Interview - DESTINATION´S CALLING

English text


Martín: Hi Markus! DESTINATION´S CALLING is a long career band. How do you see band’s evolution through the years?

Markus: Hi Martin, thanks for the interview. Well, Destination’s Calling was born in 1999. Our singer Chris and I used to play in previous bands before DC. Right after putting the band together we recorded our first demo-CD ‘Mastery of the Light’ and released it in 2001. This was our first sign of life and we got pretty good feedback – especially here in Germany. The record was even sold to the USA and Japan. Nowadays you might find this rarity in some japanese online-store. After the release of ‘Mastery of the Light’ we hit out on the road and played a lot of kick-ass shows here in Germany (together with Freedom Call, Majesty, Lanfear, etc.). In 2003 our bass-player Steffen (Singler) joined the band and we put out a Promo-EP. At the end of the same year we entered the Dreamscape-Studios for the first time and recorded another promotional CD. The result was awesome: We played at the legendary Keep it True-Festival (with Helstar), we appeared on ‘Metal Crusade – Compilation’ from the german ‘Heavy’-magazine and played a lot of cool shows (this time with Brainstorm, Ektomorf, Dew-Scented, Disbelief, etc.).It was at that time when Christian (Frank, drums) joined the band and in late 2004 we started writing new stuff for our next full-length album. In september 2005 we entered the Dreamscape-Studios again and recorded Invisible Walls. It was a great experience for us and we had such a good time in studio. It was amazing. At that time we got in contact with Carl-André Beckston (Monowasp) to talk about the cover-design of ‘Invisible Walls’. He soon came up with some interesting sketches and he really did a great job on the front cover.

Ok, now we’re in early 2006 (just for the record): we sent the full-produced album with cover-artwork and stuff to several record companies. Unfortunately there was no response on it and therefore we decided to release ‘Invisible Walls’ on our own. We did all the promotion (especially in Germany, Austria and Swiss) and got in contact with some distributors (AOR Heaven, Hellion-Records, etc.). And finally, in september 2006 we put out ‘Invisible Walls’. The feedback was really great and after a while some labels got interested in the band. In late 2007 we got in contact with Silverwolf Productions and signed a deal with them in order to release ‘Invisible Walls’ once again and of course worldwide.

M: Tell us about the birth of your new album “Invisible Walls” and its main concept.

M: As I already mentioned above the songs for ‘Invisible Walls’ were written back in 2005. Our bass player Steffen came up with the album-titel ‘Invisible Walls’ at that time. We found it pretty cool and I already had some lyrics that fitted perfectly to that theme. We focused on those invisible walls from different views but never intended to do a concept album. The song ‘Sinthetic’ for example, deals with modern science and how far we intend to go for the purpose of knowledge or even just for the greed of knowledge. As you can see we succesfully avoid to have any fantasy-theme on that album as we all don’t really like it to be part of Destination’s Calling. The main thought behind IW was to create music and lyrics that people can mostly identify with. Let it be the feeling of not being loved in the song ‘Bleeding again’ or let it be the will to break down the invisible walls around you as being the main focus on the title track ‘Invisible Walls’. There’s a lot going on that album and in the end it’s all up to the listener to have his own thoughts on that.

M: Are you satisfied with the results?

M: Of course we are! We put all our heart blood in this record and each one gave 110% on ‘Invisible Walls’. We all knew that we have to work very hard and we all did. And in the same way we demanded that dedication from everyone else involved in the production of Invisible Walls. We worked very long on single parts of songs and also spent quite an enormous amount of time and money on the mix of the album. All in all we’re more than satisfied with Invisible Walls and we all love this album.

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

M: Hmmm…I’m often inspired by certain melodies. Sometimes I sit by the piano or play guitar and all of a sudden I have a melody or a chorus. So you can say I’m inspired by music itself but nevertheless I need to be in the right mood to create something special. For example, I really like rainy days or cold november mornings with mist in the air. In that atmosphere I’m really creative. Recently I wrote a new ballade on the piano and outside it was raining like hell. The song came out in the same way the water fell down from the sky. Another inspiration is to work together with our singer Chris. We often do some sessions at his home-studio and there are so many ‘magic moments’. Some time ago we worked on a part for a new song but weren’t really satisfied with. He gave me the guitar and asked to play along some chords. While doing so, he came up with a pretty cool vocal line and in no time we had created a new part for the song. That was great.

M: Your music is as powerful as complex. How is the process to create that kind of music?

M: Well, it’s kind of a teamwork. At the beginning of the songwriting process, Chris and I put together our first ideas and create some kind of basic-tracks. That’s what we do at Chris’ home-studio. Than we send the songs to Christian Frank (drums) and Steffen Singler (bass) and they work on their parts. It’s very important for us to play and try the new songs in our rehearsal room. There we have this ‘live-feeling’ and we can see if the song rocks or not. Later on Chris and I work on vocal-lines and arrangements, play some solos and stuff. That’s really cool to see the songs evolve.

M: As a guitarist, what are your influences to create your riffs and how do you define your own style?

Creating riffs or single chords depends on emotion I would say. I like doing more heavy stuff when I’m bothered or ‘angry’ and on the other hand I really like playing on my acoustic guitar. That’s when I often do some sort of ballade-stuff. Defining my own style is a bit difficult for me but I’ll try. I would say my style is ‘rhythm-guitar based solo-shredding’ :D



M: Can you choose two bands or artists with different styles that influenced you to be a musician?

M: My first experience with ‘hard music’ or ‘heavy music’ was Guns ‘n Roses. I was about nine years old when I began listening to it. Therefore I would say Slash was my first guitar hero :)Although he really plays some dirty rock ‘n roll there’s so much going on the background. He puts so much feeling in every tone, it’s incredible. I read his autobiography and really liked it. It was pretty cool to dive into the good old eigthies and listened to some ‘Appetite for Destruction’. Cool stuff. On the other hand there’s Jeff Loomis who’s the guitar player of Nevermore. As it’s one of my favorite bands I really like his ultra-heavy riffing and never heard something before. I dare to say that the riff in the song ‘The river dragon has come’ (from the Dead heart in a dead world-album) is one of the best heavy-metal riffs ever. His technique is so versatile and accurate. That’s just woahhhhhhhhh!!!!

M: Many Power Metal bands are making videos for its songs, Are you planning to make a video for one of your songs?

M: We only made kind of a studio-video for ‘Turning Away’. We had so much ‘behind-the-scenes’ material that we decided to do the video. Nevertheless we don’t consider this a ‘real’ band-video. At the moment we haven’t planned or even thought about a real video. Unfortunately, it’s something we currently cannot afford.

M: What can we expect about DESTINATION´S CALLING´s live on stage?

M: A typical DC-show means: power, sweat and fun! We really like playing live very much. Unfortunately, there’s no tour scheduled so far. At the moment we work hard on new songs and there’s a lot of really cool stuff we’re working on. The new album should be out somewhere in 2009 and hopefully we’ll hit the road and have a lot of fun :)

M: How do you see Metal scene in Europe today?

M: I think that Europe is the Metal Heart of the world. Most metal-related bands are based here and we have so many cool festivals across the continent. It’s fantastic. I’ve been to Wacken-Open-Air, Bang your Head-Festival and Graspop Metal Meeting so many times. It was amazing to see people from all over Europe on these festivals and of course to party with those people. But besides that I think that metalheads all over the world are one big community. It’s so good to see that music has no borders and that’s how it should be!

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

M: First of all I want to thank you for the interview. And now for all readers: Thanks for your interest. Check out our myspace (www.myspace.com/destinationscalling) and visit our homepage (www.destinationscalling.com). There you can listen to all our songs. Check them out and give it a try :) Have a good time and see you soon.
Markus & DC

http://www.myspace.com/destinationscalling
http://www.destinationscalling.com/