Interview с Running Wild : DARKSIDE.ru

Many bands push their release dates back for a few weeks or even months. But you have pushed the release date forward, and "Rogues En Vogue" came out on February 21, not on February 28 as it was planned. What was the reason?

A lot of things have to do with the record company. GUN Records has its distribution through BMG, which is a very big label, so they had a lot of records to put out and got in trouble with the dates and stuff. They said, "Is it possible that we release your album one week earlier?" I said, "No problem!" So they did it, it's no big deal.

What does the album title mean? I was trying to find this expression in the English-Russian dictionary, but it didn't seem to work out:

There is a very simple reason for that, because the title is half-English and half-French. (laughs) "Rogues" are very bad guys, and "en vogue" means "in focus", it means that everybody focuses on that. This is something that comes from the fashion scene, there's even a fashion magazine called "En Vogue". If you look at politicians today, even in Germany, corruption and all that stuff come up. The title has a little bit to do with what the society in Western countries today is, a lot of bad guys are trying to push everything to the limit, so to speak.

In a recent interview you said that you left the song "Libertalia" only as a limited edition bonus because it doesn't fit the concept of the album. Could you describe what this concept is?

It's not really a concept. It just had something to do with the song itself, how it sounded like. In the first place, I recorded 13 songs, and for sure the record company wanted to have two different versions of the album, the normal one and the limited edition with two bonus tracks on it. I really tried to figure out the best flow of the songs, and "Libertalia" fell off because all the other songs really did a great line, and it did not fit. It's not that I didn't put "Libertalia" on the normal album because it's a weak song. It just doesn't fit so much in the row that other songs form.

The history of Running Wild totals over 20 years, and if you look at other bands who are more than 20 years old, they're doing tours most of the time, and you can more often be seen in the studio than on the road:

If you have a look on the past three years, there was no time to do any tours. First of all, after the Brotherhood tour I immediately started to working on the live DVD and the double live CD, and when I finished that one, I did promotion for that. After that, I immediately started off with the "20 Years In History" album (2003), which is a sort of best-of compilation. When I finished that one, I did the promotion for that, and after that I had to rebuild my studio, build it up in a bigger way to make sure that I've got every possibility to do the full record in my own studio in my house, including the final mix and everything. After that I immediately started working on the new material, and there was no time to do any more shows than this single show at Wacken Open Air. It was a very big event, we had about 55,000 people out there on the field, which was a record, it was really great for us. But there was really no time to do any more shows or a tour. That's why I wanted to wait until the album's out so I could concentrate on doing the live shows and everything, you know. (For some reason Rolf doesn't mention tendovaginitis in his hand that he had to struggle with most of the year 2004 - ed.)

But I had a slightly different question. After so many years, many musicians don't want to write songs anymore, and you release albums nearly every two years. What is the secret of your creativity?

I can't tell you. (laughs) I don't think there's a concept behind it. It has something to do with the need to write songs and to do music and to enjoy music in the first place. To do what you feel is great. When I'm writing songs I never think about it that much, it's not a mental process, it has something to do with the feelings.

Running Wild have had their own style since the very early days, and I don't think that any of your fans want you to change it. But what do you think about such notions as development and progress as far as music is concerned? Do you think that every album should be a development from the previous one, or is writing good and catchy songs is the most important thing for you?

You always try to get better and grow as a band or artist, for sure. But I don't think about it too much when I'm writing songs. In the first place, I need to like the riff, the song and the melody, this is the main point for me. If you can grow as a musician, how you do it, how you play, how the albums work out and everything, that is the part where you really should be going further. But I never put myself under pressure - "you have to grow, you have to be getting better". It just happens naturally, it comes with the practicing. The more you write, the better you get, that's what happens in my case.

You have a song called "The War" on the new album, which is obviously about World War I. What other history periods are you interested in the most at the present time?

I'm pretty much interested in history in general, that is the main point. There's a lot of historical stuff that I have been interested in, and if you look at the previous albums, for instance, "The Brotherhood" (2002), there was a song called "The Ghost", which was about Laurence of Arabia, or "Victory" (2000), there was a song called "Tsar". I'm pretty much interested in the whole history, especially in the times prior to World War I. So many things happened back then, even in

the 1880s, it was the period of the biggest changes, a lot of things happened, this is very interesting.

Where does your interest in the Russian history come from? Was there any specific book or movie or anything else that made you interested?

In the first place, when I started I was collecting ancient military stuff. I personally collect Prussian stuff and Russian stuff, namely from the period before World War I - a lot of headdresses, all the uniforms and stuff like that. For sure, when you deal with that stuff, you become interested in what was going on there, why it was that way, why they looked that way and everything. So I really started studying the history of Nicholas II and his father to see what was happening there, what led to the revolution and everything. That's a really interesting history period.

Is it difficult to get Russian items for your collection in Germany?

It's more difficult than to get Prussian or German stuff, but it's possible. Since Perestroyka came about, it's pretty easy, because a lot of things were going to the West. But it's more rare that German stuff, for sure.

In "The War" you used a couple of old wartime marches. Where do they come from?

In the first place, they're German. If you look at the end of the song, this is a march written by Frederick the Great, so it came from the 18th century. But most of the marches come from the 19th century. I used them as a kind of symbol - when the war started, not only the German soldiers, but all of the soldiers went to the war as it would be an adventure or just fun. They thought, "OK, we're going out for war for just two weeks, then we'll come back, and it would be a great adventure for us." And they used the marches to celebrate that. But it turned out to be total hell.

Did you have to do any specific research on these marches? Or are you interested in this kind of music in general?

No, honestly I just bought two CDs. (laughs) I had an idea to do that, and I was just going through them to select the ones that really fit together and could add something to the song. It's not that I studied that stuff or something, I just listened to the records and tried to play the notes on the guitar. I knew them before, because some of these marches are very well-known, they were not only played at military dances, but also by firing squads at public celebrations, even at carnivals they play something like that. Everybody knows these tunes.

Another issue that you often talk about in your lyrics is freedom. What is your own definition of freedom? Do you think that being free is possible in the present day and age?

No, because there's a handful of people that don't want the people to be free. It has something to do with all the conspiracies and everything that's behind that. If you have a look on the song "The War", it's not about the war in the first place, it's basically about the circumstances that had led to the war. The war didn't come about because the countries wanted to fight each other, there were some guys that were pretty rich and who wanted to get pretty richer, and they wanted to spread their power abroad, so that's why they came up with the war. They had a lot of possibilities for conspiracy to start that war, because it's the same guys that paid for the Russian revolution, they also paid for the French revolution just to get a grip on the countries. World War 1 was created in the first place to wipe away all the monarchies, because these guys really wanted themselves to be in power. In this world you can't be free in your personal life, you can fight for your freedom, but you're not really free, not in the way that the word "freedom" means.

On the new album you once again have a song about pirates, "Skull And Bones". Are you still interested in the history of piracy as much nowadays as you were when you were writing stuff like "Calico Jack"?

I read a lot of books about piracy in the times when I was starting to write about all this stuff. But I didn't read anything to write this song. For sure, it's in the style of the "Pirates Of The Caribbean" movie with Johnny Depp, it has something to do with the romantic aspect of piracy, with being in the sea on a sailing ship. From time to time I'm doing some material about piracy when I've got a great idea for that. When I was watching this movie, I got an idea for the melody, and it felt great, it really sounded like all this pirate stuff. That's why I chose the title "Skull And Bones" for that. That's how this song came about. I didn't really read any books for this song.

As far as I understand, we should not expect a single from the new album. But if there was a single, what song would you choose?

Oh, that's really hard to say (laughs), that's very hard to say. I never think about that because we don't do singles nowadays. I think we could do a single if the record really sells pretty much more than the previous one, we'll also have to do a videoclip for that. And it looks like the album is doing really well, today I got the first report of the German charts, and "Rogues En Vogue" is in position 15. If we really can make it to number 15, it's absolutely great for a rock'n'roll band. I'll just wait and see how the album will do, then I will be able to think about that.

Who will play the second guitar on the upcoming tours? Will you have Bernd Aufermann back in the band, or will you search for anybody else?

I haven't made up my mind so far. First of all, I'll have to finish the promotion for the album, which is due at the end of this week. After that I will immedia

tely start looking for a contract with a different booking agency, we'll seek the right one for the next tour, because we have touring plans for May, June or something like that, and we also want to play some festivals this summer. I haven't made up my mind so far which guy will play the second guitar. For sure Peter Pichl will play the bass on stage, and Matthias Liebetruth will play the drums, but I don't know yet which second guitar player will join the band.

There's a tribute to Running Wild coming out soon. What is your role in putting this tribute together? Did you select the bands yourself, or did you just approve the whole CD?

You have to see, it's a very special one. The whole thing started on our homepage, because the fans said, "We want to have a tribute album to Running Wild." A lot of fans play in bands themselves, some in quite big bands, and they said, "We wanna do cover versions of Running Wild songs." They did their own recordings, sent them to the guy that runs our homepage, Jens Pohl, and he collected everything. Originally it was planned that Sanctuary Records, who did the "20 Years In History" album, would put it out at the same time, but when they heard it, they said, "There's not enough bands with a big name on the album, so we can't sell it." Thus, they decided that they're not gonna do it. But one month ago I called that a record company in Hamburg called Remedy Records will do this. I don't know anything more about it, I don't know which songs will be on there. I heard all of them, all the 32 songs that were sent to Jens, but I have no idea whether all of them will be released or only some of them.

You've already mentioned the recent compilation "20 Years In History". But what do you consider the starting point of the band? Twenty years back from the release date is 1983, but as far as I know, the band existed way before that:

The album came out two years ago, and it was 20 years, because 1983 was the date when Running Wild first became a professional band. We did two songs for a sampler and another two songs for another sampler on Modern Music/Noise, and so we got a deal to do the first record, which came out in 1984. But our first appearances were on these two samplers from Modern Music, which was in 1983, so you can see this date as the beginning. But if you look back, Running Wild started in 1979 or something like that. And the band that turned into Running Wild started as a band of our schoolmates, I just said, "I want to do a band," and they joined it. This was happening around 1976 or 1977, so there's a lot of years before that, but I think 1983 is the real starting point of the band, when we did our first professional appearance.

"20 Years In History" has a couple of previously unreleased tracks, but you also have quite a lot of other unreleased stuff. Why didn't you put it on that compilation as well?

No, there's nothing more. These two songs that appeared on "20 Years In History" were newly recorded, I didn't have any recordings of them before. "Prowling Werefolf" was a very special song, because when we did "Gates Of Purgatory" (1984), the song was meant to be on the album, but in the last second we wrote another song, which we figured out to be stronger than that, and that's why it fell off. But at that time at all our shows we played, the opening song of the set was always "Prowling Werewolf." That's why it's a special song for us. Then we once did a demo for "Under Jolly Roger" (1987), there were three songs on it, and one of them, "Apocalyptic Horsemen", didn't make it to the album, I can't tell you why now, I don't know. I never had any recordings of that, but when we had plans to do "20 Years In History", the song came back to my mind, and I had to re-build it up, so to speak, from memory. And I don't have any recordings of any other songs from the period before the first record, I don't look back at that, it was just this special case of releasing the best-of album. I don't wanna do that in the future with other songs.

But there are a lot of rumors about unreleased tracks that you allegedly have. For instance, I have heard about an AC/DC cover that you once recorded:

I know what you mean. It was planned for recording when we were doing the "Wild Animal" EP (1990), but we never recorded a full version of it, there were just the drums and the rhythm guitar, so we never used it.

There's another legendary unreleased item, the "Sinister Eyes" EP that never made it to the press:

That's right, you can see the cover of it on the re-released version of "Pile Of Skulls" (1992). One of the bonus tracks that was on there was the new version of "Uaschitschun" from the "Port Royal" album (1988). The song is now on the re-released version of "Pile Of Skulls" too.

I also heard about a track called "Skulldozer" that was supposed to be on that EP too.

That was the song written by Stephan Schwarzmann (then drummer of Running Wild, later with UDO, Accept, Helloween - ed.), but we never released that one.

Could you tell me a bit about your cooperation with the band The Donots?

Everything came about when the boss of our record company came and talked to me. He said, "I have a band called The Donots, a punk band, which I really like, it's a great band." He told me they had a plan to record an EP with their favorite metal tracks, because most the guys in the band came from metal, but then started out doing their own stuff. And the singer of the band told our record company boss that he was a great Running Wild fan, "Port Royal" and "Death Of Glory" (1989) were the albums that made him wanting to become a singer. He started d

oing the music because he was an absolute great Running Wild fan, and he still keeps all vinyl versions of our albums. He asked if it would be possible to record "Bad To The Bone" and have me singing part of the lyrics. And we did it, and it was absolutely great. And when they played live at the Cologne Ringfest, they asked me if I wanted to join in just for this song, and I did it, and it was absolutely brilliant as well. I did it three times again on their tour, just around Hannover where I live, and the kids really liked that. All the kids in the audience were listening to this punk stuff, but they really liked the song, it was really great. There were also metal fans who were there just to see me on stage, and they told me that The Donots are a great rock'n'roll band. So it was great, they are really nice guys, we're friends.

It seems that every German musician I speak to has played in a punk band at some point in his career. Have you ever played punk, just for fun maybe?

(laughs) No, never. When we first started out with a band called Granite Heart, which turned into Running Wild a few years later, we were supposedly a hard rock band. In those days we had heroes like AC/DC and Kiss.

I've heard that you are also a great fan of Slade:

Yes, absolutely! If you ask me who my favorite singer of all times is, I will always say Noddy Holder from Slade, I really like how he was singing, or rather screaming. (laughs) He's absolutely great because he's so unique.

And what do you think of Slade without Noddy?

It's not real Slade. (laughs) It's the same as if you would ask me what WASP without Blackie Lawless is, it won't be WASP. Slade are doing records and everything, but without Noddy Holder their stuff doesn't really work.

It's common knowledge that Running Wild started in Hamburg. I remember how a guy whom I used to know was leaving for Hamburg for about a week five years ago and was taking all his Running Wild CDs with him. When I asked him why he was doing that, he said, "What if I meet Rock'n'Rolf in the street?" And in reality, what are the chances of meeting you face-to-face somewhere on a Hamburg pavement?

In Hamburg there are no chances, because I don't live in Hamburg anymore. (laughs) I went away from there about eight years ago, and four years ago I came to Hannover and bought a house here. From time to time you can meet me in Hannover, but very very rarely, because in the past three years I have only had three weeks of holidays. I spent three years working in the studio, I had a lot of things to do. You don't really meet me in the street, so to speak.

Many of your songs deal with organized religions, you often write songs about the church deceiving people and using them in their own interests. But why do you think so many people fail to understand that?

Because they live in a lie, that's the problem. I studied this matter for a long time, and it's really too much stuff to be mentioned in an interview. In the first place, if you study the matter for many years and read a lot of books about it, looking behind the scene, you will find that the church has no right whatsoever to exist. But that will be too difficult to discuss in an interview, because there's so much stuff behind it. They (the church - ed.) know exactly that Jesus Christ, that's how they call him, was never the son of god. Even the Vatican knows exactly that he was never a son of god, and that they had no right to build up a church, because his wife Maria Magdalena and his daughter should have done that. Jesus Christ, or Jedoa or Jedua, as they also call him, was married to Maria Magdalena and they had a daughter. He was not the son of god, he was the son of a king, of a very rich Jewish businessman. He had about 13 brothers and sisters, and Judas Iscariot was his twin brother, they looked in the same way. There were so many things going there behind the scenes, and the entire church is built up on lies. They had absolutely no right to build it up, because Maria Magdalena and the daughter of Jesus Christ fled to France with the templars, and they from time to time had the right to build up the church, but they also know that Jesus was not the son of god, he was just a son of a king, he came from the line of King David. If I put together all this stuff, it will really be too much for an interview, because you can really fill a book on this.

OK, let me then ask you a few short questions. Who did the spoken parts on the "Black Hand Inn" album" (1994)? "John, you have been found guilty of being in league with the devil" - whose voice is that?

It's me.

But what did you do with your voice to sound like that?

There's a lot of effects added to it. You can do a lot of things to change the voice, to put it in a much darker way, it's no problem.

Could you name a song you wrote that portrays your personality in the best way?

Oh: I really can't tell you. I don't think that I can really see myself in a very clear way that everybody else could see, this is the main point.

And the very last question: what is needed to bring Running Wild to Russia for a couple of gigs?

In the first place, I'll have to find an agency, as I said before. After that, you should send the offer to this agency. We'll really have to settle all the costs, because it's very expensive to go and do a show there, so everything depends on the costs. It doesn't make any sense for Running Wild to go there without the pyrotechnics, without the state set, without everything, because it's not Running Wild. Running Wild is an entertainment, a real show band, and when you see Running Wild you see the pyrotechnics, you see the big stage set and everything. When we get the right offer, we will do it, but so far we can't get it. We'll have to see for the future.

Special thanks to Iris Bernotat (Focusion Promotion & Marketing) for arranging this interview.
Roman Patrashov
25 мар 2005 the End