SINNER INTERVIEW |
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Once again SINNER, the band lead by Primal Fear bassist Mat Sinner, has delivered a really cool old school heavy metal album. Of course we decided to do a little interview with the man behind
Interview by Claus Jensen |
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Hey there Mat. Congratz on the new album, which really is a kick-ass hard rock album. Perhaps you could start by telling us a bit about the line-up on the album, and what part each guy has in the band
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The band in the studio was mainly Klaus Sperling on drums and Tom Naumann on guitar, Frank Rössler did his keyboards in his home studio and Christof Leim came later to the band, but played some lead guitar on this album. I wrote the album, part time some songs with my writing partner from Sweden Ronny Milianowicz.
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On the info-sheet from MTM it's being labelled as: "SINNER: one name, one man …" - but is it really a one-man band, or is it 5 members making it a band?
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I didn't know this, but anyway - SINNER is my kinda solo project since the last 10 years and I spend mainly my time in Primal Fear.
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Since you have other Primal Fear members on-board, I guess a lot of people will say that they don't need both bands … but what do you think seperates the 2 bands?
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That's why I separated the sound on this new SINNER album even more from Primal Fear - for me, it's totally different to the PF sound and we have a great Back To The Roots vibe on the new Sinner album.
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One of the songs on the album was co-written with Roy Z, and one of them he co-produced … He is one of the most sought-after producers in metal these days. How come you didn't use him on the entire disc, but did it yourself?
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Sorry - wrong. Roy didn't produce anything, but I would love to have him with me in the studio. We are good friends. Roy is one of the most creative and on the other side friendliest guys I've met in this business.
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Speaking of guests, you also have Martin (Mystic Prophecy), Andy (Brainstorm) and of course Ralf (Primal Fear) contributing to the album. Is this a "marketing"-trick, or did you feel that the songs wasn't gonna be as great without their input?
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Martin was a friendship thing. But it's cool to have Ralf & Andy with me doing the backing vocals. It gave the whole vocal dep. A different touch!
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How come you left Nuclear Blast and went for MTM? In my opinion MTM might be a better fit for your musical style …
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As you can imagine, there are not a lot of Sinner fans in the NB team and if I record a new Sinner after a 3 ˝ year break, I wanted people working on this album, who really like the music and the album. That was the reason.
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You have done a video for "Diary Of Evil", and decided to add it to the album as bonus-material. Is this because MTV and VIVA won't be playing them or is it to give the fans who buy the disc something more? I guess there's no denying that the video-days for hard rock and classic metal are gone …
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Exactly and that's a stupid part of the game. Anyway, we really like to get some visual things going and we shot a second clip for the song "Black" for our fans in foreign countries. The album is a great success in Japan and they like to watch the clips, especially the "Black" one.
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Sinner today is very much a classic hard rock band - back when you started out you were classified as pure heavy metal. Do you think that you have changed yourself over the years, or is it the metal scene that has changed?
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It's the same kind of music for me. The new album is a real step back to combine the new sound with the songwriting of our past!
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I guess there's no denying that you really like Thin Lizzy :-) Not only do you cover "Babe Please Don't Go", but also songs like "Diary Of Evil", "Can't Stand The Heat" and "Revenge" sounds very much like something Phil Lynott could have penned …
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Yeah. Lizzy & Phil Lynott were are great band and he was a fantastic songwriter. No doubt about it!
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In March you're going on a tour with TNT throughout Europe … they are also on MTM, as well as being one of those long-living hard rock acts from the same era as you. What do you expect from the tour, and what kind of audience will it be? Only old geezers in the public, hehe?
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I have to correct you, we will go out in May and we will have "Vengeance" from the Netherlands with us! I'm really looking forward to do these shows and play some old classics again!
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Thanks for doing the interview Mat. Best of luck with the disc and upcoming tour.
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