Heavyworlds

Hi Chrigel, welcome to Heavyworlds. How are you doing?

Well, we’re actually really happy to come here again. We really like to play in Italy, in Milan, and I’m not just saying that of course; it’s really cool to be here. Uhm, yeah, that’s good.

I would like to start our interview talking about this new amazing tour (Neckbreakerball 2011, ndr), that sees you next to a very big band like Dark Tranquillity. How do you feel about sharing the stage with the guys?

Well, it’s cool, they’re very nice people, I know the guitarplayer actually for many years. Well, it’s really nice to be with them. I think that fans can see well together, so it’s kinda cool. I have some of their album, I really like their album “Character” and I think it’s a really, really good album, with good songwriting.

Considering that you are on tour and that you're also working on a new album, how do you reconcile all that?

We sleep, not that much unfortunately (he laughs, ndr). As I told you before, actually right now we’re quite tired, because we came directly from the studio, on tour. It’s working fine, we do our soundcheck, we play shows and we’re just working on the album. There’s not much time to sleep, we sleep less than three hours, we’ve got few days ago the first recordings, they’re working fine so we’re happy.

Is there some location/venue where do you like to play the most?

There are quite some nice ones. Personally, I really love – I think all of us really love – to play in Gasometer, it is in Wien, in Austria. It’s just like..well, everything about this venue is just amazing: backstage is…wow… everything is so comfortable, there are so many showers, everything is very clean, magnificent, it’s enough space, it’s a cool venue.

Ok. Let's talk about the forthcoming album, "Helvetios", which will be released in the early 2012. And from what we’ve heard, you’ve already composed a few songs. What are the main themes of the album?

It’s the first time that it will be a concept album, in the sense there’ll be a storyline. Yeah, the whole album is actually like one story and it basically tells a story of the Gaulish War, from the point of view of the Helvetian people. That’s why it’s called “Helvetios”. We can think a bit like this: if you look at the Gaulish War, from the Helvetian perspective, this album would be the soundtrack.

How the recordings have been so far? How long did they take?

The recordings were busy; they’re quite exhausting, we were working a lot, usually we had like something between 15-20 hours shift everyday, so that’s quite a lot. But yeah, it’s been good, because we have a quite different studio situation right now, again we’re recording with Tommi Vetterli, like we did for the last album, but some instruments are recorded in Lucerne (Soundfarm Studio). Anna is working in that studio as a sound engineer. In the end, this time we’ve really, really invested lot of time on the sound: for example, the guitars took three days. The result is really good, the sound is very natural in this album. Finally, everything will be very natural.

Is there any particular song to which you seem to be more connected to?

No, not really.

As it happened for your previous albums, are you going to record a videoclip?

Yes, well actually it will be more. I mean, at least for the first two songs we arranged a videoshooting. We will head to Poland and we’ll shoot two videoclips again with a Polish company, that did our last videoclip. So, yeah, it’s a good start.

A question about Anna: will there be something more concentrated on songs sang in Gaulish by her?

Yes and no: I mean, it’s pretty much like the usual Eluveitie death metal vocals in some parts that Anna is singing, but on this album, it will be more. She did quite some vocal recordings and, again, like on “Slania”, there will be “softer” songs, that it’s basically female vocals like Slania’s song on that album back then, so yeah she actually sings quite a lot, on the next album.

Recently, EluTV has been created on your Youtube channel. Where does it come from? Why have you decided to create it?

I’m not sure, I think originally it was our drummer’s idea. Why did we do this? I mean: today it’s quite common to write blogs, stuff like that, you can find maybe interesting.

Who's in charge of recording the footage that will later appear on youtube?

Most actually Kay. He’s the magic cameraman.

How do you think it will develop in the future?

I hope it will be better, ‘cause it’s quite crappy at the moment actually, so funny but it’s nothing professional, of course. I mean, that’s actually more like fun.

Talking about Eluveitie, we can say that, in these last years, your fame has increased. How did you face (and how do you still face) this great success?

It’s pretty hard to say, I don’t know. To be honest, we actually don’t think about that too much. You’re just happy to play your music, I mean: life is kinda easier today, since we’re making some little money with the band, we had to invest a lot of time and money, we were like, how can I say? “poor”. The drummer and the bass player were actually homeless for a while, they lived in the rehearsal room, simply because they couldn’t afford, so it’s a little bit easier today, that’s something we’re extremely thankful to our fans; but besides that, we don’t think about this too much.

Besides Eluveitie, everyone in the band has some side project of his/her own (for example, Anna plays in many bands). Most of those belong to the folk and traditional scene. How were these projects born and how important are they to you?'

You should ask Anna about that. I don’t know. I think they’re quite important to them. The first priority is Eluveitie of course. How did they born? I don’t know, some were born during drunken nights, some were born just because… I don’t know! They just wanted to create something like that. I think it’s quite different to each side project.

How did you approach traditional music? Do you feel like you're metal musicians or folk musicians?

Uhm, it was quite long time ago. I don’t even exactly remember, to be honest. I always loved it, especially Celtic music. I think it’s because of my wife, she was like a violinist and she played traditional music, she lived in Ireland for some time before we met. She was an important factor. I would say I feel myself both, but I feel myself more as a traditional musician.

Writing songs for so many instruments must be a great responsability. Does everyone compose his/her track or is there someone who writes the single parts for everybody?

Yeah, I think if you’re in a band, it probably become quite chaotic if everyone would write, especially because everybody has such a different musical background, so it’s basically myself the one to write the songs and more; I mean: when a song is almost completed, we actually try to work together. Everybody, of course, works on his/her part and adds the parts that he/she has to play.

Talking about the lyrics, what have been the books and the readings that have influenced you the most? (DO)Minion, if I don't get wrong, talks about a story taken from "De Bello Gallico", by Caesar.

Well, most of our lyrics aren’t taken from “De Bello Gallico”, but most of the things we sing about are, somehow, described in “De Bello Gallico”. The books? Well, I don’t know. It’s basically history itself, we took many inspiration sources for the lyrics in that sense, like historical writings.

Some of your lyrics, mainly from "Evocation", are directly taken from some archeological findings of the Celtic world (like Dessumiis Luge and Brictom). Was it difficult to cope with the missing parts? And how about the pronounciation?

Those lyrics are taken by archeological finds and often there aren’t missing parts. Pronunciation was a little tricky, but we worked with a scientist from University, we’re kinda learning how to pronounce those lyrics together with that scientist, so we’ve got help from him, so it’s good.

About the Gaulish language: how does it feel when you hear crowds of fans all over the world singing along in a dead language that your music has helped bringing to life again?

It’s totally crazy, it’s amazing of course: I mean, if you’re playing shows in Switzerland or France, or something, it’s cool and kinda crazy, but at least it can make sense, because Gaulish is spoken in France, for example, back then, but it happened that we’ve played in India or in Brazil, it’s extremely cool, of course, but on the other hand, I remember we were playing “Slania’s song”, in both countries, in India and Brazil. You see those people singing these early Celtic lyrics and you say “Jesus, what the hell?”. It’s extremely cool, you know, it’s cool, but crazy!

Are you going to record "Evocation part II"?

Yeah, of course, but we don’t know when it will happen.

Your last album, "Everything remains (As it never was)", has a strictly similar artwork to the Slania's one. Is there any connection between the two blonde girls?

No, well, I mean: they’ve never seen each other, ahahah, but no, it was more a spontaneous idea, actually. I mean: of course, there are similarities, back then, when I’ve thought to the Slania artwork, I just put it like that. That’s like this little girl and she takes the listener by the hand and she leads him through her life and time, and she tells something. It’s pretty much what you could say.

Is there an excerpt from this album (Everything) to which you are particularly fond of? Do you have a favourite song to perform on stage?

From this last album, no, not really. In this tour, we’re playing “Everything remains”, for the first time ever, so it’s actually pretty nice to play. It was a big challenge, ‘cause at the first show of this tour it was actually the first time ever we played that song together and we haven’t played it since last year, back than in the studio, when we’ve recorded it. We need practice, but we can still play it.

Last question: any future project, after the release of the new album?

Sleep a lot, ahaha. No, not actually, I mean, we will release “Helvetios” and then we’ll be on tour a lot, really a lot. That’s basically and we’ll just say what will happen.

I'd say that's all for now. Thank you so much, Chrigel, for giving us this interview. Would you like to say something to your Italian fans and readers of HW??

Thank you, the same thing as usual: I always thank you and thanks to everybody who’s interested in our band