Interview с Blind Guardian : DARKSIDE.ru

Ready?

I think I am, you?

Yeah!

So let’s get started.
On the new album you worked with real orchestra for the first time, did you write all scores yourself or with the help of someone, and are you happy with the result?

Let’s put in that way, we programmed all keyboards, but when we transformed it to scores music, we needed help of someone.
Yes, we are very satisfied with the result, of course, otherwise we would not have given our permission to release the album. And due to people reviews we did extremely good job on performing the songs.

You also told that you recorded orchestra not only for this album, but for yours with Andre solo project. Could you tell us a bit more about it, when are you planning to release it?

We did record some of the stuff and tracks already for this particularly album, but we’re not sure yet will it be on another Blind Guardian album or solo project. That’s still open, because we have many, many options. It builds up on music we composed for "Nightfall In Middle-Earth", musically that album goes into that direction, but without main band, so just vocal and orchestra at the moment. Considering Musical feeling, it’s very heavy, very innovative, and very diverse, there’s some classical music. Almost everything in there. It’s just the question how much time we need to accomplish the whole thing. We did record 6 songs, we do have 4 more and pipe line, which just wait to be recorded and then I have to do all the vocal stuff, which will be the main issue for the beginning of 2011. Hopefully, I can accomplish my part in the end of 2011 and then basically the album could be released somewhere in 2012, but it’s still open, th

ere’s some difficult issues to accomplish from my side.

You released every new album in 4 years, like Olympic Games, exactly this time you need to record new album, why not any faster?

Once we finish the album, we are on the road almost for a year or sometimes 1.5 and during that time, we cannot compose, because we barely have the chance to do sort of recording and make our minds for music. So, this is pure tour time. We do have like 2 and a half year left usually before the album usually comes out, and it seems not possible for us to release album before this time. We need at least 10-12 month for the arrangement, everything needs to fit and that’s the reason for these 10-12 months, in the addition recording itself, which can take forever as we are very picky.

What about “Forgotten Tales” second part, if I’m not mistaken you said in one interview, that you had enough material for that, will the tracks that were meant for “Elder” EP be include there?

We do have some stuff and, of course, we do have some ideas for it, but so far we decided that it’s not the right time. We do have orchestra project in mind at the moment, once it’s done, we’ll either focus on live album or the next studio album, so I don’t see this coming for next 4-5 years. It will be an option, there’s some cool cover version idea that we have, but this again takes some time to provide the stuff and prepare it properly, so we always postpone it little bit, but one day we will do it. And the stuff from “Nightfall” album, which we haven’t use yet, could be used on that, become a part of that.

You created a track for computer game, was the process of writing this song was somehow different from what you usually do?

We didn’t have any time, so we were in sort of rush to reach to the deadline. This would be the different. And in regular terms we wouldn’t have started song writing just after finishing touring in November 2007 and right after we got back we started composing the song, actually it were two songs that we wrote, but we just used one for compute game. And 4 weeks later we had production meeting already. It was slightly different from what we usually do, so we were not be able to be as picky as we usually are.

But you are satisfied with results?

Yes, of course, but with life experience I’m not sure, it’ll work always in this particular way, sometimes you do have a god run and sometimes you don’t during the songwriting and production as well. If I have a bad day, I have a bad day and then I don’t work on high pitched vocal for some time. We take that time, everyone in the band does.
But when we worked on “Sacred”, we have been very focused and, likely, the company liked the song, and it was right song, no doubt about that.

And you probably know that many gamers had discovers your music from this track, were you counting on that?

Yes, this was one the things we had in mind, but the major reason for us doing that, was Andre and Markus were die-hard computer gamers, they love World of Warcraft, and so they love first part of “Sacred”, so they were familiar with the game. It was something we had in mind for the last 15 years, ever since we were signed to Virgin records and were considering doing something like that. And, all of the sudden, there was that guy, die-hard Blind Guardian fan, showed up and said, “we were doing the second part of Sacred”, which was one of favorite games for Andre and Marcus, so … This had been

the main ball, but, of course, you consider doing some new fans. But I can’t tell you, if it worked. Everyone, who played in the game, liked the song, but, naturally, I don’t know, if they became Blind Guardian fan just because of that song.

Judging by those set lists I’ve already seen from your concerts, you vary list of tracks pretty much, how many songs did you rehearse for live?

We’re not finished yet, I mean it’s just the beginning of the tour; we’ll play some more songs from new album within the next month. So far, we have rehearsed 43 tracks and we have played 40 already, I think. Once we finish USA in the end of December, we’ll start considering which other songs can be included as well. It’s very important for us to have this variety, but on the other hand, you need a sort of core set list which will be the same every night just to have a better flow into the show or to have some dramatic visual aspect …

And why did you decide not to play the whole new album like many bands do now?

Well, if we did that, we’d have to skip many of the classics, that’s one of the reasons and the another reason is a time issue: if we had to rehearse the whole album in its complexity, it’d be too time demanding to accomplish it in short period of time, which we only have for rehearsals. So, we decide to stop with few songs and, basically, we tried to pick the most suitable songs for live and at the same the most interesting for people. That’s how we basically decided which songs to play. It’d be possible to play the whole album with at least full four weeks rehearsals at home.
But again I think people come to the show to hear the whole catalogue like “Valhalla”, “Mirror, Mirror” or whatever and it’d be a waste not to play

these songs, and it can give you a certain confident, when you’re on stage you know that people will react very positive on the song and we do have some experience in performing that songs.

If we continue our concert topic, Kai Hansen in the recent interview to our site said that he was doing short songs on purpose to play more songs in tour, you to the contrary took the longest songs and keep “And There Was Silence”- is it easier for you to play such epics live?

It can be both difficult like, for instance, we did “Another Stranger Me” from the "A Twist In The Myth" album, it’s very groovy song and you have to perform it many, many times to make it very, very groovy, to give certification to the song and it’s 5 minutes long, most songs are 6-7 minutes long. It’s a natural output, we don’t consider the length of the song, if we like the song and we do have a good feeling for it, we stick to it. So, the length doesn’t mean anything. Playing the song you never sung, for example, is pure fun, but, of course, you can make a mistake there, have your mind not completely concentrated on it, so you mix it up sometimes. In general, it’s not a big deal if you’re playing long or short song, even for the audience, I have the feeling they appreciate “Wheel Of Time” or “Imagination” as well as they appreciate “Welcome to dying”, though it’s different.

Why did you write the song about Bran Stark, not about Edward, for example (It could be great tragic hymn) or maybe about John? Have you been in touch with Jorge Martin, do you know how he reacted on your composition?

No, I’ve been not in contact with Jorge Martin. It’s not our intension to get feedback from the authors. We did so many songs about my favorite topics that I can’t even count them

.
I just that recognize that there’ll be HBO series next year and I’m anxious to see how this comes out, it’s not easy to produce this stuff in proper way, but I do have a good feeling.
I did choose Bran, because usually the topics are decided by music itself, because music comes first and then I make a decision, where the direction of lyrics would go and, in this particular song, it was so obvious for me, that it was predestined for Bran.

"War of the Thrones" was also written under impression from Martin’s book, what version do you like the most, the one on the single or on the album. You actually have two songs inspired by book; maybe you had in mind to write the whole album like it was with “Nightfall”?

The one on the single is a little bit more of my original intension, I’d probably prefer that. The piano version is Andre’s intention, it’s good too, so no problem. I think, for the vocal maybe the piano version is better, but in it’s origin I’d prefer single version. But this is more hybrid song, it was influence by George Martin, but as well it was influenced by Peter S. Beagle, I couldn’t make my decision if I should go that or this direction, so I kept both, there’s a little bit of both in there.

How do you think how much time it takes for people to appreciate “At The Edge Of Time”?

I do have a feeling that people have left problems in consuming it and enjoying it in comparison to "A Twist In The Myth" and “A Night at the Opera”, that have taken far longer for some of the fans to really get in the album. You need a few attempts to really enjoy the album, difficult to say: 3, 4, 5-10 runs, it depends on a person. It’d be disappointing if someone does not find anything to discover after listening it 20 times,

it’s more important that there’s still something hidden, which you might really find out if you really dig into the album. But, on the other hand, as I said, it’s not the most difficult album to consume.

Now with the mass downloading from the internet, how do you think does it have some influence on numbers of people on the live shows, maybe it’s more?

Maybe, for our concerts it could be an advantage, I don’t have any clue. We have been successful ever since early 90th and we have built up a strong following and wherever we appear, more people show up, there’s no change of that, maybe it’s because of the internet nowadays. Things have changed, but music still stays music and someone like the music or doesn’t like - the certain tune. I feel the internet, in general, hurts album sales, there’s no doubt about that and, of course, due to that it hurts the income of any musician, especially for young bands it’s very difficult to find attention of people, so internet is the curse and the blessing at the same time.

Are you in touch with Thomen, he’s keeping silence lately, is he still in music?

He’s still in the music and we have been in touch. Well, he’s working with Michael on keyboard, they have sort of side project which they try to establish, at the moment they are looking for a good vocalist, which is hard to find. Apart from that he’s tries to manage a good life like everyone does. He left the band of course it was painful for everyone but it’s his decision, he’s doing okay it’s not easy for him as well to establish a new band

In 2003 you've organized great festival, named after yourself. Why didn’t you try to do it again in 2008 or you’re planning it in 2013? Is the idea still alive or it’

s too hard to organize?

Yeah, it’s because of organization, we have discussed it many, many times. We need something to build it up on. So, orchestra project, for example, once this album is released this could be an option. Because then we have several opportunities to present the band in different disguises. One evening we could do simple performing of orchestra project, then we could do orchestra night and third night like Blind Guardian plays all the classics. So, once the album is out, we’ll have more careful look on the whole thing, and we might do it again, but this still open at the moment.

I was always wondering what happened in 89, when after “Follow The Blind” you change your sound on “Tales Of The Twilight World”, how did it happen? Was it someone’s influence or you came to it on your own?

I think there were two reasons, that our musical ideology changed that year, maybe it’s because change of the decade, but most songs from “Tales Of The Twilight World” were composed in 89 as well, this cannot be the exact reason. I suppose we made up our minds for different music at that particular point. Before, whole 80th it was resort for metal music, thrash metal, speed metal, we didn’t listen to anything else and this particular year we rediscovered such bands as Queen and Deep Purple, Electric Light Orchestra, Kate Bush, what we listen to in the 70th as well. This was certainly one of the reasons and the other reason was, most probably, we bought some recording equipment, and for the first time we were able to play around with things. I think that was definitely the reason for musical change after “Follow The Blind”.

You shoot the video on “A Voice in the Dark”, whose idea it was and are you satisfied with the results? I kn

ow that reaction of fans was different, not all responses were positive.

For most people the video is promo tour, it’s important as visual signal for any band, but we do not pay as much attention to it as we do for audio stuff. But nevertheless we need to do the video and we had a good experience with “Another Stranger Me”, when we went to Serbia and they produced the great video for the song I think, and it was the main reason to do it with them again. I mentioned what the song is about and what album is about, we agreed on going different direction, because the whole album is about where inspiration can lead you to. When the guy, the producer, got the information from me about the album and the song, this is his vision, his direction, how he felt about the lyrics and about the music, and we pretty much liked the idea. Because when we did “A Night At The Opera or "A Twist In The Myth" I can’t even remember, we were considering having my sort of influence on the album cover even stronger, we just skipped the idea later on. It was brought back by the guys and we really liked that. But during the filming, especially when we performed, something went wrong and this is basically what people are complaining about. I might say I was a little bit disappointed with programming in the age where movies are like high standard. It was less than expected, but other than that I really think, that the story itself is cool and, all in all, we can live with this video. It was not as enjoyable for us as “Another Stranger Me”, no doubt about that.

And tell me what the reason for the bands like yours to shoot videos as chances to get on some video channels is pretty small.

As long as you don’t prove to be Steve Wonder, they won’t play it and if you’re not the band which is tot

ally trendy at particular moment video comes out – no chance. We have to live with it; we know that ever since the 90th, nothing particularly changed. So, we do it for the fans to have sort of visual output as well. You cannot change the media thing.

You’ve been involved in many projects of young bands, but how come you weren’t part of Avantasia? How do you choose where you take part and where you don’t?

Avantasia… I turned down the request of the first album, because I needed rest and it’s not exactly my pair of shoes. In general, I just decide how I feel: it’s sometimes connected with music or person, like Arjen Lucassen, he’s great musician and I was really interested in having short time work with him, because I didn’t have much time. I just went for one afternoon.
Sometimes I look for challenge, sometimes people appear nice to me like… I don’t remember the name, the Italian band, I don’t even have anything in common with music, but it was just a cool guy, who came up and asked me, I said, “okay I’ll do it”. I have very tough schedule and I have to fit in, there’s no particular vision or ideology behind: I like people, sometimes I like music, sometimes just for the sake of doing that.

Unfortunately, this year too many sad events happened like death of Dio, and it’s obvious that legends will leave us from time and time again, do you think there’s someone from young bands who in the future can be compared to such legends as Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Queen and if not, what’s the reason why we don’t have anymore such remarkable individuals?

You need to see that in a long time. I think, there are a lot of bands around, which probably won’t get the same recognition like Led Zeppelin or Deep Purple, but th

ere are always Metallica or Iron Maiden, Linking Park. Whatever bands I called and whatever particular music they are playing, it becomes difficult to stay long on the top, that’s maybe the reason why you don’t have such outstanding creative musician as Led Zeppelin and Queen, but other than that I think it’s a regular come and go, there are always good bands, there’s no doubt about that.

Nevertheless free internet downloading, you could reach high chart positions in Germany, do you think that’s because honest music should get more attention, than false, but well promoted and if yes, is there a chance for metal scene to get more attention which it deserves?

I think people who are into hand made music, they are more willing to support the artist and, therefore, they are still willing to pay for the CD, for example. And in mainstream it’s even more difficult, because you don’t have real following. You have a moment and, probably, you have good mainstream campaign behind you, which creates certain fashion for awhile, but doesn’t really attract people to become a real fan following your career. So, within the next album, it’s over. This become more and more obvious, that one hit mainstreamers will get more and more trouble in selling Cds everywhere. And metal bands, except bands making hand made music, they do have that following already, so they don’t lose as much as the others. They can keep Status Quo, something that commercial bands cannot have for themselves.

Do you have any songs of yours, which you don’t like or want to redo a little bit?

Basically, I’d say I like every of our songs, but I can’t identify most of songs we did on "Batallions Of Fear", because of lack of quality, but they were very well, when we started, they

were honest. That’s why I don’t have a problem in performing them. It’s a question, if there’s a need to perform, because most people got in later and they enjoy the 90th stuff: "A Night At The Opera», "A Twist In The Myth", so my intension and my interest is going that direction.

As your last album is very successful, are you planning any single where you could include for example those tracks that were released only on Itunes or Japanese bonus tracks? And who chooses tracks for single, you or label?

We choose tracks for singles, but we discuss it with Label Company and if they don’t like the song completely, we would skip the idea for another one. But, so far, we’ve been lucky, because it was obvious, which song predestined to become a single. But we don’t do second single for this album as we are focused on orchestra stuff already, there’s no need for a second single.

Interview by Familiar Stranger
Questions by Familiar Stranger and Blindman
© Russian DarkSide E-Zine
21 мар 2011 the End


	( 10 )


Dystopia 21 мар 2011, 16:15	Спасибо за интервью. P.S. Просто офигенски контрастное старое фото... Супер!
sergey25 21 мар 2011, 19:47	Отличное интервью! А Ханси на старом фото прямо не узнать.
Sever 21 мар 2011, 19:59	>Просто офигенски контрастное старое фото. Блайндмен сфоткал постер над кроватью? ;) Уж больно старое))
Van Taig 21 мар 2011, 21:48	"Я думаю, люди, увлекающиеся андерграундной музыкой, выпускаемой музыкантами своими силами, хотят поддерживать исполнителей и поэтому продолжают покупать CD." Все так. Хорошее интервью, у Ханси очень трезвый взгляд на вещи.
Dragonfly 22 мар 2011, 20:13	Да, спасибо за интервью!) ждём новых свершений от Блайндов!
ein schwein 22 мар 2011, 22:42	Мне всегда было интересно, что произошло в 1989 году, когда после “Follow the Blind” вы сменили звучание на “Lost in the Twilight Hall”, как это произошло? Кто-то на вас повлиял или это было исключительно ваше решение? Вы ничего не перепутали? Как можно звучание альбома сравнивать с одной песней? Может вы хотели сказать Tales Of The Twilight World? Да и самое главное, Ханси продолжает отвечать на вопрос!
Blindman 23 мар 2011, 05:00	Мы и сказали про тейлс, набрали тут неправильно, я всю жизнь путаю название этого альбома и песни :)
grisevg 25 мар 2011, 02:41	Ну совсем отвратный клип на “A Voice in the Dark”. Спасибо за интервью, понравилось... как жаль что альбомы раз в 4 года...
ein schwein 25 мар 2011, 13:56	А я уж напугался
DarkAndrei 31 мар 2011, 13:52	Большое спасибо. Ежели у меня и были какие-то сомнения в том, что оркестровый проект выгорит, то после прочтения интервью их существенно поубавилось. Гут!
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Blind Guardian

We have a lot of plans, but we don`t make haste

Dystopia

sergey25

Sever

Van Taig

Dragonfly

ein schwein

Blindman

grisevg

ein schwein

DarkAndrei