Hanna Tsepesh: Hello Patrick! Thanks so much for accepting this interview and Welcome to THE GATES OF METAL! First of all: how are you guys and how are the things doing with your concerts?
Patrick: Hell awaits, Hanna! We have to thank for the interview! It seems to be a bit strange to us that people in Portugal are interested in our band, but it feels fine. Everything is good...our new album was released on July 24th and we got some positive reactions from all over Europe! A lot of magazines and fans wrote mails to tell us that they are very impressed about our new work! At the time we don't play concerts, because until September there are many festivals and people are not interested in indoor concerts so far, so we spend our time to write new songs and to practice for upcoming live battles!
Hanna Tsepesh: For those who do not know Macbeth could tell us a little how it all started?
Patrick: Macbeth started around 1984/85. In 1985 they recorded a four-song-demo tape for a metal radio station in East Germany (the only one) and got much airplay. The band played many concerts and had a huge fan base. In 1986, after a legendary concert in Erfurt, the law and government of GDR decided to stop all the activities of Macbeth and the band became forbidden. It was a very hard way to be a metal maniac or a musician in East Germany and you got a lot of trouble...
In 1987 the band reunited under the name CAIMAN and in 1988 singer Detlev Wittenburg became imprisoned because of some stupid activities...Ralf Klein started singing and the band continued...
After the fall of the wall in 1989 Detlev returned, but after his prison he was a broken man...so he decided to commit suicide. Two other members left the band to search for new activities in west Germany and Macbeth was buried...
In 1993, with a different line up, the band decided to reunite again, but after the second suicide (the drummer) they split up again.
More than 10 years later, Macbeth played a just-for-fun birthday show for an old comrade and some fans from the early days asked about possible future activities...so they decided to create a new line up with two young guys and recorded another demo. In 2006 the first album was released and some concerts followed. In early 2008 Macbeth decided to kick the drummer and the second guitar player and just a few weeks later two new members joined (Alex - guitar / Patrick - drums).
Now the band is complete again and we all are sure that this line up will be the ultimate one until the end...watches out for the next attack!
Hanna Tsepesh: What inspired you the most to create the lyrics for Macbeth? The band writes the lyrics first or first the band creates the riffs to comply with the lyrics?
Patrick: Well, it is not easy to say which one comes first or after...sometimes we have an idea for the lyrics, before we try to create the music, other songs were finished completely before we think about the right words for it...
The main things of our lyrics are war, destruction or strange kind of people like mass murderers etc. We play metal and it fits perfectly to our kind of music we think. If you play a hard and aggressive kind of music, the lyrics should melt with the sound to create a good and unique work.
Hanna Tsepesh: What are Macbeth favorite bands? You have any singer that you admire the most?
Patrick: Well, we are two generations in the band... (Laughs) Our singer is 46 years old; our new guitar player is 23...so our influences are very wide open. Hanjo, our bass player, is a big BLACK SABBATH and old METALLICA fan, Ralf (guitar) likes bands like SLAYER, RAINBOW, DEEP PURPLE or old ANTHRAX and he is also interested in movie soundtracks, Olli (vocals) is our Bay-Area-Maniac, Alex (guitar) is a big fan of PANTERA and DOWN and I have my roots in the old thrash/death/black metal way and I worship bands like ACHERON, MORBID ANGEL, NECROVORE, INFERNAL MAJESTY or old MAYHEM. But each member of Macbeth is also interested in the musical taste of the other guys and so we spend some time to share and listen different kinds of music to fill our minds with lots of inspiration.
The best singers in my opinion are gods like Bruce Dickinson, Johan Langquist (old CANDLEMASS), Ronnie James Dio or Eric Adams! I think the other guys would make their signature under these words !
Hanna Tsepesh: I would like to know if Olli had or have any singing lessons or any other preparation and the rest of the band had any musical education or something?
Patrick: Olli has no real education etc., but from time to time he gets some lessons by a private local coach to form his voice a little bit.
The rest of the guys never had any musical education (except me, normally I am a classical guitar player).
Hanna Tsepesh: You guys have a new album called “GOTTESKRIEGER”. This album is fantastic! My favorite music’s are: Maikaefer flieg and Mein kleiner soldat. For people who don’t listen yet can you talk about this album and what is the big different for you between this album and the previous one?Patrick: Thank you very much! It is really great for us that you like the album!
There are two very important different things between both albums: At first the new one is more aggressive, more metal and I think the arrangements of the songs are much better than the first record. The second thing is the kind of production of "Gotteskrieger". It sounds more brutal with a taste of modern metal sound, but it has also some old fashioned feeling because of the heavy metal riffs...
It is not easy to describe the album to people who are unable to listen to our stuff...I would say that we have influences of Heavy, Thrash, Speed, Doom and a very little bit Black Metal in our music and if you are open minded enough to like all these genres, you should listen to "Gotteskrieger"!
Hanna Tsepesh: The band feels proud with the final result or you think that miss something? Everything went well at recording studio?
Patrick: When we finished the studio sessions in November 2008, we were really proud of the final result - and we still are! I think we did a very good job without any other person involved into the process to produce "Gotteskrieger" ! It was recorded at RAPE OF HARMONIES, a well-known studio in Germany (were I work since nearly 12 years) and I decided to do everything - engineering, arranging of some additional parts, mixing and mastering and I am sure I did a very good job! There is nothing on the album we don't like or we would change if we could - everything sounds good to our ears and I am sure the next record will be another step to continue our path!Hanna Tsepesh: How has the response been to the album by the media and fans?
Patrick: At the time we got more than 50 reviews and some mails from fans all over Europe...
Of course, you can't create an album that everybody likes (it would be very strange to us if something like that would happen...), but most of the media reviews are very good (like 8 or 9 points of 10 / 90 or 99 % of 100% etc.) and our fans are very impressed by the new album and daily we got responses from new maniacs!
Hanna Tsepesh: also the cover album is amazing! Who was the person behind this cool work? You think this cover art transmit what “GOTTESKRIEGER” are?
Patrick: Our guitar player Ralf did the cover and he is also responsible for the entire design and layout of the booklet. I think he is a very creative guy and he has a lot of good ideas and - last but not least - he is really able to work them out! I am very proud that we don't had to use some artists who made cover artworks for a lot of other bands who simply looks like the same sometimes...when we decided to call the record "Gotteskrieger" (God's Warrior), Ralf had the idea to create that monster you can see on the cover. I think on this album everything fits perfectly - the music, the lyrics and the entire layout! And it was very important to use the skull with the crown on the cover - this is our "Eddie"(laughs)…, and he will return on every record!
In September we will release the album on limited vinyl format, cause some of our fans and me are big LP collectors and it will be a nice thing to have it on vinyl! We think about to change something in the layout to make it very special...be patient!
Hanna Tsepesh: Very cool! If one of our readers wants to buy your album safely, what they can do?
Patrick:Well, the album should be available on AMAZON.DE or AMAZON.COM. Otherwise EBAY would be another decision and we have also some copies for sale. Please contact us for postage costs and order details!
Hanna Tsepesh: what is your favorite music in this album and why?
Patrick: I think each song has its own musical taste. There are some Heavy rockers like "Unter dem Beil", some Thrash Metal bastards like "Hunde wollt Ihr ewig leben" or "Gotteskrieger", some epical stuff like "Maikaefer flieg" and a Doom monster called "Golgatha". As I told you, we are very much into different kind of music (not only metal) and so we try to combine all these influences to create our own and unique sound.
Hanna Tsepesh: The band is thinking about a European tour? You guys have plains to include Portugal in your tour or something?
Patrick: It would be very great to play a European Tour ! But I am not sure if we are big enough to fill some concert halls...until now Macbeth played in Germany only and I think there are not enough fans in the foreign countries who know who we are...and a very important thing is that many people don't understand our lyrics, cause they are all sung in German, so it would not be very easy for us to do some gigs out there...maybe we could play as support for a well-known metal band, maybe this could be happen in the future...time will tell. It would be a pleasure to play in Portugal!
Hanna Tsepesh: Do you want to send any message for the people who going to read this interview?
Patrick: Hey maniacs - thank you very much for reading this interview! Check out our new album "Gotteskrieger" and be sure we will kick your ass! And Hanna, thank you very much and all the best with THE GATES OF METAL!
Hanna Tsepesh: Thanks o much for your answers and time and your words! THE GATES OF METAL wishes the entire band a great success with “GOTTESKRIEGER”! We hope to see you guys very soon in here…
Patrick: Yes, we also hope so!
By: Hanna Tsepesh
To listen to some MACBETH music’s and for future information’s go at:
www.myspace.com/abendmahl
www.macbeth-music.de/
