Xandria
Fire Of Universe

06.07.2007

Once again this was an interview that brought back a lot of memories. In November 2005, our first conversation with singer Lisa Middelhauve of the German gothic metal band Xandria turned out one of the best and definitely the most personal among all the interviews we’ve ever done. Then, the concert Xandria played in Moscow in July 2006 was among the best concerts of the year. But the story is not over – even though a lot of things have changed, Xandria are still doing fantastic music, and Lisa is still one of the greatest interlocutors that you can have in an interview. This time we focused mostly on Xandria’s Russian tour and on the latest album “Salome – The Seventh Veil”, but once again, other issues were brought in – clothes, drinks and dances…

Let’s begin the interview with your last year’s trip to Russia. What are your best memories about this trip? What did you like and dislike about this country?

Oh, there are lots of things! I loved the people, I loved the girls and short skirts… (everybody laughs) I loved vodka! (more laughter), it’s totally different to the crap that you can buy in Germany. The striptease was fantastic! (laughs) I loved Moscow and the Volga, but it was very cold when we swam in it. I disliked trips, especially the trip that took us across the country, because our caravan was breaking down twice, because we dropped into huge holes in the pavement. I disliked the fact that while driving through Russian woods there were no toilets for hundreds of kilometers! (cracks) …And the mosquitoes in woods. I thought it was always cold in Russia, but it was so hot when we were there. Well, I liked everything except for the total lack of toilets.

You know, there was a great Russian historian who once said, “There are two major troubles in Russia – fools and roads!”

(cracks) Wow, I didn’t know this! In general, it was very impressive, it was the first time for me to go there. I remember how I was afraid of electric stairs when traveling by subway. I come from a quite small town, and we’ve got a subway, too, but it cannot be compared to what I saw in Moscow. I got a little frightened by these high stairs, because it was such a long way, and I wondered how drunken people manage with it. What do they do, do they sit down on it?

Usually drunken people are not allowed to go in! (everybody laughs) OK, and did you manage to see any of Moscow? We remember that you had to leave very early after the gig…

We walked around on the first evening when we arrived, and it was a bad idea for me, because I wanted to look pretty and match all the Russian people, and I wore sling pumps – a bad bad idea if you want to walk lots of kilometers through Moscow. We went to a club, I don’t remember the name of it, but there was nobody except us. (laughs) We took a look at the grave of Lenin, it was very late at night, and there was also nobody except us, but it looked so impressive because of the lights and the huge space around. I don’t remember so much, because, you know… I like vodka. (laughs) I got to know quite a famous actor that night, somebody told me who he was, but I only remember his first name - Boris, which is quite usual, I think, and he showed me how to drink Russian vodka. He’s an actor for some TV broadcast, he’s an old fat guy (laughs), and everybody told me he’s quite famous.

At the Moscow concert you mentioned how your fellow bandmembers went swimming naked in the Volga river the night before. Can you tell us a bit how that happened?

(cracks) OK! They had to swim naked, because they didn’t have any clothing for water with them. We’ve got banners with the Xandria tribal X on them usually put beside the stage, and we wanted to do it in Tver, too, but we couldn’t do it, because it was an open air show, and it was raining so hard, but there was some kind of island in the Volga, some kind of swimming island made of wood, it looked like something out of “Pirates Of The Caribbean”! (laughs) So we wanted to hang the banner of Xandria on this little island, it would flow in the wind right behind the stage, so that everybody would see it when we are playing. Gerit (Lamm, drummer) and Philip (Restemeier, guitar) swam to this island, delivered the banner there, and raised it on the wind. It looked so great, but then it started to rain, and we couldn’t play there because of technical reasons. If I had touched the microphone, I would have just died of an electricity shock! (laughs) So we played in the restaurant of the hotel (cracks), and late at night after the concert they had to swim to get the banner back. It was raining, and I was filming the whole activity! I had my stage dress on, and winter boot, and a warm jacked of Marco (Heubaum, guitar), but I still froze so hard that I thought I would get blue. But Gerit and Philip were so brave, they swam naked when the temperature was I think, five degrees or something. I hoped so bad that they would not drown in the Volga! (laughs)

You had a great experience in Russia, as far as we see!

Yeah, some of it was purely amazing!

This next question arose after seining your concert in Moscow. Some of the songs that you play live are not quite happy, let’s put it like that. And we guess when you sing them these words and music bring back the memories that are not always pleasant. How do you deal with that when you have to remember sad moments of your life night after night on tour?

(sighs) Sometimes it runs very deep, sometimes I feel some kind of distance to it. To be honest, sometimes it shows in what I do onstage. Sometimes I’m just trying to remember how it felt when I wrote some particular song, and sometimes I’m really close to tears, and it’s hard to manage with it. I’m always trying not to let tears take over, because crying is really bad for the voice, you can’t breathe normally anymore. But I’m only human, sometimes I’m sad, sometimes I’m happy, but I’m always trying to give my best onstage, and it doesn’t matter whether I’m sad or happy at the moment. But I think that if people know me well, they may realize when I’m in a happy mood – it’s because happy songs are more impressive on those days. And on the days when I’m a bit melancholic, it’s the sad songs that work the best. You should learn to know me better, then you can say something about it on your own.

A lot of artists, especially those playing doom and gothic music, say they cannot listen to happy music. When they have a bad day what cheers them up is a sad song. And what do you listen to when you’re in a bad mood and want to feel better?

Oh, this is a very good question! I probably listen to classical music, normally Mozart, because I think his music is very hopeful. It gives me the feeling that everything will be good at the end. (pause) Now you’re going to laugh at me, but sometimes I listen to Shakira (cracks), but this has happened very few times. In general, I listen to very little music. You see, there are people for whom music is some kind of background amusement, but I can’t do it. If I listen to music, for me it’s like reading a book. I put on the music, sit down and follow. I’m not consuming music so often, because there’s not enough time to concentrate on it. I’ve gotta concentrate on my own music, that’s the thing! (laughs)

Now let’s talk about the new album “Salome – The Seventh Veil”. You recorded it in a different studio – what made you abandon Pleasure Park and move to Principal Studios?

Principal Studios were not new to us, because half of our debut album (“Kill The Sun”, 2003) was recorded there. Principal Studios are very close to our home town Bielefeld, you have to drive for about an hour to reach it, and Pleasure Park Studios are four hours of driving away. (laughs) Moreover, we wanted to produce the album, to do the production on our own, and we had an opportunity to do it in Principal Studios. We thought it was time for a change – the previous album (“India”, 2005) was very bombastic, it was great and I love it, but when we started to make this album, we sat down together and thought about where to go and what to do with it. We found out that we didn’t want to go any further in this bombastic, romantic, huge emotional, cinematic vein, it was just a bit too much for us. We wanted to go back to the roots of Xandria, back to the very beginning, and so it was quite a natural decision to go back to where we recorded the first album. It was great, it was a funny and very exciting experience, I hope you like it! (laughs)

When we spoke about “India”, you said it wasn’t very easy for you to make friends with some of the songs it contains. What about “Salome” – how was it like recording the new songs?

It wasn’t necessary to make friends with “Salome”, because I am Salome. (laughs) I’m still loving “India” in a special way, every album is like a child of us, and nobody can love his children all the same. I love every album as much as I love the other one, but in a different way. “India” is some kind of problem child (laughs), and “Salome”… you know, she’s my younger one, she’s my baby, and at the moment I can’t think of “Salome” without having a big smile on my face. I’m loving it too much, I’m so proud of it! (laughs)

Is there any concept behind the album?

Not really, we didn’t want to have any limits. We have never made a real concept album, “India” was close to it, but I think you’re limited with a concept. Once you have the idea, and you choose to make a concept album, you can’t go like, “Hey, today I want to talk about rage,” or “Today I want to talk about love,” or “Today I want to talk about scientology.” (laughs) We didn’t want to have this limit.

And what made you write about Salome? Did any of you do some research on the bible or on ancient legends?

It was quite interesting, because I’m the only Catholic in the band, and I’m the only quite religious person in the band. I thought putting the legend of Salome from the Bible into the lyrics for a long time, but I always thought, “Oh, this legend is so famous, everybody will laugh about me.” It’s hard to explain, but I was afraid that people would think it’s soooooo boring, because it’s so close to the gothic scene and the things that gothic lyrics normally deal with. But when I told the boys from the band about this idea, I found out that they didn’t even know this legend. They knew the name Salome, but they were not aware of what happened to her. I was so surprised, because I thought that everybody must know it. I had a very religious education, and it was totally normal for me to know these things. (laughs) But the boys didn’t know it, and we decided to do it, because they found it so fascinating. Yes, I read about Salome, I read about her in the Bible, but there’s not so much information on her. I read about her in a book of Jewish legends, but once again, she’s just named there. But I just love the person, she’s so fascinating, because she’s evil, she’s sexy, she’s childish, and she’s doing the first lyrically proven striptease in history! (everybody laughs)

You had a guest in the studio – Mika Tauriainen from Entwine. How did you get the idea of adding the male voice on two songs? And why did you choose Mika?

We were on tour with Entwine in 2004 in Germany. I think it was their first German tour and our first headliner tour. (laughs) Entwine and Xandria became close friends, we stayed in contact for years, and when we wrote the song “Only For The Stars In Your Eyes”, its working title was “Finnrock” (laughs), because it sounded like a song of a Finnish rock band. We were always joking around, like, “Oh, Mika needs to sing this, it would be so great…” We thought about giving the song to Entwine, it wouldn’t have been a Xandria song but an Entwine song, but then we thought, “Hey, why don’t we do a duet?” So we asked in Mika, and it was so funny, because he was in Germany at that time, and we didn’t know about it. We called him and said, “Hey Mika, we would like to see you again,” and he was like, “Yeah, I’m just one hour away from you.” (everybody laughs) He visited us in the studio, and we were drinking lots of red wine, because all Finnish people are fascinated by the prices in Germany – a bottle of red wine costs three or four euros here, and in Finland it’s 12 euros. So we were drinking lots of red wine, and at the end of the day he was grinning to me and saying, (imitates a drunken voice) “Well, Lisa, what can I say?” It was very funny. I’m always forgetting that he’s so short, he’s just up to my chin, when I’m standing beside him…

And who is responsible for the growling vocals in “Firestorm”?

Oh, that’s me!

(surprised) YOU???

That’s me! (laughs)

Congratulations! We would never recognize you in this song!

Oh, thank you, I’m so proud of it! I love to do growls, I’ve done it for years, but I was never allowed to put something like this on an album, because our producer was always saying, “No, Lisa, they don’t want to hear it, they want to have their gothic princess.” This time we were producing the album ourselves, and I said, “I want to growl!” And everybody was OK with it, everybody is loving it, but most people don’t believe it’s me! (laughs) I’ve gotta demonstrate this live.

You recently recorded another duet – this time for the Italian band The Dogma. How did you get to know these guys? Was it because you have a common record label, Drakkar?

To be honest, yes, it was Drakkar who asked me to sing for The Dogma, because they needed a female vocal line. They asked Drakkar to manage some female vocals for them, and our marketing manager called them and said, “I’ve got a singer for you! Call her, this is her number.” They didn’t know my name, they didn’t know from which band I was, and I never said I was going to do this, the label just gave them my number. Cosimo (Binetti, guitarist) gave me a call, we were in the studio at that moment, and he was like, (imitates a foreign accent) “Hi, this is Cosimo from The Dogma, I’ve been told you will sing for us.” And I didn’t even expect to get an English phone call – you know how it’s like: it’s 9 o’clock in the morning, you’ve just got up and haven’t got a coffee, you look like some kind of strange animal… “Cosimo? Who the fuck is Cosimo?” During that phone call we found out what happened to us, he was close to tears because Xandria was one of his favorite bands, and he didn’t know I was the singer of Xandria! (everybody laughs) And I was close to tears because I was so angry that the label just gave out my number. It was very funny, but unfortunately I haven’t met Cosimo, because he didn’t have any time when I was in the studio singing my parts. It was a very different way to work, so it was very interesting. The Dogma are working with a vocal coach, and we have never worked with vocal coaches in Xandria. Maybe we should… (cracks) They are technically a perfect band, and they’ve got very dark emotions, I don’t know how to describe it in a different way. They’re very dark and very oppressive, and I’m very proud that they asked me to sing, although they didn’t know who I was.

As long as we mention Drakkar – you have stayed with this company through all your career. What is your opinion about the way they work for the band? Do you plan to continue working with Drakkar for future albums?

Oh, this is such a hard question, I should call my management first to ask them how I should respond. (everybody laughs) Well, what can I say… I think a record label can be OK or bad, and I’ve never seen a band saying, “Oh, we are so lucky, there are no troubles with our label!” There are always troubles with it, and there have to be troubles, because we’ve got different interests. A record label wants to make money, and we want to make music, and this sometimes doesn’t fit together. The boss of our record label was the witness at the wedding of my husband (Nils Middelhauve, bass) and me, so it’s quite like a family, it really is. We love the people, we love their work, and we’re very satisfied with the success we have. I think we are going to release more albums with Drakkar, but there’s always frustration on both sides no matter which band and which record label they are. (laughs)

The track “Vampire” – where did the inspiration for this song come from? Any book or movie maybe?

Oh, this is a boring story. (laughs) The song was written by Marco, he wanted to do some doomy stuff. Marco didn’t write lyrics for that album, but he gave me some ideas about how to do this. When I came to work on the vocal lines and texts for this song, he told me, “This song should be named “Vampire”. Now write something!” And I was sitting there going, “Oh damn, what should I write about vampires?” I didn’t see any possibility to write a lyric called “Vampire”, to be very honest. But I thought hard about it… Do you know the movie “Blade”?

Yes.

I tried to write a lyric that describes the world of Blade. It’s Blade with a smile. (laughs)

Why didn’t Marco write any lyrics for the album himself? On the first and second albums he was one of the main lyric writers…

In the beginning of the band he was the leader, he founded the band, and he did most of the work. But then we changed to democracy, and Marco is quite happy with it, because he’s not responsible for everything now. He concentrated on the music. You can part the album, because the songs my husband wrote are written by him and only him – he wrote both music and lyrics. And for the rest of the album the music is mostly written by Marco, and the lyrics are mostly written by me. But there are two songs that I wrote by myself as well. We don’t sit down and say, “Everyone’s got the right to write lyrics for three and a half songs, and music for two and a half songs. It’s just how it happened, we have a very free way to work.

In the song “Beware” you sing “I dress myself in black from head to heels”. Is black your favorite color when it comes to clothes?

Yes, because black makes me look thin. (laughs) Well, I love black, because it looks so posh, so elegant, so luxurious. I don’t only have black clothes in my wardrobe, but mostly I’m wearing black. I also wear a lot of dark green, because my eyes are green, and red. I now love red, but when my hair was red I didn’t like it so much, because it was biting, it didn’t fit. Imagine some kind of orange red hair and blue-red clothing on, it looked disgusting, I couldn’t bear it. (laughs) I looked like a corpse. (everybody laughs)

There is an announcement on your page that Xandria is a member of the Royal Artist Club. Can you tell us a bit about this organization? What does membership in it mean for the band?

It’s a great idea by Nokia, they gave us two mobile phones with cameras in them, and we got a kind of web-blog to upload our pictures and short sentences about what they are showing. I think it’s a good opportunity to show people what we’re doing in our private lives, or around concerts, or around interviews. “Club” is not quite a proper name for it, I don’t know if you could call it “membership”, I think it’s just a name for some bunch of people who upload pictures on it. (laughs) They asked us to do so, and we are very honored, because it’s a great opportunity, but it’s not really a club.

You did two videos for the album “Ravenheart” (2005). Why weren’t any videos for “India”? And do you plan to shoot a video for the new record?

(laughs) There were no videos for “India”, because there was no money and no interest in doing this, because the German television is – (whispers) oh shit, it sucks! We released “India” in the time when they didn’t want to play any rock’n’roll videos, so there was no sense in doing one, because it costs so much money. If nobody can see it, why should you spend so much money? But it’s funny that you’re asking now, because tonight we came home from a video shoot for “Save My Life”. (laughs) After this shoot I don’t want to dress myself in pretty clothes, because it was so uncomfortable for me. Yesterday and the day before I was wearing a corset and boots with high heels, so I couldn’t move faster than one kilometer per hour, like a snail. So now I’m running around in jogging pants and hoodies, and there’s no make-up on my face. (laughs) But the video will be great, I’m playing some kind of ghost, I’ll be lying on a graveyeard! It’s so evil, and it was a good job for me, because I just had to lay there still. (laughs) Moving with closed eyes is my biggest talent! (everybody laughs)

Xandria have recorded four albums. Do you think the time is right to release a live album or a DVD? I guess a lot of fans would love to have an item like that…

(laughs) If I would spent as much time rehearsing as I do on the phone with nice people… (everybody cracks) I don’t think we will do it in the near future, because… Because we have fantastic studio albums! (laughs) I just don’t know, I can’t tell you. May be, and may be not, but definitely not in 2007 and probably not in 2008.

As long as there’s no DVD in plans, are there any chances of seeing you back in Russia some time soon?

We’re planning to come to Russia again in autumn, I don’t know yet if it will work. We would love to do it, and people are quite interested in seeing us. I receive a lot of fan mail from Russia, and it’s very nice, and the boys liked the girls. (laughs) The previous tour was our best trip among the past few ones, because there was so much fun. I definitely hope it will work out this year. But if it doesn’t work this year, I promise you it will be next year.

Xandria on the Internet: http://www.xandria.de

Special thanks to Iris Bernotat (Focusion Promotion) for arranging this interview

Roman “Maniac” Patrashov, Natalie “Snakeheart” Patrashova
May 17, 2007
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