Shortly before their first UK gig in support of the mighty Saxon we chat with founding member and guitarist Roland Grapow and bassist Jan S. Echert to find out more about their new album 'MKII' and the men behind the music.

MM - Since the last album there’s been a couple of line-up changes, firstly a new singer with Mike DiMeo and then a new drummer with Mike Terrana.  I know it’s still early days but how are the band feeling as a whole?
Roland – At the moment I would say very good.  We have been touring for two months already and today I am feeling tired. (The band have only just arrived at the venue moments before we started the interview).  The feeling in the band is quite nice though, I would say better than before.   

MM - How did you come to choose Mike DiMeo as your new singer and was there anyone else considered at the time?
Roland – We had a couple of singers in mind but when I heard Mike on MySpace I liked it a lot.  He was adding me and I just listened to his stuff with Riot and The Lizards and I liked it a lot.  The endings and his kind of phrasings are quite similar to Jorn’s style, even though he has a different voice.  The singers we had to sit before were a little bit too far from what we were doing, or they didn’t have the experience of singing in life, and that’s why Mike was the main guy.

MM - Your new drummer is also called Mike, I see a pattern starting to form here!
Roland – (laughs) Yes we have two Mike’s in the band now so we just call them Mike number one and Mike number two!

MM - I believe you and Mike Terrana already had some history together?  Roland – Yes, he had already played on my solo album in 1998/1999 and we toured a little bit together and did some shows supporting Gamma Ray in Germany, Spain and in South America.  I helped him to come into the German scene a little bit more and make the contact with Axel Rudi Pell.  Also a little bit with Gamma Ray, he helped with the Wacken Festival because the former drummer Daniel was sick at that time.  So he came into the German scene and he was always happy to be kept in work and do as many studio jobs as well, and now finally we are back together.  I just called him as a friend and said can you help me out and he said yes, I can join the band.  So I said no, just come and help me out first, but he immediately wanted to be the new band member.   

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?
Roland – I would say always the music first.  Sometimes when you have a theme you can connect your story around the lyrics, it is possible, but so far we haven't worked like that.  We had an idea with Jorn called ‘Starship’, that was the title, so already for the new album we had this idea.  Like on the first album we had the four elements, we had Aeronautics the air, then we wanted the water, that was the idea, but that was the only one because normally it is always the music first.   

MM - How long did the album take to create from the initial idea to the final conception?
Roland – I started last year in January.  I started doing the song writing totally fresh so I didn’t have any old material left and Uli did as well.  Then in March he sent me his stuff and I did the other way around, so we had around 8 or 9 songs together.  Then Jorn never listened to the stuff any more so I never gave him my material.  I guess Uli gave him some stuff but by then we needed a new singer so we had a little break in between.  Then we just arranged the material we had.

When Uli started fighting it was a big problem because the studio was booked already and the tour was also booked.  I said hey Axel come to Slovenia, we need more songs and finally we worked on the three songs from Axel and maybe another one I wrote and also a couple of songs that Mr. Eckhert had for the next album.  The main stuff was written but we also had some outside writers this time.  ‘Lost and Gone’ was written by Eric a Swedish guy who wrote the song for us.  

MM - How much input (if any) did these two new members have on the new album?
Roland – Quite a lot, I mean Mike number one wrote all the lyrics except ‘Lost and Gone’.  The melodies he was already bringing to the recording studio and everything, he had ideas already.  Then we worked more or less on the bulk of the melodies to get them into final shape for the Masterplan style.  I thought some of his material was too far away from our sound.  When Mike number two was playing,  this kind of drumming was very tasty to the songs, but by then of course the song writing was already finished. 

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?
Roland – I think I like all those steps but to start mainly the writing of it.  When you start writing with nothing but three chords and then you make it ten with the keyboards, now the melodies become quite interesting and you start to make the arrangement of the song.  It’s a long development for my kind of writing as I always need longer.  I am not writing a song in two hours or something, sometimes I can work for two weeks or a month.  Still when you record the song later in the studio you still change bits and pieces and have more ideas as you get closer to the picture towards the end.  So I like it, but then when we play live and people like it, then of course that is the best part at the very end of it.  

MM - What are some of your favourite highlights off the new album, what songs do you enjoy the most?
Roland – Oh that's hard to say.  ‘Call The Gypsy’ is always one that I totally like because it’s very groovy, it’s very good mix between aggressive and tasty and commercial, so I think that is a good song to play live but I have many favourites.  ‘Lost And Gone’ and ‘Take Me Over’ are quite cool songs.  I have many favourites but if I had to choose just one then it would be ‘Call The Gypsy’.

MM - What songs have you actually added from the new album to your live set?
Roland – When we play one hour set we have three songs from the new album, ‘Lost And Gone’, ‘Take Me Over’ and ‘Keeps Me Burning’, but when we play 45 minutes then ‘Keeps Me Burning’ is out. 

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?
Roland – It’s hard to say because sometimes people are not showing their feelings so much anyway.  Then of course if they are getting into the older stuff more then sometimes they have still to listen to the newer songs.  I guess the main interest for me is to see that we are supporting Saxon and we are getting a lot of new fans from the Saxon older fans, because most of them don’t know our music at all. 

MM - Have you had a chance to consider which direction you would like to go with your next album or is it too early to say?
Roland – It’s too early to judge now because I think it’s just the writing.  I’m not thinking about directions too much, it’s just about feelings.  It could be totally more aggressive, I don’t think we can get more catchier or more radio friendly kind of songs.  I think we should keep to a metal level as much as possible.  I like Hard Rock and Metal a lot.  It should be powerful and well made and that’s the main quality that Masterplan has.  Like I said before we are very colourful and we have many elements from the past, but also some modern stuff melded together into our style, that's what I like.  The whole production should sound good, that’s the main key for us.  We’ve wrote so many great songs and nobody knows about them! (laughs)

In England we played the Bloodstock Festival a couple of years ago and got some nice reactions and I’m really surprised that people still like this kind of German melodic rockier metal, we’re thinking we’re sounding so much from that German metal but we’re international now.  (Just then Jan joins us in the interview).

MM – There is always a good mixture of songs, a little bit of power metal, a little bit of prog …
Roland – Yes that is what I mean. The nicest compliment I have sometimes from people who are so far away from this type of music, like people who like death metal music which is not normally my cup of tea but when they hear Masterplan they hear the quality and they like it.  They’ve said it’s cool mate even though it’s not my style.  I have the same feelings for other kinds of music like death metal if the music is great, like In Flames, there may be no melody singing at all but I like that music a lot because actually I can hear the quality of the arrangements. The guitar work and everything, it’s very tasty it’s just it’s not my own style, but I still have some albums because I like it so I need to have it.        

MM - How important is it to the band to be accessible to the fans, either face to face or via the internet? 
Roland – Well it’s getting more and more important. It’s a very easy way to communicate without having to travel to Canada or wherever. We had some guy from Siberia contact us, normally there would be no chance to contact us, it’s fantastic that you can have access to those people and they can have access to us, it’s great. 

Jan – I’m very lazy when it comes to the internet but Roland has convinced me.  I am getting more and more into it though.  With Roland and then Axel and now both of the Mike’s being very much on line, so yes of course it is important for us as a band. 

MM - Have you had a chance to speak to many of the fans after the gigs?
Roland – Yes, but it depends, if we have time then we will go down to the merchandise stand and of course then we are selling more merchandise because people like to have things signed.  I would always like to talk but sometimes you are just too tired, or you don’t feel good and are a little bit sick and you just want to hide yourself away.  Axel is very sick now up there on the bus, he has caught a cold or something. 

Jan – A big part of the crew have been sick and there’s all this flu going around, it’s the second time now that we are getting something.  There are 17 people on the bus and you just can’t avoid it. 

Roland - We also had some virus with really bad diarrhoea and we were throwing up but luckily I didn’t get it!  MM – Ah not so good to have on a tour bus.  Roland – Yes, not when there are 12 people with it!     

MM - How long have you as an individual been performing and can you remember the first time you ever played to a live audience?
Jan – Well the first time in front of an audience was as a Fanfare player when I was 9 I guess.  The first time for money was when I was 15 and in Hamburg and in a club called Logo and we tried to play Jazz but it didn’t work out. 

Roland – I guess I was at school my friends knew I had an electric guitar and a little amplifier at home and no band. I was learning things like Grand Funk Railroad and I was also singing through the same amp for the microphone, it was great sounding!  Finally somebody said to me, I think it was my English teacher, that I could sing and he said that my pronunciations were very nice as they were very American. Like my father who was singing, I was just copying him. 

But I couldn’t speak English at all and I didn’t know what I was singing. I was always very bad in English.  He said to me to bring my instrument in tomorrow and then my friends helped me carry the stuff and I played maybe 45 minutes at school. I was so loud all the other classes came to see and they said … we like this it sounds nice! … I think it probably sounded terrible but they just wanted to say something nice.  I was so nervous then, really shaking, sometimes it never stops. 

Jan – I still have this shaking feeling before every show since I was 25 or 27 years.  The guys are laughing at me because at every show about half an hour before we are to go on I will be completely calm and then 20 minutes before I go it's like … shit! Oh no! … it is horrible. 

Roland - The worst show I ever had I could not sleep for 3 days before as I knew it was so important for me for the future to be a professional replacing Kai Hansen. It was just seven songs but it was just so special. We were in Hamburg for this special event and we would get some good money, but I was so nervous and I forgot the lyrics and the chords. I was standing there with the microphone and I thought it was so far away if I needed to go to the toilet.  I had no appetite for two days!  But that’s all gone now, it’s just a little bit of adrenalin maybe 5 minutes before the show and then after 5 minutes and the first song if the show is ok. But if the instrument doesn’t work or the audience is not so good...  If they stand with their arms crossed then I feel like I don’t want to be there, but I have to smile. But when you catch the moment and the vibe off the people then it’s good and you feel comfortable, then there is no thinking.  That’s what I like, to not think on stage. 

MM – Well a lot of the English audiences are like that but it’s just because we are shy.  Jan – Oh thanks!  Thanks for making me real nervous right now!  MM – No, it’s not that we are not enjoying ourselves, it’s just we are sometimes very shy as an audience.  Roland – Actually this can happen in Germany as well, especially in Hamburg. They have their people who go ok and they have these little note pads and they are writing away, I am sure they are writing down our mistakes! (laughs).  MM – No!  I’m sure they are just trying to remember the names of the songs so they can write them down.  Roland – Well when I see this it does make me nervous! It’s like aha!, Is this the rock n’ roll police?

MM - What was your first guitar and what song did you master on it first?
Jan – The first bass guitar I played was a Fender Precision, but it was not mine it was from a friend of mine.  My first own bass was a Yamaha BB1000S with full body, very state of the art at the time, but I know it sounds crap now but in those days it was fantastic to have it.  Actually I started as a guitar player but the first song I learnt on bass was probably Deep Purple's ‘Smoke on the Water’. 

Roland – Yes I guess everyone started with that song. 

Jan – Oh yes that looks easy, I can be a rock star! (laughs).  Yeh, and then just you try to play it properly and watch that idea disappear into nothingness. 

Roland – My first guitar was a cheap acoustic guitar from East Germany my father bought it for me and I learnt ‘Frere Jaques' on it, then came ‘Smoke on the Water’!  Then I found some guitar books in the music store of Grand Funk Railroad and from then I was imitating them with my fingers on the chords, then finally I just started to learn everything from listening to old vinyl albums.  It was an easier way even when you are learning something melodic or solo parts, to pitch down to get the different speed and then you can learn the stuff easier.  I guess many guitar players my age learnt like that.    

MM - Can you remember what was the first band that you saw perform live as a fan? Did you ever think that one day you would be that person up on stage and everybody would be rocking and cheering at you? 
Jan – AC/DC and no.

MM – What you didn’t picture yourself running around in little shorts? 
Jan – Nooo! (laughs)  My first live show was with AC/DC on their Hells Bells tour in 1980/81 and that was the first proper known band I had been to see.  Actually I was very disappointed because Whitesnake should have played but Coverdale broke an arm or something and because of that he didn’t play, and we’d actually only came because of Whitesnake, and then he didn’t play!. 

Roland – 1974 was my first show.  It was Grand Funk Railroad in 1974 in Hamburg and my father was there with some friends. I was always dreaming that one day that would be me and thought it would be so cool and now finally I am cooler! Yes I was dreaming about me being the sexiest guitar player in rock! (laughs).  

MM - Every musician at some point in their life decides to pick up an instrument and learn how to play.  What was it that made you decide to do so in the first place?
Roland – Well like I said it was when I first saw the Grand Funk Railroad and just this light bulb went off in my head.  It was so cool and I knew I really wanted to make something of this.  They just really inspired me right from the very beginning.  Even though I listened to bands like Foreigner, Uriah Heep, the Beatles, The Stones, when I heard this album I thought ... This is wild! I want to scream and go wild on stage! ... I was this little boy dreaming all about that.  They were such an inspiration to me. I didn’t want any to learn any other instrument, all I wanted to be was a singer and to play the guitar. 

Jan – The girls at school!  No actually my father played the Tuba, I listened to the radio and also because I saw the Woodstock movie and I thought ... Oh that’s cool! I want to do that! ... I had a cheap guitar from my warehouse and then I was trying to play on it and two girls from my school came past and they said ... Oh you play guitar! How wonderful! ... and they sat beside me.  I thought ... Yeh! ... I felt like the king! (laughs).  I just kept on playing from there on.    

MM - At the moment you are out on tour with Saxon.  Are there any other bands you would like to go out on tour with, either as support acts or as headliner? 
Jan – Metallica! 

Roland – Well Metallica is a great band but I guess we don’t fit their style.  The Scorpions I like a lot, it would be great to tour with them in America or Russia because they are really big there.  Touring now has been fun, we’ve played Greece which have such fantastic audiences, they are really open to music.  People from Russia write to us all the time and ask when are we coming, but it’s not easy you know.  There are some other bands we would like to tour with but they should be bigger than us.  Ozzy Osbourne.

Jan – For me personally it would be a dream come true because I am some sort of fan. Metallica’s great, also AC/DC, although we would completely not fit.  I saw AC/DC play in Hamburg and the support was the Black Crowes, who are a very well known band and are well known all over the planet.
 

MM - What bands did you grow up listening to and how have they influenced the way you approach your music today?
Roland – In the beginning it was Grand Funk Railroad, a little later it was Michael Schenker, Uli Jon Roth. In the 70’s there were loads of bands I liked from America - Kansas, Foreigner, Styx, Journey, very melodic stuff and Toto later.  I was a big Toto fan, now I am not listening to this stuff any more because it is too old for me, it’s too nice, too beautiful.  Journey sometimes now are still rocking, the later stuff with Steve Perry is good, or Boston.  There were so many good bands in the 70’s. 

In the 80’s then I started with Saxon, Judas Priest, Yngwie Malmsteen.  I saw Saxon support Judas Priest in Hamburg around 83’/84’ and it was fantastic.  Later on I saw the Scorpions with Michael Schenker coming back and he did just 4 shows then quit again!  I guess also John Sykes on guitar, BB King, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jeff Beck is good.   

MM - What sort of music do you listen to at the moment or do you not get much chance? 
Roland – I like Rammstein a lot, I like to see them live, I also like their video.  Their new video ‘Volkerball’ is for me the most professional type of entertainer.  They play good music but they also know how to entertain.  They are more American than the Americans!  Typical German’s I suppose.  Maybe a lot of radio stuff because I’m not listening to metal too much at home.  When I’m in the studio I like to listen to guitar players, maybe some UFO stuff with Schenker, MSG, Van Halen, because I like the great names, it’s not about the songs so much, it’s about how they play. 

Jan – For the past couple of years I have been very Greece influenced and I have started listening to some ancient Greek stuff, very strange!  What’s modern?  Most of the modern stuff I don’t like. I used to like Robbie Williams for great melodies and fantastic performance and basically being true to himself, but there’s not that many new bands that excite me. 

For a while I liked Hayseed Dixie, but now there are like 20 of those bands around Europe copying them and they were copying other bands so it was all very much about copying others. It’s hard to find something new that really excites me. I must agree with Roland when he speaks about Rammstein, they are something special.  I am happy when it’s quiet.  

There’s one great British band that I saw in Hamburg, a new band, they also copy a style and they are called The Answer.  I saw them perform in Hamburg together with a band from Gibraltar called Breed 77.  Both bands were fantastic live, especially Breed 77 as an opener, I said WOW!. What they did with the acoustic guitars in the flamenco style, then coming in with right into your face metal, very good.  The Answer after them were very great to see, I liked them a lot. Phew I found two new bands I like! (laughs). 

Roland – I like a lot of different bands like the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, they’ve done some really cool stuff.  U2. Anything good but I am not such a big fan of something that is too close to something else.  Also I really like some 60’s music, I know I was very young but I like this kind of pure sound with The Beatles and The Kinks and all that type of thing from that scene, it’s really nice.  Even when I see Elvis Presley I have to watch it, I’m not switching it over.  When I was younger and I didn’t care about all this but now I can see the quality much more than before. 

Jan – Before I even knew we were going out with Saxon I thought when was the last time I was listening to Saxon?, so I bought the live album ‘The Eagle Has Landed’. Then a few weeks later Roland sent me an email asking what about touring with Saxon and do you have time?  I thought … that’s strange!  

Roland – Another band I would like to mention is Iron Maiden. We did things with them when I was in Helloween many times and it was really nice to see how great the fans were, it was really unbelievable to open for them.  I think the styling was a good fit as well.  Helloween were perhaps a little bit more modern so I guess it was good for the fans also to see a support act like that. 

MM – Yes sometimes you can have bands on tour together who are totally different but they work really well together. 
Roland – Yes and I guess the fans are more open minded and they are not saying that they are just listening to just Maiden, or Saxon, or Priest. They also listen to Pink Floyd or Toto, or whatever. 

Jan – Sometimes when you are out on tour you have to convince people of the quality of your live playing.  Take this Saxon tour, most of the people are here for Saxon of course, this is completely clear, but sometimes we have a feeling that after the show when people go to the merchandise stand and buy a t-shirt or cd and show an interest this is a nice feeling, even though the music style wise is very different. 

Roland – It is really true that we are selling more merchandise now than on the last headliner tour with the old line-up. Things were not selling so good, but I don’t know why.  Some people came mainly for us, but here it has gone a different way because here the people have come for Saxon, but they are asking … who is this support band? … and this is nice, it feels good.   MM – Yes, hopefully we will have you back but headlining before too long.  Roland – I hope so.  Next year we are coming back again, maybe for headlining. 

MM - Having been in the music business for some time now you must have seen some radical changes over the years.  Some good, some bad.  What do you think has been the biggest shake up over the years and what if anything would you like to see change?  

When you see how many fans come to the big Festivals such as Wacken and Sweden Rocks, they are getting bigger with maybe 30 or 40 thousand, but where are these people buying the albums?  I think half of the people have perhaps just downloaded it for all their favourite bands.  Everybody is a bit consumed with wanting to see as many bands on the one weekend instead of going to each of their favourite bands private shows and waiting for them.  It’s definitely a big change which is affecting the situation of the labels and the bands very much.  

MM – Well in the 80’s bands would do 30 or 40 date tours and visit all the little cities, but then when the big arenas opened up bands only came and did maybe one or two dates per country, so a lot of the fans didn’t get a chance to see their heroes. 
Roland – Yes I suppose the bigger bands never came to Hamburg, they always came to Hanover because it’s more central for all the other areas and it has a bigger arena to play.  I used to always wonder why I had to drive to Hanover because the bands were not coming to Hamburg, but you are right, there were many many more shows in the 70’s and 80’s and every little city was visited.  But also I have to say that sometimes it is easier to make just 5 shows in every country on the big stadiums reaching more people and having little breaks in between instead of making 50 shows like we are doing now and feeling totally fucked.

I am really looking forward to doing this and I am also really looking forward to in a week when it is all over. But I am really happy especially to be over here in England because it was always my dream to have a little bit more success and have more access to the people here. They are maybe not so connected to the German scene and they don’t know what is in the magazines.  It’s really hard to be featured and it’s nice to play in front of the English fans with an English band instead of another German band and perhaps not having many people turn up. 

MM – I think AFM as a label do seem to do quite a lot for their artists over here in the UK. 

Roland – That’s nice.  I was here to help with some promotion in February and I saw it’s not easy to get a lot of interviews.        

MM - Finally are there any final words you would like to add or say to all your fans out there reading this?
Jan – I love England.

Roland  – We are really looking forward to playing a lot of good shows, it’s not always possible to give 110% any more after so many shows.  I am really looking forward to playing these shows and hopefully we will get a lot of new fans from this tour.   

 All content and images are copyright of

unless otherwise stated.

Site affiliates: