MM - The album is
released today and from the reviews I’ve seen the response from the media
has been very favourable. Have you had a chance to see any reviews yet?
Sascha – It’s been very cool, everywhere the reviews have been really
cool. Andy’s just returned from Japan today where he was doing a
promotion tour there and we’ve just charted there in second position so
that’s pretty cool.
MM –
Have the band had a chance to consider what songs will feature on the
setlist for the new tour?
Sascha – We’ve been working on
the songs from the new album and a lot of older stuff as well. We also
have an idea for
something special in the back of our minds but I’m not sure which songs
we’ll have in the final setlist.
MM –
You normally do quite a long set, sometimes two hours or more?
Sascha – Yes it’s
just so difficult for a band who have been so long in the business to pick
the songs. Sometimes it’s difficult because you know there are certain
songs the fans will expect to hear and sometimes you have to play all
those songs, but it’s difficult because if we always did that we’d end up
playing three hours of songs. Some of the songs on the earlier albums are
maybe 30 or 40 minutes long so there’s no way the band could say play one
of those songs in their set.
MM – Yes, I’ve noticed the longest track on
this new album is just under seven minutes long, so these new songs are
perhaps not quite as
epic as some of the songs off previous albums?
Sascha – Yes although we
do have a few songs on it that have that epic feel about them. ‘The
Bells Of The 7 Hells’, ‘Fallen To Pieces’ and even ‘The Saints’ all have
that kind of epic feel about them. I wouldn’t even say this album is
stronger than the others, but we have a lot of strong songs on this album
that don’t need to be 40 minutes long. They can still feel like
an epic song without being that long.
MM –
‘Kill It’ is a really heavy track, especially one to open the album up
with.
Sascha – Well that’s just how we’re feeling right now. ‘Kill It’
sounds huge and even Dani and his amazing drumming, he’s always coming up
with great ideas and so we wanted the bigger drum sound on this
song. He’s a very powerful drummer with a powerful beat.
MM - A couple of my particular favourite tracks from the new album have to
be the single ‘As Long As I Fall’ and the song ‘Heaven Tells
No Lies’. I also really like the three track poem, ‘The Bells Of The 7 Hells’,
‘Fallen To Pieces’ and ‘I.M.E.’,
overall that's a great concept to come up with for the album. What was the
idea behind that, putting these three particular tracks together?
Sascha - Basically we’re a real
band now, although the whole line-up is pretty new, we just got together
for the last tour, I think when we were rehearsing in the studio is was
just something we decided to do and it really works. Everything is
pretty much happy with the band right now, everything is feeling really
good in the band and everyone is getting along really well.
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MM -
The band have had a very turmoiled history with band members coming and
going. Do you feel you’re in a more settled period as the band?
Sascha –
Yes, totally. I remember when I first joined the band in 2003, everything
was a little messed up and we needed to find a new drummer as well. Right now
we keep things going together, we do things together and we know each other very
well. It’s like if you’re never together and you never rehearse together
that isn’t so good. It feels like now we’re a real band. We also had Charlie
Bauerfeind on production, he had an overview and is really talented.
Helloween can be a bit chaotic and laid back but he kept it all together and never missed a thing. He
had his own idea how a Helloween album should
sound as well and so he was a big influence on
how the album sounds.
MM -
‘The Keeper Of The Seven Keys - The Legacy’ Tour saw the band take in 93
shows in 34 countries, was this a gruelling schedule and would you
consider doing it again?
Sascha - The guys from the record company came
up with this idea of doing another ‘Keeper’ album but we didn’t want to
call it that until we had it mixed. We had this whole pressure on us but
the album was fun and even that pressure felt really good and kept us
going.
MM –
‘The Legacy’ album itself was absolutely phenomenal and to follow that up
with this new album, I personally feel this is even better than ‘The
Legacy’ album.
Sascha – On the last album and the last tour we just found
out that it’s not such a bad thing to keep having new band members,
especially if you’re a band like Helloween who have been going for over 20
years. It’s like having a breath of fresh air. Right now we
have very good drive. Dani and me are like the youngest in the band
and we’re coming up with new ideas and we can help the older band members
get inspired. We are what people imagine a good band should be.
MM - The band had not been long off the road when you went into the studio
to record the new album and now you’re about to head back out on the road
again. Do you ever find it hard going and a bit long scheduled or is that
what you like to do and always be busy all the time?
Sascha
– Sometimes I do think it would be great to have a bit of time in
between. With the last album we didn’t have very much time because we’d
only just done ‘The Legacy’ album and the promotion tour, then we went out
on tour. Right after that we did some live cd’s then we went back home
and we had to write songs for the next album. It was more a case of let’s
move on and make this new album. We wanted to make it even better than
the last and take that step forward.
There was a lot of pressure and
there wasn’t much time. What we actually did was we hooked up our
internet server and basically everyone rehearsed through it. Everyone was
sitting at home. Andy has his own studio, I have my own studio and
Markus as well. So everyone started coming up with these riffs and licks
and everything and we just downloaded each others ideas and we were
jamming to tracks. It was pretty cool but we had to do it that way
because there simply wasn’t enough time.
MM – So do you find these advances in new technology
are helping bands such as yourselves these days?
Sascha
– Totally. We are very much a technical band. We’re all big computer fans
and we’re all sitting with our textbooks and sharing stuff. When we go
into the studio we're always working with those things, it allows the
other guys to play around with things. It saves a lot of time because it
means you don’t have to hang around. It’s good that you can just go on the net and
share the ideas and files that you’ve come up with, with the others in the
band at any time you want. It might be in the middle of the night when
you decide you want to compose and now you can. It’s all pretty cool.
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MM -
Going back to your own recording and mixing studio G-Tracks, how is that
going? I believe it has a ceiling that can be raised or lowered?
That sounds amazing, I’ve
never heard of that concept before!
Sascha – Yes it does. It’s very cool
actually because you can change the acoustic set up simply by moving the
ceiling. You can make the room much bigger to make a much bigger sound on
say the drums, or much smaller for when you are recording
guitars for example. Then I just like to have the room that little bit smaller. It’s
a pretty good feature though and it feels so good. It was just like a hobby
when it first started because I just |
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wanted a place to play in. I originally
just wanted a space where I could record my own stuff but it’s grown
from there.
Right now
Charlie Bauerfeind is doing a lot of stuff in there. Even Biff Byford
recorded a single there once. |
MM -
Talking of Biff, how did he become involved in doing the intro for the new album?
Sascha – We’ve known Biff for a long time now. I’ve
personally known Biff from
when I was working in Freedom Call and did a European tour. We didn’t
have anyone to do the intro to the new album because originally we had
this old poet guy who was going to do it for us, but then he got cancer and
we did not want to disturb his therapy, so we had to come up with someone
else and we thought Biff would be great to do that.
MM -
Why did the band decide to release the first single ‘As Long As I Fall’ as
a download only track?
Sascha – Well you could say it was the idea of the
record company. I’m not too much into the music system, but basically it
was the idea of the record company and they even choose the song as well.
MM –
Did the band not have any choice in what song was chosen?
Sascha – Yes we
had maybe three or four ideas on what song we’d like to introduce the
album by as a single, but it was the record company who chose which
particular song to release as the single.
MM – Going back to the industry itself, is there anything you could like
to see change, either from a musician or fan point of view?
Sascha – Well
I remember when I was a kid and we still had LP’s. You had the LP and
the picture on the album cover, you felt it was something of real value. Nowadays
people just don’t hold that same value to music, they maybe download it
and then that’s it. They might never get to see the cover or to feel it.
There’s still money out there with the record companies for people like
Mariah Carey but there’s not much money for smaller bands to tour and
stuff, which is pretty weird. That’s the reason why a lot of bands go out
on tour because it’s the only way we can make any money.
I was talking to
a fan a while ago and he actually told me that it wasn’t really pirating
having our album out there because it was promoting us. That’s bullshit
you know! People just don’t understand how much money it costs to go into
a recording studio and make a good album. They also don’t like to spend
money if they can get it for free. I don’t understand that attitude and I
don’t think many people truly value music any more. They think it’s
normal to have everything these days, but this is not helping the smaller
bands who are out there trying to make music. That’s why we do so many
live shows now, because that seems to be one of the few things that people do
still value, a good show.
MM – We went down to see Helloween last year on the tour and the
merchandise sold out within 20 minutes.
Sascha – That’s pretty cool but
that’s not how it is everywhere. Sometimes the other bands have bigger
and better merchandise than we have. They have cups and a lot of
different stuff, every bullshit you can get they have there. Then you
don’t sell any t-shirts there. Sometimes when you
are playing gigs in Asia and you’re playing in front of maybe 20,000 or 30,000
people, you might have everyone in the crowd singing along to all the songs
but you have to wonder where are all the record sales? Of course some
people can’t afford to buy the new album, but most people simply think pirating
is ok and it’s not.
MM -
Sascha we'd like to thank you for taking the time out to chat with us
today and would like to ask if you have any final messages for all your
fans out there?
Sascha – Thanks. We’re all looking forward to touring with Gamma Ray
and to seeing all our fans again.
MM – Well having already heard and reviewed the new album
elsewhere on this site I can confirm it truly is an amazing album. I
for one can't wait to hear it played live when the band hit London again
in January next year.
