PRIMAL
FEAR
Primal Fear released
a while ago their new album “Devil’s Ground”, whose sound is classic and
more old fashioned. This is, I suppose, what we all expected to listen
from Primal Fear and I wasn’t disappointed at all. So, grabbing this chance,
I had a talk with the band’s guitarist, Tom Naumann.
1.WHAT HAPPENED TO PRIMAL FEAR
FROM THE RELEASE OF “BLACK SUN” TILL THE RELEASE OF “DEVIL’S GROUND”?
-
There were a lot of things happening,
our guitarist left the band for personal reasons. We did a European tour
supporting the album “Black Sun” and then we also did an U.S. tour with
Halford, Testament and other bands. This tour was cancelled after a few
days, because not many people came and Halford expected to have more audience,
so he cancelled the rest of the tour. Our guitarist left just before the
U.S. tour…
-DID YOU FIND A REPLACEMENT?
-
Yes, of course! Stefan Leibing, who
already played on our debut album and the second album and he joined again
the band. Our old drummer also left the band and we found a new one. In
October – November we entered the studio to record “Devil’s Ground” and
that’s the end of the story!
2.SO, YOUR ALBUM IS ONCE AGAIN STRAIGHTFORWARD
CLASSIC HEAVY METAL WITH INCREDIBLE VOCALS OF COURSE! THIS IS MY DESCRIPTION.
HOWEVER, IF I ASKED YOU TO PRESENT THE ALBUM YOURSELF TO THE FANS, WHAT
WOULD YOU TELL THEM REGARDING “DEVIL’S GROUND”?
-
It’s of course what you expect from
Primal Fear, so the band’s fans will love it I think! We heard about our
previous album “Black Sun” from some people that we kind of reproduced
the sound of “Nuclear Fire” and there was nothing really new, so we changed
a little bit with the new album. We changed a bit the way we compose and
we tried to alter our direction a bit. So, on this alum you will find some
songs which have some more keyboards in them and of course you will hear
some new elements from our new drummer and guitarist, since the previous
ones left the band before we wrote any material for the “Devil’s Ground”
album.
3.YOU ARE THE KIND OF BAND THAT STAYS
LOYAL TO ITS SOUND AND FANS WITHOUT MAKING HUGE CHANGES IN YOUR MUSIC,
WOULD YOU EVER CONSIDER OF COMPOSING A TOTALLY DIFFERENT ALBUM OR ADDING
VARIOUS ELEMENTS IN YOUR MUSIC?
-
I wouldn’t say that we don’t have different
styles from album to album. Primal Fear is a band that has a big variety,
not of different styles, but of different colors in our music. This is
because almost everybody in the band writes songs, everybody has a little
bit different style and I think this is what makes Primal Fear interesting.
On the new album you will hear some songs from styles you’ve never heard
before in our music.
-WELL, THIS IS NOT WHAT I MEANT… THERE
ARE SOME BANDS THAT FOR EXAMPLE FROM DEATH OR BLACK METAL TURN INTO PROGRESSIVE
OR THE VICE VERSA… I ASKED IF YOU’D EVER CONSIDER OF MAKING DRASTIC CHANGES
IN YOUR MUSIC…
-
I don’t really know what’s in the far
future. I don’t think we will plan a total change in our music in the near
future, because we all love the music we do and it’s also a very dangerous
thing to do… To be honest, I wouldn’t know which style we should choose,
because we all have found what we like the most and what satisfies us.
Changing our music would mean that all the band members wouldn’t be happy
with the music we play now and would have the same opinion on which style
we should choose.
4.WHERE WAS THE ALBUM RECORDED AND
WHO WAS THE PRODUCER?
-
The album was recorded here in Germany
in the studio where all the previous Primal Fear albums have also been
recorded. This time we also did the mixing in the studio as we did before
with our debut album and “Nuclear Fire”. As you might already know we did
the “Jaws Of Death” album in Tampa, Florida, in Morrisound Studio and the
last album we did in Texas. However, this time we decided again to do the
mixing here in Germany, because looking in the past we saw that we had
the best results here in Germany. The producer was of course Mat like he
was in all our previous albums.
5.ARE YOU SATISFIED BY THE FINAL RESULT?
IF YOU COULD CHANGE SOMETHING NOW, WHAT WOULD THAT BE?
-
I am really very satisfied with the
album and I can’t imagine what we should change, so it’s in our opinion
a perfect album and we are very satisfied and there’s nothing we can complain
about.
6.BY THE WAY, SOME PEOPLE THINK THAT
MP3 TRADING IS EQUAL TO TAPE TRADING. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT IT?
-
Yeah there is a little bit of equality!
The difference is that with the internet one guy can provide thousands
of people with the music and you can spread the music much faster that
you would with tape trading. So, like I said the problem is when you send
thousands of promo cds then many people have the album before its release
date.
-WELL I SUPPOSE THIS MUST BE REALLY
ANNOYING FOR THE BANDS…
-
Yeah it is! However, I know that the
real fans that want to have the album with the booklets, inlays and everything
are gonna buy the album anyway.
-THIS IS WHAT I THINK TOO…
-
Yeah, but I also believe that there
are also many people who listen to the music, keep the mp3s and never buy
the albums. This is not very nice. We do a lot of work for each album (composing,
recording and all the cost for releasing a cd) and it’s a bit frustrating…
7.YOU LIKE TALKING ABOUT SCIENCE FICTION
STORIES AND FROM WHAT I UNDERSTOOD, YOU HAVE SUCH STORIES IN “DEVIL’S GROUND”
TOO. RIGHT?
-
Yeah! I think for example “Colony 13”,
whose lyrics were written by Mat, that it was inspired by a famous TV series.
I don’t remember the name… We all write lyrics…
-SO, I SUPPOSE I SHOULDN’T ASK YOU
ABOUT THE LYRICS, SINCE YOU DON’T KNOW TOO MANY THINGS…
-
I also wrote some lyrics for this album
and I usually don’t write about the future or so, but my lyrics deal with
personal feelings and thoughts, visions about how you should take decisions
for yourself and decide on your destiny, how you can make your dreams come
true. This is what I want to talk about most of the times. Of course, I
also like to write about fantastic stories with a bit of mysticism and
religion.
8.COULD YOU TELL ME IN A FEW WORDS
THE MAIN SUBJECTS ON THIS ALBUM? YOU HAVE SOME SONGS WITH SCIENCE FICTION
STORIES, SOME SONGS ABOUT METAL AND WHAT ELSE?
-
I really don’t know all the lyrics…
You should better ask Mat about it… I am sorry!
9.WELL THE TRACK “DEVIL’S GROUND” IS
NOT A SONG. IT’S A NARRATION. WHO WROTE THE TEXT?
-
This text was written by Mat. He was
inspired by the Bible and some other sources. “Devil’s Ground” is not a
concept album, but it tells that hell is underneath and if you go to hell
you will be there forever…
-OK! I’D LIKE TO ASK YOU ABOUT THAT…
DOES IT ONLY SPEAK ABOUT HELL ITSELF OR DOES IT HAVE A SECOND MEANING SAYING
THAT HELL COULD BE ON EARTH AS WELL?
-
It speaks about the hell below and
it doesn’t have any symbolism. Hahahaha! I have to ask Mat for more for
this story, because I am afraid that I can’t answer you any of these questions.
I think I will have a call with Mat to talk about it! Hahahhaaha!
10. NOW LET'S TALK ABOUT THE ARTWORK.
I LIKE IT! IT HAS A VERY DARK ATMOSPHERE. I COULDN'T AVOID NOTICING THOUGH
THAT THE CITY BELOW BEARS A STRONG RESEMBLANCE TO THE U.S. WERE YOU INSPIRED
BY THE SITUATIONS OCCURRING WORLDWIDE NOWADAYS FOR THIS ARTWORK?
-
Ok! First of all, on this album we
have for the first time a different person who did the artwork…
-YOU MEAN THAT HE IS NOT THE SAME GUY
WHO DID YOUR PREVIOUS ALBUMS?
-
No! He is another guy from Russia and
he is the guy that is working today for Blind Guardian… God! I can not
remember his name! This time we had a new one because it wasn’t sure whether
the previous guy would have the time to do the artwork for us. He was too
busy and this one had the time to do it and we are very satisfied with
the result! I think you can see a little bit that it’s a different style…
-THIS ONE IS DARKER…
-
We are very satisfied! You said that
it reminded you of New York. We told the guy that we wanted to have a destroyed
city on the background and he made it look like a bit like New York, but
surely this is not what we mean by the cover! We don’t have any references
to the U.S. It’s just a destroyed city.
11.THE EAGLE IS YOUR MASCOT. WHAT DOES
IT REPRESENT TO YOU?
-
The eagle is first of all a classic
heavy metal symbol and the first Primal Fear album had the eagle on the
cover and we decided that it is a nice symbol for us. So, we kept it! I
also think that it’s good to have a mascot. We want to have the eagle on
every cover, so that every fan who will see it, will automatically remember
us and identify our albums when he is in a metal store.
12.YOU HAVE LOYAL FANS, BUT THERE ARE
ALSO SOME PEOPLE THAT CRITICIZE YOU WHATEVER YOU DO. WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO
ANSWER TO THEM?
-
Every band doesn’t only have fans.
There are always people who like the band and others who don’t. I think
that a band that doesn’t have people that hate its music, then this band
is boring! Hahahaha! The more people love you, then the more people will
hate you!
-WHAT WOULD YOU TELL TO THOSE THAT
CRITICIZE YOU?
-
I wouldn’t say anything bad to them!
I’d tell them to listen to other music and that they shouldn’t cheat on
us and I’d advice them to go their way, like we do and listen to the music
they like the most!
13.DO YOU HAVE ANY PLANS FOR TOURING?
-
Yeah we will go on tour with Iced Earth
in the middle of March till the middle of April and it will be a tour through
Europe. We will be the support group and after that we plan to do a South
America tour like we did 1.5 years ago. This tour is not planned at the
moment. We will also do some festivals.
14.THE PREVIOUS TIME, I THINK IT WAS
BACK IN 2001, YOU CAME FOR 2 LIVE SHOWS IN GREECE, BUT THE ONE IN THESSALONIKI
NEVER TOOK PLACE. DO YOU REMEMBER ABOUT THAT?
-
Yeah! The equipment of the local p.a.
was damaged and the mixing desk broke down. There was an electrical problem,
a problem with the power and I think the power supply was blown or something
like that. The p.a. company told us that there was a problem with the power
and that they wouldn’t supply us with a second mixing desk, because it
might also be damaged, so they had a call with the local promoter and the
result finally was that we couldn’t play. Well, it wasn’t a good thing
and we weren’t amused with it or anything, but there was nothing we could
do.
15.IS THERE A CHANCE YOU WILL COME
AGAIN IN GREECE?
-
Our booking agency works on that and
I think we plan to do some shows in Greece.
16.IF YOUR MUSIC WERE AN EMOTION, WHAT
WOULD IT BE?
-
It would be a positive and strong feeling.
Being optimistic regarding the future and not depressive at all! Hahaha!
17.IF IT WERE A PAINTING, WHAT WOULD
IT SHOW?
-
The eagle of course! Hahahaha!
18.WHICH IS, ACCORDING TO YOU, THE
BEST PART IN YOUR MUSIC?
-
Of course Ralph’s vocals are outstanding
and I think that Primal Fear have a very special power and the total sound
has a lot of strength.
-WHICH DO YOU THINK IS THE WORST PART
IN YOUR MUSIC?
-
Hahahahahaha! Even if I knew I wouldn’t
tell you! Hahahahaha!
19.WHICH WORDS DO YOU THINK COULD BEST
DESCRIBE YOUR NEW ALBUM AND YOUR MUSIC IN GENERAL?
-
Total power, big variety and that’s
you can really notice Primal Fear from other bands!
20.WHICH IS THE WEIRDEST/FUNNIEST QUESTION
SOMEONE’S EVER ASKED YOU?
-
I can’t remember! Of course there are
always some questions from people who are curious and want to know about
this or that, but I really I wasn’t asked any silly questions or at least
I don’t remember them!
21.THANK YOU! HAVE I FORGOTTEN TO ASK
YOU ANYTHING AND YOU’D LIKE TO MENTION?
-
I think you covered a lot of ground
and I don’t think there is any important question I wasn’t asked.
-LEAVE A MESSAGE TO THE READERS THEN…
-
Yeah! I hope to come to Greece this
year and I also hope tat you’ll come to our concerts and that the pa system
will be stable this time! Hahahahaha!
Christine Parastatidou
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