A lot. Everything has changed a little bit. I remember the first time the organization was really messy. We had a chance to play in Russia, because we were playing in Poland with Napalm Death, it wasn’t something that we planned, it was just an opportunity. Unfortunately, we never got another opportunity after that, but now here we are again, and I think everything is a lot more structured, a lot more organized. I was really impressed by how people take care of us here, especially compared to the first time when it was really messy. Back then we spent 15 to 20 hours at the train station, because we were traveling by train, and nowadays we go by airplane, it’s a lot easier.
Going back to your first Moscow gig, was it difficult for you to make the decision when you got this opportunity?
No, because we were out to play anywhere in the world. Poland was already quite a chance, but Moscow was like a dream, so it was really nice.
The music of Samael has evolved dramatically over the years. But how much have the three of you changed as persons?
As well. I suppose if you start playing music really early in your age, you have a vision of what you wanna achieve. What we had in mind back then was to have a record that included every influence that we had, and probably “Ceremony Of Opposites” (1994) was kind of everything I was dreaming of as a teenager music- and lyric-wise, it was really dark, almost solemn. Then I had a feeling for something new, I was searching for different influences and stuff, and this is how we grew. Even today we’re still excited to play music, we’re still excited to discover new bands and find new influences.
Do you still have the same motivation for making music as you had back in the early 1990s, or are the motives different nowadays?
Our first goal was to have an album out. First you wanna have a couple of songs, play a show, have an album, and then you want another one, because you think, “Maybe we can do better than that.” With live shows it’s just the same – you play somewhere, you feel like, “Oh yeah, the response was great, but maybe we haven’t played the best show in the world.” So you try to make it better and better, that’s kind of our motivation – just to perfect the whole thing a little bit.
What would you have said back in 1990 if someone played you “Reign Of Light”? Would you love the album back then or would you hate it?
Wow, I guess I would love it! But I don’t think it could have been possible, because a lot of influences we have on this record are sort of new. Back then we hadn’t heard about bands like The Prodigy, which were mixing electronics with dance, but in a weird way. In the 1980s I would not listen to any music from the 1980
s, I was listening to Slayer and Metallica just to avoid everything which was around, because I didn’t like anything then. In the 1990s there were some new bands coming out. The fact that we use electronics and stuff really makes a lot of difference. I remember in 1995 or something there were bands like Ministry or Godflesh, which were really into it, but still it was more of hardcore and punk, not real metal that we’re doing today.When and how did you get into electronic music? What bands triggered your interest in this scene?
I suppose it might have been Godflesh. Their first album “Streetcleaner” was so amazing! If you listen to it today, it’s very simple, it’s almost boring from time to time, but there were great ideas, great feelings, and their sound was amazing for that time. I suppose that was the first one I liked, I cannot recall any other band.
What is going to happen with the electronic stuff that you did as Era One a few years ago?
We don’t really know, it was an experiment we tried. The main idea was that we had to deliver some material to our label, they were asking for it, and we didn’t feel ready for a new Samael album, because we wanted to tour first and everything. The idea was to try something totally different, not taking care about the fact that we’ve got some history, that we come from somewhere else, and that we have to develop. We just wanted to start totally fresh. So we delivered them the material in 2002, they haven’t released it yet, and if they release it today, I would feel a bit cheated. We would like to rework that project before it’s getting released. We’re gonna meet the people from our past label in two weeks, so we’ll probably discuss that.
What reasons do Century Media offer for delaying Era One for so long? You said they demanded it from you…
Actually what they wanted was a straight Samael album. They were thinking like, “Well, you can do it.” Of course we could, but we didn’t have the feeling, and we work a lot with feelings. We have to feel together that we want it, we don’t do it just because it would be nice, just because the label wants it. And I think “Reign Of Light” came out totally right, we had enough time to do it, we were really motivated, and I’m really glad about the result.
You are about to release your second single in support of “Reign Of Light” in May. Does this mean that with the latest album you have made a commercial breakthrough?
We kind of use singles to try things, as we were using mini-albums to try things before. You’re gonna have the main song, people are gonna focus on that one, that’s the commercial side of it – to take one song on the album and let them focus on that one. But for the rest of it, we try different things. On this next single, we’ve got a remix which is a lot different from anything we’ve done before, and we’ve got a cover song of Depeche Mode
, which is something unusual for us, we haven’t done many covers since we started.There are a lot of Arab influences on the latest album…
I would say they’re oriental, a bit more general.
Do you listen to any kind of ethnic oriental or Arabian music?
A little bit. We all travel in Asia – Mas (bassist) went to Japan, Xy (keyboard player) went to Bali, Macro (guitarist) went to Vietnam, and I went to India. Not at the same time, but during a while. And we all have a kind of passion for those countries, because they’re so exotic for us, because they have so little to do with what we know. I remember listening to some tape there – what I was listening to was more like a Hollywood kind of thing, not really great, but great sounds, I like the tablas, I like the sitars. And we just take the elements that we like from there and try to incorporate them in our music, it’s not like we’re trying to do something going in that direction.
What do you think about the relations between the East and West in general? Do you think that the Orient will become the new global center of civilization soon and that the West is doomed, or would you rather say the East and the West can develop simultaneously?
Who knows? Actually there’s no politics involved in our records, but musically this is something we’ve tried – to take the best of both worlds and mix it together. Things are gonna change, of course, here is a lot better than I used to know. I don’t know about living here, but as an outsider, I think the things are going better. Probably you’re gonna keep that way. You know, you go to America, things are cool, but they face some other problems. For instance, there’s a fracture between the people who’ve got the money and those who almost starve.
You said there is no politics involved in Samael…
Not straight. There is this word, you can always put everything into one perspective and say, “Everything is politics, everything is sexual, everything is about this and that.” Looking from that perspective, of course, there’s gonna be something political. But at least I never take this perspective when I write the songs.
But would you agree that philosophy is involved in the music of Samael?
Definitely, to a certain extent. There was a kind of religious aspect, I was against that because I had a straight religious education, and I was trying to fight against that. But after a certain while, I just said, “Well, that’s not gonna lead me anywhere – fighting against what I grew up with before.” I just tried to look somewhere else, and that’s where I got my interested in philosophers. And then I tried to create my own philosophy of life, which is like: try to do the best you can. This is nothing special, anybody can say that, but it is different to try that for real.
Do you have any favorite philosophers,
or is there a philosopher that has really influenced you?It’s hard to say really, it’s a mix of everything. I remember being a big fan of Nietzsche, when I was reading it, he had a big influence on me, especially at that time. But I’m no longer sure that he’s the greatest philosopher in the world, he was too extreme in a way. That’s just my point of view. I need to have something more volatile, where you can play with things.
In the song “On Earth” you mention a lot of cities around the world. How did you choose these names – did you just pick what sounds best and fits the lyrics, or does every one of them mean something to you?
Most of them do. We’ve visited more than 60 or 70 percent of those cities, and we have our little history bound to them – people we met, time we spent there, places we visited. Some others I have never been to, for instance I have never been to China so far, but it’s got something in my imagination, how I perceive the Chinese world. It is something totally different, but it’s got this kind of greatness bound to it. I know it’s just a phantasm, but still I like that.
On “Reign Of Light” you have two guest musicians – Sami from Kreator and Sandra Schleret from Dreams of Sanity. How did these two people end up on your record?
That’s the first time we had guest musicians. Actually we got to know both of them through Waldemar Sorychta, our producer. He went to our place, and we were discussing things. We were sure that we wanted to try female vocals in a couple of songs, and we had a third one where I could imagine female vocals. And Waldemar mentioned the sitar guy, because he knew him, and he was playing on a Grip Inc. record as well. We have the sitar, but the synthetic one that you’re gonna hear tonight, and it sounds good, but the real one is a lot better. Initially we weren’t sure about that, but we said, “Let’s try it, and it if doesn’t work, we’ll just skip the idea.” But we were so happy when we received the track recorded, and of course, we used it.
So you didn’t have those people in the studio, right?
Yeah, we never met. Actually the girl did record with Waldemar, because they knew each other, and that was his idea, and Sami just did it by himself.
You’ve been working with Waldemar for a really long time. How much is he important for the sound of Samael?
I think he’s gotta probably be important. It’s hard to say, because you’ve got ideas… For example, we didn’t work with Waldemar on “Eternal” (1999) for the first time since we started to work with him. We felt like we were free, there was nobody involved, but something is missing if nobody’s coming to challenge your ideas a little bit. And when you have to confront what you think with somebody else, it makes you go one step further, and Waldemar is good in helping us do that. He was basically just cleaning the sound more or l
ess, because we wanted to do so much at the same time, and he usually said, “It’s great, but you’re gonna lose focus, there are two songs in one song, so just take this away and make it simple.” We trust him, because we’ve known each other for a long time, so at first we go, “Mmm, OK, let’s try it,” but now when I listen to old songs I cannot imagine them being anything different from what they are. He was certainly right.A lot of people get an impression that the Swiss metal scene is quite secluded, and indeed, not many bands from Switzerland get famous, and even those who do, they don’t last long – just look at Celtic Frost, Coroner or Messiah. How difficult is it to play extreme music in Switzerland?
You cannot make a living off music just in Switzerland, the country is too small. Of course, if you wanna go for a real deal, if you wanna do music for your living and you wanna do something important with your life, you gotta go somewhere else. You can play in Switzerland, this is better for us than ever before, because we’ve got a different label, and we try to do business a little bit differently, but you gotta go somewhere else as well. Switzerland is not like France or Germany, you can be a German band, sell records only there and have a good living, but that cannot happen in Switzerland.
Is there any chance that you will one day publish your early demos and EPs on CD? These items are badly sought for by many of your fans…
I heard there are some bootleg things around. But of course, we won’t do something like this, because it’s kind of cheating on the people. We did record those songs again afterwards on our records, and I think the new versions are better, so to release those will mean that actually they might not have been better, and that the first versions are still worth paying some attention to. And I don’t think they are. So no, of course not.
I heard that back in the very days you played shows as a two-piece – just Xy and Vorph. How did these shows sound like?
Just the guitars and drums. Xy was playing the drums, and I had stereo pedals and was playing through a bass amp as well without distortion. We did a couple of shows like this before Mas joined the bass, and we were happy, because that was totally different, nobody was doing things like this. But then we had a feeling that it’s good to have somebody interfering with us, because we’re brothers.
The core of the band has remained unchanged for more 10 years. How do you manage to overcome disagreements or conflicts within the band?
There are always conflicts, but we know each other, and we know how not to pass a certain point. When you make your idea clear, and the others are pissed off, you should not press them too much. We all know our limits, we have learned how to deal with each other, and that’s something important. Macro has been in the band since 2002, and it was nothing short of magic that he found his place in the band straight away, from day one. That’s something I could not believe would be possible – to join a band where people have known each other for over 10 years and find your place there. But he had many bands before, so he had a lot of experience in dealing with people, which is an important thing in the band as well – not only the music, but the relations.
Your new single features a cover version of Depeche Mode, “I Feel You”. Why this particular song?
That was Macro’s choice. We were asked to do a radio show where they wanted us to play a cover. We did record an Alice Cooper song in the past, and the first idea was to play that one, because that would be easy. But then Macro came up with the idea to cover Depeche Mode, and we started to work on that one. So far I’m happy with the way it turned out, it’s not my idea, but I’m happy with it.
Speaking more about cover versions, how did you get the idea to cover Alice Cooper’s “I Love The Dead” on the “Rebellion” EP (1995)? Not many extreme bands are covering Alice…
He had a big influence on me when I was a kid. I remember seeing him on TV, he was sitting on a chair on the roof of a van or something, and that was way before “Mad Max”, it was so much over the top. I love that song, because it’s a weird one, there’s a weird sense of humor in it. But we wanted to make it a bit more serious and twisted.
Does it mean that you or the band were influenced by the band from the 1970s?
Yeah, but a bit later in our career. When we started out, we were listening to thrash and death metal, and that was it. I was still listening to a bit of heavy metal, but I was trying to kind of distance myself from the old influences. But a band like Led Zeppelin definitely had its influences here or there.
And yesterday you saw Accept on their reunion tour in Moscow. What did you think of them?
Yeah, it was for the first time, I’d never seen them live. I think it was OK, because I know all of the songs they played, and it was like a best of Accept live. But to tell you the truth, I haven’t listened to Accept for years. I think “Restless & Wild” is a brilliant album, almost perfect, but after that they kind of redid the same thing. They found a formula, and they worked on that one forever, and I kind of lost interest.
I have recently talked to the band whom you toured with back in the 1990s – Sentenced, and their singer told me that they are breaking up because they can’t stand this rock’n’roll lifestyle any longer. How do you cope with it, how do you manage to preserve your creativity, especially given so much business shit that you had to go through in the past few years?
I think you need a little bit of discipline, this is something you learn with the time. For instance, I never drink anything before I go onstage, that’s something you learn. And if you keep that discipline within the band, you don’t avoid all the problems, but if somebody is weaker and he starts doing whatever, than it’s gonna make things much more difficult. But we’re lucky of not having that.
And could there be any reason for Samael to stop and quit?
If I die!
Special thanks to Eugene Silin (Alive Concerts) for arranging this interview
Questions by Roman Patrashov
Photos by Natalie Khorina, Dmitry "Ward" Kulikov
April 28, 2005
11 ìàé 2005
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