Transcript of an interview I recorded with Hansi Kursch of BLIND GUARDIAN TWILIGHT ORCHESTRA - 20191016. Full article here. MAL-
On the line Hansi from BLIND GUARDIAN, Hansi, thanks for taking my call. HANSI- It's a great pleasure. MAL- It's good to have you on. Now, BLIND GUARDIAN just about to come out with a new album 'Legacy Of The Dark Lands'. Now it's big and it's a ballsy album. Let's go right back to the start. When did you get the idea for this? Who came up with the idea for this? HANSI- It was André and I coming up with the idea after composing some stuff during the 'Nightfall in Middle-Earth' songwriting period. So we're really going back 22 years, we had two songs, which sort of had that soundtrack-ish feeling to us and they do not necessarily demanded metal guitars we both felt. Tohey also had a very strong narrative approach and we were discussing using them on the 'Nightfall in Middle-Earth' album or not. At one point, we just decided that stuff is to extraordinary to have it on there and then just make it you know, two songs within the concept. Why not going for a full blown orchestral album just me singing and you know, then doing a conceptual thing about whatever. This is how it started back 22 years ago, and over the years we revisited not only these two songs but established a number of songs which can be heard on 'Legacy Of The Dark Lands'. And of course, we developed our style and our skills and flow with even further over the years but never really changed the original intention and just having that as a orchestral album with my vocals on it, even though it was tempted at points to you know, involve the metal band because it would have been possible, but we just thought, Well, you know, why spoiling the original intention instead. MAL- So there's you and André involved initially,is any of the the other members of the band in on it as well, HANSI- No, they are not. And at the point we decided not to use the band and this discussion came up a couple of times over these 22 years, it was obvious that they would not be involved. So for them, it was fine. And we always kept the songwriting separate from BLIND GUARDIAN as well. We'll also indicate this, this project as the BLIND GUARDIAN TWILIGHT ORCHESTRA for a reason. It is only André and me working on this stuff. MAL- So this project was born 22 years ago, and you've been revisiting from time to time, how have you managed to find the time in between regular BLIND GUARDIAN recordings and tours, must be taking up a lot of time. HANSI- It did then, of course, over the last few years, I, you know, was doing a little bit of calculation of how much time we literally spend on the orchestral project during these 22 years. And, yeah, it would be probably six or seven years, we mainly worked on this one, you know, it was always split into time periods in between the songwriting. Well, we kept it quite cool from the beginning. We didn't push for songs like that if something popped up, and they always was the time during the BLIND GUARDIAN songwriting usually, when André felt the need to, you know, do a tune like this, and I eagerly picked up whatever he provided me with when it was related to the orchestral project, because it is somehow a different approach for us in terms of not only composing but also working on the stuff it's less stressful to say that that way because it was just like, you know, being something we really, you know, like to do in terms of you know, it was was never really something we put as much hard fought or toil in as we would with a regular BLIND GUARDIAN song. And therefore everything could develop very natural and in a very smooth way. So, for me, it was always a relief and relaxing moment whenever we revisited the stuff. That changed drastically when starting the real production in terms of singing, then it became hard toil, and I sweat a lot and I bled a lot. MAL- I listened to the album today, it still sounds like BLIND GUARDIAN. I don't know if it was how you wanted it to come across or not, but to me, it still sounded like BLIND GUARDIAN with an orchestra. Tell us about the orchestra. HANSI- Well that was the idea. You know, we always felt that it was nothing which you would not consider to be BLIND GUARDIAN, it really has the spirit of BLIND GUARDIAN music. It's, you know, it's just lacking some of the essentials and it still works. That was the appealing thing for us, you know that we were really able to create a new mixture, a new blend, but still having the brand of BLIND GUARDIAN involved. That was quite the interesting part for us as well. The orchestra came into 10 years ago, that was one of the big challenges we had to cope with before. We composed the stuff on computer. Back in the late 90s, we had the first proper working hard disk recording systems and therefore an endless amount of tracks to to work with. That is very tempting for bands like BLIND GUARDIAN in general. But it is a blessing with regard to the orchestral project because of that we had the chance to really do proper arrangements which apply to us like real orchestral arrangements. And this is how we started working on it. That went on for more or less 10 years until we decided, well, it's about the time to find the right orchestra and get the whole thing performed by an orchestra. And basically, this is where the difficulties really started, because we first couldn't find a suitable orchestra. It was a little bit of trial and error. We have had some orchestras performing one or two songs. And that was never to our satisfaction until we worked with the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra for the first time and so that was one of the missing links. Before that we had a problem translating our ideas which were quite clear to us because of the recordings we have made, to either a conductor or score writer. So we needed to find someone who was able to do the score writing for us so an orchestra and the conductor would understand what the whole thing would be about, and we needed someone who had a little bit an idea of the philosophy of, you know, BLIND GUARDIAN songwriting and about our universes. So that was another challenge we had to succeed to make this orchestral project doable. And this all started like, you know, we got rid of this problem 10 years ago, in both cases. MAL- So it's taken up a lot of time getting things from birth to an actual product which we have got just about to be released. When is the release date, Hansi? HANSI- The release date is in November, I think in November the eighth is that the day we will unleash the beast and then people will get an idea what we've been talking about so many times. That was another problem for me because I mean, we made it public, like very early, maybe even with the 'Nightfall' for production. We already spoke about the orchestral stuff for the first time. But at the very least, we made that very public when we did 'A Night At The Opera' in 2002. So for 18 years, everyone was aware that this was about to come, you know, just no one knew exactly when that will be. But we have been asked this question thousands of times, you know, how, what the music would be about and how would it sound like and I always have problems in defining what this project is about. You just nailed it down and saying it's like GUARDIAN without a metal band and basically, this is what I also said. But this does not really pop up images in, you know, in the mind of the people hearing this message. So, for them, it's going to be the first time they may understand what I was talking about. So after, I don't know, 15 years, 10 years, five years whenever I've spoken to the people. Now probably what I've said makes will make sense to them or not. MAL- What happens when the album comes out, Hansi, can you take this on the road? HANSI- We cannot take this on the road spontaneously. This is for sure. We take our time. I believe, if you give us another, let's say two years, we will make it doable. And it's just a question in which size we're going to make it doable. We either make it once in your lifetime experience for everyone and establish another BLIND GUARDIAN festival where we are going to perform it for a couple of days in a bigger venue, that will be one option. That will be the least time consuming and probably the least expensive opportunity version to accomplish that. And the other chance would be, you know, going to every country for a once in a lifetime experience for the people there and then doing it in orchestra halls, which would have the advantage of presenting the orchestra in a suitable environment. MAL- I see you getting a phone call from Wacken. HANSI- Yeah, that would not be to my surprise, but I don't see that as anything we could really nail down at Wacken. I know that they are interested in it. But I mean, the people there you know, they want to celebrate, they want to have a party. They don't want to listen to a story. Bands did that and get there bloody nose and, it's possible, I and the band will try to avoid it. If we're convinced by money you'll never know. MAL- All right, let's go the other way. Do any of the songs on this album show up in the regular BLIND GUARDIAN set? Not orchestrally obviously, is that even a word? But with the metal band? HANSI- Well we have 'Harvester Of Souls', which also ended up by surprise on the 'Beyond The Red Mirror' album in a slightly different version with a band. And, of course, over the years I think I said that before, we were talking about the possibility of involving the band into the whole thing which which is a doable thing. And we may do so anyway because you know, it will just feature the whole thing in a completely different approach. It's very appealing to us to do something like that, and therefore, yeah, if we start working on this, then we could possibly just involve one or two songs into the BLIND GUARDIAN set. MAL- Just Personally, I think it could happen reasonably easily just from my point of view, because I still felt like I was listening to a BLIND GUARDIAN album, all the songs I was listening to sounded like a BLIND GUARDIAN song. HANSI- Which is good, which is very to my relief. I mean, that was of course one of the ideas we want to present nicely sounding songs, which makes sense as an individual, but may shine even more, you know, in a conceptual frame with narrations in between and connected to the other songs which all somehow are related. Yeah, I would agree that I mean, they work individually and they are not that far off from a regular BLIND GUARDIAN song in comparison to what we did on maybe most of the last four albums. I think that the hooks are even more recognizable than on many of the the later BLIND GUARDIAN songs, because I mean, I won't say they're singalongs, but yeah, 'Point Of No Return' might be even a sing along, so that is very doable. MAL- Yeah, it touches on what you're saying before where people think, you know, they don't know what they're sort of going to hear, and they hear us talking about it in a certain way. And it might sound a bit bizarre, but when they listen to the album, they will see what we mean. HANSI- Exactly. Yeah. And that's the attracting thing about the orchestral album in general, you know, people get something they now have no idea about, but they can really grow up with. Of course, that might be alien to some people, because everything, everything is pretty much, you know, standard nowadays. The way artists present the music, the way everything is built up is quite similar, and we certainly break through this all and the people in the 70s would have embraced this album. We're now living in the 21st century, so everything has changed a little bit and life has become faster and people do not pay so much attention to things but they may recognize with that one, it is very worth doing that. MAL- You're the new 'War of the Worlds'. HANSI- 'You know what, when working on this stuff, this is of course one of the role models we have had in mind with regard to the narrations we also thought about you know, having that involved in the in the songs even more we did that at tiny little pieces, but not as drastic as it is in 'War of the Worlds'. But yeah, of course things like that, you know, they are exceptional and they may not be the biggest mainstream success in the beginning, but they will survive they will you know, they will leave something in the minds of people and people will be willing to revisit that stuff over and over again until they may get old you know, I got old over BLIND GUARDIAN. I got old over some things over this project in general, you know, Funny thing is I don't know if you recognize that we had an album 'Nightfall in Middle-Earth' with the narrator's and these guys were 50 back in the 90s when I visited them for the recording of Sauron and Morgoth, for the 'Nightfall' album, now, I revisited them now I am 50, and these guys are in their 70s. So, you know, this is what it is about. It's art, you know. We realized that we physically changed Of course, but but the mind was the mindset of these guys and I hope it's pretty much the same with me, hasn't changed that drastically. Of course there are different visions and yeah, I've been growing up over these years. But other than that, you know, it is still the same passion for art. MAL- Right, Hansi, absolutely fantastic talking to you. Looking forward to the the release of the BLIND GUARDIAN TWILIGHT ORCHESTRA album, 'Legacy Of The Dark Lands. It's big. It's monstrous. Best of luck with it and wish you all the success. HANSI- Thank you very much. Have a good day. Comments are closed.
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AuthorMetalhead who hates bad parking. |