Interview с Paradox : DARKSIDE.ru

Hello Charly! Nice to talk to you. I see that you are very, very happy with the new album, but it was ready a year ago or something like that. So, didn't you try to change something in the mix or in the arrangements while you were waiting for the release?
No, I didn't change anything. I just was writing back and forth with the record labels. And the only thing that I did was I listened to this album each day, sometimes two or three times a day. And I searched for the hair in the soup, but I didn't find anything. I was satisfied with everything. So, if I would say this is my best album, which I say on each of my albums, this is just because I'm so satisfied with the result. And it's new, of course, and the other records I heard a thousand times. But I never listened so often to an album like this, because it is one year old. And till the last day, I wanted to know if everything was okay. And I was so happy when we did the label change, that I found a record label, which worked with passion on the release. And that was most important for me.

- I'm aware about the situation with labels and that AFM Records doesn't exist anymore. Earlier this year, you released quite a harsh statement about labels and that no one could stand in your way. So, could you comment on that statement?
Yeah, I was pissed off because I didn't have a release date and the record was finished. And I put pressure on the record company, because I wanted to put my music out. And it was not an actual record, if you just have to wait one year. And with each month it took longer. I was very angry. And that's why I said to AFM, “We worked together for 25 years now. This is a quarter century. And I don't want to have bad blood. I just want to put my music out. Please give me a terminal agreement that I can search for another label”. And they did it. They gave me that, but not each band. I put a lot of pressure on them. I'm an artist, and I can't live with that business shit.

- Is it correct that at first you tried to release the album on Massacre Records?
Yeah. But first I got the message from AFM that they don't release that many records anymore. I guess it was in July 2024. So the album should be released on Massacre Records. And I said, “OK, Massacre Records is a good choice”. Why not? Massacre Records is a label that has existed for more than 30 years. So I was happy with them. But what I didn't know is that they were also affected by this business shit. So I was waiting again. But Massacre Records couldn't do anything because my contract was on AFM Records. So, I didn’t want to wait any longer. I had offers from several labels on my desk and I wanted to release the album with a new record company.

- And as far as I understand, at that time Massacre Records was a part of the same group of labels like AFM Records, Nuclear Blast. They had the same people behind them. But later Massacre Records found another partner and now they don't belong to that group of labels anymore.
Yes, I heard that. And I'm happy for Thomas Hertler that he goes on with Massacre Records. A while ago I got a message from AFM Records that they want to re-release “Tales of the Weird”. And the promotion for that will be done by Thomas Sadler from Massacre. So I will work with them again but in a different way, because I'm very happy now with High Roller Records. They are great people. They are old school and they work with passion on my music. We have great connection, great communication. Everything is fine. And I'm so satisfied with that record because I like this slipcase of the CD version, you know, and vinyl in three colors and cassette and everything, you know. And I don't want to have bad blood with the people I worked with for 25 years.

- High Roller Records is a bit smaller label than AFM or Massacre Records. So can they provide you the same amount of promotion, sales numbers and something like this?
Yeah, I did more interviews for “Mysterium” than I did for “Heresy II” or “Pangea”. As for the sales numbers I don't know yet, but it's too soon for that. But I see they really work for it. There is not a week when I don't get any messages, any new plans and stuff, you know. That means much more to me than a big success. I do music for my passion, nothing else. It's sad enough that I did this record on my own, alone. You know, I was forced to. I had no other chance to do it but alone, recording all the instruments. But what I need is communication. And in the end there was a little bit of a lack of communication with AFM, not because the people are bad, but they are a big label and had a lot to do and a lot of other bands, you know. With High Roller I have the feeling that they're getting bigger and bigger and that they have a lot of respect. And that fits Paradox because I can't make it really big now when I am 62 years old. Paradox has been a part of the metal scene for 40 years, and that's enough for me. I just want to have good partners who are kind, working with respect to each other. And High Roller is phenomenal. I never had such a communication. It's the first time that somebody worked with me like Axel Blaha did when we started the band. The people from the label are like members of the band. We met two or three weeks ago at a concert, talked a lot and drank some beers. They are great people.

- Many interviewers have already asked you about the way you recorded the album, that you did everything alone. I know already that you've had to do it because at first you lost Axel, then Olly Keller decided that

your bass lines are very good. And then Christian Münzner was too busy to work with you and you decided to record solos yourself. So how did it feel to do everything alone?
The first song I started composing was “Within the Realms of Grey”, the bonus track on the CD version. This should be a song which I wanted to do with Matt Drake of Evile from the UK. Matt is a buddy of mine, and he said, "Let's do something different”. Not really a thrash band, because everybody would expect a thrash band if we did a project together. I wrote this song, but it took too long. So I decided to hold this song back. Then I started with the first song “Kholat” in January, 2023. And Axel came to me to listen to each song I composed and to work out the drums. But mentally he wasn’t capable of recording the drums. So he told me, “Charlie, please, I can't do it, but I still want to be a part”. And we were best friends beside the music. He was a brother. And I said, “OK, Axel, we do it like this. You sit next to me, we work on the drums, how you want to play the drums, or we both want to play the drums on every song”. So we went through the drum parts, and Axel asked, “Please program the drums like I want them to play”. And I did it. Only the last song he couldn’t hear because he committed suicide by that time. And on that day, I wanted to show him the last song “The Demon God”. I poured a coffee for him, and I was waiting for him. Then I got a phone call from his girlfriend. She asked, “Hey, is Axel there?” And I said, “No, I'm waiting for him”. And later I got another phone call that he committed suicide. But the programming of the drums was not very difficult, because I have had a knowledge of that for many, many years. You have to have that knowledge, because you can’t program with a few clicks on that drum set. For me, it should be exact, it should be 100% like a drummer would play that.

- And you were originally a drummer.
I was a drummer 50 years ago at school in a school band. And that was my first instrument. So I'm a better drummer in my head than a rhythm guitar player. But I have a name as one of the best rhythm guitar players here in my area. You know, they don't know that I'm a much better drummer.So yeah, that's why I was able to program this. And the bass, as you mentioned before, this was the first time that I recorded the bass after I composed the basic song, because I wanted to have a better sound. So I recorded it very well, because I hate mistakes. And then I sent it to Ollly, and he said, “Hey, why should I practice this once again? Charlie, it's great, leave it like this”.

- But wasn't Olly a bit lazy about it? Maybe he didn't want to come to the studio and record it?
Olly is also like Axel, one of my best friends. And when we talked, he said to me, “How did you record this bass? I couldn't play that better. It is great what you did. And why should I? If we do concerts, I have to practice all the songs. But doing it only for the record… So let it like this. Maybe he was a little bit lazy, you know, he has other things to do.This is Olly, but I love him, he's a great guy. And with Christian, it was a little bit different. I was waiting for his lead guitars, but he is in several projects. I'm not a fan of this situation. In the 80s nobody should play in another band, because then you couldn’t give 100% to this one band, to reach your dream. But Christian is a very, very good lead guitar player. I have no bad words for him. I don't exclude that he will be a part of Paradox again. Same with Olly. I didn't tell any of them, “You are out”. It just took too long. And Chris said to me, “I'm on a US tour with Obscura. When I come back, I will record the solos”. And then I waited another two months, and it took too long. And then Olly and Axel told me, “You recorded all the instruments. Now you can record the lead guitars”. That was the biggest challenge. Because I'm a rhythm guitar player, I'm a drummer, and I'm a singer, but I'm not a typical lead guitar player to put out such great solos, which Chris can play, you know. And I knew it would be a different style of lead guitars. So I put all in what I had, because I knew I must replace a world-class guitar player. But I talked to Chris last week, and he said that I did great solos.So we are fine with each other. There is no bad blood anymore. I was angry for a while, because I'm sick of that. The whole career of Paradox was like this. Remember the whole thing with the Holzwartt brothers on “Collision Course”? This was a project, not a band, you know. Axel and me, we always wanted to have a band. That was our big dream. But we didn't find the real members to work with us, how they have to work, if they want to reach something. So that's why I did everything alone. I said, “Why should I wait? I do it on my own. And the result will be as good as on every other record”.

- As you mentioned the project with Matt Drake, wouldn't it be logical to ask his brother Ol to play some solos on this album?
Yeah. It was in my mind for a while. Ol put out really metal, straight-in-you-face solos. But then, when I did the first solo, as I remember it was in “Kholat”, I was amazed and excited.
I asked myself, “How did I play this”? It's such a crazy lead guitar solo, you know? And then after I recorded this solo, I said, “If you can play one solo, you can play all of them”. Which I did.

- So, since you managed to play all the solos and they are really great, didn't you feel any regret that you hadn't done it before? That you hadn't played so

los on albums like “Riot Squad” or “Tales of the Weird"?
This is a great question, because I did it. I recorded all solos on “Riot Squad” and I recorded all solos on “Electrify”. That was my first start, but nobody knew that because Kai Pasemann was a lead guitar player. But when Kai started recording the solos, he was shaking. He couldn’t relax in the studio. I don't know why, because he did it live. We toured around Europe and we never had any problems. So I did the solos on “Electrify” and “Riot Squad”, and I did two solos on "Tales of the Weird”: “Day of Judgment" and “The Downward Spiral”. But when I listen to the solos on “Electrify” and “Riot Squad”, I hear that I was not as good as I am now. So that was when I started recording solos, but I'm known for being a rhythm guitar player.

- And getting back to drum programming, I know that some fans already complained that it's not a real drum recording or something, but to hell with them. Will you use drum programming in the future?
I plan to do one more record, a physical record. And I plan to do it with a drummer. I understand criticism, but does it change a song if you program the drums or if you play the real drums? No, the song is the same. If I like a song, then I like it. I don't care about who played on that song or how the song was recorded, how it was written. Neither I like the song nor I don't. But I understand that a real drummer has a little bit more live and warm approach to the recording. I couldn’t play live with a drum computer, but on a record everything should be in its place, every beat should be right where it has to be. And that's why I could program another record, of course, but if I get a chance to hire a real drummer who can really play, I will record the next album with real drums. That's my plan right now.

- Okay. And imagine you could pick up any musician for your line-up to play live shows. So who would be your second guitar player, your bass player or your drummer? And you can pick any musician.
That's difficult. Drummer? Well, Gene Hoglan. No, Dave Lombardo. I would choose Dave Lombardo because he fits more to Paradox. For the lead guitars, I would choose Jeff Loomis from Nevermore. It could be Jeff Waters as well, but I would choose Jeff Loomis or Tommy Vetterli from Coroner because he's also a great player. I do the vocals and the rhythm guitars. The bass... I always said that Olly is one of the best German bass players and he plays to the song. He has no ego. So I would be satisfied if Olly would still play the bass. I don't need a better bass player, but okay, Steve DiGiorgio would be the one who could play this, and Tilen Hudrap. I'm in contact with Tilen. He was on “Pangaea” and later played with U.D.O. and Doro and some shows with Testament. I'm still in touch with him and he could be a part of the next line-up.
- Great choice! So “Mysterium” is not a concept album but all the songs are somehow connected and they are all about different mysteries, different stories or true crime stories or something like that.
It started when I was searching for great topics and then I saw “Kholat”. It was the first story I read about nine hikers who died and nobody knew why. Were they murdered or was there a catastrophe? I saw a movie about that story and thought that there are surely more topics which I'm interested in and then I searched other topics like “On One Way Ticket to Die” with Alfred Packer, the cannibal of Colorado, or this horrible explosion at Tunguska for unknown reasons. Nobody knew, was it something from outer space. If that was the case, people would find something, stones or something like that, but nobody knew what it was. So it came one after another but not every song is about such stories. “Grief”, this acoustic track, is a dedication to Axel and it should also be an intro for “Those Who Resist”, because after two fast songs I wanted to take a break, to let people have more power to listen to the next fast song. “Pile of Shame” is about self-destruction, “The Demon God” is about self-control, and “Mysterium”, the title track, is about dream interpretation which is totally interesting to me. I did some research and I said it in other interviews too, that this album for me has double entertainment because you can listen to the music and you can research the topics that are on the album. You can spend hours trying to find information on these topics.

- So there are different versions of what happened to the Dyatlov group. So which version do you find better?
I guess that they had a fight that night. The tongue was out from one victim, the eyes were out from one victim, but the other victims were just frozen. It could be an animal, a bear or something. My version is that they had a fight that ended deadly and then the others got frozen. The version with an avalanche looks strange, because The Dyatlov pass is not so high, just 1,000 meters.

- “Abyss of Pain and Fear” is based on the movie “Midnight Express” from the 70s. Did you watch it when it was originally filmed or did you find this movie years later?
Not many years later. It was in the end of the 70s and it was around the mid 80s when I saw this movie and I said, “Wow, what's that?” You know, Billy Hayes went through hell. But the story was a little bit different. It was not 100% like you see it in the movie. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison but he fled successfully. And it was not easy to be in such a prison because it's not a German prison. In German prisons everything is a little bit easie

r. In a Turkish prison it's tough, you know, not because of the people, but because of the law. Of course, it was a mistake by Billy Hayes. He wanted to smuggle drugs and if you do this, you must expect that they will catch you. But 30 years of prison sentence was too much for that. He didn't murder somebody or something, you know.

- I know that after the recording of "Abyss of Pain and Fear" you accidentally erased the original files and had only a poor sounding MP3 file with the song. Therefore you had to listen to it and record everything from scratch. How did that happen? Was it demotivating for you to record this song once again?
I remember trying to make a backup copy of "Abyss Of Pain And Fear" while on the phone with my mom. Instead of clicking "copy," I accidentally clicked "delete" because I was distracted. That was entirely my fault. You shouldn't do that while on the phone. During the call, I realized my mistake and was totally frustrated. I put my hands over my face and couldn't believe something like that was happening to me. The song is over 7 minutes long, and it was extremely difficult to re-record it exactly as I composed it. I only had a crappy MP3, which I had fortunately saved beforehand, but all the individual tracks were gone. Not only that, the entire recording mask with all the settings had been deleted from the application. There was a moment when I didn't want to continue composing, but luckily I did, otherwise there wouldn't be "Mysterium." It took a whole month to re-record the song, but then it turned out better than the first version.

- So, as you already mentioned, that short track “Grief” is dedicated to Axel Blacha, who committed suicided in 2023. Maybe it's a bit of an inappropriate question, but why did he do it?
Yeah, he committed suicide and jumped in front of the train. I had no knowledge that he planned to do this, because then I would stop him or I would try to stop him. He sent me a message the evening before that he would come to listen to the last song I composed. And then he said, “I don't feel good. And I have suicide thoughts”. And I said, “Axel, before you do something wrong, you can call me in the middle of the night. You can always come to me first. Don’t do any shit, because you have only one life”. I lost a girlfriend in my youth the same way, she committed suicide. And I didn't want to lose my best friend or one of the closest people in my life, who I have known for more than 40 years. And he said, “No, no, no. I won't do anything wrong”. I asked him, “Could you tell me exactly what’s going on? What is this that you have? Or what you feel? Maybe I can help you”. And he said to me,"Tomorrow, I will show you exactly what I feel”. And then he jumped in front of the train. After that I wanted to stop doing music.That was my first thought. Everything was over, because Axel was the closest guy to me. He was like a brother, and we worked together on the songs for “Mysterium”. He always said, “Charlie, you are working on your best record. These are the best songs you have ever made”. I replied, “Not the best, but they are good songs". And he said, "No, I like them better”. He was really a fan of these songs. As for his reasons for suicide, I don't know why. I never expected that he would do this. Because Axel was a shy guy. He was a funny guy. He has a girlfriend, he has enough money, he has a good job. Everything was perfect. But if you are in a bad mental shape, then you can do something like this. Depression is an underrated sickness. And it's not easy to find the right medication for it. They tried everything. He was in hospital and they did electroshock therapy on him. And maybe this all was too much. From what I know now, he stopped taking his medications suddenly and you can't do it, because it raises the risk of suicide. Some voices talked to him. If some voices talk to you, then you are a schizophrenic. But he wasn't schizophrenic. That's why I can't understand that. How can somebody jump in front of a train? I have a picture of him here. I have so many pictures of him on the wall from the time we were together in Paradox. But I have here a special picture with a candle and I have five grams of his ashes here in my Paradox museum in my room. And he's always with me. I talk to him. When I listen to some song, I talk to him and I say, “Hey, what do you think?” And I know exactly what he would answer me. We understood each other without words. When we worked on the early albums like “Heresy” and “Product of Imagination", we were always in the rehearsal room. I played some riffs, he played the drums and he knew exactly when the song would change and he played the fill. So yeah, we were brothers.

- And the tune itself is short, but very complex and well thought. So how did you get it? Do you play acoustic guitar that often?
Yeah. In the past two years, I put my acoustic guitar first because it's more difficult to play. If I can play something with the acoustic guitar, it's easy to play it with the electric guitar. Originally the song wasn’t dedicated to Axel, because he was still alive. It was just a good tune after two powerful tracks. Now the whole album is dedicated to Axel, but “Grief” is a special minute for me to remember Axel.

- The song “Those Who Resist” is about those who opposed the Nazi regime in Germany in the 1930's. Is the song your reaction to the rise of Alternative für Deutschland, which happened in the last couple of years?
Yeah, it is. They are now very big in Germany. But it’s not that they will do so

mething similar to what happened in Germany about 100 years ago. Here in Germany we have the problem with people who came to our country but have no reason anymore to be here, but they get a lot of money. That's why many people are not happy with this. It’s not about foreigners. The problem is not that people from other countries are bad. I know a lot of people from other countries because of my band, so I have nothing against other countries. So it's a little bit dangerous what's going on with AfD, but something like what happened in the 1930's will never happen again in Germany. I have more fear of a third world war, because this is more possible than the Nazis coming up again. But normal people don’t want another world war. That is what the lyrics from “Fragrance of Violence” are about. If you are a soldier and you have to go to war, you have to shoot other people you don't know. Maybe they could be your best friends, but you must shoot them. If you don't shoot them, they kill you. You have no chance if the authorities of your country want war. You can’t just say, “I won’t participate in that”. And I have a message to that: the world belongs to no one. Nobody can conquer the world. Nobody. The Roman Empire, Napoleon, Hitler - they all tried to conquer the world and they failed. I can understand some reasons for being angry, but a war… People have to talk. Communication is Alfa and Omega of everything in life. And if people would sit down on the table, all together, they would find a solution for it.

- I know what you mean. And what is the song “One Ticket to Die” about? You have mentioned a cannibal from Colorado…
Okay. Alfred Packer was a leader of a gang who wanted to search for gold. But then they had no food anymore. And the weather was horrible as well. So Packer murdered his friends and started to eat their bodies. He came back alone. The police came and talked to him and he gave strange answers that didn't fit together. Later on, they found the bones of the victims. He was sentenced to 30 years, but he came out on parole. By that time his brains were out of order. He came out and he lived for just five, six years alone. He wasn’t sentenced to death because there was no evidence of killing, only his confession.

- Wow! Such a brutal story! And one of my favorite songs of the album is “Pile of Shame”. It's not the fastest track on the album, but it sounds like a march of some monstrous machine, and it has very unexpected written changes in there. Did you write the song at once or did you do it as a puzzle?
I wrote it at once. And when the mid part came up, I wanted to do something different, something that nobody expects. And that's why there is this calm part and then before the solo comes the explosion. What I like about that song is this beat. It makes you to bang your head. You have to go on with this when you listen to this beat. It's actually a beat of a tango. It's not a thrash metal song, but it reminds me a little bit of “Search for Perfection” from “Heresy” which also has a beat like this, a little bit faster, but also a special beat.

- Achim “Daxx” Hommerlein once again wrote the lyrics. Is it true that he restricts you to change his lyrics, to change any word?
No. Daxx is one of my best friends, I know him for 40 years and we were always friends. I didn’t change his lyrics because I had nothing to improve. He sent me the lyrics and I tried to find something but everything was just fine. It was so easy to sing those lyrics. I gave him the titles, I gave him the stories so that he could research on the internet. I sent him records with fake English to guide him so that he knew how long the words are and where I want to sing. That's why it was easy for him to write the lyrics and when I got them, everything was great. I had nothing to improve. Daxx is an old-school guy, he knows what Paradox followers want to hear. So it was great to work together, and then if I do one more record, Daxx will write the lyrics again.

- Daxx is a guitar player, so didn't you want to ask him to play a guest solo on some of your albums?
No, because he's a rhythm guitar player and more a composer. He composed songs for Vendetta back in the day and works with them now, but to play in Paradox would be too much for him. But on the “Pangea” album I recorded a song that was written by Daxx. It was a Japanese bonus track. It also could be in the main track list because it's a good song and I can say that Daxx could compose a Paradox song.

- And what about Micky Wehner, another guitarist from Vendetta? I know that you are producing his actual music project. Didn't you want to ask him to join Paradox?
I worked with Micky in 1983 in the pre-Paradox line-up when we were called Maniac and we did a show together. Later on he founded Vendetta. Micky is a great guy and it’s fun to be around him. He's a good composer, he has great ideas and I like this Brain Damage record, I put some solos on. But for Paradox it should be somebody who can play like Christian Münzner. And this is not easy. So Daxx couldn't play that and Miki couldn't play that.

- And the next question is about the previous lyricist of Paradox, Peter Vogt, who died a few years ago. Do you know the cause of his death?
He had throat cancer. Peter died two weeks after the release of “Heresy II”. I was talking to him each day about the lyrics. He said, “I want to see the release of this record. I put everything in and this is my last work. I know I’m going to die. I don't have much time. Charlie, you must go on because the doctor said I can die soon”. So how heavy is that man? And then his last post on Facebook was Paradox Germany. I don't know why he did this, but I read it: “Paradox Germany”. And on the next day, his brother sent me a message that Peter died.

- It's a very sad story. What kind of a man was Peter?
I know he lived in France in a castle where all these stories with Carthage from “Heresy” happened. He and his brother Nigel moved out from Germany after we recorded “Product of Imagination”. I don't know what he did in private life. He didn't work anymore. He was at home all the time when I talked to him. Peter was always a funny guy. Okay, he drank a little bit too much alcohol. But everybody needs something to be happy, you know. I can imagine how this is when a doctor comes to you and says you have such a short time to live. And Peter lived longer than the doctor said. He fought and he got the record in his hands.

- Last year you released the “Rearranging the Past” album on vinyl. Actually it's a demo tape from the 90s with a different singer. And a few years before you already released this album as a part of the demo collection. Does it sound differently on vinyl?
No, I guess it doesn't. This is just a demo which we released on CD and on vinyl, because the labels wanted to do this. At first I refused, because it’s just a bad sounding demo. You can't release such a product. But the labels said that fans want to hear everything from Paradox, because they want to listen to everything that I did in the past. That's why I said, “OK, then we can do it”. It was just the demo of our third album, which we wanted to do after “Heresy”. Now I'm sure we would change a few songs and write some new ones to make the final record at that time, because we actually were not satisfied with some songs on that demo. I'm not a big fan of listening to demos anymore, but I can understand that the fans want to have everything from their favorite band. “Rearranging the Past” is not an official new album because I read in some magazines that “Mysterium” is our 10th album. No, it's the 9th album.

- It's interesting that Awakening Records, which released the demo collection, is a label from China. So how did that happen that you released an album in China first?
Li Meng, the owner of the label, dropped me a message that he was interested in doing it. And he made me a good offer, therefore I said yes. And it’s always great if you have a chance to get to the China market because it's new for Paradox. So Li did everything great.

- The Bandcamp page of Awakening Records states that Joe DIBiaso from Fates Warning played the bass on this album.
No, it wasn’t him. It was another guy with the same name and he also was American, but it was not the Fates Warning musician. That would be a dream because I'm also a fan of Fates Warning.

- Some other sources say that Armin Donderer played bass on this album.
Armin Donderer replaced Roland Stahl when he was busy with his job. Armin toured with us in the Netherlands and did a couple of shows in Germany. And he was a neighbor. He lives in the same city and we have known each other for so long and he was always replacing Roland when he couldn’t play with us.

- Do you remember your plans for “Rearranging the Past”? Where did you want to record it and who was going to produce it?
No, nothing was planned. We just put two microphones in our rehearsal room and recorded everything with a cassette recorder. Nothing else. And then I worked on it to mix it. The songs were recorded with a different singer because at that time I was sick about playing guitar and singing. It was similar to Metallica’s story when they tried to bring John Bush in, but in the end it didn’t work out. And the same happened with Stefan Haller on “Rearranging the Past”.

- Do you stay in touch with Stefan?
No. A couple of weeks ago he dropped me a message on Facebook, but I never met him in person ever since.

- A lot of thrash metal bands from Germany have released documentaries or books about their careers. Destruction released “The Art of Destruction” and Kreator are going to release a movie, and Mille Petrozza has written a book about his childhood. Tankard have a book about their story. Sodom have two parts of “Lords of Depravity”. Don't you want to do something like this to write your memoirs about your time with Paradox?
I thought about this, but I always think that if you do this too soon, then not everything will be written. The best time to write a book is when I stop with Paradox, so the story will be completed. And then I will have enough time because I will not record any songs. So I could imagine that I will do this one day. It would be interesting and funny because there are so many stories. My plan is to record one more album, because I want to have 10 records, 10 pure studio albums. It won’t be the end of Paradox, because if you're a musician, you are always a musician,you are a lifer. And even after the 10th album I could sit down and write a Paradox song and release it on the Internet. But there will be no physical products after the next album. Maybe only a live record, because I found in my archive some live recordings from Wacken Open Air and from the Dynamo Open Air 88. And they sound not bad. Maybe I will work on that to put out a live record from Paradox. But I also want to do another, a 10th studio album, and it goes to be a little bit more straight, not so much bombastic stuff. That's the plan. But you never know when you start writing songs. Before writing an album you may have a certain vision, but then something different comes out.But right nowI want to do something more old school,’like Exodus, old Forbidden and their “Twisted into Form”.

- Charly, thank you very much for taking your time and answering all my questions.

It was a pleasure. It was great talking to you and I hope it was not the last time.

- Yes, for sure! Thank you.

Автор: Freewind Rider
17 ноя 2025 the End

Paradox

One Man Army