PlanetMosh Keeping it Metal
Shortly after the release of the “Fairies Return album” Planetmosh caught up with Matthias Kraft to discuss the bands history, its influences, the album and what it has planned for the rest of the year.
This is Lee Walker from Planet Mosh meeting up Matthias Kraft from Teutonic Metalers Reaper
LW – Thanks for taking the time out to discuss things Reaper related for the Planetmosh readers.
MK – No Problem. It‘s my pleasure!
LW – For the people out there just discovering Reaper as a result of this interview how did the band come together?
MK – The band was founded in 1984, this is a long time ago. I struggle to remember the exact details.
From the original line up only me and Daniel are left. The other guys came in over the years – mostly by incident or sheer luck.
LW – What made you choose the name Reaper for the band?
MK – It was just a name at first. By the time it turned out it fitted really well with the music so we kept it.
LW – What bands/artists have influenced you over the years?
MK – When we started out of course there were bands like Iron Maiden and Judas Priest, Dio and so on.
Later we started to develop an interest in bands from the Death and Black Metal genre like Bolt Thrower or Dissection.
LW – When you first started the band did you think it would still be going some 25 years later?
MK – I cannot imagine any band starting up saying we’ll be there in a 20 years, right?
Of course we didn’t do that. We started to play and somehow we haven’t stopped until now.
LW – You have recently released the album “Fairies Return”. How did this come together?
MK – It wasn’t our fault ;-), really. Sasch Menschl from Mighty Monster Records came up with the idea at first and asked if he could do this re-release.
Later he cooperates with these guys from Karthago Records to publish that thing worldwide. Of course we agreed.
The original record had only 300 copies and as it turned out it really did well on Ebay so this might be a reason for their interest.
LW – In terms of the album what are your favourite songs from it?
MK – I would choose “Crawling nearer” and “Fountain of youth”, because these two songs are closer to the stuff we do today, in a way they are classics.
LW – How does the “sounds” that you produce now compare to the earlier “sounds” featured on this album?
MK – Let’s be fair, these are two different bands playing different styles and having a different line up.
So these old sounds are almost incomparable to the sound we do today, it’s more of a garage days revisited.
LW – If you had to pick one song to sum up Reaper right now what would it be?
MK – What about “Wonders in the dark”? A song we released on a sampler called “Masters of Cassel” some time before releasing “Gardens of Seth”.
That song somehow puts it all together and we love to play it live.
LW – Besides the album release what do you have planned for the rest of 2012?
MK – Actually we’re busy on writing songs for a new album but besides of course we wouldn’t mind to play live.
LW – Are there any bands out there you would recommend keeping an eye on right now?
MK – For example there is “Hellforce” a marvelous old school Death Metal band fromKasseland by the way the band Jan plays bass guitar with.
Another one could be “Burning Hellmet” that’s Daniel’s second band, they’re more of a rock n’ roll band.
Let’s be serious there really is a number of bands that turned up over the years who are worth listening to.
LW -Are there any messages that you would like to pass on to your fans?
MK – Basically they’re the same as we’ve always said, think for yourself, make your own mind about things, don’t just listen to what other people say and have a good time listening to the greatest music in the world which is Heavy Metal.
For more information on Reaper please check out the Official Facebook Page HERE or their Official Website HERE
To read Planetmosh’s review of the album please click HERE
