At the beginning of 2013 Swedish melodic death metallers ENGEL recruited Mikael Sehlin (Degradead) as their new singer, and only a couple of days later he made his live debut with the band at the Gothenburg Sound Festival in Sweden. Metal Shock Finland‘s Tarja Virmakari had a chance to interview Mike and ask him about his first days and weeks in ENGEL, as well as about upcoming album of DEGRADEAD. But among many other things, Tarja found out also what is Mike’s method to learn quickly by heart new songs … to know this and more, just listen to the interview below.
Video Footage of Mikael Sehlin’s debut with ENGEL at Gothenburg Sound Festival on January 4th. Check them out below. (Courtesy of Thomas Brandis)
ENGEL lineup 2013: guitarists Marcus Sunesson (THE CROWN) and Niclas Engelin (IN FLAMES, PASSENGER, GARDENIAN), vocalist Mikael Sehlin (DEGRADEAD), drummer Jimmy Olausson (ex-MARIONETTE) and bassist Steve Drennan (LOCUS).
Legendary German guitarist Wolf Hoffmann (ACCEPT) has recently unveiled his new signature guitar. It is a 6 string guitar which has been developed and manufactured according to his needs by Framus.
Wolf has recently joined Mohsen Fayyazi‘s Burning Crown to describe his new guitar in more details.
He described his new guitar as follows:
“It’s the best guitar I’ve ever owned. When I opened the case for the first time I was just blown away. Framus have done such a beautiful job that I’m speechless. The paint job on this particular guitar resembles a vintage WW2 bomber – hence the name “Flying Fortress” – it has aluminum paint with real rivets and bomber decals . This guitar is the ultimate war machine !! The idea behind this Flying V is that it’s a cross between a V and a Strat. It obviously has the traditional V shape but there are many Strat features also. First of all the (maple)body is contoured so it is much more comfortable to play, then there is a Titanium Floyd System by Floyd Upgrades, EMG pickups (81in the bridge and a single coil SA in the neck position.) Also check out the cool headstock design, the tiger striped ebony fingerboard with mother of pearl inlays and Invisible Fret Technology and also the neck – through construction. To me, in terms of the craftsmanship and quality nobody today can touch Framus Guitars !!” Wolf continued describing “Germans make good stuff, everybody knows that. They make the best cars, they make really good microphones.“
When Wolf was asked about how he found out about Framus and why he chose them, he said:
“I’ve been in touch with Framus for about a year about this new guitar. We were first in touch about 2 years ago about possibly doing a signature guitar. They finally had a prototype ready for me in the fall on this last tour. So I have been using Framus guitars on this last tour exclusively. you know it’s just one of those things, and when they decided to make a signature for me I was very very excited, because I know they make the best guitars in the world.”
Wolf stated about his upcoming solo album:
“I’ve actually started work on new follow up material already, so hopefully it won’t be long before I can release it.“
You can listen to the whole of the interview below:
PAUL ALLENDER is not only known worldwide as the main songwriter and guitarist of CRADLE OF FILTH, but also as a very talented Artist with his VOMITORIUM ART. In these last years Metal Shock Finland‘s Tarja Virmakari has interviewed Paul a couple of times and just 4 days ago she had the pleasure to welcome him back to talk about his latest news. The 3 main topics that were talked about were Paul’s online guitar lessons, Vomitorium Art and of course Cradle Of Filth and their latest album “The Manticore And Other Horrors”. But Paul told also about his other ongoing projects, about his favourite dishes and that today he’s a happy man… Listen to the audio interview below.
Cradle Of Filth tour dates:
February
Fri 22 NY, NY – Irving Plaza
Sat 23 Worcester, MA – Palladium
Sun 24 Philadelphia, PA – Theatre of Living Arts
Tue 26 Washington DC – 9:30 Club
Wed 27 Charlotte, NC – The Fillmore
Thu 28 Orlando, FL – House of Blues
March
Fri 1 Atlanta, GA – Masquerade
Sun 3 Houston, TX – House of Blues
Mon 4 Dallas, TX – House of Blues
Wed 6 W. Hollywood, CA – House of Blues
Thu 7 Tempe, AZ – Marquee Theatre
Fri 8 Anaheim, CA – House of Blues
Sat 9 San Diego, CA – House of Blues
Sun 10 San Francisco, CA – Fillmore
Tue 12 Seattle, WA – Studio 7
Wed 13 Vancouver, BC – Commodore
Thu 14 Spokane, WA – Knitting Factory
Sat 16 Denver, CO – Summit Music Hall
Tue 19 Milwaukee, WI – The Rave
Wed 20 Cincinnati, OH – Bogarts
Thu 21 Chicago, IL – House of Blues
Fri 22 Cleveland, OH – House of Blues
Sat 23 Detroit, MI – St. Andrews Hall
Mon 25 Toronto, ON – The Phoenix Concert Hall
Tue 26 Guelph, ON – Guelph Concert Theatre
Wed 27 Montreal, QUE – Corona Theatre
Thu 28 Huntington, NY – Paramount Theatre
He was born in Hamburg, Germany on 7 August 1962. He and his band created a new revolution in Heavy Metal music in the 1980’s. Michael Ingo Joachim Weikath (AKA Michael Weikath and Weiki) is one of HELLOWEEN’s founding members and along with Markus Grosskopf he is the only other original member still active in the band. He is a musician and songwriter who plays guitars and keyboards, he also sang backing vocals in some of HELLOWEEN’s songs.
I was lucky to have a chat with Michael a few days ago and place my Burning Crown on his head. I found him a very nice person who doesn’t fear to speak from his heart. But unfortunately we had some problems with the line at first, but as you will hear it improved later. I’ve split this interview in to 3 parts to make it easier for you to listen.
* Please note as some parts of this interview are broken up, if you had open heart surgery, or blood pressure issues or you are under 18 years old, you can still listen to this interview. But if you are one of those angry people who always disagree and you are not a fan of HELLOWEEN, you’d just better leave it and find someone else to blame!
In the first part, I asked Weiki about the team who produced HELLOWEEN‘s newest album “Straight Out of Hell” and why they changed the record company. He told me it’s still Sony and a cycle of people working well together…. We also started a conversation about why they chose to be on positive side, when many other bands are writing their music with dark themes. Weiki stated that he doesn’t know anything about the dark side and it’s not healthy to write about those kind of themes for him. Listen to part one to find out more below:
I believe HELLOWEEN‘s logo is great so I asked Michael about it, as it seems they use different pumpkins for each album. Michael stated the following when I asked him whether the idea for this was the designers or the bands:
“It’s a mix of both. Sometimes you can say this pumpkin is boring, or cos we have a different subject, or just for fun, or there is something particular going on in the artwork. You can always do something for the pumpkin itself, or you can make the last logo or a classic logo. It’s just a matter of playing around with ideas and having some fun with it. Be creative.”
He also continued when I asked him who designed this new logo, with the following:
“Yes I designed that logo in the beginning, and that stupid pumpkin in the middle, to the left in the logo, that’s the way I wanted to have it, because I simply didn’t care. I thought “why the middle only?” And you go “give it a gas mask” or it has a straw head, or whatever, you can play with it.“
I had an interview with guitarist Roland Grapow (MASTERPLAN, Ex-HELLOWEEN) a few months ago, and asked him what was the reason of his firing from the band, he said: ” I felt very secure in Helloween. In the middle of the tour I said something to Michael and Markus and I said my opinion about something. I wanted to make something the best for the band and I think they misunderstood me, like I wanted to be leader. I was telling the truth and that’s how I am… It was a great time in Helloween …” So I found it a good moment to ask the same question from Michael to hear the reason from HELLOWEEN‘s side, Weiki said:
“Well actually we said those things in the past. It’s basically because there was interest in a different kind of music to be made with Helloween, and then some side projects that he was doing. They seemed to consume a lot of time and the process and whatever. We on the other side we were not quite happy with the output that we were actually given by for instance Roland, and you know there’s some kind of misconception when you hear those things. We wrote him an email, Markus and me, about why we did that and I can still remember the first few interviews they did after that, saying they don’t understand why. It was in the email why, you know that’s not public, so if they still have it, maybe they can publish it and everybody can read it. It was really quite clear why. We also had some little discussion with Uli, because he was kinda disappointed, I actually had him on the phone and we had a short talk about it and the reasons that we said in the interviews basically. So it’s strange that this is always being brought to attention. There were lots of misunderstandings at the time, and that’s why, I don’t like misunderstandings.
They were also saying lots of things about Masterplan and the first record. They said so many things in interviews about the situation, like “the pressure has all gone.”Months ago he told Uli he felt really comfortable in Helloween, so it’s contradictory. I don’t know what to think, he must know what he wants to tell people, I have given up trying to understand what was going on there, and that’s another reason.
You know, it was actually really easy. It was Kai Hansen ok, he wrote some songs, I wrote some songs. Then we did records, and we wanted to records as good as possible. I told Roland before he came into the band “we want to change the music a little bit, we want to be more diverse and have more variated music.”I really don’t know, what’s difficult being in a band, Helloween, making great records, everybody writes some great songs. I don’t know where the problem is with that. Things are running good now and not problematic, no misunderstandings and stuff. It’s been about 10 years now, which I actually enjoy a lot, because there are no misunderstandings and this and that, and no contradictions, you know?“
Listen to the second part of this interview to hear Michael answering about HELLOWEEN‘s logo, Roland Grapow, the earlier days of the band and also why they chose the Helloween name.
In the final part of this pretty long conversation, we had a serious and interesting chat. I asked his opinion about the differences between old songs and modern songs and Michael agreed with me that old songs are more like pure art. But when I asked him about the roles of the singers in HELLOWEEN‘s styles and how much it affected the style of the band’s music. He started talking about his problems with the band’s ex-member, Michael Kiske, and also why he thinks Andi Deris is better. Check out the following:
“Well, for me as a songwriter it was kinda getting difficult with the voice of Michael Kiske, which is perfect, really good, really elaborate and whatever, but always kinda the same. If you wanted to make a rock and roll or rock song, or something heavy, that requires shouting or grumbling or growling, he really wasn’t good for that. If you wanna have something like “Nothing To Say” or something else, it would be like Elvis on steroids or something. He could do that, because if you listen to his recent recordings, he managed to do that. He can now growl or sing a little bit more distorted or whatever, he can. He just didn’t want, cos he was afraid of harming his vocal chords or whatever, then actually he can do those things. Deris is a shouter, he has variety and stuff and has several techniques he can maintain or create. To me, that was very impressive and also very powerful, for a certain approach of songwriting that you want to do. You can’t do a “Hair Of The Dog” by Nazareth with Michael Kiske, that would sound strange.
And you know, I always like shouters and singers. The best guy probably, there is, is Bruce Dickinson or Ian Gillan. They can sing, they can shout. I would have appreciated that. Instead of that we had lots of discussions and lots of changing of attitude. Michael was like a normal guy, then soon he turned to be vegetarian and he had religious ideas. And he was sharing that stuff so much that sometimes you really got enough of that, you didn’t want to share that so much. Thinking about those things, he also wanted to do tracks and music and hits, and Helloween tracks, and you know, to be successful or whatever. Because we don’t want to play in clubs for 50 people only, it’s not the idea behind the whole thing, and there you go, those are the differences. It comes to a point where it’s boiling and you want to have decisions.”
I really couldn’t leave this interview without asking Michael‘s opinion about the legendary singer, Ronnie James Dio who is a father to me. Check out the following which are Michael‘s opinions about Ronnie:
“Well, he’s the one. He’s always been very magical, ever since he did recordings. It was noted by lots of people, his voice and the way of singing. It seemed so magical, it touched your soul and your heart. At that time, it was the best voice for rock or metal and when people get to hear him first, it was like “ooh what a voice, who is he?” That’s absolutely clear. Even Freddie Mercury can shout and that is one word for Dio, it’s a synonym, right? That’s the stuff I always liked.“
We almost lost the time during our pure METAL conversation but it finished when Michael found out that he had an appointment for dinner in a Persian restaurant which surprised me, as I am a Persian metalhead. Also my special thanks to Blackdiamond, Caitlin and Leslie who helped me to sort this interview. As my final word, I hope you found this interview interesting and I apologise the sound was not clear in places. Hopefully next time we will have a better line. Till then I leave you in peace and METAL.
Few bands can be credited with creating a legacy, however, legendary New York based extreme metal outfit SUFFOCATION have done just that. For nearly 25 years now SUFFOCATION have been creating music that has become the very standard by which we judge all things extreme. Their fusion of technicality, groove and sheer unrelenting brutality has been imitated but never quite duplicated. Milestone records such as Effigy of the Forgotten, Pierced from Within, and Despise the Sun have influenced a wealth of today’s best musical talents. The new album Pinnacle Of Bedlam will come out in Europe on February 15, via Nuclear Blast Records.
Just a couple of days ago Metal Shock Finland‘s Tarja Virmakari had a chance to chat with the guitarist Guy Marchais, talking about the new album, the upcoming tour, but more than that Tarja found out also what is the biggest dream of Guy and what he prefers to do in his free time. Listen to the 30 minutes interview below.
DUNDERBEIST formed in Norway in 2007 and are a hardworking band, who released their sixth album “Songs Of The Buried” towards the end of 2012. METAL SHOCK FINLAND‘s Sagiv Shaniv recently caught up with Ronny Flissundet. You can read the interview below:
You released two albums this year. Wasn’t it difficult? Why didn’t you release them in longer time gaps? It was a bit stressful in the writing and recording process for “Songs of the buried”, yeah. But at the same time, we had all this new and unused material we were dying to finish, and we’re a really reckless bunch that have a hard time keeping all the good stuff back for long. Like little kids not able to keep a secret or something. Hehe But our first 2012 contribution – “black arts & crooked tails” – was written over a period of 4 or 5 years, and was mostly re-recordings of material we already had released ( but in Norway only), plus two brand new songs. So that one didn’t really drain our creative pool too much. I guess that is why we were so eager to make a new album consisting of 100% new songs as soon as possible, and so we decided. Two albums in one year, just like in the good old 70s!
Your concept is all about stealing and theft, how did the idea for it came up and by who? We need to correct you a bit there.. Our concept used to be a whole lot about that, and on our first albums we had this crook/super villain image of some sort, combined with this idea of stealing good ideas and making them our own. Not in the same way as hip hop and pop music actually samples beats and melodies, but more like taking some really inspiring awesome part from something (anything, really) and filter it through the Dunderbeist blender, combining and spicing it with other elements, all excited to see what would eventually come out of the speakers. We called it theft, but in retrospect I see it more like an experimental process we needed to go through before creating what now has become our own, more genuine sound. We might still be a little like that, I think. Letting inspirations from all directions, not only musically, color the song writing process. We’re not too conscious or predetermined on all those rules and norms in the hard rock and metal (especially) community, like “what we do is SO original, man”. We are honest enough to stand for those “thefts” in our music. Not that they are needed, but when we choose to do something like that, it is because that’s what we wanna do.
I noticed your use of musical elements from different genres, but couldn’t quite recognize them. What are the genres and artists that inspire you? A whole lot, really. Nowadays bands like Doomriders, Witchcraft, Gojira, Entombed, the Bronx, Feist, Immortal, High on fire or even Black Sabbath. But we also come from different musical eras and backgrounds. So in our rucksack we carry lots of Kiss, Metallica, Zeppelin, Faith no More, a bunch of skatepunk and hardcore, hip hop, progrock and blues. You see, it’s not easy to pinpoint what we’re all about. But I guess that is also why we sound like we do, It’s the sum of all those different genres and music we suck in.
You’ve been on a tour with Devin Townsend and Fear Factory in November, how was it? What can you tell us about it, playing with such important artists? It was an absolutely awesome tour, and an amazing experience for us! It was actually the first real tour we have done outside of Norway, and we were so psyched to make the most out of it, something I feel we made. We got to play for a crowd of 500 to 1000 people every night, and we had this special position where not very many knew our band from before, which again meant we were this band on the bill that only could surprise in a positive way, without the pressure or the prejudices that the bigger bands maybe had to deal with. Lots of fun, lots of good Dunderbeist shows ( we think) and we got to experience a lot about the tour life in different areas and countries. The other bands were great guys, very skilled and professional musicians, and we had a lot of good times. Personally I enjoyed the Devin shows the most, but back in the mid-nineties I was very fond of Fear Factory as well, so getting to open for them every night was something I could only dream of in my late teens.
You had no songs in Norwegian on your 2012 releases, how come? Do you think you’ll have such songs on future releases? How was it welcomed back at your home, Norway? Our first 2012 release, “black arts..”, was our first international release, so we felt that it didn’t really make any sense to present ourselves for the very first time for an international audience with Norwegian language. We started up doing only songs in English, and that album consists of several songs from that period, and felt like a good presentation of the band abroad.
And when the good reviews and feedback came on the “black arts..”-release, we felt like doing the follow-up – “songs of the buried” – also in English, and continue the path we were on at the time.
Currently we are working on new songs in Norwegian, for an EP release we wanna do next. This way we can present the band from a different angle to the world that might only know us from these last two albums. Also we can continue what we started with the “Rovmord” EP from 2009 and the “Dunderbeist” album from 2010, which have lots of songs on them that today still are in our live sets, and some of the strongest material we ever wrote.
We wanna do both languages, and I guess we will continue this in the future, although it might be confusing for some. But we don’t feel that combining both languages in one album sounds right, so until we do we will keep on switching a little..
Are there specific themes you can say you write about? Overall, not really. But we have had some themes that have been the theme of a specific album. For instance, our Norwegian self-titled album of 2010 was dedicated to this 19th century axe murderer/serial killer from our hometown area in Norway. Not like a tribute to the mad man, but more like describing the world seen from such a person and his surroundings. It made this dark and describing back drop to that album and became the universe we spun the lyrics around. On “Songs of the buried” we have a lot of songs about death, loss and new beginnings, hence the album title. The lyrics are mainly about how to deal with or react to losing someone or something important in your life, and the aftermath of such an event. How to overcome the sorrow and how to start over. Stuff like that.
I felt “Songs Of The Buried” was heavier than “Black Arts & Crooked Tails”. Do you agree? Absolutely. It wasn’t decided that this album was gonna be a heavier or darker album, but it turned out that way. Like I said earlier, “Black arts..” was more like a sum-up of our career as a band this far, with songs written from 2007 to 2011, while “Songs of the buried” was written in a period of 2 or 3 months during the summer of 2012, and naturally would be colored by the inspirations we had at the time. Seems like our muses of 2012 was a bit more in the metal landscape..
What can you tell about your best show to date, and where was it? Tough one. If you mean the show where we feel like we did our best performance and playing ever, it might have been one of the latest shows on the recent Devin/FF tour, where we were really routined and warmed up and into that mode after having done buttloads of shows in a short period. Milano in Italy was awesome. And Pratteln in Switerland. But I suspect that what you actually meant was our coolest or best experience with a show, regardless of it being the best played show or not. Then it has to be when we did support Korn in a square in the center of Oslo in 2010, our first really big audience of about 3000 people, and opening for a band that several of our band members grew up with and really looked up to, being one of our/their favorite bands of the mid/late-nineties. That was awesome. No other way to describe it, really. Goosebumps all over, adrenaline pumping all through the band and audience, and us having the best time onstage ever.
How would you define yourself by metal-genre? We wouldn’t.
The song “Shields Aligned” is rather more power metal in my opinion, do you agree? Were you inspired by something specific on your writing process? Did you “borrowed” components from other works on this one? Yeah, I can see that in a way. It must be the whole war-theme combined with the symphonics and the balls or something. It wasn’t meant to be like a power metal tribute though. But when the main riff and melody was written, it just felt so..right, you know. We don’t know exactly what happened there, but from the first hearing/recording everyone in the band connected with that one instantly. It was chemistry. And it seems like a lot of our fans agree to that as well, since it turned out to be one of our strongest live songs/crowd pleasers.
Some might think this last question is odd, but I just have to ask it: What’s with the twitting birds in the “Winter Past” track? Did I miss something about it? He he.The song is about spring time. An anthem of positivity, of hope for the future, of new good times to come. You know, the sum of all black metal into one. Hehe. So the birds and the twittering was just this extra, absolutely unnecessary effect we added, that just sounded like fun at the time. It just made the whole expression of the song a bit over the top, in a way that we felt were awkward enough to maybe challenge the listeners in doubt. If you’re not into this pop-metal-shuffle-happy-joy-rock tune, you can just go do something else. We don’t care. We had fun making it. Personally I like the song very much. But we don’t play it live anymore though. It just don’t fit it in in our 2013 live set, which is a bit more dark, and contains more scavenged crows and crooked vultures that really don’t twitter that pretty..
Thanks for the interview! Hope to hear more about you guys! And thank YOU for reading this! We really hope to come play for you guys soon! Cheers!
THE ROCK ALCHEMIST – Italian Rock Band from Turin with a strong sonic identity that blends modern rock with progressive, hard, alternative, and pop elements!
Kimmo Kuusniemi’s SARCOFAGUS return with a Historic 2010 Concert Video Premiere on YouTube! Click image to watch the video
Legendary German guitarist Wolf Hoffmann (ACCEPT) has recently unveiled his new signature guitar. It is a 6 string guitar which has been developed and manufactured according to his needs by Framus.
