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Interview
Deutsche VersionInterview mit Artillery (03.08.2011)
HH: How are you after having done you new record?
Michael: We feel very pleased and except from some small things we are very sastisfied with the production and the way the songs turned out!
So we feel great at the moment!
HH: My Blood is the title of the record. In my opinion it's an evolution of the predecessor When Death Comes. You can find all the Artillery trademarks combined with some oriental flair. What's your opinion?
Michael: Yeah its the same feeling we have in the band I think My blood is a cross between When Death Comes and By Inheritance with hints of all our other albums!
HH: "Mi Sangre" is the opener of the album and in my insignificant opinion one of the best Thrash Metal songs of the past 20 years. It contains fantastic riffing, memorable vocal lines and with its strong oriental impact it becomes very outstanding. What song do you like best?
Michael: Thanks a lot, we are very glad for the way this song turned out and it has been a pleasure to play it live. We really feel a lot for this song. Other songs I'm really glad for at the moment are "Monster" and "Thrasher"!
HH: Apart from "Mi Sangre" I strongly recommend "Monster", "Dark Days" and "Death Is An Illusion" to listen to. Which songs are other people's favorites?
Michael: That's is the good thing about My Blood, because there are really very different opinions about which song people like best but I guess it would be songs like "Mi Sangre", "Monster", "Dark Days" and "Thrasher"!
HH: Where does this strong oriental touch come from which fits very well to your sound? Is it a sort of concept or did it just happen?
Michael: In fact it really starts to influence the band when we were touring in Russia in 1989, we travelled a lot in their local trains close to the Afghanistan border and they were playing a lot of middle eastern music. So it was the main inspiration to the song "Khomaniac" who was written in Russia. Since then we have always kept a oriential feeling in our music.
HH: What about the lyrics. Would you please tell us some words about them?
Michael: The lyrics goes from Global overheathing of the world ('"Dark Days"), a dedication to the best metal fans in the world ("Thrasher"), a mountain climber who died all alone up on the mountains where no one could help him. "Mi Sangre" who is about the fact, that you can help your children a lot to but you can never live their life. So they have to learn it the hard way. "Monster" is a song about the beast which is in all people.
HH: On When Death Comes you already worked together with John Mathiasen who contributed the lyrics to "Delusions Of Grandeur". On My Blood he's responsible for the lyrics of "Ain't Giving In". What can you tell us about these lyrics?
Michael: All songs were from 1991 from the demo "Mind factory" when John Mathiesen was in the band and we really felt that these songs had to come out on a record. John is still a good friend of the band.
HH: Would you please say some words about the cover artwork? What's the connection between the cover and the lyrics?
Michael: The cover carry our mascot "The reaper" who has folloved us since the last years and this time it was together with this baby ("Our Blood") so this is the way to give the strenght to My Blood.
HH: It's about three years now since the Artillery comeback with Sören. Which conclusions would you draw about this time?
Michael: It has been some of the best years in Artillery's history and show that we did the right decision when we replaced Flemming with Søren. In the last three years we have played about 60 concerts, made two albums, a DVD which is a lot more than we did with Flemming in the last ten years! So thats speaks for itself!
HH: What about live promotion of you new record? Will we see Artillery here in Germany?
Michael: We are working on a lot of festivals, maybe a mini tour so we have to see in the next months what we can confirm. We will play the Way Of Darkness festival in October.
HH: Which songs from the new album will you play live?
Michael: We try to incorporate some new songs everytime we play live and so far we already have been playing "Warrior Blood", "Mi Sangre", "Monster", "Thrasher" and "Dark Days". We will also put songs like "Death Is An Illusion" and "End Of Eternity" in our set soon! So we will try to always keeping the setlist fresh!
HH: Imagine My Blood is an oriental meal. What would it be and why?
Michael: Something with a lot of chilli, curry, mango chutney and rice I quess, because we feel that My Blood has a lot of different elements in the songs!
HH: Thanks for you time and good speed! The last words are yours!
Michael: Thanks a lot and to all the German headbangers "Cheers"