Blind Guardian
Road of No Release

30.09.2010

For more than 10 years, German power metallers Blind Guardian have been among the bands whose new records divide fans and cause a lot of discussions. “At The Edge Of Time”, which saw the light of day in early august this year, was not an exception: this is yet another epic that you may love or hate and that can be interpreted in many ways. Instead of arguing We could go on discussing the album, but we would rather give the floor to guitarist Marcus Siepen to voice an insider’s look on what it was like making the record. This is especially relevant since Blind Guardian are soon to return to Russia, and it is our duty to keep the fans updated …

It seems that  almost all of your albums are based on some stories or some legends, so what’s the concept of your new album?

This time there’s no concept, but there are two songs heavily linked through the lyrics. These are the songs “Wheel of Time” and “Ride into Obsession” which both deal with Robert Jordan’s “Wheel Of Time” saga. All the other songs are pretty independent lyric-wise. The song “Sacred Worlds” was written for the computer game “Sacred 2”, so obviously that deals with this kind of story in the background. There’s also the song “Tanelorn”, which deals with Michael Murkock’s “Eternal Champion” again, we’ve had a couple of songs about it in the past already. All the other songs are also based on books and mythology too, but there’s no lyrical concept for the whole album.

So the album title has nothing to do with Murkock and Hawkwind, right (“Warrior on the Edge of Time” is a Hawkwind album written under the influence and with participation of Murkock)?

Hmmm… The meaning of the title… Well, the title was a very hard choice for us this time. We just couldn’t agree on it for such a long time, you know. (laughs) We had a lot of suggestions and there was always someone who didn’t like it. And “time” has always seemed a great title for us, because our lyrics are often about it and also on this album we have a song “Wheel of Time”. We didn’t want to call the album “Wheel of Time” – it seemed too obvious. But we wanted the word “time” in the title. And in the end we’ve chosen “At the Edge of Time”, because it sounded cool. It fits Blind Guardian and our lyrics well. There’s no story, no epic meaning behind it, but it just works good.

There are some videos on your website taken in the studio during the recording session. Wasn’t it a problem for you to do your job while the cameraman was shooting you?

It can be a problem, especially in the beginning, when you start working and you want to focus, obviously, on your work, which in my case would be recording guitars first of all. And of course in the beginning it’s an unusual feeling and it takes some time to start ignoring the camera and really focus on recording. But once you get to that point, then it’s OK. You don’t really watch the camera. In the beginning you always try to see where the camera is, you always think about how you look like and of course you always have in mind that if you fuck up this riff now everybody will see it on videos. Iit’s like “I have to be good and blah-blah-blah”. But it’s normal that you have these ideas, because you’re in an unusual situation. That’s something you’re not used to. But once you get beyond that point it’s OK.

And what’s your greatest personal memory of the recording session this time?

There weree two things I liked most of all. First and most that we recorded in block synonymy… On the previous albums it was like we recorded every song at once. Every song was recorded like drums first, than bass, guitars and so on. And this time we had a couple of songs – two or three songs maybe – to work on them. We could start recording one song, then go to another one and than continue working on the first one. And when we were done with them, we started another couple of songs.  Like this you always have some time to refresh your energy and than continue writing another stuff and finishing another stuff. That’s something I liked a lot. And the second thing I liked was that we didn’t have any problems for the first time, because normally we had some problems that really delayed the release date of our albums. And this time everything was very well, very smooth, there were no problems and we kept the deadline for the very first time. That was something really great. You could really focus on the music and you didn’t have to deal with anything else.

You had a lot of guest musicians this time. How did you find them?

Some of those guys have been working with us for a couple of years already. There’s a guy who plays fiddle for us and who plays piano on this album (Matthias Ulmer), he worked on several albums already. On the other hand, there are  some people who never worked with us. We never had a chance before to record a real orchestra, so all the orchestrations so far had been synthesized. And now we had a chance to record the Prague Symphonic Orchestra, which has 90 guys playing there. It was a big step for us. Also there’s a song called “Curse My Name”, which has a lot of Celtic folk music influences, so we recorded lots of stuff for that one - lots of flutes and bagpipes and harps and stuff like that. We even recorded a stepdance being danced, we recorded a song that has stepdancing and used that as a passive instrument for the song. Obviously we didn’t know all those guys, but we have a lot of connections like someone you know knows someone else, and so you get to know those people too. And when we said that we wanted to record them for our album, everybody was really enthusiastic and very-very positive about it and they really tried to do their best.

What are your favorite songs on this album?

Ah… That’s a difficult question, because it changes all the time. This album is so fresh and new for us obviously and which song I like more depends on the mood I’m in at the moment. If you ask me now I would choose the single “A Voice in the Dark” and “Tanelorn”, which are very fast and aggressive songs. And if you ask me this question tomorrow maybe I’d choose completely different songs.

Talking about “fast and aggressive” “A Voice in the Dark” – why have you chosen it to represent the album as the single?

It doesn’t represent the whole album, just one aspect of it. It’s impossible for one song to represent the album, because all the songs are really different. “Voice in the Dark” represents a very heavy and aggressive side of the album. We just liked that song as the single, because, first of all, we think it’s a very good song. Otherwise we wouldn’t have chosen it. It also shows… There was some talk in the past that these styles of our music would get lost or would have gotten lost over the last couple of years. We just did not really agree because the fast and aggressive stuff has always been there, also on the last albums we had “This Will Never End” or “Punishment Divine” or whatever. Above all, we liked the idea of giving the people such a song as the first single, because most people probably would expect a kind of ballad or radio competitive song, and “A Voice In The Dark” is anything but radio competitive, it’s one of the fastest and most aggressive songs we’ve ever written in the whole career of the band. We think this is a very nice statement, we think it’s a very strong song, and that’s why we chose it. But there is no single individual song that would represent all the aspects of the album.

Are you planning a music video for this album?

We’ve already started recording of a video. We’ve already shot a video, but it’s not completely done yet. We shot it in Serba, where we also recorded the “Another Stranger Me” video some years ago. We worked with the blue screen again, we have shot our parts already, but there was additional filming done by actors, and at the moment it’s in post production stages, because everything was shot in front of blue screens, and all the background will be added on the computer. So we didn’t see any of it yet, it should arrive rather soon.

Do you remember the first time you tried to play guitar and how was it like?

Actually I do remember. I was 10 or 11 years old, and my parents told me to learn an instrument. They left me the choice, my mother’s choice was something like piano, and I don’t remember what my father suggested. But as I started to get interested in music at that time, especially metal, I picked up guitar. My parents got me one of those classical guitars, an acoustic one, and sent me to music school, where I had to learn all the basics for about five years. This was a great musical education. I clearly remember the very first lesson that I had back then, the guy explained me everything – that’s the neck, that’s the tuners to tune in the guitar, these are the strings and blah blah blah. Then he wanted me to tune, he explained me how to tune a guitar, he was like, “Is this string too high or too low?”, and whatever I said, I was always wrong. (laughs) I really had to learn all this. I’m happy that I had this education, because five years of classical guitar playing is something that you can lean on when you at some point switch to an electric guitar, which I did later on. I really got into metal at that age, and I liked the classical education, but at some point I told my parents, “Hey, this is it, I’ve had enough of this, I need to buy an electric guitar now”. And that’s what I did, I bought a Flying V, turned it on, joined my first band and started playing metal from that point on.

And did you have dreams of becoming someone else, not guitar player?

Well, at some point I wanted to become a Jedi after watching “Star Wars”. (laughs) But when I started playing in a band… You know, everybody who starts playing in a band has dreams of becoming a professional musician, recording albums and appearing in magazines. Obviously we’re in the lucky position of one who had these dreams come true. And we’re very happy about this. Of course we had to work really hard for it. And obviously luck was very important too. And now we try to deliver high quality music and high quality shows and production and whatever. I think that pays off in the end, and that’s what you do expect in the end, and that’s why we are where we are now.  

You mentioned “Star Wars” and I remembered that you wanted to record the soundtrack for “The Lord of the Rings”, but it didn’t happen. Are there any more movies you’d like to record music for?

I think there were a couple of movies I would love being involved in working on. Anything with “Star Wars” would be great, because I’ve always been a die-hard “Star Wars” fan. The Tolkien movie would have been great for sure, but it just wasn’t the right time for us back then. Any good fantasy stuff in general would always fit to Blind Guardian. Maybe that “Hobbit” movie might be something, I don’t know. It’s not that we’re sitting here at home and just being anxious to do a score for some movie, but that would be the type of movie that would work for us, I guess.

And what’s your attitude towards computer games?

I’m addicted. (laughs) I’ve always been a big fan of computer games, you know, ever since I was in my teens and the whole thing started. It was a very early console you could hook up to a TV and later on a computer. Andre (Olbrich, the other guitarist) and me are really computer game maniacs, whether we’re on tour somewhere, we have our laptops with us, and we can play “World Of Warcraft” if we have Internet connection. And if we don’t have the Internet, then we play offline games – role playing games, shooters, strategies or whatever. Computer games are very nice, they often relax me on tour. On tour there’s a lot of time left, for instance, when the crew goes onstage, and they do the soundcheck for us. You either do the touring things, for instance, you go explore cities, but if you’ve been in a city 10 times already, there’s not much left to explore anymore. Maybe you just stay in a hotel, read a book or watch a movie or something like that. Maybe you play computer games.

You have your own blog in the Internet. How do you choose the things to write about? Do you think “oh, this could be interesting for my fans” or “no, I’d better keep it for myself”?

Most of the time it’s a very spontaneous thing. I know that I’m a bit lazy and that I could write much more often, but sometimes I just don’t think of it, sometimes I’m too busy, sometimes I think all of that might not be interesting for anybody else. There’re lots of fans who are interested in the equipment that I’m using. There were a lot of questions about guitars that I take with me on tour, or how my amplifier effect looks like. So I know that this stuff is interesting for my fans and sometimes I just add something that’s on my mind at the moment, that I find interesting. But I don’t think about this too seriously. I don’t think I have to upload something every now and then. It’s not like “oh, I have to do an update today”. Sometimes I do a couple of updates in a month, but sometimes I don’t post anything for some months, because I don’t have the mood and there’s nothing I could write about.

And why don’t you have any comments there? Aren’t you interested to know what your fans think about your posts?

Well, I am interested. But the problem is that if you allow comments everything can get out of hand very easily. I’ve seen that in several forums all over the Internet - people start discussing, and then suddenly they start blaming each other and stuff like that. That’s why I decided: OK, in this blog there must be only one person who writes stuff and that’s me. You’re welcome to read it, but if you want to write something in the Internet get your own blog. (laughs) I’m in charge of all that’s published in this blog. If someone wants to publish bullshit, than not in my blog.

And is there any way for your fans to tell you what they think about you?

Of course! We have this MySpace page, for example, and all that stuff. And we really read the things they write there. Don’t think that there’s someone managing it for us. We really do read it. And there’s a lot of feedback. There was another feedback, for example, when I started putting some stuff about the equipment that I would take on tour with me, which guitar, what setup and blah blah blah. There was a lot of talking and commenting on this on our Facebook page. I read this obviously and I was really impressed, people were writing, “I want to see more of this,” and then I uploaded some more pictures showing them whatever they wanted to see. There is a way to give feedback about whatever we do, we have our official band forum, where people can post things, we have Facebook, we have MySpace and all that stuff.

Do you try to teach your son how to play guitar?

Yes, he has some guitars, and he has also taken some lessons already – from me, of course. I believe that’s the typical thing with juniors – nobody that starts learning an instrument is really interested in learning the basics in the beginning, nobody wants to sit there and learn a couple of chords or learn some scales or the basic picking technique. Of course, when I was a kid I wanted to grab guitar and play my favorite songs. I think that’s the same with my son – he’s not really interested, or he’s not really enthusiastic about learning the basics. He would prefer if I teach him his favorite songs by Green Day and stuff like that. But obviously if you want to play that stuff you need to know the basics first. That can be too much to a kid of that age to really sit down and practice those things. But he has two guitars actually and he always wants to learn and there are times when he really sits down and practices, and there are times when he does what he wants.

And being a father do you want your son to be a musician?

I don’t know. If he ever wants to become a musician it’ll be fine for me. And of course I would support him. And if he wants to become something completely different, I’ll also support him in becoming whatever he wants to be. It doesn’t mean that he has to follow me if I’m a musician. It’s completely up to him. If he wants to become a musician – fine, if not – fine too.

You were said to be a skateboarding fan, but after some accident you had to forget about it. Any other sports in your life?

First of all I have to say that I have never ever been into skateboarding. I was just stupid enough to try it with my son. My son was into it and he could ride it much better then I. I was just very nervous when I tried it, and obviously I failed miserably. Ever since that day I never even touched a skateboard anymore, and that thing has not changed, skateboards are not my thing. I have never been a skateboarder. I know there were rumors in the Internet that I used to ride a skateboard before our shows – that’s complete nonsense. It was just something that I tried with my son and, as I said, I failed. (laughs) And talking about sports, I like riding a bike. Whenever the weather is fine I prefer to take my bike than my car because riding a bike is nice. And I’ve always been a big fan of skiing. Unfortunately that’s something you can’t really do in the area we are living, but always depending on the time of vacations, we come to the mountains where there is snow, because in my area there is snow only in the mountains, so that’s not something you can do these days. But biking would be my first place.

And are you a football fan (our conversation took place in the midst of the World Cup, on the day after Germany lost to Spain – ed.)?

I watch the World Cup, but I’ve never been a soccer fan, and I’ll never be one. But when there’s something like World Cup or Euro Cup I watch it and I’m interested in it. When the best teams of the world are competing each other that can be interesting. And if you’re asking me about the game that was yesterday – you know, I don’t mind. I watched the match and I had to say that they deserved to lose. It’s not like “Germany has to win, Germany has to become the world champion!” I think if they want to become world champions they have to play better than all the other teams – and they didn’t do that yesterday. When they played with Argentina they played very well, but yesterday they were not that good and Spain was much better – and that’s all.

Your tour is going to start in a couple of months. How do you get ready for touring?

Well, there’s a lot of work at home, we have to decide about the list of songs that we want to play. There’re about 40 songs that we’ve already chosen. There’s some old stuff that we didn’t play for a long time and there’re new songs, of course. Everybody is preparing at home. We had our first rehearsal block already, four or five rehearsals, with the whole band. There will be another rehearsal block in a couple of weeks, in the middle of next month, where we want to practice some more songs, and apart from that, as I said, everybody is working at home, practicing at home, and that’s how we get ready for the tour.

You’re going to visit Russia on the October 31. What do you expect from your fans here? Do they differ somehow from your fans all over the world?

I expect Russian shows to be as good as almost all our shows. All the Blind Guardian fans from everywhere on this planet have a lot of things in common: they come to our show, have a good time, they sing every word of our songs, enjoy our songs and have a big party with us and also with each other. There’s no violence, there’s no aggression and all that stuff. They all come to have a good time. They give a lot of energy to us and we try to give a lot of energy back. And every show is special. So that’s what we expect from this upcoming tour and shows in Russia. We had great audience there last time and we hope to have it again.

Then just say a couple of words to your fans in Russia.

Thanks for all the support during all these years. We have a new single released, so if you are interested and want to check it you can do it now. And we’re going to release our new album soon, so try to get it. I hope you’ll like it. And I hope to see everybody on October 31 when we come back to Russia.

Blind Guardian on the Internet: http://www.blind-guardian.com

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

Ksenia Artamonova
July 8, 2010
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