Suidakra
Suidakra's music is a very
interesting amalgam of melodic death metal and folk riffs along with a
classic epic atmosphere. They offer us something new and fresh in a genre
that has numerous representatives these last years, something that can
stand out and perhaps leave a lasting impression on us. So, Arkadius from
the band offered us a very pleasant and informative interview with honest
and clever answers. Read below and find out yourselves...
1.A CAREER OF 10 YEARS, 6 ALBUMS AND OVER
125 GIGS, WHAT TASTE DOES IT LEAVE TO YOU? DO YOU BELIEVE THAT YOU
WORTH MORE BUT THE CIRCUMSTANCES DIDN'T HELP YOU TO ACHIEVE WHAT YOU DESERVE?
Of course, Suidakra has never been a commercial
successful band but this has never been our first aim (though sometimes
it would have been a welcome side effect, ha ha). Ten years ago we were
some metalheads from a small town in Germany, who wanted to play their
music as loud as they could and have fun with some like-minded friends.
Meanwhile we have done seven CDs, a few tourings and a whole lot of international
live gigs. SuidAkrA has survived a lot of changes, fights and trouble,
but also got us a lot of new friends, experiences and great fun. And from
the first song we wrote till this day, I am able to say we have always
done the music we liked, have done it our way, stayed true to ourselves
and if I died tomorrow, I know I’d leave behind a heritage to be proud
of. At the moment, everything is possible. Maybe we dissolve the band,
maybe we will enter the billboard charts. Who cares? But whatever might
come from now on, we will give our very best as we always did. This is,
what we owe to ourselves - and of course to our true fans!
2.SINCE THIS IS OUR FIRST INTERVIEW AND I AM GLAD
THAT I AM DOING IT, I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW THE MEANING OF YOUR NAME AND HOW
YOU CHOSE IT.
Arkadius is my real name my parents chose
ist. The meaning of my name is something like "the goldboy". When you read
my name (Arkadius) backwords, than you've got the bandname... hahaha in
1995 we were looking for a new band name and one day we were a bit drunk
and started to read our names backwords. The result of mine was Suidakra,
and we thought that would be a cool band name...
3.LET'S TALK A LITTLE BIT ABOUT YOUR NEW ALBUM.
IS IT A CONCEPT ALBUM? WHAT NEW ELEMENTS HAVE YOU ADDED IN THIS RELEASE?
DO YOU THINK THAT "COMMAND TO CHARGE" WILL SATISFY YOUR OLD DIE HARD FANS?
I think there are gonna be some old Suidakra
fans that are a little bit dissapointed with the new sound, but that's
normal. No matter what you do you can not satisfy all the expectations.
This is the experience we had with every release. But mostly I think the
fans will like the new album because it still sounds like Suidakra just
with new fresh Songs.
4.ARMAGEDDON MUSIC IS A VERY COOL AND PROFESSIONAL
LABEL, HOWEVER IT'S ALSO A NEW ONE. HOW DID YOU DECIDE TO MOVE FROM A MORE
EXPERIENCED LABEL LIKE CENTURY MEDIA TO A YOUNGER ONE? WHAT DO YOU THINK
ABOUT YOUR COOPERATION WITH CENTURY MEDIA?
We were a bit disapointed with the promotion
they did for us. Our album disappeared in the press because CM focused
on bigger bands. So it was the best for both to split, and now we have
the chance to get some more promotion. First of all we recorded the new
album on our own, self financed. Then we contacted some labels. I got in
touch with Sabina Classen, bacuse I knew her from the CM Records period,
we did an interview in the past. So Sabina liked the new album and we got
the deal with Armageddon music.
5.SOMETHING THAT I HAVE NOTICED IN YOUR LAST 2
RELEASES "SIGNS FOR THE FALLEN" AND "COMMAND TO CHARGE" IS THAT YOU
HAVE REDUCED YOUR EPIC ELEMENTS AND YOU HAVE ADDED MORE MODERN SOUNDS.
WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO DO THAT? IS IT PERHAPS MORE DIFFICULT TO CREATE EPIC
ATMOSPHERE?
Not on a record hahaha. The reason was more
our live performances. Usually we don't use keyboards on stage so when
you record a bombastic album it's hard for you to create the same atmosphere
on stage, that's why we chose to create more live sounding atmosphere on
the last two albums.
6.THEY OFTEN PRESENT YOU AS A MELODIC DEATH METAL
BAND, HOWEVER YOUR SOUND HAS ELEMENTS THAT CAN MOVE FANS OF POWER
AND CLASSIC HEAVY METAL AS WELL. DON'T YOU THINK THAT THE DEATH METAL TAG
DOESN'T COMPLETELY DESCRIBE YOUR SOUND?
I agree with you. We are not the typical Melodic
Death Metal Band, because we involve so many different styles in our music
to keep it as various as we can. It's hard for fans and journalists to
describe our music 100% and Death Metal is just a small part of our sound
so I would say it's wrong to title us as a death metal band.
7.HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR MUSIC TO SOMEONE
THAT HAS NEVER LISTENED TO YOU?
In one word? maybe: melodic- folk-metal with
death metal influences hahaha so as you can see it's difficult for me as
well ! The best thing is to check it out and each one to form his/her own
opinion about what kind of music it is.
8.THE KIND OF MUSIC YOU PLAY HAS STARTED BECOMING
VERY FAMOUS TO THE U.S. AND CANADA, SO DO YOU THINK THAT NOW THERE
IS A CHANCE FOR SUIDAKRA TO TAKE THE BIG STEP AND BECOME MORE FAMOUS? IS
IT POSSIBLE TO GO TO PLAY LIVE SHOWS IN AMERICA?
Yeah in the last two years we got more fans
from the US and Canada, and for now we have more visitors on our webpage
from the States than from Germany. There are a lot of people who want to
see SuidAkrA live in USA and hopefully next year we’ll have the chance
to play there.
9.I THINK THAT YOU ARE QUITE FAMOUS IN GERMANY,
BUT WHAT HAPPENS ABROAD? DO YOU HAVE FANS CONTACTING YOU FROM OTHER
COUNTRIES? DO YOU HAVE ANY GREEK FANS? IS IT POSSIBLE TO PLAY LIVE SHOWS
ABROAD, EVEN TO COME TO GREECE?
Yeah we are playing for more than ten years
here in Germany so that's the reason why we are more famous than in other
countries. This year we started to do more shows outside Germany we played
in Spain, UK, Slovenia, Belgium, Austria and the Czech republic. We are
looking forward to playing more in other countries of course also in Greece,
but the problem is to find someone who organizes shows and pays the travelling
costs. So we will see...
10.IN MY OPINION YOUR SOUND HAS MANY ELEMENTS
CLOSE TO BANDS LIKE RUNNING WILD, IN FLAMES, SKYCLAD AND BLIND GUARDIAN.
DO YOU AGREE? WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THESE BANDS?
In fact these bands, or at least parts of
their work can be counted among our all time favourites and so, it's most
likely that their music had an influence on our style. Especially the inventors
of folk metal, Skyclad of course, whose 'One Piece Puzzle' we have had
as a coverversion on the 'Arcanum' album and which we had the honour to
play with last weekend (which fulfilled one of Marcel's greatest dreams
of youth). Also Running Wild with their great album 'Death or Glory', Blind
Guardian with their folk-inspired ballads and original melodic death metal
bands like In Flames have had their influences on our music, though we
never tried to sound exactly like any other band. We always tried to take
the best to learn from our idols and to integrate it into our very own
style.
11.I LIKED A LOT THE COVER OF YOUR ALBUM, WHICH
SHOWS A SKULL BITING A SMOKING BULLET. HOW IS THIS COVER CONNECTED
TO YOUR MUSIC AND LYRICS? WHO IS THE ARTISTS THAT PAINTED IT?
It's simply the connection to the lyrics/music.
There is no special lyrical concept behind the new album so it was hard
for us to create an artwork. We had the idea to have some artwork which
deals with the albums atmosphere. So you can see the shiny colours, which
represent the modern side of that album. On the other hand we have the
Celtic ornaments on the skull for the folk influences and the skull with
that bullet is like a banner for the title "Command To Charge". Kai (drummer
of the band Recless Tide) did the cover, I think he did a really great
job.
12.IN THE PAST YOU HAVE DONE A COVER TO A SKYCLAD
SONG. DO YOU THINK OF RELEASING, IN THE FUTURE, AN ALBUM FULL OF COVER
SONGS? IF YES, WHICH SONGS AND BANDS WOULD YOU LIKE TO COVER?
It's interesting to record one or two cover
songs, but doing a whole album with cover songs is not really our wim.
I would miss the typical SuidAkrA songs and working (songwriting) so I
guess there's not gonna be a whole cover album.
13.IF YOU HAD THE CHANCE TO COOPERATE WITH A FAMOUS
MUSICIAN, WHO WOULD YOU LIKE TO INVITE AND WHY?
There are a lot of musicias I would like to
introduce into our music because of their unique musical stye. But just
for a little session because all in all I'm more than satisfied with
all SuidAkrA members, in my opinion they are good musicians and good friends.
14.WE OFTEN SAY THAT ARTISTS ARE SOMETHING LIKE
GODS BECAUSE WITH THEIR IMAGINATION THEY CREATE WORLDS OR GIVE THEIR OWN
INTERPRETATION OF REALITY. SO WHAT KIND OF WORLD HAVE SUIDAKRA CREATED
THROUGH THEIR MUSIC AND LYRICS?
I suppose in a crude universe of ancient fairy
tales, modern myth and a lot of sex, drugs and rock'n'roll.
15.MANY OF YOUR PAST LYRICS ARE BASED ON THE LEGACY
OF THE CELTS. WHAT IS THIS THAT MOVES YOU ON THE CELTIC MYTHOLOGY?
WHY FOR INSTANCE DON'T YOU WRITE A CONCEPT ALBUM ON THE GERMAN MYTHOLOGY
WHICH IS ALSO VERY INTERESTING?
Germany is a land, which was inhabited by
Celts as well as by German races. Unfortunately a very violent and tremendous
Chritianization of this land has taken care for that there is no first
hand folklore of these peoples left. Today we here in Germany can only
refer to fragmentarily ancient myths that have been conserved in oldest
German folk-fairy tales or local traditional rites. Everything else has
to be reconstructed by use of the much more valuable sagas of Scandinavia
(for example the Edda) or the mythology of the Celts preserved in legends
and minstrel-works of the British Isles and the French Bretones. We like
both these traditions very well for both are related parts of our own forgotten
heritage. In fact the German mythology and culture has already been used
very by a lot of (often very good) bands especially from Scandinavia and
Germany, so we felt a little like we had to break a lance for the less
represented Keltoi.
16.THANK YOU FOR THE INTERVIEW AND GOOD LUCK WITH
YOUR NEW VERY GOOD RELEASE! IS ANYTHING ELSE YOU 'D LIKE TO ADD? LEAVE
A MESSAGE TO THE READERS OF BEHIND THE VEIL WEBZINE.
Thanx to you for that interview and to all
who supportet SuidAkrA. Check out our new album "Command To Charge".
You can download a full version from the song "Reap The Storm" on our webpage
www.suidakra.com.
Keep it heavy
Nick “William_Kidd”
Parastatidis
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