Interview с Blind Guardian : DARKSIDE.ru

The guys of Blind Guardian said several times that the new album in terms of atmosphere will be more epic and lyrics will be more fantasy oriented. Why did you decide to write more fantasy lyrics this time?

I don’t think it was a decision, that was made at the very beginning. When you write songs it is always music that comes first, before Hansi writes actually lyrics. During songwriting he writes everything that just comes to his mind and the only thing that matters there is melody lines of his vocals and maybe the rhythmic of the words. And only later he writes the lyrics. So I don’t think that he had a clear dole in mind when he started to go back to more fantasy based lyrics. I think that obviously he got inspired by the stuff he read, “Wheels Of Time” Saga, he reads a lot about that. Or some old classics like Michael Moorcock “Eternal Champion” is featured in the song “Tanelorn” again, we had something like this in the past already. So I don’t think it was so much of a conscious choice right from the beginning.

You also claimed that in all the songs in the new album you mixed some modern elements and with some traditional elements. What traditional elements are present there and what new features did you incorporate to your music this time?

The old and traditional BG stuff is that all the speed is there again, there are three very very fast and aggressive songs, that would have perfectly fit to us back in the early 90-s, they would perfectly fit to the “Somewhere Far Beyond” (1992) for example. So there are a lot of such things in the album. But on the other hand, this time we did a lot of things we’ve never done before like working with an orchestra for example. Every orchestration that you heard on BG albums so far has been always coming from keyboards. And this time for the first time in our history we worked with a real 90-head orchestra. You know, of course a well programmed keyboard orchestra may sound pretty good, but it’s just no match for the real orchestra. We wanted to go on purpose for all those natural songs, for all the drums and other elements, it was very important for us to get those natural sounds. Moreover, there is a song called “Curse My Name” which starts as a kind of a typical medieval song, like a typical BG acoustic song, it has some folklore Celtic influences, which we had before in the past. But this time we took much bigger steps in terms of new instruments – this time we have a lot of flutes, bagpipes, harps, we recorded a step dancing group, dancing to the song. And we used this sound of feet, can you imagine that! We have never ever done such things before – that’s for sure! (laughs) It was very interesting and it fits perfectly to the song, it creates a very very nice and peculiar atmosphere.

So as far as I can guess it was a very interesting experience for the whole band!

Yes, definitely! All these Celtic folklore influences have been always present in our music, but this time we’ve had a new approach for us, we’ve never gone so far before – to record dancers< which is not of course a typical instrument for our band to record for an album! (laughs) But we tried this approach and we are very very happy with the result.

I know that for recording orchestra parts you went several times to Prague. Was it difficult for you to find the common language with the large orchestra? It was your first experience!

The hardest part of working with the orchestra was preparation, because when we composed all the orchestra parts (it was done by Andre) – and he can’t obviously play all those classical instruments, so what he does during songwriting - he prog

rams the orchestra on the keyboards. He programs a kind of orchestra, as we have some idea during the pre-production how the things should sound. And we needed someone to turn this programmed orchestra stuff into a kind of transcription, that we could give to the orchestra, so that they could have notes and know what to play. That is something that we can’t do ourselves, because none of us can read or write notes anymore. We had a help of a person who did this job for us, and who wrote down the orchestrations for the orchestra for the to know what to play and the rest was not that complicated in the end. Those guys could play the stuff and it sounded very very well. So it was not that difficult. The most difficult part was preparation, because you know you can’t give those people in the orchestra the CD with some keyboard orchestra and say, “That’s what we’d like to have. Play something like this!” They of course need the paper with the notes written down on it, you have to provide them with this, otherwise it doesn’t work.

And how are you going to reproduce all the orchestra parts during your live-performances?

We’ll rehearse it. Most likely we always have a keyboarder with us on stage and he will have some work! (laughs) Obviously live we cannot take 90 people with us on stage, so the keyboarder will have to play that stuff for all the 90 people!

The release of your new album was moved ahead…

Yeah, actually we moved the release ahead. We started recording the album at the autumn last year I think. And the recordings went very very smooth. Normally we always had some technical problems during the recording of an album, you know, some hard disks die or a guitar stops working for whatever reason. And this time nothing at all happened. So because everything went neat and without problems, it was actually the first time when BG kept the deadline. We set a kind of deadline for ourselves and said that everything should be done at March or April, and everything was done by that time. Originally the idea was the tour that will start in September and the idea was to release the album before the tour starts so that they could know the album already, so the original idea was to release the album in early September, and then the release date was moved ahead to the 30th of July. People on the Internet sometimes blue up the rumors that the new album 2010 will be postponed as well, because all our previous albums were really postponed. Like this all romors start, you know.

The lyrics of the new album is devoted to Robert Jordan’s masterpiece “Wheel Of Time”. Why did you make this exact choice?

It’s a very good story, you know it was quite by accident. I read a couple of his books several years ago. I think I read the first 6 or 7 books from his “Wheel Of Time” saga and as far as I remember I recommended those books to Hansi. I remember that some years ago we were talking about it and I said, “Yeah, that’s something I really like!” and then he read it, too, and I suggest he liked it. And whenever he likes the book, he might be inspired to write lyrics about this. And obviously it is the case with at least two songs. Of course the song “Wheel of Time” deals with the book and also the song “Ride Into Obsession” is dealing with “Wheel Of Time” saga. This is a very very very nice story, very very well written, very very well told, so it fitted perfectly I would say.

But don’t you think that this saga is so monumental and great that it is very difficult to embrace it all in one album? Are you going to work with this saga later on?

It might be possible. There are some really big stories tha

t we use for several songs. And obviously there are a couple of songs devoted to this saga. There are also some songs inspired by “Lord Of The Rings” which is not the shortest story either. (laughs) We also have a couple of songs devoted to Steven King’s “The Dark Tower” which we always kept coming back to, and that might happen to “The Wheel of Time”. At the moment there are no concrete plans for any new songs, because we’ve just finished the recording of this album, we didn’t play a single show yet, so we don’t think about what the next album might sound like or what the lyrics would be. But I would say that such big stories might deliver some more inspiration for lyrics in the future.

Andre in one of his interviews said that the new album was prepared in several stages. When you had some three or four songs ready you recorded them, then you had some creative break, as you put it. Then you wrote something again… Judging by the samples the songs on the albums are hits – so it might seem that you were very choosy while picking up songs for the album. Were there many songs that weren’t included to the album?

There are no material left. We are not the band that writes twenty songs, records fifteen and releases ten. The album consists of all the songs which we recorded and prepared for it. So there are ten songs on it, and a cover version – it is an ultimate version of one of the songs on the album. That’s it, there are no other songs that we’ve written. Our attitude is like when we start working at the song the goal is to finish it in the way that everybody would say to the band,”it’s a great song! It’s what we like!” and so on. If one or more of us says, “This song is not so goot, it might be better, it’s not the best that we could’ve done…” we just continue working and this song.

If we speak about the main themes of the album we should also mention Michael John Moorcock…

Yes! He delivered quite a lot of inspiration for many of our songs. That’s another thing also. You know he has a lot of books about “Eternal champion”, so many great books –we have a couple of songs about it, and I think that it’s something that we’ll use in the future. It is something that we love and that perfectly fits to Blind Guardian music.

But why did you mix two themes in your album – Robert Jordan and Michael Moorcock? Wouldn’t it be simpler to devote one album to one of them, and the next album to the other?

We didn’t want to do another concept album. We did it with “Nightfall in Middle-Earth” (1998) and it worked out very well and we are happy that we created it. But at the moment we don’t want any new concept albums, devoted to only one thing. It’s nice to do concept albums but at the same time it’s limiting, because you know, for example, that you have to write the next song about this and not some other chapter of the story, that is a very sad chapter. And the music should fit to this sad chapter, it cannot be happy. And you have to make it in such a way that all the things – music, story line and the lyrics – would fit each other. And for this albums we were just writing songs, Hansi was doing the lyrics, and we didn’t plan this album as one story. We might do some concept album in the future, but it wasn’t planned for this album.

Hansi when speaking about the new album said that there will be the strangest metal vocals he had ever done and the most harsh and rude rhythm section…

Yeah, I would completely agree with him. As I’ve said before there are a lot of old-school Blind Guardian lights in this album, there are three songs on this album – the fastest and the most aggressive songs w

e’ve ever done in our career. When we invited our friends and fans to check to the album, there were a lot of people commenting that those songs remind of time of “Somewhere Far Beyond” (1992), “Tales from the Twilight World (1990)”, some said that it sounded like the heaviness of “Follow The Blind” (1989). Concerning the guitars there is some very very fast and very aggressive parts, and Hansi sings in those songs in a very very aggressive way. Definitely those metal roots that have always been in us, they came a bit more than at the last couple of albums.

If we come back to your album “A Night At The Opera” (2002) we’ll see that there were very many difficult structures and very long songs, and the new album is more straight-to-the-face. What impression should this album have on your fans? Any ideas…

Well, I can just say what the impression is for us – it is a perfect mix of everything Blind Guardian has ever been about. You know it has these straight-to-the-face roots in it, but also there are progressive elements, it’s not that we skipped completely this part of Blind Guardian music. It has a little bit of everything in there – it has some heavy stuff since the early Blind Guardian stuff, it has some progressive elements which started probably with “the Imaginations From the Other Side” (1995), later “Nightfall in Middle-Earth” (1998), it has some epic and orchestrated stuff. For us it is a perfect Blind Guardian album showing everything that Blind Guardian has ever been about.

The song “Sacred” was recorded in two versions – one for the game and the other version for the album. Why did you need to change the song? Why didn’t you leave the song the way it was originally written and recorded?

When we were asked to record the song to the game we were still on tour, you know. Towards the end of the tour we were contacted with the company that dealt with the game and we were asked if we wanted to contribute a song to the game. It is very well known, end especially Andre likes “Sacred 2“, and of course it was a great thing for us. But normally when we start songwriting after the tour, when we come home we take a break first, like two months or something – just to have rest and some new ideas. Because obviously on tour we play the old songs every single day, and that’s what occupies your mind. And if you start songwriting, it might interfere and you will not come up with fresh and new ideas when so much of the old stuff is going on in your mind all the time. So normally what we do is that we take one or two months. When we were asked to deliver a song for the game, we didn’t have the time for that. Actually for the first time in our career were had to start working on the new material right after the tour. There was no break, we just came home, and had to start working on that one. We finished it, we were very happy with that version, we also liked the way it was used in the computer game, and we even played it live on all the festivals. But recording the album finally, we had the chance just to redo something, improve the song. The orchestration that you hear in the song in the game is good, it was well done, yes, but this time we got an opportunity to record it with the real orchestra, and of course we took the chance – there is a longer introduction, there is an outro, we also changed a couple of vocal lines. And I think it is a whole part more in the new version now, but basically it is the same song, it is just an updated version.

When a musician writes a song, of course it is not only books and literature that influence him. What else can you consider a inspiration for yourself?

Oh, it is a number of things, one of the big

gest influences I think was the fact that we started working at the new material right after the tour, and we were still filled with the energy of the live gigs. And that is something completely different compatible with the usual state of things – when we came home, took two month’s off and didn’t do anything. And after you had a 2 months’ break, you go to the studio after you sat comfortably at home, you are in a different, easy-going mood. And of course it reflects on the album. Another difference is that normally, at all the previous albums, once we finished the tour and started writing the new album, we didn’t play a single show until the new album is done and released. Usually this is completely separated – one season we are playing live, and one season we are composing and recording. But this time we changed this, you know, the tour “A Twist in the Myth” ended in late 2007. Then in 2008 we got the offer to play three festivals in Spain, and our original idea was like, “Oh, thanks, we want to work on a new stuff”, and then we were like, “WOW!! We’ll be playing with Kiss!”, And then we said, “O’k, we’ll come and play!” We are all Kiss fans and it was a nice opportunity to play with them. And we really liked it, it was just flying there, playing the shows and flying back. It was easy-going, very comfortable, meeting all the crew who are all our fans. It was like meeting with them, then doing the shows, then meeting them again and coming home finally. And we decided to do the same thing last year, too. We played like 12 festivals throughout Europe, we played three shows in a weekend, then we were flying home again, and some time later we were flying to some other country playing a couple more shows, then we were flying home again. And it was a very comfortable way of playing live for us in between, and it kept the energy in the band. The energy of live shows, nothing can replace this you know – the energy that you get when you come on stage, and a couple of thousand people heaving fun when you start playing, it is amazing and a big influence on the album. It reflects also in all those speed songs, and the aggressive songs, they are the reflection of the power we took from the tour and from playing live shows.

As long as you mentioned your audience, where in your opinion BG have the hottest and the warmest audience in the world?

It is difficult to say, because we are in the lucky position to have both kinds of fans everywhere. The amazing thing is that when we come to a place we’ve never been so far, we obviously don’t know what to expect. On the last tour there were some new territories, we’ve been to Australia for the first time, and obviously we had no idea, how the fans would be, how would they react. What songs they would like, if they would like us at all… And the reaction is always overwhelming. The people know every single word in the song, they love the songs, the old stuff, the new stuff. Everybody has a good time, there is no aggression in the audience. Everybody is coming to party together. It is a world phenomenon with our fans. It doesn’t matter if we play here in Germany, in Spain, or Brazil, or the USA, or Russia, or Japan, or whenever… We have very very awesome fans. And we are very happy about this.

Do you think that the band should listen to its fans’ opinion? Many bands seem to be indifferent of what their fans think about it, like, “It’s our music, we create it, listen to it, if you like it, don’t listen, if you don’t”…

Of course we are listening to opinions in all, but in the end of course you have to decide what and how to play, because it is impossible to please everybody. Obviously there exist people who started in the early days to listen to Blind Gu

ardian, and they prefer the old stuff. They say, “Oh, “Tales from the Twilight World” (1990) is my favorite BG album, and I would like them to sound like that!” Then there are younger kids that started probably with “A Night At the Opera” (2002) and it’s their favorite album and they say, “No, I want them to sound like “A Night At the Opera”!” So if we please one group, the other will be unhappy, if we please the others, the first one will be unhappy. We don’t try to please anybody, we try to please ourselves. Because we ARE Blind Guardian and we always play the music that we like, and that’s the music that our fans also like, because otherwise those people wouldn’t be our fans. It can be the only right direction to us. As soon as you start trying to please certain groups of your fans, then I think you are lost. Because you will always to try to please everybody, you will loose your own instinct, your own taste.

A lot of bands give their fans a chance to take part in creating a new album – for example, the band can let them try to paint a cover artwork for the album or a booklet. Or the fans often are allowed to give names to the songs. Have you ever had such experience of bringing your fans to creating the new album together?

We should do it next time, because we always have problems finding the right album titles and things like these. Next time we should make the competition and let fans choose the title, it might make things much easier for us really! A good idea! (laughs) Maybe we should try that next time, thanks!

Who worked at cover artworks for you this time? The design seems different of what you’ve had before…

It is someone who has never worked with us so far. I have to admit that I can’t recall his name at the moment, he is from south America. We contacted him, Andre found him on the Internet and he happened to be a die-heart Blind Guardian fan and was very very happy to do something for us (laughs). It was amazing to work with this guy, because we told him what we would like to have and in a very very short time we had the first sketches. We were like, “yes, we like it, the direction is right, but could you change this and that?...” Half an hour later we had an updated version!! It was so easy and so fast to work with this guy, and we had a very very pleasing result. That was awesome!

There is a single released, the album released already. And what other limited or exclusive editions or releases are you going to present to your fans?

I have to say I don’t have a complete overview of what there will be in the limited editions. I know there is one limited edition planned with some surprises for our fans.

What was the reasons for changing the style of the band?

We just wanted some changes. We just wanted to have some pictures that look a bit different from what we had. We are just the same guys as you knew us! We wanted to try something different, and the pictures are exactly wht we wanted them to be.

Do you follow some football events? For instance last week’s semi-final where Germany failed in a game with Spain?

I’m not a big football fan myself, but I did watched the world cup, because I think it’s interesting, the best teams of the world compete. And regarding this match I can say that the better team won. Spain was much superior. And the German team had to admit the same fact in the end. They didn’t play quite well that time, they had had very strong matches before, like in case with Argentina – it was a big surprise for me, because I was confirmed that they would loose already that match. But last week the Spanish team was much better and superior and that‘s why they won. And Spain with Netherlands was also an interesting game, too.

Thank you very much, that’s not all but I know you have a tight schedule of the Interviews. So maybe you have to say something to your Russian fans?

Yes!! Hello, guys! We’ll be back to Russia in late October. Check up the new single, I hope you will really enjoy the show and the new material! Hope to see you all on tour!

Interview by Ksenia Khorina
© Russian DarkSide E-Zine
20 сен 2010 the End


	( 2 )

Blind Guardian

We are still the same!

Sasha-Bodom

Dragonfly