Ελληνικά
Last Updated on 01:07 PM by Giorgos Tsekas
There are a lot more to discuss than I thought. But first of all, how have you all been? Welcome aboard!
Everything alright, and you?
“Zenith” it is then. Tell us a few words about the album’s creation. Seems like there is something “new”, after hearing some samples. “Die ForThe Devil” fired up a lot of comments. Tell us about this new approach.
Truth is that, for example, ‘Running In Menace’ from 2010 or ‘Take Me Out Of This Nightmare’(2013) are a similar type of songs that have this, let me say, kind of hit-song approach to them, that people tend to forget about.
If that’s the case, I can already imagine how ‘Thunder And Hell’ will sound like live, if it is of course on the setlist.
“It will sound like…”, and then, unfortunately, I interrupted him in some way, which led us to the next question.
You also announced Lethal Steel’s Jonathan Nordwall as your permanent member, who has also done some live shows with you in 2015. How did this come up?
It was a very natural decision for us because Jonathan has been playing with us for almost four years, so the transition was pretty smooth. It was natural when Joseph (Tholl) announced his departure.
Considering that “From Beyond” was out four years ago, you had a really long time to work on “Zenith”. However, what else was going on behind the curtains all those years, after the touring for “From Beyond” was done?
Actually, we didn’t have much time to spend on it because we were pretty busy touring the world. I think we played over 40 countries in two and a half years. So, we hand some good times on the road. And that’s what mostly costed the delay. But, also, we took a really good time to do something that we felt was motivated, creative and inspired.
“Death By Fire” seems to have caused a sensation, yet “Diamonds” is almost considered your classic. For you, which is your favorite Enforcer album?
If I had to pick from those two, I would say I’m definitely happier with “Death By Fire” because we worked more until we said we were happy with the songs. “Diamonds” has lots of potential great songs, but hearing it now, I can see that we recorded it so quickly and didn’t put enough time on really making the songs what we intended them to be.
You once stated that “heavy metal is timeless”. Do you still think that? How do you see things today? I mean, when the NWOTHM popped up, everyone was excited but things are a little down again today. Musicians also have claimed that it was never a thing anyway because heavy metal bands do small things today.
Of course, the sound of heavy metal is timeless, that is undeniable. Heavy metal was created and was in fact as inspired as it could be in the 1980s and ‘70s. I think it may have died in some way that people lost interest in it a little bit because of bands out there who are doing heavy metal in a very uncreative way, just trying to copy their heroes instead of coming up with something that is original, with songs that aren’t as good, so I get why people may see it like a parody, like myself. In the end, I suppose all music is about writing good songs, regardless what type of music you play.
You are due to return in Greece in May, finally, after 4 years almost. What should we expect from your upcoming shows, since that you have shown a particular interest in the Hellenic audiences?
We’re gonna do the greatest shows that we’ve ever done. I think with these new songs we have a completely new palette to play with, lots of differences in expression, lots of different sounding songs, a little bit more variation, that I think will work really well in a live context. I think we’re going to do a long show, maybe an hour and a half at least of material from all kinds of eras of the band.
That’s all from me. See you in Thessaloniki and Athens as well.
We ’re looking forward to see all you Greek metal maniacs and we can’t wait to come back.
