|
Hailing
from Wuppertal, Germany, Udo Dirkschneider started his musical career as
lead singer and founding member of Metal legends Accept. In 1987
he formed his own self named band U.D.O. and continued to bring Metal to
the masses with tracks deemed 'too heavy' for his previous band.
Now it's 2007 and U.D.O. are about to release their new album 'Mastercutor'.
We catch up with Udo to find to out more.
MM - The new album has been a while
coming, why such a break between this new album and ‘Mission X’?
Udo – Well the
reason was because of all the touring. The album came out in
October 2005 and from there we were preparing the whole tour, then we
went out and did the whole tour in 2006. The tour started in
January and went on until the end of November. So then in between
we started working on the new album ‘Mastercutor’. If you
watch then you will see we are coming up every year and a half with a
new album, so it’s not that long.
MM – Can you write on the road or do
you have to sit down for a few months and write?
Udo – No, we
don’t write that much on the road. What we do is when we are
comfortable with the songs that we’ve done, after a while it’s time
to move on and then do some jamming, from this some riffs are coming out
and then our sound engineer he knows when to push the button and record
all these things. So although it’s not really done when we are
on tour, there are certain bits we do there.
For the 'Mastercutor' album we felt very strongly about it in May last
year so we had a break. We thought all the festivals are coming up
so we we'd sit down for 10 days. I think also we did the composing
in a different way. Normally a heavy or hard rock band writes the
music first, then perhaps the lyrics, then add a little melody.
But we do things the other way around, we had the lyrics first, then the
booklet ideas, then we had some melodies ideas. We had so much
ideas about lyrics, in a way these days it is always easy to find some
stories and when we had 25 ideas about lyrics, stories, then we choose
some, did a little touch up and there then we collected all the ideas
from all the members and we said here we go. We saw which idea
fits together with the lyrics. It’s much easier to create the
right atmosphere for the lyrics.
MM – That’s quite an interesting approach to approach it from the
lyrical side rather than the music side because a lot of bands have
guitar riffs that sometimes go back years and but you were obviously
talking story ideas, vocal ideas, lyrical ideas before you thought about
the music itself.
Udo – Yes we did this the first time on
the 'Man In The Machine' album. I don’t know the reasons why we
did it this way, but we found out that this was the better way for us.
You become more creative with the music and so that’s the way we do
everything now.
|
|
MM
– So the Mastercutor is perhaps better described as ‘Master
Executioner’ because he’s the head executioner?
Udo –
Yes he’s the show master, he’s directing the stupid game
shows, the stupid reality shows. When we had the lyrics
for the Mastercutor we were only talking about the idea of these
stupid game shows and reality shows, but then we got the whole
idea of the Mastercutor and the cover and everything when one
day I was in the room with my son and on the wallpaper I could
see this killer painting, so I said that could be the
Mastercutor!
From
there it all started and I thought that maybe the artwork could
be something like Eddie from Iron Maiden. Piece by piece
everything developed on this idea of the Mastercutor.
|
MM
– So fans should definitely take the whole booklet, lyrics, music and
look into the whole thing because there is a story there, not just a
collection of songs.
Udo – Yes in a way. We all play
games in our nature, some people play games with others. I don’t
want to say it is a concept album but in a way all the lyrics of every
song can be a game from a reality show, so in a way the Mastercutor is
directing the way of the whole album. He’s doing the
introduction like on the TV shows and at the end he’s saying ..
"ok thank you very much for listening, see you next time" …
MM - Anybody going to buy the album, what can they expect?
There’s not a lot of diversity with U.D.O., you pretty much stick to
your own core style, but with an interesting story.
Udo – Of course the music is not
changing, but I think it is a very straight forward album with a very
modern sound. I think it is a good heavy metal album, straight
forward with good songs. It was also one of those albums that was
very easy to sing and a lot of fun to do, without any pressure, and I
think you can really hear it was fun and relaxed.
MM - Your British fans would love to see you bring U.D.O. to the UK.
What would it take to get you to tour in this country?
Udo – I would
say to do a show in London is not a big deal and would be very easy for
us to do. I think however it is more interesting to do a whole
tour here in England and I think we would need somebody like Motorhead
to tour with, so more people can see Udo and maybe come back for more,
or maybe do a good festival over here and see how that comes across.
Otherwise we can only come over to do London and this is a shame.
MM - You’ve already been confirmed for this year’s Sweden Rocks but
are there any more festival dates lined up?
Udo – We are
doing a lot of festivals all over Europe and we do a lot of the big ones
in Germany. We do Earthshaker but we don’t do Bang Your Head,
because we’ve already done it so many times before. We have
another festival in Germany which is just a little one with maybe 3,000
or 4,000 people, but it is only with German fans and German bands,
it’s only a little festival. We’ll do 2 festivals in France,
festivals in Spain, Norway, Switzerland, and then the tour will start
until the end of September, the beginning of October.
MM - Back to the new album, who is the ‘Mastercutor’? Did you
have anybody in particular in mind?
Udo – Not
really, the whole idea was just when I saw this wallpaper. When
you see what we did with the video clip of 'Midnight' then you will see
the Mastercutor. The experimental things he did with his brain,
then he changes his face to that of the Mastercutor, and then he’s
looking for a stage where he can perform all this madness. In a
way we put together on this video clip the lyrics of the 'Mastercutor'.
If you open up something you open up the bad side of the world, so in
the end as a showmaster he found his taste for all this madness.
MM – Is he maybe the clown in the
circus with the sad face or is he the evil character?
Udo – He could
be either, he could be a clown, he could be a nice bloke. In a way
we created something that we had to follow through and develop.
|
MM
- The album itself has been described as traditional metal, with
great tracks like ‘The Wrong Side of Midnight’ and
‘Vendetta’ to name just two, do you have any particular
favourites?
Udo – Definitely
the ‘The Wrong Side Of Midnight’. We will definitely
start the whole show with the ‘Mastercutor’ introducing the
show as … bla bla bla … ‘Vendetta’ is another great
song. For me one of the songs with a lot of emotions is
‘Tears Of A Clown’. This ballad is something very
personal, it is like the tears of the clown, he has to entertain
the children but nobody is interested that he had some problems.
You
can say that I also have that mood on the stage. I have to
entertain people when I am on stage. My mother died of
cancer and even then I had to do the
|
|
|
show,
but in my mind I knew the end was coming. This was
something very personal. I think you can hear a lot of
emotion in this song and this is why I like this song very much.
‘Vendetta’
is a real heavy, also ‘We Do - For You’ is definitely a song
where we go very loud. At the moment it’s very hard for
us, to choose, what we would like to do is before the European
tour in September, we will do a voting on our homepage and ask
the people which songs off the new album they want to hear.
So then maybe we will be choosing in the same direction.
|
MM
- How would you describes the bands mood right now?
Udo – What can
I say about the band? At the moment I feel like these are the best
days, everything is coming together band wise, everybody is into
everything, there is real character together. We know each other
very well and it’s interesting because everybody is living in a
different country. Stefan and I are living in Germany still, we
are very close together, when we met and working with the music it's
like friends. Fritty the bass player is living in Spain.
Igor is living in Switzerland and Francesco is living in Italy.
When we are all together there is a good feeling of camaraderie and
there is this very good feeling, it’s not just something you get paid
for, it’s very good friendship.
MM - In
music today, I feel it’s hard to find something that sounds different,
something worth caring about, something that you really need to hear.
What efforts do you take to defy that?
Udo –
There are many different musical styles coming out but I don’t think
we are influenced by them. When I talk to the young bands they
always say that they listen to Accept, and now with U.D.O. there is
interest in there also. I’m not really inspired by the younger
bands, they are a different generation and they have different feelings,
you cannot copy this. I think for us it is interesting to stand
for what we are and to be as modern as possible. While it is still
easy for us to make this sound and I don't think we are changing styles
too much just to become popular.
MM
- You
did some guest vocals on Lordi's 'The Arockalypse' album, how was it
working with those guys?
Udo –
I’ve been many times to Finland and then one Monday they gave us a CD
and I saw the cover and thought whoah! What type of music will this be?
Then I listened to the music and I thought this doesn’t fit together
the outfit, the band and the music. That was the only thing I knew
about Lordi at that time. Then I got a phone call from the record
company and they asked me if I’d be interested in doing perhaps one
song with Lordi on their new album, so I said yes why not. They
sent me the song over night, then I said yeh I like the song. They
then told me that Lordi had said he never missed any concert with U.D.O.
and was a huge fan! I did not know him but I saw him for the first
time live.
All the band were introduced to me when I was singing the song and then
after an hour I was finished. They’d booked the studio for the
one day as they were thinking I would need the whole day to sing the
song. But I said no, thank you very much, but now I am done.
What can I say? It took an hour. I was just back from Japan
and we have become very good friends after all that. At the time
we were recording the song nobody knew he would be winning the
Eurovision song contest, so maybe he got some more points from that!
(laughs).
MM - Are there any bands
or individual artists you’d like to work with in the future?
Udo – Maybe
with somebody that is coming up, or I would like to do something with
Ronnie James Dio. We are very close, thinking wise, but you never
know what is coming up.
MM - After a career
spanning some 25 years you must have seen some highs and lows over that
time, are there any in particular that stick in your mind and that you
can talk about openly?
Udo – I miss
the big covers of the vinyl's. Now you have all these small CD’s
and to make up an eye-catching cover is not easy. With vinyl's it
was much easier. The modern stuff like downloading and the
internet, I think the record companies have been sleeping on this.
But now they can start using all this stuff, you have to live with it.
You can download a whole album from the internet, print out the cover if
you want, whatever you want and that will be the future. The only
thing is you perhaps won’t need a record company any more.
You can put your songs and your cover on your website now and people can
pay to download and you don’t have to pay for all this other stuff,
the money goes straight into your bank account. I think this will
be the way for bands to make money with this modern stuff. For me
as a musician I’m reading the law about all this downloading stuff
because you don’t sell that many CD’s any more, now it’s a
completely different story. For me the future may lie somewhere
between the CD shop and this downloading way.
|
|
MM
- What does the future hold for Udo and the band
U.D.O.?
Udo –
We start touring in May and go to Mexico, then we come back to
play festivals all over Europe and then maybe in the end of
September, the beginning of October we start of the European
tour. After that we then go back to more shows in South
America, Asia, China is asking. Definitely we have to go
to Russia and all the Eastern countries and also America is
calling again, but we will see. I know we are definitely
on tour for over a year. Of course there will be short
breaks in between!
|
MM
- Finally are there any
words you would like to add or any words of wisdom for all your fans out
there reading this?
Udo – This
album 'Mastercutor' is a challenge for us, already we know we can do
more on the next album. The artwork, the pictures, the media is
all new for U.D.O. and it’s good for us to start rocking in this
direction. Hopefully this will lead to a long future.
MM - We'd
like to thank Udo for taking the time out to talk to us today and wish
him and the rest of the band every success with their new album
Mastercutor. If you haven't heard it yet check it out, it's pure
Metal to the very core.
Special Guest Interviewer - Our Man In
The Pub |