Helloween- The Rabbits don't come easy

HELLOWEEN

Helloween visited Greece to promote their new album, the successor of the outstanding “The Dark Ride” and behind the veil had the chance to interview in a suite of Park Hotel the new member of Helloween Sasha Sascha Gerstner (Guitars) with the presence of mr. Weikath

C:-What has changed since the Dark Ride album?

S:-Helloween return backwards, it’s a much happier album that the dark ride which was too American. If you are a band like Helloween, you’ve got to be yourself, not American, so in my opinion the Dark Ride was a mistake.

C: It is often said that when a band releases a best of collection, a new period begins. Will the new album start a new page for the Helloween History?

S: I think it’s another album for our History, Dark Ride was a mistake and I think that’s “Rabbits Don’t Come easy” is the best album after “Better Than Raw”, in my opinion.

C: Why have you called the album with this funny title, is there a secret?

S: No, no, you know because we like rabbits (laughs) and also in our next record we might have a Bugs Bunny on the cover (laughs). The truth is that we had a lot of problems during the recordings As an example when Michael wrote the keyboards on the computer, sometimes it didn’t; work and after three rainy days in Hamburg we had a lot of water in the rehearsing room, it’s the same we compare it to a magician on a stage,. We had to do a lot of tricks to make it out, like the rabbit from the hat.

C:Is it a concept album or not?

S: No it’s not a concept album, you can say that the band concept on this album is that we were free to do, whatever we wanted. There was no pressure like the previous album.

C: The Beginning of the song, “The Sun For The world” is a little bit oriental , is this something special for this song and you used this oriental intro.

S: Hah, it’s oriental but definitely not Turkish (laughs), I am a fan of oriental music and mostly on India Stuff, I visited India two years ago and I had a lot of ideas, the organ here is Cintar, you know Cintar it’s an instrument that it originates from India.

M.Weikath: like the Elephants!(in that time we stopped the interview and laughed about five minutes).

S: We could play it with guitar, but I liked the sound of Cintar, so I played it with the Cintar.

C: Have you learned to play the Cintar, or you just took the instrument and played it like a guitar?

S: I bought a Cintar from India and I practiced a lot, I like the sound of it. I like this meditation stuff, I like meditation, you know candles and other stuff.

C: Probably you like to create atmosphere?

S: (laughts) that’s for sure. Another song that it’s worth to be noticed it’s Death Star, it has a Scottish melody, and it starts with a traditional Scottish organ.

C: The beginning of this song reminded me, the intro of Perfect Gentlemen…

S:Yes, a little bit, but all the songs, are a new think to this music, a new sound.

C: What inspires you to write songs nowadays, what gives you ideas to put them into a song, is it difficult for a band, that made a lot of albums to be still fresh?

S: There are a lot of persons in this band and believe me, none of them is a normal guy (laughs), also there is a lot of humor, if you like it, you laugh a lot, you are open minded, you have new ideas to make a new record. If you are a normal guy, you go straight on your ideas and sometimes you get stack. If we wanted to make a Punk song record, we would make it.

C: Yes, that’s the privilege of a band like Helloween, you are not afraid to say that Helloween released something that sounds sticky.

S: Yes, we are different that the other bands that use fantasy things swords, skulls, a Helloween copy . The main difference is that we are open-minded, and we do whatever we want to do.

C: I agree, after all Helloween is a band that influenced this genre, they were the pioneers of this genre. My next question is about the production of the new record, Charlie Baunfield was the producer on the “Treasure Chest” and “Rabbits don’t come easy”. I can say that I liked it, but I think that with Roy Z, the guitars sounded heavier and l liked it better. Weren’t you satisfied by Roy Z or the American sounding Helloween (as you called it in the beginning of the interview)?

S:I think Roy Z is a producer for nu-metal bands, and I think that with this production The sound is much warmer, and expresses the energy we have in our songs.

C:So you think that the sound of Dark Ride, was too raw for you ?

S:Yes, it was raw, It was American, I like it also, but helloween are a band influenced by classic rock bands like Deep Purple, that they didn’t have the American element in their music. In my opinion I like warm sound on metal, not so raw.

C:How do you see metal nowadays, what has changed since Helloween started playing metal.

It’s a difficult question because now I am 25 and in the first album of this band, I was sitting in the sand making castles, so I cannot tell you stories about the past time, in my opinion Heavy Metal grows on Germany, for example you can watch a Hammerfall three times on the afternoon. People like truth music, rock , pop all that kind of stuff they listen to the radio, sometimes this songs are overproduced and there is no emotion to this songs, there is no message to them, so in my opinion the metal people care about music.

C: How do you see the German metal, bands, can you find a successor to Helloween?

S: I am not a great fan of other bands, I prefer to listen different kinds of music, oriental, electronic and I don’t listen to many metal bands. Also I’m in this genre not for a long time, my previous band was Freedom Call and after that I did a lot of things except metal.

C:How do you see Freedom Call? They sound like an interesting band and remind me a little bit of Avantasia.

S: Yeah, but every record of them is exactly the same than their previous (laughs), sometimes they sound like helloween.

C:Do you like sports?

S: I like Basketball and athletics, the original Greek Sports, but I listen and write music most of the time, so I don’t have much time to watch sports. When I stay home I sit on the computer and write music.

C: What programs do you usually use?

S:I am a big fan of Cakewalk, I mix sounds, I use fruitloops, they are very powerful and professional programs to write music. Charlie Baunefield our producer he is a master on Fruitloops.

C: I have heard of them, a friend of mine, writes music and uses the most of them.

S: Do you know the program Reson, it’s very powerful , you can do magical stuff.

C: Yes, I know it, this programs sometimes get very complex, they give you the opportunity to mix and edit every bit of each song, I have watched the procedure and I can say that it’s very tiring.

S: Yes, I talk a lot with Charlie about songwriting, I spend a lot of hours to write a song , they give thousands of possibilities. When I was at the age of 15, I used a single tape recorder to write a song, I recorded my ideas and after a half an hour I was finished I moved into the next song, but now with computer I stuck a lot to a song. You can change this and that….and takes a lot of time.

C: I have noticed that you can make very good productions with computers and professional programs.

S:Yes, that’s true but you have to spend a lot of money. I have a recording studio in my computer, it over an amateur studio but not a professional studio, it’s close to a professional studio. When you start investing on the computer, you put more and more money and finally you got a very good studio but not a professional studio. So I could do a home recording studio, with less money. In my opinion you must spend a lot of money for a professional studio and little money to have a studio on your computer, What I did was a mistake, I spend a lot of money on the computer and the final result was a mediocre studio.

C: We are living in hard days, the previous months the war used to rage in Iraq, do you have something to say about that?

S:Yesterday when we arrived in Greece, I realized that it’s much more difficult for you to live so close. I am sad about this, in my opinion it’s a small step to a new world war. I am also very proud of Germans, nobody likes the idea of war in Germany, in the past centuries we had two world wars because of Germans (Sasha seemed a little embarrassed talking about that) and I am very proud that nobody likes the war in Germany. There are many innocent people in Iraq, there should be another possibility that war, people could find it out with another way to stop a dictator like Sadam, I am very sad.

C: Human kind passed this channels during the past centuries, World wars were deliberately made because , there had to be opened new marks, now there a lot of ways to people make money, war is not so necessary?

S:I agree, but I cant understand why people have to kill each other, I am very sad about that. There isn’t much that I can understand.

C: Imagine that you are looking inside a crystal ball that predicts the future, what can you see about the future of Helloween?

S: I can say that we will be on this world, 10 years after I can’t say that I am a man that looks at the future and thinks about it a lot of time. I can’t think if I have a nice wife and two kids, 10 years from now but also I can make dreams. I live for the moment.

C:What are your future plans after the release of the new album, will you go on tour, participate on something?

S: Firstly we have to practice a lot before we start our tour, it’s very important to rehearse a lot, at least two months. and afterwards we will probably start our tour in late August or early September, we will visit the States also.

C: Will you go to the States eh? Aren’t you afraid of the threads of Terrorism attacks?

S: Yeah, there a lot of innocent people on the states too, the war is a fault of the government not the people. Personally I don’t be afraid to be on the States, terrorism can be anywhere, as I don’t afraid to be here In Greece, I don’t afraid to walk in Germany or the States. After the American Tour, we will come to Europe and probably play a show in Greece.

C:I hope so because Greek metalheads haven’s see you since 1998.

S: For me It’s going to be the first time, cause I am a new member in this band, I ‘ve never been here before.

C: What’s your opinion about the other metal genres? Progressive Metal, nu-metal etc.

S:I am interested in nu-metal., generally I like everything that sounds good to my ears, has new ideas, I like it. It’s a part of the taste of music. I am a Heavy Metal member of a band and my heart burns for heavy metal but I like a lot of other kind of music, so in my opinion I am a musician, not only a metal guitar player, I like music.

C: What are your goals with Helloween, do you have future plans to go on your own in the future?

S:: I think for us now the most important is to keep the line-up, we have a great time together, we are happy and I think we will stay together for our next 4-5 albums

C: What do you do on your spare time? Do you watch movies?

S: I am not a tv junkie, I like cinema, I liked Lord Of The Rings, I am not a big fan of fantasy stories but it was a great movie.

C: Have you read the book? Did you like what you saw on the big screen?

S: I never read the book, but I like the movie, I am a great fan of Golum-Golum (laughs).it was very funny. The big hobby of mine is writing music, so I don’t spend a lot of time in other stuff.

C: Do you have something to say about the Greek Fans?

S: I hope they enjoy the new record and I look forward for the tour in Greece.

C: Thank you very much for the interview, I hope the new album will rock, personally I wish you to achieve every goals you have with the band and I look forward to seeing you guys on tour.

S: Thank you very much, we look forward to coming to Greece too.

Costas “C.O.B” Meidanis

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