• RITUAL STEEL PLAY METAL FROM THE HEART AND THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ELEMENT TO COMPOSE GREAT SONGS...

1.GIVE US A SHORT BAND BIO FROM DAY ONE UP TILL NOW. WHO ARE RITUAL STEEL NOW? FROM WHICH BAND DID YOU LEAVE TO MAKE R.S?

• My drummer Martin and I had the idea to form a band in the veins of our old school metal heroes for a longer period but were both in different bands. I played in Forgotten North, a kind of progressive folk metal and Carpediem, technical powermetal. Martin used to be in Red Fire Rain, they played dark and powerful Metal. He later joined Third Teeth, an AC/DCish biker band.  We thought it would be cool to do a kind of fake rarety, with english sounding names, epic cover, songs sounding like Manilla Road and a vinyl 12” limited to 300 copies that would have been announced as a private and long lost 80s US metal gem. After we left our old bands in 2000 and 2001 we found – among our friends and relatives – the fitting musicians. My buddy Benjamin and Timo, the brother of Martin’s wife took over the guitars, our long time friend Oliver became the bassist. Benjamin had several garage bands before and Oliver played bass in Valpurgisnight, another epic powermetal band from this area. He still has his blackmetal sideproject Runesword that will release a couple of CDs recorded over the last few years in late 2002. Timo used to be in Red Fire Rain eight years ago. That line up lasted from April 2001 to January 2002 when we needed to get Benjamin (who stayed a friend) out of the band for he did not develop like we did and held back the songwriting process. He was a left handed guitarist but played right hand guitars so he played out of time very often. In January we found Dirk as the new lead guitarist, a very talented guy who never played in any band before. In summer 2001 we entered the studio for the first time to record the two songs for our 7” that got released in December 2001, still with Benjamin on the second guitar. In the end of March this year we started the recording sessions for our first album that will be released in August. We were at first signed to Iron Glory Records but some financial problems forced us to leave them and so we joined the lines of the almighty Miskatonic Foundation, which means that the album will get a vinyl release through Metal Supremacy who already did the 7”. The current situation is a totally different as we had planned in the beginning, we became a real band with tons of originals and no covertunes at all. We will see what the future could bring, I can imagine that it will be a golden future for us and for the scene in our area.

• First we wanted to call the project with the 12” as we planned it Orgrim Doomhammer, which is a figure from a fantasy strategy game on the Playstation. Well, I am not sure how he got the idea but Martin then came up with Ritual Steel and we thought it would sound good. It certainly sounds like a band name straight out of the 80s, well, it is our aim to recreate the furious and passionated 80s feeling, to reanimate the spirit. We are strongly influenced by the 80s US Metal, NWoBHM and all those real movements but we do not build our songs only on these influences, for we think that that would make us a retro style band while we try to play in the same league as those bands that we love to listen to at home.

• Well, hard to select three out of 2000, well I would name Pentagram (actually all bands including Bobby Liebling on vocals) and Jag Panzer as my two favourite bands, maybe also Manilla Road. My personal faves come from allover the world and out of all hardrocking decades: Blue Cheer, Jerusalem (UK, 1972), Black Sabbath (with Ozzy, Dio and Gillan), Black Widow, Cirith Ungol, Ostrogoth, Turbo (Poland), Hemlock (canadian progressivemetal), Cruachan, Mägo de Oz, Darkthrone, early Dismember, Asphyx, Blasphème, Sortilège, Malediction, Killers (I love french metal), Aria, Monomakh, Master (I also love russian metal also;-)), Rolling Stones, Beatles,  Karthago (Hungary), U8 (Austria), early Scorpions (1972-1984), Saint Vitus, Candlemass, Solstice UK, Sir Lord Baltimore, Gorgon, Angelwitch, Witchfynde, Brocas Helm, Pokolgép, Irish Coffee (awesome belgian 70s Hardrock), Iron Cross (Florida), Overlorde (we do a fan club website for this band www.metalprovider.com/overlorde),  Bloodrock, Warhorse (70s bands), Electric Wizard, Cathedral, Death, Possessed, Exodus, Sepultura (except for the trendy shit they wrote after the release of “Arise”), Unleashed and tons more. I love great hardrock, doom, metal and progressive music. My drummer only listens to “True Metal” (whatever that is), buys tons of rare records for hundreds of Euros,  my bassplayer loves raw blackmetal, beatmusic, grindcore and extreme deathmetal, traditional heavymetal with this “cult” feeling, Timo’s faves are Iron Maiden and Metallica next to Accept, Dirk loves Accept, Scorpions, UFO, Rory Gallagher, Iron Maiden, along with other pure rock or pop acts.

• The 7” has been recorded in early August 2001 within two days, the studio is called Studio One and is situated near our rehearsing room. We entered it – as I mentioned above – in late March this year and recorded our album “A hell of a knight”. The recordings and mixing are finally done, we got the pre release CDRs on Thursday and we are really proud of our work. We love listening to our CD again and again since this is the music we adore. The label that we finally found to release our album is Miskatonic Foundation from ol’ Albion, the manager is noone else but the mighty guitarplayer of Solstice UK, Richie Walker, a true maniac, good friend and reliable person. The vinyl issue will be done by Metal Supremacy, a small vinyl only label from our area that works hand in hand with Miskatonic for a longer period now and is responsible for LPs by Twisted Tower Dire and Solstice. Well, how would you expect our album to sound? Powerful, furious, passionated, wild. It sounds very alive and fresh. We could be called a mix of Manilla Road, Iron Maiden, Cirith Ungol, Witchfynde, Solstice UK, Tyrant (US) and some early Running Wild but we would prefer to be compared only to ourselves since we do not copy any other band.

• Well, we surely love cliché type of metal, we like lyrics praising metal but I don’t see why I should take a direction with my lyrics so many other bands, some of them in a very stupid and commercialised way, have taken before. I have my very own and peculiar mind and so are my lyrics. I write about love, about friendship and comradeship, I often write about myself, like in “Liquid Steel” which is the story of my last relationship and its bitter end packaged in some metal clichés. One song I did nearly entirely was “T.W.O.N” that will appear on the album, it is Exciter like speedmetal and the lyrics centre around the good times you have when you visit a metal / hardrock concert and how badly we miss these times when there were the real maniacs went mad during the concerts. I personally hate these type of swords and sorcery lyrics that nearly every queer keyboard speed band uses today. Flat wanna be fantasy lyrics, well, I am through with that. I rather write about fear, death, darkness but not in a romantic gothic style or hateful blackmetal way. I have my very own way to write. Maybe my lyrics are not too poetic but I am just an ordinary man from the streets with a straight heart and a straight mouth. I say it how I think it.

• Our label Miskatonic Foundations works hand in hand with the Dragonight Agency where many maniacs from Poland, Greece, Japan and Germany take part in. I think this is quite good, especially Greece is one of those countries where people still know their metal. I personally will spread our name allover the metalworld with guestbook entries, I will force my world wide friends to play our album to all their friends J, well, we have good contacts to several german and foreign fanzines and we surely will appear in Metal Hammer and Rock Hard, Germany’s biggest (and most corrupt) metal magazines.

• Our expectations are big anyway, we were not supposed to play that open air actually but through our connections we made it there and now that we hold our album in our hands we are sure that some people will speak our name with respect. It was always my dream to play in one league with all the real metalbands I love and now we are damned close to it. And this festival, I mean, it is not too big, it is more like a big barbecue with live bands J, it will take us one more step further to glory and fame. Well, afraid, we’re not afraid of anything, we love to play we love to go out there and take our passion to the metalheads, we are all experienced in any way, me and Martin play in bands now for more than seven years. I am a bit excited, yes, but only because of the pleasure that awaits me, the fun I will have to be on stage with Gorgon jamming “Bright Lights” from good ol’ Trespass and to share the stage with my friends Iron Cross and Slough Feg.

• I’d drink myself to death, haha, no, well, I am not sure, maybe I’d sing the songs other bandmembers compose like it was with my old bands, even that worked out. Next to my band I have two webzines I write for. If I wasn’t a musician myself, I could imagine to do more journalistic work, even more I do now.

• A world without music would be like a world without love, without colours, without life. I could not say what I would do. Look at the people in Afghanistan, they did not have any music, well, maybe some traditional praising songs for their god. I could not live without my music. Never.

• Religion, money and drugs. Man will never be free for these three elements rule his life. You can only try to dig your very own way through it like I do.

• I’d not go too far back in time, back to the seventies or late sixties where music was much better than nowadays, well, popular music. No Tekkno, no rap, no nu metal, no grunge. What would I miss? Ha, Internet. I am a total internet maniac and I am in love with emails. I could not live without email anymore.

• The metal “industry” is surely not much different from the pop “industry”, money talks as it does in every part of life. It depends on how the bands deal with it. If you only play metal for the money that you could make on it then there is something wrong with you. If you play it for your own pleasure, for your passion, if you unleash your innerself upon mankind through your creativity, well, then you are on the right way. Metal and hardrock were always build upon deep emotions and express freedom, positive fury and lust for life in my opinion. If a clever manager makes an honest band very big, well, as long as the money does not deprave their minds, I don’t mind musicians to make big bucks on their music. Look at Rush or Deep Purple and Iron Maiden, they are the biggest of the big and most of the musicians stayed as basic as they could. As long as it is like that, I cannot see any negative aspects. But for sure, sell out is everywhere and if you long to gain more attention with more commercial music then you sell your soul.

• Well, hard to say, the Scorpions and the austrian gods Gallow’s Pole (1982, CBS Austria) used elements of Reggae and it worked out with their rocking style while it would not work with more furious metal like Jag Panzer or Metal Church. I’d say that rap never fits with metal, rap is no real music to me, just an expression of your political views. Punk fit with metal perfectly, look at Exciter. Classical music fits with metal but most of the bands that use classical influences do it wrong somehow, they play it in a very wimpy way. Folkmusic can be combined with metal, Skyclad, Mägo De Oz, Slough Feg, these bands show us how. On the other hand tekkno would not fit with every style, actually it should not be combined with metal, tekkno is cold, lifeless music while metal is alive, warm.

• I thank you for doing this interview. I hope that you will enjoy our album that you will soon hold in your hands. To every young band in the world: Don’t copy any big act, go your own way, only originals will survive and stand the test of time! Hope to see many of you maniacs out there at our future concerts! If you like, have a drink with us then, don’t hesitate to talk to us, we don’t bite! Cheerz!!!!!