• EMERALD is a band from Switzerland that describes its music as simple "Heavy Metal". No further sub - categories, just that. This takes us back to the 80's where things were different and pure. Metalheads were united under one genre. Their music also manages to travel us back in those days of headbanging. If someone couldn't see the release date of their album, he will surely place them in the previous decade. Classic heavy metal! We had a conversation about all these with Michael (guitarist). Let him speak for himself...

1.GIVE A SMALL BIOGRAPHY OF THE BAND.

• Our history starts in December 1995, when my and Jvo Julmy's former band DARK CRYSTAL is splitting up. In January 1996, we started EMERALD with a first line-up featuring Michael Vaucher (guitars), Jvo Julmy (guitars) and Véronique Remy (vocals) (all former members of DARK CRYSTAL) plus Stefan Neuhaus (drums) and Roger Winkler (bass) (both former members of OPPRESS). ). Influenced by our faves of the 80ies like Iron Maiden, Virgin Steele, Medieval Steel, old Helloween and Running Wild, we wrote our first songs and played some small local gigs. After passing the usual line-up changes, we fixed in 1998 our new stabil line-up featuring Jvo Julmy (vocals/guitars), Michael Vaucher (lead and rythms guitars), Adriano Troiano (bass), Stefan Neuhaus (drums) and Thomas Vaucher (keyboards). In March 1999, we started the recording sessions for our first album. We recorded 7 songs plus an intro and released our first CD called "Rebels of our Time" in September 1999. We received many good and very good reactions and reviews from all over the world for this album. We also appeared on different sampler compilations. Songs from "Rebels of our Time" were placed on TELL HITS Vol. 1 (Switzerland), NO EXIT Vol. IV (Austria), WARZONE XXI (Greece), METAL DISTRICT Promo Sampler (Germany) and on POUNDING METAL Vol.II (Germany). In Winter 2000/2001 Adriano Troiano left EMERALD and Stephan Kaufmann replaced him during the recordings of the new album. In March of this year, we started the recordings for our new CD "Calling The Knights" and since the release in June, we received many fantastic reviews from all over the world. It's really amazing so far !!

• Just simple "Heavy Metal". I don't like all these categories they use nowadays for Heavy Metal. What's the difference between True Metal, Power Metal and Heavy Metal?? And then we have Epic Metal, Symphonic Metal, Happy Metal, Thrash Metal, Speed Metal, Progressive Metal, Doom Metal, Melodic Metal, Death Metal, Black Metal, Neo Metal, Modern Metal, Alternative Metal and hundreds more  - Are we crazy ?? Years ago, there was just Heavy Metal, no problems, only one united metal scene !!

• For myself, it would be Iron Maiden, Virgin Steele, Jag Panzer, Warlord, Black Knight, Crimson Glory, Savatage, Medieval Steel, Attack, old Helloween and Running Wild. In the name of the other band members I also have to list bands like Testament, Blind Guardian, Grave Digger, Gamma Ray, Manowar, Edguy and Nightwish.

• As we all have normal 100% jobs, we just recorded on weekends and on evenings. In March 2001, we started the recordings in TSO Records Tonstudio Oberland in Tentlingen Switzerland. Under the conduction of Eric Cotting, drums, bass and  rhythm guitars were recorded. After that, the recordings were finished in Steinfels Studio in Duedingen, Switzerland where we recorded vocals and lead guitars under the conduction of Manfred Udry (M-Force, Andy Portmann). For the mixing and mastering, we went back to TSO Records Tonstudio Oberland in Tentlingen where Eric Cotting did a very good job again. We're really satisfied this time as the production of the new CD is much better than on our debut CD. We had two very good engineers who brought the power of our live sound on CD and so it sounds really metal this time !! That was the aim. We also have a better artwork and booklet including all the lyrics, thanxlist etc..

• Just the fun and pleasure to play the music I love. I play my guitar at home and when there is a good riff or melody, I record it on tape and make a song out of it. Or sometimes, we create songs in our rehearsing room out of a jam session.

• To be honest, I don't like metal enriched with other styles like Rap, Hip Hop, Techno, Country or whatever. I like the Heavy Metal pure like it was in the eighties. About the keyboards, we have a keyboard player in our band and therefore also keyboards in some of our songs, but not as a lead instrument but as a support for the whole atmosphere of a song. And about the female vocals, as you saw in our biography, we have had female vocals already in the beginning of EMERALD and it was very cool !! I really like female vocals in Heavy Metal and bands likeHELLION,MASQUE,  BLACK KNIGHT, SENTINEL BEAST, WARLOCK or ACID were absolutly great !!

• Both of it. We like to write fantasy lyrics (for example "Shadowknight", "Across the Sea" "Emerald Knights" or "Battlefield") but write also about world problems ("Unreasonable Violence") or everyday situations ("Victims of Society"). As quite everybody in the band writes lyrics, we have so many different topics.

• Yes, of course. Between our debut "Rebels of our Time" and our new album "Calling The Knights", there is a big improvement in all ways. We have found our own style and the new songs are much better arranged and played. Besides that, the production is clearer and heavier this time and we have a good artwork and booklet. What makes us easy to recognize is our old school style and the vocals. We're completley different from all those Hammerfall and Stratovarius clones and sound more like the metal bands from the eighties. About the song, I think I would choose "Across The Sea" which is my favourite song at the moment (but tomorrow it will be maybe "Emerald Knights" and next week "Battlefield" etc.)

• I have mixed feelings about all these tribute albums. I like some of  them but if you look to all the new releases at the moment, there are so many bands that releases metal albums that a fan can't buy everything nowadays. You have to choose and buy only a choice of all the new releases and that hurts many underground bands. So I think it's not necessary to support this release overkill by releasing so many best of albums and tribute albums. RUNNING WILD are one of my favourite bands of all time and we also play a song of them on our concerts (Prisoners of our time), but we don't have the money to go back to the studio at the moment.

• We offer something different than the actual true metal trend. It's eighties heavy metal with very unique vocals and in the vein of bands such as WARLORD, MEDIEVAL STEEL or old IRON MAIDEN.

• No idea. I think I would do something dedicated to my passion "Heavy Metal". Perhaps doing a fanzine, a metalshop or something like that.

• I think that there is no metal scene here in Switzerland. Of course, there are some good bands and also some metalmaniacs, but we have no metal clubs, no metal magazines, no metal record companies and most important there is no united scene. From our debut "Rebels of our Time" we sold more than 80% abroad.I think that important countries for a metal band from Switzerland are Germany, France, Greece and Japan. If you are successful in these countries, only then you can be successful in Switzerland. Sad but true. About Swiss underground bands, there are some very good bands I would like to mention: SUN'N'STEEL, MEGORA, EXCELSIS, INISHMORE, CHARING CROSS, SHAKRA, BLACKBURN, ANITRAS GARDEN and PERTNESS.

• We absolutely LOVE performing live. We play about 4 or 5 gigs a year here in Switzerland which is unfortunatly not very much. The problem is that it is very difficult to play metal concerts in Switzerland and when it's underground metal, it's even more difficult. As I said above, there are no metal clubs and not enough people who visit gigs of underground metal bands. We will try to play some gigs in Germany with "Calling The Knights" but we need the help of the people, the bands and booking agents over there. We really hope it will work.

• Yes, I love reading books !! My favourite author is Stephen King and my most beloved book is Stephen King's "It" as well his stories (4 books) about the adventures of Roland The Gunmen. I already read all his books and he is really amazing and very fast in writing new fantastic books. Besides that, I'm fascinated by Scottish history and the vikings. In Scotland, there were many real hero's like William Wallace or Rob Roy but their live mostly ended tragically so I don't would like to live their live…

• I'd love to but I'm not good enough to do so. But our keyboard player (my brother Thomas) is very talented in this music style (listen to our intro track "Calling the knights"). We would choose of course an adventure film like "Braveheart", "Gladiator", "Last of the mohicans", "Conan" or "The 13th Warrior" (these are my favourite movies).

• Very interesting question !! How about "The Prisoner" of IRON MAIDEN or "I wanna rock" from TWISTED SISTER

• We just wanted to play ourselves the music we loved. It was my dream to stand not only in front of the stage but also on the stage and play my music in front of metalmaniacs and headbangers !! It is an unbelievable feeling to get good reactions from the crowd !!

• We would like to thank you very very much for the opportunity to present our band here. We really appreciate this support very much !! Thank's also to every reader who read this interview for the interest in our band. If you would like to know more about EMERALD or if you like to order our CD's ("Calling The Knights" 13 US$, "Rebels of our Time" 11 US$ incl. P&V), please visit our official website under www.emerald.ch or write to: EMERALD, Michael Vaucher, Alfons-Aebystrasse 41, CH-3186 Düdingen, Switzerland, e-mail: [email protected] See you all on the battlefield where all the brave knights stand as one!!!!!!