Interview с Helloween : DARKSIDE.ru

It seems that your album “Gambling with Devil” has a lot to do with religion. Why did you decide to light up this theme now? Did it come from your personal experience or maybe some world events?

Yes and no, I mean everybody has personal experience, and it’s more or less about social stuff that happens in the world. The world seems to be more or less global from year to year, it’s more global stuff .Now look at Moscow …you could be in Moscow, you could be in Berlin or you could be in NY, in Hong Kong… its pretty much the same you know. See the same brands, the same stuff you can buy, same thoughts that people have and everything is more or less globalizing. And in the end of the day it’s just a matter of social thinking and religion that makes the people different. So it’s always a good question where did you go from, what’s right religion, what’s right social thinking. I think there’s no answer because there are so many extremes. So it was quite interesting to write the song like “kill it”, for example. You have the most extreme assholes running around, killing for what they want, you know, they kill for 5 bucks, that’s the extremes of bad guys we have on earth. Or you have the saints, which are the other side, they are doing good, they are doing everything they can to be good guys, to make world better place. But as long as you have all the extremes on one planet it’s quite thrilling to see where it will end in the end of the day. And I’ve got no answer to that question (laughs).

Are you posing yourself as Devil on this album?

Me? Noooo. I’m just someone who says something

But from what side, good or bad?

From both sides. I’m not the one who’s actually judging other people for being good or bad. And I’m not good or bad, I’m bad and good like I think everybody is good and bad. You are maybe more good than I am or he is more evil than I am, you know what I mean. We are good and evil and in our life times we are doing good things, we’re doing bad things and in the end of the day nobody’s good or bad only. And I’m definitely not the one who’d call myself good or bad. I’m just a normal person who tries to get along with… trying not to hurt people, but sometimes you hurt people… you don’t want to hurt people but sometimes you just do. That doesn’t make me a bad person but probably I’m not a saint (laughs).

But don’t you afraid to be misunderstood you know dark side used to be always more desirable for people because it gives you unlimited power and heaven promise you nothing So you have a lot of young people in ur audience who’s still looking

for their personality?

Right!

So don’t you afraid that according to your songs they might think that dark side is better?

No, I don’t think so because we have only one bad song on the album which is very sarcastic song actually its so sarcastic that I hope that normal person will never ever take it serious “kill it” it’s not supposed to take it serious it’s like Quentin Tarantino movie : kill, fuck, blood, die!!! You know, it’ is like cinema, Hollywood, it’s a picture, it’s not life. I don’t think anybody out there says: “oh that’s good for me” I don’t think so. And the rest of the album, all the other themes go around good and bad. There’s nothing which says good is evil and bad is great.
If we talk about materialism… Materialism, the bad side, the evil side is promising you wealth, money, but when you say heaven promises nothing this is wrong…

Well, only after life…

Afterlife, yes! But afterlife means the biggest part and life on earth is probably only the smallest part.

But there are some people who want to take everything from this life and they don’t care about after life.

Yeah, we see a lot of these people, don’t we? But then again there’s nothing in the lyrics of “gambling with a devil” which says that you should be evil. Gambling with a devil means that you’re ready to play a game and risk everything for a little, I don’t know, money or car or whatever. You’re willing to risk everything you have just for one wish that means you are gambling with a devil. That doesn’t mean that you’re bad or evil person, but in the very moment you’re gambling with a devil, when a devil wins you lose everything. That’s what it actually means. So nothing on the album is about devil. It’s a contrary, it’s bad to gambling with a devil, because devil is not fabulous, he will betray you, if he can he will betray you!!! So gambling with a devil is actually very stupid!! Or would You trust a devil? He’s bad, he’s evil, he’s not trust worthy. So I think album is everything but bad, it’s more positive actually, because we say gambling with a devil…it’s better not to play.

Does the song “I.M.E” have some biographic underlying cause? As you are playing some role, some character on the stage. Also we all have to play in our ordinary life. For example in some cases we have to be polite with people to gain a good reputation and succeeded in life, but deep inside we just wanna say “fuck it off”. So in this song do you want to tell us that you fed up with acting, with posing and you wanna be just yourself?

It’d be per

fect if there would be no need to pretend, if you can afford it in your life which means when you’re hopefully your own boss, your own chief, your own master in whatever you do- you don’t need to pretend. If nobody over you, you can be yourself!

Yep, but it can be only when you’re on the top.

This is the miserable thing. That’s why in the lyrics I say: who do you think you are to tell me who to be. That’s a question… The majority of the people always have somebody over them.
So the question is Who do they think they are to tell us how we should behave, how we should be, what we should be. I say fuck off, because I’m me and you will not change me even if you are having the power to change me for the very moment when you’re talking to me and I have to behave. I’d actually like to tell you what a fucking asshole you are but I can’t because you are my boss maybe but when he’s gone I would definitely think who the fuck do you think you are to tell me what to be! So when he turns I’m like (showing fuck). It’s not fair! It’s always very stupid situation that people just for being your boss or for having more money or for having more power, they think that they could tell the whole world how it should be, how they should react. That doesn’t make a world a better place… definitely not …Because the majority of people up there are stupid and fucked up. As the rest of us they are not better than us, so they should actually stop to tell people how they should be, because they are not better. A good friend of mine says: “at the end of the day even the pope need to kneel down to shit”.

Tell me about song “the bells of seven hells”, you are playing it tonight, right?
So what means seven hells, are you talking about seven sins?

Yes seven sins, seven deadly sins. How long can you actually push, mistreat and exploit the people before they actually say “stop”. Revolution or whatever, they stand up and fight against whoever or whatever makes them mistreated or enslaved. So it’s actually synonym for ex. religion or politics, when they do everything wrong, when every sin is touched, when everything is done and people stand up and say “we are the people you are only a handful of bull dogs, who actually mistreated us for 10 years, 20 years, 100 years or 1000 years and now we stop it”. Like a French revolution or China, or Russia, or Germany. Every country had a revolution sooner or later, which always will happen, even in the future will probably happen in a lot of countries in this world, when people just have enough and than they ring the bells of seven hells, which means that they actually have suddenly all the powe

r in their hands. Hopefully they do it better and do not commit the 7 sins as the reigning leader for example did. That’s why they actually stand up and do revolution. Which means all power, good power and bad power is now in people hands. It’s very revolutionary lyrics. So when it says for ex. “You should listen to the whisper of the weak and blind”, because they actually lead it on, when it’s a little fire, it’s getting bigger and bigger. If you really wanna rule people, rule country or rule the world you should always listen to the weak people and always to the blind people, because they feel what’s going wrong. That’s it all about. That I wanted to say, be more sensible and beware of the power you have and don’t mistreat everything, you know. I think the main problem we have on this earth is whoever has a power is getting corrupted and actually misleading his people. It’s taking place in Germany, in Spain and probably in Russia as well. So anybody who’s up there, who’s reigning, who’s having a power is probably having big Swiss bank account. It’s all about corruption.

And by the way if we touched theme of politics, have you heard about Russia and Georgia conflict?

Ah, Ossetia? Yeah.

What do you think about?

Pretty much the same thing that’s going on with western world with Kosovo
Kosovo said we want to be independent and Europe said ok you’re independent now and Russia was against it. So now it’s the other way around. Ossetia says we want to be independent and Russia said ok you’re independent and Europe says no. Pretty much the same picture, it’s a stupid. If you ask me, if somebody wants to be independent, let them be independent and if they want to go with Russia, let them go with Russia and if they want to go with Europe let them go with Europe. What’s the problem? I mean, its people’s decision. If Ossetia feels better with Russia, cool, good for them. But if Kosovo feels better with Europe, good for them, let them live, let them do what they want. If Kosovo finds out in 10 years that it’s bullshit to be a part of European community, they will probably say oh we would rather get out of community, turn onto Russia and if Ossetia is not satisfied maybe they will turn against Russia for Europe. Let the people decide!!

Do you read any critical reviews about your music, concerts, shows? What’s your reaction on it? If there are some good points you have in mind for the future to make your music better?

Yeah, but you can’t make your music better. Your music is what it is. There always people who love it and always people who hate it. They hate it since the ver

y first day. I always try to find out who is writing critics and sometimes you find out that the critic is bad critic from the same guy who wrote bad critics ten years ago. So he never satisfied, he doesn’t like the band and it’s cool. If he doesn’t like the band, he doesn’t like the band. Though I would never write critics about band I don’t like. I only like to criticize bands which I like. if I don’t like the music I can’t write critics because I don’t understand music because I don’t like it. How could I understand music if I don’t like it!! On the other hand what we found out the more famous you got, the more enemies you have. But fortunately you always have a lot of friends who protect you. So when you watch posts, users in the internet they giving themselves a lot of hard talks, there’s the one who’s bitching and ten who’s telling him to shut the fuck up so it’s ok, it’s ok .I think everyone has its own opinion.

Do you have any plans to play a tour with songs you never or rarely played?

Yes, we sometimes do it. For ex. “Halloween” it’s the song played since this tour. We started to work on it exclusively for this world tour, which was good to do, because it was never played by band. The first time we play “Halloween”, “Keeper of Seven Keys” and “King for 1000 years”, “Occasion avenue”. So all 4 masterpieces which tells the story about the Keeper. That what made us actually played it, to have the whole story about the keeper in one concert. Such concerts run 2 and a half hour, because 4 songs are already 1 hour… Yeah, there are 3 or 4 songs we’d like to play “Kings Will Be Kings”, “Secret Lullaby”, “Rising Force”- we have the idea to play. So I think in the future there are always will be 2 or 3 songs for the next world tour which never been played before. Makes it more interesting for us and for fans.

Sasha and Daniel are quite new members in the band. Did they bring some fresh ideas or just replace old members?

No, they really brought some freshness in the band. Because you have to see, they don’t travel around the world 12 world tours. So for them it’s, more of less, a brand new thing. So they are still hyped and kind of interested in everything. Us-3 old members we probably visited all places on this earth for 5 or 10 times already. And suddenly you got two guys who see the world with new eyes and it affects you. I’m thrilled when Sasha comes and says: “did you see this, did you see that? Oh, great!”And yeah, actually he’s right; it’s great, isn’t it? I saw it thousand times and for me it was like okay. But then you watch on it, you look on it again and see it’s cool, isn’t it. So the same they did for music.

Sometimes you play reefs and think: “yeah, I played it thousand times” and Daniel or Sasha say: “oh that sounds great! What was it?”, and you are like “Yeah you are right, it’s not bad, isn’t it”. But you wouldn’t come up with this, you need fresh ears. It’s really cool to have not so spoiled people in the band. It’s really good.

You have very tough concerts schedule, so particularly you have no time to visit some sightseeing…

Yeah, this time here in Moscow, no.

But do you regret about that or as you said, you saw everything thousand times.

Well yeah…For ex. we played in Peru, we didn’t have time. So it was just one day: flying in, playing Peru and flying out to Columbia. Which was a shame, because Peru...There would be like Machu Picchu - it’s like high in the mountains, old Enoch village. I’d like to see it, but if there’s no time I can’t go there. Sometimes it’s a shame.

Never thought about coming back to some country just as a tourist, no?

No, I think next time, when we are playing next tour I’d ask we have day off in Peru, that I have time to visit places. I’d never go just for touristic reasons into the majority of the countries we play. I’ve been there so often. I’d never go there as a tourist there’s too much stress. There are countries where you shouldn’t go as long as you active famous musician. You should never go there because you’re never alone. There are too many people following you. I’d rather look for places where nobody knows me, like last time we made a holiday on Seyshel –perfect! Nobody knows me there. It’s cool.

When you are playing in the country you never played before, are there any fears how public would react on you?

It’s always, always. That’s the only thing that never stops, you are always a little bit nervous. Mainly in countries you didn’t play or did not play so much, not so often. It’s like okeeey we can see …But I think the adrenaline is very important; otherwise you shouldn’t stay on stage like okay …I’m bored …adrenaline makes you go like yahoo and it’s good for the people as well. I don’t love adrenaline but I think its important (laughs).

Soon Helloween has its Anniversary, are you planning some great shows or any stuff for that?

Depends on time. If we have some, definitely we do something. But it’s probably limited to Germany, to home town celebration. The whole tour... I don’t think so. Would not have time to do that. Oh, let’s wait and see. It’s not my decision; it’s a decision of 5 people. (laughs).

On your album “Keeper of the 7 keys III” you have a duet with Candice Night. Why it was for the first time when you use female vocals on your album?

It’s because demo of that song was already made by a friend of mine. She was living on the island, pretty close my place. and I said I’d like to have like A-B, A-B thing like me singing, her singing , me singing, her singing and other way around, in refrain together and blah blah blah …at the end of the day it sounded very good. When the boys listed to the demo they wanted to have it exactly that way. So we looked for somebody, we thought about Candice or lady from Evanescence or whoever. And Candice was the first choice and she really like d the idea, sang it in NY. I sent all the files, it was cool.

Why single with song was released only one year later?

Oh, because the first single was “Mrs. God”. You always have one single, you work with that and then you take second single and it could be the year in between. It’s because we had a tour of 1,5 years. You worked on something and then you release another thing. Actually, we don’t like the idea to release singles and videos. But it’s always record company who tell us we should do so. If you ask the band you’d probably never have singles and videos. We hate that shit.

But why?

Because we don’t like it. Everybody does it .there’s no value for money. It’s just nothing. I don’t know why. I mean, sure, you are on television and all this blah blah blah… but it’s record company shit, they want to promote you, they want to sell more records and I see the reason and I say ok. That’s why we do it. But if you ask the band if it’s band decision, there won’t be no singles, there won’t be no videos (laughs).

Not long ago Sanctuary re-released your back catalogue but new version of booklets wasn’t too good in design. Did label contact you to discuss this subject?

No, they have the rights to do that. That’s the problem.

It’s no surprise that after metal shows a lot of people gathering together and having fun. How do you survive in long tours, any secrets of staying alive you can share with us?

Well, as a singer, don’t join every party, only join every second or third party, ha-ha, otherwise it doesn’t work. Boys, they are doing a lot of parties and they still can play good guitars, bass, drumming with too much beer from the party last night. But I can’t, for singing it affects on voice. So you should actually take care. I always do some party when I know there’s day off. Then I sit at the h

otels bars or go out with boys until 5 or 6 o’clock in the morning. But normally I’d stay rather calm, have a glass of red wine with boys and if I’m alone I’m alone.

So loneliness is not hard for you?

Nah, no I enjoy being alone, not too often, but there are a lot of nights I sit alone in my hotel room, I often have my guitar or sit on the internet, chat with friends- that are cool. I don’t need to party every day and every night.

So thank you for this interview hopefully you liked it.

My pleasure, at least I survived it (laughs).

Interview by Familier Stranger
17 окт 2008 the End


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Wahrheit 8 ноя 2008, 14:57	К вопросу о том, что "на darkside лучше". Мне кажется, что большинство, в том числе и музыканты, которые боятся (или нет) оказаться не понятыми, сами по-своему трактуют темную сторону. На мой взгляд лучше всего о темной стороне сказал Магус из Necromantia: "...Темная сторона - не означает "плохая" сторона. Темная сторона так называется, потому что ее никто не исследует..." (как например "темная сторона Луны")
__Nemo__ 19 ноя 2008, 17:20	Хорошее интервью. Спасибо за 25 минут хорошего времени за чтением! Это для Магус из Necromantia она не означает ничего плохого, но ведь у каждого свое мнение на этот счет. Я вот разделяю понятие на хорошее и плохое, где хорошее - свет, а плохое - тьма, весьма обывательское понимание, но все же весьма логичное!:) То, что иногда мы причиняем боль "неосознанно", то действительно бывает так... Но это не означает, что надо оставлять все как есть и говорить "О, да это не изменишь - так устроен мир", надо всегда стремится к высокому! Старые рифы - это действительно круто!
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Helloween

Don't gamble with the devil

Wahrheit

__Nemo__

Nemo