Sometimes, it's a good bet to give a try to a band outside your favorite musical paths, and this german trio, Future Palace, was a real discovery with their last album "Distorsion", packed with good ideas and memorable songs. Moreover, they gave a thick and lifeful show at the Hellfest 2025, adding to a list of good points ! No need to say I was eager and honored to share some words with them, just an hour after their performance...

 

 

JeD (SOM): Your music has a good mix of modern metal with more pop elements, is that really your trademark, or do you include other things?

FUTURE PALACE : Maria Lessing ( Vocals ) : Question !

Manuel Kohlert (guitar): I don't know , maybe we start to write a new album, we don't know what our trademarks are, but there's actually one thing : good chorus !

Maria : Yes, good chorus !

Manuel: One ingredient ! (Laughs) The main ingredient, it's like the potatoes, in our songs ! It's necessary to have a strong chorus, because it sticks in a your head.

When we go to the studio, and we have time off in the studio, and that is still in your head, a good vocal lign, with good instruments, sticks in your head...

JeD(SOM): And if it doesn't stick, that's not a good sign...

Maria : The chorus takes a good part of the songs, it's like a slice of pizza , it will be two or three times at least, so it has to be a good part. If there's a boring part, that's not good, nevermind, we don't want to be bored by our own song !

 

 

 

A FUTURE TO BUILD UP

 

JeD(SOM): Is there a meaning behind your bandname, Future Palace ?

Maria : YES !

Manuel: What there is, it's that we didn't start as a band, we started as a kind of project. We already had a group, and I chose the name Future Palace, because I like the term "Palace", that's something that sounds good , and "Future" is something that I thought would be very cool for this project.

Maria : The meaning changed, now,... like missionnaries who work for a better future, we work, and we hope for a better future, this makes a lot of sense, now.

Johannes (drums): We tried to find another band name, but at the end of the day, we came back to it...

Maria : ...It's cool, like a double meaning ...

 

JeD(SOM): And what is the meaning for the future part, then ?

Manuel: What it means for us ? Like said Maria, it's something we can build, we can hold, in different types of fields.

Maria : If I could sum it up, for all the things we wish for the future, there's a lot of things we already achieved ; when we started out, in 2018, one of our wishes was to be here. The Future Palace kind of exists, and we build up, we build up. There are our songs messages which include quality for women, not just women, every human in the world should be equal to men with their rights worldwide, we also talk about climate change in our songs like "À World in Tears", we are vegan, we care about mental health, also for me, personaly, to be a healthier person, a happier person, to be fully happy, I think these are for me a definition of a future palace somehow...

Manuel: We want to be in a world who last...

Maria: ...is sustainable, Yes...

Manuel: ...not only in an environment base, but also social...

 

 

THE POWER OF A TRIO

 

JeD(SOM):  When I hear an album of Future Palace, I hear five persons, and live, l'd hear three persons and it's like another entity of your band. You are quite well with a trio formula ?

 

Manuel: Yeah, in the beginning, we tried to add members, we tried bass players, guitar players, but quickly, we knew that us three are the essence of Future Palace, so every other member would have been the fourth wheel...

Maria : ...no need to ruin a running system...

Manuel: ...yeah ! That was only in the beginning, when we started,... when you want to build a foundation, you have to have every member focused on. It has to be our main goal, this is our plan A, and we don't want to alter it. Someday we could see on stage with us, but not as a permanent member, I mean we are three, in the studio, I play the bass, you hear it on stage too...

JeD (SOM) : Or one day, you could hire additionnal musiciens, like Muse does...

Manuel: If we headline one day, we won't be there, we could hire ten guitar players maybe, laughs !

Maria: Singers and dancers too, ... Fire ! laughs !

Manuel: We will play AT 10 PM, laughs

 

 

JeD(SOM): Live, the arrangements, keys for example are on the back and the band sounds more raw. For you Johannes, for drums you have to play live with a click ?

Johannes:  Yeah, of course, with the backing tracks, without a clock, I would'nt be able to follow a part that unfollows me. In the beginning, we didn't have a click , but now everybody in that type of music has it. With several types of music, it doesn't fit with the vibe, but with ours, it does. But with that kind of matter, everything needs to be all together, all the music needs to be tight on stage. As a drummer, I'm used to play with a click, I don't hear it any more ! You hear it when you're off !

JeD(SOM): It's not too loud in your ears?

Johannes: No, my engineeer always says that the volume on my click is like a whisper !

 

 

JeD: Future Palace is sometimes compared to other european metal bands like Jinjer, or Infected Rain, but each one brings something very different. Do you think this kind of comparaison is relevant ?

Maria:  They only compared me because I'm a woman, and that's it. We are not similar, Jinger does progressive metal, we do kind of pop metal, Infected Rain I don't know what style they are, they are very good friends... but if there were three men
singing, they wouldn't compare us, end of the story (laughs) !

 

 

 

JeD: How did you feel this gig on the Hellfest ? The public reacted very strongly to your music, the more the concert went...

Manuel : It was our second festival in France with the Motocultor, and before that we did one show in Paris, ... two ? ... Yeah, for now we played three or four shows in France, it has always been big festivals, big stages, ... I mean in Germany, we played several times, when people see us they know our name... But France is still a new market for us, and this always brings us joy when people react to the stuff we play...

Maria: Yeah, I think France is one of my favorite places to go, and, which I didn't know until I saw the crowd, because people here are so emotional, there was a wall of death ,...It looked like... war ! We already experienced it in the Motocultor, and we're like "what's going on ?!", yeah... The show in Paris was completely full, it was one of the craziest shows we ever played, the people were escalating...

Manuel: ...this was insane !

 

 

 

JeD: I have another question about the album... How do you put the songs together ? Is one member bringing the ideas, or is it a collective process ?

Manuel : It starts with the instrumentals, I write the instrumentals, and I post it  in our online team, then everybody listens to it and Maria goes through a process...

Maria: Yeah, I recently began to think about it more, and not just starting, to reflect about the album "maybe we'll try this next time", I've done... pilates for example for inspiration, I think about what I could try,  I always think very visual, and then I get ideas, I get the mood, the vibe, the colours, write the stories, and from that on, usually demos of any kind, I guess, and somehow try to make it align with each other.

We're not a concept album band, one hundred percent , but that's my goal for the future, if we have some room for whatever we want...

Manuel : ... or the money !

Manuel: It's also cool because we can have some ideas with little things...

Johannes: ...like... Can you include a church bell ?

Everybody : (laughs) !

Manuel: I will think about It ! ...We are open, we are listening to each other !

 

JeD: There is a huge gap between your two last albums... Your last album "Distorsion" is a big step further from "Run"...

Johannes: The albums were written and released during the pandemic, I mean the last was released, right after the pandemic, we started playing live, and we didn't play the songs live before, we didn't know what to do...

Maria: ...what songs and how our songs work on stage, and after "Run", we had put so much, I lowered a few songs, it was too high, I don't want to change it again ... Let's go with it, now !

 

JeD(SOM) : Thank you for the interview, I was amazed by the show...

Future Palace : Thank you very much !