Wizard
Magic Goes On

25.11.2007

Our first encounter with this German true metal band took place at the Wacken Open Air festival in 2001. We just came across these guys doing a singing session, and even though we were absolutely unfamiliar with their music at that time, we couldn’t help but notice that they are very nice people. There weren’t too many fans coming for autographs, but the band was obviously having a very good time, and that’s the key to the whole concept of Wizard – they love what they do and don’t really care what others say. After being around for more than a decade, they may not be topping the charts, but they have a dedicated following and they keep on releasing high quality true metal albums. After “Goochan”, the band’s first CD for Massacre Records, it finally became possible for us to renew the contact to the guys and do an interview with the band’s bassist and musical mastermind Volker Leson, and we were pleased to find out that he hadn’t really changed much over all these years…

First of all, what is the right pronunciation of the new album’s title? And where did you get this name from?

[gu’ha:n]. The concept of the album is that there’s a witch, the last of the humankind who understands what happened to Earth. In the song “Witch Of The Enchanted Forest” she understands that Earth is under command of intruders from another world, and she fights the intruders. The head of the intruders is Pale Rider, hence the name of the next song is “Pale Rider”. In this battle, the witch needs the help of the last dragon, hence the next song is called “Call To The Dragon”. And in the last song, four Thunder Warriors help her in the last battle. Here in Germany there’s a whole book about this.

What came first – the idea to make an album or the idea to make a book?

It was my wish to write a book, but I had no time – I have a dayjob, I have my own studio here at home, I’m busy with the band, and so on. But we all thought that the concept of the album is very good, and we met a writer, who also thought it was a good concept and said that he could write a book based on it. He would call me and ask me a lot of questions about what I meant in the lyrics of each song. Then he would call me again and said, “Listen, I have this and this idea…”, so it was like a ping-pong game. I had ideas, he had ideas, so we mixed them, and the album and the book became reality at the same time.

Are you a fan of fantasy literature? Can you name a few of your favorite writers?

I have more than 500 fantasy books - “Lord Of The Rings”, of course, and a lot of other things. In Germany there are some good fantasy writers, and I’ve read them all.

Does literature ever inspire you to write songs? Or do you draw inspiration for music for some other sources?

I don’t really get any inspiration for songwriting from music, because I don’t listen to much music. If you listen to other music – Manowar, Iron Maiden, whatever – you are always inspired by them, you hear something, you think, “It’s great!”, and then you write a song that sounds a little bit like them. But I hate that! So I don’t listen to much music. Most of the CDs in my car and at home are the CDs of my wife, she listens to H.I.M. and stuff like that. H.I.M. is no inspiration to me. (laughs)

OK, music is no inspiration for you. Then what is inspiration? Books, movies, life in general?

I don’t know. There are always songs in my head, and I don’t know where they come from. When I’m angry, I write very aggressive songs, and when I’m a bit relaxed, there come songs like “Children Of The Night”. I was quite relaxed and I thought, “I should make a groovy song with a catchy riff”, and things started to flow. When it comes to books, I get inspired by fantasy stories. They are very brutal, and heavy metal is brutal music, I think. If you read a love story, it won’t inspire you for a metal song. (laughs)

It’s been a few months since the release of the record. How do you evaluate it from today’s standpoint? Did it manage to expose the band to a bigger audience?

I think it’s the best album we’ve ever done, though I like the album “Odin” (2003) very much as well. We got very good reviews in the press, and when we went on tours, we saw that the audience liked it too, they sang the songs together with us. It’s the best thing when the audience can sing a song together with you. They know the lyrics better than our singer! (laughs)

“Goochan” is your first album on Massacre Records. Why did you choose this label, and why didn’t you continue with Limb Music?

(sighs) You’re in Russia, so I can say that Limb is an asshole. He tried to betray us, he said, “We’ll get a contract for three or four albums”, and the contract read that with every album we made, we would get more money to produce it. But with every album we made, we got less money. When we were preparing to record “Goochan”, he said, “Oh, the last album doesn’t sell so good, so you will only get this amount of euros.” We said, “Hey, we have a contract, and there are completely different things written it in.” But he responded, “A contract is a contract, but my word is my word.” We said, “Fuck you then! The contract is broken, so we are out.” Now he will bite his own ass, I think. (laughs)

It just took me a week to phone Massacre and say, “We are free, are you interested?” And the day later we got an e-mail saying, “You are members of our family!” Then we said, “We need this amount of money”, and they responded, “OK, you’ll get this money.” We said, “We want promotion,” and they said, “OK, you are a good band, we think you can sell a lot of records, so we’ll do it.” “Goochan” is a good album, and I think Limb doesn’t deserve to release it. Every time I see him there is lightning between our eyes, we hate each other. He doesn’t like me, and I don’t like him. He says, “Hello, Volker”, and then goes quickly to other members of the band, smiles and acts like he’s a good friend, but I know that he’s a false mate. At one point, others said, “Let us try it again with Limb”, but I said, “No! If we try it one more time, he will kick our ass one more time. And it’s not good for Wizard, we want to take the band one step forward, not one step back.” And we’ve made it.

Massacre is a good company, they are true metal guys, they like metal. They don’t only look at the money. They take into account the band and the wishes of the band. Of course, they take money into account, but I think we can make a lot of money for them.

It’s also the first time you worked with producer Dennis Ward. How did you enjoy this cooperation? How much was the recording process different from what you had in the past?

The recording process was very hard. The studio we were in was very expensive, and we had to record the album in six days. The drums took two and a half days, the bass guitar one day, rhythm guitars one and a half days, and solo guitars were done in my own studio. The singer had two days, and then we were finished. I think the result is very good for six days. (laughs) Yeah, we worked very hard and very fast. I played bass guitar for 12 hours during the recordings, and then I just fell on my bed and went asleep. (laughs) Dennis is a very cool, he listened to us playing and said, “Well, this was shit, but that was good and we take it,” the atmosphere was very relaxed, so it was OK. If he had been saying, “Faster, faster, faster! Now, play, play!” we would have become nervous and haven’t done anything good. But Dennis knows what he does, and he did a very good job. As I said, the recording took six days, and then we had five days for mixing and mastering, but still the sound is very good.

How did you get Anthony Clarkson to draw the cover artwork?  

We asked Massacre. We saw the cover of the latest Blind Guardian album and told Massacre, “Hey, we want our cover done by this guy!” They said “yeah”, and they made the contact. I told him about the characters we had – the witch, the Pale Rider, and so on – and he said, “Yeah, I will make it.” A week later we got the cover and we liked it right away. It was very easy, and we got a good cover. I think it’s a great album, everything about it is very good.

Yeah, I agree! And I’m really surprised that you made it so quickly…

(cracks) Time is money!

Your guitarist Michael Maass has recently returned to the band after staying away for three years. Why was he forced to leave, and what was he doing all this time?

He studied for a job. He got a new job, and he had to study for it for 3.5 years. He worked every day for 8 hours, and then he studied at home for four hours. So he told us, “I can’t play guitar, and I don’t wanna stop you, so I will leave the band for 3.5 years and then come back.” We said “OK” and we asked Dano Boland, who is a friend of mine, “Michael is away from the band for 3.5 years, can you play the guitar?” He said, “Of course!” We only played together for a month, and then we said, “If Massi comes back, Dano stays”. Now we have two great guitarists, and with this line-up we have already played a concert at an open air festival in Germany with Doro. It was a wall of sound! Each of them has his own style, Dano comes from the thrash metal corner, and Massi is more into traditional metal, and playing with two guitarists is very good.

The Wizard line-up has been practically the same since the beginning. What keeps you together for so long? Do you ever have quarrels or problems with each other?

We have never had any problems in the band! Bands often say, “We are not a band, we are a family,” and it’s not always true, but with Wizard this is absolutely the case! I’ve known our singer Sven D’Anna since he was 12 and I was 15, and we’ve been playing music together for more than 20 years. We know each and every thing about each other, our families sometimes meet, and it’s great, we don’t have any problems. Everybody in the band has his stand, and we know what he can do. When I compose the song, I even know what Sven will sing, so it’s very easy. I don’t understand other bands that break up because they have internal problems. We have never had any problems, it’s always been big fun. Every album we make, every concert we play – it’s great!

You are very lucky, I must say. I’ve never heard anything like that from other bands, so you’re really unique in this sense.

(pause) I can’t explain it. They’re brothers for me, and I’m a brother for them. And Dano, even though he is a new member of the family, it works great with him. Manowar says, “We are a band of brothers” – Hello? (laughs) Just look at it: Scott Columbus is away, Rhino comes in, then Rhino goes away and Scott Columbus is back. That’s a lie, it’s not a band of brothers, it’s a company.

Does anybody in the band have side projects? Or do you dedicate your musical abilities to Wizard only?

No, it’s not problem. I’ve made a solo project with members of other bands, for instance, the guitar player from Symphorce and singer Tarek Maghary from Majesty. And our singer has made his own projects with other musicians, too. It’s OK, the horizon becomes bigger because of that. But the main thing for us is Wizard, and if a Wizard concert coincides with the concert of a side project, the side project must step away. If we have no time for a side project, because we are composing songs for Wizard or we are in the studio, the side project must wait.

Wizard is often called true heavy metal. What does being true mean to you personally and the band in general?

The first time we heard the term “true heavy metal” was nine or 10 years ago. A friend of ours from the Wizard fan team said, “You are a true heavy metal band!” And we were like, “True heavy metal? We just play heavy metal!” “Yeah, but it’s true!” We didn’t even understand what he meant. Only later we realized that there are many other metal scenes, band like Rammstein appear, and all people call them heavy metal. But Rammstein is no heavy metal, Nirvana is no heavy metal, and Metallica - the new Metallica – is no heavy metal. In this sense, we play true metal, the metal like it was in the 1980s. This is the meaning of “true heavy metal” for me.

Another aspect is that we play what we want, there’s no record company or critic or anybody like that saying, “Can you play like so?” Limb tried it once – we had nine songs composed for the “Odin” album, we came to Limb, and he said, “Now you must compose two fast songs.” I told myself, “What did he tell me? Did he try to tell me what I should compose?” And we composed “The March Of The Einheriers”, it’s as slow as “Children Of The Night”, and another song that is not fast at all. Limb said, “I told you that you must compose faster stuff,” and I answered, “Hey, I don’t do it for you, I make music for my own. Then there are fans and the world, and if they like it, that’s OK. But music has to be for myself in the first place, I gotta like it. I don’t even care what you tell me.” He said, “I will stop this record, I won’t release it,” and I said, “Well, fuck your ass. If you don’t want it, don’t release it!” And he released it anyway, and there’s no way anybody in this world who can tell me what I must do. This is true heavy metal.

Some people say that the beginning of “Pale Rider” is too modern, or that “Lonely in Neverland” sounds like Rammstein. Fuck you, it’s our style to compose a song, and if we like it, we will do it. If it sounds like Nirvana or Soundgarden, it doesn’t matter for us, we must love the music, not you. If you don’t like it, you should not listen to it. It doesn’t matter to me what other people think about our music.

You played your music for many years before you managed to achieve a breakthrough. What was your reaction when Hammerfall appeared out of nowhere and became stars already after the release of their first album?

Hammerfall… (sighs) They are lucky people. They made an album, and at that time it was unclear whether heavy metal was dead or it would live further on. And Hammerfall had a striking image, they had a good record company behind their backs, they had a good promotion, and critics from Rock Hard went like, “Yeah, this is it, this is the truth of heavy metal” and so on. Many people heard this and started to buy their albums. Hammerfall are a good band, they’re not better that Wizard or Majesty, but they had a lot of luck. Of course, they work hard, they’ve done many tours, and so on. In Wizard we all have families and children, and if somebody comes to us and offers a six-week tour, we will say, “No, we love our families, not the bus where we will have to sleep every night”. So we only go on tour for only two weeks. But still Wizard is now on the level that we like, it’s not so much work, but it’s fun. When we play concerts, we have 300-400 guys who celebrate heavy metal with us, and it’s OK.

What memories do you have of your life in the early 1990s? Did you enjoy this period, when metal was in the underground, and only dedicated fans and bands were around, or do you think the situation now is much better?

Majesty did a song called “Metal To The Stadiums” some time ago, and I agree with them. Metal is great music, and if there is more people in the audience, the party is bigger. If there is a big stage, like Ronnie James Dio used to have in the former times, when was fighting the dragon right on the stage, it’s great, I love it. Metal is becoming bigger nowadays, and it’s OK, but the 1990s was a great period, too. When we played to 50 or 100 people in pubs, they were celebrating with us, and it was fantastic.

You had two self-released albums “Son Of Darkness” (1995) and “Battle Of Metal” (1997). Are they still available anywhere today? And have you considered re-releasing them on some label?

We had no record label at that time, so we took our own money and produced these albums ourselves. We manufactured about 3,000 copies of “Son Of Darkness” and 3,000 copies of “Battle Of Metal”, and that was it. They are all sold out nowadays. We are thinking about remastering them and releasing both albums on one CD or as a double CD.

What do you now think about those old songs? Do you still play live anything from that period?

Yeah. We play “Son Of The Wizard” and “Enemy Dies” from the first album and “Dragonlords” from “Battle Of Metal” live every time we do a concert in Germany, because people know these songs and they wanna hear them. “Thunder Warriors”, the opening track on the second album, is also a crowd favorite. These albums contain some very good songs. There are also some songs I don’t like anymore (laughs), there’s a ballad on the first album, it’s the last track there, and it’s… hmm… it’s horrible. We don’t wanna play it anymore. It’s the song our singer wrote for his ex-girlfriend, and I don’t like it. (The song is actually called “Fuck Your Ass” – ed.)

After all these years Wizard is still very often compared to Manowar. Even the article in Wikipedia, which is linked to your website, starts with the phrase “Wizard is the German answer to Manowar”. What do you think of such comparisons, and how do you like Manowar’s latest works?

(sighs) We’ve heard a thousand times that we are the German answer to Manowar, and we can’t hear it anymore! If you listen to Manowar, and you listen to Wizard, you will see that it’s different music. The image of Wizard and Manowar is the same, we are posing as warriors and so on, but I think this image is great for a metal band. A metal band must look metal, it must wear leather and spikes, it must have long hair and muscles, this is what heavy metal is about for me. But the music – and this is the most important thing, I think – is not the same, and I don’t know why people say every time that we are the German answer of Manowar. I tell them every time, “Listen to the music of Manowar and the music of Wizard, and you will see that it’s not the same.” (Honestly, I think there are some similarities, so to say – ed.)

As far as I know, Wizard have never recorded any cover versions. What is the reason?

We make good songs, too, so we don’t have to do a cover version. There are lots of good songs of other metal bands around, and we can play them, but our CDs contain 11-12 songs, and they are all written by us, not by another band. I don’t know why other bands make cover versions, perhaps they have no ideas of their own, but we have a lot of ideas, and we will never make a cover album.

In the song “Call Of The Wild” from the previous album “Magic Circle” (2005) you sing “Drinking, rocking, fucking chicks / Kick some bloody asses”. As far as I know, such behavior is not very typical for German metal bands, usually they are a bit more quiet on the road. Are Wizard an exception to the rule?

“Call Of The Wild” is a song about bikers, it’s a tribute to bikers. We like the biker style, it’s freedom, so I composed the songs and wrote the lyrics, but as to “fucking chicks”, this was the idea of our singer. (everybody laughs) “Kick bloody asses” means that we have no limits, we are ourselves and nobody can tell us what to do. It’s the attitude of Wizard as well, but “fucking chicks” – no, I have my own wife!

By the way, how much are the Wizard members different on stage and in everyday life?

Sven is a partymaker. Every Friday and Saturday he makes parties, he’s always so drunk. We were on tour with Grave Digger and Symphorce, and our manager would come to our bus every day, say, “This was a great show,” and bring a bottle of Jack Daniels. Sven would go “Wow” and would drink so much! Then the singers of Symphorce and Grave Digger came to him and said, “Hey, you drink a bottle of whiskey every evening, you smoke 20 or 30 cigarettes a day, and you sing like a god! Why?” And he answered, “Yeah, that’s the reason why!”

Our drummer is very introvert, he’s very quiet. If you give him two beers, he starts to talk, and if he drinks ten beers, he makes everybody laugh. But when he doesn’t drink anything, he’s so quiet that you don’t even know when he sits behind you. (laughs)

And I’m just a cool guy, you know. Sometimes I party, but I also work very much here in my own studio. I’m funny all the time, I’m open-minded, so I’m OK. (laughs)

How do you imagine the future of Wizard? Where do you think you and the band will be in 10 or 20 years?

We will play metal! (laughs) I will stand on the stage until I die, and that’s all!

Wizard on the Internet: http://www.legion-of-doom.de

Special thanks to Alexei “KIDd” Kuzovlev (Irond Records) for arranging this interview

Roman “Maniac” Patrashov
August 3, 2007
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