Interview с Faun : DARKSIDE.ru

How have you chosen this way and this style of music, was it your passion in early age? How did you decide to start composing, recording this kind of music?

Oliver: For me personally I was in the scene first, I was fist on the market, medieval market, juggling, playing theater and I liked the atmosphere, and I was making music in private ‘cos I wanted to tell stories in music and also I really liked the instruments, the sounds, so I slowly slowly… but I never started music it’s just lucky thing.

Niel: In early 2000s I was like a pure electronic musician, playing in clubs, then I met those guys and I didn’t hear anything about them yet and I’ve never seen and I saw the first market, the first festivals and I was astonished how big it is and I didn’t see it in any way before, and I liked the atmosphere very much like people doing things together being very friendly and having a special attitude to it, and so it’s really really cool subculture. So, it really addicted me in that way also.

So, we could say that it’s rather a subculture than a music style...

Oliver: This is rather a way of living... People are awaking again to say that it’s very nice to go into the forest, to make a campfire, bonfire and to sit around and not to go to a disco. And it’s getting bigger and bigger and this is very important I think. Sometimes people want to make fire, sometimes people go to a medieval market and just think that “ok, then I’ll stay”. So, the interest is growing and it’s like going, turning back to the roots.

If it’s rather culture or lifestyle, so, what does it mean for you, how is your life depends on this? How much are you involved in this subculture in your everyday life?

Oliver: This is not a subculture because we live it, you know.... (everybody laughing) so, IT IS our everyday life. But I love this life.

What do you mean “to live it”?

Oliver: Yeah, many years ago I chose it, I wanted it, as much often as possible to go into the scene, to stay here. And I’m lucky to have the opportunity to stay on the 100%. And so I think for me it’s important to say... in summer time you go outside, you spend the time outside, for me it’s very important to look for my own roots, for the Germanic history, for folk tales, fairytales, old sagas, to tell the stories in songs. And it’s very important, because people have interest, and the more you see the more people get into it and I am very happy to be part of it. But I’m also very proud because... I think we are also a part of it right now, we also started something in Germany many years ago to tell stories and songs. Medieval music performance only back part, the main is to read and tell stories, fairytales and more and more people do this.

Did you study something for history or something like that?

Oliver: I studied literature of medieval time. I do a lot of searching for texts.

You use a lots of special instruments and I have no idea is it possible to buy it in music shop? Do you have a person who makes it for you? Do you use old instruments?

Oliver: There’re no old instruments because they are too fragile and it would not work. But it’s like instrument makers make small amounts, many times we worked together with instrument makers, so we have people all over the world actually, we visit them to make instruments together, but now it’s not, because many people visit us at medieval market when we go there because they want to sit near the fire and to play music themselves. So many people want to start making music, many many bands are coming up and people want to buy. And now I see more and more music stores, big music stores also start to produce instruments… people want to begin it, it’s really cheaper than to start to try their own ones. For example I play this a lute, Irish lute, and that’s you can find all over Germany now.

If we compare modern instruments that you use and old instruments made in medieval age, is there any modernization or is it absolutely authentic and it’s the same that was made by medieval people?

Oliver: No. It’s a modernization. Because many hundred years ago people never had music, playing a little bit and thinking how it’s beautiful. Now from everyday music people have much more train from the years. And now what we have is the old sound but with modern scale and modern possibilities. But also sometimes we’re researching old sounds for example now, I’m researching a little bit on different scale like quarter tones, not like piano, in between. And I’d like to research this because I like the sound. Also, for people, it’s weird, but I like it. Sometimes also you go especially to the very old sound, because you want the sound and then put of course nice beats underneath so for the people it’s easier to listen, but underneath old sounds and these old sounds are making a story in your head. You listening to the sounds and you think ah you have many many pictures coming up. This is a very important moment.

Another problem is that people didn’t record music, so probably some traditions were interrupted and we can have no idea how it truly sounded it that time, really?

Niel: It’s possible. It’s like they didn’t have in early times those notes and they used pre-forms of that, but there’re also a lot of traditional music which is not on notes but it’s just like a ‘delivering’ being played by the years, by other generations, so it changes itself. It’s really hard to be really authentic, and for myself as an electronic musician, it’s not like go to

be really authentic but to work with it, to like a amalgamate the times, and draw all the best things of the times and make something completely new, it’s a real mixture of time travelling.

Probably it’s not bad because of we live in a modern times, so we use all the experience of different ages. By the way, do you use your old experience as electronic musician in the band?

Niel: Yes, of course! It’s like I started as more experimental musician, I used more 90’s forms of ambient music, and I was like more soundscaping musician than doing techno music, it was more like creating pictures with noises, and so, it was like also I think like to create a special sounds. For me at the end 2000s a lot in the electronic world was already said and was already repeated, so for me coming to medieval music and we were trying to sound organic, it was really a thing I like with new discoveries, it was a new thing which really caught me.

You create your own stuff. But I understand that sometimes you use some old reconstructed songs and lyrics, really?

Oliver: It’s very different. Sometimes we have old lyrics and the lyrics is very powerful, it’s very beautiful, so we don’t want to translate it because we’ll lose the spirit, so we sing original lyrics. Sometimes we even take old melodies, for example, very seldom melodies have medieval notes, it’s not written, and we take traditional melodies, like Brittany, from some Irish folk or something, we take melody and make it somewhere out of it. And sometimes we write an own song with old instruments. So, that’s different.

I understand that the latest two albums are more in German, you used less other languages. Why?

Oliver: We have now a possibility to have a strong outcome in German market, because we have now a label that is very broad, Universal, but also we signed with a TV station. And because for us it’s important, because we have a certain contents like everyone, we wanna bring across? we have a message to bring across, and for us it was now, well, big possibility to bring this message to many people, we said “ok, we’ll use it too for short now, not forever, but for short moment of time to explain to broad audience what it is about, like medieval, the medieval scene, and also pagan music.

Actually, it sounds really natural, but you have songs on your previous album in different languages, and it’s not German, it’s not English but I think Latin, and the question is: is it really important to understand when you sing something, what you sing about and how you sing, and how you singers get along with it?

Oliver: Sometimes it’s easier for people, for German people it’s easier to get into the atmosphere. If you sing, German lyrics is very easy to understand. Singing in old languages…

Old languages, or Latin, or Portug

uese, Italian…

Oliver: Yeah! Sometimes it’s gives also the image that makes it very nice. On the next cd we’ll sing in Norwegian… and we’ll have all languages but we try to mix it sometimes. Now, more often we tell stories because it’s nicer for people to get into - for German people. It’s a problem of course. But also it’s nice! We travel a lot to America, and there we sing all German songs and people say “we love the language!” And if we would sing in English for them, they would say “no, we hear it every day, we like to hear your original language”.
I think, for writing it’s naturally, in German. Because if you have a feeling, and you want to express it, then it’s difficult to put it in another language. And I think now there is a lot of personal songs we’re writing. So that’s nicer to write.

So, normally in your music you use medieval European tunes, melodies, but sometimes from the other cultures like oriental culture, from the East, is there any chance to hear something from Russian folk influences?

Oliver: Sure! I would really love to! We did a lot of Bulgarian-style music ‘cause that was beautiful. I think “can’t I copy a bit of Russian music also? hear some Russian songs?”
It’s mostly, you know, we meet musicians, and then we get inspired. Like, we meet other bands, we have a band from Bulgaria, it’s called…

Bulgaria is different…

Oliver: I know! But we meet a band and we have inspiration, and we swap CDs, and this is when we play together… And unfortunately we’ve never met a band from Russia.

How did happen your collaboration with “Santiano”?

Oliver: Same label! Very often we just… we have an event and we meet there and that’s the story.

Did you succeed to see something in Moscow? Or you had no time?

Oliver: It’s only Kremlin. It’s just what we have enough time for. For in Moscow, it’s really tough time schedule, and we leave Moscow tonight, to go to St. Petersburg. But we would love to… Always when we are somewhere where we haven’t been before we love to see it. How does the city look like, how does it work. I think also that I keep interest in the cultures and feeling what is the vibe of this town, of this place, of this forest.

OK, as I see you have changed your style a bit after Eden album, it was the most important change, with latest two albums…

Oliver: I think every CD’s different with us. You know, before Eden we had Buch der Balladen, Book of Ballads, it was a pure acoustic CD - so, no beats, nothing. And so on every CD we try to tell a different story because for us making every CD the same is boring. So then, for Eden we had n

ew producers… some really good songs, some songs… I think it was loud too much because of too many people. So now after that Luna was a very mysterious CD.

Do your fans like these changes?

Oliver: Some people, yes, some people, no. It’s always, you know, you can’t make music for everybody. Some people say ‘aww, this is terrible!’, other people say ‘this is the best!’… you know, whatever. At a certain point, I think you have to be happy with your own work, and if you have the feeling for yourself that the song is not 100%, then you have to change something. And when in Eden some of the songs were not 100%, so we changed after that. So now Luna, we’re very happy with it.

So, what can you say about the concept of the latest album? Because Luna is quite a mystical thing, it’s also sometimes understood as female nature, ‘Luna’ as witches, something from the night.

Oliver: Yes, it’s female energy, it’s the moon energy, it’s inspiration, it’s intuition, it’s emotions. And this is how we wrote tunes to this feeling, that’s not only in women, that’s also in men, everybody has this side in them. I think it’s our hymn to this side, this is all we tried to do there.

If we’re talking about the inspiration, what inspires you the most?

Oliver: Lucky thing, it’s changing. For example, right now with me it’s a lot of Scandinavian music. I’m very inspired with it, so I see bands from Sweden, from Norway.

But except the music? The architecture, the literature that inspires you?

Oliver: Also very different for me, personally I love a lot of nature. But nature is not really (about) inspiration for me, it’s more (about) recharging batteries, feeling healthy again. And inspiration, personally, it’s from a lot of other music and from poetry. I read a lot of poetry, and very often with me a feeling starts with a poem, with a text, and then - the music starts

Is it more Medieval poetry?

Oliver: No, pretty more from all the ages. Germany is a nice country but I’m not into patriotism, I can feel in every land at home, it doesn’t matter. But I’m very lucky that German literature’s very good. So I’m very happy that I can understand it very well.

Well, just recently we’ve got the info that you received the “Golden album” award in Germany, right? Did it happen for the first time in your career?

Oliver: No, actually, it’s for the second time. Recently we’ve released our latest CD “Luna” and “Luna” has got gold now. We are very proud about it. It’s a very mysterious, really mystic CD and this is nice and stuff like this usually has a lot of sales. It’s pretty nice.

I’ve heard from my German colleagues that folk music is very popular in your country, people buy it, so, is it true?

Oliver: Sometimes I think that yes, but it’s still very small... Folk is a very small scene, but luckily as medieval music it’s getting more popular. This is very nice, because there’s a beautiful medieval market, festivals...

Interview by Irina "The Sinner" Ivanova and Maria "Obsidian" Kodratieva

Thanks to Deltamekong Concerts for the organizing this interview and Andrei Pied Piper Koulikov for his help
28 авг 2016 the End


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