With the release next month of what for many is THE most eagerly anticipated release of 2006, we catch up with guitarist, producer and founding member of Domain, none other than Mr Axel "Ironfinger" Ritt himself.

MM - Hi Axel, firstly I’d like to thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to take part in this interview with us, it means a lot to us both as a webzine, but also as fans of the band.
Axel - Hi Linda, you´re welcome. It´s a pleasure for me.

MM - With the advent of your new album ‘Stardawn’ due for release next month and the celebrations of reaching your 20^th anniversary this year, how are you feeling right now?
Axel - Pretty well! I always feel eased when the work has been done ;-)

MM - I believe the new album is going to be more of a ‘box set’ affair with a live dvd included?  Would you like to enlighten our readers and tell them a little more about the wonderful package you’ve put together for this release.
Axel - Because of the anniversary, a special edition of the new album "Stardawn" will be released at  Nov. 7th in the United States Of America, Asia and Europe (Release Europe: Oct. 13th!).

It´ll be a 4000 copies worldwide limited edition with a double-CD plus additional DVD, containing in addition to the new studio album various special features, for example:

- 9 brand new tracks incl. the 25min. epos "Shadowhall"
- 35min. live-cut of the international Busan-Festival 2005 in Korea
- 15min. live-show at the Korean TV
- 40min. tour - documentation with band - interview
- diashow
- a 16 songs best-of collection of all DOMAIN-albums which had been released between 1987 - 2005
- a re-release of the hits "Lost In The City", "I Dont Wanna Die" und "Hard Road To Midnight" in remastered versions
- a re-release of the tracks "Stormbringer" and "Over The Hills And Far Away", which had only appeared on 2 rare samplers.
- all in all a 5-piece DigiPak with 3 booklets, over 240 min. playtime, you can´t get more value for money! You can prelisten to 2 new album tracks ("Crystal Stone Island" and "Temple Of The Earth") at www.myspace.com/axelritt.

If you would like to get one of these exclusive editions, please don´t forget to book your copy now, because there will be no re-release after sold-out!

MM - ‘Last Days of Utopia’ was very much a concept album and worked really well.  Does ‘Stardawn’ follow the same path?  Is it another concept album or more a collection of individual songs that each tell a separate tale?
Axel - No, it´s not a typical concept album. After the success of the last DOMAIN-album "Last Days Of Utopia", we had a long discussion within the band regarding the orientation of the upcoming album. I didn´t want to leave the new epic-symphonic path we´ve headed but some of us favored to step back to the traditions of the Melodic Metal background the band celebrated in the albums before.

So we decided to divide the complete album into two partitions. One partition should satisfy the wishes of the longtime fans, the other one should strike the right note for the new fans, who, for example took "Last Days..." for the debut album of the band.

To create the first partition, all of us picked up their hooks, ideas and arrangements to place them in the new songs, which finally had been completed in our rehearsal studio. To create the second partition, the band permitted me to exploit my whole creativity by composing a complete 25-min. symphony, divided into 7 chapters, basing on a story of our singer Carsten.

This opus made me pushing the envelope. The sheer monstrosity of "Shadowhall" took about 3 months of pre-production and arrangement/score-works before I could start with the actual recordings. All in all, it took almost one year to finish the album. Never before have that many tracks been recorded, has the orchestral arrangements be that extensive and never before had that level of virtuosity been performed.

I believe that we have struck a balance between past and present, between yesterday and today, still looking for the musical borderlines we didn´t reach until now.

MM - The album contains a cover of the great Chris De Burgh song ‘Don’t Pay The Ferryman’.  How did you come to choose this particular song and how do you feel it sits alongside the rest of the songs on the new album?
Axel - The reason for taking this hit as a cover-version is a funny story.  About 20 years ago, the first concert our singer Carsten ever went to, was a CDB-show. It looks like that the show has left a mark, so that he decided, now that he´s a musician as well, to recommend this song for doing the cover-version.

First, all of us were very mistrustful about this proposal, but the more we looked into this subject, the more we recognized that this song is already very "Domainy", we just had to make contact to the actual DOMAIN-sound. The song fits perfect in the classical DOMAIN-song-structures, so I gave it a modern sound, more punch in the arrangement and here we go.

MM - Would you like to talk our readers through the songs on the new album and any stories or meanings that lie behind them?
Axel - All In The Name Of Fire: I love this opener! It´s powerful, it´s fast and it gave me a chance to place one of my latest passions in solo-guitar-playing. One of my developments in the last years was to deal with classic scales and harmonics. These chord-moves gave me a perfect basic for that classical style.

Temple Of The Earth: It´s the first song the band wrote together in this line-up ever. We wanted to create a big, epic and fanfaric hook, containing all the trademarks that DOMAIN ever has established. So we took all we´ve learned in the last decades, arranged the vocals of the "Stardawner-Boys-Choir" and created a chorus-hook, that surrounds the auditory canal of the listeners.........just kidding.

Don’t Pay The Ferryman: see above

I Aint No Hero: Although this song is clearly a ballad, charged with emotional lyrics, the evolutionary history of this song was hard work, much harder than you can hear in the song. The track has been re-arranged 3 times, actually it has been moved from the playlist for one week, because we couldn´t find an arrangement that suits to all members of the band. Finally, we´ve found a happy medium between "very small" and "very big".

Headfirst Into Disaster: When I was a young, emerging fretboard follower, one of my first impressions about the power of music was the American-Southern-Rock-Style. In these days, when three lead-guitars bashing their leads around within a song, I was fascinated by the punch of this kind of music. This song was written in reminiscence of these eras, combined with a classical DOMAIN-chorus. Our bass-player Jochen is still in mourning that the chorus only appears two times in the song...

Stardawn: The composition of this song started with the main bass/guitar theme. It embraces the song in the beginning and in the interlude in the middle of the song. I sat in our rehearsal studio together with Jochen, playing the theme in a loop, when our keyboard-player Erdmann entered the room, yelling "that´s it, that´s it", running to his keyboards to realize the idea he had just at the moment. The song got a huge psychedelic touch, sometimes you can hear some seventies vibes within the song. By the way, the dynamic part in the middle of the song was very hard to perform. Playing as loud as you can is very easy in the studio, but playing as quiet as you can, still with a dynamic touch, is a big challenge for everybody.

Crystal Stone Island: To be honest, it´s one of my favorites of the album. It got all attributes a double-kick song got to have. Power, strength, a catchy hook in the chorus and a show-off-guitar-solo ;-)

Help Me Through The Storm: A simple, straight guitar line in the Intro, a basic rocker in the verses, an epic hook in the chorus. An easily accessible song-structure, a point of rest within the album. Listen to the bass-line in the middle bridge part, very funky and very groovy!

Shadowhall: To tell a long story short; the biggest challenge in my life, bigger, more complex and more exhausting than everything I ever did in my musical career before.

MM - How long did it take for the new album to be created from first initial conception to the finished product?
Axel - All in all it took about 1 year, 10 hours a day to produce the complete works of "Stardawn". I had to supervise the production of the additional Best-Of CD and the bonus-DVD as well, so I´m happy that this burden is gone for a short while.

MM - How do you feel ‘Stardawn’ compares musically to your previous album ‘Last Days of Utopia’?  Do you feel this release is a typical representation to where Domain are right now?
Axel - Absolutely! We´re doing a good mixture of the classical Melodic Metal / Power Metal songs for the traditional listener and the epic / symphonic stuff for the new generation.

MM - Of all the elements that go into creating a new composition, which do you find the most rewarding? e.g. the writing, recording, playing or production?
Axel - It´s a little bit of everything, but the main thing is the writing part. Even when you got a perfect sound, a perfect production, you can cancel the mistakes of an extraneous composition.

MM - When working out the final track listing how hard is it to decide which songs to keep and which ones to leave off?
Axel - The one who´s bawling loudest will be considered most ;-), just kidding. We always try to get the perfect mixture for all fans, but at the end, I, as the producer, have to decide what songs will be the best ones and of course I have to face the music if the decision was wrong.

MM - What do you prefer out of the two, being holed up in the studio recording new material, or getting out on the road and playing them live in front of a live audience?
Axel - Both parts got their moments. Sitting in the studio, recording songs is like falling in love, playing the songs live and loud on stage is like fucking! ;-)

MM - What’s it like watching the fans reaction to a new song when you play it live for the first time.  Are you worried they might not like it, or are you secretly excited inside to see their reaction when it hits certain parts?
Axel - You´ll never know what songs will do the job live, you always have to figure out first, so it´s very exciting to see the reactions of the audience at a song, they´ve never heard live before. But of course we got our hits with us, so some songs will always get us on the save side of the street, you know ;-)

MM - The power and the passion the band has for the music really seems to shine through in your live performances.  You all seem to enjoy the gigs every bit as much as your fans.  How does it feel to stand up in front of hoards of eager fans and just do your thing?  Have you ever played a gig and not enjoyed it for whatever reason?
Axel - Playing for the fans, having a party together is the greatest thing you could do as an artist. We never had shows we didn´t enjoy.

MM - Your name as a guitar player is legendary within the hard rock circles, yet to the wider public you are reasonably unknown. Does that bother you at all?
Axel - No, that´s not a problem for me. Every day, I keep on working in music, my name and my style becomes a little bit more a trademark for the listeners, so I will get the biggest name recognition one day before I die ;-)))

MM - Can you remember what magical musical moment in your life made you want to take up playing the guitar in the first place?
Axel - Unfortunately not, it was a slow growing evolution.

MM - What was your first guitar and what song did you master on it first?
Axel - It was a 150 bucks Gibson SG copy by the Japanese company LUXOR in 1973 and the first song I´ve played was "25 Or 6 To 4" by Chicago.

MM - You’ve recently signed an exclusive endorsement deal with the German guitar company Framus.  I believe the company are building you an ‘Axel Ritt Panthera Custom’ model.  Wow, that must be really exciting for you, what can you tell us about this forthcoming new edition to your collection?
Axel - Well, it´s the last step for a musicians ego, if an established guitar manufacturer asks you if you would like to have your own custom model, so you can imagine how big my ego went in the last weeks ;-))), just kidding.

You might have heard, I prefer heavy sizes on my guitar, so everything will be very heavy on this guitar. Very heavy string gauge, heavy weight, heavy neck and of course a very heavy sound. And the color will be my Zebra-stripes trademark.

MM - There are a great deal of young talented guitarists out there, do you have any words of wisdom that you standby and could pass on to them?
Axel - Whenever you think you are good, right at that moment you start to become bad. Getting better every day is the sense of life in music.

MM - If someone like Andrew Lloyd Webber approached you and asked to turn ‘Last Days of Utopia’ into a full blown Rock Opera, would you consider it or would you prefer to leave it as it is?
Axel - It would be a very big honor for me!

MM - It’s no secret that in the past you’ve encountered a few ‘disappointments’ with the bands line-up, well in the early days at least.  How strong do you feel this current line-up is and do you feel there is the mutual respect that a band needs to survive long term?
Axel - The biggest enemy of all bands is the personal ego. No friendship, no money, no musical success will keep a band together when single band members will not be able to control their personal ego! So I deeply hope, my actual band mates will be able to reflect on their behavior. If this works out, everything will be perfect, if not, well, I will be disappointed again as so many times before …

MM - What are you listening to these days yourself?  Old classics or modern bands?  Do you ever listen to music that is very different from what you do, if so what?
Axel - Most of the times classical music or film scores.

MM - You look very serious in some of your photo’s and your nickname ‘Ironfinger’ makes you sound a little scary too.  Would the real Axel Ritt please step forward.  Are you really that scary or just a big pussycat at heart?
Axel - Well, you should ask my wife, she will be perhaps the only one who knows the "real" Axel Ritt ;-). To be honest, I got two personalities in one body. My regular nature is warm, smooth, romantic and very thoughtful regarding all creatures who can´t speak for themselves, but on the other side, as soon as self-importance, bigotry and inequity cross my way, I´ll mutate to the most angriest monster you´ve ever seen. So don´t unleash the fury....;-)

MM - If you could ask one of your heroes/someone who’s inspired you a question, who would it be and what would you ask them?
Axel - I would ask Leonardo Da Vinci what of his genius has been hard work at what came by accident?

MM - Talking of heroes, if one day you were involved in a freak accident and became a new breed of super-hero, what would your special power be?
Axel - Interesting question ... The biggest wish I ever had is to control time! So my special power would be to stop the time, move it back - and forwards and erase all mistakes/crimes the humankind ever made/committed. Lots of work ...

MM - Finally are there any words of worldly wisdom the band would like to say to all our readers?
Axel - I would like to thank all animal protection organizations like P.E.T.A. a.s.o. who fight for the rights and treatment of all creatures. Stop killing animals and slay the butchers!

MM - We'd like to thank Axel for taking the time out of his very busy schedule to talk to us today and wish him and the rest of the band every success with the new album.  Remember this album is strictly limited edition so if you want a copy we strongly suggest you reserve a copy now because once they're gone they're gone, there will be no re-release.  

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