't like underground anymore and even the bands that were totally underground before are really commercial and sell lots of albums right now, but I don't see any problem with it.  Just spreading the message to more people.  It's still the same thing really, it's the same people out there and they still listen to the same music that they did.  But I don’t' think there has really been any specific scene in Norway, it has just been a lot of people who play black metal, so I don't really see a big difference.

Do you think a lot of people outside of Norway have a rather distorted view of what it is actually like? Yeah, they have a wrong view.  They think we are some kind of mafia or something.  The only thing they do is that the people gather in the same pubs (laughs), that's about all.

BAL-SAGOTH

Interview with Byron Roberts by Daniel Hinds

(conducted March 2000)

It's sad to see how few noteworthy bands have emerged from Britain in the past ten years, considering the country's past glories.  I mean, this is the land that gave us Sabbath, Purple, Priest, Motorhead, Maiden, Venom, the entire NWOBHM - the list goes on and on.  Yet, something seems to have happened in the mid 80s, with the number of great, innovative acts declining rapidly in favor of cheap copies of whatever lame trend was spewing forth from the U.S.

Still, that creative urge was bubbling in the underground and we are now seeing some truly excellent new bands coming out of the UK.  Bal-Sagoth isn't exactly new, but with a recent worldwide release via Nuclear Blast, they are bound to reach vast new audiences this year.  Mixing elements of black metal, power metal and classical music with some of the most elaborate fantasy and science fiction stories ever committed to disc, Bal-Sagoth have created a highly distinctive and infectious sound.  Vocalist Byron tells us more…

Now that it is done and has been out for a bit, what are your feelings about The Power Cosmic?   Overall, we are very pleased with The Power Cosmic.  We think that it is our most polished album to date in the sound department.  It certainly has a clearer production than the other ones, which unfortunately a lot of people seem to have resented.  They like the more aggressive, barbaric production of the previous albums, but this album is very clear, very sharp.  It has kind of an edge to it.  It combines a lot of the best elements of the early work with the best elements of Battle Magic and come out with kind of a hybrid of it all.  But yeah, overall, we are very pleased with it.  We like all our albums.

Did you do anything differently in the studio or did you just have more time? Not really.  In fact, we actually had less time to record The Power Cosmicthan we did for Battle Magic.  All it is is because we've used the same engineer from the first album and we've used the same studio and the engineer is very familiar with our way of working.  With each album, we do get better at what we do and we are more able to maximize our time.  As we've progressed, we can get a better production and we're able to realize our ideas a lot better and put them into practice and get a product at the end of the day that is closer to what we had in mind.  We'll always aspire to achieve that level of artistic perfection, which I suppose every artist aspires to but ultimately never reaches.

Is this your first album to be get a proper release in the States? Is it?  I don't know.  Cacophonous, our previous label, they did have distribution in the US, but it was very, very limited.  I think the previous 3 albums were available over there, but you really had to dig for them.  Hopefully, with Nuclear Blast, because this is the first time we've been on a label that actually has an office over there, it should be available more widely.

What kind of reaction are you getting from people over here? It's funny because from the beginning, from day one of the band, some of our most really positive response has been from the USA.  I think what it is is over there, there aren't many people who do like us, but the people who do like us, really do like us.  People say stuff like it is the soundtrack to their life, they just love it so much.  We do, interestingly enough, get a lot more response from Canada than from the USA.  I don't know if it is because I used to live in Canada or just something peculiar about north of the border.  And interestingly enough, it seems to be more French-Canadian than the English-speaking Canadian.

The style on tPC is fairly similar to Battle Magic.  Do you feel like you've found your sound or will the next album branch out into new territory? I know that our guitarist is very pleased with his guitar sound on The Power Cosmic.  He wasn't as pleased with it on Battle Magic, because it was kind of lower in the mix.  As The Power Cosmic is kind of an amalgamation of the best elements of our sound from the previous three albums, ultimately we have found kind of our ideal sound now.  We're not going to tune up to constant pitch or anything.  We still downtune our guitars to B, to get that really dense, heavy sound.  And the keyboards will always be insane and they'll always be totally weird.  We're not going to start doing Yes type numbers…  I think we have achieved kind of a level playing field with the sound.

I think it's cool that you guys don't limit yourselves thematically.  What are some of the writers on the sci-fi side that have influenced you? Essentially that whole side of thing, the science-fiction and swords and sorcery, is just stuff I've been into as far back as I can remember.  As time has gone on, I think I've intensified the science-fiction aspect.  Throughout the three albums, there has always been elements of science-fiction in there - songs like "Vortex" and "Astral Gate" from the Starfire…album and songs like "Return to the Praesidium of Ys " from the Battle Magic album have always had very strong flavors of science-fiction to them.  This time, I just kind of increased that level of SF, upped the intensity of the science-fiction iconography.  That is a big kind of pulling point with us.  A lot of kids write to me and say, 'I'm not really a fan of black metal or death metal, but I do like science-fiction and fantasy, which is why I've been turned onto your band.'  Through that, they have also come to have an appreciation of black metal, which is always a good thing.  That kind of high concept of the band is really the adamantine base to it all, because it governs what kind of riff we write.  For example, if Chris comes up with a riff that sounds like Anthrax or Pantera, it will be rejected, because it doesn't sound….Bal-Sagoth enough, if you can.

Unlike a lot of metal bands who are determined to make every riff more evil-sounding than the previous one, you guys actually incorporate some happier melodies alongside the darker ones.  Is this balance important to you?   It is, definitely.  There is more to metal than the minor chord.  We do use a lot of major chords, a lot of bombastic, uplifting melodies in the stuff.  A lot of victorious parts, a lot of reflective, ethereal, kind of dream-like parts as well.  Of course, we can always shift straight into the aggressive, cataclysmic darkness.  We can run that whole gamut of emotions in the music, which is a good thing.  A lot of that is due to the fact that Johnny the keyboard player is such a damn good musician.  He has been trained in classical piano since he was a wee laddie (laughs) and he can play a lot of different instruments.  He can play bass, guitar, drums obviously, keyboards, the trombone even.  A lot of it also boils down to the fact that not everyone in Bal-Sagoth is big fan of metal.  I love all the bands like Bathory and Celtic Frost and Slayer, that kind of thing, but Johnny for instance, his favorite bands are The Police, A-Ha, and Queen, that kind of thing.  So that mixture of influences and tastes enables us to be a little more interesting in the musical aspect.

How do you compose your music?  Is it done initially with keyboard or guitar?   Johnny writes most of the music and Chris contributes a little bit as well.  All of the songs these days are written first and foremost on the keyboard.  Johnny comes up with keyboard riffs, he tells Chris what kind of guitar part he wants to put to it and then we work out the bass parts.  Essentially, yeah, the prime facilitator is the keyboard.  In the early days, we did write a few songs on guitar and added keyboards later, but these days it's all on the keyboards first and then the guitar comes in and fulfills the role that the keyboards used to fulfill.

How do you record the keyboards?  Are all the different parts played live or are some of them sequenced? We record them by each constituent instrument.  So, we start off with the brass track and Johnny will play all the brass parts to a particular song.  Then we'll work out where we want the strings to go and then we'll put the string parts on another track to compliment the brass.  Then we'll put like the woodwinds, the choirs, the timpani - all that sort of thing.  So we do record in a truly symphonic sort of way.  It's almost like getting an orchestra in and having the musicians play their own individual instruments and building the whole thing up.

What prompted the split with Cacophonous?  Are you pleased with Nuclear Blast thus far? We'd recorded three albums for Cacophonous and we finished Battle Magic, we had fulfilled our contractual obligation to them.  And they gave us a pretty attractive offer to stay with them, but what happened is that, just after we completed Starfire… I was contacted by Marc Steiger from Nuclear Blast and he said, 'I love your albums and if you're not bound to do another album for Cacophonous, I want to sign you now.'  I said to him, 'We've got one more to do and after we've recorded that, we can negotiate, if you're still interested.'  And he said, 'Yeah, the offer is always open.'  We had some other offers from Peaceville and Hammerheart, but ultimately we figured we'd go with Nuclear Blast, strictly because they have a bigger distribution service.  I used to get so many letters from people who said they couldn't find our albums.  They knew they were out there, they had heard tracks on samplers, but they couldn't find them in the stores.  Or if they did it was like $30 or something ridiculous.  So we thought we'd see what Nuclear Blast was like and we've done one album for them.  We are actually signed for another two, but time will tell if we decide to stay with them.  They are doing a decent enough job, I suppose.  The trouble is that, on Cacophonous, we were the main band, but at Nuclear Blast, we're just one band among many.  We're like band number 10763 or whatever on the whole roster, so we can't get the same amount of time spent on us individually as we could on Cacophonous, but hopefully other things will make up for it.

What are the latest plans for the re-release of your demo on CD? Very much so, yeah, because the demo was never actually made available.  I had to take the decision not to release it because we weren't entirely happy with it.  We wanted to record intros, outros, and put a lot more sound effects on it, but ultimately what happened is Cacophonous got wind of the demo, they asked for a copy, I sent it to them, and they were like, 'Right, okay, we'll sign you.'  So we didn't really have a chance to release our demo, because they wanted us to go straight ahead and do an album.  But what we can do now is take the demo, do what we wanted to do to it, add the intros, remaster it, put some interlude tracks into it, repackage the whole thing and also add a CD-ROM track to it as well, with some video footage or some band-related features.  Then we can get it out there for not too much money and all the kids who wanted to hear the demo will be able to get a hold of it.  It's just a matter of getting time to actually do it.

Are there any other unreleased tunes that might see the light of day someday?   Everything we've ever recorded in a recording studio, apart from the demo, has been released.  What we do have are a lot of tapes from the Starfire… rehearsal days.  We had so many fucking songs for Starfire…, we had to pick and choose which ones would go on the album.  So there are perhaps 2 or 3 songs at the moment, which are of that kind of Starfire-esque feel, but have never been recorded.  They exist only in that rough form.  Hopefully, one day we can release like an EP on Nuclear Blast with those kind of forgotten scenes, if you like.

When you play live, how to come up with a set-list?  Do you take songs from each album or run through an entire album?   Yeah, especially because we have so many songs now, we would have to pick and choose which ones would go down best live.  Plus, a lot of the fan favorites are the really long songs, like "Circus Maximus" and "Lemuria," things like that, which do tend to take up a big chunk of the live set.  We haven't actually played live since the tour with Emperor in 1997, so hopefully by the time we get around to playing live, we will take into consideration the fan favorites, as well as the ones we enjoy playing, as well as the ones we think will work live, as well as the ones we can actually play live.  A lot of the songs, the new guys can't actually play yet and Chris has forgotten so many of the songs as well.  We tried to play "Dreaming of Atlantean Spires" the other day and he'd completely forgotten it.  So we will take a lot of time to get a good set list together.

Do have any plans yet for a tour this year? Well, hopefully.  We've got a date coming up in Athens here in the near future, because Greece is one of the territories where we are quite well received, sales-wise anyway and we get a lot of fan mail from there.  Then maybe do something like the Dynamo open air festival.  What we'd like to do is get a tour together that covers territories where we'd actually like to play.  Nuclear Blast at the moment are pressing us o play Germany again and again.  We don't have that much of a fan base in Germany, we don't sell that many records over there and the response from crowds over there has always been pretty bad.  It's a shame because we'd like to play places like southern Europe, Spain, Italy, Portugal, where we know we have a very devote following.  We'd also like to get over to Australia, Japan and North America, but labels and promoters have another idea.  They want you to go where they think they can get the most money and with Nuclear Blast being a German-based label, they want us to play Germany, which isn't something that…  We will play Germany, but out of a 15-date tour, we don't want 10 dates to be German dates.

You guys have a very detailed and nice-looking web-site.  How involved with it are you? Very much.  All the features on the web-site, I've designed them all and our web-master takes my designs and puts them into graphical reality.  Things like the chronology, the glossary, the map, the A-Z, that's all kind of designed by me.  I've been trying to get Chris to work out some tablature to make a tabs section, but he has to learn how to reads tabs first, so that won't be for a while.  But yeah, I think our web-site is one of our most versatile tools right now.  We have galleries and pretty much any piece of information anyone wants to know about the band, they can most likely find it at the web-site.  People can send in their own drawings, they can send in comments, so it really is cool, the whole interactive thing.  And of course the lyrics to the new album are exclusive to the web-site, so that is how important I feel the web-site is.  (http://go.to/Bal-Sagoth)

Do you guys hang out much outside of doing band-related stuff?   I don't tend to hang out with the other band members too much, but we do occasionally go to the same bars and places like that.  There's a pub across the street from where I live, so that's where I tend to spend most of my free evenings drinking.  As far as anything else goes, we sometimes just get together, have a six-pack and mull over a few ideas.  Unfortunately, a lot of the metal scene in Britain these days is very centered in certain areas.  London is a big area for it and there are a few cities up north, but this area isn't really well known for the extreme metal scene.  Most of the people here are into Korn, Marilyn Manson, all that kind of shit.

I thought it was cool that you mentioned Sabbat as one of your influences, as they never get the credit they deserve. What it was with them is they released two wonderful albums, History of a Time to Come and Dreamweaver.  At the time, I think it was about 1987 when I first heard them, in that era of very street-level metal, with jeans and T-shirts and thrash and those big fuckin' sneakers, Sabbat really stood out for me.  Here was a band whose image and lyrical topics were so much what I was into, that whole paganism and fantasy thing.  And the sound was so abrasive and so wonderful to me, that I immediately thought what a wonderful band.  With Bathory and Celtic Frost, they are still to this day one of my all-time favorite bands.  I saw them live so many times, I saw them once with Manowar which was excellent, and they are just a brilliant band.  They are nice guys as well.  Well, Andy Sneap was a bit arrogant when I used to speak to him, but Martin was a really excellent guy and they were just an excellent band with so many good ideas.  They were so good musically and Martin was such an excellent lyricist and brilliant vocalist that it really did gel.  It was just a shame that they split up before their time.

ANCIENT RITES

Interview with Gunther Theys by Daniel Hinds

(conducted February 2000)

Ancient Rites may not be the first name thrown out when the words 'black metal' are uttered, but they have been around as long as anyone on the current scene and produce a very unique version of the style.  With all eyes on Norway for so long, perhaps their home base of Belgium has kept them a bit more in the underground circles than the likes of Emperor and Satyricon, but that isn't to say that Ancient Rites don't have a following.  In fact, their fanbase is quite strong all across Europe (and beyond) and last year's excellent Fatherland no doubt expanded it considerably.

Bassist/vocalist Gunther was kind enough to take some time and answer a few questions regarding Ancient Rites, his other musical endeavors, religion, and the current state of the world...

Let me start by saying that I like the album Fatherland a great deal, but it is also the only AR album I've been able to get a hold of so far.  Could you give me a brief summary of your other releases and your feelings about them now that some time has elapsed since their release? We have released one demo, one 7" EP, a split-LP and several split EP's. However the majority of the people only were introduced to A.R. after the release of our debut full-length album entitled "THE DIABOLIC SERENADES".  We recorded our first two albums in a very professional studio where usually classical orchestras record their symphonies or soundtracks are being made. We feel this only increases the originality of our sound. We were always assisted by sound engineer (and studio owner) Louis Jans of STUDIO 20 who is a classical musician himself. He understood perfectly the essence of our music. Metal and classical music fit perfectly together for both are bombastic and can have a very dark approach. Using two different musical forms to express similar dark visions/thoughts/dreams. Interesting experiments are tracks such as "FALLEN ANGEL" or "LAST RITES (ECHOES OF MELANCHOLY)" which we first recorded with our usual equipment, afterwards we replaced our modern instruments by medieval ones. The end result is how A.R. would have sounded during the middle ages. We realize many bands/fans prefer a more primitive and poor production when it comes to Black Metal and that is fine by us but we always followed our own path. We seek a heavy/tight sound in old Metal tradition. We are satisfied with our first two albums "THE DIABOLIC SERENADES" and "BLASFEMIA ETERNAL" considering the time/budget available and even believe in our very first releases for they have been important steps in our career; nevertheless "FATHERLAND" our latest album is our most professional effort this far. We progressed as musicians and there was a bigger budget available which had a positive influence on matters like sound/production. Since there was almost no time pressure more attention could be spent on details.  "FATHERLAND" was recorded in the brand new SPACELAB studios in Germany between 14.02 and 24.03 '98. Both our sound engineer Christian Moos and producer Oliver Phillipps are very talented classical musicians who are also active in the progressive Rock scene. They are perfectionists and checked every single note we played. Their demanding and very critical attitude certainly pushed us to higher musical levels. The fact they were not familiar with extreme Metal I felt as an advantage (despite the culture clash and stress!). This way we could be sure they would give us an original sound and maybe even come up with ideas extreme Metal producers would never think of. I was to be proven right, on "FATHERLAND" the fusion between Metal and Classical is more successful than ever before in our band's history. Oliver Phillips appeared as a session keyboard player. It is quite unusual that classical/ progressive musicians and extreme Metal musicians collaborate.

The artwork and layout for Fatherland is very well done (and also very readable, something a lot of bands seem to overlook).  Is there a symbolic significance to the tree being chopped down on the cover? The painting represents the daily hard struggle to survive during the middle ages. Many bands focus on phantasy "art" when they settle for “medieval” illustrations. We prefer a more sober but realistic approach. The cover can be interpreted different ways: some say it symbolizes the destruction of the Holy Oak and the prosecution of Paganists and heretics by the Christian authorities in medieval times. Unfortunately we might be facing a lawsuit because of this painting. Although there are made alterations the artwork is heavily inspired by a painting of a long deceased master and now it turns out that the rights are owned by an author’s organization. Of course they demand money, something we do not have as a band. Rather unpleasant situation that can cost us our last penny. Now it is the time for our label to prove what they are worth.

I thought it was cool that you went through and kind of explained each song in the CD booklet.  Even with this, have you had any problems with people misinterpreting the title 'Fatherland' and assuming you are some kind of ultra-right-wing group? Sure. There are many places we are not allowed to play. And often there are "politically correct" councils judging if our concerts can take place or not. They have people investigating our lyrics etc, although there is nothing there! Recently an A.R. gig could only take place after the promoters hired extra security with guard dogs and there had to be placed fences outside around the club. The mayor and club owners expected an attack of Arab immigrants because of the unholy character of our music and lyrics. Religious Islamic fundamentalism is also imported here in Europe by immigrants. And titles like "Fatherland" many (paranoid people) translate as plain Nazism while the only thing we say is that everyone should be aware of his/her own culture, history and roots. One can perfectly be proud of the own heritage while at the same time respecting other cultures/civilizations but often it seems to be under a taboo to have this attitude when a person is of European origin. Everyone should be able to cultivate their own roots.  Why is it considered politically incorrect when we do the same? So indeed we are under a lot of flak but all the boycotts and hardship can be an inspiration.

Are you working on a new album yet?  Do you have a title for it in mind yet?   Everyone came up with ideas (demos with riffs, programmed drums, orchestra etc) recorded on a hard disc or computer but all is still in a rather early stage. Most ideas will be thrown away, we are rather hard on ourselves: "not bad" is simply not good enough! We are our worst own critics sometimes. I already have many lyrical ideas but titles are the last stage.

When you do an album, do you have it pretty much done when you enter the studio or do you come up with a lot of ideas while recording? In the old days, we had everything completely ready before entering the studio, nowadays there is much more room to experiment due to various reasons: there is a larger studio budget available, we have become better musicians and work with demanding producers who do many suggestions. Often parts are altered at the last moment and details are being added or changed, all this can change the entire "character" of a song. When this change is for the better, we are willing to throw away old ideas. Egos shouldn't be in the way of progress.

If you are working on new material, how is it turning out in comparison to previous AR?   The track we currently are working on could have been on "Fatherland", similar atmosphere to "Mother Europe". Another track is very extreme and contains old school Black Metal parts while another song is more progressive, some riffs are very brutal, and other melodies are quite melancholic. Again a lot of variety will be offered on the next album. It is our aim to progress without betraying the essence of A.R.; nevertheless we wish to avoid stagnation.

From what I've read, your first label (After Dark) gave you a lot of problems.  Could you tell me about that and how you came to hook up with Mascot? AFTER DARK turned out to be a total rip off and eventually ceased to exist leaving no penny for the band that had invested its own money in the recordings, artwork and photo sessions. In 1995, a deal was signed with Dutch MASCOT RECORDS.

Will Mascot be releasing the next album as well? We are not very pleased with their distribution in certain countries (like the USA) and lack of promotion outside of Northern Europe. Officially we have to release one more album for MASCOT RECORDS, though. We have to talk first.

Have you had a chance to do much touring (or traveling on your own) to foreign countries? What are some of the more interesting places you've been and experiences you've had abroad?   We have toured throughout Europe and the U.K. many times. Life on the road is like an adventure, very unpredictable: one day all is going perfectly, the next nothing seems to work. Once we were stranded in England with all our equipment and without any money, food or a place to stay. Even that one we turned into an interesting experience, often larger than life, and continued touring in an alternative way in order to gain money to get back home. It is kind of strange to see we draw larger crowds nowadays while in the past only very few individuals were interested in our work. Guess this new Black Metal explosion must have got a lot to do with it. Since (especially in the beginning) we received way more appreciation outside our own country, we preferred to concentrate abroad. Nowadays our status also improved within Belgian borders. Most of the bands we toured with we already knew personally, which of course improved life on the road together. When mutual respect is shown we get along with everyone, no infantile rock star attitudes. We toured as headliners several times but also with major acts such as DEICIDE, CRADLE OF FILTH, MORBID ANGEL, METALLICA, MERCYFUL FATE, MOTÖRHEAD, S.O.D., MANOWAR etc. Highlights in our career were playing the legendary Marquee in London, the famous Thorns club at Athens, the very first big extreme Metal fest in Lisbon (sponsored by Coca Cola and the mayor!) and appearing on mega Metal festivals such as DYNAMO OPEN AIR or GRASPOP to mention a few. It is fascinating to see how crowds differ from country to country, city to city even. Whenever there is some free time available (after the sound check for instance) I leave the venue to taste a bit of the local culture. I’m thrilled when I have the chance to visit museums, monuments or ancient/medieval remains. All this keeps touring interesting. It often is hard and stressful, but there’s a certain charm involved too. Intensity, positive or negative, is what we seek.

Would you agree that the move toward a global community has resulted in a general deterioration in individual cultures?  On the whole, do you think it is a bad trend, or do the positive elements (increased communication, ease of travel, etc) make for some kind of balance? I travel a lot and I wouldn't like every place to look or be the same. Personally, I prefer every culture to remain authentic, surely economical and spiritual evolution is necessary but one's roots or the typical local character should not be erased. There should be mutual respect between the different cultures but it remains a fact that everyone is a child of his own environment and there is nothing wrong with cultivating that. On the other hand, one shouldn't take that too far either, it is a pity that because of religious fanaticism, whole communities that once had such splendid civilizations and a glorious past today stagnate. Think of Iran: today a country in the grip of religious fanatics, an economical fiasco, once represented the mighty Persian Empire! Holding too fanatically on to the wrong aspects can lead to catastrophes as well. Difficult and interesting question, Dan! Nothing is black or white in life, always two sides to a coin! I applaud the fact travelling is more easy nowadays, but I regret the deterioration in cultures it often brings when people start to be ashamed of their own traditions and replace them by foreign life codes. I support civilizations holding on to their traditions but at the same time this very same "quality" kills innocent people when some blind persons take it too far. Dilemma!

You seem to be very knowledgeable about many of the other metal bands out there.  How much time do you spend listening to music and keeping up on the scene?  Is it hard to find time to do that and keep your own musical projects going full-time? It is difficult to keep track because actually too many records are released and unfortunately often by bands who seem to care more about their make up instead of the musical aspect. But sometimes a young band suddenly surprises me positively. I listen to music constantly, except when I'm reading or watching a movie. While answering this interview I have a self-compiled tape on the background which contains all kinds of styles ranging from the most quiet beautiful music to the most extreme noise. I like variety, I am an open minded person despite the fact I'm a Metalhead. When I'm working on my own musical projects, I avoid listening to bands working in a similar style. When working on A.R. I never listen to Metal, while recording DANSE MACABRE, I avoid Goth Rock/Industrial/Wave and when I'm active with DIVISION 99 I don't listen Punk/Oi! because I am afraid subconsciously one could get influenced.

Lately, it seems like a lot of bands in the black metal scene are taking their sound in a much more modern direction (Dødheimsgard, Satyricon, Kovenant, etc.).  What do you think about this trend? I understand that bands wish to progress as long as it is not a turn of 90 degrees. METALLICA for instance should have changed name ages ago. I cannot comment on the latest DODHEIMSGARD, SATYRICON or KOVENANT since I did not hear the records you mentioned. In our band, only drummer Walter and keyboard player Domingo listen to these kind of bands. I was a bit surprised by the new look of KOVENANT (very much MARILYN MANSON indeed), but then again bands like C.O.F., DIMMU BORGIR or KOVENANT often appeal to the same (MARILYN MANSON or Gothic orientated) audience that like theatrical decadent imagery. I'm only familiar with the first two SATYRICON albums and when it comes to KOVENANT drummer Hellhammer, I prefer his work with MAYHEM and ARCTURUS which are more my taste. It is difficult for a band to remain interesting, too much stagnation is negative but so is too much change, a thin line it is, my friend. Besides what other bands do is not of my concern/business. Good luck to every one of them, but we walk our own path. Actually I'm mostly interested in the pioneers of the style when it comes to Black or Death or Heavy Metal. I couldn't care less for a Swedish band that tries to sound like German 80's Power Metal (which I found disgusting anyway at that time, too!), nor do I care for a German version of C.O.F. or a Mexican band claiming to be Norwegian. The originals have my sympathy, the clones leave me indifferent.

What is the current status of Danse Macabre? A band that is embraced by open minded Black Metal fans but not known enough in the real Goth world since our label only promoted D.M. a bit in the Metal press. Nevertheless, we already played several headline dates and the project turned into a real trans-european act consisting of musicians from Serbia, Germany, Austria, Greece, Holland, Finland and Flanders. We are currently working on a new album for a different label. MASCOT told us they didn't really know how to deal with our style or how to sell it.

What inspired you to start D.M. in the first place?   Musically, bands like JOY DIVISION, BAUHAUS, FAD GADGET or SISTERS OF MERCY, KILLING JOKE, RED ZEBRA inspired me to work on that musical field. I discovered these groups already in the late 70's/early 80's. Nostalgia playing tricks? More recent bands I like in that style are CURRENT '93, DEATH IN JUNE, BLOOD AXIS, SOPOR AETURNUS, ATARAXIA. However D.M. does not sound like any of these artists. From a lyrical point of view D.M. enables me to express different emotions and feelings which do not fit to the A.R. concept.

I know some people in the goth scene (just like the metal scene) can be pretty narrow-minded.  Have you had any problems being accepted with DM in the goth circles?   Actually, my friend, I do not give a damn. Nor did I give it much thought. I know this sounds quite big headed but I started playing in bands to express myself musically/lyrically and I never lost too much sleep on what others might think of it. That is why I can take critics so well. Recently I read a review in this American magazine that takes the piss out of B.M. so also we didn't escape their pen. They wrote A.R. probably wears pink ballet trousers during rehearsals, that our drummer is retarded and that I probably sing with my trousers down. I found it really amusing. Once Kerrang! wrote they didn't like our way of dressing! Never knew it was a fashion magazine! Haha! Honestly, I couldn't care less. So when a 13 year old "vampire" appears backstage after a D.M. gig and tries to impress me with a "dark" grim or the lead singer of a famous Goth act tells me I should sing with a deeper "grunt" (like if his band is brutal!) I hope you believe me when I tell you it honestly does not matter one bit to me. I don't try to convince anyone of anything. I just do my thing you know. Nothing more, nothing less. I mind my own business; live and let live, I expect a similar attitude from other people. What matters at the end of the day is that I, myself, believe in what I do. Of course it is nice when people appreciate one's efforts but I do not want to sell my soul (only to the devil ahah!) to achieve that. I know exactly what an audience expects but when I do not believe in it I cannot play the game! I refuse to be jus another "romantic vampire" with plastic teeth and painted fingernails (although that sells the best) nor do I wish to impress ten-year-olds by taking photos with huge plastic swords in snowy forests. This stubborn approach often worked against us, but at least I can look at myself in the mirror and say I always truly believed in what we stand for. Come to think of it: D.M. has a mixed audience, I see Metalheads next to Gothic people, I see normally dressed persons in the crowd. All fine by me. Everyone who relates is welcome, the appearance does not matter. Same goes for A.R. gigs as far as I am concerned. Also with A.R. we do not attract one typical crowd.

I saw in an interview from '98 that you mentioned a project you were working on with Mortiis.  Is that still in the works?  If so, what is the material going to be like? The mastertapes are in Greece in the possession of the vocalist of WAMPYR SHADOW WOLF who was involved in that project, too. I guess in the future we continue working on it. Music was like a soundtrack. Typical MORTIIS actually which is only natural since he contributed most of the music.

In the same interview, you also said that Christianity is losing its strength in Northern Europe.  Do you foresee a time when it will no longer be the predominate religion there?  Do you think it will be replaced by a larger number of smaller, more individual belief systems or some other large religion? Many immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East moved to Europe and they strongly hold on to their Islamic religion. Recently many refugees from Kosovo entered Europe and they also are Islamic. More mosques are being built in Europe. I know many Arabs personally and they surprise me by how fundamentalist they often still are. In families I know who used to be rather well integrated in Western society, I suddenly see the men wear robes and women cover their hair and face again. I find it also rather peculiar that the USA and the NATO usually chose the Islamic side in conflicts. I think Islam will become the biggest religion since fundamentalism is increasing in countries such as Afghanistan, Egypt, Algeria, Iran where religious fundamentalist terrorists murder tourists from the West and even their own people they consider less fanatic. Bad indications. I believe everyone is entitled to an own opinion/belief but one should not be despotic about it.

What long-term impact do you think the highly materialistic consumer culture that has developed in the last half of the 20th century will have on society?   Lack of humanity. Wrong values prevailing. Materialistic wealth will overshadow intellectual wealth.

Have you been to the U.S.?  If so, what did you make of it?  If not, would you like to visit here? Our drummer is considering to relocate to the States since he has a house with his American girlfriend in Virginia. He's the US connoisseur! I've been all over Europe, Asia, Africa but not America. Being the eternal traveler, sure I'd like to visit the US one day. I'd like to see the impressive nature (from mountains, to canyons to the desert) and immense nature parks. Musically, especially the New York scene has influenced my teenage years a lot with bands such as DEAD BOYS, RAMONES, ELECTRIC CHAIRS, NEW YORK DOLLS, JOHNNY THUNDERS AND THE HEARTBREAKERS, RICHARD HELL AND THE VOIDOIDS, SUICIDE. Even in pop: MINK DEVILLE, BLONDIE, PATTI SMITH, LOU REED, and TELEVISION. I like the N.Y. accent! Going to N.Y. would be a good opportunity to visit my old pal Dan Lilker of S.O.D.!

Do you have any long-term goals for AR or do you tend toward just taking things one day at a time? We continue our struggle, giving the best we can, but always expecting the least. All these years in the music industry have taught me all is unpredictable: one day god, the next day forgotten. All depends on how much money record companies, promoters or managers invest in a band to create a hype. Quality, authenticity or dedication mean nothing. How else to explain that a band who caught the essence of B.M. like MAYHEM never got the recognition they deserved while so many clowns who discovered B.M. overnight made it big? ARCTURUS made intelligent and original music but the band hardly got noticed, instead press and audience go crazy over Skandinavian bands trying to sound like HELLOWEEN! Goals, my dear friend, we gave up long time ago. We put our hearts and souls into the music we create. That should be enough.  No mess, no fuss, no circus.

Thanks again for taking the time to do this interview for me.  Good luck with all of your future endeavors and I can't wait to hear your next release! The pleasure was completely mine.

SEAR BLISS

Interview with András Nagy by Daniel Hinds

(conducted February 2000)

Sear Bliss is one of the coolest bands to emerge from the dark/black metal scene in the past few years.  Mixing up elements of black, death and doom metal with acoustic guitar and mournful trumpet, the band really defines their own sound.  1998 saw the release of the epic The Haunting and the band has been busy readying a follow-up for release sometime this year, as soon as a solid deal is signed.

Bassist/vocalist András Nagy (pictured above with drummer Zoltán) reveals the story behind this dark and creative outfit...

Can you tell me a little about how you personally first got interested in playing bass? Well, I first got interested in bass when I was 14. Then I bought a bass guitar and started rehearsing with some of my friends. I had a couple of bands back then but nothing serious. Anyway, I started playing guitar when I was ten years old. Later, I discovered that bass is my instrument. When things turned serious with Sear Bliss, I went to a professional bass teacher to have some lessons. By the way, I have always been into low tones and I really love the grounding sound of the bass guitar. That's why I chose the bass.

When did you first get into metal?  What were some of your early favorite bands/albums? Probably it may seem impossible but I'm a metal fan since the age of 9. You know, I always had elder friends in the school and when they showed me Inside the Electric Circus from WASP, suddenly everything changed in me and I got hooked on metal. Of course, I didn't understand the meaning of it then but it changed my life. That is still one of my dearest albums anyway. Besides WASP, my early favourites were: Metallica (Master Of Puppets is one of the best album ever), Iron Maiden (Powerslave mostly), Running Wild, and some heavier like Sodom, Destruction, Kreator, Deathrow, etc..... I still like them very much.

Did you play in any bands prior to Sear Bliss? As I told you, I played in a couple of bands before but they were nothing serious. I formed Sear Bliss in 1993 and I was quite young then, so it was and still is my main band.

How did Sear Bliss first come together? In a very spooky night and a very eerie autumn... haha, I like these cliches. Actually, it happened in 1993 when I decided to form Sear Bliss with the aim to create something fresh and a bit outside the norm. The line up was ready quite quickly, as I had some musician friends. So, we started rehearsing like hell and we wrote a couple of songs. We have shown no sign of existence til 1995 when we recorded our first and only demo, entitled The Pagan Winter.

'Sear Bliss' is a great band name.  How did you come up with it?  Is there any special meaning behind it? I'm glad you like it. Thank you. Actually, I can't remember exactly how I come up with it. I often read poetry and I was inspired by a poem of Charles Baudleaire when I found out this name. I wanted something unique, not the average shit, you know. I was sick of the many boring and brainless band names at that time.

On the main page of your web-site, it says "Atmospheric Black Metal."  Is this how you would describe Sear Bliss' music? No. It was probably the idea of the web masters. I'm going to tell them to change it. I'm not into labeling our music as atmospheric black metal. I would describe it as a very dark and sorrowful music - similar to black metal. Our music is more complex in some ways. I mean, we use acoustic guitars, trumpets, etc. and we try to play intelligent music in the metal genre. It's a mixture of the feelings and emotions of the different personalities found in Sear Bliss. Anyway, it's up to the people to describe it.

Can you describe to me the typical process you guys go through when writing songs? We write our songs at home mostly. My ideas for a song are born when I'm alone. I play it for the other guys and each of us put his own ideas into the song. The process is very democratic in Sear Bliss. Each of us has got the right to put something into the song. We rehearse the parts and try to get a whole song together. Sometimes it takes quite a lot of time. By the way, a lot of things inspire us during the process of writing.

On The Haunting, you had a few people outside the band write or co-write some of the lyrics. How did you hook up with them? They are close friends of ours. They knew our music and the songs very well, so they created some lyrics for us that we liked and thought would fit well to the songs, so we used their ideas. We like these lyrics. The names of those who contributed to the lyrics are: Attila Halasz, he is a great friend of mine for a long time. He taught me to speak English and he helped a lot to Sear Bliss when we started. Anyway, he lives in Australia. Laszlo Fodor is a friend of ours and he is the editor of Stygian Shadows 'zine and David Bowers is a Sear Bliss fan from the States and we are in contact for years now.

The use of trumpet is very inspired and really adds to your sound.  What made you guys decide to take this rather bold step in the first place?  Can we expect more trumpet in the future? The idea of using trumpet in this rather violent type of music came to my mind when I formed the band. Actually we wanted to try fresh things and to be original and exciting, that's why we include this instrument. Actually, with the softening sound of the trumpet we try to find the right balance between anger and desire, the two main components of Sear Bliss' music. A lot of bands use violins and cellos but I think the brasses are a lot more powerful. Some people think it's nonsense to use a trumpet in this music but when they listen to our albums or come to our gigs, their point of view changes. Yes, you can expect more trumpet in future, definitely. We will give more creativity and space to this instrument.

It has been a couple of years since The Haunting was released.  Have there been any line-up changes during that time? Yes, there have been some changes, as we have a new guitar player and a new keyboard player now. Two years have passed since "The Haunting" and it turned out that some of us weren't dedicated to the band totally, therefore the changes were needed.

Have you started work yet on the new album? Absolutely. With full force. Actually, we have written the whole album. We are ready and eager to record it.  The fact is that our contract is fulfilled and we are looking for a good label. Fortunately, we got some offers, so I hope we can record the album soon. We will make an advance recording in February and hopefully we will record the album in spring. It will contain 7 songs and probably it is going to be our most powerful material.

How is it sounding in comparison to your previous works? The songs are more violent and fierce, but we keep the moody parts played with the acoustic guitars and the trumpet. We want to eliminate the faults we had in the sound last time. So, we are striving for a more dynamic production. Music-wise it is going to be more improved and it will have a deeper meaning but let's talk of it when we hold the CD in our hand.

Who will you have produce the new album?  Where will it be recorded? We will record it in Hungary this time, in a very professional studio and we will have a very good producer, so we hope the production will live up to our expectations. The advance recording in February will take place in a smaller but quite good studio in our town anyway.

The Haunting was recorded in Holland.  What made you decide to record there? Actually, our label advised that we should record there. It was a very good studio but our label fucked up the sound. We spent almost two weeks there to record everything and to make a rough mix which sounded quite good. Then we went home and let the sound engineer do the final mixing. When he finished, our label wanted to re-mix the whole thing because they were not satisfied with the sound. They did the remix without any sense for sound engineering and this is the result. We were quite angry because the production they did is quite shit but what can we do? We were not pleased with this label anyway. It was great fun to record in Holland, but this time we won't let anyone fuck the production up. We want to control everything by ourselves.

So far, all your releases have been through II Moons/Mascot.  How did you initially hook up with the label?  Are you satisfied with their work so far?  Will you continue working with them in the future? When we released our demo The Pagan Winter in 1995 we sent it to a lot of labels. That demo was quite popular in the underground scene, we sold 900 copies of it without any promotion and we got very good responses and reviews. Things went quickly and we got some offers from a couple of labels and Mascot seemed the most serious one, so we signed to them. As I told before, we are no longer at Mascot and we are looking for a better and more trustable label, so we will not continue working with them. All in all, we are satisfied with their work and they helped a lot in the early times which is good, but on the other hand they were dishonest sometimes and we don't like that, so the change was needed.

How is the scene in Hungary?  Are you in touch with many other bands or not? It's getting strong now, there are many good bands over here, playing serious music and wanting the world know that "yes" there is high quality original metal music in Hungary. I hope more and more Hungarian bands will get international recognition soon. We are not in touch with many bands. We are now used to working on our own.

Looking at the concert dates on your web-site, it appears you played a number of shows all over Europe in 1997.  Any special memories from that tour that you'd like to share?  Who all did you play with? Yeah, it was a very good and memorable tour. We played with Marduk and Tsatthoggua and it was a great opportunity for us. We have a lot of special memories, I wish I could return to those days. Marduk is a really great band and it was a nice surprise that they are such cool guys. As far as the shows are concerned, people were surprised by our music. You know our music is quite different than Marduk's. It was unusual for the crowd to see a trumpet player. It was good to see that Sear Bliss is not unknown abroad. Especially people in Holland and Italy have shown big interest for our music. I really enjoyed the whole tour. The guys from Marduk were great and it was good to meet some exciting people, to see different countries. Travelling a lot and playing each night is quite a big challenge, but I enjoyed it anyway. We had an opportunity to tour with Ancient to support The Haunting but unfortunately we had to cancel it due to my studying at a university. I regret it but I hope we can tour again after the release of our new album.

How have the albums sold so far?  What countries do you have the largest followings in? Unfortunately we don't know too much of the sales because of the dishonesty of our label. I don't know exact numbers but we know that almost 10,000 copies have been sold from the first album Phantoms, which is very good for a debut album. The Haunting was sold a bit lesser and The Pagan Winter mini-CD, too. Sale wise Holland, Germany and Greece were the best countries but I think we have the most enthusiastic following in Hungary.

All of your CDs have very beautiful, epic album covers.  Is it the same artist (Kris Verwimp) that did all of them or not?  How did you hook up with him? Yes, Kris did all of our cover artworks and we are very satisfied with his works. I think our covers are perfect visualizations of our music and Kris is able to paint what we want to see. We always tell him our ideas and draw some drafts, he listens to the songs and reads the lyrics to have a clue of what we want to express. Anyway, our label offered him and I was really astonished when I first saw the artwork for Phantoms. We met Kris in Holland when we toured and he is a nice guy. We want to continue working with him in the future.

Do you follow the metal scene at large?  What is your opinion about how the black metal scene as a whole has developed over the past ten years? Of course I follow the scene, as I'm interested in it very much. As far as the development of the black metal scene is concerned, I think it's got both the negative and positive side of it. I mean, it was good that suddenly a lot of great albums were released, but on the other hand, there were too many poor productions released. Many young bands without knowing how to play even one single note on their instrument. That fact surely destroyed the scene. I see that there are not too many black metal bands nowadays than a couple of years ago and the style is not so popular or trendy and that's good because the weak bands passed away and mostly the stronger and original bands stayed, there are not that many average ones. Black metal is existing for a long time and will be here forever.

The lyrics to "Land of Silence" are very interesting.  It seems to reflect a yearning for times of old, before so-called 'progress' destroyed the bond between humans and nature.  It also has something of an optimistic feeling, that there is hope.  Is this even close to what you were trying to express?  Please tell me what thoughts and feelings inspired this track. Yes, what you told is perfectly right but actually there was a real inspiration for this song.  After the first World War, the mighty Transylvania (along with other great territories) was stolen from Hungary. Transylvania now belongs to Romania because some fuckers decided that a beat country has to lose more. Transylvania is almost as big as the whole of Hungary now. It was a very mournful moment in the history of Hungary. I'm of Transylvanian origin, so it means a lot for me. My grandparents had to escape over the border to come to Hungary because the Romanians tried and are still trying to destroy everything which has got something to do with Hungary. These mournful things inspired this song. Transylvania is an incredibly beautiful place, full of enormous mountains and forests. If you read the lyrics now, aware of the things I mentioned, you can find these inspirations. Of course, these lyrics can be described the way you did figuratively.

What are your personal thoughts on religion vs. spirituality? Actually, I hate any kind of religion. Every religion is worthless when it becomes organized. So for me the image of any god means nothing. Religions destroy the personal freedom, individuality and spirituality too. Those who need religion are weak in some ways, I think.

Do you have any special interests outside of music? Sure. I have a lot of interests. For example I'm interested in movies, mostly David Lynch movies. I love sci-fi too. 2001 is definitely the best one ever created. I'm into motor bikes, too, and I'm interested in some sports, but these are just daily hobbies.

Has anyone in the band worked on any side-projects or is everyone pretty focused on Sear Bliss? Sear Bliss is definitely the most important for us; it is our main band, however some of us are involved in other bands, too. Our drummer is playing with a jazz band but it's only a project and he helps them as a session drummer. I got a side project which I do with our former keyboard player. It's a very dark and terrifying music. Quite horrible and chaotic, haha. Anyway, we plan to record a demo in the next couple of month.

Do you have any long-term goals for Sear Bliss? Of course we have. Now the most important is to record and release our new album firstly. Then we will have a couple gigs in the next months and we would like to tour as soon as possible. By the way, we have a strange plan for the summer. We were asked by a quite famous Hungarian director to do a very special performance. They want Sear Bliss to be featured in a Brecht opera on stage. He directs the opera with our music and it's quite strange as we don't write music for this opus, but he directs it to our songs. The money for the budget is almost there, so the rehearsals will start in April and the performances will take place in the summer as a tour in Hungary's theaters. It's definitely a unique plan and a great challenge for us. We don't know what to expect but we will see, haha. People will be surprised for sure.

SENTENCED

Interview with Ville Laihiala by Daniel Hinds

(conducted May 2005)

As the summer fades and the festivals draw to a close, the final chapter is being written for Sentenced. After sixteen years of bitterness and joy, Finland's finest have mutually agreed to go their separate ways, leaving us one final emotional release in the shape of The Funeral Album. Infused with all of the hope, melancholy, anger and wry humor that have long defined Sentenced, this terminal opus also covers much of the musical ground of the past while incorporating a few new twists as well (check out the children's choir on "Vengeance is Mine" and the harmonica at the start of "Despair-Ridden Hearts").. To help alleviate the grief and see us through this time of mourning, vocalist Ville Laihiala delivers his eulogy for the serial self-killers… I know you guys took a break prior to The Cold White Light - was there a thought at that point of putting the band to rest? No, not at that time. We were really tired of touring and starting to get into arguments, but nothing really serious. That break we took before The Cold White Light was really good for us and you can hear on that album that we really needed the break. In regards to the new album, the song "Where Waters Fall Frozen" really stands out - what inspired that one? The guys were actually waiting for me to arrive at the rehearsal place, so maybe they got this sudden burst of anger because I was late or something, I don't know. They started to jam on that song and we all felt it deserves to be on the album. It's something that nobody would really expect. We left it the way it was at the rehearsal place, like this kind of a crappy-sounding, shitty-playing violent burst of diarrhea or whatever. Still you can also see kind of a reference to the past of the band, this kind of dyed-to-the-roots, but it wasn't made with that in mind. I like the fact that with the last couple albums, you really took your time and worked on them until you were satisfied BUT you didn't spend six years agonizing over every little detail either. Is that a difficult balance at all, deciding at what point a song is truly finished? That's one reason we use a producer when we record. We record the songs in a way that we want in the studio and also try the sounds that we think would fit and that's where the producer comes in, to help us reach even deeper into the sound or whatever. If you truly concentrate on what you are doing and the song you are working on, it's pretty painless to find the right sounds and right atmospheres. Obviously, some songs don't work so we just kick them out of the fucking album. (laughs) Is everyone in the band usually on the same page in terms of which songs work and which ones don't? It doesn't really matter who brings the song to the rehearsal place, we all five contribute something because it has to go through each one of us since we play the song together. So everybody does their own part in a way and usually all the arguments happens at the rehearsal place. When we go into the studio, it is more or less working and trying to do the very best that you can. What is the process like as far as uniting the lyrics and the music? Does the music evoke the lyrics or vice versa or do they both come independently? First is music and then lyrics. We usually write what the music makes us feel or the vibe that we get out of the song. To us, it is really important that the music and the lyrics work together. The song should be one whole thing and not just one guitar riff and crappy lyrics on it or whatever; they have to work together. Yeah, it seems like the emphasis has really gone away from meaningful lyrics with a lot of bands in recent years, but you guys have always written songs that meant something. Like I said, it's a big part of the song and our main lyric writer [Sami] Lopakka, he's really taking time when he's writing those things. His principles and humor are kind of in a way weird but still really healthy, if you understand. To me, when I read his lyrics I always find something totally black there. Sentenced is one of those rare bands that writes such dark lyrics, yet when I am feeling down, they always manage to make me feel better. They lift you up. To us, it's the same way. It's kind of therapy to us, to get rid of everything, the depressive feelings or whatever, so maybe it's the same kind of experience for a lot of [other] people, too. Which is really great to hear. The cover artwork is very minimal - was it difficult at all to decide what direction to go with the artwork for this one? The theme is 'funeral' so obviously we wanted it to be more or less black and dark images. All of the booklet images and art were made by our drummer and he took pictures all over Europe. It's really hard to explain the pictures because they don't really….uh…… (laughs) You should really see the pictures. He did more of like, not that much colors and a theme throughout the whole booklet. I understand there is a DVD in the works. What can we expect from that and when will it see the light of day? We're going to play our final show in our home town, Oulu, in September and we're going to record the DVD out of that show. The reason for that is that we know that there are a lot of people who aren't able to come to the final show so they can at least watch it on DVD, the last five minutes of the band. There will also be all of our videos and also lots of stuff that we have recorded with our own personal video cameras throughout the years, so there should be a lot of twisted and funny weird shit to put on there, too. We also are going to record two videos from this last album. Oh, which songs are you going to do? "Everfrost" and "Despair-Ridden Hearts." Oh cool- I don't think it's cool because I hate making videos. Maybe it's just me because I don't really watch music television so I just think it's a waste of money. That's very cool that you are filming the final show though, since like you said, there are many people who won't be able to see you on this last tour but really want to. We've got two days before the show to prepare everything, so it should look okay. (pause) Even though the band sucks. Can you tell me about what plans you have for Poisonblack? The second album was recorded already eight months ago, but I have to remix it because I don't like the sound and also we will record four new songs for it and kick out some of the bad songs. Try to make it as tight as possible and it will be out at the end of this year, so for me this touring and playing music will continue at least one more year. How does this Poisonblack album compare to the first one? I'm going to say that gothic girls will be truly disappointed - it's not gothic anymore. Do you have any plans beyond that? No, after the touring for the next Poisonblack album is done then I'm going to take a long, long, LONG break from music and maybe produce or record or whatever but it will be something with music because I've been doing it since I was eleven years old and now I'm nineteen. (laughs) But yeah, just spend time with my boys and see them grow and I've already lost so much time of my fatherhood so I want to get some of that back so it's time to put the music aside.

SENTENCED

Interview with Sami Lopakka by Daniel Hinds

(conducted February 2000)

Finland has unleashed a number of potent acts on the metal scene in recent years, from Nightwish to Babylon Whores to Children of Bodom to name just a few, but Sentenced have been there for over ten years and were key to really making a name for the scene in the minds of international fans.  Evolving from a brutal form of death metal into their current state of melodic, suicidal metal, the band has only gotten better with age.  Surprisingly, they have also only had one major line-up shift in all that time, which was the departure of original bassist/vocalist Taneli Jarva following the Amok release.  His vocal replacement, Ville Laihiala, brought a much moodier, cleaner style to the band and the match was perfect for their new sound.

After the excellent Down and awe-inspiring Frozen, the band began to receive some much-deserved recognition, ending up with a gold record in their homeland for the latter and a great deal of airplay.  Just this past month, the band's latest opus, Crimson, was released to usher in the year 2000 in style.  Guitarist Sami Lopakka gives us the details behind this album and other activities related to the Northernmost Killers...

How has the response to Crimson been so far? Well, the album has only been out for a week here in Europe, but so far the critics have been very good all over.  It was the Album of the Month in many magazines, including Metal Hammer of Germany, one of the biggest ones.  We just heard that after one week, it is #1 on the charts in Finland.  So, it has been really good, but we still have to wait for a while to get the real reaction from real people.

What are your feelings about the album? We are totally satisfied with the album.  It turned out just the way that we wanted it to be and we worked on it for almost a year, from the first note to this final result.  So it was pretty satisfying to get it done finally and the result we got finally from all these 4 studios that we were in while recording this.  It's a relief that it is now ready and everything went fine, so we have nothing to complain about - no regrets about it.  Now we're just waiting to get people's reaction and getting to play these songs live.

I understand you were more involved with the production on Crimson?  Were you at all nervous about doing the production on this album yourselves?   Not really, because we've been around for almost-- not almost, we've been around for ten years and we trust ourselves that much that maybe we can have our own opinions about something and maybe we finally know what we are doing.  On the other hand, we also had this kind of co-producer who was with us all the time and he was taking care of all the technical side that the studio has, so we could concentrate completely on the music and the playing itself.

Do you think you will go that route next time too? It's too early to say.  It could be we will work the same way next time as we did on Crimson, but I just couldn't say yet.  We keep changing music-wise, so we also keep changing production-wise.

Why did you decide to sequence the tracks so that each song led directly into the next? I think the songs have kind of a relation to each other and it's not very interesting to put one song and then four seconds or five seconds of nothing and then the next song.  We just wanted to do something different and with these songs, it was pretty easy to do it because they fit together quite easily.  On the other hand, the songs are really quite different from each other, so the atmosphere keeps changing.  In the mastering, it was possible to make a whole package of all the songs, and we just took that possibility.

How was "Killing Me, Killing You" chosen for the first single? It was kind of a hard choice for us, because there are like four or five songs that could have been the one, so we had to ask some people that are close to us and also Hiili, the co-producer, and some other people what they think.  But in the end it was pretty obvious because you need to have this four-minute edit of the song for the radio stations and for that song, it was really easy to cut it in pieces and make this edit, and it's also a catchy song, so maybe it was a commercial choice as well.

I understand you did a video for the song, too.  Can you describe it a bit? Yeah, we went to northern Norway for the video, to a place that is almost the northernmost place that you can go on Earth by car this time of year.  We were shooting it on the shores of the Arctic Sea and it was very cold there.  We had to take little breaks all the time, just to keep our fingers moving.  I think you can actually see from the video how cold it is.  This freezing atmosphere gives another aspect to the song itself, so it was an interesting process.  It's kind of hard to explain a video in words, so maybe you should just check it out if you have the possibility.

I don't know if they would ever play it over here. Yeah, I know the situation over there. (laughs)

Who directed it? It was a Finnish guy and I don't think he has done anything international yet.  He is rising in the business, but he is very talented and the video seems a lot more expensive than it really is, so he will be known worldwide someday.

The cover art on Crimson is very striking.  Did Niklas come up with the entire concept himself or did you suggest some of the ideas? Yeah, we were working together, but he did all the art.  He was giving us different motifs and different kind of stuff for each page and the cover and we just picked out what we wanted.  It was very easy this way.  He always put the new designs on the Internet, on his home page, then we could check it out right then and decide what we wanted to change and what we don't want to change.  But in the end, we really have to give him all the credit about the cover.

I understand you played a ten-year anniversary show in your hometown around Christmas.  How did that go? It was very good, we were surprised how good it was.  The place here in Oulu was packed, we had almost a thousand people and we had little special things planned for it, like we played songs that we hadn't played for many years.  We did songs from almost every album that we ever did, it was pretty interesting.  It was the first time in five years and I think probably the last, too.  It went very good but it just didn't feel right.  The people were excited though, so what the hell?

You also did a show on New Year's Eve.  What was that like? That wasn't as good.  I think this whole millennium thing was like over-advertised.  We had 700 people in there, but if I compare it to the anniversary show, it was nothing special.  The whole new year was just another day that fucking sucked.  It had no meaning to me personally and I think maybe it had some effect on the show itself, as well.  We just took care of it and got drunk like hell.

The theme of love comes up a lot in your lyrics.  With all the potential for pain, do you feel like love is a worthy goal to be pursued? Yeah, I think so.  In the end, there are not many positive sides in life, but love is one of them and you should aim at it no matter the cost.  Even the pain that comes with it is better than nothing, or boredom.

One of my favorite lines is in the song "Farewell," where you wrote "...The enchantment lies in the moment of good-byes..."  Can you explain a little bit about what inspired this line? That one was written by Ville, the vocalist [d'oh!!--ed.] but I can relate to him pretty good.  This kind of thinking is so natural for us.  All the depression and all the negative things in life, in some way they are romantic to us.  Any time we write music, we write the music first and then write lyrics from the feeling that we get from the music.  When the music is quite sad, it always turns out that the lyrics are that way, too.  Having romantic views over death or good-byes, it's just something that has strong emotion and it's interesting to deal with these kinds of things in our lyrics.

Another line I like is at the end of "Grave Sweet Grave:"  "...the dawn shall steal my dreams no more..."  Do you think there is some kind of connection between death and dreams? No, not really.  The song starts with the words, 'I have seen my funeral in a thousand dreams' and the last line is kind of hoping that this time it wouldn't be a dream.  About death in general, I really hope there is no afterlife or another life waiting for us.  I hope this life is enough and we suffer enough. (laughs)

When Frozen was re-issued in the digi-pack, why was the track order re-arranged? Well, this whole thing was not something we were comfortable with, releasing the whole album again with these 4 cover tracks, but we had these covers and the idea was to put them out with Frozen again.  We wanted to make the digipak of Frozen a little bit different, more than just to have a couple of extra songs that aren't even our songs.  There's no special reason, just that we wanted to have something different.

Did ever consider just releasing a MCD instead or was the whole thing the record company's idea? Yeah, more or less.  There are two sides to music - the artistic side and the business side - and you just have to find a way to make it satisfactory for everyone.

Was it difficult choosing the tracks for the Greatest Kills collection? Yeah, it kind of was.  Already when that came out, we had quite a bit of songs and of course there some obvious choices, like "Nepenthe" and "Noose" and "Awaiting the Winter Frost," but then we had to leave so many songs out that we would have liked to have been there.  You just have to limit it to something and it was kind of difficult, but it turned out okay and all the songs there represent some time in our history.

Do you keep up much on what is happening in the metal scene at large? I'm not very much following it and the one reason for that is that I don't have much time.  This band is already taking so much of our time, we don't have any more time to give to music.  When we are rehearsing for three hours and I come home, the first thing in mind is not music.  I've had so many disappointments when checking out all the new bands, usually the all are just full of crap, like 98% are a total waste of time - a waste of time that I don't have.  So I just wait and let the music find me.  If I'm interested in some band, I believe that sooner or later, it will find me and I don't have to look for it all the time.

Do the guys in the band hang out much outside of actual band activities? Eh, not much, but we hang out sometime during the weeks.  We all live near Oulu here in northern Finland, so we see each other whenever we go to a bar or so on.  So, maybe a couple of times a month outside the band.

Is there any chance of a US tour this year for Sentenced? We are making decisions right now and we decided that in the spring, we will do a lot of Finnish shows and all the big European festivals and the Finnish festivals in the summer.  After that, we are doing both, like a full European tour headlining and also it seems that we're coming to the States finally, in September or so.  We'll tour with Iced Earth for 3 weeks or so.

Great!  Are you looking forward to that? Yeah, we are.  We've been getting so much response from there.  We've got this e-mail address that people can send any of their comments or questions to, and we receive a lot of messages from the States and they all are asking, 'Why aren't you coming?' and 'Why haven't you come already?' and 'When are you coming?'  It seems that at least some people over there even like our music, so maybe there is even a reason to come.

METAL CHURCH

Interview with Kurdt Vanderhoof by Daniel Hinds

(conducted January 2000)

Although bands like Nirvana and Queensryche may have sold more albums, Metal Church has always been the band that came to my mind when I thought of Seattle.  It was 1984 and the band released their monumental self-titled debut, combining speed, power and melody into one incredibly energetic sound.  Though overproduced, the follow-up The Dark kept up the quality and the intensity of the debut and saw the band move to a major label, Elektra.  Sadly, it was at this point that vocalist David Wayne exited the band (to front L.A. band Reverend for a slew of albums) and main song-wrtier/guitarist Kurdt Vanderhoof took a backseat position, allowing guitarist John Marshall to take his place.  The succeeding albums, while all certainly listenable, lacked the same punch of the earlier material and the band eventually called it quits in the mid-90s.

Fortunately, the story didn't end there.  In 1998, the original line-up (sans Craig Wells) got back together and recorded the remarkably fresh-sounding Masterpeace.  Kurdt Vanderhoof shares the details behind the reunion and the future of the Church…

Now that it is done and out, what are your feelings about Masterpeace? I'm glad that it's out. (laughs)  The reviews have been fair, some have been mixed.  I think it's alright.  I don't know what to say about it other than I'm fairly proud of it.

How has the reaction been from the fans? It's been mixed.  I'd say about 75% of the people really like it and 25 don't really care for it.

Was the recording process different than the previous MC outings? Well, we did it ourselves.  We did it at my studio and self-produced it.

Will you do that again in the future? Always.  I'm tired of spending lots of money, giving it to other studios.

You and David (Wayne, vocalist) wrote everything on Masterpeace - was that intentional or did it just turn out that way? It didn't start off that way.  When we initially started this thing, Craig Wells (original guitarist) was involved, but he had to back out.  So Dave and I ended up just doing it.  John (Marshall, guitarist) was living in San Francisco and he really couldn't get up here for writing that much.

I was going to ask about Craig, as I had heard that he was kind of the one who got the reunion going in the first place. Yeah, he was the one who instigated it and kind of informed me that David Wayne had moved back [to Seattle].  I hadn't spoken to Dave in 10 or 12 years and thought he was still in L.A.  So, he was kind of the one who instigated it, but as we got started he realized it probably wouldn't have been a real healthy environment for him to be back involved in.  So he had to back out gracefully.  That was fine because John and I have always wanted to work together, so…

What was your reason for taking more of a backseat role in the 80s? I started getting more into the production aspect of it, of music and really wanted to get into building my own studio and working on my songwriting skills and that kind of thing.  And there was a lot of tension and crap going on in the band that I really didn't feel was necessary. (laughs)  At the time, I didn't want to get into interviews and stuff going, 'Well, this guy is a dick and we hate each other,' and blah blah blah.  But I did want to get more into the production aspect of it and learn how to do that.

Were the problems in the band a result of pressure from the label? No, not really.  It was just a lot of it was five guys with very strong personalities (laughs) and the typical 80s, being kids and drugs and alcohol and that kind of b.s. that we fortunately outgrew.

With the cover of "Toys in the Attic," were you really looking to do a cover or did that song just come along and you decided to use it? Well, the cover ideas was like…  I was literally just driving home and I heard that on the radio and I just went, 'That is a great song and that would be a good cover.'  We had messed with a couple or three other ones and when we jammed on that, it was like, 'Let's do that one.'  It just felt right.  It was fun.

It's kind of cool because it isn't what you'd expect from a Metal Church cover. Right. (laughs)  That was the whole idea, we didn't want to do something expected.

Have you done any live shows since the reunion? We just got back from Europe.  We were over there for a month and a half.

Who did you tour with? We were headlining and a band called Thunderhead was opening.

Did that go pretty well? Yeah, actually it did, it went a lot better than I expected.  I didn't think a lot of people would even remember. (laughs)  And I was pleasantly surprised when they did.

When can we expect a live show in Seattle? We're trying to get a U.S. tour going and we definitely want to try, but considering the climate of American rock, it's going to be pretty hard.  Nobody seems to really want to see it or hear it here in America.

Do you think that will get better or not? I think it has to.  I think the Korn and Limp Bizkit stuff is like, 'Oh cool, listen to how noisy it is,' but I think everybody will get over that pretty quick.  I hope - that stuff is garbage.  As far as America is concerned, in my opinion, rock 'n' roll is in the worst state it has ever been in in its history.

It's pretty bad… It's really bad.  It is getting better, though.  It's better than it was a couple of years ago, but it's still awful.  Hopefully the millennium will wake people up.  "Oh right, guys who can play!"

What a concept! (laughs) Yeah, who knew?

It seems to be better in Europe.  Was that your impression when you were over there? Oh definitely for metal.  Absolutely.  They're still wearing the leather-arm bands with the studs, the leather jackets and the Motorhead patches - they've got it all still.

Looking back, do you think it was wise to sign with Elektra when you did or not? Oh definitely.  It was more of a bad decision when the band signed to Blackheart Records near the end. (laughs)  Again, though, that was right when everything was changing.  You know, bad management and all those wonderful VH-1 horror stories.

What exactly happened with your band Hall Aflame? Oh, that was a heart-breaker.  We took off really fast, we got a record deal really fast and went on the road with ZZ Top and Blue Oyster Cult.  Then we came back home and were going to do our second record, but realized that I.R.S. Records had really dropped the ball on us and we ended up slugging it out in the clubs around here for a couple of years, until it just burned out.  But we're actually talking about getting together and at least doing what was going to be our second album.  So, every band I've been in my history has put out a record this past year or is going to. (laughs)  We put out The Lewd record last year (Kill Yourself…Again).  We found all our old [Hall Aflame] demos and stuff and our drummer mastered them a bit and put them on CD, and we realized that we've got to get this stuff recorded properly and available, even if it's just on the Internet.  The stuff was really good and we'd just like to have it documented.

Do you have any long-term goals for Metal Church or just one day at a time? With Metal Church, we're going to at least continue to make records, now that we're all here and have a facility to do it at where we don't have to spend all our money.  We can make the records for cheap, make a little bit of dough from an advance and still get to work together and make music.  We're going to try to keep going as long as we can, at least making records, but my main concern is the Vanderhoof thing that I've been doing.  I'm remixing the first Vanderhoof album for American release right now, then we start our second album.

What does the Vanderhoof material sound like? It sounds like 70s rock.  Purple, Uriah Heep…all that stuff.  On the next record, we're going in more of a progressive rock direction, more like Kansas and Rush.  We'll use the Hammond organ, maybe a little Styx-type of vocals - all the stuff that isn't cool now.  We want to do all that.  Big, long songs with lots of vocals (laughs), the Boston thing.  Very 70s rock, which is my favorite stuff.  I just really feel the need to make that style of music available because nobody is doing that at all and it's a hell of a lot of fun. (laughs)

Who will be releasing that one? It is coming out through Nuclear Blast, on a different label.

They seem like a pretty cool label.  Have they been pretty good to you guys so far? So far.  We just started working with them and they seem really on top of it and they're really enthusiastic, which is one thing that I think is great.

I wanted to ask you about a show you did a long time ago.  It was the first time I saw you guys, at a show in Eugene, Oregon called Summer Jam.  Do you have any particular memories of that show? Oh right, with Montrose!  I remember it rained and I remember getting really drunk afterward.  And wanting to go up and talk to Ronnie Montrose and go, 'Dude!  Your first album KICKED ASS!!'  That kind of thing, as I was a total fan of those first two Montrose records.

Have you started on the next Metal Church record at all? No, not yet.  We probably won't do that until I finish up the couple of Vanderhoof things.  We're definitely going to do another record, but not quite sure when yet, 'cause I'm really into the 70s. (laughs)  I love the fact that we're back together and hopefully we can tour here in America and do some shows, but I definitely want to keep Metal Church going, as it is a big part of me, too.

The thing I liked about Masterpeace is that it didn't sound like you were trying to re-create the first album. Everybody loves the first record and everybody wanted this to be the follow-up to The Dark and all that.  The way we approached it, and the only way I said I would do it when it was initially presented to me, was circa 1986.  Let's not try to do something new and modern, or industrial or grungy or alternative - let's do a Metal Church record, the best way we can 16 years later. (laughs)  As long as when people see a Metal Church record, they know what they're going to get.  It's going to be the best that we can do with the style that people expect from us.  And I want to keep it melodic and I don't want it to be Satanic. (laughs)

ANGEL DUST

Interview with Bernd Aufermann by Daniel Hinds

(conducted November 1999)

Back in the 1980s, thrash fans were bombarded with new bands every day from every corner of the world.  Germany had its share of star players, mainly Kreator, Sodom and Destruction.  The second wave German thrashers didn't get as a high a profile internationally, but it certainly wasn't for lack of talent.  Assassin, Darkness, and Exumer all released some killer material, but Angel Dust is the only one of the bunch still alive in 1999.  Okay, so they actually split up in '89 and didn't get back together until 1997, but they have quickly re-established their presence with an updated power metal approach.

The band's second opus since their rebirth is called Bleed and it was just recently issued here in the States.  Guitarist Bernd Aufermann tells us more about the critically acclaimed album and the band behind it…

Are you happy with Bleed and how has the response to it been? Yes, of course we are.  Here in Europe, we have sold very well.  It took us three weeks to get the selling rates of the previous album.  And right now, we seem to be getting much more popular in the States.  I just surfed the Internet a little and we've got lots of response from progressive metal freaks, and I've got here 457 e-mails from just fans from the States.  It will take me a lot of time and work to answer them all! (laughs)

Well, that's a good thing. (laughs) Yes, it is, definitely, we really love it.  We didn't expect that because Bleed was released here in I think it was May of this year and it sold very well.  We were a little bit sad about not playing that much this time here in Europe and we thought, okay, let's go onto the next album.  So it was a little surprising for us to get the reaction we did from the States and from the Far East as well.

How would you compare Bleed to Border of Reality? Oh, I think it has a much darker approach and we've improved as a band in playing and song-writing.  It is much more aggressive, it has a much more powerful sound than the Border of Reality album.  We've got a little lack of that speed approach that maybe we had on the first albums, and we focused much more on the groove.  The lyrics as well I think are much more intense.  We use to think a lot about what we were writing about and I think this is the main difference from the previous album.

Tell me about some of the lyrical themes on the new album. It's about bad experiences you have in your life, especially here in the music business.  We have so many tours with other bands - we went on tour with Overkill, we went on tour with Jag Panzer in Europe and Nevermore in Greece.  It was pretty fun but not all the time.  We had a little trouble with Overkill at first, but they turned out to be some guys that were really okay.  We've got one red line crossing the lyrics on the Bleed album and that is what can happen to you when you lose your path through your life.  We had a few friends who died because of drug abuse and a few songs deal with that theme.  So, I think Bleed is a very thoughtful, intense and emotional album.

Why the title 'Bleed'?   We sat down in the rehearsal studio and though, man, what do we want to stress with an album title?  It was like, finally, when all is said and done and everything turns out to be the way it is right now, all that's left is that you have to bleed for something.  We always have the feeling that somebody wants to bother us - the record company tells us things to do, the record company says this, says that, the manager says this, says that, the fans say something different, and we've got another approach.  So what is left in this business is that you have to bleed to be successful. (laughs)

I liked the cover art.  Can you tell me a bit about the artist who did the cover? (pause)  You liked the cover artwork?

Umm, yeah… It's a funny story behind that.  We had this idea that we would like to have this kind of angel back again on the cover, but we would like to have a photograph, not a painted picture.  Century Media said, 'No, we can't do this.  It's kind of your image, you've got to appeal to the metal people, you can't use any pictures.'  So what they did was they put the idea we had for the cover into that painting.  They said, 'Oh, we have that painting - you should come have a look.'  We went there and said, 'Oh, fuck!!  What's that??  No!  We don't want that!!'  And they're like, 'Oh, sorry folks, it's already being printed.'  And we were just like, no, it can't be true.  You've probably seen the United States version, which is much better than the European version.  The European cover is much worse, I really hate the cover.  I hate the posters, I hate everything.  I think for the next album, the rights are for us to say, 'No, we don't want to have this anymore.'  Right now, our bass player is having a conference with the record company bosses.  The thing is that we were really unsatisfied with the cover here in Europe and Steve our keyboard player is also very able to do graphic design.  So, he said, 'I'll do it for the States and the Far East version' and he sat down and changed a few things, a few colors, a bit of the layout, so for the United States version we were like, okay, we can accept that, that's not too bad. (laughs)  I've got it here right now, the United States version, and I really like it, it's okay.

What exactly inspired you guys to reform Angel Dust in the 90s? It's not really a reunion.  The original members are just the bass player and the drummer.  We knew each other for a very long time and when they started in the 80s, they did that very speed metal influenced stuff, which wasn't really my kind of music.  They tried over and over again to build a new line-up, but the original members weren't available because one member had tinitis and another wasn't able to play his guitar, as he didn't practice for ten years, I don't know.  I used to be a studio musician, as a guitarist, and they said, hey how about it?  At that time, I had a solo deal for an instrumental record, but hey, nobody needs a guitar instrumental record. (laughs)  Especially from Germany, so I didn’t give anything about that.  We played a few songs together and it fit well.  Steven Banx was in my band at that time and I'm not the kind of guy who likes to play with another guitarist, so I said, hey, let's check out keyboards.  So we did that, we found Dirk who was a good singer, and that was it - Angel Dust was back in 1997.

Was there a point when you were considering using a new name rather than Angel Dust? To be honest, there was this point when the original members said, okay, we've got the right to use the names.  They thought it would open many doors and they were right.  As soon as we released a demo tape, we had the press right here going, 'Yeah, all right!  Good to see you together again!' and my fax was almost blown away by record companies offering us deals.

Are the first two albums available on CD? No, not yet.  We are really into re-releasing them, but the old record company has no interest to do that.  Century Media offered them lots of money to get the rights back, but they didn't react in any way.  It was like, 'we don't care, no, I don't want to talk about it.'  But we heard that the laws say that after ten years, we are allowed to re-release the stuff on our own.  Hopefully we will re-release the material, although… I don't like the old stuff so much. (laughs)  It's pretty funny to play the stuff on stage, but it's not my kind of music.

How did you decide on going with Century Media? When we released that demo tape, I got I think 56 record companies with offers in my e-mail and fax and we just compared them to each other.  The Century Media boss was an old friend of our bass player, he was the first in line.  He said, here's a contract, here are the conditions, do you accept, what do you think?  And we were like, ah, let us wait, we've got so many offers, so we'll see.  It turned out that Century Media definitely did have the best offer.  Century Media is only 5 minutes away by car from me right now, so it's easy for me to go in the office and say hello, what's wrong, what's right, and that's okay.

Do you still do any of the old material live?   Yes, we do.  When we do headlining shows, we're going to play maybe 4 or 5 of the old songs and the other stuff is new material.  When we do support shows where we only have 45 minutes or even less, we only play one song or even none.

Do you find that most of the audience is only familiar with the new music? Yes, of course.

Do you have any tour plans coming up? We have a few plans but I can't guarantee them.  We might play a few Christmas shows maybe with Motorhead here in Europe - Paris, maybe Madrid or even Rome - we don't know yet.  We got an offer from Crimson Glory, asking us if we'd like to play the States or even Europe with them.  It would be great, but I don't know if we can get it scheduled because in January, we will be back in the studio to record the next album.

My next question was going to be if there is any chance of playing the States… Yes, we would love to do that.  I can tell every promoter we don't want to earn much money! (laughs)  Give us a hotel room, give us something to drink, and we would love to play, really.  We don't know how the selling rates will be in the States right now.  We can ask Century Media if they would like to have us there, but the United States is so big it would take maybe six months to tour the whole country.  We don't know if it is possible, but we'd love to do it.  Depends a lot on the selling rates.  When you've got just 2000 copies out there, it's, I don't know…to be in clubs with just 50 people all the time…

Any plans for the next album yet? I think I'm allowed to tell you that this album could be a concept album.  We're not quite sure yet, but we have a good story.  We have six or seven songs right now and we're going to write about six more.  It sounds a little bit harder than Bleed, definitely, but it has also a strong amount of melody.  It's 100% Angel Dust.  Better melodies and a harder approach then Bleed, maybe.  We don't know how it will turn out, but we hope so.

What are your plans in terms of a studio and producer? The producer will be once again Siggi Bemm, he's famous for doing Tiamat and a lot of other things, and we'll choose the same studio as for Bleed (Woodhouse) because he knows exactly what he's doing there.  He's got good outboard gear and we like each other a lot.  He really helped us get a good sound and this is the first time that he will be involved in the song writing.  We tape everything we have in our rehearsal room for him and he will pick out some ideas and tell us, 'this is good, this is bad, change this, change that.'  It's interesting because we didn't work like this before.  We just got the songs, went into the studio and said, come on, give us a good sound, the arrangement is ours.  Now we've got another band member (laughs).  I don't know how it will turn out, but I think it will be positive because Siggi is absolutely a sound guru.

What do you think of the current metal scene? I don't know how it is in America, I just know the opinion of the Nevermore guys, for example, or the Iced Earth or Jag Panzer guys.  They all say, 'Oh, metal is dead in the States, forget about it!'  They used to say that, but when I look on the Internet, it doesn't seem that way.  But, how many Americans do you have?  250 million?  When you have sales of 20,000 with that many inhabitants, it means nothing.  Here in Europe, it's a weird thing.  We've got this true metal wave and it bores me to death.  I mean, we've got bands that are very popular who would have seemed shitty in the 80s.  From Scandinavia, everybody comes up with those true metal riffs like Saxon and Iron Maiden.  HammerFall, do you know them?  Oh my god….  They're a mixture of, I don't know, a little bit of Maiden, a little bit of Saxon, and they're selling millions of copies here in Europe - it's unbelievable.  I don't know… everyone seems to have to think in those [categories]:  this is true metal, this is power metal, this is poser metal, I don't know.  I think it's just music and everyone should view it as such.

TIAMAT

Interview with Johan Edlund by Ted Hinds

(conducted December 1999)

Is death the end or is it really just the beginning?  At the genesis of the Swedish death metal scene, Tiamat was among the first bands to gain international acclaim with the genre in the early 90s.  By the late 90s, as the death metal movement slowed, Tiamat was one of only a few to evolve beyond it’s dying scene and transform death metal into a viable form of rock and roll.

With albums like Wildhoney in 1994, Johan Edlund, the founding member and musical mastermind of Tiamat, incorporated the psychedelic influences of bands like Pink Floyd and Black Sabbath to break free of the narrow death metal stereotype.  In 1997, Tiamat took this direction even further in the dark and tempestuous A Deeper Kind of Slumber CD, which transcended many of the boundaries between metal, industrial, and gothic music.

However, in the wake of all this success, John Edlund continued to do the unexpected.  The new Tiamat album, Skeleton Skeletron, indulges another side of the band’s musical spectrum—good ol’ fashioned rock and roll.

“I wanted to do an album that was more straight ahead and based on song writing.  More basic with strong melodies,” claims Edlund, speaking from Dortmund, Germany the day after the release of Skeleton Skeletron.  Perhaps surprising to the underground metal community, the album even features a haunting version of  “Sympathy for the Devil.”  Says Edlund, “Rolling Stones leans in the right direction for this album, which is more Stones than (Pink) Floyd.”

In fact, Skeleton Skeletron, repeatedly reminds the listener of great rock bands like the Rolling Stones, as well as bands like Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple, with an energetic, jam-oriented style.

“Exactly,” exclaims Edlund.  “That’s how we work.  That’s our relationship as a band. We like to jam and keep a level of excitement.  This album is not so much based on computers and programming (as earlier Tiamat records).”

Tiamat, the band, has been marred with turnover since it’s inception.  The current line-up, featuring Anders Iwers and Lars Skold, is the first that has held together for two consecutive albums.   It seems like Tiamat has finally found its chemistry.

“It really feels like this, yeah, but I’ve felt like this before. People have come in the past and it seemed like it would work out, but things change.   I can’t be naïve enough to hope for it to be that way now.”

Another thing that hasn’t changed is the lyrical landscape that Tiamat leads its listeners across during its songs--a dark trail through the ruins of lust and madness.  Only this time, that trail is less fantasy and more realism, as Edlund explores his experiences in urban Germany.   “I don’t really know where (the lyrics come from),” says Edlund.  “I just let if flow.  I try to write on the road.  I take a keyboard and laptop with me.”

With the Skeleton Skeletron “doing very well” in Europe, the album has only recently hit record stores in America.  Judging by the success of Wildhoney and A Deeper Kind of Slumber, expectations are high for the album on this side of the Atlantic, and hopefully, an American tour!

“Not right now we don’t have any plans,” says Edlund at the suggestion of touring the States, cautious of making promises so soon after the release of Skeleton Skeletron.  Yet with a powerful new album to follow-up it’s glorious predecessor’s, it’s only a matter of time before the widespread attention Tiamat has earned in Europe spreads to metalheads everywhere in North America.

MORTIIS

Interview with Mortiis by Daniel Hinds

(conducted November 1999)

Mortiis is the elusive musician that started his career as bassist for the notorious black metal outfit known as Emperor, before going solo and heading off into uncharted territory.  Using synths, he has created some stirring, epic-length pieces that blend dark ambient with medieval folk and even some classical music elements.

Released through Sweden's Cold Meat Industry and his own Dark Dungeon Music, the drow elf produced four full-length albums before signing with Earache for his latest, The Stargate.  Using the vocal talents of Sarah Jezebel Deva (ex of Cradle of Filth) and Kalle Metz, this album shows Mortiis developing a much broader and deeper sound than ever before.

After a string of dates here in the U.S. with Christian Death, Mortiis and crew were just about to cross the border into Canada when I got a chance to chat with him via cell phone…

Could you tell me a bit about the storyline of The Stargate and what inspired it? I guess musically I was inspired by Basil Poledouris - he did the soundtrack to the first Conan movie, for example.  Musically, that's about the only thing I can put my finger on.  As far as concepts and stuff, there's a myth in certain cultures that you can travel between different dimensions using stars - use them as gates.  I just found that concept very fascinating and it inspired me to do something along the same lines and incorporate that into the whole Mortiis thing.

The CD booklet says "to be continued..." at the end - will it be continued on the next album? Probably not the next album, but at some point in the future I would like to make a second one.  It's not actually finished.  I have the rest of the concept worked out, the storyline so to speak.

Did you come up with the concept before writing any of the music? Sort of.  I think I had some basic musical ideas, maybe a few raw demos or whatever lying around, but I think the storyline was pretty much figured out before I did the music.

In the past, your image has always been very mysterious and in the shadows, but on the Stargate, there are very clear pictures of you on the cover and back cover and tray card.  Why the decision to make yourself more visible this time out? I think I always wanted to do that.  The fact that it turned out the way that it did [in the past] gave people a certain impression - it's not like that was intentional.  We didn't have any professional photo shoots back then, so basically it was me and my girlfriend with an amateur camera, taking photos in the marshes.  That kind of thing, which tends to give things an obscure angle.  So when I had the chance to work with more professional people as far a photo shoot, it turned out differently.  That's how I wanted it from the beginning anyway.

Are you pleased with Earache so far?   Yeah, I guess.  You know the way it is with labels, they can be bastards, but what can I do?  What can I say?  We have a contract.  But I think they're doing a pretty good job, though.  I'm getting to do a lot more shit now that I would have never done with another label.

Do you still have a connection with Cold Meat Industry?   Yeah, sure.  Not at this point, because I'm doing the U.S. support and stuff, but when I'm back home, we do talk.  I'll check in and see what's going on and stuff like that.

How about Debbie at Blackmetal.com? Yeah, how about her?  (laughs)  We were kind of not talking for a long time.  I did a San Francisco show a couple weeks ago and she turned out at the show, she and her guy Elden, they do this thing together [blackmetal.com], and we talked and things were okay.  We exchanged new phone numbers and stuff, so I think that dispute is probably in the past.

How is the tour going? Not very good.  I mean, someone has not taken responsibility for promotion - the promotion is horrible.  I don't know who to blame anymore and I don't want to mention names, but it just seems like no one is doing their job, basically.  We had these posters printed up and we've done like 23 or 24 shows so far and I've seen those posters up at about 3 of the shows.  That's very annoying.  Plus the fact that my album should have been out in the U.S. and Canada at least a month ago, before the tour started.  That got screwed up, so I'm pretty much doing a tour for a record that's not actually out.  If you look away from that, we are getting a good response, which is very good.  People show up at a show that is pretty much not being promoted, they get to hear music they've never heard before, and still at some of the shows we're getting an amazing response.  I'm pretty happy with it, despite everything that's fucked-up about the tour.

Have you done any major touring in the past? No, this is my first tour basically.  I'm being introduced to a pretty rough world right now (laughs).  Is it supposed to be this fucked-up all the time?  But I'm getting the impression that it's not supposed to be this bad.  I've talked to the other people we're touring with who have done this a lot of times and they're like, 'This is a fucked-up tour!'  So, I guess I'll try it again.  Maybe.  (laughs)

I understand that Dark Dungeon Music is closing down.  Is that true?  Why? Yeah.  I was the only guy working at that label.  I was doing everything and it just took up all my time.  I saw my music fall to shit - I could mention a couple of records that I've done that I should have never done or should have taken a lot more time doing.  But I didn't have the time because Dark Dungeon took up all my fucking time.  So, it just came to a point where I realized, okay, this is not working out.  I don't want to do the label anymore.  I hated going down and doing it every day, I hated every minute of it.  I don't want to deal with all these people, I don't want to have all these worries, 'Is he gonna pay me?,' 'Are they gonna pay me?,' 'When are they gonna pay me?' and blah blah blah.  I hated it and I still hate it.  So I put it down.  I want to make music; I don't want to be in the business side of it.

You've always released your music on vinyl.  Is there a vinyl version of The Stargate?  Is that important to you? The Stargate is available on vinyl.  We have a bunch of it in the van.  Vinyl forever!  It is something that I used to be a lot more fanatic about in the past.  I've come to accept CDs.  I mean, you have to accept the day and age that you live in.  If you didn’t do that, you'd be in big trouble.  Time will not wait.  But there's nothing wrong with being a bit nostalgic; I just try not to take it too far.

What is the status of your other projects? I put them down.  Just like with Dark Dungeon Music, I pretty much put everything down the same day, except Mortiis.  This is what I'm going to do now, fuck everything else.  I want to do one great thing instead of a bunch of mediocre stuff.

Is there anyone you would like to collaborate with musically in the future? I don't know.  I could probably come up with a few names, but I don't want to say, "I want to work with this person,' as it might create problems or something.  I'm sure there's a whole bunch of people I'd love to work with, but I'm so used to working alone it's hard to come up with names.  I've never really bothered with other people, never paid attention to anyone else.  I'm starting to change that, I'm starting to look into what other people do and it's pretty healthy, actually.  It's good to be on top of things.

Was it kind of a different experience working with vocalists on this album? Yeah, I was nervous.  Before they came out, I was really nervous.  Like, oh my god, I haven't worked with anybody since Emperor back in '92 and that's like six years at that point.  I don't even know how to collaborate.  But it worked out really good.  It took a little longer than we expected, but just a couple days, no big deal.  But it definitely worked out really good and I definitely plan to continue to work with other people.  It can only make things better.

Would you like to score films at some point? Everybody asks that and I always say that I don't think I'm good enough.  Definitely not good enough.  I mean, I know what I do and I can compare it to movie soundtracks and I'm like, okay, damn.  I'm a long way away from being that good.  That's how I feel anyway.  I mean, I'd love to do it, but I don't consider myself good enough.  That's just me being my worst critic.  At some point, I would like to try something like that out, but maybe not this week.  (laughs)

When you write songs, do you hear the whole work in your head or do you start with one instrument and build it up from there? Kind of both, I guess.  I think I know kind of how I want the song to sound, but it never really turns out like that.  I start realizing, okay this didn't work out, that didn't work out - maybe 50% of what you had in mind stays with you.  The rest is just something that popped up during the writing process.

I read that you are working on a book… That is something that I've been working on for several years.  It's pretty much like the young days of Mortiis up until the day he decides to leave the world he was born into.  It's all very symbolic and reflective of what goes on this world and my own state of mind.  It'll be out next month, as far as I know.

Who is publishing it? Oh, Earache I guess.  They're doing like a limited edition thing, a box with The Stargate CD and the book.  Sometime in November.

Are you happy with how the book came out? Well, basically, if I were to do it today, 90% of that I would have never done.  It's like a diary almost of the last few years and it's the oddest thing to see the changes in the attitude.  In that sense, it's very interesting.  As far as me being very naïve and evil and shit like that, but as you grow and develop, your mind matures a little bit and becomes more realistic.

BORKNAGAR

Interview with Øystein Garnes Brun by Daniel Hinds

(conducted September 1999)

Never keen on fitting comfortably into pre-defined categories like 'black metal' or 'Viking metal,' Norway's Borknagar has chalked up three albums and a highly-respected reputation for producing unique, progressive music that is as extreme and brutal as it is epic and melodic.  Formed and held together over the years by guitarist Øystein Garnes Brun, Borknagar has seen various members come and go, including members of Enslaved, Arcturus, Ulver, Immortal and Gorgoroth.   Currently, the band is a trio, consisting of Øystein, vocalist Simen Hestnæs and guitarist Jens F. Ryland, and they just finished a U.S. tour (with the aid of Nick from Cradle of Filth behind the drumkit), opening for Emperor.

As the tour came to an end, the band did a press day from Century Media's offices and I had a chance to pick Øystein's brain about a thing or two…

You guys just finished up a US tour.  How did it go? Quite cool, actually.  At the end of the day, it turned out really good for us, I think.  We had a couple of excellent shows and, in general, the shows were pretty good.  We had some bad, of course, but generally good.

Did all the bands get along pretty good? Yeah, we had a really nice time.

Was this your first time playing in the U.S.? Yes, it was.

What was the biggest surprise for you about it? I don't know, I didn't really know what to expect, so I came over here pretty open-minded.  I think the audience was quite good.  Sometimes, we had problems with the audience during the intro music, because we're kind of atmospheric and the U.S. audience is tied up in this death metal stuff.  That's fair enough, but I think I was expecting them to be a little bit more open-minded.  [Øystein followed this with a qualifying statement that unfortunately got lost due to our poor phone connection--ed.]

Did you have any problems with Christian groups protesting the shows? Oh no, nothing like that.

Do you write while you're on the road? Not music, but I write some lyrics actually.  I'm not that creative, just took some notes and stuff, so when I get home I can [work on them].  We wrote most of the next album before we left, so when we get home we'll probably start arranging the songs and write some more.

How is the new material shaping up compared to your previous work? Of course there will be some progression, but I think we'll keep the same mood, the same vibe so to speak.  I think this new album will be a little bit more 'rock' maybe.  For instance, we're going to use a little bit more of the grim vocals than we did on The Archaic Course.  We have to go to the studio and see what it comes out like.

Do you have a studio and producer lined up yet? Yeah, we're going to go to The Abyss Studios with the guy from Hyprocrisy, Peter [Tatgren].

Have you found a permanent drummer or bassist yet? No, Simen is probably going to do the bass, at least on the albums in the future, as he is really enjoying playing the bass.  I guess we'll leave it like that with the bass situation.  When it comes to the drums, we're probably going to work with Nick [from Cradle of Filth], he suggested doing the new album with us.  We'll see, I don't really know what's going to happen yet.

Could you explain a little bit about the title The Archaic Course? It's basically a following-up title to The Olden Domain, to give the audience the impression that we're keeping on with what we're doing.  I think a lot of people expected us on The Archaic Course to completely sell-out, do something commercial and wimp out, so we wanted to kind of state the we're doing what we've always done and will keep on doing.  Also, I think it's a perfect title to give people the idea about the whole approach of the band.

Do you have a title for the next record yet? Yeah, but we're a little bit unsure at the moment so I can't really say…

You mentioned that you've written some lyrics on the road and I was curious what it is that usually inspires you to write? I usually write lyrics when I feel relaxed and stuff.  When we did all this driving by bus, I was just looking out at the desert when we drove from Texas to Arizona, I got a lot of ideas and just wrote things down.  That's basically it, nothing too complicated.

Religious themes have always been a big part of metal lyrics over the years and I was wondering what your take on organized religion is.  Your lyrics seem to deal a lot more with individual spirituality rather than any kind of socialized religion. My view on religion is that I really dislike all kinds of religion and organized beliefs.  I see myself as kind of an extreme individualist and I think that is reflected in the lyrics as well.  I think bands that always think about religion, that's fair enough and I respect that, but it's not my way of doing it.  I want to avoid being any kind of preacher and just do my own thing.  I don't want to tell people the 'right' and the 'wrong' way, I want to just have a pure form of art or something like that.

Most of the reviews I've seen of The Archaic Course have been really positive and I was wondering if you at all surprised by the success you guys have had? It's cool…  I'm here at the offices of Century Media and we're getting to read a lot of reviews and stuff and a lot of it does seem very positive.  It's flattering, of course, but at the end of the day if we get some bad reviews, I really don't think it's going to affect me.  I just do my thing, as long as I feel comfortable with the music and the band, that's good enough for me.

When did you first get into music and start playing guitar? Well, I've listened to it all my life.  My father was a great collector of music from the 70s, like Black Sabbath and Pink Floyd, so I've always been around it.  I didn't get my first guitar until I was fifteen-years-old.  I listened to stuff like Maiden, Metallica, and eventually got into death metal and black metal, Bathory, Venom - stuff like that.  But I've always been open-minded and listened to all kinds of music.

Did you have any lessons? No, I was self-taught.  Actually, [laughs] my mother bought me a few hours of lessons, but it didn't really work out.  I was too much into metal…  [laughs]

Have you had pretty good luck from a business perspective? Yeah, but it seems like when we have to go tour, go to the studio or whatever, there is always some major problems we have to go through.  But at the end of the day, we do pretty good.  I've come to realize that this is a shitty business, but as long as we keep ourselves focused on what we're doing, we're okay.

Where do you tend to do the best, as far as album sales? I think it's Germany still.  Mid-Europe seems to be the best - Germany, Italy, Austria, stuff like that.

Looking ahead, what do you hope you'll be doing ten years from now? I don't know…  I hope to do some movie soundtracks, something like that.  That's my big dream to make music for film, more that kind of thing.  Of course, I hope to keep this band going, but I don't see myself playing black metal.  I don't know really, I don't have any definite plans.

IN FLAMES

Interview with Anders Friden by Daniel Hinds

(conducted June 1999)

Sweden has really established itself as the home of death metal in the 90s.  Taking the sound invented in the States to a whole new level, bands like Entombed, At The Gates, and Dismember set the standards for not just brutality, but also melody and technical ability.  Then along came Dark Tranquility and In Flames, mixing in elements of folk and classic metal to create an even more potent and accessible variation on the death theme.

With their fourth full-length album, Colony, just released and tour plans around the world, In Flames are set to build even further on their already sizable fanbase.  I had the pleasure to talk to vocalist Anders Friden recently about the latest developments in the In Flames camp…

In your opinion, what is the biggest difference between Colony and previous In Flames releases? First off, we have become much better as musicians and it helped in the studio to get a better sound, a better production.  There are better songs, too.  I mean, the last album was almost two years ago, but I don't actually see that big of a change.  We are following the path we have made, not too big of a step.  We've stayed true to ourselves, doing what we want and what we love.  It's a bit more heavy and also the use of some electronics, like drum loops and stuff, that hasn't been there in the past, so that has changed our sound a little bit.

Is there a theme to this album, lyrically? Mmm, yes and no.  It's not a big concept like The Jester Race and Whoracle were.  It's more of my view on where I am today, or since the writing of the album in '98 and '99 - what I hear when I talk to people, what I hear on the radio, see on TV, and playing a little bit with the future and what will happen.  But it is like small stories in each song, not a common theme all over.

Why the title Colony and how does the cover art fit into that? Well, it's not a big thing behind the title actually.  I had ideas for a couple of titles that I showed to the others, like 'What do you think about this?' and they liked this 'Colony' thing.  It's short, it's rememberable, and it's linked to the past, the present and the future.  The song "Colony" is more about, instead of sitting around complaining about things, it's better to take it in your own hands and do it better yourself.  A lot of people, including myself sometimes - I'm not better than anyone else - just complain about things.  If you're not out there doing it better yourself, then you should just shut up.  As for the cover, I gave Andreas Marshall the lyrics and told him a little bit what I wanted, more or less what mood I wanted, but I feel like he's an artist and he will do better work if he works from his own head instead of me standing over him, telling him exactly what to do.

Could you describe the typical song-writing process for In Flames? Jesper (Strömblad, guitar) and Bjorn (Gelotte, guitar) do the riffs at home, they bring it to the rehearsal studio where all of us put our own identity on the song.  Then we'll put it together, leave something open for the studio, like some melodies or solos.  It's more fun to work in the studio when not everything is planned, as you can come up with new ideas and stuff.  I write the lyrics.  I write small pieces here and there and then put them together, make them a story.

You mentioned using some electronics and whatnot, so I was curious if the recording process was any different this time? We used the same studio, Studio Fredman, but we did work a little differently.  Like, we made three songs in a row, the complete songs, instead of making all the basic tracks in a row, like all the drums, all the bass and so on.  So we had everything, all the microphones, up there all the time.  Then we could concentrate more on each and every song.  [when doing them all at once], when you're on your tenth song or whatever, after a lot of drum takes, you tend more to be like, 'Oh, whatever.'  We used a guy for the electronics thing, but we made the song as we would have made it without the electronics - made it the normal In Flames way - so we put the electronics after, instead of building the song around the electronics.

Do you enjoy working in the studio? Yeah, I like it a lot, but it is a totally different thing from playing live.  I like both.  If it is a great vibe in the studio and you are able to experiment, you have time, then it's a lot of fun - not when there is stress or you have to come up with something really, really fast.  Or you have everybody against you (laughs) or something like that.  It happens sometimes, where you're making something you're very proud of, and the others are like, 'Uhhh….,' and you have to compromise.  Most of the time, we are on the same level, otherwise it wouldn't work.

Are you involved in any music projects outside of In Flames? No, I work in all my spare time (laughs).  In Flames takes a hell of a lot of time:  we rehearse pretty often, we tour and stuff.  But I have the studio, the Studio Fredman where we recorded.  We recently moved and built two studios in one, and I am half owner and work there, so that takes most of my time.

Do you think you might get more involved in the production side of things? I'd like to, but I don't have that much time.  In Flames is my main priority and as long as that is taking the most time, I will concentrate on that.  When I'm at home, I try to work with bands because it is good fun and I like to meet people.  I have to think about the future as well.  I mean, I don't think I'll be screaming my ass off when I'm 50.  But you never know…

You're heading to Japan soon to tour - have you guys been there before? Yeah, we were there in the beginning of '98, February, and it was an amazing experience.  We played two sold-out shows, one for 600 people and one for 1400 people, and it was amazing.  All hands in the air, from the first row to the last.  We played there by ourselves and…it's hard to describe.  I'm really looking forward to going back there again.  Everybody was really friendly.

I have heard that you might be doing some dates in the U.S. as well - any more info on that? For now, I know that we are definitely going to the Milwaukee Metalfest, but then I don't know.  It was meant from the beginning that we'd do some more dates around Milwaukee while we were over there, but now I don't know if we're going straight back to Sweden to do some more festivals, and then go back to the States and do both Canada and South America as well.  For now, it is only Milwaukee, which is going to be great because this is the first time we've played there.  I'm really looking forward to seeing how it is, you know.  You hear so much about how the metal scene is in the States and I'd like to experience that.

Going back a bit, how did you come up with the name 'In Flames' in the beginning? Well…(laughs)  A former guitarist of ours, Glenn, who left after Whoracle was released, it's something which was in his head and I don't really know.  I wasn't in the band in that period, so I really have no clue.  I have some clue, but it's not worth to mention I promise you. (laughs)  But it's a good name - short, memorable.

In Flames have become kind of the standard by which all melodic death metal bands are compared lately.  How does that feel, to be in that band? If people use us as an inspiration…  It's an honor to be recognized as the band that has been in the forefront because we always have done this, even if we've developed as musicians, we always done the same thing.  We haven't bowed to any trends.  If there was a trend, it definitely was because people talk about this New Wave of Swedish Death Metal and the Gothenburg style or whatever - the trend came to us and not the other way around.  It's nice to be recognized.  It's an advantage, but also a disadvantage because people get sick of the whole concept and if you're recognized as a one-dimensional band, then it's not good.  To be named as an inspiration, though, is an honor, of course.

What is your take on how the whole death metal scene has progressed over the years? Well…everything comes and goes.  Here in Europe, we've had this big - and I think it's on its way down now - heavy metal revival, bands from the 80s, and also some new bands as well.  Like HammerFall have had great success over here.  I don't really know what happened to them when they were in the States.  I talked to them a little bit, but it was more about the (laughs) beer and the girls.  Seriously though, I don't know what happened over there, but over here, now there's a couple brutal death metal bands and I'm hearing about a revival for them.  But I feel it is healthy, that there are bands coming and going.  A lot of younger bands come up, take the old concept and make it a little bit…not more interesting, but they take it to another level and make their own thing from something old.  I listen to so much music, it wasn't so much before when I was into the whole underground thing.  The underground is good and we wouldn't be here without it, but nowadays it seems like the bands talk more shit about each other and before people helped each other.  Now, it's 'who is more evil than the other' or 'who is more brutal' - that's not my cup of tea.

The official In Flames web page is pretty good and I was wondering if you spend much time on the 'net? Well yeah, we're out there, we're connected, all five of us.  There's a guy who is running that page and doing a good job and we try to keep it updated as much as possible.  Sometimes we have chats with fans.  We have had pages in the past and I've seen other bands where the news pages are really, really old, and that's kind of boring, so we try to be as up there as possible.

What are your long-term goals for In Flames? Well, to tour as much as possible.  My biggest wish is that every person in the world should own an In Flames CD, but (laughs) I believe that is never going to happen.  To reach out to as many people as possible, be a good influence to other bands.  We do this our own way and if people become happy or angry or whatever, as long as we can touch people.  We love to do this, all five of us.  That's basically it.

LACUNA COIL

Interview with Cristina Scabbia by Daniel Hinds

(conducted June 1999)

One of the most impressive bands to emerge from Italy in recent times has to be Lacuna Coil.  Mixing elements of gothic and metal in an unusual way, they fall into that same vague, hard-to-define sub-genre that bands like Sentenced and Moonspell now call home.  What separates Lacuna Coil from the others, though, is the addition of the graceful, soaring vocals of Cristina Scabbia.  The elements all fall into place on the band's debut full-length, In A Reverie, which was just recently issued in the States after being available overseas for a while.

Though she began our conversation by apologizing for her bad English, I found Cristina to be very articulate, as well as quite charming and optimistic - rare traits in a metal singer, to be sure, but nothing about Lacuna Coil is commonplace.

I understand you recently did a tour with Skyclad.  How did that go? Very good.  With Skyclad and then another month with Grip Inc. and Samael.  With Grip Inc., it was sort of a festival for a week.  The reaction of the audience was great and all the bands are really nice guys (laughs).  Also, with Skyclad, it was really good because they are really happy people.  They like to enjoy themselves - we drank a lot, we had a really good time with them.  Also, the audience of Skyclad is really open-minded.  We are two different bands, but the audience was really open-minded and they liked us.  Fortunately!  (laughs)

How about future shows? Right now, we're going to play some festivals in Germany and we have to play in Naples, in Italy, with Aerosmith (?!-dh) on the 12th of July and some festivals around.  But we also have to write some new songs, new material for the new album because we want to record it in January of next year.  I only know that maybe we might play some festivals around the US next year, but I don't know when yet.

Speaking of writing a new album, what is the Lacuna Coil writing process like? Mmm, it depends.  Right now, we want to change the way we write new songs, but usually, the main composer is the bass player, along with the guitar player, and they write the main structure and the guitar parts.  Then we try, with a drum machine, to find the good drum parts, they try it in the practice room, then we find the vocal lines and the lyrics.  But we want to change and to try to start the songs from the vocal line, for example.

How do you feel the new album differs from the EP? The first thing is the line-up changed.  You can hear it from the music, because you can hear that it is more positive and more mature.  The compositions are changed, because we take a lot of care with the structure of the songs.  I think the main thing is it is more mature.  We wrote songs, instead of just music, some riffs put together.  Maybe the one is more natural, because it reflects what we were in that period, but right now In A Reverie can explain the condition of the band - very positive, very 'in a reverie,' in a dream.

How did you first get involved with Lacuna Coil? In '96, because you know the band used to only play for a hobby, between friends in the practice room.  They only asked me to do some choruses for the demo tape that we recorded in '96, and I said 'yes.'  After that, they asked me to be another singer.  We said, 'Okay, let's try to have two singers, but not only a chorus and a main singer.  Let's try to sing together with a male and a female.'  That's about it.  They were friends of mine.

Do you write the lyrics? Yeah, we wrote the lyrics, me and Andrea (Ferro, male vocalist), together, along with Valerie from Century Media.  She's Italian-American, so she can help us better.

Where do you get your inspiration from for the lyrics? We used to talk about personal things, things that happen every day.  We don't want to talk about pessimistic things, because we're not into that.  But we really like to talk about our personal feelings or personal or experiences we've had:  love, hate, when you're sad - we want to try to talk about sensations maybe.  We try to suck inspiration from the music.  If the music is sad, I of course cannot write happy lyrics.  But we like to talk to about real things.

How did the actual recording of In A Reverie go and do you actually like working in the studio? Yeah, a lot.  Maybe it is the worst experience for a musician (the studio), because you have to be prepared even if you are ill or something.  You have to be ready to do your best.  You're in the studio early in the morning and stay in the studio all day.  And maybe it is boring because you have to wait for all the parts to be finished before you record, but I think it is very good.  We recorded in the same studio, The Woodhouse, with the same producer, Waldemar Sorychta.  Waldemar right now is a very big friend of ours.  If, in the first album, we received a lot of advice from him in terms of the music, (this time) we wrote everything by ourselves and we received his help only in the studio, with the recording.

Was it difficult to get attention outside of Italy? Not so much.  In Italy, there is not a very big scene in metal because people used to listen to more commercial stuff like your dance music from England, or MTV or something like that.  It's not so difficult when you become well known outside of Italy and then come back into Italy.  It is difficult for an Italian band, for example, to have a good record label in Italy or to play…. The people, it is really strange.  I don't know why, but they have more respect for the bands outside of Italy.  Maybe they think the bands outside Italy are better - I don't know why.  But right now, we are quite famous and we are really happy because now the trend in Italy is the power metal, the epic metal, and we are totally different.  We are the only band that you can find in the magazines that's a little important that play another kind of music, so we're proud of that.

Does it bother you when people comment more on how you look rather than the music? Ah, it's normal.  Have you ever thought about the intelligence of Pamela Anderson?  (laughs)  No, I think it's normal because, in metal, it's not easy to find females in the bands.  You cannot find a lot of female personalities in the bands, so it is normal because a lot of fans of heavy metal are guys.  But I don't care, because they talk also a lot about the music.  It's not a problem.  Maybe it can only help us to be more in the magazines.  (laughs)

Where did you guys get the name for the band? We chose it from…I don't know where exactly, maybe the Internet.  The old name of the band was Ethereal and we recorded the demo tape with that name, but there was another band in Greece with the same name.  We chose two words.  'Lacuna' is a Latin word that means 'when you have a lack of something,' like a lack of memory, for example.  And 'coil' is a spiral and it's like an ethereal name, like 'empty spiral' so nobody can have the same name.  I hope!  (laughs)

What did you do before joining the band? I used to work in a shop, a clothes shop, and in an office also.  Right now, I cannot still live just by the music, so I work in a pub as a barmaid.  I work there when I'm in Milan.  I really like to do it.  Maybe one day, if I will not continue with the music, I can open a pub or something.  I really like to talk with people, so I think it is the best work.

When did you first get seriously interested in being a singer and who were some of your early inspirations? Hmm..  I started in about 1991.  I've always been interested in music, but I started to sing in '91, though for a completely different kind of music.  I used to give my voice without my name for some products of dance, for some radio, but I didn't like it because I didn't like to be alone to sing.  I really like being in a band, because it is like having a second family to be with.  My inspiration…I don't know.  My favorite singers are like Aretha Franklin, soul singers, but they are completely different from me, so they can only be idols, not inspiration.

What kind of music do you like to listen to? Everything.  Maybe my favorite band is Depeche Mode, because I think they are really modern, even with the old songs, I really like them.  But I like everything, from Extreme to Black Metal to everything really.  I only hate Italian music because it's really boring.

You should do a cover… Oh yeah, but only in the practice room… (laughs)  We are thinking about doing a cover, but we are not able to find one that we really like.  We want to do one but not of a band from the metal scene.  We want to do something really strange, I don't know what.

What do you like doing outside of music? It depends.  I really like to draw.  I really like to work in the pub, to see everyday your friends and at the same time you can make money.  I like to travel, to go shopping, to go out and meet people.  I love video games!  I'm a big fan of PlayStation and Resident Evil.  (laughs)

What are some of your favorite places you've traveled to, outside of Italy? For holidays, I haven't been so far from Italy:  Spain, France, nothing more.  But for the music, we've been everywhere in Europe:  Norway, Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Belgium, Holland, Poland and Czech Republic.  I'd like to go to America at the end of this month, so only my parents are going.  (laughs)  I'm really, really sorry.

I heard you might do a video from this album…? Mm, I'm not sure because it's not easy to get your video played.  For example, in Italy, we only have MTV and another channel called DMC2, but they only play commercial stuff.  I mean, the most heavy thing they play is Cranberries.  It's not easy for a metal band to do a video.  If you're not Metallica, you'll never see your video.  You have to have a very good video, too.  It's useless to do a video with a low budget.  Right now, we want to concentrate ourselves more on life and music.