Freedom Call
History Just Round The Corner

11.02.2010

While waiting for a new release by German power metallers Freedom Call, we came up with the idea to interview the band’s singer Chris Bay. The idea seemed nice, but its implementation was really rough this time. We made three attempts at doing the interview, and the first one failed due to extremely poor communication – Chris and me could barely hear each other. The second time there was a scheduling mistake, so I already started to prepare myself for the worst case scenario – an e-mailer, which I am personally not very fond of. But Chris was still eager to drive the nail home and gave me the third chance. All of a sudden, like in a fairytale, we were lucky this time. Communication turned out excellent, so there was no need to strain our voices, and there were no time restrictions. We ended up with nearly an hour-long conversation – covering the new album mysteriously named “Legend Of The Shadowking”, kings, knights and wizards, as well as freedom, love and the end of days.

First things first – who’s the “Shadowking”?

He’s a real person of the German history. He lived in the 19th century. His real name was Ludwig II. Ludwig II was a king of Bavaria, a part of Southern Germany, where Freedom Call comes from. That’s why we used this image of King Ludwig II – he’s a part of our history. Some metal bands look far back into the history, like Middle Age, they’re writing their lyrics about dragons or some knights. But for us the history was just round the corner.

So you’ve chosen this king to be the main character of the whole album because of the “national feeling”, right?

Yes, maybe. Early at school we learned something about Ludwig II. He built up very famous castles here in Germany. One of them is Neuschwanstein - it’s really famous, especially among Japanese tourists. Also Ludwig II was very close to a German composer, whose name was Richard Wagner. And Wagner lived close to our hometown for 10 years, in a town called Bayreuth - it is about a half an hour drive from here. So this combination of King Ludwig II and Richard Wagner and some more parts of our history made it very interesting for us to write a story about that.

You tend to use images of great warriors or kings of the past (as on this new album) in your songs. Do you think that our modern world lacks bravery and nobility and there are no heroes nowadays?

Yes, it’s hard to find heroes nowadays. Maybe the modern society makes it impossible for the heroes to “grow”. Probably the main reason is the media. You’ve got so many TV channels, you have these “private” TV channels and stuff, they know everything, there’s nothing to hide from anybody… And I think to grow up as a hero you need a lot of secrets. When everybody knows the truth about you, you can’t be a hero. A hero is not allowed to show some emotions or to need some help from another person. You have to stand strong. You can’t cry, you can’t be helpless. In the past you could hide all this emotions, your mistakes and all this stuff. Not now.

You said about “standing strong”, but you didn’t say anything about fighting. And actually many of your songs sound like “hymns for fighting”. Do you think that problems should be solved by force?

Well, I think one of the most dangerous things is money, and not weapons. That’s the source of all the aggression and the reason of all this fights against some people or nations or maybe some planets – whatever. That’s the biggest force and you can’t stop it. But I think someday it will end. I believe in that. Maybe there will be a big crash. You know, our planet doesn’t care about the humans. It may need one million or two million years to refresh and to rebuild itself again. There’s no problem, because the nature is strong. Maybe then the human race will have to start from the beginning again, after the big crash. But now you can’t change anything. All these big discussions about the pollution of the environment or having smaller cars or smaller sizes of industry – I think they are meaningless. We can’t stop this process. So in ten thousand years or maybe ten years there will be a big crash.

Oh, Lord!

But the planet will survive. Let’s change the subject. (laughs) We write lyrics about warriors, yes.

Ok, but you write not only about warriors. On this new album I found two songs about Merlin, the legendary wizard. Why is he there together with King Ludwig?

Originally it was one song, but we split it in two: a song with fast drums and high vocals and speedy guitars and so on and a ballad-like song with the same chorus line but totally different emotion. Maybe you can see Merlin from two sides then. One side is a bit nervous, and it shows Merlin as a very strong person. And the ballad shows the melancholic side of him. This song in general is out of the concept of King Ludwig II – there’s no connection between these persons. We’d written this song before we decided to write about King Ludwig and we didn’t want to change the lyrics, because for us it sounded very authentic. So we kept the lyrics of the song, but it’s out of the concept. The song is describing the relationship between Merlin and Morgana. He fell in love with her, but she didn’t react on this. Then he was cursed by her and there was no way out for him. Maybe the idea is that some love can’t be answered by a woman. So in short words: Take care of women! (laughs)

So Merlin is a romantic image for you…

A kind of. It’s not very romantic, because there’s no happy end. But in a way yes.

Talking about magicians and stuff, do you believe in something supernatural, some magical powers?

Yes, in connection with music. Maybe it’s better not to bring parts of my real life into my music and the opposite. It’s better to keep some legends and wizards and dragons in my fantasy and let them inspire my music. I don’t try to put my fantasies into my reality. When I have to pay my taxes they are not interested in my fantasies. (laughs) If I tell them about some dragons it could be dangerous for me. So that’s only the inspiration for my music.

So in your life there’s nothing magical happening, right?

Generally my real life is a kind of magic. If you’re working as a musician you need some forces to help you with your ideas and with your writing lyrics and composing music. Real life gives too little inspiration. Especially for a band like Freedom Call that writes songs about some crazy people. (laughs) Seriously, King Ludwig is famous because he was a crazy guy. He wasn’t a very talented politician, he was too far away from reality.  

And you too try to create a Fantasy World and live in two worlds at the same time, don’t you?

Yeah, a kind of. But I’m not hiding from reality, I never would try to escape from my real world. I think you have to stand strong in your real world and to survive in your fantasy world. And it has to be one life, because if you’re trying to live two lives you’re a kind of schizophrenic, you know. (laughs) That’s not what I wanted to be. But yes, when I’m writing songs I’m “sliding” into my own creative world. Call it a creative world, not fantasy world. ‘Cause fantasy is not a really existing world, but being in a creative world I can realize it, I can write it down on paper.

You’re interested in legends and fantasy stories. Are there any favorite ones, the ones you like since your childhood?

Oh yes, I was really interested in the three books of “The Lord of the Rings”. But I didn’t watch the film. I tried to, but I think they changed a lot of things compared to the book… I believe, this book is quite hard to read. Tolkien wrote this in a long-long period, I think over ten years. And you can notice during reading the book that it seems that he’s changed his mind a little bit. So sometimes it’s really hard to understand and hard to follow his thoughts, what he’s talking about. But it’s very interesting to read this book. But in my childhood I was more “involved” in fairytales. We have a lot of famous German fairytale writers and at school and from my parents I heard a lot of interesting fairytales and maybe that brought me closer to the ability to create some fantasy songs.

Your music sounds very optimistic and active. Do you have this “power of positive thinking”? Are you that cheerful in your personal life?

Yeah, I know what you’re talking about. Let’s go back to the first part of our interview – about the end of the world. (laughs)

Oh yes, I was quite surprised to hear things like that from you!

Well, that was not really serious. We are a very positive and optimistic thinking band, all the members. And we don’t have any problems with smiling and laughing on stage and showing people that we’re really happy about what we are doing. It feels like in metal music it’s even forbidden to smile on stage, to be happy or to wear white clothes. There’re some clichés. But we’re thinking in a totally another way. Especially when we’re playing live. We’re coming to give people a real good feeling. Maybe they have so many problems in their lives and they paid probably 20 dollars for the ticket – and then they can expect that they will have good mood after the concert, much better then before. And that’s my job – not more and not less.

The covers of your albums always look like illustrations for books – they’re very bright and colorful and full of - let me say - “Scandinavian images”. So could you say how this album covers come to life?

The covers for our previous albums are made by an artist from England, Paul Raymond Gregory. He was painting all these pictures with oil colors. Yeah, that was great work and it really got along with the fantasy music we did then. The style of the artist is more connected with the Vikings and some Scandinavian images – so all these covers were his ideas and we accepted them and we liked his artwork very much. But now for the new album it changed a little bit. The story is not only about happiness and positiveness, because in the life of King Ludwig there were some tragic moments. And so the new songs are not that positive as Freedom Call songs usually are. We also have three songs that sound really dark and doomy. These are “Dark Obsession”, “The Darkness” and “Under the Spell of the Moon”. So we decided to change the kind of artwork and to use computer graphics. It was done by an artist from my hometown, he’s a kind of friend of the band. He’s very talented. This artwork looks more like the story of King Ludwig was – sometimes happy, sometimes very dark and tragic.

Did you again just accept what the artist proposed as the artwork for “Legend of the Shadowking” or did you try to take part in creating it?

Well, at first we told the artist about our concept and he made some different variants of the cover. So we had some alternatives. Then we decided to take this one, but there were a lot of changes in it: the colors, the background and some details. It was developing with the music for the album, because the artist was involved in our work on the album from the very beginning.

You did a cover version of "Dancing with Tears in my Eyes" (Ultravox) in the past. Are you planning any new covers in future?

Nothing as a plan, but it’s a real fun to cover songs you like very much. Ultravox’s "Dancing with Tears in my Eyes" is a great song and so it was very interesting to work on it. But all the bands are covering bands like Ultravox or some classical stuff and are recording these “tribute” albums… Someday we may do another cover, if we have a really good idea. But it has to be something special, something no one has done before.

By the way, in one of your previous interviews you said that you listened to pop-rock music in your youth. Is it true?

Yes, I’m open-minded for every style of music. It depends on how I’m feeling, what kind of mood I’m in. Sometimes I’m longing to listen to some swing music, for example. That makes me “chilly”. I don’t have to concentrate on that kind of music. And when I listen to metal I’m not able to enjoy this music, because I’m trying to analyze it – it’s my job. When I’m listening to the metal music I can’t say “Ok, I’m just listening to it” – no, I’m 100% “awake” and I’m trying to analyze and categorize it. And hearing too many details I can’t enjoy this music in a whole. So I prefer to listen to some other kinds of music, so I can relax.

But don’t you think about writing another kind of music? Maybe someday you’ll try something new – less heavy stuff for example?

Why not? I’m not only writing metal songs. I also write some pop-rock or pop songs. But I never will try things like hip hop. That’s not possible. I think there still has to be some connection to metal music: nice melodies and… I’ll never like music without guitars. That’s an element I need. I can’t work in these “modern” styles. No hip-hop please! (laughs)

So we can expect you to have another project someday, can’t we?

Oh yes. Maybe. I’ve talked to my record company and maybe in the middle of the next year I’ll make a solo album. But it won’t be anything special. I think it’s just for myself.

Talking about some other projects – you have to share your drummer Daniel Zimmermann with Gamma Ray, isn’t it a problem for your band?

He’s not only our drummer. Daniel’s been a good friend of mine for more than twenty years. And we’re spending a lot of time together without any music and any business. When I wrote the first five or four songs in 1998 – oh, more than ten years ago! – Daniel was the first one I asked to found a band with me. He listened to my songs and said: “Okay, let’s do it”. And Freedom Call was born, it was a very fast decision. And there was no problem for Daniel to combine these two jobs – Gamma Ray and Freedom Call. There was no conflict of interests. Gamma Ray did an album and toured and then they had rest – then we could start working on Freedom Call. But the last tour of Gamma Ray was very extended, because they joined Halloween in their world tour. And Daniel was on tour for a year without any break. So he decided not to quit Freedom Call but to play lesser shows. He will work further for Freedom Call, but more in the background. So for the upcoming tour, which begins in two weeks, we have a stand-in drummer for the first time – instead of Daniel, because he’s drumming for Gamma Ray and two shows a night is a bit too much work for him. So we have another drummer with us, it’s Klaus Sperling - he played before in Sinner, Primal Fear and a lot of other bands. So we have a drummer of the same quality and that’s the most essential thing.

And how did you get him?

He-he-he. He was in another band called Mystic Prophecy and once they played on the same stage with Freedom Call as a special guest. It turned out that he’s living not far away from me – maybe one and a half hours to drive - he’s a very nice guy and he likes our music very much. So I phoned him and that was easy.

As far as I know you come from a family of musicians, is it true?

Yes. My grandfather, the father of my mother, was an opera singer in Bremen. He also was teaching at a university – at a kind of music university – in Bremen. And my mother has a vocal education and plays piano very well. And it seems to be in the blood of my family that I also am a musician.

Did your family members give you any vocal lessons?

I started with vocal lessons later. At first at the age of seven I had guitar lessons. The guitar was bigger than me. When I was ten I also had some piano lessons. And I started the vocal education only at the age of eighteen. And I was studying singing for four years.

In one of your interviews I read that you prefer festivals more then playing in clubs. Is it because the audience in a club is too small for you?

Oh no, I think it’s the opposite! Usually I prefer to play in clubs. Maybe it was a misunderstanding. It was an honor for me to play some huge festivals like Wacken, where you can play for 40,000 people. I enjoyed it very-very much and I was proud to play in front of such a crowd. You’re totally excited when you go on stage then. But after the show I couldn’t realize that I played for humans, because the distance between the stage and the crowd is about 15 meters and you can’t really see the faces of the people, you can’t see their eyes. Maybe you’re playing for one person and the name is “the crowd”. You’re just playing for the mass of people. It’s a great feeling, but I like it much more when we’re playing in clubs where you can see everybody’s eyes, you can see people sweat. You see how they are reacting when you play. I think it’s much more intimate and personal in between the audience and the band. So it makes me more satisfied after the show. I feel that I could give people some emotions. Then the atmosphere is right.

Are you going to play in Russia during the upcoming tour?

I hope so. We only played one time in Moscow. It was a couple of years ago.

How did you like it here then?

That was awesome! It was a hard time for us, because we had no sleep. We had another show the night before and we had to go early to the airport… But it was great and the audience was fantastic. Maybe we can go there in the fall, in September, October or November, because we’re planning a headliner tour and probably we’ll have a chance to go to Russia as well. So tell the promoters, “Please book Freedom Call”.

You had a live CD, but, as far as I know, you don’t have any music videos. Don’t you want to shoot any?

In this time all the bands make their videos, but on TV they’re not showing metal videos anymore. Maybe you can put them on YouTube on your website… But we’d better save the money and go on tour with the band. That’s much more worth for me than having a video clip like a million ther bands.

But what about promotion? You can attract potential fans with an interesting video, I believe…

For me it’s a better promotion to go to people and play live. On the Internet you can watch a lot of videos and forget them all in a second. So it’s better if people see you perform.

Why don’t you sing in German? I think this language may sound cool with that kind of music you play…

I think it’s international music and all over the world people understand the English language much better than German. And I have to say honestly that English sounds better on the high notes and in some rocky stuff. It’s easier to handle. But I’ve sung one song in German for the new album. It’s called “Ludwig II – Prologue”.

You have a new song called “Perfect Day”. What’s a perfect day for you?

There’re different possible variants. One is like that: you wake up in the morning and everything is going right for you. The sun is shining, the coffee is already made, and everything is perfect for you. This could be a perfect day. And there’s another variant. If you believe in yourself and you’re optimistic and positive your whole life could be a perfect day.

On this album there’s another song, which caught my attention - “Remember!” What do we need to remember?

To remember to pay my taxes punctual. (laughs) Well, maybe we should think more about things like pollution of the environment. We’re destroying our nature. That’s the thing I’ve already told you, when you were a little bit shocked. The people should pay more attention to things like that, they should be careful and think twice before deciding very important things. There’s nothing new I can say.

I see. The name of your band is “Freedom Call”, so what’s freedom for you in a whole?

At first it’s one of the most positive words. There are lots of elements in it, like “life”, “luck” and all the shiny positive things. All the things that make you happy and make your life worth living.

Is love there among these “shiny positive things”? You don’t have many songs about it, do you? But still, you have Merlin’s love story on this album…

Yeah. Actually power metal is not made for love. But there are some ballads… On the last album there’s a song called “Words of Endeavour”. It’s a kind of love song. And “Turn Back Time” can be called a love song too. But we’re working in a genre where there are more stories about warriors and kings and dragons. But maybe when I do some other kind of music there will be more space for love.

That sounds like a perfect ending for the interview, but maybe you still have something more do say to our readers…

Yeah, of course! To all Russian metalheads: we’d like to come to Russia again and play live on stage all the new songs from our new album “Legend of the Shadowking”. I’m totally convinced that all the metalheads will love our new album. When we come we’ll bring from Germany all our energy and very good mood to the audience to celebrate a great metal fest together.

Freedom Call on the Internet: http://www.freedom-call.net

Special thanks to Maxim Bylkin (Soyuz Music) for arranging this interview

Ksenia Artamonova
January, 2010
© HeadBanger.ru