Gotthard
Tomorrow’s Just Begun

13.10.2007

When we were first offered this interview, we decided to skip it. After all, the people running this website have done two interviews with Gotthard over the past three years, and we were afraid that we simply won’t have enough interesting questions to come up with a good interview. But later on we changed our minds. First, we saw everybody else doing it and decided that we can do it at least as good as them. And second, the new Gotthard album “Domino Effect” turned out that good that it made us want to speak to the band’s masterminds immediately. This wasn’t so easy this time, it took us a lot of efforts to arrange a phone conversation and to complete this material, but finally you have it – “the one and only Steve Lee” answers our questions.

Where are you calling from, Steve? Are you in Switzerland at the moment?

Yes, I’m calling from home in Locarno, the southern part of Switzerland, it’s where we’ve got the base of the band, I would say. The studio is here, and almost all the band is living in the southern part of Switzerland, so it’s a little bit of California for Switzerland.

Your new album “Domino Effect” is your eighth studio recording…

(interrupts) Do you like it?

Yes, it’s a great record. We love the previous one “Lipservice” (2005) a lot, but the new one is also very good.

Well, thank you very much! We put our hearts and souls into the album, and it’s always great to hear that people like it. I think it would be a perfect album for a lot of hard rock fans in Russia. We’ve had some great reviews, we’ve got some great fan mail from Russia, and we’re looking forward to play there again.

But how do you manage to prevent songwriting and recording from becoming routine after all these years? What do you do to keep work with the band fresh and entertaining?

I think the heart of the band is always good friendship, respect and the will to go on and achieve the best possible success. That’s the goal for every record. We’ve tried different ingredients, let’s call it that way, to make the best possible sound for every record, and as long as you’ve got ideas and as long as you’re having fun from playing music, you have no problems with inspiration. We always try to re-interpret the way we play without losing the style. Actually the whole band except Freddy (Scherer, guitarist) has been playing together for about 16 years, which is a pretty long time for a rock band, and it’s always the will to make a better album that keeps us going. Inspiration is everywhere in the air, you just gonna grab it and be open enough to make it yours.

To us the main difference between “Domino Effect” and “Lipservice” is the lyrics. There were a lot of optimistic songs on “Lipservice”, but on “Domino Effect” most of the songs are about being lonely and ending a relationship. What inspired you for writing lyrics this time?

Well, the world is getting sicker and sicker every day. If you watch the news, you hear about bombs and problems everywhere. It was the same when we did “Lipservice”, it was written in the same strange period, but this time we all also went through pretty hard times in private relationships. When you write lyrics, they reflect the feeling you’ve got at the moment. It’s not that you wake up in the morning and think, “I’m gonna write a happy song” or “I’m gonna write a sad song”, it just happens. Not every song is pointing the finger and carrying a message, it’s just the way you feel when you compose. You’re like a painter – you start a picture, and only when it’s over you see what you have done. Sometimes it’s very interesting to keep yourself floating and do the best you can, and sometimes it’s a surprise to me when I see the whole product. But fortunately we still have songs like “Come Alive” that are pretty happy songs, I would say.

On the previous CD there were lots of contributions from outside people in the songwriting. Did you use other authors this time as well, or did you do everything on your own?

It’s pretty much the same line-up and the same helping people as on “Lipservice”. We worked again with two Swedish guys – Fredrik Thomander and Anders Wickstroem, and it was a great experience again. They come up with some ideas, riffs and little parts for new songs, and then we work together. On “Domino Effect” the change was that they came over to Switzerland, while the last time Leo (Leoni, guitarist) and I went to Sweden. I think we had a great cooperation on “Lipservice”, and we just repeated it on “Domino Effect”. Basically there were no other people involved.

On this album you once again worked with Ronald Prent. How much does he add to the sound of Gotthard?

We heard about Ronald four years ago, we heard an album he produced, and we thought, “Wow, what a sound! We want to have that sound as well!” Then we contacted him… Again, like on the last record, we wanted to have a great sound, a modern one, but not afraid of rocking. A very modern sound sometimes has less bass drum and less power, it’s more sophisticated, but Ronald is a master of finding the middle way, he can make us sound like a rock band from the 1980s, but with a modern touch, which is not so simple. And it’s just great to work with him, because he’s a cool guy, and he doesn’t talk, he works. (laughs)

One of the best songs on the album is “The Oscar Goes To…”. What is the story behind this track?

It’s actually a pretty funny song, not a negative one. In a relationship, the guy is pretty anxious that his girlfriend might just be an actress and not really open and sincere with him. The message is: if you really love me, show your emotion, but if you’re not, you must be a very good actress, and you deserve an Oscar, because you can lie, and I can’t tell the difference between lies and truth. That’s a funny way to say: don’t lie to me.

Some versions of the album also contain a bonus track called “Superman”. What is this song about?

“Superman” is another funny song. It’s about a guy who’s got a load of problems from every person, everybody wants his help, and everybody thinks he can fix what’s gone bad. To be honest, sometimes we all experience stuff like that. Certain people always think, “You can fix the problems, you’re the one who can make everything alright,” and sometimes you feel like, “Hey, I’m not superman, I can’t do this, it’s up to you. I can’t answer to all your questions, because I’m only human.” It’s another funny way to say, “Leave me alone, I’ve got my own problems to solve.” Sometimes it’s good to make this message come through, to certain people at least. (laughs)

As long as you mention Oscar and Superman in the lyrics – are you a movie fan?

Oh yes! I must say there is a lot of crap when you go to the movies, but I like to try to forget the stress of everyday life sometimes. Switzerland is a pretty expensive place to live, and sometimes when you’re back home from a tour and you see all the bills you gotta pay, sometimes the best thing to do is to put a DVD on or go to the movies. That’s what we do at rock concerts to the other people – they should be able to forget their problems, let themselves go and just enjoy two hours of rock’n’roll. That’s what rock’n’roll is to me.

Now can you say a few words about a new video for the song “The Call”? The video is said to be very unusual – so what does it look like?

This was a little experience as well. We’re not a video band, to be honest, we’re not an MTV or Viva kind of band. We always try to focus on the music, not on the video side, because good videos are very expensive, and we don’t have that budget. We don’t want to spend a million dollars to make a video that’s barely got a chance to be shown on certain TV stations nowadays. But this time we wanted to have something that would shock people a little bit, and we used a heart eaten by a girl as a metaphor. A lot of people were shocked, especially here in Switzerland, but that’s good, because people talk about it. If you want people to be shocked, you gotta shed a little blood in the video, it’s normal, we’re all used to that. But it’s not a negative message, it’s not a video that aims at driving people crazy and making them eat each other. We don’t wanna bring cannibalism into the light. (everybody laughs) It’s just a metaphor for the heart that’s been broken by the girl who wasn’t really in love with a poor guy named Steve. (laughs)

It’s now time to ask you about the album title “Domino Effect” – what meaning do you want it to convey? Do you believe that every little thing a person does can have a serious effect on his life or other people’s lives in the future?

Oh yes, definitely! I think it’s all related. “Domino Effect”, of course, can have a very large interpretation, there may be positive and negative domino effects. If you see the environment and all the problems we cause to Mother Earth by wars, pollution and stuff like that, then one bad thing leads to another bad thing. But we wanted to put this in a positive way – when you start listening to the first song, you wanna listen to the whole album, because one song leads to another, like a domino effect. That was the original idea, but everybody’s free to interpret the album as he wants. Maybe one beer leads to another beer! (everybody cracks)

Every Gotthard album has a very catchy cover artwork. Once you have seen it, you won’t forget it for a long time. Can you say a few words about how you choose the artwork, who comes up with ideas for it, and how many variants of artwork do you have for each album?

To be honest, one of the biggest problems is always the artwork. But I think it’s better this way than when bands have great artworks and don’t have good songs. We worked with Martin Hausler, who is a German graphic guy. He does great covers, and he always comes up with some ideas. This time we wanted to do something with dominos, we wanted to do different things, some were very crazy, others were very simple, but we always somehow come back to the simple ones. What we eventually have on the cover is the “G-spot” logo, which is something like a trademark for the band. We took the G-spot logo and just made it more modern. The cover didn’t really relate to the album title, but it’s a cool graphic design, and it comes very good on posters on the streets wherever we play during the tour. It’s something very catchy, and I think Martin did a great job again. He’s always the one with great ideas.

We’ve checked your merchandise and found a lot of really cool Gotthard items on sale – including Gotthard watches and even Gotthard running shoes. Do these items have any specialties apart from the Gotthard logo? And do you know what is the most successful merchandise item, except from T-shirts, of course?

It always depends on the country. For example, the story with these running shoes is that they are made by Kuenzli, which is a factory in Switzerland, something like Adidas or Puma. They make Swiss running shoes, and they are kind of popular. They wanted to sponsor Gotthard, and they made special Gotthard shoes, but they are not very well-known outside Switzerland, to be honest. It’s something that works better here in Switzerland than in Germany, Italy or Spain. So it always depends. In certain countries such as Germany shirts and baseball caps are the most popular items. And in some other places it may be funny, for instance, in England they like the tray, on which you can bring tea or coffee. It also depends on the period of time – when it’s hot, you’re maybe gonna buy a very simple T-shirt, but when it’s cold, there are some other items. It’s quite difficult for me to say what’s the best. But of course, T-shits are always the best selling items, they are the best memory for the fans, because these shirts carry dates of the concerts, and they make the fans remember when they saw the band.

Speaking about the visual side of Gotthard, let’s go back to last year’s DVD “Made In Switzerland”. Most of the bands nowadays use footage and recordings from several different concerts to put together a live DVD, but you recorded everything just on one night…

(laughs) It was very scary for us as well. The basic idea came up during the tour, we were already touring Germany and Switzerland, and we had a date at the biggest venue in Switzerland, it holds something like 14,000 or 15,000 people. And I came up with the idea that it would be nice to record the show, maybe just with one camera, just to have some footage from such a big place. It’s not often the case when bands, especially here in Switzerland, are able to sell venues like Hallenstadion. Moreover, it wasn’t our only concert in Switzerland, so it was very tough for us, because nobody was sure that we were gonna end up filling it. But then the management said that it would be nice to make an official live product out of it, to record everything and, if the recording was good enough, to do an official live album. It just happened, to be honest. Everybody was happy, it was a great night – the feeling was great, the footage was great, and we had just a few things to correct, but basically you can hear mistakes during the concert. We just tried to take some spoken phrases in Swiss German out and a few other things, and apart from that, it’s a very honest one-on-one recording, and that’s what the band considers itself to be – we’re a live band. Live concerts are the best way to promote the band and to become known outside Switzerland. Not many bands with this kind of music are able to fill stadiums like that, so we’re very proud of that.

One of the things that surprised us on the DVD is your drum duel with Hena Haberger. When and how did you learn to play drums? Were you a drummer in some band before Gotthard?

I was a drummer for many years. Actually I started to play keyboards when I was a kid, and then I discovered that drums are my real passion. I started to play drums, I wanted to become the best drummer in the world. We had a band at that time called ForSale, and we had a big conflict here in Locarno. We got a chance to open for a band called Marillion, but our singer announced three days before the concert that didn’t want to sing anymore, so I had to set up as a singer. And then everybody said, “Steve, you’re a good drummer, but you should sing!” From that moment on I was a singer. Sometimes I miss the drums, and I come up with the idea that since I’m able to play drums, it would be a pity not to show it. Unfortunately, it’s not always possible to play this kind of show, because it’s difficult technically to make it work. But wherever the chances are there to do a show like that, of course, it’s always a great pleasure for me to show that I’m not just a singer. This makes the band proud, and the show gets more interesting, I think.

The DVD is dedicated to Corrado Cavarra. Who was this person? What role did he play in the history of Gotthard?

He was a very good friend of ours, he died of cancer three years ago. He was our first roadie, he was always with us from the very beginning. He was a great and funny guy, he was able to make everyone among the tour people happy. He was something like the chief of the roadies. It was very tough to learn that your friend gets such a terrible disease, it was tough to see him die slowly, but you can’t do anything, you just have to wait until death takes him. That was very tough, and we wanted to dedicate this album to him, because he did a great job for many years, and he still lives on in our hearts.
 
Many other bands include in their DVDs some backstage footage, where musicians get drunk and party after the show. (Steve bursts into laughter) Honestly we don’t like it at all, and we’re glad that your DVD is quite a contrast to that. But how do the musicians in Gotthard spend their time after the show and on the road?

The problem is that a lot of people think, “There’s not many rock bands like Gotthard – they don’t drink, they don’t smoke, they don’t take drugs.” I think our drug is the music. Of course, we’ve had some parties, too, and we’ve had some great times as well. Probably the one who was shooting this backstage stuff was too drunk to shoot us when we were having a party. (everybody laughs) But I think it’s a very honest representation – you can see that we’re having a good time without necessarily being drunk every night. Maybe we’re the best behaving rock band in the world! (cracks) But we do have parties from time to time, like I’ve told you. There are things you can’t show on the DVD, that would be dangerous! (everybody laughs)

In October last year you toured Latin America with Stratovarius, Nevermore and Saxon. These bands usually have quite a different audience than the one that listens to Gotthard. How did those shows go? And how did you like such a heavy touring company?

That’s a good question. Sometimes you may not be able to fit perfectly with your kind of music in certain festivals, but sometimes it’s good, because it’s a little change. People are glad to hear the music that is a little different from the main acts. It’s hard to find other bands with this kind of sound, even though, to be honest, we didn’t invent a new sound, our roots go back to the 1970s and 1980s. But I think it doesn’t matter whether it’s new or old, it comes from the heart, and that’s the main part of the music. People can feel that it’s real, it’s not that we wanna do something that is fashionable. When we go to a metal festival with a lot of bands that sound the same, it’s cool, because people appreciate when something a little different comes. A lot of heavy metal fans would love classic rock, but they’ve never had a chance to really experience this music live, just on records, which is a different thing. It’s always glad to see the reactions – of course, certain people like it, and certain people don’t, it’s a matter of taste, and fortunately everybody has a different taste. Most of the times we see people having a good time with Gotthard’s music at such festivals.

We wonder what do you personally think about extreme metal? Being at Nuclear Blast, you probably have the chance to get familiar with a lot of the extreme stuff they release…

That was a problem in the beginning, everybody thought that it was not a good deal to do, because you get related to very extreme bands. But I think it was a chance for people from Nuclear Blast as well, they wanted to open up their markets and extend their roster, I would say. They wanted to show that they can handle other bands than Candlemass or Dimmu Borgir. Now with the second album at Nuclear Blast (even the third if you count the live one), I must say that it’s a very good deal for both sides. They were able to open up a lot of doors for us that remained closed since the period of working with BMG. With a major label like BMG, you’re just a number, certain countries were great for us, and in certain others we just didn’t have a chance, because nobody did anything to make us succeed. The chance to work with Nuclear Blast was a winning situation for both sides.

We heard about a side project that you put together in 2005 with Mark Storace of Krokus. You recorded a Queen medley and even played a show in London. Can you tell us a bit more about this project?

That was not a project, it was just for a very big TV show here in Switzerland. They asked me, Mark and a girl named Gigi Moto and we did a medley of Queen songs. These are things I love to do, because it’s fun to work with other people, but it never came out as a record or an actual project, it was just a one-time thing. It was fun to work with Mark, whom I consider a great singer and a good friend.

Have you ever thought about recording a solo album? Or do you realize all your ideas in Gotthard?

I wouldn’t say that I realize all the ideas. I’ve got certain songs in my pocket that I might release one day as a solo album. But on the other hand, I’m very happy to work with Leo and friends, because I can realize most of the songs I want to sing and play. It doesn’t make sense to me at the moment to do a solo album, because it would pretty much sound like Gotthard. And I think it would be a wrong moment, since we’re able to conquer a lot of new places on earth, a lot of concerts are being put on our schedule. But never say never, one day I’m probably gonna do it, but at the right moment.

The following phrase is taken from the booklet of “Made In Switzerland” – “Gotthard is supported by Harley Davidson and British Airways”. What kind of support do you get from British Airways? And regarding Harley Davidson – are you motorcycle fans? Do they provide you with free Harleys?

(laughs) A lot of Swiss factories and brands don’t trust rock music, so it’s fun that we sometimes get sponsors from outside of Switzerland. Which is a great thing! We are getting booked for a lot of shows, we’re gonna go to Japan this year, and the dates you can see on our website are not the whole tour, there are only the confirmed ones. We need to bring 10 or 12 people on tour, and buying plane tickets for all of them would be very expensive, and it’s great help to have an airline such as British Airways as a sponsor. And regarding Harley Davidson – what is a better way to promote great motorcycles than to use a great rock band? We have an opportunity to ride Harley Davidson bikes for the second year now, and it’s fun, it’s a great feeling.

Do you think your origin, the fact that the band comes from Switzerland, has any effect on your music? Do you think it would have been different if you were born in Germany or America?

Sources of inspiration would change, that’s for sure. Maybe if we were raised in the U.S., the lyrics would be different. But that’s what makes us special. A lot of people don’t even think that there’s someone able to play rock music in Switzerland, because Switzerland is very famous for cheese, chocolate and stuff like that, and not for rock music. Only a few bands, such as Krokus, for instance, have been able to make it big. But there are a lot of young people and a lot of young bands playing rock music in this country. Of course, it’s not very simple to step outside Switzerland and make music your number one job. Musicians here have a so-called regular job and play music as a hobby. It’s not easy, you really gotta be confident that you’re doing it in a proper way, that you’ve got certain qualities and a certain clash to survive, and that’s another point why we’re very proud to be still rocking and still going after 16 years.

Over your entire history, you have never had a single album that failed sales-wise or in the musical sense. What is your secret?

Of course, you would do certain albums differently nowadays, but it’s part of the procedure of learning. You always can look back, and maybe you would change some things in your life as well, but every album needs the previous one to make a better one next time.

Gotthard on the Internet: http://www.gotthard.com

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

Roman “Maniac” Patrashov, Victoria “Ewigkeit” Bagautdinova
June 21, 2007
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