Running Wild
Weigh Anchor, Hoist The Sails

30.12.2013

Running Wild are one of the few metal bands with a style of their own that you notice at the first listen. Like it or not, you’ll never forget the somewhat coarse vocals of Rolf “Rock’n’Rolf” Kasparek and pirate-themed lyrics of the songs. Those are the two things that make sure Running Wild are still around after almost 30 years. Some like this stability, while others think the band stopped in its development a long time ago. In 2009, Rolf even pronounced Running Wild dead and gone, but it didn’t last very long, and this year the band’s loyal fans can rejoice at hearing “Resilient”, Running Wild’s 15th studio album. We called Rolf to talk about it two weeks before the release date, and naturally, our questions were not limited to the new album only. However, Rolf is the kind of person with whom you can discuss pirates endlessly, and the time of the interview is strictly limited, with the tendency of ending abruptly at the most interesting point of the conversation always in place. This means that we didn’t manage to discuss everything we wanted, but let’s hope that we’ll ask the Captain the rest of the questions next time. You can be sure that Running Wild will give us a good reason for another interview in not more than two years

It’s about two weeks till you new album is released. Could you tell us how it came to life?

I started writing in March or something like that, then I had some ideas, some songs I had in pieces and I started out writing on that. I was writing one of the songs and immediately I’ve got the idea for another track which was called “Soldiers Of Fortune”, and in two or three days some more songs just came out of that. I had ideas for “The Drift”, and then for “Bloody Island”, and then for “Run Riot”… For sure, it took me some weeks to put it down on tape as a demo, a complete version with vocals and everything. The time was running out and I had to start immediately with the production and while I was doing that I had four more song ideas which I put down to the paper very quickly just not to forget them… So it was a very relaxed situation, I had so many great ideas and that’s why the songs are so different from each other. I really could choose from a very big pool of songs.

Did you record them in your home studio?

Yes, when it comes to the demo, I do it in my own studio and that’s where I’m doing the production, the overdubs for the vocals and the guitars. It’s very comfortable to work there because you can work when you are in the mood to do this, and you can have a break and do something else when you see that your concentration is going away. Also you’ve got more time to work because you don’t have to look on the studio time like in the past days when you had to book a studio for two months or something like that and you knew that every day cost some money… We did the production in three different studios and sometimes I was recording the vocals and P.J. (Peter "PJ" Jordan, guitar) was in his studio recording his solo guitar at the same time, and Niki Nowy, the tone engineer was getting all the tracks together and doing another basic final mixing stuff, like that… It really saved us some time.

Could you tell me some more about the album? What is the title supposed to mean?

Well, to be resilient means that you’re strong and you never go away. In German it’s unverwüstlich which means you can’t be beaten, something like that. You’re always standing up again even if you got punched in your face. If you look on the cover you’ll see Adrian (the band’s mascot – ed.) right in the middle of the storm which he’s going through, and on the inside leaf of the cover you’ll find Adrian after the storm. He has all the scratches, the scars and everything but he survived. He’s going through that and keeping his way.

It was my intention actually to ask you about the cover. You used to have such great covers, with some brilliant pictures on it, but it’s the second time you have nothing but the logo on the cover. Why?

Because a CD is very small. (laughs) Most of the covers in the early days were created for vinyl, and it was four times bigger than a CD, and you could put a lot more things on that. The other thing is that when you go to a store you see all this heavy metal CDs and their covers are pretty much looking the same, they are very colorful and have many details on them. You really don’t take notice of that. I wanted to go away from that, I really want to have an eye catcher because in the first place a cover is the selling point. People take notice of a CD that looks different. This is what I wanted to have. The same reason was with “Shadowmaker” (2012).

Does the album have a concept or a common theme?

No, the songs are pretty much about totally different kind of topics. Some songs are about the pirate thing. If you look at a song like “Bloody Island”, it is about pirates in the first place. But on the other hand, it’s a song about greed, what greed does to people, what greed does to their hearts and souls and how this kind of seduction can work out… You know, there is totally different stuff like “Crystal Gold” which is about the drinking water recovery and how they want to privatize it just to have control over all the people because without water nobody can live. So there’s totally different stuff on the album.

This main track, “Bloody Island”, is going to be something epic, right?

Yeah, absolutely. You know, it’s very funny. Like I said before, it was one of the songs that came out in the first two days when I started writing. I just got some ideas and I put down all the pieces of the song on tape. Then I was coming back to “Bloody Island” to work on that and I figured out that all the bits and pieces I’ve put in a row on tape were the arrangements to the song. So I tried to change something, to put some other parts and it didn’t work. The song had been already written. It was really great to see that. That’s why the song has so little lyrics – you see, it’s a very long song and it has the shortest lyrics on the album. (laughs) But, you know, it is pretty much more about the mood. Getting into these melodies you really think about the old times, you think about the pirates and being on the sea and stuff like that. That was pretty much more a story that is being told musically than through the lyrics.

You know, I liked those rock-ish things on your previous album, like “Me And The Boys”. Is there anything like that on the new album?

We did some songs, especially that one, which is called “Desert Rose”. It is a mid tempo song and it has a really great vocal line and the choirs and all the harmony vocals and stuff like that. It sounds different to the album itself. It’s not that I tried to recreate “Shadowmaker” but some of the songs could be on “Shadowmaker” and some others could not ‘cause they are more like the stuff that I did in the past. For example, “Soldiers Of Fortune” could be on “Pile of Skulls” (1992) or on “Blazon Stone” (1991). There are totally different songs on the album, I tried to add different kind of flavors to it.

By the way, this song, “Me And The Boys” - is it about your fans?

Yeah, in the first place. But it refers also to the band that goes on stage. So it’s me and the boys, the other three guys, and we are together going on stage as a band. I lent the title from a band that I really admired when I was a kid. There was a band from England, Slade, they had a song called “Me And The Boys” and that’s why I lent this title.

What about your touring plans then?

No real touring, but after I’m done with all the promotion work I have to do now, I will go through all the offers we’ve got for festivals for the next summer. We have offers from festivals all over the world. So I’ll see what we can do.

Why don’t you consider touring?

You know, the last tour we did in Germany was in 2005 for “Rogues en Vogue” (2005), and a lot of fans came to us after the shows and said that was not what they were expecting from Running Wild because we’d got no pyrotechnics, no big lights and stuff like that. We were not able to pay for this anymore because the cost has risen so high. And that’s why we decided, “No more touring, we’re just doing festival stages”. Because if it’s a festival, everything’s there, the big lights are there, the big stage is there, you can do the pyrotechnics all over the place, and a lot of people are there. So it’s a better place to show people what Running Wild is all about.

You did all the production for the album, didn’t you? Is it difficult to produce your own songs?

No, because I’m doing it straight for such a long time. Since the very first album I was the producer and I really know what Running Wild needs and what Running Wild should sound like. I just can take myself off, when I’m a musician I don’t look at the production and when I’m doing the final listening I’m just the producer of a heavy metal band, not the singer or the guitar player of the band. I’m just looking at the whole thing, trying to figure out the best way to go for the mix.

Running Wild has its own style which is very unique and very recognizable and it hasn’t changed during all these years. How do you manage to do that?

Maybe it’s because the way Running Wild turned out within these 30 years has something to do with my personality and we didn’t change much during the last 30 years. For sure you’re learning and you’re growing, making experiences and it has some effect on the music, for sure, but I think Running Wild is the music I always wanted to play. This was the way to go for me so I never tried to do a different kind of style just to sell more records or something like that.

Have you ever written music that didn’t fit Running Wild?

You know, there was an opportunity to do different things for me. I mean the project I did, Toxic Taste, and also Giant X that I was doing together with P.J. It is a pretty much more rock’n’roll, hard rock, punk band… I don’t know whatever you call it. This is a totally different kind of music. If you have a look on these albums there are some heavy metal songs there, but they all have been written by P.J. I just wrote the blues and the rock’n’roll stuff ‘cause when I try to write a heavy metal song Running Wild comes out of this. (laughs) When I’m doing heavy metal, this is Running Wild. That’s why I chose to write different songs for the albums, to add different stuff to what we wanted to do with Giant X. It was totally different to what I did with Running Wild. It was just fun to do this. Through these two projects I learned lots of things about me as a singer and a songwriter and a guitar player. I always just did Running Wild and it was a certain style so it was really great to try out different things and maybe to find different things for Running Wild. Just have a look, I used these harmony vocals and the choruses in the songs on “Shadowmaker”. It was the first time I was working with that and it is something that came from those two projects I did.

You said you’re once again enjoying what you are doing with Running Wild. What is that changed since you dismissed the band in 2009?

You know, when I was writing things for the last album before the break, I really felt very tired and I saw that it was so hard for me to write songs… It was a really hard work to do this, it was no fun at all. In 2006 I figured out that I really needed a break, that I wanted to go away from that and get the head clear again. It happened in 2009 because we got an offer from Wacken that said, “Why don’t you put an end to this? The official end for the fans, with a big show and everything.” And we did that. Then we wanted to record some of the old stuff again but the record company said we needed some bonus tracks for that. I said, “Okay, I stopped Running Wild but I can try to do something”. I started writing songs and it was easy again. It was really great for me to see the spirit and this kind of passion to write Running Wild songs. It was so easy, the way the songs came out. That was the reason why “Shadowmaker” was not an album I expected to do. It was very surprising for me, too. And that directly led to the next level with “Resilient” which is a little bit more like the old stuff, but I’m not going back intentionally.

I remember a long time ago you were asked about all these reunions of Motley Crue, Judas Priest etc. You said then that it was all about money. What about your comeback? Does it have anything to do with money?

Just have a look on the passion in the songs and you will find out what the reason was, why I did this. (laughs) The reason was because I felt again this kind of passion to do the music, that’s why I’m doing this. I will go on with that only as far as I really enjoy what I’m doing.

Okay. You know, there are a lot of power metal bands in Germany (and there were even more in the 80s). Do you think it was your “pirate” image that helped you to stand out of them, to gain your own fans and everything?

It’s a part of that, sure. As well as all this stuff which was around Running Wild because Running Wild was a big show band, we had this big pyrotechnics, a huge stage set and everything and we really rocked our shows. On the other hand there were the album covers which we did, because they were different from all the normal power metal bands. They just have, you know, skeletons, knights with swords and stuff like that. So we kind of created our own unique style.

You have been writing about this pirates theme for so long. Aren’t you tired of it?

No. When I've got a great song idea, when I’ve got an idea for lyrics of a song, I will do it. Like I always said, when it comes to that, if I have ideas that are better than the pirate stuff I’m writing for an album, I just use the better stuff. It’s not that I force myself to write songs about pirates. This is not the way. When I get a great idea I do it, but I don’t feel myself forced to do anything.

So there is no there-must-be-a-pirate-song-on-the-album rule, is there?

No. Even if you look back on the early days, nobody really took notice of that there are no songs about piracy on the “Blazon Stone” album, for example. (laughs) And it was right in the middle of the whole pirate thing, in the beginning of the 90s. So when I don’t have a right idea I don’t do it.

You must have read every book about piracy during all these years, right?

I read a lot of those books, but it was a long time ago. Today I just don’t write about a certain person, I write about what comes to my mind concerning this stuff. I read hundreds of books around the late 80s and until the mid-90s. Then I stopped because I knew pretty much everything I wanted to know about that. It’s no longer necessary to read books about that all the time. I still read a lot, but about the history itself. I’m pretty much interested in history.

Do you have a favorite character?

It’s hard to say, you know. I did a song about William Kidd because… He was not a real pirate like Blackbeard or something like that, he was just a privateer for the king. He was really ripped off and then they tried to hang him ‘cause they didn’t need him anymore. (laughs) That was a very sad story in that case and that’s why I did a song about that.

The pirates in your songs are free brave men who have a great life full of adventures and all this stuff. At the same time you have a lot of songs about how awful the war is. How do these two things get along?

Well, at the first place, if you do a song about piracy we have to not to think about Hollywood movies, but about the truth that was back then. These times when these guys lived were different to what we live today. On the other hand, you know, for sure war was always a part of history. I really can’t deny that because it’s truth, even if I don’t like war, even if I don’t think war is a solution for anything. We can live in peace and it’s very great for us, but they had no chance to live in peace, you know. Very often the government was not good people in those days. (laughs) That’s why piracy in the Caribbean was pretty much the only way for these people to go away from that and to live free. For sure they fought at wars and they killed people, they did really evil things. Most of the pirates were not good people either. But there are a lot of good things coming out of piracy. For example, this insurance for sick people was their invention. They founded it. When somebody who was in the fellowship on a ship lost a leg they would work for him together and give the money to him and his family, so… What you would call… having good relations between them, they did it. They were very true and very loyal to each other. That was the good point of that. All in all it was a different thing what they did and why they did it ‘cause it was a different time then.

Do you think we are freer than the people were back then?

No. (everybody laughs) Not really. You couldn’t live in peace back then because war was all over the place and there was no time of real peace. Even in the 18th century the British were at war, the French were at war, all the time. Today here in Europe we are living in peace for a very long period. Seventy years of freedom and peace is a very long time. But on the other hand the guys who did the evil things back then, the governments, the kings, they are the same now… Today the banking people, the people in the economy - they try to get their share from everything and they really fuck other people. Maybe if you have a look on this NSA scandal, why they were collecting all the data and everything… You’ll really see that today we are not as free as we should be, no.

But we can’t turn to piracy. What should we do?

(everybody laughs) Well, it’s a problem today. I know there are pirates today, but they do different things. These people back in the early days they had no other chance to survive. That’s a totally different angle, you know.

Running Wild on the Internet: http://www.running-wild.net

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

Ekaterina Akopova
September 17, 2013
(с) HeadBanger.ru