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 ALL IS VANITYI still rememebr the day (and it was some 13 years back from now) when I noticed the album ’’SpellCraft’’ of Darkseed in the store. Since I have already seen their album cover in Nuclear Blast catalogue a few weeks before, I have bougth this particular record without any thinking. And since this day I really like to listen ’’SpellCraft’’. But, obviously this was only the beginning for Darkseed and later on they have released many issues and they became the huge name in Gothic Metal scene. But, from 2005. to 2010. came the silence and finally after 5 years the band is back again on the metal scene with their newest record ’’Poison Awaits’’.
Hi there! How are you doing? Are you feel somehow euphoric since you haven't released any full-length until 2005? Hello, everything fine with us, most of us are on Holidays now, so we relax a little bit. Actually I am in Bulgaria. Some days ago I traveled through Serbia, and I have to say that Serbian Police sucks!! On the national border we had to pay 110 Euros!!!! for driving through Serbia, some kind of injurance for car, they told me...... too expensive for only driving through, haha ;) You are right, so long without a new record, its a very special feeling for us now. And it feels good to have all the work finally done, and the finished product is in stores. Why there was such a big pause? I mean, from 2005. to 2010. you haven't published/recorded any issue? The last album was ''Ultimate Darkness'' from 2005. Why and how did you decide to come back on the metal scene? The main thing was that Stefan Hertrich and BassGuitar Player Martin Motnik left the Band after Ultimate Darkness. Stefan was our singer and composed most of the songs. Also our batteries where a little bit empty, so we decided to make a break. Meanwhile we had some other musical projects like composing soundtracks for computer games, I recorded some bands in my studio, something like that. But the most of this stuff was not really the music we like to do. So in spring 2008 we had the feeling of doing a new album, to make the music we live for. But at first we had to complete the lineup. Armin, our Keyboarder, had a good friend playing bass guitar (Michael Behnke), so this was done easily. So, lets talk about our new singer Harald Winkler. Harald was with Stefan founder of Darkseed in 1992. He played Drums at Darkseed 5 Years, then he left the band. We heard a long time nothing from him, but In late 2007 he gave me a call and asked me of recording the Debut record of his band "Soul Sabotage" in my recording studio. In this band he is singer. The time we recorded the vocals for his band, I got a job to compose a Gothic Rock Title Track for the computer game "Going Downtown". So I asked Harald if he would write the lyrics and sing the song. He made a good job with this. So, where it came to search for a new singer for Darkseed I remembered that it was a good work with him, so I gave him a call, and that was all. So we have the founder of Darkseed back on Vocals, lucky thing. As a matter of fact ''Poison Awaits'' is your newest record. Your latest album delivers a fine dose of emotional Goth Metal songs. So, please could you give us some background info about ''Poison Awaits''. Where it was recorded and who was the producer? The CD was recorded in my own studio in a small village in Bavaria near Munich, and I was also the producer of ’’Poison Awaits’’. So what you hear is Darkseed and only Darkseed. No extern people , no extern producers and all songs written by ourselfs. Also I did the mastering of it. And thats the reason we can be very proud about our new record. Also, how much time you have spent on the composing of the new issue. Who were/was the main composer(s) when it comes to ''Poison Awaits''? Do you have some special favorite tracks on the new album? Well, it took about one year to compose the complete album. But it was not fulltime. We had also other things to do, so we had breaks in the time of songwriting. I composed about half the album, and Tom Gilcher and Armin Doerfler made all the rest of the songs. Harald Winkler wrote nearly all of the lyrics. My favourite Tracks of "Poison Awaits" are "Incinerate" which has a good refrain burning down in your brain. Also "Seeds of Sorrow" is a very cool and catchy ballad, stucking in your brain for a long time I think. "All is Vanity", "Poison Awaits" itself and "Black Throne" are also very strong songs in my opinion.  While I was writing a review for Darkseed's new album I have clearly noticed some parallels (especially production-wise) with the latest effort from your country-mates Crematory. Simply, yours and theirs latest material are somehow connected in one way or another. Could you comment this? Hmm.... I have not heard Crematory’s last releases, maybe there are some paralells, both is Gothic Metal style. Also Crematory and Darkseed are both German Bands, maybe the Germans have their own style to interprate music? I don’t know, could be a reason. How would you describe the music of the newer album? Give us a musical description of "Poison Awaits"? OK, on "Poison Awaits" we have catchy and moody refrains, paired with strong metal verses. The Vocals are very melodic, dark and clean to transport a gloomy feeling. Hard Guitar Riffs are overlayed from melodic to industrial sounding keyboards which gives a athmospheric and playful touch to the songs. So far it seems that press people like ''Poison Awaits''. As I have already noticed you have received some fine ratings from various journalists. Does it have any effects on you: positive or negative (obviously if the review is negative)? Sure, if we get a negative review we don’t feel good reading this. But I think always you get some negative ones. You can’t be everybody’s darling. So as a Band you have to learn to stand above it. The most important thing is, that we like our own album and that we are satisfied with the result. And we are very satisfied with "Poison Awaits". So fuck off all of the negative reviews. On the other side, it fells good to read the better ones. And if the positive ones are in superior number, so everything is fine for us. What kind of emotions have you tried to express with the cover for the new album? The same questions goes for the title of the full-length as well as for the lyrics? The album title "Poison Awaits" stands for a poison which is waiting for you on every corner you go.We mean the mass medias like Television, Press and so on. They are controlled by a view people in the world, and also the economy controlls this medias. They tell us what to buy, how to live and if you don’t follow this, you are not very well respected in our society. And that’s the poison surrounding us, which contaminates us very slowly. We live in a world of Vanity. And thats what the lyrics are mostly about. About people having problems with our mordern society and something like that. But I can not go in detail, we have to ask Harald, who wrote all of the lyrics. Also the Cover Artwork is leant on this thematic. You have the snakes arround the girls head, they represents the poison. The girl is crying blood and this stands for all people having problems in our society or for people who are not satisfied with their life. The cover should transport emotions like loneliness, hopelessness, mental pain, something like that. Please, could you comment from your point of view some of your releases? Especially I am thinking about your first records... How do you look, after all these years, on some records as “Romantic Tales“ or “Midnight Solemnly Dance''? ''SpellCraft'' was also very important record back then becuase many people got into band though this particular effort (actually, the same was with me)... Oh, I still think these are very good records. "Romantic Tales" and "Midnight Solemnly Dance" were recorded with a very little budget of money, so the sound is not very good, but the songs have a lot of spirit. "Midnight Solemnly Dance" was a important record, because wo got the deal with Nuclear Blast with this release. On "Spellcraft" it was the first time we had enough budget to go into a good recording studio, so it was the first record with good sound and good promotion. Also, afterwards came other albums like “Diving Into Darkness”. This particular opus turned out to be very successful and you have toured a lot during this period if I am not so wrong. After all how would you describe the musical progress over the years and how would you label the music of Darkseed? On CD "Give me light" it was the first time we used electronic elements like electronic keyboards in one song named "Cold". And that was the new direction Darkseed will go in the future. So "Diving into Darkness" was our first record we used electronic elements and Keyboards overall the whole record. If you compare "Spellcraft" with "Diving into Darkness", it sounds totally different. And this direction we kept the last years till now. OK, some things changed also the last three records, but I think the use of electronic Elements on "Diving into Darkness" was the biggest step into a new direction in Darkseed’s History. I would say our music you can simply label as "Gothic Metal". It's indeed obvious that there are some changes in the band since your last album was released. So, please could you introduce us with your new line-up? Also, are there any plans for the concert activities in the near future? I mentioned the new members already in some questions before. On Bass Guitar the new Guys name is "Michael Behnke", he played at the German Band "Eisbrecher" before he joined Darkseed. "Harald Winkler" is our new singer and he also writes the lyrics. He also is singer in his Band "Soul Sabotage". We will start to play live in this year in Autum. You can visit www.darkseed.com, there you will find our live dates in the near future. I have read somewhere that Occultism plays some role in your music, as well as in the lyrics? So, is this true and if the answer is positive please explain in which way you are inspired by Occultism? That was some time ago and only a few parts of the lyrics. Nowadays the lyrics are more about problems and situations in modern life. So, no more to say about this. I would like to thank you for your effort and time! And for the end of this interview could you name us some of your favorite bands. There's no doubt that you have very wide source of inspiration both music-wise and lyric-wise. Also thank you for this nice interview! Hmmm.... the last time I didn’t here a lot of music, but I can tell you some all time faves of us: Samael, Paradise Lost, Rammstein, Dream Theatre, Metallica. At last, thanks to all our fans in Serbia!! Answers by Tommy Herrmann |
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