Van Canto
Voice As Weapon

28.11.2010

If you thought you cannot make heavy music with more unconventional instrumentation than Apocalyptica are doing it, then you’re in for a big surprise. Germany’s Van Canto have released three albums on prominent metal labels, toured with big metal bands, played leading metal festival and recorded with musicians from Rage, Grave Digger and Sonata Arctica, so they are as metal as one can get - the only thing is that their music contains no guitars. Instead, the band features three singers imitating lead, rhythm and bass guitars with their voices, plus two more lead vocalists. And here you have it – a capella metal is born. Naturally we couldn’t pass by such a phenomenon, and when the band came to Russia for the first time, we approached Stef (lead & lower rakkatakka guitars) at a press conference with our questions. Unfortunately, due to time restrictions, this interview ended up very short, but it still sheds some light on these remarkable singers/musicians.

You have just come back from a tour supporting Blind Guardian. Did you like this experience? How did Blind Guardian’s fans receive your music?

Blind Guardian’s fans are very open-minded metal fans, so it was quite easy for us to convince. And Blind Guardian have always been very kind to us and big supporters. We recorded our albums in their studio and with their producer, so it’s a kind of friendship that lasts for two or three years. It was a great experience.

Judging by your song “To Sing A Metal Song”, I get an impression that a lot of times you are criticized by people who just don’t want to accept anything new in music. How much are you vulnerable to criticism? Does it hurt you when somebody writes on the Internet that “they are not metal”?

First of all, it’s better to be in a band that some people like and some people don’t, than playing in a band about which everybody says, “Oh, it’s OK, but I’m not interested”. It’s good to polarize people a little bit. Of course, when you play heavy metal there’s always a small gap between doing something new and doing something that has been exactly like this for about 20 years, so you have to find a way between doing something new and still sounding very traditional. Then you have a chance of being accepted by the metal fans.

You have shot as many as four videos for your latest album “Tribe Of Force”, but making videos is usually quite expensive, and metal is not played that much on TV nowadays. Do you think it pays off to do so many videos?

We only do them for YouTube, because we know that MTV and stuff will not play our clips. It’s not that expensive, though it’s cool that you say they look expensive. (everybody laughs) One of them was done with a friend of ours who did it for his job, so he would have something to show off with. It’s not that we have big video budgets, not at all. But it’s fun, and it’s good for the people to see that we’re really doing this with our voices, so we need the visual aspect.

Your song “Magic Taborea” is based on the video game “Runes Of Magic”. Are you fans of this game and therefore you wrote this song, or were you asked by the game’s developers to do a song for it?

To be honest, we only have one guy in the band who’s playing computer games, it’s Ross (higher rakkatakka guitars). You shouldn’t ask me about any details of this game, although it’s obvious that all this fantasy world is connected to the kind of music that we’re doing, it just fits.

You have had such famous people as Chris Boltendahl (Grave Digger) and Victor Smolksi (Rage) guesting on “Tribe Of Force”. Was it easy to get in contact with them and get their consent?

No, not at all. We use the same studio as Blind Guardian, and as soon as you’ve made this step, it’s easier to contact they other people because they know each other. And Chris Boltendahl is on the same record label as us (Napalm Records), so it was quite easy. We were surprised that they all said that they wanted to join us, it was pleasant for us.

How did you get involved in recording Tarja Turunen’s new album? Was it because she saw or heard your cover version of “Wishmaster”?

We met her at the “Metal Female Voices” festival and asked her to join us on our album. But she said, “No, I don’t have the time, because I’m producing my own album, but you can join me”. It was a big chance for us and, of course, and honor, to do it.

You have done quite many cover versions, and they are really diverse – from Manowar (“Kings Of Metal”) to Metallica (“Master Of Puppets”). Is it possible for Van Canto to cover just any metal song, or are there any limitations?

The most important thing is that we have to like the song that we’re covering. We all like melodic metal, so we won’t try to cover any Kreator or Slayer song. That wouldn’t be authentic or convincing, because everybody would notice that these guys are listening to melodic metal. Why should we try to do some death or black metal? It wouldn’t work at all.

You have published quite a detailed video workshop where you tell how you work on your songs. What this workshop doesn’t tell is – how did you originally get the idea of replacing all guitars with voices?

The band didn’t start from all of us drinking beer and somebody saying, “Hey, let’s do an a capella metal band.” It wasn’t like that. We just tried things out, did a fun project in the studio among friends, and then everything was on its way. It wasn’t planned at all.

By the way, what do you do outside Van Canto? Or does the band give you enough money to live on?

The money we earn from music is just enough to do the touring. But when we’re not touring, we have to do regular jobs to survive. We are freelancers - we produce stuff, we work as session musicians, our drummer gives drum lessons, and our rhythm singer teaches English for foreigners. He is Scottish, and he has his English courses. It’s not rock’n’roll at all, but somehow you have to survive.

Van Canto on the Internet: http://www.vancanto.de

Special thanks to Delta Mekong Concerts for accreditations to the press conference.

Interview and photos by Natalie “Snakeheart” Patrashova
Questions also compiled by Roman Patrashov
October 23, 2010
© HeadBanger.ru