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Interview with DORO: “We already have six songs for the new album”

Posted by aliblackdiamond on December 10, 2020
Posted in: Interviews. Tagged: , , , , , , . 7 Comments

Interview By Alison Booth

Metal Queen DORO has certainly earned that title, with a career spanning over more than three decades. From the first album release with her band WARLOCK in 1984, Doro paved the way for women in metal and has long been an inspiration, empowering so many artists in the rock and metal industry.

After releasing her first album post-WARLOCK in 1989, Doro has never looked back, with a steady stream of albums and collaborations with many artists over the years.

Just a few weeks ago, Doro released a best of album, “Magic Diamonds – Best Of Rock, Ballads & Rare Treasures”, via her own label Rare Diamonds Productions. The album contains a fantastic collection of 56 songs with 20 rock songs, 18 ballads and 18 rare treasures!

Metal Shock Finland Senior Manager Alison Booth, recently caught up Doro who was the special guest on the 8th anniversary of her radio show Blackdiamond’s Metal Mayhem at TotalRock. The whole show can be heard at this location.  You can hear the chat on the audio player below, along with a selection of excerpts to read:

Discussing the new album, Doro explained:

“There’s another box set and it has two double vinyl, one is white, the other is clear. It all looks nice, sounds great.

I did it because it was impossible to tour this year and we had two European tours and two American tours, Australia, South America. Everything was lined up, tons of great festivals and everything got cancelled or postponed. So I thought yeah I wanna go back into the studio, working on some new songs, which I did. And then I thought, maybe I want to put out a best of record. At first I started with like fifteen songs, then it was twenty five, thirty five, forty five and now fifty six songs!

And there’s still some songs I would love to put on maybe volume two in the next couple of years or something. There are so many songs that deserve to be heard in a different arrangement or live. That’s what I miss the most. There’s tons of live versions on there, so even if people can’t come to the concerts, they can definitely get the excitement and the power when you listen to it.”

Doro expressed her thoughts about the pandemic:

“It was a big shock. My last normal gig was actually March and we celebrated the fortieth anniversary of Saxon in my former hometown in Düsseldorf, Germany. And there was Saxon and Diamond Head, Tygers Of Pan Tang and us and we had a great, great night – it was awesome!

Then, two days later they announced only a thousand people allowed in the venue, then it went down to five hundred people, then nobody and yeah, so March was our last normal gig. Then we thought maybe we can hang in there till the summer festivals. Yeah and then summer festivals one by one got cancelled or postponed, it was shocking, it was shocking.

I did a couple of things which was like totally different, was a big challenge. We did some drive-in shows. For the first time it was weird, because it felt exactly like our All We Are video that was shot in 1987, where everybody was in their cars and we were performing on top of the tour bus and then with the magic of metal and you know and Warlock, it came to life and we were rocking out together and it felt exactly like that. I hopped on stage and I saw only cars, it was so surreal but it was fun. We made it I think that everybody had a great time, it was exciting! And we actually recorded some songs and one song is on the Magic Diamonds album, which I like so much. It’s Love Me In Black and you don’t see any audience participation but you can feel there’s a good vibe going, a nice, magical version.

It was a rough year I think for everybody and we try to stay positive, but it’s hard when you’ve nothing to do – especially for the band and the crew. But we’re hoping next year we’ll get back to normal kind of, it would be awesome. And if not, then we’ll work on a new album.”

Doro had lots to say on the topic of duets:

“Actually, all my duet partners were always great because we stayed great friends. Like there’s one song on this album with Udo Dirkschneider and it’s a cover version of Breaking The Law, because Judas Priest was my first band I’ve toured with in 1986 and I always wanted to say thank you to Priest, so we recorded Breaking The Law and I was just working with Udo Dirkschneider on his album and said ‘hey Udo you wanna work on my album as well?’ with an orchestra, it was really nice, came out so great. We always love to play Breaking The Law.

There’s another duet with Tarja Turunen who sang for Nightwish and this song’s called Walking With The Angels – something that fits so perfectly because she has such an angelic voice.

And then there’s one song, Bad Blood, that’s with Blaze Bayley. We are great friends for a long time. And Descent, that’s another song with Pete Steele and unfortunately he is not any more with us, but he was a great guy. He was the tallest guy I ever met, he was such a gentle giant.

And then my favourite duet is Love Me Forever with Lemmy. That was my first time that I did a duet and it was in 2000. We recorded it for my Calling The Wild album. We did two songs, one was Alone Again and the other one was Love Me Forever and Eric Singer is playing drums on it, the KISS drummer and Bob Kulick, he played guitar on it and it was in his studio. And Bob, he passed away a couple of months ago, I couldn’t believe it. We always stayed friends. So these duets, they mean a lot to me, especially Love Me Forever with Lemmy and Descent with Pete Steele, because you know – I feel we’re very connected in heart and soul, but it’s kinda tough to live without them. Lemmy was my best friend, I loved him so much.

On the “Ace Of Spades” anniversary:

“Somebody sent me the nice box set, oh it’s awesome! If people want to get something really special, this is wow, it’s so nice. Yeah Ace Of Spades was my favourite album. I had my first band in 1980 and when this one came out, like wow, it was so inspiring. I still love that song Ace Of Spades, oh my God. And Love Me Like A Reptile was the second song on Ace Of Spades and it was by coincidence that Dave Ellefson said ‘hey you want to sing a MOTÖRHEAD song?’ And it was oh yeah! Maybe it was meant to be, it was a lot of fun!“

Looking ahead to the future, Doro revealed:

“If I could do ten or twenty more records it would be awesome. I love people and that’s I guess what I’m here for and yeah, I just wanna make people feel great and get inspiration, motivation and positive metal power – that’s what I would love to continue doing. There’s not much, I don’t have any other dreams – I’m definitely living the dream, making music. I always wanted to become a singer since I was three years old.

But I love animals too, that’s my other passion and I just wrote a song for the new album and it’s called Heavenly Creatures, that’s a work title.

Yeah next year and hopefully a tour behind the new album, but we’ll see. But we already have six songs so I think middle of next year the album will be done.”

Official DORO Facebook

Official DORO Website

SCAR OF THE SUN: Signs Worldwide Record Deal with Napalm Records

Posted by aliblackdiamond on December 7, 2020
Posted in: Int. News. Tagged: , . Leave a comment

Breathe in the fresh modern metal sound of SCAR OF THE SUN, spliced with atmospheric soundscapes and dynamic riffs! Napalm Records is pleased to welcome this prime unit to its growing roster.

Formed in the late ’00s in London and consequently relocating to Athens, Greece, SCAR OF THE SUN released their first self-titled demo in 2005, that was nominated for “Demo of the Month” by Metal Hammer Greece. With their first full-length, “A Series Of Unfortunate Concurrencies” (2011), followed by the powerful “In Flood” (2016), the five-piece gained avid reviews all over the world. In the blink of an eye, SCAR OF THE SUN has made a name for themselves with the very special ability to deliver a fresh take on modern atmospheric metal that propelled the band into the international spotlight. After sharing the stage with outstanding acts such as Dark Tranquillity and Insomnium, as well as compatriots Rotting Christ, and touring alongside shredding outfits like Firewind, Manimal and Monuments, SCAR OF THE SUN is currently gearing up to unleash their third album onto the masses. More to be announced soon…

SCAR OF THE SUN on the signing:
“It is really hard to describe how happy, thankful and honored we feel now that we are part of the Napalm Records family! We have been following the label for years and admiring not only its roster but also its top-notch level of work. Now the only thing left is to overcome the current virus situation and get back on the road, since we are committed to work even harder and see you all out there!”

Join the modern metal thunder and get a glimpse of what lies ahead with the ear-conquering track ‘Among Waters and Giants’, cut from the band’s furious second full-length, “In Flood“.

SCAR OF THE SUN is:
Terry Nikas – Vocals
Alexi Charalampous – Guitars
Greg Eleftheriou- Guitars
Panagiotis Gatsopoulos – Bass
Thanos Pappas – Drums

SCAR OF THE SUN online:
HOMEPAGE
FACEBOOK
INSTAGRAM

Interview with WOLF HOFFMANN: “I’m sure we can all meet again”

Posted by aliblackdiamond on November 25, 2020
Posted in: Interviews. Tagged: , , , , , . 7 Comments

Interview By Alison Booth

During these difficult times, there is always some positivity to be found when it comes to music. So, we are very lucky that metal giants ACCEPT were not going to let a pandemic stop them and have created their forthcoming 16th studio album “Too Mean To Die” over this last year! The album is set for release on 15th January 2021 via Nuclear Blast.

Metal Shock Finland Senior Manager Alison Booth, recently caught up with ACCEPT mastermind and guitar legend Wolf Hoffmann, who was a guest on her radio show Blackdiamond’s Metal Mayhem at TotalRock. The whole show can be heard at this location. Of course the new album was discussed, plus lots more! You can hear the chat on the audio player below, along with a few excerpts to read:

Discussing the recording of the album, Wolf explained:

“Yeah it’s crazy, we couldn’t finish. We had about half of it recorded and we all went back home to regroup and write the rest of the material and we wanted to meet again later in the year and all of a sudden the countries were closing down and nobody could come or leave. I mean, we could travel within the U.S. but Andy couldn’t come back. So we had no choice but to try to find a remote solution and after lots of trial and error, we found a solution that seemed to work technically quite well. Unfortunately, my internet connection broke down the whole time. But we made it work in the end and when the connection was stable, it worked surprisingly okay. You know, it’s not your first choice, but it worked. It was almost like a Zoom call, it’s kind of okay. It’s not perfect, but it’s still better than nothing if it gets the job done. But you would still want to be in the same room with people you talk to basically.

Wolf discussed how the pandemic has affected ACCEPT:

“Tell me about it, it’s been terrible for us. We had all of last summer’s festivals cancelled and pushed back to 2021. So everything was pushed back to next year for the festivals and then our headline tour was to coincide with the release of the album in January, but that won’t happen. It’s all been pushed back one complete year to 2022. Yeah it’s a long time, so we have to wait and see how things are going.

A lot of bands have been postponing their releases, but we decided that it’s probably not a bad idea to just go ahead and release it now, give the fans at least something to listen to. I’m sure we can all meet again basically, but it serves nobody’s interest if we just wait with the release until we can tour again, because who knows when that is.“

Talking about the new songs:

“‘Symphony Of Pain’ was one of the songs that was actually written first. I had that sort of more or less finished, just sitting there waiting to be performed. And then one of the other earlier songs I did was ‘Undertaker’ which was based on some lyrics Mark wrote. Mark gave me these lyrics and he wrote ’em sort of like a poem without any music in mind, just a bunch of words about an undertaker. I thought it’s kind of a cool subject title and I wrote the music sort of to fit the lyrics and you know, with that little intro it turned out quite a little eery and spooky, which kinda fits the subject obviously and turned out alright.

It’s nice to see people’s reaction. But I’m getting different reactions from journalists and big fans all over the board. Some people like the more moderate songs like ‘Undertaker’ and ‘Overnight Sensation’ and then other people go for the kill basically, with ‘Zombie Apocalypse’ and ‘Too Mean To Die’ – the more in your face metal kinda riffs and songs.“

Wolf talked about the changes in the band:

“Yeah it’s crazy – we lost one guy but gained two new guys, two for one (laughs). I mean with Peter, it’s just sad. It just killed me at the time but I’m sort of over it now, because it’s just after all these forty years, it was a sad departure. But I have to respect it and I mean, people move on and he made the decision. He no longer wanted to be in the band and what can I do? I just move on and move forward. I wouldn’t say Martin stepped right in his footsteps, that would be ridiculous because hey, I played with Peter for forty years. But Martin really is doing his best and he’s doing a tremendous job filling in, he’s great. He even contributed a lot to the songwriting, which took me completely by surprise. He wrote some great songs for this album and that was a blessing, he’s awesome. I really didn’t want the album to be all mine, mine, mine – I didn’t want it to be like a solo album, so I welcomed input from everybody and Martin was the guy who really stepped forward and delivered some cool stuff.“

We discovered what a great player, nice guy and easy going and perfect fit for the band Phil is. You know, when we toured with him on this orchestra tour last year, Headbanger’s Symphony, Symphonic Terror tour and we found out what a great guy he is. We basically didn’t want to let him go after this tour, it’s as simple as that. And we decided, why not have three guitar players? We did some shows together and it worked brilliantly. I gotta say I was not one hundred percent sure it would be as good as it is, but I was actually pleasantly surprised how well it sounds and how well it looks and how well it works on stage. It’s a good camaraderie in the band and yeah, it’s just one more guy, awesome! And he plays a lot of lead on the album too, so we deliberately made enough space for him to be on the album and especially with that in mind for live shows. We gave him enough space to play leads and with trading licks and we do a lot of twin leads together – so there’s a lot of room for Phil on this album.“

Order “Too Mean To Die” here

Official ACCEPT Website

RAIDER: Unleash Video ‘No Sign Of The Dawn’

Posted by aliblackdiamond on September 26, 2020
Posted in: Int. News. Tagged: , , . Leave a comment

Canadian death thrashers RAIDER have unleashed their video for the track ‘No Sign Of The Dawn’. It is taken from the band’s debut album “Guardian Of The Fire” which was released in March. Check out the video below:

Background:

RAIDER formed in 2017 in Waterloo, Canada. In 2018, they released their demo “Urge To Kill” and the band had a whirlwind summer playing on several fests including Hamilton Deathfest, Guelph Deathfest and Kitchener Metalfest. Even with a short time since conception, Raider has made their name known in the Ontario region, decimating stages across the province. They have played with the likes of Exmortus, Venom Inc, Cannabis Corpse, and Aggression.
It wasn’t until 2020 that a full lineup was finally realized for Raider. Up until then, the second guitarist had been a fill-in for live shows, but with the addition of Ira Lehtovaara the lineup was complete and the LP “Guardian Of The Fire” was unleashed on March 20, 2020.

RAIDER was recently voted ‘Band Of The Month‘ on UK radio station TotalRock. The band’s interview with Blackdiamond’s Metal Mayhem can be heard at this location.

RAIDER is:

Angelo Bonaccorso – Vocals
Gabriel Rosa – Lead Guitar
Ira Lehtovaara – Guitar
Brandon Sanders – Bass
Kevin Withers – Drums

RAIDER Social Media:
Bandcamp: https://raiderofficial.bandcamp.com/album/guardian-of-the-fire
Instagram: https://instagram.com/Raider.official
Facebook: https://Facebook.com/raidermetal
Twitter: https://Twitter.com/raidertheband

VERMOCRACY: Release Debut Album

Posted by aliblackdiamond on September 24, 2020
Posted in: Int. News. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

Austrian melodic death metallers VERMOCRACY have just released their debut self-titled album. Described by the band, the album “paints a dystopian picture of the fall and decline of modern society.”

Recorded at the Consequent Audio Studio and mixed by Norbert Leitner, the album has been released digitally on Google Play Music, Apple iTunes and Spotify. The cover artwork was designed by Armin Stocker. A physical release of the album will be available later this autumn.

Background:

Formed in 2017 by Andreas Huber and Roman Kolesnik, the band completed their lineup with Michael Frick (ex-Horns of Hattin, ex-Theotoxin) on vocals, Morgane Rake (ex-Black Coven) on guitars and Hannes Sandrini (Obsidian Chamber, Candles and Wraths, ex-Horns of Hattin) on bass.
In 2018 VERMOCRACY started to perform live in and around Vienna – supporting, amongst others, bands like Infest, Helgrind and Nervecell and also performed at the STP Metal Weekend 2019.

Lineup:
Michael Frick – Vocals
Andreas Huber – Guitars
Morgane Rake – Guitars
Hannes Sandrini – Bass
Roman Kolesnik – Drums

Official Facebook Page

YouTube Channel

Spotify

Interview With Rob The Witch, NECRONOMICON: “As long as I play my music I’m happy”

Posted by aliblackdiamond on August 24, 2020
Posted in: Interviews. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

Interview By Alison Booth

Rob The Witch

Since their incarnation in 1988, the Lovecraftian inspired pioneer of blackened death metal, NECRONOMICON, has certainly established itself as one of the hardest working bands in the industry. Founded by composer, guitarist and frontman Rob The Witch in Quebec Province, Canada and following an early demo and EP, the band released its first full length album “Pharaoh Of Gods” in 1999.

A steady release of five further albums and a high level of commitment to touring and performing on stage has been a constant in the life of NECRONOMICON, all the while establishing an ever growing fan base around the globe. Changes in line up and other issues haven’t been a deterrent for the charismatic Witch King, resulting in the sixth brutally dark album “Unus” being unleashed in October 2019, via Season Of Mist Records.

Alison recently caught up with Rob The Witch for her Blackdiamond’s Metal Mayhem radio show on UK station TotalRock. The whole show can be heard on Mixcloud at this location, but the audio interview (split into two parts for radio) can be listened to below. Many topics were discussed with the eloquent frontman, from the worldwide pandemic to Dean guitars and more in between! Check out a few excerpts from the chat, followed by the audio:

Discussing touring, Rob stated:

“Touring is what I like the most, it’s being on the road – I don’t get enough of that. I did like around twelve hundred shows in my career, I lost count, I know it’s over a thousand. It’s just doing my music you know – recording albums, going on tour and just rocking the stage you know. That’s just what I want to do. When I started Necronomicon, I was seventeen, now I’m almost fifty, I never stop. As long as I play my music, I’m happy, I’m satisfied with that.”

Regarding the Coronavirus pandemic and getting back to touring in 2021, Rob expressed:

“Really, really not easy, that’s one thing. I think that pretty much any artist that does this mostly for a living will feel the impact pretty well. When you’re going on full tours like months at a time and spend many, many, many, many hours you know practice by yourself, but I mean like many hours per week – days per week literally practising with your band, you have situations like that coming out of nowhere in a way, it’s pretty challenging actually. For example, our drummer is stuck in California, can’t come to practice and it’s been months, so it’s really not easy.

Of course we’re trying to see what we can do now. Nothing is certain at this point how it’s going, it’s totally out of control, especially in the U.S. I mean in Canada we’re doing really good, they responded really quick, I don’t know how it is in Europe. I really don’t know how we’re going to do that, because when we finished the U.S. tour we were already planning to go in Europe and something happened and we had to pull out. And that tour started without us and the tour went to hell because Covid started. So, at first I wasn’t really happy because we had to pull out of the tour, then I realised after it was almost a blessing. These bands that were on tour in Europe were in a really shitty situation because of that. They’re having some major financial problems due to what happened there. If we’d been on that tour it would’ve really fucked us, really in a bad way. So, the fact that we’d been forced to pull out of that tour and not going, saved our ass in a way. That’s the irony of that.”

On videos and being creative, Rob had lots to say:

“I don’t wanna bash any of my friends or other bands – there’s a lot of bands I respect musically and stuff like that. But if you have to shoot your band in an abandoned warehouse, stay home come on, I mean be more creative. It’s supposed to be art.
I don’t get the people going on stage with their flip flops and Cannibal Corpse shirts, even their glasses. Even fucking Judas Priest, they go on stage with outfits and stage clothes. Even Metallica, ok they don’t have armour and stuff like that – but if you see James Hetfield or Kirk Hammett in the street, they’re not dressed like they’re dressed on stage, it’s totally different. Music is art, so why don’t you do it properly you know?

When you go to see a show, you need to see something, you need to have a visual of it. I’m going to take a band that’s really shitty music to me right now – that’s Ghost, I really don’t like what they’re doing. The first album was really good, I really liked it, the rest – ugh! But they would never have succeeded if they didn’t have the image. The same for Slipknot and the same for Dimmu Borgir or any bands that had success with that, it’s a part of the game. You sell a product and the image of a band is fifty percent of the job, if not more.”

If you’re lucky, you can see the uncensored video of ‘The Thousand Masks’ – unfortunately some countries have blocked it:

Some live NECRONOMICON with ‘The Time Is Now’:

NECRONOMICON:

Official Facebook Page
Official Instagram
Official YouTube