Interview Nothgard

Nothgard Interview

By Morrigan

August 2014

« Age of Pandora » even not released yet is being acclaimed by the media, congrats for that ! Lets start with the beginning : can you introduce the album to us ? The concept, storyline in the lyrics, what is different from the previous one, what you wanted to do with this one ?

Sure. The Album is called „Age of Pandora“. What you can see on the album cover is a girl opening the pandora´s box which leads to chaos, destruction and death. On the other hand Pandora stands for hope and some good things in life. This is actually taken from the ancient mythology.

Nothgard is a German epic melodic death metal band, consisting of 3 Guitar players, Dom R. Crey, Skaahl, Daniel K., 1 bass player Vik S. and 1 Drummer Dominik Z. Nothgard was created in the end of 2008 and developed since. Our first Album, „Warhorns of Midgard“ was released in 2011. Since then we were playing lot´s of national and international shows. On the 12. of September our new album, „Age of Pandora“ will be released.

Could you give us some clues about the album cover ? Its meaning, the symbols and all, it can appear a bit hard to understand at first sight...

The new album „Age of Pandora“ is a huge step forward compared to „Warhorns of Midgard“. First of all, the sound, compared to the previous album is A LOT clearer, tighter and fresher, as we used different equipment, changed the studio and took our time to get the best sound possible. Also the songs are much more mature and more structured. The whole album is much more „epic“ and got way more orchestral elements. This,mixed with heavy, technical guitars leads to a quality epic melodic death metal album

Ok you may have already answered this question hundreds of time, but since Nothgard is still a quite young band, could you briefly introduce you and the band to our readers ?

Tell us a bit about the process of recording the album ! Who composes and how, how do you work in the studio, etc...

All the songs are written and composed by Dom R. Crey, except the drums. We recorded the drums and the vocals in the studio. The guitar- and the basslines were recorded at home and reamped in the studio. We took our time to only record the best songs we´ve had, and that is what took us so long. We think that writing songs takes time as you get new ideas every time you listen to them, and so we´ve added/deleted/rewritten lot´s of stuff.

You changed of label between the two albums for instance, did it make things different for you ?

Yeah, definately. The label-change just made everything easier for us. Trollzorn is a very confortable label to work with and is managed by very nice, supportive and awesome guys. So compared to our previous label, everything worked out much better.

Also, the band after several changes now have a complete lineup ! I guess it makes things more easy for you all ? No more session musicians, a more stable lineup, etc...

Yes, of course it´s a better way of working, having a steady line-up, as you know your work-mates and can rely on them. This makes a better work atmosphere and it all goes faster and easier with less stress. We also don´t have to practice that much anymore as we don´t have session musicians.

Some tracks (« Of Light and Shadow » for example) sound like they could really be the soundtrack of a video game or an epic movie, was it something wanted ? Is it something you would like to do, composing for video games

The Orchestra was done by Dom R. Crey as well and yes, he definitely claims that composing for games or movies would be a great and huge thing which he might tries out in the future. So far he is comfortable with doing metal!

The album has quite a strong unity, though there are songs that are a bit different, like for instance « Black Witch Venture » which is a very diverse track, and has a quite symphonic and even gothic aspect for some parts (the very end of the track for example), why that ?

Well, when we recorded the album we only wanted to record the best songs we had, and I guess every song is different ;). In my opinion the song fits in very well. Of course it´s different than the others, but we really like this song and that´s why we packed it onto the album. I think we got lot´s of symphonic aspects in every song. The gothic aspect is true, the song ends and begins darker than the others. But this song is also the song with the most evil lyrics and contents. The lyrics are about a very bad topic which unfortunately happens way to much in our fucked up society …. child-abuse. So we simply wanted to arouse people to think about this and had to do the track that dark and evil.

Still I think the epic side of the abum is the most important as on the 1st album, and folk elements less present... Why is that ? What is your inspiration ? What bands or other things ?

I guess we have developed and from time to time your musical taste changes. The same goes for us. I know that the albums differ quite much, but we just wrote and created the music we like instead of trying to write stuff that people expect form us. So yeah, the folk elements were quite reduced, but not intentionaly. We didn´t orientate on other bands, as trying to copy something that was already created, in our opinion isn´t the way we want to make music.

If you had to choose 1 word to describe the album what would it be (or one short sentence) ?

Technical-Epicness

How does the engagement in several bands is like between Wolfchant, Equilibrium, and Nothgard ? You must be running here and there all the time !

Yeah, it definately is very stressful, but as long as you have a good planning and a good shedule it´s working pretty good. Making music is what I´ve always wanted to do, so I can´t complain about playing lot´s of shows

What about Equilibrium ? How did Dom come to be the new guitarist for them ? There's also a featuring with Robse on « Obey the King »...

Well actually Robse sent a message to Dom 1,5 years ago and told him that he really likes our first album Warhorns of Midgard. After that Dom simply asked Robse for doing that featuring appearance in one song and Robse booked a train-ticket and we met at the studio, haha. After that we all became good friends and after Sandra and Andy left Equilibrium Robse called Dom. That’s the whole story and less exiting as it seems at first

Could you give us your opinion on the actual pagan/folk metal stage, especially in Germany, there are a lot of young bands appearing and others being more and more famous...

As you can see with “Age of Pandora” we haven’t recorded a common pagan/folk album. We sound much more unique nowadays, focused on the guitars and technical stuff at all for what we would like to stand out. We have added orchestral stuff what is not new in the scene but combined with the technical guitars maybe it is more or less unique. But it is definitely becoming harder for young bands to become part of nowdays scene. You can’t just do what existing bands do. It’s all about trying to create something own.

Any plans or touring or doing live performances in the near future ? What will the band do now ?

Right now we got some more shows left, as well as two tours. One will be a short tour with 7 shows all over Spain in September. The other tour will be an European tour together with Equilibrium and Trollfest. With these tours we want to promote our new Album „Age of Pandora“

Alright, this is the end of it ! Thank you very much for this interview, and lets hope the fans will have the same great opinion of this album as the press does ! I let you have the last words !

Thanks everyone for the support, you are the force moving us forward.