BRAINSTORM INTERVIEW
Another year or two, and another album down the line ... Germany's POWER METAL pride, Brainstorm, has unleashed another great album, and of course it's time for Lars to talk to the band again ...

Interview by Lars F. Larsen
Congrats on your new album. Definitely better than "Metus Mortis", which wasn't a bad album at all. I am a little disappointed anyway about this disc. To me it sounds as if you are following COMPLETELY in the path of the 2 previous discs, and it kind of ruin the spontaneous feeling of "Ambiguity", which totally blew me away and had 5/5 from my hands. Have you thought about re-inventing yourself?

"Well, on one hand all are Brainstorm albums and the listeners should be able to hear that. On the other hand I think the albums are different enough to not to be just simple copies of each other. In my opinion "Ambiguity" had a strong dark, heavy touch and was very various from the songs, while "Metus Mortis" was very hard, fast and direct compared to that. The new one, "Soul Temptation" is the most diverse album so far, I think and shows a lot of musical faces of Brainstorm. Hard and fast songs follow on epic and more melodic tunes and we even have an eastern influenced trilogy on the album, so as you can see, obviously I can and do not agree with you here."

How hard has it been to handle the big amount of success you have received during the last couple of years?

"We still are the same people and we still know where we come from. But of course, it is great to see when what you are doing for such a long time and with so many emotions gets succesful and is loved by more and more people."

Has Metal Blade Records treated you well? Are you their high priority band at the moment?

"They treat us very well. We get the best support possible, we have been on tour for every single album we released, so they seem to like what we are doing and the amount of CD's we sell seems to be ok also. ;-))"

So on to the CD: What lies hidden in the title "Soul Temptation?

"It is the last part of the trilogy and reflects the story and its meaning best. It is a fictive story that plays in the orient and describes someone that gets tempted by a goddess but her aim is only to steel his soul to re-awake her father, who plays the dark part of that story. As he escaped in the last moment, he realized that only his body is free again, but his soul is still tempted."

I noticed all this bullshit thing with Andy and his use of certain lyrics, which were claimed stolen from Pain Of Salvation, etc. Has that affected your song writing in any way?

"No. The songs have all been written before. In Brainstorm, Andy is not involved in the basic songwriting process. Besides that, there was no intention to steal lyrics, it was just a contretemps in my opinion. If you know that this guy always writes tons of ideas on tons of pieces of paper often a long time before he starts working on lyrics, it is leisured to talk further. I guess and think this topic is through now."

I know that you have to be objective, but what is your favourite track on the album?

"The whole trilogy, which means "Shiva's Tears", "Fornever" and "Soul Temptation"."

Try to give us 3 things that should make people buy "Soul Temptation" over another new release.

"Just listen to it and if you like what you hear, then buy it. It is energetic, powerful, emotional metal with balls combined with great melodies. Music made of passion and anger."

Did you spend as much time in the studio as usual, or was it a fast recorded one this time? And by the way: who produced the album?

"We produced it all on ourselves. Recordings have been from January to April this year, but pre-production started in December already."

Touring? - With who and will you finally visit Denmark this time?

"We will team up with Primal Fear and Rob Rock for a huge European tour in March which we are very looking forward to. It does not seem as if Denmark will be included, unfortunately. We would love to play in Denmark, of course, so if somebody is interested, ... But we also will play the Wacken Open Air next year, which should be an opportunity."

Does it affect Brainstorm in any way that Andy is also in Symphorce? There must be some clashes of interest sometimes.... Where is Andy's priority in this?

"We have no problems with that. And no clashes of interest. When it is Brainstorm time, it's Brainstorm time and vice versa. And meanwhile, we are working on new songs."

Do any of you guys have kids? If yes, how does that affect the time-schedules with studio time and touring?

"Yes, we all have kids. But it does not affect our musical activities, they are rather a big scource of inspiration and the best thing that can happen to each and everyone on this planet."

Finall question ... is your favourite beer the same as the last time we did an intie??? (I think you talked about a very regional beer - Königsbrau).

"Hahaha, yes, still the best beer on planet earth."