Interviews

So how are things going for the band right now? Is everyone doing good?

Yeah, they’re fine. Now that the album has been released we are very chill.

How do you feel about Sagas? Is there anything you wish you could have done differently or are you pleased with the way everything turned out?

Yeah, of course. There is always something left that could have been done a little bit better. On this album there are some phrases in the lyrics that I read now and say, ‘ah fuck, now that I heave a better idea. Why didn’t I have this when I was recording this shit?’ But to put it all together, I am mostly satisfied. It’s not that bad (laughs).

The production on it has a really massive sound, like most albums from Nuclear Blast. Who was the producer for the album?

Our songwriter and guitarist, René did it all by himself. 99% of the whole music is done by him. He also did the recording, the mastering, and the production of course.

Wow. So as far as the music goes, does he come up with most of the ideas and you guys learn how to play it? Are the lyrics mainly from you?

Well, the process of the songs is almost the same every time. It is René sitting at home in front of his computer and doing some keyboards and guitar and putting all things together using MIDI, for example. If he is satisfied with the stuff he has written, he comes out and shows us the song. There is already a pre-mix or MIDI mix down, so everybody is able to hear a finished song. My part comes after I listen to the song time and time again, until I’m able to find the story behind the music. I hope to find the perfect story to match the music. Then I write my story and talk to René. I tell him the story is going to be about and he says ‘Oh no, this is shit. (laughs) I don’t want to have a song about Middle-Earth,’ for example. I might go back and write something else until we come together.

Any song about Middle-Earth is cool with me. I don’t think I would fight with you about that (laughs). Anyway, my first review for metalreviews was your first album, Turis Fratyr. I really enjoyed it, but it seems like there is more of a folk influence this time around. On that album you had a more traditional metal sound with keyboards, but it sounds like the band is using more unorthodox instruments on Sagas. Do you think that is a fair statement, or am I hearing things?

Well, the musical influences are much wider this time than on the first album. The first one, as you said, is more classic. You have a riff, a chorus, and some verses between, which is very classic. This time, we have gathered many influences from all over the world because of the long process. I think this is the main reason behind the sound of this album. For example, if you take a Brazilian influence from somewhere, how can one use this for a metal song if not using keyboards? Therefore, the keyboards have a lot of variation. Of course it has developed, but I don’t think that the sound is completely new. It still has something to do with the first album.

Oh yeah. You guys sound like you strengthened everything you did before. It sounds like more of what we liked with Turis Fratyr.

Yeah.

For lots of Americans, English is the only language we can speak. Everything but your band name is in German, and I was hoping you could describe what some of your lyrical themes are about.

Yeah, the second song (on Sagas) is called Wurzelbert, it loosely translates into “wood guy.” It’s about a guy walking through the forest playing his trolley for the animals, and he plays so bad that every animal that hears him dies immediately.After a while, he is very sad and decides to go home. On his way home, he finds some people with long hair sitting around the campfire. He tries one last time to play his trolly. The people really love it, there are women tearing off their clothes, and everyone but the metal people dies (laughs).

Sweet. Do most of the lyrics involve some story like that, or are there some more personal stories behind the lyrics?

Of course. Verrat means ‘betrayal’ in English. It is my personal revenge on a guy I met a few years ago. He’s an asshole, and even now I don’t like him very much.

Is he German? Will he be able to understand you’re talking about him?

Oh yeah, I’ve met him. It had something to do with my former girlfriend.

Alright, well when Dimmu Borgir joined Nuclear Blast, they started singing in English, rather than in Norwegian as they did on For All Tid and Stormblåst. Do you plan to keep your lyrics in German forever or are you open to singing in English?

Yeah, I tried to sing in English when we started Equilibrium, but my English is not really perfect. So I was sitting there thinking ‘no, it’s not satisfying me and does not fit.’ So I thought why not use German? It is the language I know best and I can push myself best when I’m in my own language. So I tried it and showed it to my best mate and he said, ‘sounds good, why not?’ Now it has become something that stands for Equilibrium. If you say Equilibrium to some guy here in Germany, he will say, ‘Ah, German pagan metal, or whatever metal.’ I like this, since I know how to write my lyrics best in German. I couldn’t imagine singing in a foreign language.

That brings me to another point. You could say I’m one of the guys on metalreviews who listens to death and black metal more than the melodic stuff, and I must say your vocals are really, really good and intimidating. I know some guys drink tea or honey before they perform, and I have to ask, what helps you make those sounds come out of your mouth?

Years ago I would prepare by going into a pub the evening before a concert because at this time people were still allowed to smoke in pubs. I didn’t smoke, but the passive smoke I inhaled worked well on my voice. I don’t like it anymore, now it’s just training. Every other night you do a quarter hour of exercising. Screaming and singing in this style has just worked for me. Before a concert I’m just trying to relax my mouth tongue, and voice. I have special phrases that I repeat over and over. They relax everything I need to go on stage. Last of all, I get myself in a little fighting attitude. In the minutes before I go on stage, it is not spent on recovering the voice. I start punching on couches or walls, or hanging on any ladder or balcony.

So it seems like you just get ready to get into a fight.

Yeah, it’s a body warm up. I have to be…almost aggressive. Not in a negative way but…

Well you’re in a metal band, so it’s perfectly fine (laughs).

Yeah, but it’s not fine on stage. Of course I have aggressive moments, but I do this for fun. Fun and aggression don’t fit together. I dare to smile on stage, for example. I laugh at myself sometimes. If I made a mistake or if something happened, it doesn’t matter. I do this for fun and I want to have my fun.

Yeah, Equilibrium’s atmosphere is really epic, and I’m not sure if ‘happy’ is the right word, but it’s definitely not depressing like lots of black metal can be.

Yeah, exactly. It’s a mixture between epic and fun. It’s not always easy to match these two things, but we try.

I’d like to talk a little bit about your other band, Reign of Decay. They sound like old-school death metal, and aren’t quite as party-like as Equilibrium.

Nope, it’s completely different. But lucky you, you can still ask me about Reign of Decay because I won’t stay there much longer. I’ve been there for a few years now, and it’s not my town anymore. It’s something for the musicians in the band, and I’ve developed in another direction. There are only a few weeks left until I quit.

Equilibrium has played Wacken before, was it last year?

It was in 2005. I’ve been to Wacken a couple of times before we played there and I knew what to expect, like how big the stages are and how many people are there. But imagine watching a live DVD of a band. You have a huge audience, you have these thousands of people, a light show, and a huge stage, and wow. Now you know how we felt on stage. It was like watching a live DVD, it was incredible. If I think back now, it becomes a little bit blurry. It mixes up with scenes I’ve seen on my TV screen with other bands. It was so unbelievable my mind is not able to make a connection between my own band, and this experience. After two or three years now, I think of this memory as something I have seen from any other band. When I think, ‘Hey, this was you! It was your band and you were playing on stage,’ fuck it’s amazing. Imagine ten o’clock in the evening, with 10,000 people in front of the stage. It was unbelievable.

Yeah, I would love to just go, but playing there must have been pretty amazing. What about Paganfest? It toured in numerous cities around Germany and I was wondering if you went to any of the dates.

We did two support gigs for the Paganfest tour: Essen, in Northwest Germany, and Munich.

It was a pretty big success from what I heard. Most of the dates were sold out, if I’m not mistaken.

Yeah, there were only a few venues in Germany that were not closed.

Do you think you may be like Ensiferum or Korpiklanni and tour every date next year?

There is a following tour of this Paganfest, called Heidenfest, meaning ‘heathen fest.’ This tour is already confirmed for us. It will start on the 31st of October and will play 17 dates across Europe again with Eluveitie, Finntroll, and some other bands. We are in the middle of the package and this will be our first tour. I’m really excited.

What are the religious beliefs of you and the other band members? Is anyone a practicing pagan?

Nope, nope. This is just something I was interested in.

Is it sort of like a heritage thing? Like ‘I’m from this part of Germany that has this rich history…?’

Well, you have to take care because talking about history here in Germany is always difficult, very difficult. German history is not really glorious. If you talk about history and you dare to say ‘I’m proud of our history’ you are marked as an atheist immediately. If you say, ‘I’m proud of ancient German history, the heathens crawling through the woods and fighting Romans or Christians,’ for example, or ‘I’m proud of my great-great grandfather doing this’, then you are also called an atheist. It’s a little bit weird, cause with Equilibrium I can’t remember any lyric I have written which relies on German history. It’s always freestyle and on Turis Fratyr there have been lyrics about Northern mythology.

Yeah, there are a bunch of metal songs that are about Northern mythology. What about your hometown of Bavaria? Is everyone in your hometown mostly Christian?

Bavaria is meant to be completely Christian. If you go to the countryside you find lots of religious people. Where I live, here in Munich, it’s one of the biggest cities in Germany and it’s very mixed up. Religion is very free; if somebody is religious it’s no problem, and if someone is not religious it’s not a problem either. I’m not interested in going to church, nor am I interested to pray to ancient gods like Odin, because I believe first in myself and what I can do. If there’s something about myself, I would say ‘this is nature. This is the perfection of nature and this is the real God.’ Nothing in a stone church or something like that.

Yeah, well I’m with you on that for the most part. Now to lighten things up a bit, I was hoping you could talk about Oktoberfest. I was hoping you could tell me a little bit about it since you have been numerous times.

Of course. I’ve been lots of times. I don’t like it anymore because when I was young I was really interested in going to Oktoberfest and taking a ride on the roller coasters, but those days are gone and now it is only about expensive drinking. Everybody is drunk at Oktoberfest (laughs). I like being drunk too but it’s different at Oktoberfest. You mentioned Reign of Decay earlier? I remember this time where I was driving to a concert to sing a set for them. I was driving through Munich and a pal of mine, a young girl 14, or 15, was sweating like a tick. After a while she jumped up and puked on me. It wasn’t really nice because I had all this puke on me and my jacket and I stunk. Stuff like this happens often at the festival. If you are driving through Munich during Oktoberfest, you will see puke in every corner. Everything stinks and it’s not so nice (laughs). If people like Oktoberfest, I don’t say anything against it.

Do you think you’ll go this year?

It’s a custom here in Munich for every firm to take their employees to the festival and everyone gets drunk, so the whole company gets drunk together. I refused to go to Oktoberfest the first time here at my firm, but I didn’t have a good excuse last year so I had to join them (laughs). I think the same thing will happen this year, and I will be drunk. It will be interesting.

What’s your favorite beer you can get at Oktoberfest?

It’s very strict as to which brewery may be present at the festival and which one may not. There are few brands that have their own huge tents and ‘in this tent you get this special beer.’ I don’t give a fuck; there’s good beer and bad beer but the best Bavarian beers are not in Oktoberfest. I take what I get.

I don’t know if they could have something like that in America. It’s illegal for anyone under 21 to drink over here. What’s the rule in Germany?

I’ve heard of this (laughs). The first time you may drink beer is at the age of 16. You may start with wine and beer. At the age of 18 you are free to do what you want to, so you can drink booze like whiskey, brandy and shit like that. At the age of 18 it’s up to you. When I look back at my gang of friends, I was always the youngest one but I always looked like the oldest one. I’m a little bit tall, so I was always the guy who was forced to buy spirits. So when I was 14 or 15 I was buying liquor.

Yeah I know what you mean about looking older. I hardly ever drink but I look a lot older than I really I am. Do you guys plan on coming to America in the near future?

It would be nice to go there. Heathenfest is coming up in Autumn and we were asked to go and tour in America for three weeks. For us as a band it is very difficult to make free time for this. I have to be off of work and others have to interrupt their studies to go on tour and this is difficult. We had to cancel the offer this time, but I think and I really hope that one time maybe next year we’ll be able to join tours through the U.S. I want to find out how the metal scene is there and how people go to concerts, and how they drink (laughs).

Don’t worry, it’s a lot. You won’t be disappointed (laughs). I understand you’re a pretty big Simpsons fan?

Oh yeah (laughs).

I’ve watched the Smpsons from the time I was five until that episode where Maude (Flanders) died. After that, I think the series has really gone downhill.

Yeah, after season 11 or 12, they weren’t so creative. If I look at the last episodes in season 17 or 18, they are getting better again. I’m still hoping. I have enjoyed almost every episode and I have a pile of DVDs. I’ve got every episode in English because the German translation is not always good. I’ve seen all of them many times and I really like them. It’s my way of relaxing after work. If I’m really tired it’s always good to put on a DVD and have 20 minutes of Simpsons. It helps you come down.

Who’s your favorite character?

When I was younger I really identified with Bart. Through the years and now that I am working, it is definitely Homer. His attitude to beer is ver similar to mine (laughs). Homer’s my guy.

I like Principal Skinner and Mr. Burns a lot. As far as the Simpons family, Homer is probably my favorite.

Oh yeah, and Ralph. I like him.

My last question has to do with Nuclear Blast. Is everything with the label going well for you?

It is different from what I expected.

You guys were on Black Attakk with the first record right?

You have to keep in mind that Black Attakk are cheaters and assholes. They cheated us on every possible corner and owe us lots of money. In the end, they didn’t answer the phone or emails; we couldn’t reach them. We had to hire a lawyer to get them in front of court and they didn’t even appear in court. So imagine a label that does not speak or have any contact to you. Then we came to Nuclear Blast and things came from night to day. I’ve got a list of numbers hanging on my wall so if I call there I have the right conversation partner. I call and he answers, we get a conversation going and everything is fine. We didn’t have this before. It’s completely different.

Yeah, I think Rob Dukes, the Exodus singer called Nuclear Blast the ‘greatest metal label in metal.’

Yeah, I’d agree.

Well that answers all my questions. It’s been great talking to you man.

Yeah, same here. Thank you for your time.

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