THE STRONGHOLD ONLINE INTERVIEW - JUNE 03
13. You have been compared to DarkThrone for the style, Blind Guardian
for Tolkien's World and
Nightwish for the Epic Style. Do you agree with the comparisons, and what do
you think of those groups?
Protector:
I really don't see any similarty to Dark Throne!! Their aim was always to be
"ugly" and provoking, and has nothing in common with Summoning's fantasy
world.
Silenius:
I really wonder who made this comparison. I don't think that Summoning has anything
in common with the mentioned bands when it comes to music. Dark Throne is the
synonym for no synth at all. Blind Guardian stands for progressive power metal
and Nightwish for pure kitschy Musicalstyle-Goth-Metal.
14. Have you heard about a cd called 'Valar : Magic and Wyrmfire' ; not
only did the guy copy your style, but he also wasted it. If you have heard it,
what can you tell ?
Silenius:
We don't know this band so we cannot say anything for or against it.
15. A group like Rhapsody also make music illustrating an other world,
but in a very different way
(Epic, against dark they wanted to make a 'blackalbum', like Metallica, but
did not because it could have been mistaken with Black Metal , quite ridiculous
in their thoughts, on stage or in their clips..). What do you think of that
and them ?
Silenius:
Like "Blind Guardian" "Rapsody" stands for melodic symphonical
powermetal with fantasy lyrics. I absolutely don't know their aim in making
music and what commercial feelings they have. But after all I am absolutely
not interested in what they make and so I cannot say anything for or against
them.
16. Another Austrian group make music dealing with Tolkien : It is called
Hrossharsgrani and since their second album (their 1st one was a 20 minutes
CD with 10 minutes taken from 'the 13rd warrior' film) they make a kind of VikingTolkien
Music. Do you know them and what do you think of them?
Silenius:
I know their music and I like some songs of their second CD, but all in all
I don't know really in which direction they want to move be it metal or dark
wave or maybe a radio play. I think this band could have a great potential but
still doesn't know how to use it.
17. What is your favourite group ? CD ? 1st Disc you've ever bought ?
Silenius:
In the moment my favourite band is "inade", but of course I like several
other bands in this direction and prefer labels like "Tesco", "Cold
Spring" and "Loki Foundation". The first Metal CD I bought was
"Lovegun" from "KISS" and the first LP ever I bought was
"A wie Abba" from "ABBA", but of course this was in a time
when I was 6 or 7 years old and therefore it was in the 70ties, in a time in
which most of todays black metals didn't even exist.
18. Do you listen to other type of music than Metal ? Some groups in
particular ?
Silenius:
To be honest since 5 or 6 years by now I don't listen to new metal music at
all. After the scene and the bands get boring more and more I started to search
for new musical horizons and found them in musical types like industrial, dark
ambient, neofolk, militant, and power-electronics. The reason for that is that
I was a metal maniac for such a long time that the time was reached when listening
to always the same type of music didn't inspire me at all and therefore didn't
bring me foreword in what I call music freedom.
Protector:
I also change my musical taste quite a lot in the last times. Since some years
I focused on dark, electronic music, which is for me something darker and newer
than metal. I still like pure metal music but I simply have not enough time
to listen to all music-styles I like; so I focus on one direction.
19. What do you think of MP3?
Protector:
I really don't know. I think that MP3s are a great way to spread your music
(especially for unknown bands), and also a great way to find new bands which
suit our own taste of music best. I am the type of person who would buy a discovered
CD and not just download the songs from the web, but I know there are plenty
of other people who don't think this way. Anyway I think MP3s are damaging the
music scene, but I don't know how much and if they would kill the music-scene
in future if there will be no preventive steps against it.
20. Napalm Records decided to sell Lost Tales at the quite high price
of 9Euros.. What do you think of the Labels' overwhelming in the music industry?
Silenius:
Napalm sold the mini CD "Lost Tales" for what I know 6€ or 6,50€
to the distributions, so it was not too expensive, but the problem is that after
this no one can supervise anymore what is going on afterwards and so this mini
CD was sold far to expensive in most of the shops and therefore we wont do a
single again in this conditions. If we will release just two or three songs
again we will just do it as a limited vinyl single or picture vinyl or something
else limited to grant that this release is just a pure fan article for true
fans only.
21. Do you know how many CDs of Summoning were sold ?
Silenius:
We are not allowed to tell you the exact sales of our CDs because of tactical
reasons of the label. That is nothing special of Napalm, that is a general thing
of all labels.