Photos by Christine Hummell
First of all, I would like to congratulate you on the new album.Thanks a lot
Could you tell us a little bit about the overall experience of this new album (from the start until now…)? Basically, put it in a nutshell? I know it is hard …
It is hard, but to put it in that nutshell I would say that this album sums up everything that Blind Guardian has ever been about because it has what a lot of people call the “old school” Blind Guardian (fast and aggressive stuff); it has some of the progressive elements that came more in the mid 90s and it has also some of the most epic songs we ever did.
For the first time we had the chance to work with a real orchestra, which was a big step for us. And it has some new influences that we didn’t have before like this oriental melody on the song “Wheel of Time”, for example. If somebody doesn’t know the band yet I would recommend this album to start with, because with it you will get to know everything about us.
So… you guys did the tour in Europe and you are doing the North American tour. Are there any major differences between playing there and here?
Yes. One difference is the size of the gigs because we are bigger in Europe than we are here. We came to the US very late in our career because in the earlier days we didn’t have that support from our record company. We did the first tour here only in 2002.
But, concerning the fans there is also a difference: the fans here in the US are, I would say … wilder, more aggressive. We’ve seen the wall of death, which is pretty unusual for a Blind Guardian gig I would say (laughs). So there is a lot of stuff going on in the audience like circle pits and lots of crowd surfing, while the European audience is more head banging, raising their wrists and singing. So… there is a difference, yes.
Being from Brazil, I would like to ask you: Is the Brazilian crowd like the American?
It’s different, I have to say. My wife is Brazilian so I know that crowd very well (laughs) … The energy is not as aggressive as it is here. When we play in Brazil, is almost like in a soccer stadium: everybody cheering, all the chanting in between the songs. It’s definitely different.
How has this tour been in North America?
Very well. We have been in the road for the last 3 weeks. We did already 6 shows in Canada. It has been awesome. We have met a lot of great people. We had a lot of fun with the 2 supporting bands. And obviously, we are doing a lot of tourism: sightseeing, enjoying the places. So… we enjoy it a lot.
Any interesting and out of the average event during the tour?
The most out of the average thing happened yesterday when we played in San Francisco. We were invited by Lucas Arts, to visit the “Skywalker Ranch”. As die hard Star Wars fans, we were really excited. That was awesome. When we got the invitation, around a month ago, we were freaking out. We took 3 million pictures, got merchandise… It was quite a trip.
And also today, we have been walking around the Chinese Theater and Walk of Fame areas. We try to use all of our changes. The nice thing today is that the weather was very nice. In SF it was raining all day long yesterday, and the last couple of weeks were so f*** freezing. When we played in Canada it was around -25°C and that stops you a bit from sightseeing (laughs).
Are there any American cities where you have never played at but you would like to, one day?
Humm… yeah… we never played in Vegas for example. That’s still missing. We always say “we want to play in Vegas” and for whatever reason it never happened. It was on the list last tour, I think, but it dropped out of the list for whatever reason before the tour actually happened, so something went wrong.
Hansi and I also always wanted to play in Twin Peaks because we are fans of the TV show (laughs). That also never happened. We were told that the city is not even called Twin Peaks anymore so we said “Forget it” (laughs).
Talking a little about the opening bands, you guys had Van Canto opening some gigs in Europe.
Yes, actually they opened the German gigs but another band, “Steel Wing” from Sweden, opened the whole European tour.
Van Canto is a really interesting band. How did this “relationship” with them start?
We are good friends with them. They recorded their albums in our studio. They also covered the “Bard Song”, so there was some contact with them before we actually met them. One of their guys sang some backing vocals on our latest album. So we’re good friends and I think they are a very good band, especially live because what they are doing is very unique, obviously. It’s a very nice contrast to the “normal metal band”. The fans liked it a lot too, they were singing, cheering… so it was a good choice.
Are there any specific reasons why you don’t keep the same opening bands on both European and American tours?
Not really… That’s the typical thing that we do. We normally ha
ve an opening act for Europe and than we have another one for US. Sometimes we just have local supports, depending on where we are playing. Sometimes we just play on our own, without any supports. It differs.In January you are going to play on the “70.000 tons of metal”. Are you excited?
Yes, I’ve never been in a cruise so far and I think this will be a pretty special one (laughs)… Of course it’s cool. There are some very good bands, friends of ours, playing there. So it will be great meeting them. Normally we meet each other on a one day basis in a festival and then you have a couple of hours before one of the bands has to go on stage. But, we will all be there together on that cruise for a week. That sounds like party time (laughs).We are definitely looking forward to this because this is something that we never did so far. It’s going to be a new experience.
I would like to talk a little bit now about “Blind Guardian” working together, during an album recording. How do you guys work? For this new album, for example, how did you guys work during these past 4 years? What was the dynamics of the group?
First of all I have to say, the time spend between album releases is 4 years, but it doesn’t mean that we were working on an album for 4 years because, for example the last tour lasted 1 and a half years. So you have to count that off.
The way we are working is: everybody working on his own. We all have our studio set-ups at home, so we can work on our ideas and actually we exchange them mostly over the internet. So, it’s not that we meet in our studio, where we record our albums, every day. Actually, we hardly ever meet there (laughs).
If André, for example, has an idea for a song he records some riff or melody guitars, sends it to Hansi, and than he tries singing into them. If it works, fine… we can continue working on that basis. If Hansi doesn’t find anything to sing for that, we might change it or skip it completely. Start all over again.
So, that’s how we work. We are not the kind of band that meets in the rehearsal room and just jams on some riffs because our music is way too complex for this type of thing. Normally we have those choir arrangements, tons of harmony guitar, etc. So, if we wanted to try out all these things while jamming, we would be limited to 2 guitar voices since there are just 2 guitar players in the band. But, when we work on our studio set-ups, we can work on the studio conditions obviously. We can record and try whatever voice comes to our mind. That’s the way that works out the best for us.
When you are composing… does your inspiration come randomly or is there something that triggers that?
No, unfortunately not. It would be great to have something like that.
An idea can come in any situation. I don’t know any way to control this. Normally it’s related to grabbing your guitar and playing around. But sometimes also, an idea can come whenever… for example, when driving your car and suddenly having a melody in your mind. You think: “Oh, this would be nice”. The problem is that if you are somewhere in a highway, by the time you get home, you forgot the melody already - (laughs). But as I said, I don’t know how to trigger something like this.
But do you get inspired with something particular like a trip, for example?
Of course. Anything can inspire you, you know? Touring can inspire you. You catch the vibes in different cities, you see different places, and you talk to different people… Any input you get can be inspiring.
Any professional need some type of recognition. For you, personally, when do you feel recognized? When do you say to yourself: “I did a good job” or “I’m proud of myself”? And has that already happened to you with this new album?
Yes. First of all, you know, we have a pretty big self confidence (laughs). When we start recording, we are convinced that we are doing something good. We always try to do the best album, concerning song writing, which we can possibly do. Same applies to production. We try to deliver the best production, the best cover we can possibly do and we are convinced by this.
You get this recognition, obviously when you read reviews that praise the album, that’s a nice thing. But the ultimate recognition in my opinion is when you go on stage, play your songs live and see a couple of thousand people going completely nuts, signing everything, cheering. You clearly see that they love what you are doing. That is for me the ultimate recognition.
Until now… is there something that you guys did that you are really proud of or anything that if you could go back you would change it?
I don’t think I would change anything. Obviously when I think, for example, about our first albums: if we did them today they would sound different … yes, they would. But I wouldn’t change them because they represent what Blind Guardian was back in that time. When we did “Battalions of Fear” in 1988, that was Blind Guardian back than. That’s how we sounded and that was the stuff we were able to play and compose.
I wouldn’t change it, because all albums were steps in our career and led us to what we are now, so why c
hange it?About things that we have achieved: a very special thing for us was that Blind Guardian festival that we did. The “Blind Guardian Open Air”. We also released the DVD back in 2003, I think… That was something very special because we had never done something like that before. We had obviously played in many festivals before but we never organized one ourselves and headlined both nights with complete different sets. It was a lot of work to prepare, to plan and to organize everything. We were nervous obviously, but we were very, very lucky. Everything worked perfectly fine, even though in the first night we had hurricane warnings.
In the end, everything worked perfectly fine and we could do that DVD. That was definitely one of the highlights of our career.
So, any thoughts on doing the second one?
Yes there are thoughts about it and people keep asking about it. But, right from the beginning, this was not meant to be something in a yearly basis; we wanted to keep this as something very special. The only thing that we do know is that yes, we will do one again but there are no concrete plans at this moment.
There will be one, whenever we think that’s the right moment and we will try to do something very special again. It doesn’t have to be in the same way, it doesn’t have to be us headlining two nights. It might be something completely different. But we are pretty sure that we will do another Blind Guardian festival.
Talking about festivals, have you seen any new bands lately that have caught your eyes or that impressed you?
I have seen a couple of bands live this year, but, they are not really new bands. One of the best shows that I’ve seen was Nevermore playing in a festival in Germany, presenting their new album, which I absolutely love. In 1995, Nevermore opened up for us in Europe during the “Imaginations From the Other Side” tour and since then we are close friends. That’s for example, one of the bands that I’m really looking forward to meet in the cruise ship. They are also playing there.
I’ve been to one of the anniversary shows of “Opeth”. That was very special because that is one of my favorite bands and there were only 6 shows world-wide. That was a very cool night. They played for 3 hours: the entire “Blackwater Park” album and one song from each of the other albums.
And a band that is not that well known yet, but very, very good is “Orphaned land” from Israel. Very cool band. Kind of “ethno” death metal … or whatever you want to call it (laughs). I’ve actually seen them in the same festival where I’ve seen Nevermore.
Do you have a “favorite” CD right now? One that you are completely addicted to?
There is one CD that I got pretty much addicted to, since the beginning of the year. It’s actually not a metal CD. It is John Bonamassa’s “Ballad of John Henry” album that he released last year. I have to say: I didn’t know this guy. I actually heard his name and saw it on the top lists of guitar players for the last I don’t know how many years. And people were telling me: “He is great! He does blues rock but in a harder heavy way”. At some point I said: “I have to check him out because everybody is praising him” and I just got curious. I bought that album and it completely blew me away. I got pretty addicted to it, so that would be my album of the year, I would say.
In your opinion, what were the biggest changes on the metal scene for the past 10 years? How these changes did affect Blind Guardian’s work?
Hum…. I think the core of the scene is still the same. Different territories opened for metal. Like, lots of Eastern countries opened up for metal. We could do tons of shows in Russia, Poland and Hungary and other places like that. That didn’t happen in the early days. We got offers to play in China for example, which would be a place where we would really love to play because we haven’t been there yet. And going to a place where you have never been before is always something very special because you have no idea of what to expect.
So, new markets opened. I think more and more people discover metal. You can also see it in the charts that more and more metal bands get very high positions in the charts. In our career, we had a couple of number one hits.
Metal is more and more recognized by people outside the basic metal scene, which is a good thing.
So, now the final traditional question: Any plans for the next couple of years?
For the next year, it’s pretty fixed that we will be on the road. We will be here in the US until Christmas; we will come home on the 24th of December sometime in the afternoon. Than, the next thing will the “70.000 tons of metal” festival. After that we will actually have 2 months off, at home. Yes… resting (laughs)!!! After that touring will continue until, most likely the end of the year.
I think then the whole thing starts anew. We will sit down, think about new stuff, write new stuff, record new stuff, and tour. We don’t plan to change much.
Thank you so much for the interview. Have a nice concert here in LA!
You are welcome. Thank you.
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Interview done by Deesse_de_la_nuit
good brian
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