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Unless you were lucky enough to catch the recent tour with Doro Pesch, you
may not be familiar with this band ... yet! If you like traditional metal
then this is one band you gotta check out.
Live they are phenomenal. Their debut album 'Prayer For The Dying' is even
more explosive. We were lucky enough to temporarily kidnap drummer Eckhard
“Ed the tongue” Ostra after the bands performance at the Bradford Rio to
ask him a few questions about the band.
MM - Hi! How are you doing?
Ed - I'm fine. I always feel fine after a show.
MM - Is this the first time you have been
over here in England?
Ed - Yes, this is our very first time over here in England and we are
really enjoying it. Actually tonight was our very first gig in England so
it is really special. This is the very first place we have played in the
UK.
MM - Will we be seeing you back over here
again?
Ed - Yeh, well there are two more shows on this tour with Doro. Tomorrow
we are going to Dudley and then the next day we are in London. We are
really happy to be given this opportunity to be over here and be able to
play here in England. All of our favourite bands are coming from this
place and so it's like coming home!
MM - What bands do you like?
Ed - We are very much into the eighties NWOBHM bands like Judas Priest,
Iron Maiden, a couple of German bands as well such as Accept. But this is
where our roots are coming from basically. I guess you can hear that in
our music and there's no doubt about it.
MM - How did you get on the tour with Doro?
Did you know Doro before the tour?
Ed - Well our manager, after we played the great Waken festival in Germany
he made this decision and asked us if we would like to do the support for
Doro. We said ... Wow! because it was just such a amazing opportunity for
us. She's touring all over Europe and we think the two bands fit pretty
well together. OK, so we are that little bit heavier than Doro because we
are more into the traditional Heavy Metal kind of thing, but still it's
such an amazing opportunity for us. The band are great and we are having
such a lot of fun. It's working just perfect.
MM - How have you found the crowds?
Sometimes bands have found the fans over here in the UK a little bit
reserved.
Ed - Actually I have no problem at all. It is always a great challenge
when you go onstage and the place is not so crowded because nobody wants
to stand at the front because everybody is watching them. For us though
this is just great because it gives us the chance to say ... come on, I'll
get you ... and finally it works.
You have to think for yourself because if you have just one or two people
in the audience you just have to bring out everything that you got. You
still have to give it all you got because these one or two people paid to
see you. You have to give them the whole show. For us it is just great
that it works. It makes me and all the boys so much happier.
 MM - How long have
the band been together?
Ed - With this line-up we have been together for 2 years. It's a former
German band actually, the bands name used to be Repression, but this was
pretty much a local kind of thing. After the pre-production of our album,
'Prayer For The Dying', we decided to pick up a real professional singer
Mike Tirelli. After that everything just moved by itself, it was amazing.
MM - How long have you all known each
other, was it just the lead singer that you replaced?
Ed - Yes. Wayne Banks has joined us for the tour because our former
bassist Andreas had a lot of work to do at home and had a little trouble
getting time off with his employers. So he decided it was better to move
home again and take care of his family and stuff. So we were so lucky that
Wayne was able to join us.
He didn't know anything about the band, even when he was coming to
Germany, the tour was already starting in Germany and he had no clue at
all. Not the bands name, not a single song, and three days later he went
onstage with us in Switzerland. It was amazing. He comes from Nottingham
and he's great. So it's a pretty international thing right now.
MM - Are you doing the full tour with Doro?
Ed - Yes we're doing the whole tour.
MM - So what's that 47, 48 dates?
Ed - Well almost. We didn't start with the dates she did before in
September. We joined her in Nurnberg. But we will stay with her now until
the end.
MM - That's quite a punishing tour, it's a
lot of dates.
Ed - Yeh it's a lot of dates. But it's really good fun to be playing over
here and over there. Sometimes it's hard to drive for the bus because the
distance is sometimes pretty far. But as soon as you get into the venue
you can just smell it and you say ... come on that's it!
MM - How would you describe your music to
anyone who hasn't heard it yet?
Ed - Well I would like to say that if someone is still pretty much into
the NWOBHM scene like Judas Priest, Iron Maiden and Ronnie James Dio, then
I guess you will be pretty happy with Messiah's Kiss because you will find
out there is a lot of similarity between us and our hero's. We also try to
put on a new sound so that we are not too traditional and it's a very
powerful production of our songs and it seems to work.
MM - You played the Wacken festival earlier in the year.
Ed - Yes, Wacken was our very first Festival but what will happen next
year we don't know. First of all we have to start writing songs for the
next record which is coming up. Then we will have to see what happens. We
would love to come and play at all the festivals but we will have to just
wait and see what happens. It is always great to play in front of so many
people. The people over there, it doesn't matter which festival you play,
the fans are all in the mood for partying all day long.
MM - The band are signed to SPV is that
correct? How did you get hooked up with them?
Ed - Yes that is correct. It was really funny because we had only just
picked up Mike and changed the name from Repression. We were originally
only going to make 500 copies like we had always done in the past. These
were always self productions and self distribution. We had to go to meet
his producer and manager in Germany. When we went to the place to do the
record with him I asked Mike to ask him if he would be allowed to sing our
stuff. I said we would need to bring 500 pieces on the market to get the
money back.
All of a sudden the phone rings and it was Rainer Hansel and I said ...
WOW, what's going on here? He said ... Eddy have you brought out the
record to any record company yet? I said we hadn't done anything because
at that time it wasn't finished yet. He said to me ... man do me a favour,
don't do it. Wait until I give you a call in two weeks and there might be
a chance that we can get along with each other, or after that you can do
whatever you want, but just give me two weeks. I said that that would be
perfect.
So two weeks later my phone rang again, it was Rainer Hansel again and he
said ... right we have to sit down at the table and we gotta talk. It was
weird, it really happened that easy, it was unbelievable.
MM - Most bands find it really difficult to
get any interest at all.
Ed - Yes, definitely, but we were lucky that Mike still had the contract
in Germany with Holy Mother and he had to take care of his own business
with that. He brought a CD with him when we went to see Rainer and he was
pretty happy with the result. He said ... hey this is great. So he let me
take care of the telephone call and said let's get together, and here we
are.
 MM - Who writes the
songs for the band?
Ed - Usually Georg the guitarist. I also do a little bit of song writing
as well, to give a different kind of colouring in it. Because everybody
has his own style and Georg is such an amazing song writer. If he comes
home from a stressful day to calm himself down he writes songs. He writes
such amazing songs and it works pretty good.
MM - The band has quite a big sound live,
similar to a big arena sound. It's as if you've been on the road for 15 -
20 years.
Ed - Well you know as I told you earlier I am still a huge metal fan of
each and every metal band from England and I still go to all the concerts.
This is what I focus on. I try to remember what it was like to watch the
huge bands like Judas Priest perform in the eighties. When they were still
playing huge venues and I try to get back to this. Because we are used to
this and we love this, this is actually the reason I guess why we sound
very similar to this. We've tried to find our own style and I think it has
worked out.
You know you are never quite sure what you are hearing when we are doing a
set because you say ... damn I know this ... because we have taken a
little bit of all these bands. This is the kind of music we love and you
can tell where we are coming from. Metal music is like 30 years old and we
don't want to just make new things for the sake of it. Why? It's like
McDonalds, it is good, it's always been good, and it always will be good!
MM - Don't break it if it's not broken!
Ed - Exactly! We just want to do the things which we can do well and which
we love. There is nothing for us to be playing nu-metal or whatever, its
not my style. It's not our style, it's just not our way either.
MM - Do you ever get a touch of the nerves
before you go onstage? You all look totally relaxed as if you are just up
there enjoying yourselves.
Ed - Yes, you know when we played Wacken it was kind of heavy because it
was our very first gig together and we had to go out in front of so many
people. So that was kind of strange. Then we felt a little bit nervous of
course. But now we have done something like 17 gigs and so were getting
back down to business.
On the other hand we have been playing for almost 20 years so although it
was only locally with the old band, if you play live, you play live. It
doesn't matter if you are playing in front of 3,000 people or 300. I
always try to focus on what we do.
MM - What do you hope your fans will take
away from a live show?
Ed - 110% power. Just metal straight. Double bass drum attacks, twin solo
guitars, and a very amazing voice. Those are really the kid of direction
we go. I guess you agree we are like a little bit of Ronnie James Dio, a
little bit of Rob Halford, a little bit of maybe David Coverdale if he
gets the blues. If you like this then come to our concerts and you will
like us.
Nobody in the band is like Yngwie Malmsteen or George Lynch, or any of the
guys like this where you just go to the concert to see just them. We are
just a band, five members and that's it. We're all on the same level and
we represent the band and nothing else. Not a single person it's just a
whole kind of thing.
MM - There's no room for ego's.
Ed - Exactly, its not our kind of thing. There are no egos in the band
that's what makes it easy. Everybody's respecting each other and everybody
knows what he is doing. You know I'm not Cozy Powell, I know that. I try
to play more
straight ahead of drumming and sing along with the chorus and stuff and
that's it. That's my job. I prefer to show the people what I can do and
not what I can't do. I know there are people out there who sometimes try
just that little bit too much, but I say leave that to the people who
really know what they are doing.
MM - What's the music scene like back in
Germany?
Ed - Well it's pretty much more into this kind of direction. They like
Primal Fear for example, Metallium, Grave Digger, it's almost what we are
doing. Perhaps I should say that we are doing almost what they are doing
because they are so much more famous and stuff. Their concerts are packed
with people again and again it's a sign Metal is coming back.
MM - What band or artist would you really
love to tour with?
Ed - Definitely Judas Priest. We are all huge Judas Priest fans, we have
been fans of theirs since Judas Priest was first on the planet. For us
that would pretty much be who we would choose because to us they are the
real metal gods.
 MM - Have you heard
Rob Halford's new album?
Ed - It's not really my stuff, I actually liked 'Resurrection' better
because it was more Judas Priest style. But I really like what Rob Halford
is doing because he really tries to find different sounds to become more
modern.
It's real dangerous for him to do that because on the one side people
accept things like he has to sound like Judas Priest, but on the other
hand he has to improve himself, and it is very difficult to do that. I
think he does a great job, he is still the best. There is no doubt about
it, he is simply the best.
MM - Would you say that Messiah's Kiss are
a fan orientated and accessible band?
Ed - Yes, we always love to come out after a show and talk to people and
listen to what they suggest. Sometimes it's nice when people say good
critical things because this gives me something to think about when I go
to bed. Sometimes I really try to improve whatever it is that they tell to
me.
When I'm sitting onstage its harder to look at it from a fans point of
view. I'm never sure how it sounds to them. I know we all have so much to
learn and so I am always very happy if someone comes up to me after a show
and says to me ... what about this, what about that, have you tried this,
why don't you have a sing-a-long part in there. It really helps because
then we can go away and talk about this and try things out and it's just
amazing, I love it.
*Interview continued here* |
