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One
of the best parts of being a music journalist is that occasionally, very
occasionally you actually get to meet or speak to one of your heroes or
someone who's music has had a profound influence on you. One such
person over recent years has been vocalist and founding member of
Evidence One Carsten Schulz. One of the hardest working vocalists
currently on the rock scene.
Today we catch up with Carsten to find out more about the bands latest
release 'The Sky Is The Limit', their third and strongest release to
date.
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MM
- How is the mood in the Evidence One camp at the moment?
Carsten – It’s wonderful! As you might know
we’ve recently released the best album in our career and we're
now ready and waiting to take on the world! The response
so far has been tremendous, we’ve had so many wonderful
reviews and more fan emails than ever before. We hope to
be able to confirm a tour for later this year, we’re simply
waiting for the dates and for the final confirmation.
(The sheer excitement and pride this
man has in his musical endeavours comes through in abundance
throughout the whole of this interview). |
MM
- You're also re-releasing their debut album as well on AFM Records?
Carsten – Yes we are
re-releasing ‘Criticize The Truth’ on July 6th,
containing one bonus track which is a live version of 'Frozen In Time'
that we recorded live at the 2003 Earthshaker Festival. I’m
happy that we are finally able to re-release that album because over the
years I have received so many emails from people eagerly searching for
that album. Once I found it on Ebay for about $30! That was
just crazy! So when AFM came up with the idea I said YES! Of
course! Please get this album out there again.
It’s a great album and it’s quite hard to find in stores or online
now. So when AFM asked what about our back catalogue and said
maybe they could re-release our first record. Obviously our second
album ‘Tattooed Heart’ is still selling well on Nuclear Blast, but
there was this problem with the first one. We went through our
archives and decided to have this done but with this bonus live version
added on to the CD because it’s a good song.
MM - You once described the sound of
Evidence One as being similar to the classic US sounds that you grew up
with. With the new album you’ve gone for a much heavier sound
this time around, was this the intention from the off or did it simply
develop along the way?
Carsten – The songs on ‘Criticize The Truth’ and ‘Tattooed
Heart’ were from a hard rock band who were perhaps a more metal act
with their live concerts. When we released ‘Criticize The
Truth’ that was basically a heavier version of what Robby did with
Frontline. We went out on the road and we didn’t take a keyboard
player with us, we chose another guitar player who instantly became a
member of the band.
With ‘Tattooed Heart’ we wanted to capture that live sound, the fact
that we are more a metal band when we play live. With this new
album it was time for us to establish what is our own unique sound.
Most people say that it is a heavier album than before, but in my
opinion it is just heavier because of the production. Production
wise it is more in your face and it’s more powerful than ‘Tattooed
Heart’ is, so I don’t think the songs themselves are heavier, but
the production is of a higher standard. A more modern production
than the one before.
The songs themselves in my opinion, except for maybe ‘Mindmines’
which is a pretty heavy track, are not really heavier tracks.
That’s just my personnel opinion and I know some people may think
differently about that one, but I don’t think the songs themselves are
heavier tracks. The live shows that we have had now for the past
two or three years in Germany have been basically with metal bands and
that has had an impact on this album. We’re basically an 80’s
band, it’s just we’re not stuck in the 80’s. I’m very
happy with the production of the album though, it’s very good.
MM – When we saw you back in 2003 at
The Gods Of AOR Festival here in England which was obviously right at
the very beginning of it all, the band then had a much more powerful and
passionate sound live than on CD, although the CD is very good.
Carsten – Yes that is the point,
when we wrote and released ‘Criticize The Truth’ we never intended
to actually play live. The whole band was just a project. At
first it was just going to be called ‘Robby Boebel’, there was no
such thing as the Evidence One band. It was just a harder and
heavier sound than the Frontline sound and with a different singer.
Live we just found ourselves, our true identity. In my opinion we
have given a rebirth to the old songs, we went through the songs and we
tried to live them instead of just writing and recording them.
With the second and the third album, right from the very beginning that
was part of the writing process. We know now that we will play
live, we know that we will be doing live shows and probably go out on
the road, so we had it in mind that we had to play them live. With
this new record we hoped that we could also capture that live passion on
the CD. If people listen to the album and think … “hey these
guys sound exactly like a melodic metal band did in the 80’s, like The
Scorpions or Accept or whoever, but still have an up-to-date passion and
don’t sound like they’re tired or fed up with everything, then
we’ve succeeded in our mission.
MM
- Which songs are your own favourites off the new album and
which ones are you most looking forward to performing live?
Carsten – Well we've
performed ‘The Sky Is The Limit’ live for about a year now.
Ever since we first wrote that track it made it’s way into our
live set and so this will definitely be one of those tracks that
we will continue to play live because it’s just so much fun to
play. It’s quite easy and upfront, straight forward rock
n’ roll. We will also do
‘Won’t Sleep Alone’ because this is a very emotional
passionate song. We'll probably try to play ‘Mr.
Madness’, ‘Propaganda’ and ‘The Luxury Of Losing
Hope’, and that would be it. The thing is we won't be
playing any headliner shows so we will be stuck to between 30
– 60 minutes. There are still songs from the first two
records that we need to play live because we enjoy playing them
live. So I guess there won’t be more than 4 or 5 songs. |
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MM
- How does the song writing and music composition work in the band, is
it music first then lyrics or the other way around? Which is your
preferred method of working?
Carsten – I tell you it is not a
romantic thing! (laughs) It is not like this band is rehearsing 3
times a week and someone comes in with a guitar riff and says … “Ok
guys, I got this riff, I think it’s cool” … It’s not a romantic
thing at all. Robby still writes all the songs instrumentally and
sends them over to me. I record my lyrics in either a demo or
finished version and send them back to Robby. He sometimes plays
around with them if he’s had a new idea and then the other guys come
in to record it. It’s still me and Robby who are writing all the
time.
MM - How did it feel when Robby decided
to bow out from the band?
Carsten – Well it was a relief.
Like I said earlier we had just never ever intended to perform live,
this was meant as a studio project. Suddenly we found ourselves
being on the European tour in support of Saxon. The very first
show on the first night of that tour was the very first Evidence One
show ever! We’d never played live before! But we all stuck
to it as we were all members of performing bands back then and we all
loved to play live, all except for Robby, Frontline don’t do any live
shows.
To cut a long story short he never really felt comfortable being on
stage or standing in the limelight. Of course he loves giving out
autographs and stuff like that, but he’s not one of those guys who
loves to be on the front page. He’s like a wizard, he loves
being in his studio trying out new sounds and production work. You
know for every song we do on an album he’ll do about 5 – 10
different mixes and versions! That's his thing, that’s just the
way he is.
So at first we had Jorg Wartmann our new guitar player as a live
replacement only, but after we’d done the Rock Of Ages Festival
in 2006 together with the likes of Gotthard and Glenn Hughes, it became
pretty obvious that we would decide to have Jorg as a steady member.
Robby said … “Ok, you want to have him, that’s fine with me” …
so we all decided to have a talk. Within the first 5 minutes
everything was clear, for me the situation with Robby is like Gotthard
in their early days, he is like the wizard behind everything pulling the
strings. He writes all the songs and produces everything.
He’s like our sixth member but he’s not on the pay check. To
us it feels quite natural, it doesn’t feel like a strange production,
he is still a part of the band.
MM – Well at least you haven’t lost
him so that’s good.
Carsten – You know when I had
this talk I said ... Robby you can see this band needs to get out
there ... because we all enjoy playing live shows. The band is
very passionate on stage and we all love to play live. Robby in my
opinion is a one of a kind song writer in this particular genre. A
guy who is such an incredibly talented guitar player and song writer and
producer all rolled into one person. This is really hard to find
over here in Europe, especially these days because the way he writes
songs is very traditional. I said to him that I wouldn't give up
having his songs, so it’s still like he’s just the sixth member.
Even with all the contracts it’s Robby and me signing all the
contracts still. I know when folks look at it it’s like this
weird construction thing, but it feels natural to us and everybody’s
happy.
MM – He’s like the invisible Beatle.
Carsten – Yes, he is like the
invisible Beatle! (laughs). When we first came up with this idea
we said remember Gotthard in their early days Chris Von Rohr always
wrote all the songs on the records, he played as a guest musician on the
albums, but he was just never on the pictures. This is exactly the
way it is with Robby. Or he’s like a Jon Olivia from Savatage,
who decided to take a step back and not be on stage any longer. In
fact Robby is still mixing us live every once and a while so the
situation is actually quite similar to that one. We are all
absolutely happy with it, especially now when we listen to the album and
hear how well everything came together.
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MM
- What can you tell us about the video for “Sky Is The
Limit” and did you have any input on the concept?
Carsten – It was shot by
the wonderful Maurice Swinkels from the Netherlands who's the
lead singer for the thrash metal act Legion Of The Damned.
We didn’t have to tell him what we wanted because he knew
already that what we wanted was a typical in your face rock
video. With the
video for ‘Virus In My Veins’, which opened many doors for
us, it was a good video and everything was fine and it was being
played on German music television and everything was brilliant,
but watching it now it’s like … Ok, it’s a good song,
it’s a good video but it doesn’t really fit together. |
What
we wanted this time was a simple in your face fast rock video and that
was exactly what we got. It was my idea to have this whole concept
in the album, like you see us in the video playing cards, then you have
the cards on the album cover as well. We shot the promo shoot for
the photo’s on the CD the same day we shot the video, so everything
could be one unity, everything fits together. MM – It
sure looked fun to do. Carsten
– Yeh it was!
MM – I know the theme has also been carried through to the website as
well.
Carsten – Yes that’s the thing, if you come to the website
you will instantly recognise everything, it’s all just one theme.
I have a good friend of mine who is our webmistress and she’s the one
that did the website before for ‘Tattooed Heart’ and ‘Criticise
The Truth’. With each new record that’s coming out she gets
all the artwork and data files and she rearranges the whole website to
have it style wise exactly like the album and well I love that!
(laughs).
She also does the Domain website and she does that website the same way.
She has been a good friend of mine for years and I contacted her once
and asked if she’s like to do our website. I explained that I
wanted a structure in the background on to which you can build up
different layouts with each new record, without having a problem having
to completely re-programme a whole new website. She does a
wonderful job.
MM - The band are already booked to play at the Cat Rock Festival next
month, how are you feeling about that?
Carsten – We are really looking
forward to the festival because it’s the first time we are going to be
able to play mostly the new material. Doro Pesch is also on the
bill and I love to see Doro live. It’s up North in Germany in
Emlichheim and it’s a fun festival to do. When you think the
last show we did was on 30th December last year, so we
haven’t done a live show in over half a year! There will be some
tension because it will give us the opportunity to warm up and try out
this and that and hopefully it will work. It will be good to see
how the other people react as well.
MM
– You mentioned there may be a tour later in the year, any chance of a
UK date on that tour?
Carsten – Well you know the
point is there are negotiations going on and I know of our warm up tour
already but I’m not allowed to tell, and I won’t tell because
there’s no contracts signed yet, but we will be out on tour and AFM
Records are eagerly searching for suitable supporting slots for us.
Hopefully there will be some time around September / October this year.
MM - This is the 3rd album for the
band and also their 3rd label!
Carsten – Yes, yes it is!
(laughs). Well stepping from Point Music to Nuclear Blast was a
chance that you don’t refuse. When we had the chance to go over
to Nuclear Blast, once we had actually moved across to that label, some
of the people who had supported us in the early years and were into our
music left.
So when we went in to talk to the guys (at Nuclear Blast) about this new
record they said we could have stayed. Everything was going great
and everything had been fine, but then they said they had to tell us
that now they were focusing more on the death metal, the heavier things,
the more brutal stuff. They said if we wanted to leave we could,
but if we didn’t want to leave they would definitely release the new
record.
Then I got a phone call from my buddy Markus Wosgien who had been our
promoter at Nuclear Blast and was now the A&R at AFM Records and he
said if we wanted to come over, we'd be more than welcome. We took
one look at AFM’s rooster and we knew we would fit perfectly to that
label. So there was nothing we had to think about, it was just a
natural progression.
We went from a rather small label to one that was probably the biggest
European metal label and then to a label who are mainly focusing on
exactly our style of music. We spoke to our close friends, our
friends from Shakra and from Silent Force and they said … hey
they’re doing a great job and everything’s fine …
When you look at it we’ve had three albums on three different labels
and that looks weird, but it doesn’t feel weird for us. Finally
I think we’ve found a place to stay, the contract is signed for more
than just one album and it feels wonderful. They’re doing a
brilliant job of promoting the new album, everybody’s happy with the
record and so now I guess we’ve finally found a place to stay now.
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MM
- You’ve always been involved in more than one band at any
given time, what else can we expect release wise from you in the
near future?
Carsten – Well one album
that I will be singing on as the main singer for the band will
be Roger Staffelbach the Swiss guitar player for his first solo
release. He is the guitar player for the technical
progressive shred band called Artension. That project’s
name will be Roger Staffelback/Angel Of Eden. Very much
Yngwie Malmsteen type of music, which is a long kept wish of
mine because I’m a huge Yngwie fan, I love shred guitars.
That album will be out in early August but in Japan only at
first.
It’s a
wonderful record because for me the opportunity to play with
Roger, who is such a talented and incredible guitar player, was
just such a big honour to do and to work with him. The
album is heavier than you might have expected, very speed up
shred and for me very intense, very powerful. I have my
buddy Rami Ali from Evidence One doing the drums on that album,
the wonderful Misteria, the keyboard player from Italy, a man
who is just a thrill himself, he is such a genius.
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We
also have wonderful guest musicians, there is one song sung by the
magical John West (Artension/ex. Royal Hunt), who to me is a vocal
magician, I love that guys voice. He did one song. We have
David Shankle (DSG/ex-Manowar) doing a guest solo. Steve Di
Giorgio (Testament) doing the bass parts and Ferdy Doernberg (Uli Jon
Roth/Axel Rudi Pell) another good buddy playing keyboards. This is
just really a huge album!
Also
something that I am very honoured to be a part of is an English band by
the name of Eden’s Curse. They’ve now been signed to AFM
Records as well. Eden’s Curse are a band consisting of a wonderful
Scottish bass player by the name of Paul Logue (ex. Cry Havoc) and
singer Michael Eden. They have my buddy Thorsten Koehne (Code Of
Perfection) as the guitarist who I worked with two years ago on an
album. They have Ferdy Doernberg on the keyboards and a guy who
instantly became a good friend of mine called Pete Newdeck (ex. Paul
Dianno's Killers/ Steve Grimmett Band) on the drums.
The album ‘Eden’s Curse’ is coming out in August. As it
happened I co-wrote five songs with the guys and they even recorded a
full left-over track from the ‘Tattooed Heart’ sessions that I wrote
together with Robby. It’s a song called ‘The Eyes Of The
World’. It didn’t make it on that album but the guys have
re-recorded it and done one hell of a version of it. They also
have Doogie White and David Readman doing background vocals. As
well as all these great vocalists, the album was also produced by the
great Dennis Ward from Pink Cream 69! It’s a wonderful piece of
music, perfect melodic metal.
I did some guest spots for my good friends S.I.N. from Germany.
They’ve done their first concept record. It’s the story of
Jesus Christ but told slightly different with a little twist, with
different roles, and the funny thing is … guess who’s the Christ?!?
(laughs). So I did my parts on that one, I also did background
vocals for Mr Steve Grimmett from Grim Reaper. That was cool, also
playing in the band doing the drumming was Pete Newdeck.
I’ve also finished the new Midnite Club album, the second one. MM
– Excellent!
Carsten – Even better than the first one of course! (laughs).
I hope to get it out some time this year and we’re currently
negotiating with labels.
I’m currently working with a huge guitarist Iain Ashley Hersey again.
I’d already sung on his first record. I’m doing all the songs
on this new album and this time Iain found it a lot easier doing the
whole record over here in Germany at my buddy Stephen Seeger's studio.
Stephen's also the guitarist for Midnite Club. We have a brilliant
line-up, along with my buddy Jocken Mayer (ex. Domain/Casanova) on bass,
we have Frank Kraus (Code Of Perfection/ ex. Demon Drive) on drums.
Who for me is one of the best drummers in Germany, absolutely fabulous
drummer boy. We also have Stephen’s brother on the organ and
Iain plans to bring in a couple of guests who I don’t know about ...
yet. That will be a wonderful record as well.
It’s a cool situation in my career right now that I can do so many
different styles at once. The Staffelback ‘Angel Of Eden’
record is a pretty heavy album and it’s probably the heaviest Carsten
Schulz you will ever hear on that album. With Iain’s new record
it’s classic rock, it might be slightly more melodic this time, a bit
funky and way more bluesy, but if you liked the ‘Holy Grail’ record
then you’ll definitely like this one. It’s wonderful to me to
not just stick to one vocal style.
MM - You've been involved in a number of
bands over the years but what would you say has been the highlight of
your career so far?
Carsten – Well the first thing
that comes into my mind is definitely the Busan Festival in Korea with
Domain. There was in front of thirty thousand people and was a
really neat thing. That was definitely one of those once in a
lifetime experiences. We did not expect anything when we went over
to play, we didn’t think anybody would know of us at all. The
Busan show was the first show we did on the Korean tour and we went on
stage and we just couldn’t believe it, it was like … somebody
slapped me in the face! … it was the same for all the other guys too.
Another
once in a lifetime experience was I was very fortunate to be in the
supporting act and could go out on the road with a rock n’ roll icon.
I did a five week tour with Glenn Hughes and Joe Lynn Turner. I
remember one night when we played in Finland the backstage bathroom
shower was pretty close to the stage. I remember I was standing
under that shower feeling pretty hot after the show and there was Glenn
Hughes singing ‘Mistreated’ about 7 or 8 metres away from me!
That was one of those situations you will never forget in your whole
life.
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Evidence One were touring with Alice Cooper … "I’m not
worthy"! … (laughs) everybody was standing there wanting
to fall down on their knees like in the movie. Also on the
final night when we did the Saxon tour, we were supporting Saxon
at the sold out gig at the London Astoria and it was like … Oh
My God! These are legends! … these are all quite personal
things.
When we played
over here in Germany in support of The Scorpions, the band were
one of those bands that had influenced us quite heavily and
finally having the opportunity to play shows with these guys was
really a high point of our career.
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Also
like when I did Iain’s album, Iain told me that Graham Bonnet would
also be doing a couple of tracks on that album and I was like … Oh My
God! I’m going to be on an album with a guy from Rainbow! …
What can I say, I’m just such a lucky bastard! (laughs). Up to
this point I have lived a fulfilled life and everything that is coming
up is just an extra. There have been some painful decisions that I
have had to make, like when I had to make the decision to leave Domain.
That was probably the most painful and political decision I ever had to
make in my entire career, and painful personally as well because these
guys had been my family for 7 years. Axel was the one guy that
always believed in me and he picked me the friggin' nobody to be in
Domain and to help reunite the band. I had to move on from there
so I guess I have had my high points, but I’ve also had my low points
for sure, but hey … I’m a lucky bastard! (laughs).
THE high point of my career is
being able to release albums that I actually want to do and do actually
dig. You know many of my colleagues after they’ve done the
production they release the album and they won’t listen to it for more
than a year, because they’ve put so much into that album and seen it
through so many phases and stuff. However for me it’s the
opposite. When I’ve finished a new album I’m listening to it
constantly, every friggin' day! The whole point of the music for
me is that I would only release an album that I myself would buy.
So this is probably the main goal in my whole musical work is to release
stuff that I myself would buy ... and I buy loads of cd’s believe me!
(laughs).
MM – Keeping with the theme of heroes,
here’s a fun question now - if one day you were involved in a freak
accident and became a new breed of superhero, what would your name be,
what would be your special power and what would your costume look like?
Carsten – Well when I was a kid
I was very much into all that super-hero stuff, I wasn’t much into
Superman but I did like Batman. I guess probably ... ‘The Lizard
Man’ ... (suddenly we both burst into mass hysterics as
Carsten tries to decide on his special power and we both realise what
Lizard's are perhaps most famous for, finally Carsten decides on an
alternate superhero special power ...)
Probably from a kids point of view I’d want to be able to do something
like be invisible, because I think that might be really interesting.
I’d like to be invisible but also be able to walk on walls.
Being able to watch and listen to people speaking about you and find out
what they really think about you. Yes that would probably be my
superhero thing, being 'The 'Invisible Lizard Man'!
MM – Ok, What about your costume?
Carsten – Hey I’d be
invisible, I wouldn’t need one. MM –
Yes but when you reappeared it might be a bit … Carsten
– Ah yes! Well it must be something green of course and I think some
little wings behind my ears would look quite cute. (laughs).
MM - Finally are there any words you’d
like to pass on to all our readers out there?
Carsten – Power to the music!
MM - I'd like to
thank Carsten for agreeing to take time out of his hectic schedule to
chat with us this evening and for being such entertaining and
enthusiastic company. We wish him and the rest of the band the
very best of luck with the new Evidence One album. We'd also like
to wish him every success with the other releases he's involved with. |