Lacrimas Profundere
Motley Side Of Life

21.01.2009

The path to success may be short and easy for some bands, while for others, it takes decades and enormous amounts of hard work to come into spotlight. Germany’s Lacrimas Profundere have been around since the early 1990s, releasing album after album and slowly building a solid following. Even the change of lead singer failed to stop them, and with new man Rob Vitacca on board, and a new record out in the shops, they are bigger than ever on the European gothic scene. Yet another height the band is going to reach very soon is a gig in Moscow, where Lacrimas Profundere have never played before. Shortly before the gig we got in contact with guitarist / founding member Oliver Nikolas, and he provided us with his view on the band’s career and the path this gothic metal combo is planning to take in the near future…

The year 2008 is now over. Can you take a look back and sum up your impressions about the year? Was it good or bad for Lacrimas Profundere? What are your highlights from the past 12 months?

It was a great year. We played so many gigs and the biggest festivals in the world, such as “Pepsi Sziget” in Hungary together with bands like Iron Maiden and R.E.M., “Summer Darkness” in the Netherlands, “M’era Luna” in Germany and a fantastic festival in Mexico. We did our first headliner tour through Europe and released our new album “Songs For The Last View”! So, what can I say - it was not boring! But the best thing in the last 14 months was our tour together with Apocalyptica and the worst thing was our empty money pockets after it! (laughs)

As quite a long time has passed since the recording of “Songs For The Last View”, are you still satisfied with it 100%? And do you think it has received the reaction that it deserves from fans and media?

We had title stories in Europe and we entered the charts. John Fryer (HIM, Depeche Mode, Cradle of Filth) did the production and the mix again, and we did the mastering for the first time in New York together with Roger Lian at Masterdisk (Nirvana, Aerosmith). Bam Margera put some songs in his new movie „Where the ‘$%& is Santa?”! We had tracks in every episode of “Bam’s Unholy Union” show on MTV. But, to come to the point: we learned a lot at our tours together with Apocalyptica, Lacuna Coil or The 69 Eyes. We went to so many countries, for example, England, Ireland, the Netherlands, Spain, Greece, Mexico, France, Turkey, Estonia or Belgium, only to name a view, and all these things influenced the album and made Lacrimas Profundere a better band and us better musicians! John and me spent two months only to do the perfect mix and Roger made about 4 masters till we sent the whole stuff to our label! So, after all this, YES, I fuckin’ love the new album and we’re still satisfied with the reactions, sales, songs, cover, concept, etc! We’re very proud of our new tattooed baby in leatherwear and welcome it to the Lacrimas family!

Your bio on the band’s official website calls “Songs For The Last View” “the gothic equivalent to ‘Appetite For Destruction’” by Guns N’Roses. In what way are these two albums alike? I personally wouldn’t say that there’s much in common between them musically…

It’s not because of the music, it’s because of the spirit, in my opinion. I like the comparison because this is what I feel if I listen to our new record. You smell the dirt of the streets and the last bottle of whiskey. It’s the same feeling I had as I listened to “Appetite For Destruction” my first time!

“Songs For The Last View” was the debut album for your new singer Rob. How did you get him in the band, and how does Rob feel replacing a frontman who sang in the band for more than a decade?

He was and is a huge fan of Lacrimas Profundere and first of all he can’t believe it, to be the new singer in one of his favorite bands! I got a mail from him because of his own band. He wanted me to listen to his demo and tell him my opinion! I checked it out and I really liked his fuckin’ good deep voice. Two mails and a phone call later, he entered our rehearsal room! At our first band rehearsal, some songs sounded so similar to Christopher that I thought, “Fuck off, there is my brother near me”! We didn’t want “Ave End”, “One Hope’s Evening” or “Again It’s Over” or any other song to sound different with a new vocalist, and we didn’t want to change the arrangements of the tracks, so Rob was exactly what we searched for. He drinks, wears black and smokes cigarettes, and he is a wild mix between Ville Valo, Davey Havok and Jyrki 69, which fits great!

What is your previous singer Christopher Schmid now doing? Is he still playing music, or does he focus entirely on his ‘normal life and future’?

No, if he had still wanted to make music, he would have never quit Lacrimas! You know, he is my younger brother and he knew what I did to him when he was younger if he didn’t do what I wanted! (laughs) It’s a short and unspectacular story: he doesn’t have time for touring and festivals and he likes so many other things more than taking showers in bad clubs, sleeping in fucked up hotels, and spending hours and hours in the bus to enter ever fuckin’ stage in this world! But for me and the others, the nightliner is a classy hotel, the laundry near the club is a bathroom, and the tent near the stage is a Hilton. At the end you need to breathe the mötley side of life, and if you don’t breathe the smoking air in the tourbus, it’s time to leave!

Even though you are using different cover artists, your cover artworks have been quite close in style since “Ave End” (2004). Is there any special message or atmosphere that you want to convey through covers? Am I right in guessing that the original ideas for cover artworks come from the band, not the designers?

Yes! The cover for “Ave End” was made by Niklas Sundin of Dark Tranquillity. Niklas and me had the same idea, so we only had to buy his finished cover idea and make just a few changes. Other ideas would always come from my drunken brain, and together with Meran and his company Darkmouth we put them together! We created our own cover story with this dark comic style and I don’t know any band with an umbrella in their sign! For me it’s important that the cover and the booklet, the signs and the idea behind the concept look great. In my opinion, the music, the cover design and the artwork are the whole package!

Your song “A Pearl” has been included in the soundtrack to the movie “Virus Undead”. How did it happen? How did the band benefit from it? And what do you think about the movie yourselves?

Yes, the producer of the movie did our bonus DVD and asked for a song he could use in his brand new movie! Five teenagers are confronted, in a village in Brandenburg (Germany) with the effects of a new, far more aggressive variation of the bird‘s flu virus. Within a night, the virus spreads from person to person and transforms every infected into bloodthirsty monsters. Death walks … inside you! We like the trailer and the movie, that’s it!

Another interesting thing about “A Pearl” is that the video for it was aired actively in the Burger King restaurant chain. Who came up with this idea, and do you think you succeeded in opening Lacrimas Profundere to a new audience this way?

Hahaha, I don´t know. It was the idea of our label. I have to tell you that I’m a burger junkie, so it was funny to get my “burger-drugs” and our music combined in a restaurant!

In spite of being signed to an independent label, your albums hit the charts in Germany and other countries. Don’t you think you have “outgrown” Napalm Records with your past couple of records, or are you 100% satisfied with the work they are doing for you?

You know, this is business shit. For me it’s important that the label pays our bills, not the name of the company. In the past we thought we have to change to a major label, but we have a strong contract with Napalm, and for us, I think, it’s better to be one of the top five bands at an indie label rooster instead of No. 1024 at a major company.

Last autumn you went on tour with Wednesday 13, which means that you exposed your music to followers of quite a different subculture. How did you like the tour and response from the audience? And what do you prefer - opening for a bigger band or playing your own headliner gigs?

I prefer to play our own headliner gigs! But it’s always an adventure to be the opening slot, especially if you play with a band that plays a completely different style. The response was OK in Italy, great in Switzerland and Germany, but if the response is bad, first you have to ask yourself: did you play the best concert you could? If you ask me, I always expect that the fans wanted to have fun and rock, because they pay for the concert and want to be entertained, and we always do our best to give the fans what they want.

How did the songwriting process in the band change with Christopher’s departure? What are your sources of inspiration these days, and have they changed since the early days of your career?

Like always. I compose the music and the vocalist writes the lyrics.

What do you now think about the first two Lacrimas Profundere albums? Do you still like them, or would you change everything on them if you had the chance?

These records are more than 12 years old. Many things changed over this period, for example, recording systems, sound, gear and so on. So, I would change many things, but I still like tons of the melodies and moods on these records.

Your early material is often compared to My Dying Bride and early Anathema. Do you still listen to those bands, and if yes, what do you think about their latest records? In general, what were the albums that really impressed you lately?

“Turn Loose The Swans” and “Serenades” are milestones, in my opinion! I still like both bands but I don’t listen to this kind of stuff at present.

You asked your Russian fans to send you their Top 5 songs from your back catalogue, so that you would play the 5 most wanted ones at your upcoming Moscow gig. Are the results of this poll coming as a surprise for you, or do the fans vote as you expect them to do? Judging by this poll, what Lacrimas Profundere album is loved the most by the fans?

No, it was a big surprise. Most of the fans voted for tracks from the album “Fall, I Will Follow” (2002), and I expected records like “Memorandum” (1999) or “Burning: A Wish” (2001)! The song the most fans wanted to hear is “Solicitude, Silence” and to break a secret: we’ll definitely play this song!

What are your expectations from the gig in Moscow? How much do you know about Russia and the Russian music scene?

I heard from our friends The 69 Eyes and To/Die/For that Russia rocks, so we expect sweat, party and rock’n’roll!

Lacrimas Profundere have existed for more than 15 years, and have achieved quite a lot in the music business. But the change of singer is always a landmark event, so it’s the right time to ask you - how do you imagine the future of the band? In what way will Lacrimas Profundere develop 5 or 10 years from now?

Puh, a hard question. I hope in ten years we get the chance to do music for some porn movies or something with boobs! (laughs)

My final question - are you still comfortable with the band name after all these years? I don’t know about Germans, but for Russians “Lacrimas Profundere” is a pretty difficult combination of words to pronounce and memorize…

Yes! Hahaha! Trust me I wanted to change this name for the last 10 years! But I´m sure, nobody uses this name twice!

Thanx a lot for the interview and see you all soon in February!!! If you like dirty, heavy, and cool gothrock or you can ride a Sisters of Mercy monster with 69 eyes, Paradise Lost legs and a Guns n’Roses cock you should visit our concert. See you there and rock on!

Special thanks to Eugene Silin (Alive Concerts) for arranging this interview

Interview by Roman “Maniac” Patrashov
Photos courtesy of Irond Ltd.
January 14, 2009
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