Interview с Volbeat : DARKSIDE.ru

In your biography your story of success sounds pretty easy, but it surely wasn’t, was it?

Anders: Yeah, yeah, I don’t think we think too much about it, just kinda ‘take it as it comes’, kinda of going in the right direction. I don’t know, I think we are lucky. We have to have done something right [laughs].

A few years ago you took part in a Danish band contest, but didn’t win. Has it been important for your career anyways though?

Anders: Actually I have to admit that we were in that contest and we had a record deal and you couldn’t have a record deal there. So it is good we didn’t win, but it was fun. Thomas was not in the band at that point.

What do you actually think of contests like that?

Thomas: Competing in music is like the most stupid idea ever. You know, ‘Who is best’? At what? I have a friend who played in a Copehagen guitar battle. Then there are few things you have to do: a solo, a song that you know and then a backing band plays a song you never heard before and then you should improvise. So you can actually compete like in running or swimming against each other. Or like in downhill skiing – you have the rules there, the things you get your points for. But like this band and that band – who is best? It’s all up to the listener anyway, so … why compete. But unfortunately that’s sometimes the only way some band can get some experience playing live when promoters don’t wanna book smaller bands. Then it’s the only chance. It’s a little bit stupid.

In the past years you’ve achieved a lot. There have surely been moments when you’ve realized that something really special was happening. Can you give us an example?

Thomas: We had one experience and that wasn’t the first time, that Gold Record in Finland. That was a summer and we played a festival and actually we missed a flight up there, so we were there half an hour before we went on stage or something. And we had to go directly to hotel to shower, sleep for half an hour and then go again ‘cause we had to play Switzerland or whatever. But then, when we went off stage and went again to play encores and they were there with gold records. You didn’t expect that. Suddenly: ‘Wtf? We just sold gold in Finland’? And they did the same thing with MetalHammer award when we got The Album of the Year. That was done in Munich at the backstage. And since we are playing every day and just touring – it’s just small steps for us but suddenly this puts whole thing into prospective . You get goose bums: “F..k, this is really something”! You are kinda waking up from your daily touring routine.

Anders: For me it was really one surprise in Denmark so that we could play Roskilde Festival. I’ve been growing up in Roskilde, been to that festival s

ince I was a kid. So for me playing that festival was the biggest thing ever. It was a small stage of the festival, but that doesn’t really matter. And then it was sent in the national radio and it felt like: ‘This is kind of crazy’ and then we went into Top 20, I think it was No.18 and then it was kinda ‘OK, now this is really happening something here’ [laughs].

You have just released a fourth studio album Beyond Hell/Above Heaven which you’ve reportedly written during the US Metallica tour. Is that right?

Thomas: It’s a little bit true and a little bit pretty big lie. I think this time we did some writing on tour but a lot of writing and working around the album back home,’cause we actually took a little time off here and there. You never plan when to go on tour with Metallica – they (just) call you... So it was kinda in the middle of those months we took off to write and work. So of course we had to do a little bit of writing back and forth.

Anders: I think it was a lot of inspiring you know, going to the States and going with so from my angle it gave us ideas for some stuff as well.

Did you already have a certain idea of what the new album should sound like from the very beginning?

Michael: „There was no plan from the beginning. It was all about playing whatever I had in my system. I wanted to mix a country intro and then it burst into a metal song and then why not? It felt pretty normal for me. And lucky me I was there at the right time when other people can relate to it and I haven’t changed that formula because that’s the way I write you know. There is no plan or any recipe or anything. It is all about getting it out of your system.

So Michael is the main song writer and therefore he’s doing most of the work. If you carry this to extremes you could say that the rest of you guys is lazy, huh?

Anders: „I don’t feel lazy I just wanna be honest, I cannot write (smiling), if I ever wanted to make music, I think I have to be on my own, on the computer and it would be something totally different.

Are you satisfied with this kind of work-sharing? Or do you sometimes wish to play a bigger part?

Thomas: Let’s be honest alright, Michael has been writing all Volbeat albums basically and we are doing pretty good with that. And there is no reason to try to change that due to some ego crap. And honestly you know, the four of us ... I guess Michael could sit on stage with his guitar and sing his songs on his own. I don’t think anyone of us could do … So it’s like you gotta be fair about how that all works. But of course I’m proud that I came up with a few things that ended up on the album. I did them on last album as well. Personally that’s great but it’s not like if it didn

’t happen I would be on the street crying (smiles). Just I don’t think we have that ego trip.

Is it correct that you stop working on a song after 15 minutes if you have the feeling it’s not going to work?

Anders: I think that’s the case maybe for some songs. But basically I would say it more like if we played 10 or 20 times and we don’t think that it really is something then we kinda decide: ‘This is not gonna work’. But mostly it’s Michael, he says ‘This is not working’.

Thomas: Referring to those 15 minutes, I think it’s also thing Michael works with back home because since he drops by and presents a few songs every time we meet when songwriting is going on. I think he back home got a feeling that if he got an idea and he cannot make it work pretty quick, then he skips it. So basically you know I think he skips a lot of things from back home, a lot of stuff we have never heard but it might be that this is so bad that there is no reason for us to hear that (smiles). So he is kind of filter and we thank him a lot for that.

Michael: The thing is when I sit down and write songs, if a song doesn’t work within 15 minutes… then I trash it.

Isn’t that a little hasty?

Michael: No, I definitely need that certain feeling that this is useful. And sometimes you can have the idea that this is gonna be very cool before going to the rehearsal room. And when we play together sometimes you get very surprised that it really sucks. But then you just have to go further and most of the time I would thrash the song totally or I will just change it, sometimes it could be the chorus or the verse – they just doesn’t have the right nerve that I wanted.

What can you tell us about your current single „Fallen”?

Michael: Ah the song is dedicated to my father. I lost my father two years ago. So this is a song that is dedicated to him where I open up a little bit…actually a lot.

How personal are your lyrics?

Michael: There are lyrics that are really personal, then there is lyrics that have nothing to do with me and other songs will be just small hints of something I have tried or experienced or whatever. It’s very random actually, it’s everything from being very personal to something that doesn’t have any personal input at all.

Did you name your album Beyond Hell / Above Heaven, because it sounded good or is there a certain idea to it?

Michael: That‘s always a point behind it. Beyond Hell / Above Heaven is our way to tell that we are not a religious band, we don’t believe in anything else than friends or family. I believe in a spiritual world, but it doesn’t mean it has to be something relig

ious. So it’s our way to say if we go beyond hell, we make it look like heaven. And they wouldn’t probably like it and we would go off. If we go above heaven we will make it look like hell. So it is our way to make a bit fool out of it.

Does your recent album Beyond Hell / Above Heaven catch up with your last album Guitar Gangsters & Cadillac Blood regarding to contents?

Michael: That’s only two songs that continue the story from the past record. And it actually ends the story. But still of course the layout and the cover artwork have reference to what was going on the past record. But the other songs are stories for themselves. And now it is time to think about other story maybe or maybe we don’t need another record to have any story, but that’s so far in the future and there is no reason to think too much about that.

Do you like your sound being called Elvis-metal?

Anders: I don’t think we try to have any genre. We just play music. I don’t think we are ‘this type of band’ or ‘this type of band’.

Is it true that you actually used to make death metal music in the past?

Anders: Yeah, Michael had a band called Dominus and I was playing in this as well. Then we made an album called Vol.Beat and that point when we made that record Michael talked a little bit about making another band…

Thomas: And actually this album is pre-Volbeat kind of stuff . After it got more metal again, there was 4 albums that started as death-metal and going more into Metallica and maybe rock-n-roll inspired metal thing.

Michael, you do have a preference for the 1950’s – why precisely for that time?

Michael: Ah, basically I still think that most of the great songs were written in the 1950’s and we cannot cope with that today. We are just copycats, the followers who are just progressing the sound and stuff like that. I think there is so many things that are charming back in the days. And I still think the music was the best.

Are you primarily fascinated by the music from that time or are there other things – like cars – as well?

Michael: It’s a lot of things actually. I would love to go back and be able to try to live in the 1950’s, And I like cars too and how the things looked at that certain time but I’m also aware that it was also a hard time. I don’t know, I really like the look, the culture and everything. The old school stuff. That’s something I’ve been inspired by very long time.

Your sound is also affected by the rock’n’roll music of that time sounding modern at the same time though…

Michael: Yeah, but that’s the whole idea behind Volbeat. We don’t come from the 1950’s. Yes, I like the bands from the 1950’s but I also like the stuff that is new. And I live in 2010. I put my own elements and my own ideas and my own touch to the music and you can hear that Volbeat style is inspired by a lot of different kind of bands and different kind of ages you know.

We thank Matthias Henning and Universal Music for the materials and assistance.
24 ноя 2010

( 6 )

Tular

24 ноя 2010, 20:13 Спасибо за интервью. Жаль, что небольшое.
Очень понравился новый их альбом, особенно открывашка - я таких хитов уже несколько лет не слышал!!

Glop

24 ноя 2010, 21:34 c Dominus знаком, а вот с Volbeat нет..

Blindman

24 ноя 2010, 22:14 C топ-командами больших интервью не бывает - если дали 15 минут, это уже праздник

raunchyman

27 ноя 2010, 18:21 Хорошее интервью

nightrod

15 дек 2010, 20:35 Видел их вживую в 2007,на разогреве у Металлики в Дании,очень популярная банда у себя в стране,влияние Метлы тож есть)

Van Taig

17 дек 2010, 18:33 Спасибо за интервью, очень интересно. В одночасье превратились в одну из любимых банд :)

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Elvis Metal from Denmark

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