Interview с Elvenking : DARKSIDE.ru

Elvenking seems to us a quite unique band for Italy, because we don’t know any other Italian bands that mix folk and metal. Such a mix is more typical for Scandinavian or English bands. What made you choose the style of music you are playing?

Yes, you’re right, it’s not so typical for an Italian band to play this kind of music. For the people who live outside Italy it’s pretty easy to link Italy with sunshine and stuff like this. But the fact is that we live in the part of Italy that borders on Austria, where the folk tradition is very strong. All of us in the band are influenced by this folk tradition coming from the northern part of Europe, so it was pretty natural in the beginning of our adventure with Elvenking to try to find a kind of combination between heavy metal and folk both in the music and lyrics.

Your new album is called “The Winter Wake”, and it’s released in the middle of winter as well. Is winter the favorite season for the bandmembers? And in general, why did you choose this title for the album?

We wanted something different from what we had done in the past. We wanted to create a kind of concept bringing together the artwork and the lyrics of the album, something very icy and linked to the winter season. This concept is based on the lyrics of the title track, which is about the connection between the winter season and the sensation that you have when you are sad or depressed. I think it’s pretty different from what we have done in the past, and the song “The Winter Wake” probably differs the most from the other songs, and that’s what we like about it.

Prior to the recording of “The Winter Wake” you have gone through serious line-up changes. The main thing is that you brought back the original singer Damnagoras, who left the band a few years ago. But why did he leave, first of all? We heard that health problems were mentioned or something like that…

Yes, something like that was mentioned, but the truth is that there was something within the band that wasn’t so good. There were some problems between band members, but now it’s pretty clear to every one of us that Damnagoras’ departure from the band in that period was an error. After two years of him being away from the band, me and him went out for a beer and talked about the past, and it was pretty natural for him to come back. Shortly after that the other guitarist Jarpen left the band, but these two facts are not obviously related to each other.

What is your previous singer Kleid now doing? Do you maintain any contact with him?

To be honest, we’re not in contact with him anymore, because the separation between us wasn’t so peaceful. (laughs) I know that he has another band right now, he sings in a band that plays heavy metal, too, but to be sincere, I haven’t heard from him since the day he left Elvenking.

What do you now think of your previous album “Wyrd” (2004) that you did with Kleid on vocals? Are you satisfied with it, or do you think it would have sounded better with Damnagoras?

I definitely think that it would have been a different thing with Damnagoras. The only think I’m dissatisfied with on this album is the vocal contribution. For sure, with Damnagoras in the band and with his songwriting skills, the album would have come out different. We have the idea to re-record some of the songs with Damnagoras on vocals one day.

Speaking about singers – in addition to clean vocals, you always had the growling vocals that your former guitarist Jarpen did. How did you come up with this idea? Growling is a very rare thing in power metal…

This idea came to us very naturally back when we founded the band, because everyone in the band has death metal influences in addition to more traditional metal stuff. It was pretty natural for us to add some growls here and there, also because Jarpen was very good at doing that. But nowadays it’s not so original anymore, there are a lot of bands which add death metal vocals to normal power metal or heavy metal, so we are trying to limit the use of growls, on “The Winter Wake” there’s not so much stuff done in that way. It’s just not as original as it used to be in 1998.

By the way, what happened to Jarpen? He used to write a lot of music for Elvenking, and all of a sudden he was not interested in this music anymore – why is that?

To be sincere, I really don’t know, and I’m very sad about this. The fact is that he lost interest in metal and in music in general. We are still friends with him, we still go out for a beer with him, but unfortunately, he doesn’t like heavy metal anymore. He doesn’t even play that much anymore, and it’s pretty sad for me. But it’s OK if it’s the right decision for him.

And yet another question about singers – Schmier from Destruction appears as a guest on the title track of the new album. How did this cooperation come about? Is he a fan of folk music or of Elvenking?

I don’t think he’s very much into this kind of stuff, but I think it was funny for him to try to participate in a project that’s so different from what Destruction is. As you can see, on Destruction’s latest album (“Inventor Of Evil”) there’s a song with a lot of different vocalists (“The Alliance of Hellhoundz”), so it was pretty natural for him to say “yes” to our request. For “The Winter Wake” we needed some kind of thrash vocals, and we immediately thought about Schmier, who is one of the best thrash vocalists around.

Everyone in Elvenking has a stage name – Damnagoras, Aydan, Jarpen, etc. How did you come up with those names, and what meaning do you want them to have?

The names appeared because in the beginning we wanted to have a total concept linking the lyrics and the image of the band to the music we played.
We didn’t want to play folk-influenced music under our normal names, so we came up with these stage names just for fun and so that they would fit better to the concept of our music. Nowadays we still keep these names, though we find them pretty funny.

It’s easy to notice the connection between the lyrics of Elvenking and fantasy literature. What books and what writers have inspired you or have had an influence on you?

We were pretty influenced by fantasy themes in the beginning of Elvenking. Even the name “Elvenking” came from “The Lord Of The Rings”. Nowadays we are a bit less influenced by these themes, but we keep using them to express something deeper. We like to create romantic images and something that’s really far from reality, that’s our goal. We don’t want to sing about everyday life or social problems, I think the music should help people relax and forget about all this. I cannot imagine a guy who comes home in the evening and wants to listen to the songs about social problems, at least I don’t want something like this.

Your cover artworks are always amazing, but you have a new artist for every new album. Is it your intention to keep changing the style of artwork, or is there any other reason behind

it?

We like to change everything with every album, that’s a very important thing for us. We like to make each new album different from the previous one, and that also stands true for cover artworks. All the three covers we have had are very good and very strong, at least in our opinion. The cover of “The Winter Wake” is very different from the cover of “Wyrd”, but we like them both. “Wyrd” was painted in yellow covers, it looked really warm, and “The Winter Wake” is totally icy, as suggested by the album title. I love the new cover very much!

You recorded the new in your own studio, which you never did before. Why did you decide to build your own studio? Were you dissatisfied with other studios?

That was something new for us as well. We felt that we needed to have a studio very near to us this time, we wanted to control every process during the recording session, so we decided to record the album on our own. Me and Damnagoras produced the album, and it was a kind of adventure for us, because we weren’t so sure about the final result. But in the end I think we did a good job, and the album has a good sound. But it’s also thanks to the great mixing done by Nino Laurenne at Sonic Pump Studios in Finland. The main thing is that we didn’t want to have any other people telling us what to do this time, we wanted to implement our own ideas and keep it like this until the end.

Do you plan to work with any other bands in this studio, or will it be something exclusive for Elvenking?

At the moment we don’t have so much time for this, but I think it will be something that’s really cool to do in the future. At the moment we are really busy playing live with Elvenking and writing new songs, but if there is a possibility in the future, we will surely go for it.

For “The Winter Wake” you signed a new contract with AFM Records. In your opinion, how much has the label changed since the tragic death of its founder Andy Allendorfer?

I think Andy’s death really changed a lot, especially for us. A lot of things changed inside AFM, the label personnel changed a lot. For Elvenking the things have changed for the better, because nowadays everyone at the label loves our music. After the recording of “The Winter Wake”, we signed a new deal for two albums with them, and that’s a very good sign for us. Andy said shortly before his death that he loves our demos for the new album a lot, so it’s very sad that all this happened to him, but right now AFM is very strong, even stronger than before, and Elvenking feels great being signed to this label.

On January 7 you played at a concert in the memory of Andy. Can you tell us more about this event?

We played in Germany with Axxis, Squealer, which was Andy’s former band, and with a new band of Edguy’s Tobias Exxel, and it was a great thing, especially because it was in the memory of Andy Allendorfer. It’s a great way to remember him. The venue was totally packed, the crowd was amazing, and the experience was great for us.

Speaking about live shows – is it difficult to recreate the studio sound of Elvenking in a live situation? You have a lot of instruments, and in the studio you have female singers, so how does it all work live?

It was pretty difficult with the first albums, which had a lot of violin parts and stuff like this, but “The Winter Wake” is a bit more mature, and it’s a bit easier to reproduce it live. Moreover, we now have Elyghen playing keyboards and violin, and there should be no problems with live shows. When we had two guitars, a violin and keyboards live, maybe there was a bit too much going on, but right now we only have one guitar, and it’s a very good situation.

A few years ago you played a show together with Martin Walkyier, the former singer of Skyclad, and you only played Skyclad material at that show. How was this alliance born? Are you all Skyclad fans?

Yes, for sure, we are all Skyclad fans. Obviously Skyclad was one of our biggest influences in the beginning, so it was great to have this possibility. We recorded a cover of Skyclad’s “Penny Dreadful” for our first album, which wasn’t released then, but will be released now as a bonus track for “The Winter Wake”, and Martin somehow managed to listen to it and was really impressed. So he asked us to do a full show of Skyclad songs, and for us it was something absolutely unbelievable.

“Penny Dreadful” is your first and only cover version. Do you have any plans for doing more covers?

Yes, it’s the only cover we have recorded. I think it’s pretty funny to record the songs that you like, so in the future we might do something else as bonus tracks. It would be cool to cover a pop song and turn it into a metal tune.

With songs like “Pagan Purity” and with album covers like that of the second album, a lot of people will classify Elvenking as “pagan metal”. Does this definition suit the band? Do you consider yourselves pagans?

Some of the themes we have dealt with in the lyrics are pretty close to the pagan philosophy, but we don’t consider ourselves pagans or something like that. We like some of the ideas provided by this philosophy, but I don’t think that everyone in the band is indeed a pagan.

What do you think about the situation on the Italian rock and metal music scene at the moment? Are there any bands from your home country that you really like?

There are a lot of good bands in Italy. Some bands are very famous, such as Lacuna Coil, which are doing great in the U.S., while some other bands are less known, such as Secret Sphere, which I like a lot. I also enjoy bigger names such as Rhapsody, Vision Divine, Labyrinth or Necrodeath.

Is it possible to survive just by playing metal in Italy, or do the musicians of Elvenking have to have other jobs as well?

We all have other jobs right now, because it’s pretty difficult to live only off music, especially if your band is pretty young, like ours. We hope to have more possibilities to live off music in the future, but obviously this dream is very difficult to fulfill.

At the moment there is only one upcoming concert mentioned on your homepage. Do you plan to tour with the new album?

There are some discussions with our label and our booking agency about doing a European tour, but at the moment nothing is confirmed, so I don’t want to say anything that may not come true. Maybe we will go out for a tour in spring or summer.

And where do you have more fans – in Italy or outside it?

We have good fans pretty much everywhere around the world. In Italy we have a good number of fans, but there are also fans in the countries around it. “The Winter Wake” will be out in the countries where our CDs have never been released before, such as Japan or South America. There will also be a licensed release in Russia, so we hope to get a lot of new fans with this album.

Special thanks to Irina Ivanova (CD-Maximum) for arranging this interview

Interview by Roman “Maniac” Patrashov, Ksenia “Wolfin” Khorina
Questions also provided by Blindman
January 17, 2006
13 фев 2006 the End

Elvenking

Fiery Stride