Interview с Rage : DARKSIDE.ru

The new Rage album “Speak Of The Dead” will be released pretty soon, and once again, you worked with an orchestra for this album. Why did you decide to go back to using the orchestra so much after a couple of purely metal albums?

It’s simply because with Victor we have the opportunity to create something in this direction that is far better than we did 10 years ago on the “Lingua Mortis” EP and the “XIII” album. They are OK, but I think we could have done them way better. Victor is a classically trained musician since his childhood, he knows perfectly how to do this stuff, so it was obvious that we would do it one day. We have already worked on his solo album (“Majesty & Passion”, 2004) together with an orchestra, it was a lot of fun, so we wanted to do it again as a band. And I think the result speaks for itself. But the new album is not completely orchestrated, there’s a 22-minute suite, and the rest of the album is pure metal.

For the “Lingua Mortis” album back in 1996, you worked with an orchestra from the Czech Republic, this time you used an orchestra from Belarus. Why don’t you choose an orchestra from Germany? Is there anything special in the orchestras from former Socialist countries?

Basically they are way cheaper! (everybody laughs) Another reason to choose an orchestra from Belarus is because Minsk is where Victor comes from, it’s his home town, and these are the people that work for his father, who is a director in the music academy there. Why choose someone else? These people know Victor, and he knows them, so it was obvious to work with them.

As it’s not the first time you’re recording with an orchestra, could you tell us what was new in the recording process this time, and what has stayed the same?

“Lingua Mortis” was pretty much a live recording, and the sound was not really satisfying, to put it nicely. This time was all done with overdubs – the orchestra was recorded separately, and the band overdubbed on orchestral tracks later on. You can’t really compare these two recordings. The new recording is a lot better quality-wise.

When and how did you personally get interested in classical music? Do you have any kind of music education?

Yes, I had classical guitar lessons a couple of years ago. And when I grew up, my parents were classical musicians, and it was the first music I got in touch with when I was young. Victor’s father is a famous classical composer in Belarus, he grew up with classical music from the beginning on. He never went to a regular school, he went to the music school when he was five, and he studied cello and piano and everything you can study about music. He’s basically a classical musician that just chose to play in a metal band, who just picked a metal guitar later, because he loved that instrument. We are pretty much prepared for this music, it’s nothing strange for us, it’s in our blood.

How did you first come up with an idea to record with an orchestra? Back in 1996 there were very few bands who did that…

I think we were the first metal band to do this in 1996, and later it became a bit of a fashion, and a lot of bands were doing this. Metallica was the most successful band in this - of course, they are always successful, because they are so big. (laughs)

OK, and what do you think of the orchestral albums by Metallica or Scorpions, for example?

I don’t like Scorpions, it’s really just pop stuff for housewives. As to Metallica, the orchestration is not bad, but the band and the orchestra don’t play together. It’s like two different movies running at the same time.

And do you like what such bands as Therion or Haggard are doing?

Yes, these are very interesting bands, they also try to experiment with this style. They have done some very good albums.

How are you going to reproduce the orchestral parts live? Will you invite some guest musicians, or will you use playback?

It depends on what kind of show we are to do. For longer tours we will have to use playbacks, because it’s too expensive to have extra musicians with you all the time. But maybe we will arrange something for single shows or a short tour, probably around Christmas, to be able to play with live musicians. It would be great.

Victor has recently said that Mike Terrana was not really much involved in the new album as far as arrangements and stuff like this are concerned. Why is that happening? Is he dissatisfied with Rage’s current musical direction?

No, it has nothing to do with this. Victor and I composed the album, and we already had everything ready when we met to put the stuff together. It has absolutely nothing to do with Mike being dissatisfied with our musical direction, it’s just a bad rumor.

Both Mike and Victor are doing a lot of things outside Rage. Does it ever happen that their activities interfere with Rage? For instance, Victor is playing a lot with Russian band Kipelov – isn’t his busy schedule an obstacle for Rage?

For both of them Rage is the main project, and all the other things they do they schedule around the dates that Rage is playing or Rage’s studio sessions, so it’s never a problem for us. Besides, I think it’s not bad for Rage in some regions, for example, Kipelov is a real big name in Russia, and it can help Rage gain more recognition. People that usually wouldn’t listen to us check out his name when he’s playing with Kipelov and pay attention to his main band, too. I don’t mind. I’ve known Valery for a long time, he’s a really nice person, and there’s no jealousy or something about this stuff.

Speaking about Kipelov – you will do two shows with them in Moscow and St. Petersburg in May. You already played with a Russian ba

nd called Aria six years ago, and Victor now describes this as “terrible experience”. What makes you do this once again?

Does he really describes this as “terrible experience”?

Yes.

It’s maybe because on this tour we had a very dangerous bus accident, where one of our road crew guys nearly died. Maybe he means this. But in general, I think it was a nice tour, it was nice to play with Aria, and I wouldn’t mind to tour Russia with a bigger band again.

Going back to the new album – once again you got a new artwork designer, Anthony Clarkson, for it. Why didn’t you continue with Leo Hao? Are you dissatisfied with what he did for “From The Cradle To The Stage”?

No, this happened just by accident. We had someone else to do photos and artwork for us, and this person suggested a cover for the album, which we didn’t like. Anthony Clarkson somehow heard about it and he offered his ideas. When we saw what he made for the album, we liked it very from the beginning, so we just took it. It wasn’t really planned, but it was a lucky chance for us.

On the Russian version there will be a song in the Russian language (“Polnolunie”), and other limited editions will have songs in Spanish, German and Japanese (all of them are versions of the song “Full Moon” – ed.). Whose idea was that? Was it difficult for you to sing in Russian?

Yeah, Russian is the hardest language for me to sing in. (everybody laughs) But of course, Victor supervised me and helped me to pronounce everything correctly. He says I have a Ukrainian accent. (laughs) Of course, I will also try to sing this live when we play in Russia. Maybe we will also be able to do a duet with Valery Kipelov and sing this song together. Basically this whole idea was fun, first of all. I was signing a funny German version of this song, and everybody was on the floor laughing their asses off! We started writing lyrics for this song in German, and someone suggested getting Japanese lyrics. I called a friend from Japan, who translated it very quickly, and we did the Japanese version. Then someone came up with the idea to get a Russian version, too, and people from the Russian fanclub translated it. The same happened with Spanish lyrics. So this thing just developed by itself, it wasn’t really planned before the production. But I think it’s a nice idea to have this kind of stuff. I never did it before, and it’s a new experience for me to sing in different languages.

And how was it like to sing in German? You never used this language for Rage before…

Usually I don’t like German lyrics. But in the past couple of years I’ve become a really big fan of a German band called Subway To Sally, they play medieval rock/metal stuff with German lyrics, and they have very nice lyrics. When I was working on the German version of “Full Moon”, I orientated on the way they write lyrics, and the f

inal result sounds better than I usually thought German lyrics would sound.

The song “No Fear” has been used in the soundtrack for a movie called “Ludgers Fall”. What does it take to get your song in the movie? Are the producer or the director of this movie Rage fans? Or does it work any other way?

The director of this movie is an old friend of mine. He called me one day and said that he’s doing a film, a kind of criminal psycho story, and he asked me if we could give him a song for the soundtrack. That’s how it started. We offered him “No Fear”, and he later suggested doing a videoclip for us with the material from the film.

You went to an island in the North Sea to shoot the video for this track. Can you tell us a bit more about the shooting process?

Yes, we shot it at a North Sea island, where the action of this movie takes place. We shot at the original places where the movie scenes were done. (laughs) It was very cold, because it was in December, and you can imagine how cold it may be in the North Sea in December. Apart from this, it was fun.

Before releasing “Speak Of The Dead” you changed labels – around the world you are now with Nuclear Blast and in Russia with CD-Maximum. Why did you choose these particular partners?

Nuclear Blast, I think, is the best metal label worldwide. Our contract with our previous label SPV ran out, and we started checking interest from all different labels. SPV were also interested, but we thought the offer from Nuclear Blast was better for us, that it would help us better to be with this label. The reason to go with CD-Maximum in Russia was the same. It is Victor’s favorite label, they released his solo album, and he also got a deal for Kipelov with this label. He suggested going there, and we did it.

We’ve read the studio report on your official website, and there you say that for the song “Kill Your Gods” you wrote some of the most provoking lyrics. What inspired you to write about religious fanatics, especially now, when there’s so much religious controversy around the world?

To be honest, I write about this kind of stuff quite frequently. For me religion is the reason for all wars and all killing in the world. The best thing would be if the people around the world would be mature enough and educated enough to live without religion. I think religion is just a drug for the masses, it’s always been misused, and it’s never been what the prophets really wanted. Religion is all in all a bad thing, and it would be better if people could live without it.

There is a very strong anti-militarist statement in the title song “Speak Of The Dead”. Are you personally interested in politics? Do you follow the developments in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Yes, of course, I follow the news and I see these disastrous developments in those countries. Wherever the militar

y go, everything is just killed and destroyed, it’s what the military and weapons are about. You can’t build anything up with weapons or military (except in Russia, where there’s such a unique thing as military construction units – ed.), and the world would be way better without this stuff. I’m a pacifistic guy.

By the way, is it true that when you were young, you got a job in the morgue to evade military service?

Yes, that’s true! (everybody laughs)

A lot of your songs speak about life after death and reincarnation. Can you tell us more what do you think about these matters? In your opinion, what happens to a human soul after the body dies?

Everything in this universe is made of energy, of the smallest elementary parts, and this energy never gets lost. It can’t be lost, because you can’t separate these parts. That’s what I understand about reincarnation. Our body and even our spirit will change their forms and come back in a different shape. There’s no real reason to hold back or be afraid of this transition.

Speaking about religious and spiritual matters – on the first Avenger album you had a song called “Prayers Of Steel”. Ten years later you wrote new lyrics for it and recorded it for the album “10 Years In Rage”. But on the latest live album you once again returned to the original satanic lyrics. What made you do it? Many of your fans like the second variant much more…

These lyrics are basically complete bullshit! (everybody laughs) They were just a big joke 20 years ago when we did this. I never really took them seriously, and to point this out, I changed the lyrics a little bit on the “10 Years In Rage” album. But when we played it live for the anniversary show, I wanted to use the original lyrics from the beginning, because they are original. But still I have to say that the lyrics are complete bullshit, never take them seriously. (everybody laughs) It’s some crap from my youth, you know, I was a little child at this time.

Another question about that live CD – it contains a lot of old songs, but many of them are reduced dramatically. For instance, “Prayers Of Steel” or “Sent By The Devil” – you didn’t play them in full, but only a couple of verses. What was the reason for doing so? It was your headline show, and as far as we understand, you could play as long as you wanted…

Yeah, but how long should we play? We cannot play for 10 hours! (laughs) I think we can play more songs if we don’t play them in full until the very last note. A lot of these songs are very long, five or six minutes, and it doesn’t really make the song better if we play every solo or every little riff that’s in there. The basic themes are what the people want to hear, this is said and done after the second chorus, and it’s better to play more different songs than reproduce every little note. We already played three or four hours

that evening, the DVD doesn’t include the whole show, so it was really a long and exhausting evening. I think what we do is better than reproducing all songs note by note. They get boring after the solo anyway! (laughs)

When you did the 20th anniversary tour, you opened the shows with an acoustic set. However, you didn’t record it on the live CD or DVD. Do you plan to do anything more in the acoustics? Is there any chance that this set will be recorded someday?

Yeah, maybe, that’s a good question. From time to time we want to do this again, but we haven’t made any real plans to record something like this at the moment.

You have recently appeared on the latest album by Destruction (“Inventor Of Evil”), where you sing a few lines in the song “The Alliance Of Hellhoundz” together with other metal singers. How did you get involved in this recording? Did you record your parts separately or did most of the singers get together in Destruction’s studio?

Everybody recorded separately. The reason why Schmier asked me is because I’m one of his oldest friends, we have known each other for more than 20 years. For him it was obvious to ask me, because I was one of the first guys he knew in the metal scene, and we still meet from time to time.

You said that Avenger played with Destruction very often in 1985. What kind of relations did you have with Destruction and other German metal bands back in the 1980s? Was it rivalry or was it mutual support?

I still have close friendship with most of the bands from that era. This goes not only for Destruction, but also for Kreator, Sodom, Running Wild, Gamma Ray and Helloween. We have never had competition or anything like this, we don’t have it here in Germany that much.

How has the Rage fanbase changed over the years? Do the people who visited your concerts in the 1980s still come to your shows?

I would say some of them still come, but there’s also a lot of young people coming. I can’t really tell, I don’t know everybody in person (laughs), but I’m pretty sure that some people that visited us already in the 1980s still come to see us.

We’ve heard from many musicians, including Mike Terrana, that they don’t listen to young heavy metal bands because there’s nothing new in their music. Do you listen to any new stuff by metal bands? Are there any young bands worthy of attention, in your opinion?

All of us listen to younger bands, I don’t know where you get this from. (Directly from Mike – check out our previous interview done in spring 2005 – ed.) Especially Mike, he likes a lot of young bands. As to me, there are several new bands that I find pretty interesting. There are some good ideas coming from this younger scene.

Finally, what are your expectations from “Speak Of The Dead”? Do you expect it to start a new chapt

er in the history of Rage, or is it, let’s say, just another good album?

Oh, I hope it’s one of our best albums we have ever done, especially this “Lingua Mortis” suite is probably the strongest piece of music we’ve ever recorded. I hope it’s a good start for our next 20 years, and let’s see what happens.

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

Interview and live photos by Natalie “Lynx” Khorina, Ksenia “Wolfin” Khorina
Questions also composed by Roman “Maniac” Patrashov
February 15, 2006
27 мар 2006 the End

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