BLIND GUARDIAN INTERVIEW WITH MARCUS SIEPEN
By Rodrigo
Rarely does one get the opportunity to be able to talk to one of their personal favorite bands. I was lucky enough to have that opportunity and its something I will cherish forever. Marcus and I had a great conversation regarding their new masterpiece A Night at the Opera. I would like to thank Marcus for taking the time to talk to me and to Matt at Century Media for setting up the interview.
Ultimate Metal: Let me just start by saying that after listening to this album so many times, I have to say that this is your best work yet.
Marcus Siepen: Thanks a lot! That is good to hear!
UM: What has been the general reaction you have been hearing?
MS: Everybody likes it up till now, concerning the reactions of some of the fans on the Internet. Some people prefer the older Blind Guardian, the more simple style like in Somewhere Far Beyond. Also, these people like this album they just expected us to do something more in that direction. The main goal for every album is not to repeat ourselves. A lot of people have been asking before if we would do something like Tales or Imaginations. We give them the same answer all the time, "no we wont because we did that a couple of years ago and we dont want to repeat ourselves." We have the typical Blind Guardian elements but we also try to get fresh influences into the music to keep interesting for the fans and for us. I hope we achieved this again.
UM: How long did it actually take for the whole recording process of A Night at the Opera? It sounds like it took quite a long time.
MS: A looooong time. We actually started the production in September/October 2000, a looong time ago. I have to say that we didnt start with the album production but we started with the pre-production. This time we didnt record demos of the songs before the producer came. We actually started recording demos with him. We also started working on some of the arrangements at that time. So that again that took about two or three months. After that we started recording the album. Also, compared to the other albums we always worked with several engineers so we could work in several shifts a day. With this one we just worked with one guy, Charlie Bauerfield who produced this album, and I mean obviously this one person cant work all day. So we couldnt work with all these shifts like we did in the past. So thats another reason why it took longer than expected.
UM: Was it the fact that you had so many ideas, that it helped in lengthening the process?
MS: Oh definitely! If you listen to a song like "And Then There Was Silence". We recorded over 200 tracks for this one song, which is more than other bands record for an entire album. Its just part of our style to use all these big choir arrangements and the entire harmony guitar stuff. It just takes time to record all this stuff, not to mention all the time it takes to compose it. (Laughs) Every one in the band wants to make it perfect. So we just work on a single song for weeks until we all say, "yep thats the way the song should work." We dont compromise on that, concerning songwriting and recording, if somebody doesnt feel good with a certain take, we record it again and again until everyone says thats perfect.
UM: How does the songwriting work? Do you guys work as a team or separately?
MS: Both. Everybody starts on their own. We have our own studio where we recorded and mixed this album. But everybody also has his own studio equipment at home. So we basically start on our own and when we have one minute of music completed, we get together and Hansi starts singing to that stuff and we see if it works. If it doesnt work or we dont like that way, we make it work until everyone likes it or we just throw it away and start all over again. From that point on the songs just grow. There is no master plan when we start songwriting. We dont sit down and say we need one ballad and we need this and we need that. We just start writing whatever comes to our mind and we just see what happens. For example, there was no plan to write such a long song like "And Then There Was Silence". It just happened. We just started writing that song like all the others. The first chorus appears after 4 or 5 minutes and we said, "ok this is going to be a long song." It just grows.
UM: I was going to ask you if there was a plan to make a 14-minute long song?
MS: Definitely not. It just happened that it became that long. Everybody likes this song. It was a great experience doing this. It was never planned to make such a huge, complex and long song. I dont know if we will ever do something like that again. Maybe, maybe not, I just dont know. But there has never been a master plan for something like that. We just write what comes to our mind. The only thing that its in our heads when we start songwriting is to not repeat ourselves and always use fresh ideas.
UM: For that song, it doesnt sound like its a 14-minute song. It goes by so fast.
MS: Thats good. Thats good to hear. We were afraid of that. That some people would say that its good but its fucking 14 minutes long and it could have stopped after 5 or 7 minutes. But if you say thats fine, then cool thats what we wanted to hear.
UM: What do you hope A Night at the Opera will accomplish for Blind Guardian in the US?
MS; Obviously the last album was the first one to be officially released in the States. The problem with that one was that we didnt tour the States. It was released one year later in the States than in the rest of the world. We were offered to tour the States with Iced Earth or with Nevermore. At that time, when we had gotten the offer for that tour, we had already finished in the rest of the world and we were already starting to write new material. Because of that, we said thanks for the offer but we wont do it this time. If we started touring again, the next album would be coming out very late and so we said next time. Now we have our first US show confirmed, ProgPower and there will be more shows. They are not confirmed at the moment, we are planning and coordinating all the stuff at the moment and definitely there will be more shows in the States, so this should help us a lot.
UM: Are you excited about the ProgPower festival?
MS: Definitely, we waited a long time to be able to play the States. Its going to be awesome. I read about some of the other bands that will play like Gamma Ray and Angra. It should be fun!
UM: "The Soulforged" is based on the Dragonlance saga, which the fans voted for in your website. Were you surprised by the results?
MS: Some of the themes that people came up with surprised us like Star Wars. Everyone in the band loves Star Wars but it would be unusual to sing about that stuff. The Dragonlance stuff is definitely a fantasy kind story. It works fine for the band since most of the songs are fantasy stories or classical stories, like theater. It didnt really surprise that something like this would win. When the people voted for the Dragonlance stuff, we didnt know them. So Hansi had to read them. I have some of the books now and I will read them on tour. Hansi told me they are good stories and he liked them a lot. Its fun to involve the fans in something like choosing one of the themes of the album. At the moment we have a poll going on where people can vote for the 10 favorite Blind Guardian songs. We will take these songs into consideration for the setlist of the tour. People really appreciate that, they are involved in all this stuff and that we keep this contact with them over the Internet. Its fun to get the direct feedback on the net.
UM: First time I ever heard of the Dragonlance story was when that won, I havent read anything about it.
MS: As I said, same with me. So I dont know the actual story but I do know that Hansi based the song in one of the main characters, I guess its the wizard from the books, I forgot his name.
UM: I am having the hardest time choosing a favorite song right now because they are so great. I really like "Sadly Sings Destiny" the most right now but it changes all the time. Do you have a favorite song?
MS: Its hard to say at the moment since everything is so fresh and new to us. In the moment, I would say, "Battleflield" and "Punishment Divine". Dont ask me why because if you ask me the same question tomorrow I will probably choose other songs. It will be much easier for us to pick certain songs after the tour or during the middle of the tour when we start playing these songs live and see the reactions of the fans. This builds your opinion quite a lot. To see the feedback from the fans in certain songs definitely influences you. Those two songs at the moment are really fun to listen to and to play as well. So as I said since we finished the whole production in December so everything is very new to us. So we have to wait and see. (Laughs)
UM: I agree with you. Tomorrow I will probably choose another song too.
MS: Its the usual thing. You change your opinion quite a lot.
UM: Were you surprised the way the single sold all over the world, like being #1 in Spain and a top 10 in Canada?
MS: Nobody expected something like that. Obviously a 14-minute long song is not your typical single song. I guess you wont get any airplay with such a long song. Yes, we have been very surprised by that. We knew that the single contained 20 minutes of great new music and we knew that the people have been waiting for something like that, to finally hear new material. We never expected it to make it #1 in Spain. This single was released in November and its still in the top 10 in Spain, it never left the top 10. It was a huge success all over the world, chart-wise. It charted in Germany, it got to #7 in Canada, and it made it in the US charts at #172 or something like. Century Media totally freaked because it was their first single that ever made it to the charts for them. Which is great, it was a huge success all over the world. We knew it was good material and that people would like it but we didnt expect something to happen like that, it was just great.
UM: So this should give you the confidence that the new album will chart equally or maybe even better all over the world?
MS: I hope so! (Laughs)
UM: Could you give me a brief rundown on the subject of each of the songs?
MS: I hope I dont mix them up now. (Laughs) First song, "Precious Jerusalem" is based on Jesus Christ. Hansi likes this person. I am pretty sure that this person did exist 2,000 years ago. I actually dont believe in God and I dont think he was the Son of God. He must have been a pretty charismatic person. He is a very interesting figure. "Battlefield" is just an imaginary story written by Hansi. When we write songs its always the music first and we listened to this music and everybody had this vision of knights marching into battle when listening to that song. So he just called it "Battlefield" and he wrote it concerning knights. "Under the Ice" is about The Iliad and the War of Troy from the sight of the seer Cassandra. "And Then There Was Silence" is also about The Iliad. "Sadly Sings Destiny" is about (thinks for a little) well I cant remember what its about. (Laughs). "Punishment Divine" is about the German philosopher Nietzche shortly before he goes insane. "The Maiden and the Minstrel Knight" is about the Shakespeare story, Romeo and Juliet. "Wait for an Answer" is another fictional story and the last one "Age of False Innocence" I have also forgotten what its about. Sorry. (Laughs).
UM: Is the band ultimately satisfied with the end result?
MS: Yeah, definitely! I dont know if this will be the same in one year from now. When you finish an album most of the time you are definitely satisfied with the album. Maybe after you come out of the tour you find a part that you would have done something differently. In the moment everybody is 100% happy with the album, concerning the songs, the sound, whatever.
UM: What three adjectives would best describe the new album for you?
MS: (Long pause) Well definitely one would be "heavy", one would be "epic" (Laughs) and the third one would be "new", because of the new elements and influences we put into the sound.
UM: Out of the songs from the new album, which ones do you think you will play live, if you have the idea?
MS: We are just working in the setlist at the moment. We are in the middle of rehearsing and we are trying all the songs right now. The plan is to play four songs of the new albums live, maybe five including "Harvest of Sorrow". We dont know yet what exactly we will play. We are working on "Punishment Divine" at the moment and we will also try "And Then There Was Silence" but I have no idea if this song will make it into the setlist since its pretty hard to play. Well see, as I said there will be about four songs because we dont want to play the whole new album because that is pretty boring. Also, we are going to record a new double live album, so there has to be a lot of songs too. So its going to be a huge setlist and we will change the setlist often. The plan is to record shows all over the world with different setlists so we can record as many songs as possible. Its going to be fun!
UM: I was actually going to ask you if there was a plan to come out with a new live album after this tour and you already answered me.
MS: (Laughs)
UM: Out of all the bands you have played live with, which one(s) have you had the best experience with?
MS: I guess it was Iced Earth. We toured a couple of times with them. They supported us in 1991 for the Tales tour and they again supported us on the next tour for Somewhere Far Beyond and we became best friends. We partied all day and we got the experience that its not good to party all day. Everybody got sick every 2 or 3 days. It was so much fun. Again they supported us in the last tour in Spain. We are really close friends and its fun playing with them. We have very good relationships with all the bands we played with. Like Saxon who supported us in a festival tour we did back in 1995 that was called "Guardian Christmas Party". Other bands that played were Rage and Skyclad. Saxon and Iron Maiden have been my idols when I started listening to metal in the early 80s. It was really great to go in the road with these guys; they are just so friendly and down to earth people.
UM: Was there going to be an EP released after Nightfall In Middle Earth?
MS: Yeah, we had plans for that. The plan was to finish some songs we started recording during the Nightfall sessions after we came back from tour and release them as an EP to finish the whole Nightfall concept. But at that time Hansi had some major problems with his hearing, he had tinnitus, which is having a constant ringing in your ears. Unfortunately, he had this problem which kept us from working for about half a year because he had to go to the doctors and get medical treatment every day. When he was finally able to sing again, it was just too late to record the songs and release them because the gap between this EP and Nightfall would have been too big. We just kept these songs. "Harvest of Sorrow" was one of the songs planned for this EP which we have just released. The other songs definitely will be released one day, I dont know if on another single or another Forgotten Tales album, which might happen one day. We are going to use these songs but I dont know when.
UM: What did you think of the movie "Lord of the Rings"?
MS: It was great! Everybody in the band has seen the movie and everybody loves it even though there are some important scenes missing. Its just an awesome movie and I thought it would be impossible to make a good movie out of the book because its so huge and complex. Peter Jackson did a great job. What I heard is that the DVD version will be one hour longer and contain all the missing stuff. He just couldnt make the movie four-hour long for the cinema. Which is fine with me since I will buy the DVD anyway, so cool!
UM: What did you guys think about the music?
MS: Its great. Are you referring to the story that we had gotten asked to do something for it?
UM: Yes I am.
MS: We had contact with Peter Jackson. When this whole project was announced there were so many fan sites going on with polls with who should do the soundtrack and we won most of these polls which was absolutely great! (Laughs) This also got the attention of Peter Jackson and as I said we managed to get in contact with him and we were asked to send in demo material. But at that time we already were in the middle of songwriting and pre-production for the new album. So we said thanks for the offer and we wont do it because Blind Guardian is the most important thing for us. If we would have started working on the soundtrack, I mean I dont know if we would have gotten the job anyway. But imagine if they had told us that we were going to do the soundtrack then there wouldnt be a new Blind Guardian album at the moment. The break between the last album and the new one has been four years now. With the soundtrack work it might have become five or six years and that would have been too much. Like I said, Blind Guardian is the most important thing and so we said thanks for the offer but we wont do it.
UM: So did you actually record anything for that project?
MS: No, we had been working on an internal side project, I call like that. We have some songs that are pure classical music, no guitars, no drums, no nothing, just Hansi singing to that. Lyrical-wise this is completely based on Lord of the Rings. This music would have been the perfect soundtrack for the movie, it would have fit perfectly. The problem was at that time, when we were asked to send in demo stuff, we didnt record these songs in demo version. We would have had to stop the whole songwriting process and we would have had to record all this stuff and then send it in. It would have cost us too much time. We had been working in this material long time before this whole movie project was even announced. There is no music that we just wrote for that movie, which is another rumor that is circulating on the Internet. We didnt write anything just for the movie.
UM: That should settle the rumors then.
MS: I hope so.
UM: What other releases are you looking forward to this year?
MS: Rush! Definitely Rush! I heard they are in the studio in the moment and they are supposed to do another tour in Europe, which they do every six or seven years, which is a shame. This is the major thing that I am looking forward to.
UM: Last question Marcus, how long do you see Blind Guardian going?
MS: I have no idea. As long as we have fun playing this music and as long as people are listening to this stuff we will go on, definitely. I have no idea how long this will be. Maybe we will do one more album, maybe ten more albums or maybe we will become older than the Stones. As long as it is fun we are going to continue.
Ultimate Metal A Night at the Opera review
By Rodrigo
Rarely does one get the opportunity to be able to talk to one of their personal favorite bands. I was lucky enough to have that opportunity and its something I will cherish forever. Marcus and I had a great conversation regarding their new masterpiece A Night at the Opera. I would like to thank Marcus for taking the time to talk to me and to Matt at Century Media for setting up the interview.
Ultimate Metal: Let me just start by saying that after listening to this album so many times, I have to say that this is your best work yet.
Marcus Siepen: Thanks a lot! That is good to hear!
UM: What has been the general reaction you have been hearing?
MS: Everybody likes it up till now, concerning the reactions of some of the fans on the Internet. Some people prefer the older Blind Guardian, the more simple style like in Somewhere Far Beyond. Also, these people like this album they just expected us to do something more in that direction. The main goal for every album is not to repeat ourselves. A lot of people have been asking before if we would do something like Tales or Imaginations. We give them the same answer all the time, "no we wont because we did that a couple of years ago and we dont want to repeat ourselves." We have the typical Blind Guardian elements but we also try to get fresh influences into the music to keep interesting for the fans and for us. I hope we achieved this again.
UM: How long did it actually take for the whole recording process of A Night at the Opera? It sounds like it took quite a long time.
MS: A looooong time. We actually started the production in September/October 2000, a looong time ago. I have to say that we didnt start with the album production but we started with the pre-production. This time we didnt record demos of the songs before the producer came. We actually started recording demos with him. We also started working on some of the arrangements at that time. So that again that took about two or three months. After that we started recording the album. Also, compared to the other albums we always worked with several engineers so we could work in several shifts a day. With this one we just worked with one guy, Charlie Bauerfield who produced this album, and I mean obviously this one person cant work all day. So we couldnt work with all these shifts like we did in the past. So thats another reason why it took longer than expected.
UM: Was it the fact that you had so many ideas, that it helped in lengthening the process?
MS: Oh definitely! If you listen to a song like "And Then There Was Silence". We recorded over 200 tracks for this one song, which is more than other bands record for an entire album. Its just part of our style to use all these big choir arrangements and the entire harmony guitar stuff. It just takes time to record all this stuff, not to mention all the time it takes to compose it. (Laughs) Every one in the band wants to make it perfect. So we just work on a single song for weeks until we all say, "yep thats the way the song should work." We dont compromise on that, concerning songwriting and recording, if somebody doesnt feel good with a certain take, we record it again and again until everyone says thats perfect.
UM: How does the songwriting work? Do you guys work as a team or separately?
MS: Both. Everybody starts on their own. We have our own studio where we recorded and mixed this album. But everybody also has his own studio equipment at home. So we basically start on our own and when we have one minute of music completed, we get together and Hansi starts singing to that stuff and we see if it works. If it doesnt work or we dont like that way, we make it work until everyone likes it or we just throw it away and start all over again. From that point on the songs just grow. There is no master plan when we start songwriting. We dont sit down and say we need one ballad and we need this and we need that. We just start writing whatever comes to our mind and we just see what happens. For example, there was no plan to write such a long song like "And Then There Was Silence". It just happened. We just started writing that song like all the others. The first chorus appears after 4 or 5 minutes and we said, "ok this is going to be a long song." It just grows.
UM: I was going to ask you if there was a plan to make a 14-minute long song?
MS: Definitely not. It just happened that it became that long. Everybody likes this song. It was a great experience doing this. It was never planned to make such a huge, complex and long song. I dont know if we will ever do something like that again. Maybe, maybe not, I just dont know. But there has never been a master plan for something like that. We just write what comes to our mind. The only thing that its in our heads when we start songwriting is to not repeat ourselves and always use fresh ideas.
UM: For that song, it doesnt sound like its a 14-minute song. It goes by so fast.
MS: Thats good. Thats good to hear. We were afraid of that. That some people would say that its good but its fucking 14 minutes long and it could have stopped after 5 or 7 minutes. But if you say thats fine, then cool thats what we wanted to hear.
UM: What do you hope A Night at the Opera will accomplish for Blind Guardian in the US?
MS; Obviously the last album was the first one to be officially released in the States. The problem with that one was that we didnt tour the States. It was released one year later in the States than in the rest of the world. We were offered to tour the States with Iced Earth or with Nevermore. At that time, when we had gotten the offer for that tour, we had already finished in the rest of the world and we were already starting to write new material. Because of that, we said thanks for the offer but we wont do it this time. If we started touring again, the next album would be coming out very late and so we said next time. Now we have our first US show confirmed, ProgPower and there will be more shows. They are not confirmed at the moment, we are planning and coordinating all the stuff at the moment and definitely there will be more shows in the States, so this should help us a lot.
UM: Are you excited about the ProgPower festival?
MS: Definitely, we waited a long time to be able to play the States. Its going to be awesome. I read about some of the other bands that will play like Gamma Ray and Angra. It should be fun!
UM: "The Soulforged" is based on the Dragonlance saga, which the fans voted for in your website. Were you surprised by the results?
MS: Some of the themes that people came up with surprised us like Star Wars. Everyone in the band loves Star Wars but it would be unusual to sing about that stuff. The Dragonlance stuff is definitely a fantasy kind story. It works fine for the band since most of the songs are fantasy stories or classical stories, like theater. It didnt really surprise that something like this would win. When the people voted for the Dragonlance stuff, we didnt know them. So Hansi had to read them. I have some of the books now and I will read them on tour. Hansi told me they are good stories and he liked them a lot. Its fun to involve the fans in something like choosing one of the themes of the album. At the moment we have a poll going on where people can vote for the 10 favorite Blind Guardian songs. We will take these songs into consideration for the setlist of the tour. People really appreciate that, they are involved in all this stuff and that we keep this contact with them over the Internet. Its fun to get the direct feedback on the net.
UM: First time I ever heard of the Dragonlance story was when that won, I havent read anything about it.
MS: As I said, same with me. So I dont know the actual story but I do know that Hansi based the song in one of the main characters, I guess its the wizard from the books, I forgot his name.
UM: I am having the hardest time choosing a favorite song right now because they are so great. I really like "Sadly Sings Destiny" the most right now but it changes all the time. Do you have a favorite song?
MS: Its hard to say at the moment since everything is so fresh and new to us. In the moment, I would say, "Battleflield" and "Punishment Divine". Dont ask me why because if you ask me the same question tomorrow I will probably choose other songs. It will be much easier for us to pick certain songs after the tour or during the middle of the tour when we start playing these songs live and see the reactions of the fans. This builds your opinion quite a lot. To see the feedback from the fans in certain songs definitely influences you. Those two songs at the moment are really fun to listen to and to play as well. So as I said since we finished the whole production in December so everything is very new to us. So we have to wait and see. (Laughs)
UM: I agree with you. Tomorrow I will probably choose another song too.
MS: Its the usual thing. You change your opinion quite a lot.
UM: Were you surprised the way the single sold all over the world, like being #1 in Spain and a top 10 in Canada?
MS: Nobody expected something like that. Obviously a 14-minute long song is not your typical single song. I guess you wont get any airplay with such a long song. Yes, we have been very surprised by that. We knew that the single contained 20 minutes of great new music and we knew that the people have been waiting for something like that, to finally hear new material. We never expected it to make it #1 in Spain. This single was released in November and its still in the top 10 in Spain, it never left the top 10. It was a huge success all over the world, chart-wise. It charted in Germany, it got to #7 in Canada, and it made it in the US charts at #172 or something like. Century Media totally freaked because it was their first single that ever made it to the charts for them. Which is great, it was a huge success all over the world. We knew it was good material and that people would like it but we didnt expect something to happen like that, it was just great.
UM: So this should give you the confidence that the new album will chart equally or maybe even better all over the world?
MS: I hope so! (Laughs)
UM: Could you give me a brief rundown on the subject of each of the songs?
MS: I hope I dont mix them up now. (Laughs) First song, "Precious Jerusalem" is based on Jesus Christ. Hansi likes this person. I am pretty sure that this person did exist 2,000 years ago. I actually dont believe in God and I dont think he was the Son of God. He must have been a pretty charismatic person. He is a very interesting figure. "Battlefield" is just an imaginary story written by Hansi. When we write songs its always the music first and we listened to this music and everybody had this vision of knights marching into battle when listening to that song. So he just called it "Battlefield" and he wrote it concerning knights. "Under the Ice" is about The Iliad and the War of Troy from the sight of the seer Cassandra. "And Then There Was Silence" is also about The Iliad. "Sadly Sings Destiny" is about (thinks for a little) well I cant remember what its about. (Laughs). "Punishment Divine" is about the German philosopher Nietzche shortly before he goes insane. "The Maiden and the Minstrel Knight" is about the Shakespeare story, Romeo and Juliet. "Wait for an Answer" is another fictional story and the last one "Age of False Innocence" I have also forgotten what its about. Sorry. (Laughs).
UM: Is the band ultimately satisfied with the end result?
MS: Yeah, definitely! I dont know if this will be the same in one year from now. When you finish an album most of the time you are definitely satisfied with the album. Maybe after you come out of the tour you find a part that you would have done something differently. In the moment everybody is 100% happy with the album, concerning the songs, the sound, whatever.
UM: What three adjectives would best describe the new album for you?
MS: (Long pause) Well definitely one would be "heavy", one would be "epic" (Laughs) and the third one would be "new", because of the new elements and influences we put into the sound.
UM: Out of the songs from the new album, which ones do you think you will play live, if you have the idea?
MS: We are just working in the setlist at the moment. We are in the middle of rehearsing and we are trying all the songs right now. The plan is to play four songs of the new albums live, maybe five including "Harvest of Sorrow". We dont know yet what exactly we will play. We are working on "Punishment Divine" at the moment and we will also try "And Then There Was Silence" but I have no idea if this song will make it into the setlist since its pretty hard to play. Well see, as I said there will be about four songs because we dont want to play the whole new album because that is pretty boring. Also, we are going to record a new double live album, so there has to be a lot of songs too. So its going to be a huge setlist and we will change the setlist often. The plan is to record shows all over the world with different setlists so we can record as many songs as possible. Its going to be fun!
UM: I was actually going to ask you if there was a plan to come out with a new live album after this tour and you already answered me.
MS: (Laughs)
UM: Out of all the bands you have played live with, which one(s) have you had the best experience with?
MS: I guess it was Iced Earth. We toured a couple of times with them. They supported us in 1991 for the Tales tour and they again supported us on the next tour for Somewhere Far Beyond and we became best friends. We partied all day and we got the experience that its not good to party all day. Everybody got sick every 2 or 3 days. It was so much fun. Again they supported us in the last tour in Spain. We are really close friends and its fun playing with them. We have very good relationships with all the bands we played with. Like Saxon who supported us in a festival tour we did back in 1995 that was called "Guardian Christmas Party". Other bands that played were Rage and Skyclad. Saxon and Iron Maiden have been my idols when I started listening to metal in the early 80s. It was really great to go in the road with these guys; they are just so friendly and down to earth people.
UM: Was there going to be an EP released after Nightfall In Middle Earth?
MS: Yeah, we had plans for that. The plan was to finish some songs we started recording during the Nightfall sessions after we came back from tour and release them as an EP to finish the whole Nightfall concept. But at that time Hansi had some major problems with his hearing, he had tinnitus, which is having a constant ringing in your ears. Unfortunately, he had this problem which kept us from working for about half a year because he had to go to the doctors and get medical treatment every day. When he was finally able to sing again, it was just too late to record the songs and release them because the gap between this EP and Nightfall would have been too big. We just kept these songs. "Harvest of Sorrow" was one of the songs planned for this EP which we have just released. The other songs definitely will be released one day, I dont know if on another single or another Forgotten Tales album, which might happen one day. We are going to use these songs but I dont know when.
UM: What did you think of the movie "Lord of the Rings"?
MS: It was great! Everybody in the band has seen the movie and everybody loves it even though there are some important scenes missing. Its just an awesome movie and I thought it would be impossible to make a good movie out of the book because its so huge and complex. Peter Jackson did a great job. What I heard is that the DVD version will be one hour longer and contain all the missing stuff. He just couldnt make the movie four-hour long for the cinema. Which is fine with me since I will buy the DVD anyway, so cool!
UM: What did you guys think about the music?
MS: Its great. Are you referring to the story that we had gotten asked to do something for it?
UM: Yes I am.
MS: We had contact with Peter Jackson. When this whole project was announced there were so many fan sites going on with polls with who should do the soundtrack and we won most of these polls which was absolutely great! (Laughs) This also got the attention of Peter Jackson and as I said we managed to get in contact with him and we were asked to send in demo material. But at that time we already were in the middle of songwriting and pre-production for the new album. So we said thanks for the offer and we wont do it because Blind Guardian is the most important thing for us. If we would have started working on the soundtrack, I mean I dont know if we would have gotten the job anyway. But imagine if they had told us that we were going to do the soundtrack then there wouldnt be a new Blind Guardian album at the moment. The break between the last album and the new one has been four years now. With the soundtrack work it might have become five or six years and that would have been too much. Like I said, Blind Guardian is the most important thing and so we said thanks for the offer but we wont do it.
UM: So did you actually record anything for that project?
MS: No, we had been working on an internal side project, I call like that. We have some songs that are pure classical music, no guitars, no drums, no nothing, just Hansi singing to that. Lyrical-wise this is completely based on Lord of the Rings. This music would have been the perfect soundtrack for the movie, it would have fit perfectly. The problem was at that time, when we were asked to send in demo stuff, we didnt record these songs in demo version. We would have had to stop the whole songwriting process and we would have had to record all this stuff and then send it in. It would have cost us too much time. We had been working in this material long time before this whole movie project was even announced. There is no music that we just wrote for that movie, which is another rumor that is circulating on the Internet. We didnt write anything just for the movie.
UM: That should settle the rumors then.
MS: I hope so.
UM: What other releases are you looking forward to this year?
MS: Rush! Definitely Rush! I heard they are in the studio in the moment and they are supposed to do another tour in Europe, which they do every six or seven years, which is a shame. This is the major thing that I am looking forward to.
UM: Last question Marcus, how long do you see Blind Guardian going?
MS: I have no idea. As long as we have fun playing this music and as long as people are listening to this stuff we will go on, definitely. I have no idea how long this will be. Maybe we will do one more album, maybe ten more albums or maybe we will become older than the Stones. As long as it is fun we are going to continue.
Ultimate Metal A Night at the Opera review
