{"id":29238,"date":"2015-04-12T00:00:06","date_gmt":"2015-04-12T00:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=29238"},"modified":"2015-05-11T16:13:25","modified_gmt":"2015-05-11T16:13:25","slug":"feature-blind-guardian-04-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/feature-blind-guardian-04-15\/","title":{"rendered":"BLIND GUARDIAN – The Tenth Wave (April 2015) | Features \/ Interviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

BLIND GUARDIAN – The Tenth Wave<\/strong><\/span>
\nAnthony Morgan<\/span>
\nApril 2015<\/span><\/p>\n

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Blind Guardian (l-r): Andr\u00e9 Olbrich, Hansi Kursch, Frederik Ehmke and Marcus Siepen<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n
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\nIn penning compositions for January 2015\u2019s Beyond The Red Mirror<\/em> \u2013 their tenth studio full-length overall \u2013 German power metal outfit Blind Guardian had no specific goal in mind, despite the fact that the record is a concept affair. Preceding albums were crafted in a similar fashion, the writing process embarking upon its undetermined journey.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just start from scratch,\u201d reckons Marcus Siepen, rhythm guitarist for Blind Guardian. \u201cThere\u2019s no master plan, or goal, or anything. We just want to make something new. We always want to take the next step. We don\u2019t want to repeat ourselves, so that\u2019s the main goal that we always have whenever we start writing something new. For example, it is a concept album, but that wasn\u2019t the plan in the beginning. That also happened at some point on the way. We just sit down, grab guitars, and start writing and recording new ideas, and see where they lead us.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe always try to do something different, something that we hadn\u2019t done before \u2013 like experiment with a lot of things. For example, on the new album we experimented with down-tuned seven-string guitars, which is something we never did in the past. It obviously changed the sound a bit. It opens up layers in the song for the orchestration. We worked with the orchestra again, and made it even bigger. That\u2019s something that we started on the last album; that was the first time that we could work with a real orchestra, and we loved it. We wanted to explore this further, so that\u2019s what we did on this one. We worked with a couple of big choirs for the first time, because we wanted the choirs to sound really, really huge and big. We just needed a lot of singers for this. We just kept experimenting and playing around with new things, and ended up with hopefully something fresh and new.\u201d<\/p>\n

The axeman employment of a seven-string guitar was previously uncharted territory. \u201cI\u2019ve been playing guitars for about 35 years I think, and I\u2019ve never, ever touched a seven-string guitar before in my life,\u201d he divulges. \u201cA friend of mine has one. I looked at it, and it looked weird. That extra string looked scary (laughs). Playing around with those was interesting. It was fun. It was demanding, because you have to constantly concentrate. Otherwise, you just keep hitting the wrong string or hitting the wrong note, and that was actually fun. Playing some of those songs live now, we have seven-string guitars with us. I still have to concentrate. With the six-string stuff, you just grab a guitar. I don\u2019t have to think about what my fingers have to do, because they know where to go. With a seven-string guitar though, it\u2019s something completely different. It keeps my attention very focused at the moment. That might change if it becomes more of a routine playing those guitars, but we\u2019ll see. At the moment, it\u2019s really demanding.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps Blind Guardian\u2019s 11th studio outing will feature Marcus handling an eight-string guitar, it is jokingly suggested. \u201cNo,\u201d he chuckles. \u201cI think that would be too much for me. A seven-string is okay, but with an eight-string you\u2019re getting into bass guitar territory too much in my opinion. It works for some bands \u2013 I know Meshuggah use eight-string, and even nine-string guitars. I\u2019ve got pretty small hands, so I don\u2019t think I could handle a nine-string guitar (laughs). The neck would be too big for me, I guess.\u201d<\/p>\n

A conceptual platter, Beyond The Red Mirror<\/em> continues a narrative established on April 1995 record Imaginations From The Other Side<\/em>. \u201cHansi started telling the story on the songs \u2018Bright Eyes\u2019, \u2018Imaginations From The Other Side\u2019, and \u2018And The Story Ends\u2019,\u201d the composer remembers. \u201cBack then, he wrote the story of a kid living in a kind of world which is similar to ours. The kid had the opportunity to step through a kind of portal, to get into a different world where he could be a kind of saviour \u2013 an eternal hero \u2013 and end an eternal war and stuff like that, but at some point Hansi realised that he had never finished that story. <\/p>\n

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Marcus Siepen<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n
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\u201cIt ends at a point where the kid is at the portal, but we never got to know if the kid took that step, and that\u2019s where we pick up things on the new album. Twenty years have passed, and the kid has grown up. We get to know that he never took that step, because he was just too afraid. After all, he was just a kid, but in those twenty years, the fact that the kid did not go to the other world and fulfil his destiny, it kind of had pretty bad influences on both worlds. This now grown up kid realises this, and starts a kind of journey to look for that final open portal, to finally take that step. That\u2019s the story that\u2019s told on this one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marcus regards Beyond The Red Mirror<\/em>\u2019s production in high esteem. \u201cProduction wise, I think it\u2019s one of the best productions that we\u2019ve ever had because it sounds very warm and natural,\u201d he enthuses. \u201cFor me, it\u2019s kind of a natural development. For example, the album has elements that maybe started on the A Night At The Opera<\/em> album (March 2002). A song like \u2018And Then There Was Silence\u2019 was the first time that we did real big orchestration stuff, and so we kind of took it from there. \u2018And Then There Was Silence\u2019 was the basis for something like \u2018Wheel Of Time\u2019 from the last album, and \u2018Wheel Of Time\u2019 was kind of the basis for a song like \u2018The Ninth Wave\u2019 for example, or \u2018Grand Parade\u2019. For us, it\u2019s a kind of natural development I would say. Each album leads into the next one, and we always try just to take the next step.\u201d<\/p>\n

Through the years, Blind Guardian has musically evolved. \u201cI think we\u2019ve changed a lot,\u201d the axe-slinger observes. \u201cWe started as a kind of straight speed metal band, a melodic speed metal band. Over the years, we\u2019ve brought a lot of different influences into the music. We obviously became much more complex and much more progressive, but the roots have always been there. That never really changed. We still have very fast, very aggressive stuff and melodies always play a big role for us, but we just like exploring new stuff. If we still sounded like we did on Battalions Of Fear<\/em> (May 1988), I think we would\u2019ve split up long ago because that would\u2019ve been too boring for us \u2013 to play the same stuff over and over again. So yeah, we\u2019ve changed. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe started as a speed metal band, and then we opened up all of the vocal layers and the guitar layers with albums like Tales From The Twilight World<\/em> (October 1990) or Somewhere Far Beyond<\/em> (June 1992). Then we brought more epic stuff into our songs on Imaginations From The Other Side<\/em> and Nightfall In Middle-Earth<\/em> (April 1998). The progression came in later, and the big orchestration. What\u2019s gonna happen next, I don\u2019t know. When we start writing new material, which obviously we haven\u2019t started yet, we will look for fresh things and to take the band to the next level hopefully.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recording sessions for Beyond The Red Mirror<\/em> took place at Twilight Hall Studio in Grefrath, Germany with Charlie Bauerfeind, once again. \u201cWe\u2019ve worked together for almost twenty years, so he perfectly understands how we see our music, and how we want to do our music,\u201d Marcus feels. \u201cHe has the talent to bring out the best in us, and push us beyond our limits in the studio. The working process, we kind of worked in a similar way compared to the last album, which means that we actually started recording once we had finished composing like two or three songs. Then we went into the studio, recorded those three songs, and only after that we continued writing. Then we wrote the next two or three songs, went back to the studio, recorded them, and went back to writing. <\/p>\n

\u201cWorking like this, it\u2019s more comfortable for us because you get a break from writing or recording. You can clear your head while writing \u2013 you don\u2019t have to worry about your performance so much. It\u2019s just about the composition, and in the studio you can just focus on performing. You don\u2019t have to worry about finding new ideas or anything, so it gives you a break from what you did before, and that was very comfortable for us. We just like this way of working, and since we have our own studio which we\u2019ve recorded everything at since Nightfall<\/em> I think, we can do this. The studio\u2019s available anyway, so we don\u2019t have to worry about working in somebody else\u2019s studio or anything. It gives us freedom to work like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Standard edition artwork<\/em><\/strong><\/span>
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Earbook and digibook edition artwork<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n
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Cover artwork duties fell to Felipe Machado Franco, once again. \u201cSomething we normally do is that we give him our ideas, and he does sketches for us,\u201d the musician discloses. \u201cWe talk about them, and tell him \u2018Okay, this is great, but can you change it a bit more into whatever direction?,\u2019 or \u2018Can you add something in?\u2019 or whatever. Like this, the ideas slowly grow into cover artworks. Actually, we had quite a lot of ideas for this one. We started using different ones; there\u2019s two versions of the album with different covers. You can see lots of other… Not artworks, but images that he did for the whole story in the earbook version of the album. We\u2019re pretty picky about this; we\u2019re as picky about cover artworks as we are about music. It\u2019s a constant exchange of feedback between us and the artist until we think \u2018Yeah, that\u2019s it. That\u2019s how we wanted it to look.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

On April 10th, 2015 at 013 in Tilburg, Netherlands, Blind Guardian began a month-long European trek. Marcus spoke with Metal Forces<\/em> for this feature on the 12th, the ensemble due to play London, England\u2019s The Forum later that evening. \u201cWe hit the road like three days ago, so it\u2019s the third show today in London,\u201d he notes. \u201cWe just played Belgium yesterday (Antwerp\u2019s Ho Ter Loo), and the Netherlands on Friday. We did a warm-up show a week ago in our hometown of Krefeld (at Kulturfabrik on the 2nd), and there\u2019s lots of touring ahead of us. So far, all of the shows have been sold out, the audiences have been great. Great vibes, lots of singing and stuff. It\u2019s a lot of fun, so we\u2019re looking forward to the next couple of months.\u201d<\/p>\n

Naturally, Blind Guardian\u2019s 2015 setlist boasts material lifted from Beyond The Red Mirror<\/em>. \u201cAt the moment, we\u2019re playing four songs per set,\u201d the axeman informs. \u201cSince it\u2019s not a secret any more, they\u2019re \u2018The Ninth Wave\u2019, \u2018Twilight Of The Gods\u2019, \u2018Prophecies\u2019, and \u2018Miracle Machine\u2019 at the moment. There\u2019s another song that we\u2019ve prepared that we just haven\u2019t played yet, because we didn\u2019t want to spoil all of the surprise on the first day (laughs). So, there\u2019s another one from the new album that will be played very soon, and there are some songs that we still want to rehearse once we have a break in the summer. We just have to see how they work out, but yeah. After all, we\u2019re presenting the new album, so we should play some of that stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beyond The Red Mirror<\/em> was released on January 30th, 2015 in Europe (excluding the United Kingdom), on February 2nd in the United Kingdom, and subsequently on the 3rd in North America, all via Nuclear Blast Records.<\/p>\n

Interview published in April 2015. All promotional photographs by Hans-Martin Issler.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BLIND GUARDIAN – The Tenth Wave Anthony Morgan April 2015 Blind Guardian (l-r): Andr\u00e9 Olbrich, Hansi Kursch, Frederik Ehmke and Marcus Siepen In penning compositions for January 2015\u2019s Beyond The Red Mirror \u2013 their tenth studio full-length overall \u2013 German power metal outfit Blind Guardian had no specific goal in mind, despite the fact that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2064,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blind-guardian","category-features"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29238"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29285,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29238\/revisions\/29285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}