Dezperadoz
Back In The Saddle

08.07.2024

The German masters of cowboy-themed and country-tinged metal have been taking more and more time to come up with new albums, and in the case of their latest release, “Moonshiner”, the wait was as long as seven years. The new record doesn’t bring about a massive change in the band’s musical direction, but lyric-wise, mastermind Alex Kraft does move on from the Wild West to the next milestone of the U.S. history, the Prohibition era. For us as Dezperadoz fans since the first album, that was a rock solid reason to have them again in our interview section after a break of 18 (!) years (yes, we are slow too). Read on to find out what COVID has in common with the Prohibition, how Alex views his current stand on the metal scene, and whether there are chances of him having a more prominent collaboration with Tom Angelripper again…

“Moonshiner” comes seven years after the previous Dezperadoz album. Why was the break between records particularly long this time?

I almost finished my record three years after “Call Of The Wild” (2017), but I didn’t have the right feel for this project. Then COVID came, and it reminded me of the time after World War I, the late Wild West theme, the prohibition era. It was a little bit like that in Germany during COVID, because normal things are forbidden. I thought, “It’s a wrong project”, and I started to write a completely new story, completely new lyrics, lyrics about the Great Depression, the 1920s, the period from 1915 to 1920, because the COVID time reminded me of that time. I stopped working on the old project and started completely from scratch.

What’s going to happen with that old project? Are you going to throw it away altogether, or are you going to complete it one day?

Hm, a good question. I think a lot of ideas were really cool, but I need to be really inspired. COVID was not a good thing, but for me it was a real inspiration. It’s like - you’re a normal guy, but the next day you’re an outlaw, that was COVD for me. I had to write this album. It’s important for me with every record to have a theme that shakes me, that kicks me. I don’t know exactly, I think the next thing for me will be - once again, it’s an idea from years ago - the story of Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid, South America. I worked on that stuff lots of times, and it’s a very interesting story. Maybe - maybe - that’s going to be the next record.

The lyrics for the new album are not yet available online, but we know that “Evil Wayz” is a song about notorious gangster John Dillinger. What other historical figures did you write about on “Moonshiners”?

A lot of guys like Pretty Boy Floyd or Al Capone. The song “My Lucky Graveyardboots” is about St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, a very famous massacre of that period. I don’t know if you’re familiar with that story - it was the first big deal by Al Capone. I wrote about this kind of gangsters, but also about old gunslingers, because lots of gunslingers of the Wild West were kind of securities in moonshiner bars. They were called speakeasys; a speakeasy is a saloon with a small door, where you have to say a code, a code like, I don’t know, “moonshine”, and if you say it right, you can get in, but if not, there’s a gunslinger behind the door. (everybody laughs) That was their job when they had grown older - to secure moonshiner clubs. That was the next level after the old Wild West. A lot of cities in the U.S. at that time, cities like Chicago and San Francisco, were very big and modern and stuff, but the old Appalachian mountains were still like the old Wild West. Those were really hard times.

By the way, who is on the cover artwork of the album? Is this any particular person that you depicted there?

It’s not a real person. If you remember my old bass player, Alex Weigand, he’s got a very famous tattoo studio in Heidelberg, and we stuck our heads together and tried to find a face and the style for an imaginary person of that kind - a bootlegger, a dealer, alcohol dealer or drug dealer. The artwork by Alex is perfect for me. It looks like a real bootlegger.

You told us last time that the truth about the Wild West is much dirtier than what people can see in Hollywood movies, and advised us to read memoirs of people like Wyatt Erp if we want to know what life in those days was really like. What would you advise us to read or to watch if we want to know the truth about the Prohibition era?

That’s a real problem. Most of the books from the U.S. - for me there’s too much glory and too many heroes. It’s not the truth for me and also for Tom (Angelripper), because Tom is also a hobby historian like me. We try to find books or stories of not so famous people, for example, Floyd. He was one of the biggest moonshiners, and Lynyrd Skynyrd have a song about him called “Floyd”. He died about nine years ago, and he told a lot of not so heroic stories, most of them were dirtier and more brutal, real gangster stuff. A real good friend of mine, he died half a year ago, was Canadian, and he also looked like a moonshiner, with a beard and stuff. He also told me a lot of old stories about the Appalachian moonshiners. The better books about moonshiners are Canadian, not U.S. books. You have to look for the right stuff. It’s a lot of work, lot of conversations with the guys who lived then and there, but it was the same for our old records, like the one about Wyatt Earp (“The Legend And The Truth”, 2006). Tom and me did a month of work, a month of reading books, old books like the one by Wyatt Earp himself. Whether it’s the truth, we don’t know exactly, but it’s not so Hollywood-style like U.S. stories.   

Can you say a few words about the video for “Evil Wayz”? How did it come about and who directed it?

For “Evil Wayz”, I’m not the director, but I had the ideas. The director was a friend of mine, who also did the video for “Back In The Saddle” (off “Call Of The Wild” - ed.), he knows me very well, and he knows what I want to say (his name is Ben Mumm - ed.), especially when it comes to telling the story of Tom Dillinger and the whole atmosphere of a jailhouse, from which Tom escaped in his great jailbreak. He’s really good at what he does, also with computer animation, I think his job is to make computer games.

What’s surprising about this video is that there’s no band at all, just the storyline, and the viewers don’t get to see you or the rest of the bandmembers…

That’s because I did most of the album by myself. I hope I have put together a really good band again this time, we played a release show on Saturday (June 22 - ed.), and it worked perfect. With Manu (Mandrysch), the bass player, I have worked for about seven years now, he’s a really good guy. I think I’ve got the new line-up together, with Andy (Kiesel) on the guitar and Lars (Nippa) on the drums, but the main work on the album was done by myself.

As far as we understand, the song “River” is dedicated to your father. Can you say a few more words about this song?

It fits perfectly in the story, and for me it was very very important to do this song for this album. My father was a really strong and hard man, but he was also a good father. He was a worker, nothing could happen to him, it doesn’t matter what comes, he was strong. I had a chance to spend a lot of time with him at the end of his life. He had dementia, it was progressing more and more, and this strong man was getting old, really old more and more. For me it was hard, but thank God I had so much time with him at the end. That’s why I wrote this song. We would go to the woods or to the Neckar river in Heidelberg - I’m from Heidelberg, and the river is beautiful - and at that time he was clear for two hours, and then he would lapse. But it was a very important time for me - and for him as well, because he knew he had dementia…

We apologize for bringing up this topic, it must be hard to talk about it.

Not at all. I think most of the people know exactly what I mean, or will know after a while. This is a song for lots of people, it’s a song for fathers and mothers, it’s important, because time goes on, and if you’ve got a father or mother who is old, try to speak with them, try to fix all problems, because it’s not forever. It’s a positive song, absolutely.

You have already mentioned Tom Angelripper, he’s once again a guest on “Moonshiners”, but as far as we understand, his role on the album was not limited to just singing a song with you. Can you elaborate on his involvement, what did he contribute to the album?

Tom is a part of the Wild Bunch, he was a part, and he is a part forever. Tom and me have been friends for years and years, and as you grow older, you get sentimental. (laughs) “The good old times! Oh yeah!” The song “Straight Between The Eyes” is about my first contact with Tom years ago at Endzeit, a bar in Altenessen. That was the first time I was invited - I don’t know why, but I was - and it was the first time I saw Tom. I go into the bar, and there’s a separate room, dark, and Tom is sitting on a chair and telling me, (whispers) “Come in, come in!” I come in, and he says, “Sit down and drink with me”. It was a glass like this (shows the size) and it was completely black. I was like, “What’s that?” And it was a drink called Cop Killer. He told me, “OK, before we talk, you have to drink that with me”. He got one, I got one - “We have to drink together”. Cop Killer is a terrible thing, I think it’s pure alcohol with tea or something, I don’t know what it is exactly, but it broke the ice. That’s what “Straight Between The Eyes” is about. It fits the story of the Prohibition, but it is also a bit of our story.

What do you now think about leaving Tom Angelripper’s band back in 2013? Do you still think it was the right move to make?

Absolutely! The band doesn’t exist anymore. (sighs) It was a fun project, and it went on and on and on, more commercial and more commercial, and it was not fun anymore. The last time it was not our idea, it was not our party, it was not fun anymore. Tom also knew that at the time, I think he understands the whole thing. But give us three or four years, and we are together again.

We will be looking forward to that!

It will be a fun band again, but not in a commercial way. I’ve got lots of stuff, Tom knows that, good old beer-drinking songs again from the German golden years after World War II. In Germany we call it “Wirtschaftswunderzeit” (English: “The Miracle Of the Rhine” - ed.), it was a time when Germany grew after World War II, and there was a lot of good party music. As I said, it will be fun, fun on the stage as well, that’s what we want. Tom knows that, and that is why Tom is only doing Sodom at the moment. It works, it really cool, it’s his baby, and, as I have told you before, we’re getting older, we’re getting a bit sentimental. With my band Dirty Deeds, it’s an AC/DC cover band, very famous here in Germany, we did our 20-years-anniversary, and Tom was there as a guest. We drink together, we make music together, and we make parties together, so that we can look back at it and say, “Wow, that was fun”. I hope we will be able to do it again, but it must be about fun, not about money. To be on the road again and have fun, that’s it. One more Dezperadoz album, one more Sodom album, and after that we will need a fun project.

We have seen quite a few reviews of “Moonshiners” and a few recent interviews online, but all of them are in the German language. Does it mean that German is where most of the interest in the band comes from, that your main audience is in Germany?

Oh, a good question! I think we’ve also got a lot of good reviews in Italy and France. I don’t know about the U.S., not at the time, but in Germany the new album works very very well, I think. It does better than the records before in Germany. It looks like that.

Why did you choose El Puerto Records as your new record label? What do they do differently or better than other labels out there?

A really cool question! It’s a completely new record company, and I think it’s a record label like in the old days. In the old days of Drakkar Records, Boggi Kopec (label boss - ed.) knew his bands, knew the music of his bands, and liked the music of his bands. He knew the image of their bands, he knew everything, he would visit us in the recording studio, he was a part of us. It’s been over for years and years. Boggi is an old man, he enjoys his life, and the younger A&R people are not really interested in the music or the style of their bands. It’s not a good feel anymore. El Puerto Records are totally different, they are like old-days pioneers, it’s a really good feeling, they are interested, they’re all for it, it’s great. It’s great to talk to them, their ideas are really cool, and it fits perfectly. So far I’m totally amazed, it’s really great. That’s what I want for my new record, because I never give up to start again. (laughs)

You have two videos out, the album has just been released, and you played a record release party last weekend. What are your further steps going to be to promote “Moonshiners”? Will there be more videos, more shows, etc?

Yeah-yeah, we’re booked next Friday as a headliner for a festival in Ahlen in Germany, it’s a really cool event, and we’ll try to get a support slot for other bands, like we did for Molly Hatchet years ago. It’s a little bit late, but I hope that we’ll get some cool festivals in the summer, there are good chances that we will get three or four. For me, I want to play lots of club gigs, I want to be on the road, that’s important for me. If it works as it looks, we may be doing a vinyl, and we will record an extra bonus track for the vinyl, and also a video, but this time with our band, with real guys. That’s the plan for now. We will try to talk to Holger and Thomas from Wacken Open Air - not abut Wacken, because we played there last year, and you can’t play there every year, but they’ve got a lot of projects, for example, two years ago we played Full Metal Holiday, and Full Metal Cruise will also be perfect for us. I would also like to get festivals in Italy and in the U.S., for example, the Tombstone festival. We’ve got a really good booking agency now, but it’s hard for them because we are very late, a summer release is late. I would also love to see Russia again. It was a real pleasure to play in Russia every time, the times are bad at the moment, but hopefully they’re getting better. I don’t think it’s right not to play there, because music is the best for all, and to say “no, stop” is not cool, it’s not my cup of tea. I think it’s important to play everywhere, to stick together and try to find peace of our minds. But it’s a long story…

Does your current success make you happy? Don’t you think that Dezperadoz deserve to be much more famous, and if yes, what do you think can be done about it?

For me it’s OK. I’m a happy guy, I do music as my job, and I think I have a really cool record now. This fame thing… I don’t wanna be a real rock star or anything like that. I know so many of them, Mille, for example, and also Tom. I love Tom, but he’s got problems with his family… I don’t want to be on tour 200 days a year. I want a bit of everything. I do want to do shows on weekends with lots of guys, to be a rock’n’roll guy, to sign autographs and stuff like that, it’s good for my self-confidence. (laughs) But years ago Tom asked me, “Come to me in Ruhrpott, don’t stay at Heidelberg, we’ve got a lot of work, we’ll stick our heads together and make it”. I said, “No. We can make music together, but I don’t want to be too famous, that’s not my thing”. I want to make good music, and I hope it works, I want to play cool festivals in Italy and Russia, maybe in the U.S., French people like Dezperadoz, Belgian people too, and I love that, but I don’t want to be on tour every day.

Can you say a few words about your involvement in Dirty Deeds? Are you Angus or Malcolm in that band?

(laughs) Angus Young is the reason why I play guitar. I grew up with his music, my first guitar album was “Powerage” (1978). For me it was like, “That’s what I want to do!” In Dirty Deeds, everyone is an old AC/DC fan, we stick together, for example Alex Weigand, the tattoo master and former Dezperadoz bass player - I’ve known him my whole life, we grew up together. That’s why Dirty Deeds is a really fun project - without the school uniform, but it works perfectly in Germany. We’re a cover band, not a tribute band, it sounds like it’s our music, and it’s pure fun. I’m Angus, yeah, I play Angus’ guitar parts.

Dirty Deeds have played in some unusual places, like Afghanistan, for instance. Could you say a few words about that trip?

Holger Hubner asked me to ask Tom if it’s OK for Onkel Tom to go to Afghanistan. Tom said, “Eh, I don’t know…” But the time goes on, and Holger wants an answer, so I said, “Dirty Deeds want to go to Afghanistan!” Holgar asked Doro as well, and she said, “No, no way!” But with Dirty Deeds it was like, “OK, let’s go to Afghanistan”. We played with Dirty Deeds at Wacken Open Air, and the song “Bon Scott” by Tom Angelripper is mostly a Dirty Deeds song. So it worked, we went to Afghanistan with Dirty Deeds, and it was a crazy crazy time.

You have been a professional musician since 1993. In your opinion, when was the best time for metal and for metal musicians?

Definitely the 90s, the middle and the end of the 90s. First of all, we were young. And it was the time when festivals like Wacken Open Air grew up. It was the best time. So many people loved this kind of music and lived this kind of music, and we did as well. Today is also really cool, but this old flair, especially this Ruhrpott flair that I remember, is gone. Gelsenkirchen, Essen - where Tom comes from - there were concerts every evening, it was unbelievable, it was a great time there.

Special thanks to Irina Ivanova for arranging this interview

Interview by Roman Patrashov, Natalia “Snakeheart” Patrashova
Photos courtesy of El Puerto Records, official Dezperadoz FB page
June 25, 2024
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