PlanetMosh Keeping it Metal
Now and again, a press release lands in the PlanetMosh inbox that, out of the thousands we receive on a daily basis, piques our interest… such was the case when yours truly scanned a message from Pure Steel Records about one of their new signings, rising Hamburg five piece Shadowbane. So, I sat down at ye olde computer thing and fired some questions in the direction of bassist Moritz to find out some more about the Teutonic terrors…
You’re a new name to us (and probably many of our readers) so can you start by giving us a little background – who you are, where you’re from and how you came to form Shadowbane as it is today?
The first roots of Shadowbane date back to something like 2006 when Lukas (guitar) and Rene (drums) met the first time in a rehearsal room in Hamburg after looking for power metal-enthusiastic fellow musicians. Stefan (vocals) and myself followed during the next years, songs evolved and in 2010 finally the first complete line-up, featuring second guitarist Falk, released the demo EP ‘Dystopia’ and played the first show ever. Falk was later substituted by Dirk who recorded the debut ‘Facing the Fallout’ with us. and meanwhile quit. Since early 2014, with Markus, Shadowbane are complete again and ready to attack!
How would you describe your sound to someone who hasn’t heard you before?
We call our music ‘Post Apocalyptic Power Metal’. Musically, we’re positioned somewhere between melodic US power metal and raw Teutonic steel with dystopian lyrics.
Does the band’s sound reflect your own individual and collective musical influences, and if so how do you try to add your own touch of individuality?
When playing music you can hardly avoid to be influenced by everything you know – in one way or the other. In the beginning of Shadowbane, the songs were written mainly by Lukas and Stefan, later Dirk and Markus also contributed, and I started to write some lyrics. Therefore, the sound of Shadowbane is what all of us like and want to play. As we are a democratic band, we’re experts [at] discussing everything – except for the music, that’s something we hardly disagree!
Power metal has a very distinct sound, and fans have a clear idea of what to expect when they put on a power metal album: how difficult is it to produce something that is distinct and individual without at the same time alienating those fans with a clear idea of what to expect from bands working in this particular genre?
We sound the way we sound, we play the music we love and this turned out to be power metal. We don’t struggle to fit in a genre, this happens naturally if five power metal enthusiasts write songs and play music, it’s very likely that it turns out to be power metal ;-)
You’re about to release your debut album, ‘Facing The Fallout’: having released a demo back at the beginning of the decade, why has it taken so long to record the album and get it out there?
Well, Shadowbane is our hobby; some of us have families, time-consuming jobs and further commitments. We could only enter the Soundcave Studio in the weekends, Pure Steel didn’t get our first application due to technical problems, and the mastering by Dirk Schlächter also took quite a while as he has further obligations with Gamma Ray and his Hammer Studios (that furthermore burnt down during the mastering process!).
We did not push ourselves to be done as fast as possible, but to deliver the best we can. As we are satisfied with the overall result, this seemed to have worked out!
Can you talk us through some of the songs? Are there any specific lyrical or musical themes running through individual songs, or the album as a whole?
Our ‘Post Apocalyptic Power Metal’ features various dystopian scenarios within the lyrics. We found end time offers to write very intense stories going well with intense music. The loss of social frameworks and working public institutions delivers extreme freedom accompanied by the total loss of any security. This area of conflict generates strong emotions that are necessary to support heavy music.
‘After the Fallout’ refers to a scenario where no public authority is left and ethics are abandoned and substituted by the pure attempt to survive. The abysmal depths of human behaviour in existential conflicts as rat racing for shelter or cannibalism are examples for ultimate make-or-break situations suporting heavy music with heavy topics.
‘Traitor’ and ‘Dystopia’ focus on getting aware of being doomed within a last resort that is under siege, threatened by ideological motivated assaulters leaving no rational solution for the situation.
The late effect of such conflicts is major topic of ‘Beyond the Winds of War’.
The central theme of ‘Tear down the Wall’ is the uprising of people within tyrannies while taking risks individually. ‘Source of Grief’ is thematically positioned between the previous two. ‘Bad Lands Law’ and ‘Last Division’ are songs about tramping around in the wastelands. While all songs are basically modern distopies, ‘Bleeding Skies’ is inspired by age-old dystopic mythology.
Hamburg was once known as a hotbed of the German metal scene, producing the likes of Helloween, Running Wild, Gamma Ray, Stormwarrior, Paragon, Iron Saviour, …: has the recent economic downturn affected the live scene there, like it has in many places here in the UK, or is it still in decent shape?
Being originally not from Hamburg I still couldn’t think of any other German city with a comparable number of internationally known traditional metal acts… For the local scene within the last years some metal pubs had to close down, after the Ballroom some years ago; early 2014 also [saw] the closing of Three Monkeys – where we celebrated the release of our demo some years ago – [which] was a big loss for the scene. The Night Light is the remaining bastion and highly visited by metalheads from all around the world, especially when on their way to Wacken. For underground live shows, the Bambi Galore established itself as the leading venue during [recent] years and the Rock Cafe completes the live-show supply for underground metalheads. There are a lot venues for bigger acts – as Hamburg is the second largest city of Germany, most international acts stop over here when on tour.
The album is due to be released in mid-January: what are your plans for the rest of 2015? Presumably you’ll be touring in support of the release?
We’ll do our very best to play great shows to support ‘Facing the Fallout’. Some shows are planned at the moment, and we are always open to suggestions where to play ;-)
Have you any plans to play any of the big summer festivals? If so, which ones would you like to play?
Nothing confirmed yet. Stay tuned to our Facebook page and you won’t miss any upcoming shows! Of course, we are crazy about playing our stuff live, and I don’t think it’s a big surprise that it would be especially tempting to play one of the festivals one is visiting as a fan for years ;-)
Any plans to visit the UK?
We haven’t played outside Germany so far, but of course we’d love to!
‘Facing The Fallout’ is released via Pure Steel Records on January 16.
You can find out more about Shadowbane, and keep up with developments, at https://www.facebook.com/SHADOWBANEmetal
