INTERVIEWS
Destruction:
Destruction has toured around US during their “North American Reckoning 2011” tour. The last concert happened in West Hollywood. Spirit of Metal had the pleasure to interview the bass guitar player and lead singer of the band, Schmier. Check it out!
Tonight you are playing the last concert of this American tour (2001). What are your thoughts about the overall experience of it? Any highlights?
Actually it was a good tour. We toured with our old friends from Heathen; we had also just toured with them in Europe. So, I think the “surrounding” [of the tour] was very nice, you know?
We had some problems in the beginning with the tour bus (it broke down several times) and some gear problems. And America is, of course, a huge country so it’s kind of “rough” to play here, everyday you have those 10 hours or even longer rides. But the tour was really good, we had a lot of really good shows. A few turned out to be bad, but sometimes it’s hard to play at the beginning of the week in the US, same in Europe.
This tour did much better than the last one so we are happy. We have offers to come back in the fall already, but we can’t do it so we may come back in February or March (2012) and do the “second leg” of the North America tour.
Anything different planned for tonight (since this is the last concert of the tour)?
Back in the past, the last show was always kind of the “funny” one. People start out doing “weird” stuff up stage to the other bands, but I’m not a very big fan of that. So, I hope nothing will happen tonight because we play the show for the fans and if shit happens the show gets affected.
What is a perfect concert for you? Meaning: how would you like your fans to feel when leaving your concert?
Of course they have to leave with a smile on their faces, they have to feel their bones and their necks the next day, that’s for sure. The perfect concert is when the energy of the crowd and the band unites. It’s always a great compliment when fans write on the website: “Yeah, my neck hurts from the show” or “I can feel all my bones” and stuff. Trash metal needs to be a physically exhausting thing. If the fans feel the power and the extreme of the music, that’s perfect for me.
It’s been 2 months since the release of your latest album “Days of Reckoning”. How have the reactions been until now?
The results are very good. It’s more “trashy”, it’s faster... it has more of the “trademark” of the band. So people really like the album. The reactions have been very good. People consider it to be one of the best albums since the reunion, together with the “Antichrist”. The similarities with those are that they are pretty aggressive and have real fast songs. Basically, the best reactions we had on an album since “The Antichrist”.
The lyrics of this album talk about the way we are living now, the way society is living now. What is the biggest message that you want to pass to your fans through this album?
The biggest messages: First of all that you believe in yourself and not listen to “what’s going on”.
For me the biggest problem in this planet right now is that nobody is caring about others anymore. Everybody is greedy and just wants to have themselves in a good position. So everybody will be with “elbows out” and fighting for him/herself, that’s a sad thing to see you know? The greed of humanity is getting bigger and bigger every year. It has been like this always, since I can remember, but I think it’s been getting worse these last years.
When you tour the world and you see different cultures you have different impressions. But, in most countries it’s basically the same problem. We all get ripped off by our governments, they are just there for the rich people and poor people are suffering everywhere, more and more. It’s only [different] in a few countries where people are still open and the government shares with the community.
I’m scared to see all those people [living] in the streets in America. We don’t have so many in Germany or in Europe. I don’t understand how a government can let it happen. Many of those people may have worked all their lives and have just lost their job and they get homeless like ( he snapped his fingers). You turn on the TV and it’s all about who is making more money. It’s ridiculous.
The message I send in the album is that in the end, when you die, it doesn’t matter if you are or not rich. You cannot bring your money into your final grave. You better be aware of what you do in your life.
In one of the songs you mention that people should recognize the afterlife freedom. Would you mind telling us what that is for you?”
That’s a good question. I’m not a religious person. I was raised as a Catholic but I don’t believe in that afterlife stuff. But, I believe that there must be something because the energy that we have must go somewhere. And I don’t believe in that religious bullshit.
For me the afterlife freedom is when you will face death. I’m sure your life will be reflected at one point. Then, everybody needs to know if they were a good or a bad person you know? I’m pretty sure a bad person, at some point, will face what they did in their life. That’s what I mean with “the afterlife freedom”.
I believe that there’s more than this, that we are living here. Maybe this is just a first step or something. But if you would tell everybody: “We are living in a world but it is just a first step and afterwards everything will be better”, everybody would commit suicide.
I mean (laughs)… I guess there is more than we should know.
How do you get inspired for your writing / composing?
Exactly by things like this. Here in the States I watch TV, I open my eyes, I see what I have to see and I write lyrics about it. The same thing if I go to Brazil or to China or to other countries. I get a lot of impressions and at one point I write down stuff that I have on my mind.
For me, lyrics are also a kind of relief, to get out what’s inside. Some stuff is depressing. Stuff that I can share with people also helps me to get over them.
You guys have a pretty busy calendar until the end of the year. What are the plans for 2012?
We have some more stuff coming up. We have just confirmed a festival in Colombia in July. In August we will be playing in Latin America. We are adding two more concerts besides the six already confirmed there [total of 8 Latin American concerts].
We also confirmed a tour with Sepultura and Exodus in Europe in November/ December. And we also have offers for Asia in November. This year will be very busy. Then, next year we may do some more North American shows [as mentioned in the beginning of this interview – question 1].
Do you have plans to go to new territories during the “Day Of Reckoning” tour?
I hope so. We have offers to play in Indonesia for the first time, Malaysia, India, etc. So it will be very exciting to play there because there are a lot of heavy metal fans there.
We want to go back to Australia and finally play New Zealand but there is such a small scene there.
And hopefully one day we can play for our fans in Arabia too. There is a very big heavy metal scene in Morocco, there are heavy metal fans in Iran, Iraq…
Thinking about the beginning of your career as a musician: what are the biggest differences between metal back then and nowadays? Especially in trash metal?
At the beginning it was new and exciting, it was something very “fresh” but the scene was very small. People like to glorify the 80s and I understand it’s because something new happened. But, it was very tough to live from the music because there were not so many concerts. It was very difficult to come to other countries. We played Europe, we didn’t play many shows in America [during the 80s]. The big difference now is that the world is open; you can play much more shows in a global base. It’s definitely nicer for us. We can play for all our fans.
In your career… can you think of the hardest thing you had to go through until now? And also the most “amazing” moment?
The hardest thing… we have had difficult tours you know? Stuff breaks down, you have no more money or somewhere in the desert your bus doesn’t work. Things like this happened all the time. We kind of got used to that. It is difficult to name one only. There are a lot stories that happen on the road that you think: “What am I doing here” you know?
On the other hand there are a lot of great moments and of course when you play in front of a great crowd or you meet people crying because they are seeing you for the first time, after waiting for many years, it pays off. And of course “the comeback years”, it was amazing when you play for the first time in front of 20.000 or 30.000 people.
That was not possible in the 80s. There was only one big open air which was “Dynamo Open Air”, which held 10.000 people.So our first big show was our reunion, in 1999, with more than 10.000 people.
Yeah… so those are the amazing moments, seeing that the fans are really dedicated. It is not just music, there’s much more behind what you do. That’s really touching. Fans have such strong bonds to the band.
That’s in metal only I think. When people don’t know what metal is and ask me about it I always say that the fans really support the bands. That’s different from other scenes, I think.
Other music gets consumed you know? Heavy metal is a lifestyle; it’s a whole way of life.
Talking about the scene… what do you think about the US scene nowadays?
It’s getting better. We started coming back here since the year 2000 and it was very bad, very hard.
These last years it became better and better. Most of the main cities have now a very good fan base. In between, a lot of the smaller cities have a decent turn out for the shows.
It’s just… metal is not as big in America as you think. It’s not like Brazil or Germany. There’s a decent scene here, there are more and more heavy metal fans but it’s not as huge as you would think it is.
Hard rock or Rock music, in general, is very popular in America but just the normal metal stuff is not that “high” here.
Talking about your personal life now: What do you do in your free time?
There is not too much free time. If I have free time I like to do sports and meet my friends… try to be a normal person. Heavy metal is my 24hr thing: it’s my life, it’s my job. It’s “eating” a lot of time in my life. So, sometimes I just try to go out and do “normal” stuff. When you live in music like this it’s hard to have a separation of spare time and music life. It becomes one and some point.
What type of music do you listen to during your free time?
I love all kinds of rock music basically, starting from punk rock to death metal and of course I like the trash stuff. I like old rock music in general, guitar driven music. There is no real limit.In my car I have everything from Bad Religion, Dead Kennedys up to… what was the latest album I got in my car? I don’t know. I have been touring for too long! I haven’t driven my car for a while!(laughs).
I am pretty open-minded. I mean, it has to be guitar driven music. I hate rap. I am a big metal fan. All gates are open for all kinds of metal for me.
How do you see the bands in 5 or 10 years?
I don’t know. I hope we can do this for as long as possible. At one point it may be difficult because it’s a physical thing [physical effort / capacity]. You have to do live performances. At one point your body may not be able to do it anymore.
I think music is something that keeps you really young. It is like every job: if you do something that you love, you will stay “younger”, and you can do it for a long time. I hope I can keep that spirit up and music will give me pleasure for the next 10 years at least. I don’t see myself without music so if I stop the band I don’t know if I would stay in the music scene to do something else. I don’t know. I am not the guy that write things about the future that much, I am living today to the fullest and I don’t care about the next 10 years. Who knows?
Actually it was a good tour. We toured with our old friends from Heathen; we had also just toured with them in Europe. So, I think the “surrounding” [of the tour] was very nice, you know?
We had some problems in the beginning with the tour bus (it broke down several times) and some gear problems. And America is, of course, a huge country so it’s kind of “rough” to play here, everyday you have those 10 hours or even longer rides. But the tour was really good, we had a lot of really good shows. A few turned out to be bad, but sometimes it’s hard to play at the beginning of the week in the US, same in Europe.
This tour did much better than the last one so we are happy. We have offers to come back in the fall already, but we can’t do it so we may come back in February or March (2012) and do the “second leg” of the North America tour.
Anything different planned for tonight (since this is the last concert of the tour)?
Back in the past, the last show was always kind of the “funny” one. People start out doing “weird” stuff up stage to the other bands, but I’m not a very big fan of that. So, I hope nothing will happen tonight because we play the show for the fans and if shit happens the show gets affected.
What is a perfect concert for you? Meaning: how would you like your fans to feel when leaving your concert?
Of course they have to leave with a smile on their faces, they have to feel their bones and their necks the next day, that’s for sure. The perfect concert is when the energy of the crowd and the band unites. It’s always a great compliment when fans write on the website: “Yeah, my neck hurts from the show” or “I can feel all my bones” and stuff. Trash metal needs to be a physically exhausting thing. If the fans feel the power and the extreme of the music, that’s perfect for me.
It’s been 2 months since the release of your latest album “Days of Reckoning”. How have the reactions been until now?
The results are very good. It’s more “trashy”, it’s faster... it has more of the “trademark” of the band. So people really like the album. The reactions have been very good. People consider it to be one of the best albums since the reunion, together with the “Antichrist”. The similarities with those are that they are pretty aggressive and have real fast songs. Basically, the best reactions we had on an album since “The Antichrist”.
The lyrics of this album talk about the way we are living now, the way society is living now. What is the biggest message that you want to pass to your fans through this album?
The biggest messages: First of all that you believe in yourself and not listen to “what’s going on”.
For me the biggest problem in this planet right now is that nobody is caring about others anymore. Everybody is greedy and just wants to have themselves in a good position. So everybody will be with “elbows out” and fighting for him/herself, that’s a sad thing to see you know? The greed of humanity is getting bigger and bigger every year. It has been like this always, since I can remember, but I think it’s been getting worse these last years.
When you tour the world and you see different cultures you have different impressions. But, in most countries it’s basically the same problem. We all get ripped off by our governments, they are just there for the rich people and poor people are suffering everywhere, more and more. It’s only [different] in a few countries where people are still open and the government shares with the community.
I’m scared to see all those people [living] in the streets in America. We don’t have so many in Germany or in Europe. I don’t understand how a government can let it happen. Many of those people may have worked all their lives and have just lost their job and they get homeless like ( he snapped his fingers). You turn on the TV and it’s all about who is making more money. It’s ridiculous.
The message I send in the album is that in the end, when you die, it doesn’t matter if you are or not rich. You cannot bring your money into your final grave. You better be aware of what you do in your life.
In one of the songs you mention that people should recognize the afterlife freedom. Would you mind telling us what that is for you?”
That’s a good question. I’m not a religious person. I was raised as a Catholic but I don’t believe in that afterlife stuff. But, I believe that there must be something because the energy that we have must go somewhere. And I don’t believe in that religious bullshit.
For me the afterlife freedom is when you will face death. I’m sure your life will be reflected at one point. Then, everybody needs to know if they were a good or a bad person you know? I’m pretty sure a bad person, at some point, will face what they did in their life. That’s what I mean with “the afterlife freedom”.
I believe that there’s more than this, that we are living here. Maybe this is just a first step or something. But if you would tell everybody: “We are living in a world but it is just a first step and afterwards everything will be better”, everybody would commit suicide.
I mean (laughs)… I guess there is more than we should know.
How do you get inspired for your writing / composing?
Exactly by things like this. Here in the States I watch TV, I open my eyes, I see what I have to see and I write lyrics about it. The same thing if I go to Brazil or to China or to other countries. I get a lot of impressions and at one point I write down stuff that I have on my mind.
For me, lyrics are also a kind of relief, to get out what’s inside. Some stuff is depressing. Stuff that I can share with people also helps me to get over them.
You guys have a pretty busy calendar until the end of the year. What are the plans for 2012?
We have some more stuff coming up. We have just confirmed a festival in Colombia in July. In August we will be playing in Latin America. We are adding two more concerts besides the six already confirmed there [total of 8 Latin American concerts].
We also confirmed a tour with Sepultura and Exodus in Europe in November/ December. And we also have offers for Asia in November. This year will be very busy. Then, next year we may do some more North American shows [as mentioned in the beginning of this interview – question 1].
Do you have plans to go to new territories during the “Day Of Reckoning” tour?
I hope so. We have offers to play in Indonesia for the first time, Malaysia, India, etc. So it will be very exciting to play there because there are a lot of heavy metal fans there.
We want to go back to Australia and finally play New Zealand but there is such a small scene there.
And hopefully one day we can play for our fans in Arabia too. There is a very big heavy metal scene in Morocco, there are heavy metal fans in Iran, Iraq…
Thinking about the beginning of your career as a musician: what are the biggest differences between metal back then and nowadays? Especially in trash metal?
At the beginning it was new and exciting, it was something very “fresh” but the scene was very small. People like to glorify the 80s and I understand it’s because something new happened. But, it was very tough to live from the music because there were not so many concerts. It was very difficult to come to other countries. We played Europe, we didn’t play many shows in America [during the 80s]. The big difference now is that the world is open; you can play much more shows in a global base. It’s definitely nicer for us. We can play for all our fans.
In your career… can you think of the hardest thing you had to go through until now? And also the most “amazing” moment?
The hardest thing… we have had difficult tours you know? Stuff breaks down, you have no more money or somewhere in the desert your bus doesn’t work. Things like this happened all the time. We kind of got used to that. It is difficult to name one only. There are a lot stories that happen on the road that you think: “What am I doing here” you know?
On the other hand there are a lot of great moments and of course when you play in front of a great crowd or you meet people crying because they are seeing you for the first time, after waiting for many years, it pays off. And of course “the comeback years”, it was amazing when you play for the first time in front of 20.000 or 30.000 people.
That was not possible in the 80s. There was only one big open air which was “Dynamo Open Air”, which held 10.000 people.So our first big show was our reunion, in 1999, with more than 10.000 people.
Yeah… so those are the amazing moments, seeing that the fans are really dedicated. It is not just music, there’s much more behind what you do. That’s really touching. Fans have such strong bonds to the band.
That’s in metal only I think. When people don’t know what metal is and ask me about it I always say that the fans really support the bands. That’s different from other scenes, I think.
Other music gets consumed you know? Heavy metal is a lifestyle; it’s a whole way of life.
Talking about the scene… what do you think about the US scene nowadays?
It’s getting better. We started coming back here since the year 2000 and it was very bad, very hard.
These last years it became better and better. Most of the main cities have now a very good fan base. In between, a lot of the smaller cities have a decent turn out for the shows.
It’s just… metal is not as big in America as you think. It’s not like Brazil or Germany. There’s a decent scene here, there are more and more heavy metal fans but it’s not as huge as you would think it is.
Hard rock or Rock music, in general, is very popular in America but just the normal metal stuff is not that “high” here.
Talking about your personal life now: What do you do in your free time?
There is not too much free time. If I have free time I like to do sports and meet my friends… try to be a normal person. Heavy metal is my 24hr thing: it’s my life, it’s my job. It’s “eating” a lot of time in my life. So, sometimes I just try to go out and do “normal” stuff. When you live in music like this it’s hard to have a separation of spare time and music life. It becomes one and some point.
What type of music do you listen to during your free time?
I love all kinds of rock music basically, starting from punk rock to death metal and of course I like the trash stuff. I like old rock music in general, guitar driven music. There is no real limit.In my car I have everything from Bad Religion, Dead Kennedys up to… what was the latest album I got in my car? I don’t know. I have been touring for too long! I haven’t driven my car for a while!(laughs).
I am pretty open-minded. I mean, it has to be guitar driven music. I hate rap. I am a big metal fan. All gates are open for all kinds of metal for me.
How do you see the bands in 5 or 10 years?
I don’t know. I hope we can do this for as long as possible. At one point it may be difficult because it’s a physical thing [physical effort / capacity]. You have to do live performances. At one point your body may not be able to do it anymore.
I think music is something that keeps you really young. It is like every job: if you do something that you love, you will stay “younger”, and you can do it for a long time. I hope I can keep that spirit up and music will give me pleasure for the next 10 years at least. I don’t see myself without music so if I stop the band I don’t know if I would stay in the music scene to do something else. I don’t know. I am not the guy that write things about the future that much, I am living today to the fullest and I don’t care about the next 10 years. Who knows?
Accept:
Accept is back and touring around the world, their new album is a big hit and all fans are excited to see them again. During their tour in the US, Spirit of Metal met with the guitar player Wolf Hoffmann to talk a little bit about the band’s return, the new album and the band’s future. Check it out!
First of all, thank you for this interview!
You bet! My pleasure!
You guys have toured last year here in US (October 2010) and now you are back (May 2011). What are the differences between this and the last tour?
The last tour was some sort of a first glimpse or a first visit to say: “Hey, Accept is back and we are back together”. This time around is more of a full blown tour, we’ve been on the road for several weeks and if we go back to January when we started it [the tour] in Europe, we’ve been on the road for several months now. So, this time around we bring more stuff, we play a longer set and this kind of thing. So, it’s good…
Your latest album “Blood of the Nations” is making a lot of success. It hit “high positions” on several countries charts...
Oh yeah! Lots of places! Something like 40 or 50 webzines, magazines, countries… I mean… we couldn’t have asked for more.
When you guys were working on the album… did you imagine such a big success?
No, you can’t think on those terms, quite honestly… and you never do. You just write the bet songs you can at the time and the rest is up to other people, you know? If you could plan this sort of things you would obviously always plan for multi-million dollar successes but, you can’t plan anything like that. It’s always a certain amount of timing and luck involved, the right record at the right time. Quite honestly, as a musician, I think you always try to give your best. Sometimes you succeed, sometimes you don’t.
Have the reaction of the fans been different in different territories, or has it been the same?
It’s universal: metal fans love this record more then anything we have ever done or more then anything we’ve done ever since the 80s. Most people would put it right next to “Balls to the wall” or “Restless and Wild” as far as the hierarchy of the albums concerned, and that is world wide.
But, there are differences as far as the overall metal scene. For instance in Europe, we draw much larger crowds and the metal scene in general is much more vibrant, much more alive then here. We still have fans over here [US] but there are fewer venues, not quite the attendance we have in Europe…So, there are differences.
Has this tour been good until now (in US)?
Yes! It has been really good, definitely! It tends to be more successful in larger cities like LA, New York and Chicago. There’s when we get the really wild crowds and really full houses. But it’s been going quite well overall.
Can you describe to us a little bit about the process of composing, writing, recording this album?
I really always have to go back to the day that we met Mark Tornillo, about 2 years ago, because in that instant we decided to re-launch Accept and that meant to us to write a new album. Before that, it was in nobody’s radar, we didn’t have any songs written, we didn’t have anything because we didn’t have a band. We though it was all over and finished. So, in that moment we decided: “All right, we will make a new record”.
Peter [Baltes] and I got together several times over the next few months and spent about a week or ten days at a time writing new stuff. And that’s really what we usually have to do: we have to set time aside, lock the doors, turn off the phones and really get down to business. That’s when we come up with good stuff, so that’s what we did.
Over the course of 2 or 3 months we had all these songs written and about half way through that process we met Andy Sneap, the producer. He was very instrumental selecting the write songs and recording it all. He was a huge help on this project. I’m sure the record would have turned out way different if he wouldn’t be there. It was a blessing that he came at the right time and join us, you know?
It went super smooth, it really didn’t take long for us to make all these songs and then to record them, there were really no delays. From start to finish the process was only 6 months or so, from the first day we decided to do this to the day it was recorded.
So, you guys didn’t use anything that you have worked on during those years without a band?
No, no. That’s a surprise to everybody! A lot of people though that this album is strong because we had 15 years to write it but, that’s not true, we had just a few weeks to do it, which is quite amazing.
Has this time off contribute somehow to this strong album? Did the time off give you new ideas, inspirations, etc?
Maybe… because we were really “recharged” and full of energy, more than we would have been in this constant touring – recording cycle. I don’t know. Nobody really knows. I know that we have been more energized than we have been in a long, long time.
The idea for us to sort of “come out of retirement” and jump into this thing full force again, was so exciting that I’m sure it has contributed also.
The pressure we had from people who were saying that this was not going to work, because changing lead singers is a very tricky thing, I believe have contributed too. Because, we wanted to show these people wrong and say: yes, we can do this and yes, this is going to be a good album. So, we worked extra hard.
In your opinion what was the most difficult step during the process of making and releasing this album (Blood of Nations)?
Humm… let me think, what was the hardest part? Ahh, I will tell you what the hardest part was: waiting for it to be released! Because it was really done and mixed in January or February but, by the time we had the actual label deal it was already May and then they didn’t want to release it before the summer, because there is a summer “hole” that nobody wants to release records in. So we had to wait until August. All this time we had this thing ready and finished but we couldn’t play it to anybody. So that was the toughest part.
Since the release of the album… can you think of a most special moment with the fans?
There are quite a few actually. Obviously the first show ever was quite exciting because we had no idea of what it was going to be like: to be in the same stage with Mark [Tornillo], with new lineup and the rest of us had not been together on stage in many, many years. So, that was the first night in New York, last year. It was quite exciting… that sticks out.
Later on we did some unforgettable shows, several of them with ACDC in Germany. There were like 80.000 people each show so, that was huge. We are huge ACDC fans so that was a great honor for us.
And then we headlined some festival dates in Europe, Sonisphere festivals in Turkey and Romania. That was pretty awesome too.
Looking back at all the years you spent with the band, what have been your biggest accomplishments, the ones you are most proud of?
We never won a Grammy or anything, or else I would say that would be it. But I think that the fact that we have influenced so many other people, which is a fact that we were really just aware off, later on in life. When we released “Restless and wild”, “Breaker”, “Balls to the wall” and these early albums in the 80s, we didn’t really have a clear sense that it would influence so many people, other musicians in particular. This fact is probably what I am most proud of.
We made several gold records but never a multi-platinum one. We never had that huge commercial success that other bands have sometimes (number one MTV videos, records that sell 12 million copies). But, what we did have was a huge underground following and a huge sort of credibility with fans and musicians too.
Yeah, but if you think about it, not too many bands (rock, metal) have accomplished that: platinum records, etc.
No, there are not too many. But, there are some “hair bands” that had some pretty cheese songs and sold gazillion of records with it. We never really had that and we never really wanted that either. We wanted to do our way and I’m actually proud of the fact.
Of course, the best is: if you can be true to yourself, stay who you are and still have multi million dollar successes, like ACDC for instance. They are awesome in that sense. They never changed, they never sold out but yet, they are probably the biggest band in the world right now. That’s quite admirable in my opinion.
You are the second person who tells me that. Amon Amarth’s lead singer said the same thing to me about ACDC…(Check out the interview with Amon Amarth done at April 24th 2011, here at Spirit of Metal).
Really? Funny… It’s true though. ACDC never did anything different all these years, they stayed exactly who they were and 30 years later, they are the biggest band in the world. It’s pretty cool!
Now, the opposite questions … any regrets after all these years?
No, not really. I mean, we had our ups and downs, we had our break-ups, personnel changes and all that. But it was always something that seemed justified and seemed the right thing to do at the time. So, I can’t ever regret anything that I stood behind at the time, you know?
For 2011 you have shows scheduled until July. Anything else scheduled for the rest of the year?
No, we are going to start working on the new album actually. That’s why we will stop touring: so we do have the time [to work on the new album] and because we can never really work well on the road.
I have no idea how people do it. I’ve heard some guys are actually writing on the road. I never get enough free or down time on the road to actually get into the spirit of song writing.
What about the next album? Any ideas already?
No, I think we are going to approach it the same way [as the last album]: we are not going to be scarred by anything. We are just going to sit down and start writing riffs and see what happens.
Talking about the metal scene now. I heard and read some of your interviews and you always say that you don’t really follow it. But, are there any bands that have impressed you lately?
Yeah, that’s an honest statement. I follow nothing, really. But tell you what: we toured with a band in Europe called Grand Magus. I thought they were pretty good.
Anything you are listening to right now?
Not really. I listen to classical music if I want to put on some stuff but other than that I’m not really much of a listener, I’m more of a song writer, I work on my own stuff. I never get much enjoyment from just listening to music. It sounds really bizarre, but it’s true.
Anything you want to accomplish with Accept during the next few years? Any wishes?
Yeah. We would love to keep this going as long as we can, because right now we are having a “ball”. To just travel around the world and meet these fans that have waited for us for all these years, this is a dream come true.
You have to realize, we’ve all had other careers in the mean time and we’ve all had success at certain things in life but we’ve really missed making music. This is why we are back here. It’s not to seek fame and fortune anymore, it’s just for the love of making music, for being on stage. And that’s the same for everybody in the band. So, for us to get this opportunity right now is pretty awesome.
We love what we are doing and hopefully we will make another few albums the next few years and keep this thing going.I don’t have any goals like: we have to reach this and that, like I said earlier, a Grammy, or anything in that nature. No man… we are just pretty content where we are.
Anything you would like to say to the readers of Spirit of Metal?
Well, again,thank you for supporting Accept for all these years because without the fans we couldn’t do any of this. I mean, its mind blowing sometimes that we meet all these people that have literally waited 10, 15 years to see us again, or here in Southern California it would be 20 years.
So we go to a lot of places where people have been waiting and now they finally have a chance to see us and we finally have a chance to meet them, so it’s awesome.
You bet! My pleasure!
You guys have toured last year here in US (October 2010) and now you are back (May 2011). What are the differences between this and the last tour?
The last tour was some sort of a first glimpse or a first visit to say: “Hey, Accept is back and we are back together”. This time around is more of a full blown tour, we’ve been on the road for several weeks and if we go back to January when we started it [the tour] in Europe, we’ve been on the road for several months now. So, this time around we bring more stuff, we play a longer set and this kind of thing. So, it’s good…
Your latest album “Blood of the Nations” is making a lot of success. It hit “high positions” on several countries charts...
Oh yeah! Lots of places! Something like 40 or 50 webzines, magazines, countries… I mean… we couldn’t have asked for more.
When you guys were working on the album… did you imagine such a big success?
No, you can’t think on those terms, quite honestly… and you never do. You just write the bet songs you can at the time and the rest is up to other people, you know? If you could plan this sort of things you would obviously always plan for multi-million dollar successes but, you can’t plan anything like that. It’s always a certain amount of timing and luck involved, the right record at the right time. Quite honestly, as a musician, I think you always try to give your best. Sometimes you succeed, sometimes you don’t.
Have the reaction of the fans been different in different territories, or has it been the same?
It’s universal: metal fans love this record more then anything we have ever done or more then anything we’ve done ever since the 80s. Most people would put it right next to “Balls to the wall” or “Restless and Wild” as far as the hierarchy of the albums concerned, and that is world wide.
But, there are differences as far as the overall metal scene. For instance in Europe, we draw much larger crowds and the metal scene in general is much more vibrant, much more alive then here. We still have fans over here [US] but there are fewer venues, not quite the attendance we have in Europe…So, there are differences.
Has this tour been good until now (in US)?
Yes! It has been really good, definitely! It tends to be more successful in larger cities like LA, New York and Chicago. There’s when we get the really wild crowds and really full houses. But it’s been going quite well overall.
Can you describe to us a little bit about the process of composing, writing, recording this album?
I really always have to go back to the day that we met Mark Tornillo, about 2 years ago, because in that instant we decided to re-launch Accept and that meant to us to write a new album. Before that, it was in nobody’s radar, we didn’t have any songs written, we didn’t have anything because we didn’t have a band. We though it was all over and finished. So, in that moment we decided: “All right, we will make a new record”.
Peter [Baltes] and I got together several times over the next few months and spent about a week or ten days at a time writing new stuff. And that’s really what we usually have to do: we have to set time aside, lock the doors, turn off the phones and really get down to business. That’s when we come up with good stuff, so that’s what we did.
Over the course of 2 or 3 months we had all these songs written and about half way through that process we met Andy Sneap, the producer. He was very instrumental selecting the write songs and recording it all. He was a huge help on this project. I’m sure the record would have turned out way different if he wouldn’t be there. It was a blessing that he came at the right time and join us, you know?
It went super smooth, it really didn’t take long for us to make all these songs and then to record them, there were really no delays. From start to finish the process was only 6 months or so, from the first day we decided to do this to the day it was recorded.
So, you guys didn’t use anything that you have worked on during those years without a band?
No, no. That’s a surprise to everybody! A lot of people though that this album is strong because we had 15 years to write it but, that’s not true, we had just a few weeks to do it, which is quite amazing.
Has this time off contribute somehow to this strong album? Did the time off give you new ideas, inspirations, etc?
Maybe… because we were really “recharged” and full of energy, more than we would have been in this constant touring – recording cycle. I don’t know. Nobody really knows. I know that we have been more energized than we have been in a long, long time.
The idea for us to sort of “come out of retirement” and jump into this thing full force again, was so exciting that I’m sure it has contributed also.
The pressure we had from people who were saying that this was not going to work, because changing lead singers is a very tricky thing, I believe have contributed too. Because, we wanted to show these people wrong and say: yes, we can do this and yes, this is going to be a good album. So, we worked extra hard.
In your opinion what was the most difficult step during the process of making and releasing this album (Blood of Nations)?
Humm… let me think, what was the hardest part? Ahh, I will tell you what the hardest part was: waiting for it to be released! Because it was really done and mixed in January or February but, by the time we had the actual label deal it was already May and then they didn’t want to release it before the summer, because there is a summer “hole” that nobody wants to release records in. So we had to wait until August. All this time we had this thing ready and finished but we couldn’t play it to anybody. So that was the toughest part.
Since the release of the album… can you think of a most special moment with the fans?
There are quite a few actually. Obviously the first show ever was quite exciting because we had no idea of what it was going to be like: to be in the same stage with Mark [Tornillo], with new lineup and the rest of us had not been together on stage in many, many years. So, that was the first night in New York, last year. It was quite exciting… that sticks out.
Later on we did some unforgettable shows, several of them with ACDC in Germany. There were like 80.000 people each show so, that was huge. We are huge ACDC fans so that was a great honor for us.
And then we headlined some festival dates in Europe, Sonisphere festivals in Turkey and Romania. That was pretty awesome too.
Looking back at all the years you spent with the band, what have been your biggest accomplishments, the ones you are most proud of?
We never won a Grammy or anything, or else I would say that would be it. But I think that the fact that we have influenced so many other people, which is a fact that we were really just aware off, later on in life. When we released “Restless and wild”, “Breaker”, “Balls to the wall” and these early albums in the 80s, we didn’t really have a clear sense that it would influence so many people, other musicians in particular. This fact is probably what I am most proud of.
We made several gold records but never a multi-platinum one. We never had that huge commercial success that other bands have sometimes (number one MTV videos, records that sell 12 million copies). But, what we did have was a huge underground following and a huge sort of credibility with fans and musicians too.
Yeah, but if you think about it, not too many bands (rock, metal) have accomplished that: platinum records, etc.
No, there are not too many. But, there are some “hair bands” that had some pretty cheese songs and sold gazillion of records with it. We never really had that and we never really wanted that either. We wanted to do our way and I’m actually proud of the fact.
Of course, the best is: if you can be true to yourself, stay who you are and still have multi million dollar successes, like ACDC for instance. They are awesome in that sense. They never changed, they never sold out but yet, they are probably the biggest band in the world right now. That’s quite admirable in my opinion.
You are the second person who tells me that. Amon Amarth’s lead singer said the same thing to me about ACDC…(Check out the interview with Amon Amarth done at April 24th 2011, here at Spirit of Metal).
Really? Funny… It’s true though. ACDC never did anything different all these years, they stayed exactly who they were and 30 years later, they are the biggest band in the world. It’s pretty cool!
Now, the opposite questions … any regrets after all these years?
No, not really. I mean, we had our ups and downs, we had our break-ups, personnel changes and all that. But it was always something that seemed justified and seemed the right thing to do at the time. So, I can’t ever regret anything that I stood behind at the time, you know?
For 2011 you have shows scheduled until July. Anything else scheduled for the rest of the year?
No, we are going to start working on the new album actually. That’s why we will stop touring: so we do have the time [to work on the new album] and because we can never really work well on the road.
I have no idea how people do it. I’ve heard some guys are actually writing on the road. I never get enough free or down time on the road to actually get into the spirit of song writing.
What about the next album? Any ideas already?
No, I think we are going to approach it the same way [as the last album]: we are not going to be scarred by anything. We are just going to sit down and start writing riffs and see what happens.
Talking about the metal scene now. I heard and read some of your interviews and you always say that you don’t really follow it. But, are there any bands that have impressed you lately?
Yeah, that’s an honest statement. I follow nothing, really. But tell you what: we toured with a band in Europe called Grand Magus. I thought they were pretty good.
Anything you are listening to right now?
Not really. I listen to classical music if I want to put on some stuff but other than that I’m not really much of a listener, I’m more of a song writer, I work on my own stuff. I never get much enjoyment from just listening to music. It sounds really bizarre, but it’s true.
Anything you want to accomplish with Accept during the next few years? Any wishes?
Yeah. We would love to keep this going as long as we can, because right now we are having a “ball”. To just travel around the world and meet these fans that have waited for us for all these years, this is a dream come true.
You have to realize, we’ve all had other careers in the mean time and we’ve all had success at certain things in life but we’ve really missed making music. This is why we are back here. It’s not to seek fame and fortune anymore, it’s just for the love of making music, for being on stage. And that’s the same for everybody in the band. So, for us to get this opportunity right now is pretty awesome.
We love what we are doing and hopefully we will make another few albums the next few years and keep this thing going.I don’t have any goals like: we have to reach this and that, like I said earlier, a Grammy, or anything in that nature. No man… we are just pretty content where we are.
Anything you would like to say to the readers of Spirit of Metal?
Well, again,thank you for supporting Accept for all these years because without the fans we couldn’t do any of this. I mean, its mind blowing sometimes that we meet all these people that have literally waited 10, 15 years to see us again, or here in Southern California it would be 20 years.
So we go to a lot of places where people have been waiting and now they finally have a chance to see us and we finally have a chance to meet them, so it’s awesome.
Amon Amarth:
Amon Amarth came to West Hollywood during their “An evening with Amon Amarth” tour. At the occasion, Spirit of Metal had a little chat with the lead singer Johan Hegg. Check it out!
You guys are touring in North America and performing with no openers, with a 2 act concert. How did you come up with this idea and how did you choose the songs for the concert?
The idea originated from the fact that we were trying to get an opening act to go [on tour] with us but unfortunately at the last minute they canceled and we didn’t really have any plan “B” for that. So, our promoter or our agent here in the US came up with the idea of doing this “An evening with Amon Amarth”. We thought it was a fucking crazy idea, so we said: “Yeah, let’s do it!”
To play the full album [Surtir Rising] in the first set was the idea from the beginning. But then [for the second act] we just tried to put together the best set with songs we know people love to hear and mixed it with a few songs that we haven’t played in a long time or haven’t played in the US at all, actually.
It seems that everything is working out really well for this tour. I saw in your website that a lot of the concerts were sold out. So, what is your overall “feeling” about the tour?
It’s been good. I mean… it’s obviously hard work for us. We do almost 2.5 hours every night on stage. And even though we have a small intermission between the two sets, it’s still kind of rough and you need to focus and be professional about everything.
The shows are pretty hard on you as a musician but on the other hand everything surrounding it has been very nice, pretty smooth. Obviously, as you said, the shows have been packed, so it’s always easy when we fill out the rooms…
Can you tell us a little bit about the process of writing / composing this album? Musically speaking… Did you want to achieve something specific with it?
I think the writing process is pretty much the same that we have done for a long time: we just get together in the rehearsal place and work with the ideas that we have, try to compose the best possible music that we can… and then I try to come up with lyrics.
The main difference for this album is that we actually sat down with the producer before we even started to write anything. We said: “So… what do we want to achieve with this album? We want to have a rougher, more aggressive sound.” So, I guess that was the mind frame when we started the writing process.
We had a more elaborate cooperation from our producer on this album, even during the actual writing process. He would come to the rehearsal place a couple of times, listen to the stuff that we had, and come up with pointers of what to change or what to maybe improve. He didn’t actually write anything for the album but he had ideas concerning the arrangements of the songs and all this stuff.
In that aspect it was different. Otherwise, it sounds boring, but it was just the usual (laughs).
What we tried to achieve is what we always try to achieve: we always try to write the best possible album we could ever write. It’s never: “This has to top this or that”. It is always: “You have to make a great album”. That’s the idea. And fortunately, we have succeeded again, I think.
As you said: you always try to come up with a better album but, if someone who doesn’t yet know Amon Amarth, had to choose only one of your albums… which one would you advise him/her to get?
(Laughs). Oh man… this is a tough one…If I could say one album, I personally would say it’s a very significant one for the band and the music that we create, it combines together the old and the new stuff that we have, even though we haven’t changed much over the years, it has all of the new era where we are working with Jens Bogren and also has all of “where we came from”. I would probably say: “With Oden on Our Side”.
Musically, as an artist … have you achieved everything you wished for with Amon Amarth?
No, there’s a lot more to be done. I mean… as long as we think this is fun and we love doing this, we will continue doing it. I know that, personally, I have some cool lyrical ideas for the next album already. I think we even have some musical ideas. But, it’s nothing that we are going to start working with until we are done touring. Obviously, if you come up with something, you write it down and keep it for the next album to come…
So, you guys don’t try to work on tour…?
No… we want to stay focused. When we are writing stuff we feel like we have to be focused on that and we don’t want to have any distractions around us. And tours are full of distractions; it’s not a good working environment when you try to write music. Not for us anyway… I know other people can do it but it has never really worked out for us.
About all the bands that influenced you in the past… how do you see their influence on your music now, or do you see any?
It’s hard to tell, I mean, obviously all the bands that we are influenced by or, I would rather say that we are inspired by… I wouldn’t say you can really notice it in the music [their influence].
Maybe there are some hints of Slayer here and there, and there are hints of Iron Maiden definitely. But, it’s more that they inspired us to write the music that we, ourselves want to write… we don’t want to sound like them.
Can you name a band that has followed a path, during their career that you admire and you would like to follow the same kind of path that they did?
It’s hard to compare yourself to other bands in the first place because every band is unique and every band’s path is different, you know? There are a few bands that I admire for what they’ve done and for what they’ve accomplished… if you look at bands like ACDC, what they have done and achieved… it’s just amazing! They never backed down one inch from what they wanted to do. I really, really like and respect that.
But that goes for many bands like: Motörhead, Slayer, Iron Maiden… typical bands that have always done what they wanted to do. So, there are a lot of bands to look up to and get inspiration from when it comes to that aspect. We always try to work our own ways, from the beginning… We made a lot of mistakes and we learned from them and moved on.
I wouldn’t want to change our path for anything else. Sure, there is some stuff that we could have done a lot better in the past, but on the other hand this is it, you know? You learn from it, you get stronger, you get hopefully smarter (laughs).
<>So, you guys have done mistakes but your fans still love you! I can tell you that not every band has sold out concert every time they come here, in Hollywood at least. What is the key for that? Is it just because of the band or do you have something special in your concerts that keep the fans wanting to come back every time?
(Laughs) I don’t know… I guess, from what we hear, we do things differently than other bands. We were talking to our bus driver when we played in Lawrence, Kansas. There were a bunch of fans hanging out in front of the bus when we came. You know, we dropped our shit off and then we got off the bus, took some pictures, did some signing and talked to them for a while. And he [the bus driver] was just amazed! He said that after all the years driving a bus he had never seen a band do that… Never!
I don’t know… for us it’s common sense. It’s not a big effort. We feel our fans deserve it. The people who come up to the show, they deserve it. Obviously you can’t be there for everyone all the time… but we try to, you know? So, I think that’s important. It’s always been important for us to have that connection to our fans. Let’s face it… without the fans we wouldn’t be touring. We wouldn’t be selling out…
But I also think that they obviously like the music and come [to the concerts] for that sake…
After this tour is done… What are the plans for Amon Amarth this year? Touring the entire year?
After this tour we are doing a European tour, then we pretty much have the summer off. We are doing only one festival in the summer: Tuska, in Finland. And then in August we will start touring again. It will be pretty much non-stop touring until the end of December. Then, we will have a break and we will see what happens next year. I’m sure we are going to do some more stuff.
Any plans for your summer “time off”?
I’m going to take care of my house (laughs). My wife and I have a big old house in the country side. I need to work on it. It’s an old wooden house, it’s a big property. So, there’s a lot to do. It is nice… it’s a good place to live.
You guys have played in the 70000 tons of metal last year … Are there any chances that you guys will be in the next one also?
Let’s put it this way… I would love to play there again but I’m not sure if we would want to go there again next year and I don’t think that they would like to have the same bands as well. So, for us, it would make more sense to skip the next one and maybe come back for the one after that.
Do you have anything specific you would like to accomplish with Amon Amarth during the next year or two? Anything on your “wish list”?
We want to go to new territories, of course. We would like to play in Africa for the first time. I hope we will be able to go back to South America and do a more extensive touring there. We would like to go to Asia and do some more shows there: China, Japan, Korea…
So... anything you would like to say to the reader of Spirit of Metal?
Check out the new album and we will see you guys on the road!
The idea originated from the fact that we were trying to get an opening act to go [on tour] with us but unfortunately at the last minute they canceled and we didn’t really have any plan “B” for that. So, our promoter or our agent here in the US came up with the idea of doing this “An evening with Amon Amarth”. We thought it was a fucking crazy idea, so we said: “Yeah, let’s do it!”
To play the full album [Surtir Rising] in the first set was the idea from the beginning. But then [for the second act] we just tried to put together the best set with songs we know people love to hear and mixed it with a few songs that we haven’t played in a long time or haven’t played in the US at all, actually.
It seems that everything is working out really well for this tour. I saw in your website that a lot of the concerts were sold out. So, what is your overall “feeling” about the tour?
It’s been good. I mean… it’s obviously hard work for us. We do almost 2.5 hours every night on stage. And even though we have a small intermission between the two sets, it’s still kind of rough and you need to focus and be professional about everything.
The shows are pretty hard on you as a musician but on the other hand everything surrounding it has been very nice, pretty smooth. Obviously, as you said, the shows have been packed, so it’s always easy when we fill out the rooms…
Can you tell us a little bit about the process of writing / composing this album? Musically speaking… Did you want to achieve something specific with it?
I think the writing process is pretty much the same that we have done for a long time: we just get together in the rehearsal place and work with the ideas that we have, try to compose the best possible music that we can… and then I try to come up with lyrics.
The main difference for this album is that we actually sat down with the producer before we even started to write anything. We said: “So… what do we want to achieve with this album? We want to have a rougher, more aggressive sound.” So, I guess that was the mind frame when we started the writing process.
We had a more elaborate cooperation from our producer on this album, even during the actual writing process. He would come to the rehearsal place a couple of times, listen to the stuff that we had, and come up with pointers of what to change or what to maybe improve. He didn’t actually write anything for the album but he had ideas concerning the arrangements of the songs and all this stuff.
In that aspect it was different. Otherwise, it sounds boring, but it was just the usual (laughs).
What we tried to achieve is what we always try to achieve: we always try to write the best possible album we could ever write. It’s never: “This has to top this or that”. It is always: “You have to make a great album”. That’s the idea. And fortunately, we have succeeded again, I think.
As you said: you always try to come up with a better album but, if someone who doesn’t yet know Amon Amarth, had to choose only one of your albums… which one would you advise him/her to get?
(Laughs). Oh man… this is a tough one…If I could say one album, I personally would say it’s a very significant one for the band and the music that we create, it combines together the old and the new stuff that we have, even though we haven’t changed much over the years, it has all of the new era where we are working with Jens Bogren and also has all of “where we came from”. I would probably say: “With Oden on Our Side”.
Musically, as an artist … have you achieved everything you wished for with Amon Amarth?
No, there’s a lot more to be done. I mean… as long as we think this is fun and we love doing this, we will continue doing it. I know that, personally, I have some cool lyrical ideas for the next album already. I think we even have some musical ideas. But, it’s nothing that we are going to start working with until we are done touring. Obviously, if you come up with something, you write it down and keep it for the next album to come…
So, you guys don’t try to work on tour…?
No… we want to stay focused. When we are writing stuff we feel like we have to be focused on that and we don’t want to have any distractions around us. And tours are full of distractions; it’s not a good working environment when you try to write music. Not for us anyway… I know other people can do it but it has never really worked out for us.
About all the bands that influenced you in the past… how do you see their influence on your music now, or do you see any?
It’s hard to tell, I mean, obviously all the bands that we are influenced by or, I would rather say that we are inspired by… I wouldn’t say you can really notice it in the music [their influence].
Maybe there are some hints of Slayer here and there, and there are hints of Iron Maiden definitely. But, it’s more that they inspired us to write the music that we, ourselves want to write… we don’t want to sound like them.
Can you name a band that has followed a path, during their career that you admire and you would like to follow the same kind of path that they did?
It’s hard to compare yourself to other bands in the first place because every band is unique and every band’s path is different, you know? There are a few bands that I admire for what they’ve done and for what they’ve accomplished… if you look at bands like ACDC, what they have done and achieved… it’s just amazing! They never backed down one inch from what they wanted to do. I really, really like and respect that.
But that goes for many bands like: Motörhead, Slayer, Iron Maiden… typical bands that have always done what they wanted to do. So, there are a lot of bands to look up to and get inspiration from when it comes to that aspect. We always try to work our own ways, from the beginning… We made a lot of mistakes and we learned from them and moved on.
I wouldn’t want to change our path for anything else. Sure, there is some stuff that we could have done a lot better in the past, but on the other hand this is it, you know? You learn from it, you get stronger, you get hopefully smarter (laughs).
<>So, you guys have done mistakes but your fans still love you! I can tell you that not every band has sold out concert every time they come here, in Hollywood at least. What is the key for that? Is it just because of the band or do you have something special in your concerts that keep the fans wanting to come back every time?
(Laughs) I don’t know… I guess, from what we hear, we do things differently than other bands. We were talking to our bus driver when we played in Lawrence, Kansas. There were a bunch of fans hanging out in front of the bus when we came. You know, we dropped our shit off and then we got off the bus, took some pictures, did some signing and talked to them for a while. And he [the bus driver] was just amazed! He said that after all the years driving a bus he had never seen a band do that… Never!
I don’t know… for us it’s common sense. It’s not a big effort. We feel our fans deserve it. The people who come up to the show, they deserve it. Obviously you can’t be there for everyone all the time… but we try to, you know? So, I think that’s important. It’s always been important for us to have that connection to our fans. Let’s face it… without the fans we wouldn’t be touring. We wouldn’t be selling out…
But I also think that they obviously like the music and come [to the concerts] for that sake…
After this tour is done… What are the plans for Amon Amarth this year? Touring the entire year?
After this tour we are doing a European tour, then we pretty much have the summer off. We are doing only one festival in the summer: Tuska, in Finland. And then in August we will start touring again. It will be pretty much non-stop touring until the end of December. Then, we will have a break and we will see what happens next year. I’m sure we are going to do some more stuff.
Any plans for your summer “time off”?
I’m going to take care of my house (laughs). My wife and I have a big old house in the country side. I need to work on it. It’s an old wooden house, it’s a big property. So, there’s a lot to do. It is nice… it’s a good place to live.
You guys have played in the 70000 tons of metal last year … Are there any chances that you guys will be in the next one also?
Let’s put it this way… I would love to play there again but I’m not sure if we would want to go there again next year and I don’t think that they would like to have the same bands as well. So, for us, it would make more sense to skip the next one and maybe come back for the one after that.
Do you have anything specific you would like to accomplish with Amon Amarth during the next year or two? Anything on your “wish list”?
We want to go to new territories, of course. We would like to play in Africa for the first time. I hope we will be able to go back to South America and do a more extensive touring there. We would like to go to Asia and do some more shows there: China, Japan, Korea…
So... anything you would like to say to the reader of Spirit of Metal?
Check out the new album and we will see you guys on the road!
Eluveitie:
Eluveitie has toured around the US in February 2011. When they came to LA, SOM interviewed their lead singer: Chrigel Glanzmann. Check it out!!!
You guys have released your latest album around a year ago. How has this past year been to the band? Are you all satisfied with the results from this latest work? [Everything remains (as it never was)].
Busy! As you said, it was released in January or February, I don’t remember, something like that. Yeah, since then we basically toured almost constantly. I mean last summer we had some breaks - we played the summer festivals so we were at home during the week and playing some shows anywhere during the weekend. But besides that we have been on the road almost constantly.
So yeah, it has been a busy year. The album was received really, really well, much more than we ever expected actually. And also, the songs turned out to be really cool “live” songs. We really love to play them. The crowd so far seems to like them a lot. So, it’s been good.
You have started this tour in US just after playing in Brazil. How was playing there? And also: do you have any other “new destinations” for this year?
Yeah it was extremely hot (laughs). It was pretty much a job for us because we just came there directly from snow covered Switzerland. Personally, I was struggling quite a lot, my hands got swollen up. I am just not used to those temperatures (laughs). But, besides this, it was amazing! We loved it! We really loved it a lot. We want to go back as soon as possible. It was really, really cool! The shows were great, the audience was great and promoters were really, really great. So, yeah… it was amazing.
Other new territories… yes, of course, always! We always want to. There is not that much concretely planned right now. We have some new territories coming up, like Turkey for example, we will play there in the summer. And yeah, we are just talking about the regular things like: Japan, Australia, Indonesia and all that. It’s been planned but not fixedly confirmed. And also, of course, more Southern America. Originally, we were talking about going to some other Southern American countries this time but for some reason it didn’t work out. If it’s not happening this year it will be for sure next year … next time.
You are having a contest for fans to play with you on stage in most concerts of this tour. It started in Brazil and now it is continuing here in the US. How did you come out with this idea and also how have the presentations of these special guests being?
Well…it was just like, a spontaneous idea actually. It was our drummer’s idea. Yeah... We are always thinking about doing original stuff. We’ve always been a band, as well, that is close to the fans. Before and after the shows we go to the bar, get around with people and stuff like that. That’s pretty much what we do anyway.When we are on tour we always think about doing funny things or stuff like that.
So this was just a spontaneous idea. Especially since we are always getting lots of covers, cover versions of us. If you go to youtube and type in “Eluveitie”, you will find everything: from piano to whatever covers, you know? We thought that this was kind of cool. So this idea came up: to involve those people that play covers. So, why not let them play those covers on stage with us?
Yes, it has been quite a lot of fun until now. We had a guest almost every night. So yeah, it was quite cool! I think people loved it as well.
How was the process of selecting the videos? Any interesting ones? Unusual instruments?
Not too much unusual instruments. Most of the people applied for playing guitars, obviously, which is kind of what we expected anyway since there are simply more people playing guitars than playing hurdy-gurdy or something (laughs).
But yeah… we got some really interesting things. In Atlanta there is a girl who will come with a viola. She did some really, really cool stuff. Yeah … I mean, we chose what we thought would be the best.
About this tour, besides having the fans on stage with you, how has it been for you so far?
Really good… yeah… that’s pretty much all I can say. We are more or less in the middle of the tour right now and it has been treating us really good so far. It’s been quite a successful tour, which is something that we are very happy about since we were not too sure about the tour in the beginning, for different reasons. First of all the economy is not too … looking too bright over here. You really want to see those things when it comes to record sales and people attending shows. Plus the fact that there are actually three or four quite similar tours going on at the same moment [Ensiferum, Finntroll and Turisas]. We were like… ok… this could be risky.
Since the economy is not too good, I think that there are many people that simply can’t afford to go to all the concerts. So, they are gonna have to choose. So, we were like.. Ohhh which concerts are they are choosing?
But yeah, it has been really successful so far. We had only one show which was not really full. I mean, it wasn’t a bad show. It was still half-way full or something. For all the other shows, we always had full-houses. So, that’s really, really good. That’s more than we expected actually! So, we are happy about this.
And of course: we are also really happy about the package! We like and prefer those mixed tour lineups. The bands turned out to be really cool bands to tour with. The chemistry between the bands is good as well. So yeah… it’s been a good tour so far.
This is not the first time you are touring with Holy Grail. Did you guys choose to tour with them or was it just a coincidence?
Yeah… basically we can choose them. I mean, it’s not … well usually… [Chrigel had a hard time finding his words in English]. Tour organizers can offer bands. They have a certain amount of bands that they know that will be available and would like to tour and stuff like that. And then you try to form a good package. And yeah… Holy Grail of course is cool.
[During the concert, Chrigel thanked the openers and asked the public for their applauses for them, one by one. Really cool!]
Shifting the subject a little bit… Eluveitie has been releasing albums in a yearly basis for the past 3 years (2008, 2009 and 2010). Is it a plan to have a new one released in 2011?
To record another album! We will not release it this year but we will record it.
Still talking about the albums… since you release them in such in a short period of time and knowing that you have been touring a lot the past years… How do you find the inspiration to compose and also the time to write and record?
I don’t know! (laughs)
Do you do it during the tours?
No, no… I tried this actually, many times, but it is not working. I cannot write music on tour. I don’t know why. I know that there are many bands that do that, “Lamb of God” or something. They write everything on tour. I don’t know how they do it. I couldn’t.
But, yeah… usually it doesn’t take that long to write. I mean, there are some songs that we were working on for a couple of months or something, which is like a long time! But there are also songs that have been finished in one day or something, like “Omnos” for example. It’s a song from our acoustic album. I’m sure we did a clip for that one. I started writing that in the evening, I finished around 5 o’clock in the morning and send it out to the band. It’s actually the last song I wrote for that album. It was just finished a couple of days before we entered the studio. So, yeah… it’s usually goes quite quickly.
And inspiration…I don’t know. From some free days you know? Back home and some days off. I just go like, walk around in the forest, go wondering in the Alps and stuff like that. That’s pretty much where I got inspiration from actually.
Eluveitie is composed of 8 musicians. How do you guys work in a day-to-day basis? In the studio?
When we are in studio every little detail is actually fixed already. There is not much arranging or composing work or anything like that happening in the studio. When we go to the studio it’s always like working quick. Each musician goes in, press record, play stuff and leave. It’s pretty much like that.
As far as writing process: is basically myself and today is also Ivo, our guitar player. He was writing quite some things for the last album and he will for the next album.
The songs are basically completely written by one person for all the instruments and everything. I roughly record it at home. The instruments I don’t play myself I can write in programs. Guitars and stuff like that I can do myself. Yeah, I just roughly record myself at home and send it to the band and everyone can learn their line. Then start the refining lines for his or her own instruments. That’s basically how we work.
You have released an “instrumental” album, which is even described in your web site as an “acoustic” album [Evocation I]. You have already announced that you will have a second part for the album. Are there any plans to perform acoustic concerts or tours?
There have been, yeah. We did it last year and the year before when we released the acoustic album. We played quite some acoustic shows but to be honest we are not the biggest fans of that. We didn’t know… we wanted to try it out but yeah, I don’t know. We enjoyed playing those songs but the shows themselves, I don’t know… we didn’t like it too much.
Maybe it has something to do with the… well, it’s not the audience but usually when we play acoustic shows its like, those medieval festivals or something like that. You know… all those gothic / medieval things you know? That’s totally cool with us, of course, but we just learned there that we can’t really compete with those medieval [bands]. I don’t know if you have ever seen bands like In Extremo and Corvus Corax: they come up on stage completely dressed up with those medieval things, they put out a hell of a show. It’s almost like medieval comedy or something like that, like they did hundreds of years ago. We didn’t know. We have never seen that… like: “Ohh what the hell is going on here?” Just, you know, the village idiots, we just came on stage, dressed as we are and play our folk music. People actually liked it but we always felt a bit odd actually (laughs).
But yeah, when we will record part 2 of Evocation for sure we will play acoustic shows again. Probably not an acoustic tour though. But, never say never, we don’t know yet.
So, you guys are probably introducing Folk music to a lot of metal fans. Do you think that the “opposite” is happening too? That a lot of people who like folk music are learning about metal because of you?
Funnily enough that actually happens, from time to time. Actually quite often! Maybe it’s also a little bit a matter of the area where we are playing.
Especially in Switzerland, we have almost after every show, people coming up to us and like: “Yeah… they never heard metal, they really don’t like metal but they heard this like in the radio or something and they were: Ohh, this is cool and stuff”.
So, yes… sometimes we even have a little bit of older people, 50 year old guys or something, who are basically into folk music, coming to our shows. Not that often though, of course not, but yeah, it happens, from time to time.
More of a personal question now. When you started to get into metal, which were your first favorite bands then and how do you think that their music influenced you and your music?
Ahh… I started to listen to metal quite early, when I was 6 years old, and my favorite band back then was Iron Maiden. Back than I thought that this was the only band playing music like that, I didn’t know that there was a heavy metal scene or something (laughs). I just got introduced to Iron Maiden and completely felt in love with it.
That band brought me to metal and that for sure influenced me. But, I mean, I don’t know… for sure they didn’t influenced the way I’m playing guitar or other string instruments. That’s not, but well, they brought me into metal.
If you could set-up a “dream” tour, where would that be and which groups would be in there?
Ha… well, I’ve been asked this questions a couple of times actually. I usually don’t know what to say. Basically, we just love to play live. So, we are just happy when we can play our song and when we can be on the road. We don’t care that much about what other bands are playing.
Me, personally, I would really love to drive a tour with Slipknot once. I don’t know exactly why. I just kind of like this band… I think it’s a cool band somehow.
Since it’s a repeated question… let me know re-phrase it: Any bands you would like to see if you could like… go back in time?
Wow… if I could do that I would love to see the “Bothy Band”. I don’t know if you heard of them. They are an Irish folk band from the 70’s. Yeah… they are “my gods” (laughs). Obviously they don’t exist anymore but I would love to see a show. It must have been amazing.
Switzerland is not a “known” country for metal bands. How is the metal scene over there? Do you think that it was harder for you (or it is harder for other bands from Switzerland) to grow than it is for bands from Finland, for example? [I had asked a similar question to Finntroll and Ensiferum on another interview. I had to know the answer from a non-Scandinavian band also. Check the other interview. The differences in answers are quite interesting].
Yeah, I do think so, yeah. It’s basically for two reasons I guess. One reason is that metal music is, as you correctly said, not a very big topic in Switzerland. So that means that in Finland for example, or some other Scandinavian countries, metal gets a much stronger attention, for example, from media and also from the government. I mean, the countries’ governments and social institutions, stuff like that, They… ohh… how do you say this… they endorse culture, whatever it is. If it is like painting or theater or music, they don’t care what kind of music it is, you know? They just think: ok, they are young people, contribution to our country’s culture, so it’s worth helping them out, you know?
So, this is not exactly happening in Switzerland. I mean, it is happening if you have a pop band or stuff like that. If you are applying metal they are usually “Oh… what’s this?” you know? So, that’s, of course one thing that makes it a little harder.
But, the main reason, personally I think, it is that we are too rich [Switzerland]. Sounds stupid but I think, if you want to grow up as a band it means like a hell of a lot of sacrifices, and at one point you will have to sacrifice your financial security and your nice standard of living. Because, if you grow, you will get to that point where you play that much live shows and tours and you invest that much into the band that it’s not possible for you anymore to have a regular job. But still, in that time, your band is not famous enough to bring you as much money as a regular job does. So, if you “grow”, you will face this time. If you are lucky you are only talking about 2, 3 years which are really difficult. But for most of the bands, this can be 10 years, you know?
If you look for example, to America, I mean, the living standard is far not as high as it is in Switzerland, for example, and there are many, many young people that don’t have many chances in their life. I know that this sounds really stupid…
No it doesn’t! I’m from Brazil! I know how it is!
There you go!
For many of them, music is like, their only chance to really go and do something they really like.
So they gladly give up anything for that, work their asses off… this is not happening in Switzerland. There are many, many bands in Switzerland, hundreds of bands actually, some really, really good metal bands.
The problem for most of them is that they are … how can you say? Too lazy or they just don’t want to risk too much. They like their good living standard, they like their financial security and having a nice apartment, blah, blah, blah. They are not willing to give all that up, to have a band which is growing, getting international attention and stuff like that. But, you need to give those things up otherwise you will just have your little 50 people shows once a month in Switzerland. That’s what actually is the case for most of the Swiss metal bands. Unfortunately! It’s a bummer actually.
Yeah, I think these are the two main reasons why it is hard for metal bands in Switzerland. Yeah, as I said, they make it hard for themselves, you know?
Do you think that maybe Eluveitie will be open some “doors” for other Swiss metal bands?
I don’t know. It would be cool. Maybe … I mean, there have been famous bands around [from Switzerland]. There has been Celtic frost, Samael, Coroner… but, obviously they didn’t change too much the Swiss music scene so I think we will not change it too much. But maybe … never say never!
Where do you see Eluveitie in 3 or 5 years? What are your big dreams and hopes for the band? And also, you have already reached / conquered a lot of milestones. Any big milestones that you are still expecting to reach by the end of this year?
Not really. I’m happy when I can afford a pair of new trousers or something like that. We are just music junkies! That’s the most important thing to us. It means life to us, that we can play and record our music. That’s basically what we want to do. As long as we can go on doing that we are happy. Yeah, of course we have our goals, but it’s more of a constant process of like going on step by step. We are working hard on that. Yeah … but we don’t have much expectations or anything. We just go step by step and see what happens.
Thank you! Anything you want to say to the Spirit of Metal readers?
Yeah. Thank you very much for the interview and thanks for all the readers for their interest in Eluveitie!
Busy! As you said, it was released in January or February, I don’t remember, something like that. Yeah, since then we basically toured almost constantly. I mean last summer we had some breaks - we played the summer festivals so we were at home during the week and playing some shows anywhere during the weekend. But besides that we have been on the road almost constantly.
So yeah, it has been a busy year. The album was received really, really well, much more than we ever expected actually. And also, the songs turned out to be really cool “live” songs. We really love to play them. The crowd so far seems to like them a lot. So, it’s been good.
You have started this tour in US just after playing in Brazil. How was playing there? And also: do you have any other “new destinations” for this year?
Yeah it was extremely hot (laughs). It was pretty much a job for us because we just came there directly from snow covered Switzerland. Personally, I was struggling quite a lot, my hands got swollen up. I am just not used to those temperatures (laughs). But, besides this, it was amazing! We loved it! We really loved it a lot. We want to go back as soon as possible. It was really, really cool! The shows were great, the audience was great and promoters were really, really great. So, yeah… it was amazing.
Other new territories… yes, of course, always! We always want to. There is not that much concretely planned right now. We have some new territories coming up, like Turkey for example, we will play there in the summer. And yeah, we are just talking about the regular things like: Japan, Australia, Indonesia and all that. It’s been planned but not fixedly confirmed. And also, of course, more Southern America. Originally, we were talking about going to some other Southern American countries this time but for some reason it didn’t work out. If it’s not happening this year it will be for sure next year … next time.
You are having a contest for fans to play with you on stage in most concerts of this tour. It started in Brazil and now it is continuing here in the US. How did you come out with this idea and also how have the presentations of these special guests being?
Well…it was just like, a spontaneous idea actually. It was our drummer’s idea. Yeah... We are always thinking about doing original stuff. We’ve always been a band, as well, that is close to the fans. Before and after the shows we go to the bar, get around with people and stuff like that. That’s pretty much what we do anyway.When we are on tour we always think about doing funny things or stuff like that.
So this was just a spontaneous idea. Especially since we are always getting lots of covers, cover versions of us. If you go to youtube and type in “Eluveitie”, you will find everything: from piano to whatever covers, you know? We thought that this was kind of cool. So this idea came up: to involve those people that play covers. So, why not let them play those covers on stage with us?
Yes, it has been quite a lot of fun until now. We had a guest almost every night. So yeah, it was quite cool! I think people loved it as well.
How was the process of selecting the videos? Any interesting ones? Unusual instruments?
Not too much unusual instruments. Most of the people applied for playing guitars, obviously, which is kind of what we expected anyway since there are simply more people playing guitars than playing hurdy-gurdy or something (laughs).
But yeah… we got some really interesting things. In Atlanta there is a girl who will come with a viola. She did some really, really cool stuff. Yeah … I mean, we chose what we thought would be the best.
About this tour, besides having the fans on stage with you, how has it been for you so far?
Really good… yeah… that’s pretty much all I can say. We are more or less in the middle of the tour right now and it has been treating us really good so far. It’s been quite a successful tour, which is something that we are very happy about since we were not too sure about the tour in the beginning, for different reasons. First of all the economy is not too … looking too bright over here. You really want to see those things when it comes to record sales and people attending shows. Plus the fact that there are actually three or four quite similar tours going on at the same moment [Ensiferum, Finntroll and Turisas]. We were like… ok… this could be risky.
Since the economy is not too good, I think that there are many people that simply can’t afford to go to all the concerts. So, they are gonna have to choose. So, we were like.. Ohhh which concerts are they are choosing?
But yeah, it has been really successful so far. We had only one show which was not really full. I mean, it wasn’t a bad show. It was still half-way full or something. For all the other shows, we always had full-houses. So, that’s really, really good. That’s more than we expected actually! So, we are happy about this.
And of course: we are also really happy about the package! We like and prefer those mixed tour lineups. The bands turned out to be really cool bands to tour with. The chemistry between the bands is good as well. So yeah… it’s been a good tour so far.
This is not the first time you are touring with Holy Grail. Did you guys choose to tour with them or was it just a coincidence?
Yeah… basically we can choose them. I mean, it’s not … well usually… [Chrigel had a hard time finding his words in English]. Tour organizers can offer bands. They have a certain amount of bands that they know that will be available and would like to tour and stuff like that. And then you try to form a good package. And yeah… Holy Grail of course is cool.
[During the concert, Chrigel thanked the openers and asked the public for their applauses for them, one by one. Really cool!]
Shifting the subject a little bit… Eluveitie has been releasing albums in a yearly basis for the past 3 years (2008, 2009 and 2010). Is it a plan to have a new one released in 2011?
To record another album! We will not release it this year but we will record it.
Still talking about the albums… since you release them in such in a short period of time and knowing that you have been touring a lot the past years… How do you find the inspiration to compose and also the time to write and record?
I don’t know! (laughs)
Do you do it during the tours?
No, no… I tried this actually, many times, but it is not working. I cannot write music on tour. I don’t know why. I know that there are many bands that do that, “Lamb of God” or something. They write everything on tour. I don’t know how they do it. I couldn’t.
But, yeah… usually it doesn’t take that long to write. I mean, there are some songs that we were working on for a couple of months or something, which is like a long time! But there are also songs that have been finished in one day or something, like “Omnos” for example. It’s a song from our acoustic album. I’m sure we did a clip for that one. I started writing that in the evening, I finished around 5 o’clock in the morning and send it out to the band. It’s actually the last song I wrote for that album. It was just finished a couple of days before we entered the studio. So, yeah… it’s usually goes quite quickly.
And inspiration…I don’t know. From some free days you know? Back home and some days off. I just go like, walk around in the forest, go wondering in the Alps and stuff like that. That’s pretty much where I got inspiration from actually.
Eluveitie is composed of 8 musicians. How do you guys work in a day-to-day basis? In the studio?
When we are in studio every little detail is actually fixed already. There is not much arranging or composing work or anything like that happening in the studio. When we go to the studio it’s always like working quick. Each musician goes in, press record, play stuff and leave. It’s pretty much like that.
As far as writing process: is basically myself and today is also Ivo, our guitar player. He was writing quite some things for the last album and he will for the next album.
The songs are basically completely written by one person for all the instruments and everything. I roughly record it at home. The instruments I don’t play myself I can write in programs. Guitars and stuff like that I can do myself. Yeah, I just roughly record myself at home and send it to the band and everyone can learn their line. Then start the refining lines for his or her own instruments. That’s basically how we work.
You have released an “instrumental” album, which is even described in your web site as an “acoustic” album [Evocation I]. You have already announced that you will have a second part for the album. Are there any plans to perform acoustic concerts or tours?
There have been, yeah. We did it last year and the year before when we released the acoustic album. We played quite some acoustic shows but to be honest we are not the biggest fans of that. We didn’t know… we wanted to try it out but yeah, I don’t know. We enjoyed playing those songs but the shows themselves, I don’t know… we didn’t like it too much.
Maybe it has something to do with the… well, it’s not the audience but usually when we play acoustic shows its like, those medieval festivals or something like that. You know… all those gothic / medieval things you know? That’s totally cool with us, of course, but we just learned there that we can’t really compete with those medieval [bands]. I don’t know if you have ever seen bands like In Extremo and Corvus Corax: they come up on stage completely dressed up with those medieval things, they put out a hell of a show. It’s almost like medieval comedy or something like that, like they did hundreds of years ago. We didn’t know. We have never seen that… like: “Ohh what the hell is going on here?” Just, you know, the village idiots, we just came on stage, dressed as we are and play our folk music. People actually liked it but we always felt a bit odd actually (laughs).
But yeah, when we will record part 2 of Evocation for sure we will play acoustic shows again. Probably not an acoustic tour though. But, never say never, we don’t know yet.
So, you guys are probably introducing Folk music to a lot of metal fans. Do you think that the “opposite” is happening too? That a lot of people who like folk music are learning about metal because of you?
Funnily enough that actually happens, from time to time. Actually quite often! Maybe it’s also a little bit a matter of the area where we are playing.
Especially in Switzerland, we have almost after every show, people coming up to us and like: “Yeah… they never heard metal, they really don’t like metal but they heard this like in the radio or something and they were: Ohh, this is cool and stuff”.
So, yes… sometimes we even have a little bit of older people, 50 year old guys or something, who are basically into folk music, coming to our shows. Not that often though, of course not, but yeah, it happens, from time to time.
More of a personal question now. When you started to get into metal, which were your first favorite bands then and how do you think that their music influenced you and your music?
Ahh… I started to listen to metal quite early, when I was 6 years old, and my favorite band back then was Iron Maiden. Back than I thought that this was the only band playing music like that, I didn’t know that there was a heavy metal scene or something (laughs). I just got introduced to Iron Maiden and completely felt in love with it.
That band brought me to metal and that for sure influenced me. But, I mean, I don’t know… for sure they didn’t influenced the way I’m playing guitar or other string instruments. That’s not, but well, they brought me into metal.
If you could set-up a “dream” tour, where would that be and which groups would be in there?
Ha… well, I’ve been asked this questions a couple of times actually. I usually don’t know what to say. Basically, we just love to play live. So, we are just happy when we can play our song and when we can be on the road. We don’t care that much about what other bands are playing.
Me, personally, I would really love to drive a tour with Slipknot once. I don’t know exactly why. I just kind of like this band… I think it’s a cool band somehow.
Since it’s a repeated question… let me know re-phrase it: Any bands you would like to see if you could like… go back in time?
Wow… if I could do that I would love to see the “Bothy Band”. I don’t know if you heard of them. They are an Irish folk band from the 70’s. Yeah… they are “my gods” (laughs). Obviously they don’t exist anymore but I would love to see a show. It must have been amazing.
Switzerland is not a “known” country for metal bands. How is the metal scene over there? Do you think that it was harder for you (or it is harder for other bands from Switzerland) to grow than it is for bands from Finland, for example? [I had asked a similar question to Finntroll and Ensiferum on another interview. I had to know the answer from a non-Scandinavian band also. Check the other interview. The differences in answers are quite interesting].
Yeah, I do think so, yeah. It’s basically for two reasons I guess. One reason is that metal music is, as you correctly said, not a very big topic in Switzerland. So that means that in Finland for example, or some other Scandinavian countries, metal gets a much stronger attention, for example, from media and also from the government. I mean, the countries’ governments and social institutions, stuff like that, They… ohh… how do you say this… they endorse culture, whatever it is. If it is like painting or theater or music, they don’t care what kind of music it is, you know? They just think: ok, they are young people, contribution to our country’s culture, so it’s worth helping them out, you know?
So, this is not exactly happening in Switzerland. I mean, it is happening if you have a pop band or stuff like that. If you are applying metal they are usually “Oh… what’s this?” you know? So, that’s, of course one thing that makes it a little harder.
But, the main reason, personally I think, it is that we are too rich [Switzerland]. Sounds stupid but I think, if you want to grow up as a band it means like a hell of a lot of sacrifices, and at one point you will have to sacrifice your financial security and your nice standard of living. Because, if you grow, you will get to that point where you play that much live shows and tours and you invest that much into the band that it’s not possible for you anymore to have a regular job. But still, in that time, your band is not famous enough to bring you as much money as a regular job does. So, if you “grow”, you will face this time. If you are lucky you are only talking about 2, 3 years which are really difficult. But for most of the bands, this can be 10 years, you know?
If you look for example, to America, I mean, the living standard is far not as high as it is in Switzerland, for example, and there are many, many young people that don’t have many chances in their life. I know that this sounds really stupid…
No it doesn’t! I’m from Brazil! I know how it is!
There you go!
For many of them, music is like, their only chance to really go and do something they really like.
So they gladly give up anything for that, work their asses off… this is not happening in Switzerland. There are many, many bands in Switzerland, hundreds of bands actually, some really, really good metal bands.
The problem for most of them is that they are … how can you say? Too lazy or they just don’t want to risk too much. They like their good living standard, they like their financial security and having a nice apartment, blah, blah, blah. They are not willing to give all that up, to have a band which is growing, getting international attention and stuff like that. But, you need to give those things up otherwise you will just have your little 50 people shows once a month in Switzerland. That’s what actually is the case for most of the Swiss metal bands. Unfortunately! It’s a bummer actually.
Yeah, I think these are the two main reasons why it is hard for metal bands in Switzerland. Yeah, as I said, they make it hard for themselves, you know?
Do you think that maybe Eluveitie will be open some “doors” for other Swiss metal bands?
I don’t know. It would be cool. Maybe … I mean, there have been famous bands around [from Switzerland]. There has been Celtic frost, Samael, Coroner… but, obviously they didn’t change too much the Swiss music scene so I think we will not change it too much. But maybe … never say never!
Where do you see Eluveitie in 3 or 5 years? What are your big dreams and hopes for the band? And also, you have already reached / conquered a lot of milestones. Any big milestones that you are still expecting to reach by the end of this year?
Not really. I’m happy when I can afford a pair of new trousers or something like that. We are just music junkies! That’s the most important thing to us. It means life to us, that we can play and record our music. That’s basically what we want to do. As long as we can go on doing that we are happy. Yeah, of course we have our goals, but it’s more of a constant process of like going on step by step. We are working hard on that. Yeah … but we don’t have much expectations or anything. We just go step by step and see what happens.
Thank you! Anything you want to say to the Spirit of Metal readers?
Yeah. Thank you very much for the interview and thanks for all the readers for their interest in Eluveitie!
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