Interview - ANDRAS

English text


Martín: Hello Ecthelion!Your new album “Iron Way” is a mixture of atmospheric Black Metal and Pagan feelings. Tell us about ANDRAS´ history and how do you describe your own style?

Ecthelion: The beginning of Andras was in the blackmetal-scene in the beginning nineties. After several albums we released “Quest of deliverance” 2000. From that point the music was getting more atmospheric. With the “…of old wisdom” Album and the start of Adversaries on keys and me, Ecthelion, on vocals the music was changing into a mixture of black und epic pagan metal with a lot of roots in old heavy metal. That style is now more developed in the new opus “Iron Way”, which is the best musical result we achieved so far in our opinion. This is our interpretation of aggressive and epic metal music.

M: Which are the differences between “Iron Way” and your 2005 "...Of Old Wisdom"?

E: “Iron Way” is a further development of the style we started with the “…of old wisdom” album. We learned a lot of the process of writing epic but even aggressive stuff and we learned how to ban these feelings on tape in the studio. So we were able to put all our musical knowledge and inspiration into the new songs.

M: How were the recording sessions of the album? Are you satisfied with the results?

E: We recorded it in my “7th door studios”. I record all stuff I’m involved there. It costs a lot of nerves and hairs to record such a album in your own studio but is it worth it because I have the complete control of the result. It took about two years to compose the songs and about two months to record it. We really are satisfied with the result.

M: Your lyrics are related to winter, forest, mountains... in its dark side. What do you want to transmit with that?

E: The lyrics basically tell about ancient myths and legends from our landscape and homeland. Excerpts from the origin stories are printed in the booklet for every song, so the listeners are able to find into the stories. The title stands for the long and hard way of us and the band through the last decade, trying even to do what we want – play metal and don’t give a fuck of anything besides this path. Also the “Iron Way” is an ancient route through our homeland, the ore-mountains, so there is a connection to the lyrical concept of the album.

M: Where do you find inspiration to create a new song?

E: Writing the album was a very intense and satisfying feeling because we could compose the songs without pressure of time and so let all inspirations of our nature and homeland around our rehearsal room in the hearth of the Ore Mountains comes to life.



M: How it is the process to compose this kind of music full of energy and atmosphere?

E: The songs are completely built in our rehearsal room. The basic idea normally comes from the guitar or the keyboard. We worked together on this ideas and build to songs so from part to part. Through the years we know exactly how a other musician think and mean his ideas and themes he play, so it’s a god working team and all fits in the end automatically.
The main inspiration of our songs comes from the wonderful landscape around us. You just have to breath it and let it out..

M: What can we expect about ANDRAS´ live on stage?

E: Of course we play live but we are not the band that do this every weekend. We play a few gigs and festivals every year. Maybe there is the opportunity to do a little tour in the future, lets see. For the dates please check our website www.andras.de.vu or our myspace site http://www.myspace.com/andraserzgebirge . In every case you can expect a live show and music that comes from heart and kick your ass!

M: BATHORY or VENOM?

E: That’s a really hard question. Maybe you can hear more Bathory in some Andras songs but we are really inspired by both bands, maybe the same way.

M: How do you feel about the Pagan / Black Metal scene in our days?

E: It’s right that pagan metal is rising at the moment but we never said that we want to play pagan metal or something like that. We just play the music that we want. For sure we came from the black metal-scene and still have these influences. Now we go more epic ways and it seems that this is called pagan metal by now. For us we just play an epic and aggressive form of metal. There are still some real good Black Metal Bands and still interesting new ones appear from time to time but the good old time of black metal is gone and the spirit from that time maybe never come back. You can’t compare the musically revolution in the beginning nineties with now.

M: Thank you very much for your time. Here you have space to write what you want as farewell.

E: Thanx for the interview and support of honest music! All the best and stay dark my friend!

http://www.myspace.com/andraserzgebirge
http://www.andras.de.vu