THE RETURN OF THE GOD(S)!!!

RUNNING WILD

Rolf Kasparek and RUNNING WILD are my most beloved band in the heavy metal music, It was the song "Under Jolly Rogge" that made me to get on board on captain's Rolf pirate ship and from that point on started my big travel to heavy metal music. After many years of being fan of this band the time has come to interview them. My anxiety was great. I was thinking what kind of person Rolf is and what would happen if he disapointed me? But thank God, nothing like that happen. Rolf is a great PERSONALITY with many interesting thinks to say except the music. This is the way I like HEAVY METAL, I want the musicians to have an opinion and not to be just good instrument players and composers.
BEFORE YOU START THIS INTERVIEW THERE ARE CERTAIN PEOPLE THAT I WOULD LIKE TO THANK BECAUSE THEY HELPED ME FOR THIS INTERVIEW : First of all Ismini Koskori (you trully are a metal godess and the most kind person ever met in the heavy metal music) for arranging this interview, my parents cause they are great RUNNING WILD fans and especially my mother (yes I know mam, RIVALRY rules!!!), my sister Christine (you rule!!!) cause of her you will read this interview, Miltos (because he made me understand more clearly the magic of the RW music), Adnan(you are my BROTHER!!!), my younger "brother" also, yes I am talking abot you Sony, Kosta Meidanis (for everything he has done for the site), Xaris Papas (my best friend in Athens), Spyros Loukopoulos (my best friend in Salonica) Mixalis Pyrgos (cause he is trendy :) ), Kostas Markoulis, Manolis Georgakopoulos (he did an exceptional work with our site), George Georgiou, ANCA (cause she liked METALHEAD, BAD TO THE BONE and CHAMBER OF LIES), Antonis Adamakos (stay epic man), Dimos "Sir Graveman" Konstantinidis (you are Dark Nightmare after all, hahaha), Tolis Palantzas (cause he really appreciate the work we do), Andreas, Stelios Sioulas (stay 80's) and finally to all guys that share the shame crazyness with me about RUNNING WILD. Brothers hope you enjoy this interview. KEEP THE JOLLY ROGER HIGH CAUSE WE ARE BOUND TO BE FREE!!!

1.FIRST OF ALL TELL US WHAT THE LIVE DVD AND THE DOUBLE CD WILL CONTAIN. WHICH THINGS IN THEM WILL ATTRACT THE OLD AND THE NEW FANS?

In the first place it's the full large set we played in our last tour, more than 100 minutes of music and it's a mixture among a lot of classics that we have to play live like "Under Jolly Roger" and that stuff, but we also included some songs we never played live before like "Lead Or Gold" or something like that, so there are a lot of surprises for the fans and also a track called "Purgatory", which we played I think the last time on the tour, where we recorded the first live record called "Ready For Boarding". I think there are a lot of things for the old and the new fans and a kind of a good mixture that represents the band itself.

2.YOU'VE ALREADY RELEASED IN THE PAST A LIVE ALBUM "READY FOR BOARDING" AND A LIVE VIDEO TAPE. WHICH ARE THE DIFFERENCES AMONG THE OLD AND THE NEW RELEASES?

In the first place we have totally different kinds of possibilities during the recordings, because we did it in a digital way so we had 2 systems running so nothing could go wrong and we recorded with 5 cameras for the dvd and you know with that kind of stuff, you can put around the heads of the fans which can film the stage from up front from the hall with every possibility to do it the right way and we got the possibility to do a dolby surround sound for dvd 5.1, so can really put everything in a three dimensional way, so it was the first time we had the possibility to do everything in the right way, because the last live was 15 years ago and the previous video tape I think from 1989 or something like that. We didn't have back then the possibilities we have now...Apart from these we are talking about 2 totally different bands besides me (hahahaha) because everybody in the band is different, there are a lot of years between that, a lot of records between that, so the band has grown musically and in every way and we got better possibilities to do in a live show, we got more pyro technics and a bigger stage than we had before, so we have in every way the possibilities to do a right statement of what Running Wild is all about now. Things are pretty much better than it was back then.

3.YOU PARTICIPATED IN AN EVENT CALLED "DONOTS". CAN YOU TELL ME A FEW THINGS ABOUT IT?

Yeah, it's a punk band in the same label that I am (on GUN records) and you know they had the plans to do a mini ep with some heavy metal tracks and they have some heavy metal roots and when they talked about that, it came out that... when the GUN records company talked to the singer of the band it came out that he is a great Running Wild fan, he has all our records and he was in a fan club back then and he wanted to do a cover version of "Bad To The Bone" and he asked if it was possible to join it and I did it, cause I thought it was a great idea and he is a very nice guy, a great person. There was some kind of sympathy between us from the first point out when we worked together and then we had the possibility to re-do the song live at a show in the Colonge fest, concerning the 10th birthday of GUN records and we did it live and they had the camers there, everything to record it and they recorded it and they said that it would be a great idea if we put it in your dvd as a bonus rack and I said "Of course, let's do it!It's great!". It shows how a Running Wild song can be played by different persons. It was great and it was really fun!

4.YOU HAVE SOME NEW MUSICIANS IN ORDER TO REALISE THIS LIVE. ARE THEY SESSIONISTS OR FULL TIME MEMBERS? WHERE DID THEY PLAY PREVIOUSLY?

It's a totally different band, none of them is really known much in public. Peter played for a rhythm and blues band, Ralf for a rock band and Matthias played for a band called Headcrush, which was much more a nu metal band I would say and Bernd played for a band called Angeldust before. So, they come from totally different musics and they are very experienced musicians, they know everything they have to know about the music business and what it's like to be on stage and to perform for a band, so it was a perfect background for what we wanted to do with this tour and what we wanted to record with this last dvd.

5.MANY MUSICIANS PLAYED IN RUNNING WILD. CAN YOU TELL ME WHO WAS THE MOST IMPORTANT TO YOU AND WHO YOU WON'T MISS THAT MUCH AND WHY?

It's pretty hard to say. If you ask whom I miss most for the music itself I think in the first place is Majk Moti, that had an influence in the music, because he was in the band for a long long time and he was a friend of mine he added a lot of his ideas to the music, also Thilo Hermman because he wrote great songs for Running Wild, he added a lot of things to the band and he was a nice person and he added also personally as a person himself to the band. I think these 2 guys were really strong and also Jorg Michael because he played a lot for Running Wild, especially he did more tours than records, because every time that a drummer had to go he played the tour for him, so he was pretty much showing on the live set than in records.

6.SCHMIER FROM DESTRUCTION SAID TO A FRIEND OF MINE, WHEN THEY CAME HERE FOR A LIVE SHOW, THAT HE CONSIDERS YOU TO BE ONE OF THE BEST MUSICIANS IN GERMANY. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT IT?

It makes me really proud!!! You know when people accept and understand what I am doing and appreciate what I am doing. I know very well where I started from and where I wanted to reach with that and when people say that this is an influence to them and they like it, it's an honor to me for sure!!!

-I THINK YOU ARE THE BEST MUSICIAN IN THE WORLD

Hahahahaha...Ok! You I think music in general it has something to do with feelings...

-NOW PLEASE TELL ME WHAT YOU STARTED SAYING FOR THE LIVE SHOW THAT WAS CANCELLED HERE IN GREECE...

Yes! It was planned this summer to do a live show in a festival, we were booked. I was in the rehearsal room, doing the last preperations with my equipment and stuff like that and I get a call from a touring agency telling me that the whole festival was cancelled. It was festival that would take place in Athens, so we couldn't do anything about it. If the festival took place, you'd have the possibility to see Running Wild. We wanted to play but we couldn't...hahaha...as far as I know the goverment banned the whole thing and I guess they had a pretty good reason to do that, I don't know what was really there, I know that it was a trouble between the guys that run the festival and the goverment. It had nothing to do with us, but maybe next time... They said that they really want to do the festival in the future...

-OR MAYBE I WILL COME TO SEE YOU LIVE IN GERMANY...

Hahahaha...Ohhh I don't know what will come further or what will come faster! hahaha

7.I ONCE READ IN A MAGAZINE THAT YOUR MUSIC WOULD BECOME THE SOUNDTRACK FOR A MOVIE. IS IT TRUE? WHICH MOVIE WAS IT?

Noooo! It's pretty much long ago, one of our songs was suggested to be in a kind of Indiana Jones movie but... You know a pretty much medieval movie and they talked about "Diamonds Of The Black Chest", but it didn't happen. I don't know why...

8.IN YOUR LATEST ALBUMS AND IN THE PAST AS WELL YOU USE TO WRITE LYRICS FOR SOME HISTORICAL FEATURES. HOW DO YOU CHOOSE THE PERSONALITY THAT YOU WANT TO WRITE LYRICS FOR? WHICH ARE YOUR CRITERIA?

Hmmm...I'm pretty much interested in history in general, so uuummmm you can see it in the lyrics I write and from time to time I have some persons I really love to talk about and I'm really interested for the period they lived and that's why I feel in the right place or the right mood to do a song about that, to recreate a certain feeling and a certain period and show up musically and with the lyrics how it was back then, because I think we can learn a lot from the past, because you know what we are now and what we'll be in the future would be impossible without what happened before...

9.SO DO YOU THINK MANKIND IS TAUGHT BY ITS MISTAKES OR IS DOOMED TO DO THEM AGAIN AND AGAIN?

As far as I studied history I think that mankind does the same mistakes over and over again, uummm because...take a look at what is going on right now with this thing in Irak and like that...They do the same mistakes that they did 2000 years ago when they had the crusades...!It's nearly the same and I don't think that man will learn until he kills himslef. I don't know, because if you take a look in our world, his surroundings and what is really going on in the world without killing all the animals or destroying everything that we have to live in, doesn't make any sense. I am not really hopeful in that case...

10.WHICH ARE YOUR THOUGHTS FOR THE U.S. POLITICS AFTER THE TERRORIST ATTACK OF 11TH OF SEPTEMBER? DON'T YOU THINK THAT U.S.A. CAUSED THIS REACTION BECAUSE OF ITS POLITICS IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES?

It's not very easy to say it, because it's not a very easy thing. In the first place should save themselves and they should give an answer to what they did on 11th of September because these guys...The problem is that these guys say that they did what they did because of Islam, it doesn't! they just take it as a "shield" up front of them. It has nothing to do with religion. It has to do with something pretty much crazy. I don't know what these guys want, I don't know what this guy Osama Bin Laden wants, but in the first place he doesn't want anything for anybody else but himself. This is the truth, but the problem is that the American President...hahaha...he is pretty much the same, because he just wants something for himself and not for the people, so I think it's pretty much a heavy thing to try and look behind it, you know...why hey are doing these stuff. I don't think they want to attack the Irak because of serious weapons or something like that, I think that it has to do with the oil and also it has nothing to do with terrorists or something like that, because all these weapons they say that Irak has were given to them by America! Hahaha..This is the problem! And everybody forgets about that...the main point is to ask America why they did it. This is the problem...because why did they give weapons like that to a guy like him? They knew, those days that they did it, that Sadam is a dictator and he has nothing to do with democracy or do something for the people, so it's not very easy to figure out what is behind it...

11.YOU ARE INVOLVED QUITE OFTEN IN YOUR LYRICS WITH THE EXISTENCE OF EXTRA TERRESTRIAL LIFE FORMS. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THAT? HAVE YOU EVER HAD SUCH AN EXPERIENCE?

Yes, I had some experience in that case but not very spectacular or something like that. If you think about it in the first place, how big is our universe and how many planets are in there and stars and suns it's RIDICULOUS to think that this universe exists only for us idiots!Hahahaha I don't think that anybody would create a kind of universe just for a race like the human beings that destroy whatever surrounds them...hahahaha It is ridiculous! So, I think there are a lot of things going on and I studied through our history and if you look at our song called "Genesis" on Black Hand Inn album, I studied these stuff a long long time and I can promise you that if there were no aliens there then we wouldn't be here. This is the problem. This is exactly what you know these kind of news or these kinds of fact were put in stone by a kind of culture that is the oldest culture that we know, the Summers, who dates all the stuff which ended up in the bible. The Bible is what they said but it's totally wrong and totally twisted! So, if all these didn't happen, then why talk about it? You know, when the first atom bomb was going up in the air, the guys that did it were asked why they did it and how they found out and one guy from a newspaper said it was sure the first time that it did happen (an atomic explosion) and one of the guys who found it said "No, it was done again before!", so you can ask who did it before and if you take a look at the ancient stories about the wars of the gods and stuff like that. They figured out a place where there should be 2 towns, Sodom and Gomorrah, they said they were there in the desert and they found the same stuff, you kow, the sand was turned to glass, the same thing that they found in the desert that they did the first atomic explosion. The same one! And the sand turning into glass is only possible by an atomix explosion and nothing else has this energy, so one and one is two. hahaha...

12.MANY EXTREME METAL BANDS AND THEIR FANS CLAIM THAT RUNNING WILD IS LISTED AMONG THEIR MOST BELOVED BANDS OR THAT THEY ARE GREATLY INFLUENCED BY YOU. HOW DO YOU FEEL?

Yes! There are a lot of bands influenced by Runnin Wild, especially bands that you would never think about. If you take a look at these Scandinavian bands, especially the death metal bands, they claim that Running Wild is a very big influence, you can't hear it anymore, but I think it's better and makes you more proud when people just take their influences and create their own stuff from it. I know there are a lot of people saying that Helloween was a big influence, but when they create a band they sound exactly like Helloween..hahaha and I think it's even better to take influences and change them...I grew up with bands like The Beatles, AC/DC and KISS, but I don't think that Running Wild sound like that. I just took the influences of my youth and created my own sound.

13.THERE IS A CONTEST CURRENTLY RUNNING IN YOUR OFFICIAL SITE FOR A TRIBUTE. ARE YOU PLEASED BY THE CORRESPONDANCE THIS THING HAS? FROM THE SONGS AND BANDS YOU HEARD TILL NOW, WHICH COVER VERSION YOU FOUND THE MOST INTERESTING?

Yeah!There are many interesting stuff in there and you know we want to keep it to the fans. We said ok let's give it to the fans, collect the songs in our homepage and then we will join in for the business side when we'll come to release it and we want the fans to choose the songs that will be in the album. That's what we plan. It should be a thing from the fans, to choose the bands that they want to be in there. It's a thing from the fans to the fans. We don't want to put our hands in that, we just want to give the opportunity to bring it out in a way and it's planned to be released as a double cd which is a kind o a history cd, that was done by my former record label Sanctuary and there will be a lot of things included there, unreleased tracks...I have to record it, they will be re-recorded, so you'll have to wait... One song is from 1983, before we had a record deal,it's a song called "Prowler Werewolf" from the period when we were writing a song for "The Gates Of Purgatory" and I got a song called "Apocaliptic Horsemen" , which is a song written in the period that we recorded the "Under Jolly Roger" album and we had the song ready, but it wasn't in the record, don't know why it didn't make it, why we did it, there will also be some re-recorded stuff, older songs that will be recorded new now and some re-mixes, a lot of things we added to older songs and we want to work on that, so no song will be the same version in the same way as it is in the original album, so things will be worked out and some guitars edited or work on the drum sound or the sound itself in general or do a remix of it and also there will be 2 cd's. In the first cd the B side will be a dvd, clips that Running Wild had back then which is "Conquistadors" and "Bad To The Bone" and we added some more material, cause we have so much material we recorded live and we can do a lot of clips with that. We also have a live show from 1985 from our tour for "Gates To Purgatory" and we have a lot of material to do clips for 1-2 old songs from "The Gates To Purgatory", so there will be a lot of work, things included that the fans never saw and also a lot of material I personally recorded from all the productions we did in the studio, where the fans can see us while recording the stuff, they will know and have at home. I think there will be a lot of interesting stuff for the fans that they never saw before and we want it to be a good package, so this means that it won't be out till next summer but it will be sooner than the production of my next project I a working on that's why I am collecting here and there some bits and pieces for the new album, because I first have to work on this one.

14.YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE PRODUCTION FOR BANDS LIKE KREYSON AND KELLY WILD. IS THERE A CHANCE YOU MIGHT INVOLVE WITH PRODUCTIONS IN THE FUTURE?

Nooo!!! The main point is time. This is the main problem, that's why I stopped it, because those days I could find the time and I did these 2 productions and these last years I even really could think of having just one month to do it, because I have so much work to do for Running Wild. I do all the work all alone, especially now, that I did the last cd and I have to do this double cd and after that I have to start immediately writing new material for the next album and we did a lot of festivals throughout the summer, when we finished the tour, so I really couldn't imagine when I should do it, that's why I stopped it!

15.SO WE'LL HAVE TO WAIT 2 YEARS FOR A NEW RUNNING WILD ALBUM TO BE RELEASED?

Yeah, right! I think in the early 2004...

16.IF YOUR MUSIC WAS AN EMOTION WHAT WOULD THAT BE?

It's not one emotion, that's the problem. Hungry for life!!!I think this is the main point...

-I THINK IS THE SOUND OF FREEDOM

YES!!!Like I said it's not one word, I can't put it in one way, sometimes it's also agression. It is also a main point if you look at some songs and read the lyrics.

17.IF YOU COULD TRAVEL BACK IN TIME, WHICH HISTORICAL PERIOD AND PLACE WOULD YOU LIKE TO VISIT? WHAT WOULD YOU MISS THE MOST FROM OUR TIMES?

Oohhh...hahahhaaha...It's pretty much hard to say. I am very interested in history and I think about it you know. I prefer to stay in the time I am in...hahahaha...because if you think about pirates you get this kind of romantic view on it but if you lived at the times they lived, it was awful! It was a real hell, to be on the ship, on the water and to things there and be there for so long. I could never experience it that much...so leave it!hahahaha

18.IF YOU HAD THE CHANCE TO MEET THE CREATURE THAT CREATED THE UNIVERSE, WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO ASK HIM?

Hmmm....I would give him my lyrics and I would ask him if I am right.

-NOTHING ELSE?

Hmm...No...I think this is the main point!

19.THANK YOU! HAVE I FORGOTTEN TO ASK YOU ANYTHING AND YOU'D LIKE TO MENTION?

Well, you know, the next time we do a festival we really want and we'll try to do a live show in Greece as well.

Nick "William_Kidd" Parastatidis

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws