Boomerang
"Weaveworld", their debut
album was an album that shook my foundations, a debut release from a new
band that was ready to conquer the world!!! 3 years later they strike back
with an album that, believe it or not, is even better than their previous
work! In this time between the 2 albums BOOMERANG have matured and have
become more aggressive and darker musically speaking, but the good thing
is that they haven't lost their bright spirit and humour...just check out
the interview and you will understand what I mean...
1.HELLO AND MANY BRAVOS FOR THE GREAT SUCCESSOR
OF "WEAVEWORLD". DOES "BALANCE OF HATE" SOUND HEAVIER AND ANGRIER OR IS
IT MY OPINION? WHICH WERE THE REASONS THAT MADE YOU COMPOSE SUCH A DARK
MUSIC?
Andy: Hi guys! First we have to say thanx
for your compliments! We are really happy about that. I think you are right,
when you say BOH (BALANCE OF HATE) is more angry and heavy than "Weaveworld"
is. And it is a very good question why it is like it is. I don`t really
know. Mostly Thomas and I jam around and when we feel that a new song is
born.. Maybe it is because of the music we are listening to at the moment.
At the moment I'm listening to dark stuff like Cradle of filth, Kataklsym
and so on. Maybe I transport that "dark energy" in our song writing. But
that is my opinion. Another point is: to draw good melodies you have to
contrast them from the rest of the song. So it's a "must" to create a darker
sound in general.
2.ALMOST 3 YEARS HAVE PASSED SINCE YOU?VE RELEASED
YOUR DEBUT ALBUM. WHY DID IT TAKE YOU SO LONG? CAN YOU COMPARE THE 2 ALBUMS
AND TELL US WHICH ARE THEIR SIMILARITIES AND WHICH ARE THE DIFFERENCES
BETWEEN THEM? ANY NEW ELEMENTS THAT YOU HAVE ADDED?
Andy: The main "problem" is time. Most of
us (Thomas and both Stefans) have children. And so it needs a little more
time to create a new album. By comparing our two albums I would prefer
the description you gave in your first question: BOH is heavier than
Weaveworld. I think it is a matter of song-writing in the first place and
second, the heaviness depends on how you produce the songs in the studio.
As we did on Weaveworld we recorded again in our bass-players homestudio
(we can't pay a one-million-dollar-studio) but we learned from the critics
we got for Weaveworld. So we spent a little more time for a clearer drum-sound
(I think a transparent drum-sound makes a production heavier) and we started
to pay more attention on the guitar-playing. On Weaveworld we just let
Thomas and Stefan play the songs with one or two takes but this time we
forced a "tighter" and transparent playing: now you can hear the "attacks"
of every riff that also makes the sound and songs heavier and "thrashy".
So I would say that BOH is the consequence of "learning-from-Weaveworld".
Making music is a never-ending process. So every detail you take care with
within the song-writing-process and the recording-sessions are "new elements".
3.OK, SINCE THE CD THAT I GOT IS A PROMO COPY
AND I ALWAYS LOVE TO READ THE LYRICS, I THINK THAT YOU HAVE TO TELL US
IN A FEW WORDS WHICH IS THE THEME OF EACH SONG INCLUDED IN YOUR NEW ALBUM.
Axel: Ok. "Amplify" is a song about everyday
life and deals with the wish to get away from it all. Sometimes people
freak out but not because they are ill.. the society makes them what they
are. "Suffocate cries" is for the sense of human existence and the difficulty
in changing things even in you own life -suffocation! "Mind odyssey" has
a similar intension. A harder version of this story line is "Balance of
hate". The helplessness of the person in the text results here in a desperate
mind which wants to put an end to his life. In "The undiscovered
country" this issue is lighted more positively. The person in this song
keeps his tail up and waits for the day of his retribution and proudly
declares "then I will ride on bright horses!". "TCOII" is the second part
of "the cold one" from the Weaveworld album. Whereas in the first part
the arrival of a dark not necessarily evil being is described, this part
deals with the same happenings from through the eyes of the incoming dark
force - the immortal. "Silence cries" describes a dialogue between a dying
person and the dead. The dying has no fear but waits for the final step
of death while he thinks about the grace and mercy of his farewell?. "No
one to listen" "no one to blame". "The hand that signed the paper"
is a song about the evil and nasty thing a hand can do if it signs the
wrong contract - hands can have more power than you can imagine, but no
tears to cry! "Betwixt the temples" again is a song which deals with the
diremption of a person. Finally "Praise the loud" is an ode to the
metal music. In the society and in normal life there is not much place
left for dreams. I don't know if you know that feeling. After a hard day
I arrive at home. Put in a good CD and suddenly I enter a completely other
world. A realm of fantasy and freedom. This song tells us: Hey! We are
all metalheads! We stay together because we have the same dream, the same
appreciation! Metal fills the air with more than sound waves. It is like
a religion, a synergism of music and attitude, in my opinion that makes
it greater than all other music styles! Praise the loud!! I hope that will
help you a bit but I'm sure we will soon have all lyrics on our webpage.
Then you can maybe get a clearer picture of what we mean. Our lyrics leave
enough space for personal interpretations and this is good!
4.THE TITLE OF YOUR SECOND EFFORT IS "BALANCE
OF HATE". WHAT DO YOU WANT TO SAY WITH THAT? IS IT PERHAPS THAT YOU WANT
TO DESCRIBE THE MODERN POLITICAL SITUATION THAT HAS OCCURRED AFTER THE
TERRORIST ATTACKS AND THE WAR IN IRAQ?
Thomas: Well, that would make sense, but-NO
! It's a very personal kind of Song. Andy, our drummer had some difficult
times during the last year. Some Friday evening, when a rehearsal was scheduled
and all the guys had cancelled it, it was just him and me jamming in our
rehearsal room which is an old shed by my house (there is even an old anvil
inside). All of a sudden, the song "happened". It was done within 10 minutes
and reflected the really pissed off mood Andreas was in. But it might work
on the "outside world" level too, because lately it seems that a great
part of the world has gone mad and people should rather ease their aggression
by music than kill each other.
5.HAVE YOU SIGNED A DEAL WITH TRANCE-MUSIC OR
IS "BALANCE OF HATE" ANOTHER SELF-FINANCED ALBUM? I AM REALLY SURPRISED
WHY A DECENT METAL LABEL HASN'T CONTACTED YOU YET?
Stefan Z.: Well, Trance Music is not a full-time
Label. It's run by a friend of us, he helped us a great deal in the past,
present and hopefully the future, too. He knows about all the legal stuff,
GEMA, what has to be done to get with the artwork, got us a distribution,
helps promoting the album and so on. A lot of stuff has to be considered
if you want to put out a CD. It looks a lot easier from the outside, hehe.
But the album itself is totally self-produced. We didn't get any money
for the production; it was recorded at our bass-players Homestudio, like
Weaveworld before. We are not tied to Trance but it is great to work with
Kalli, because we have total freedom but he helps us with his experience.
We put it out under that name because it's easier to get inside the mailorders
when you have a label. About the "decent" labels: It is hard. There are
tons of talented bands out there who deserve a deal. There are tons of
bands who don't (just kidding). If you want a deal, you have to do something
for it. But we didn't want a deal. We didn't apply to any record-company
so far. We want to do our THING, the music we like, with people we trust.
We don't want to make money out of it. It was a hobby and will always be.
6.WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE NEW GENERATION OF
METALLERS? DO THEY SEARCH AND SUPPORT THE UNDERGROUND METAL SCENE OR DO
THEY BUY ONLY THE BANDS THAT ARE PROMOTED BY THE BIG MAGAZINES?
Axel, Thomas: We think about that from time
to time, too. Some years ago we would have said, that the Newbies are prone
to the shiny crap put out by the industry. But generalizations are no good.
There are quite a lot of kids, who are more than 10 years younger than
we are, who just started listening to Metal, digging lots of supercool
underground stuff, learning a lot faster than we did in our days. Also,
there are still people around who haven't gone beyond Metal Hammer since
1981 and hop on every trend. We think it is great that there ARE new people
still coming into the scene. Because otherwise Heavy Metal would become
extinct in a couple of years, or degenerate to a kind of historic curiosity,
something you go to a museum to learn about. But with every new generation,
there will be a slight-shift in style, music, language, that is inevitable.
As long as some of the people know where the sound came from, they are
listening to, and they are true (well, we should rather say faithful, because
the word "true" is already associated with a sub-genre, but we talk about
Metal in general) to their roots, we - older should not get too nostalgic.
Stay Young !
7.IN MY COUNTRY, GREECE, A PROBLEM IS THAT THE
PEOPLE DON'T SUPPORT THE LOCAL BANDS. DO YOU HAVE THE SAME PROBLEM OVER
THERE?
Christan (the boomerang-manager and promoter):
Well, the problem is not so much for the local bands, but you could book
a fantastic German band from a town 400 km away and people rather stay
at home, watching stupid crap on TV than risking fucking 5 euros for what
might be a really great Live-Band. The local bands mostly have a solid
fan-base. But it's hard if you want to play outside your home-area. If
you don't get to play as support on the festivals or events where lots
of people coming, you don't have a chance.
8.WILL YOU DO ANY LIVE SHOWS TO PROMOTE YOUR NEW
ALBUM? IS THERE A CHANCE TO GIVE LIVE SHOWS OUTSIDE YOUR COUNTRY?
Axel: Yes, we try to play as often as possible,
which is quite hard to coordinate, because we all have regular jobs and
3 have a family. But we had a nice release-party in our area; we will also
play some more gigs here in autumn together with ARREST. We are currently
working on some more gigs for autumn, we played the Metal-Inferno festival
in Paderborn (headlined by Dew Scented and God Dethroned), and we will
play Swordbrothers festival in Andernach in September (www.swordbrothers.tk)
together with some of the greatest Underground Bands, including the legendary
Airged Lamh from your country, Metal Inquisitor, Lonewolf, Wizard and many
more. It's a really great festival and thanks a lot to Volker for letting
us play there. We also hope to get to play in Athens one day, the guys
from Eat Metal records are trying really hard to get us on the billing
of some festival. I just want to say, that your country is really amazing.
Greek people have been incredibly supportive since our first demo! So create
a buzz, request Boomerang at festivals, we really want to come, we don?t
care for the money, we just want to play once in our lives in front of
a really HUGE audience in Athens!
9.WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE INTERNET? DOES THE
FILE SHARING BETWEEN PEOPLE HELP OR DAMAGE THE NEW METAL BANDS? SOMEONE
MIGHT SAY THAT IT'S LIKE THE GOOD OLD TAPE TRADING AND IF SOMEONE LIKES
WHAT HE/SHE DOWNLOADS THEY WILL SURELY BUY IT.
Stefan G.: Some independent research indicates
that file-sharing does not do as much damage as the RIAA is trying to make
us believe. But I can't really tell. For Bands like Boomerang it doesn't
matter. Because first: We are way too small to be painfully affected. I'm
sure, you won't find our songs on the Internet. Even if so, as long as
we get enough money out of it to continue, we are happy. It affects the
labels in the first place, and that's why they have less money to support
their bands, which affects small bands, but as I said, we are independent.
Second: Most damage is done on the "Mainstream" market, but there you don't
have a strong bond between fan and Music/band. The mainstream-industry
is producing Star-Clones by the thousand. Today it's hot, tomorrow it's
old, and you have to buy something new, so the media tells you. You don't
get to develop a relationship to an artist and his music. And to those
people it matters, if you sell 100 000 copies or a million. To us it means
shit if we sell 1000 or 1010 copies. If someone doesn't have the feeling
for Boomerang and our music and is not willing to support us by buying
the album for 10 euros, he may as well copy it, we don't care. We rather
have one loyal fan than a thousand bandwagon-jumpers.
10.DON'T YOU THINK THAT THIS PROBLEM WAS ALSO
CREATED BECAUSE THE PRICES OF THE CDS ARE QUIET EXPENSIVE AND THE RELEASES
ARE TOO MANY AND A FAN CAN AFFORD TO BUY 4 OR 5 RELEASES PER MONTH? DO
YOU BELIEVE THAT THERE IS A SOLUTION TO THAT PROBLEM?
Christan (promoter and manager): You are right
there. It has become expensive. I haven't bought Cds myself for quite a
time, because I am simply out of cash, and there are some HOT re-releases
out right now..I think the commercial download services will grow soon.
They will be cheaper, but there will probably no more albums, but only
single tracks. People will choose the songs they like; they don't have
to buy a whole album. But with Metal it's probably a bit different, because
most bands are album bands; they don't have a single-track anymore. The
bigger ones like Rhapsody will probably still sell their songs, even through
the Internet. The smaller ones will perish or release independently like
we do. You can always record and press 500 copies and sell it in your area.
It has become pretty cheap nowadays.
11.OK, HOW MANY COPIES DID YOUR PREVIEWS ALBUM
SELL? HOW HAVE THE FANS AND PRESS REACTED TO YOUR NEW RELEASE? WHICH REVIEW
PISSED YOU OFF BECAUSE YOU THOUGHT THAT THE REVIEWER DIDN'T UNDERSTAND
WHAT YOU WANT TO DO?
Andy: Well, we sold about 600 copies of Weaveworld
so far, but the reviews and the reactions from the people were outstanding.
Lots of guys who bought the album wrote us long and in-depth letters, how
much they like it, put more effort into it than most professional reviewers.
It is just an incredible feeling when you find out that you made someone
happy with your music. The Reviews in general were great. I can't recall
a real bad one. On a 1-10 scale we averaged about 8. There was one review
though which was weird: He didn't like the album, and compared us to Grave
Digger. It is okay, that he didn't like the album, but none of us could
find a trace of Grave Digger in our music. It's an honour to be even compared
to them, we all like their music, especially Axel, but we couldn't really
figure out where the similarities were. Some people criticised the weak
sound, some the guitar solos, and they were absolutely right. We improved
that on the new album.
12.IF YOU HAD THE CHANCE TO INVITE A FAMOUS MUSICIAN
IN YOUR NEXT ALBUM WHO WOULD YOU CHOOSE AND WHY? IS THERE A METAL ARTIST
THAT YOU WERE ADMIRING YOUNG AND HIS ATTITUDE DISAPPOINTED YOU?
Thomas: We invited G?nther Reichard, he is
not THAT famous, but he is Andys father and a very skilled guitarist. He
played a solo on Praise the Loud. So we already had our guest-star, heheh.
I'm not really a friend of those guest-star things. People should like
us for being Boomerang and doing our music without any help. It always
looks a little like "borrowing" fame from some star. We think, the music
should matter, not a famous name on a sticker on the cover. We haven't
been personally disappointed from any Metal-hero, because we don't know
that many, hehe.
13.IF YOU COULD BE A FAMOUS PERSON FOR A DAY,
WHO WOULD YOU CHOOSE AND WHICH PERIOD OF HIS/HER LIFE WOULD YOU LIKE TO
HAVE A TASTE OF?
14.LET'S SUPPOSE THAT ONE DAY ELECTRICITY CEASED
TO EXIST. WHAT DO YOU THINK WOULD HAPPEN TO METAL MUSIC AND TO BOOMERANG
IN SPECIFIC? COULD THE METAL SOUND BE ALTERED OR WOULD IT DIE?
Stefan Z.: If you alter it, it would not be
Heavy Metal anymore. Speaking of musical subcultures, there will always
be a new generation, which will try to be different than the establishment,
try new styles, new sounds, be wild and make parents scream in horror when
they look at their teenage kids. That you can do without electricity although
it's a lot less fun, because you can't heat your frozen burrito in the
microwave whilst listening to the new BOOMERANG album. Because neither
the CD player, nor the microwave will work and that damn thing is meanwhile
soaked and rotten, because, oh, the freezer also doesn't work. Hehe. But
music will never die-even if you have to hammer on garbage cans, logs and
pots. And as long as there is music, there will be rebellion, so there
will always be Rock. The sound will be totally different, but the feeling
stays the same.
15.THANK YOU FOR THE INTERVIEW AND GOOD LUCK WITH
YOUR NEW WORK! LEAVE A MESSAGE TO THE READERS OF BEHIND THE VEIL WEBZINE...
Boomerang: A message? Uhm?.HEY, YOU ! BEHIND
THE VEIL ! GET OUTTA MY WIFE'S BEDROOM! Just kidding. Thank you very much
for the interview and the great support, it was a pleasure. And Hail to
Hellas in general, you guys have been incredible so far. We really hope
to make it to your country one day.
Nick "William_Kidd"
Parastatidis
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