Rockezine.com interview with Messiah`s Kiss on Sep 11, 2002

Messiah`s Kiss

with Eckhard Ostra on Sep 11, 2002

One after the other new German heavy metal and power metal band sees the light of day and Messiah’s Kiss is no exception to the rule. Yet this band plays old school heavy metal with true passion and without caring if they’re original. The result is a very decent and sincere heavy metal debut album called Prayer For The Dying. After some failed attempts I finally managed to get hold of drummer Eckhard Ostra, who seemed to be in a very good mood. Here are the results of that 40 minute long chat.
		First of all, congratulations on your album. I have seen many reviews and most of them are quite positive and I must admit the album impressed me too. I guess you must be happy with how the album turned out? Yes, we are! It is just great!
		Personally I like the sound of the album, it is pure metal the way it should be. Yet I have noticed that not everyone likes it. What do you think yourself of the production of the album? I totally agree with you, it is back to the bases. It is raw but at the same time it also sounds modern. Heavy metal should be like this and I think that Herman Frank did a terrific job on the sound. I really like it. I don’t much like the nowadays productions, heavy metal is about guitars and so they should be loud.
		I would like to ask about your musical past; most of Messiah’s Kiss members were previously in a band called Repression. Can you tell me a bit more about this band? Repression was founded somewhere in the eighties and was just like Messiah’s Kiss a band that played classic heavy metal. The four albums we made (Animal Raw, Prevalence Of Pain, Sign Of The Times and Live) were all self-distributed, since we didn’t have a record deal back then. We were restricted to playing small club gigs and it never really came off the ground. Somewhere halfway the nineties we decided to put the band on hold because no one was really interested in heavy metal anymore; in those days people started listening to stuff like grunge. Anyway, Messiah’s Kiss is the logical follow-up because basically nothing much has changed but our singer.
I started listening to my old records, trying to find a good singer.		What made you decide to take Mike Tirelli as your new singer and how did you find him? Well, our former singer and one of my best friends had some problems with his vocal chords. After the surgery things didn’t really work out well anymore; he could only play three or four gigs in a row before losing his voice. We would have to wait the whole time for him and we just couldn’t do that. The pre-production of Prayer For The Dying was already done and we thought that the stuff we had was really amazing and we needed to find the right singer for the job. I started listening to my old records, trying to find a good singer. Most of them were of course lots too expensive (laughter) but then I listened to Holy Mother’s Toxic Rain and I instantly knew that Mike Tirelli was the one. At that time Holy Mother was recording their new album in Bochum, which is very close to where I live. We knew the producer of Holy Mother and we gave him our material and asked him: “Can you imagine how good this will sound with Mike singing? So go ask him!” Once Mike heard the music he was immediately interested and wanted to join Messiah’s Kiss!
		I guess Mike Tirelli’s Holy Mother has ceased to exist now? No, Holy Mother still exists and Mike still sings in there. He is very happy with the situation; on the one hand he sings in a European heavy metal band while on the other hand he is still part of an American metal band that kicks some serious ass. He is quite happy to have a little bit of both.
		Since Mike Tirelli lives in New York, rehearsals and writing songs must be a complicated process. How do you handle this situation? True, having all those rehearsals without Mike can be really boring. You just have to play your stuff without vocals while Mike on the other hand yells along in his car to a tape with our music. It is of course not the most optimal situation. But you know Internet makes the writing of new material a lot easier, we just send WAV.files with our music to Mike. Besides it is not that New York is that far away anymore. A plane ticket to New York is quite cheap nowadays, even cheaper than some flights to European destinations. We call each other every second day, since we have become good friends. We share the same roots and we all love heavy metal! I’ve already flown to New York to meet Mike and he has come and visited me here in Germany. Things with Mike are really clicking.
I do like a band like Rammstein for instance, because it is such happy music...		It is clear that your influences are bands like Judas Priest, Accept and Iron Maiden but what kind of music and bands do you listen to nowadays? I still listen to that music! I don’t much like the new types of metal. I can listen to it when I am at a party and I’ll even put the radio louder when I hear it but it is not the music I would listen to myself when I am home. I do like a band like Rammstein for instance, because it is such happy music but the last band that really blew me away has to be Vicious Rumors. Now that was a great band. You know, these days, people always want music to be both original and good. I don’t really agree with that. In my opinion an album doesn’t really have to be original in order to be good. We don’t really care about being original and we just play what we like.
		Well, in a scene that has been around for thirty years it is almost impossible to be original. Yeah, exactly! I totally agree with you.
		Your album is excellent classic heavy metal but the last song, “Blood Of The Kings”, is a bit of an exception. It is more complex and modern.
Like AC/DC, you just know exactly what to expect when they release an album and that is what we want too.		I was wondering if it would be a preview of what Messiah’s Kiss will bring on a new album, or is it just to show Messiah’s Kiss also has a more modern side? No, it is not to show that we also have a more modern side. It is just a combination of the things we like. I also can already tell you that our next record will be exactly the same style! I really hate it when bands change and I always get upset if that happens but I can tell you right now that our next album will be the exact same style. Like AC/DC, you just know exactly what to expect when they release an album and that is what we want too. The fan must know already before buying the new album that he won’t be disappointed. That’s why we also offer mp3’s on our homepage, just to inform the fans in advance. For us it is important to groove and have catchy choruses and that’s exactly what we offer and will offer. Of course we are a new band and we still have a lot to learn regarding song writing but our style certainly will not change.
		What is your favorite song on the album? My favorite songs are “Light In The Black”, “Prayer For The Dying”, because that song is an unbelievable experience to play live and “Final Warning” just because it is different.
		Hundreds of new heavy metal bands and power metal bands are coming from Germany each year. How do you cope as a new band in such an overcrowded metal scene? We are quite lucky to be under contract of SPV/Steamhammer. They are doing a really great job to try and push us forwards. They arrange a lot of interviews and have good announcements in all sorts of magazines. We also offer mp3s on our homepage and on SPV’s homepage to download for free, so fans can hear in advance what we sound like. I think it is important to be fair, because 17 Euro is a lot of money to spend on an album.
		Recently I have heard many good German heavy metal and power metal bands and I must say I really like Paragon’s new album, Law Of The Blade. Are there any bands you think are very promising? I haven’t heard that Paragon yet. Anyway, bands like Grave Digger and Primal Fear were playing some very good stuff some years ago and were getting really popular. These bands really aren’t new you know. I remember seeing a Primal Fear gig a few years ago. It was really crowded and I thought, “The times are coming back again.” Heavy metal is becoming popular again and so we decided to come back too. So, basically bands like Primal Fear and Grave Digger are responsible for our comeback.
Many young people don’t listen to Black Sabbath because they don’t want to listen to something their dad used to listen to.		In Holland many people seem to think that the new wave of heavy metal and power metal bands are all shit. What would you like to say to these misguided people? They should just give it a try because they don’t have a clue about the music. I know from experience that many people haven’t even listened to it. I was at a festival a while ago and Black Sabbath played there. Many young people don’t listen to Black Sabbath because they don’t want to listen to something their dad used to listen to. When Black Sabbath started playing these youngsters were like ‘wow’ and started clapping along and stuff. They just had never heard it before and didn’t have any idea what Black Sabbath actually would sound like.
		Recently, Messiah’s Kiss played their first live gig on Wacken Open Air. How did it go and was Mike Tirelli there to do the vocals? Yes, of course Mike was there. He arrived in Germany a week before Wacken so we got to rehearse together. It is very important to rehearse together before such a big gig! We had to open Wacken and that is not a very easy job, especially not because it was our very first gig. It went really great however and the audience really seemed to like it even though they didn’t know one single note of our music. I could do a gig like that every day (laughter)! It was also very important for our future, to build some trust, with our management and record label!
		So Mike Tirelli is now a permanent member of Messiah’s Kiss? Yeah, he is and very happy about it. He thinks we have some great thing going on!
		Has SPV already made any plans for a tour? SPV has planned a tour together with Doro! It is quite a long tour, we start the tour on October 23rd and the tour ends on December 7th. The first ten shows will also feature the Swiss power metal band Crystal Ball! That’s a great band, a little bit commercial but their style is typically Swiss.
		I guess Crystal Ball will be the opening band then? I really have no idea at all! I think that we might start the gig though but I really don’t know! We will see, as long as it is fun, we don’t care.
I guess that must be the reason why we, and so many other bands, aren’t coming to Finland.		Any chance you guys are coming to Finland? Ehm, (short silence) no! Sorry! I guess it is too expensive to travel to Finland. Going by car is not really an option, not even from Sweden. You would have to take a boat or a plane, which of course makes the trip a lot more expensive. Especially, since it would be for only one gig. I guess that must be the reason why we, and so many other bands, aren’t coming to Finland.
		What bands would you like to tour with? Judas Priest! We would like to go on tour with our old heroes and especially Manowar. Although that would be very difficult, everyone would come to see Manowar and it would be almost impossible to impress their fans. It would however be a great challenge! But of course the most important thing for us is to have fun on tour and I think Doro is just fine to go on tour with. She is into true heavy metal, just like us and we play a kind of similar music. Besides her audience is very open to other types of music, which of course is good for us!
		Who is responsible for the wonderful front cover artwork? The Spanish artist Luis Royo did the artwork. It was however an already done picture and thus not specifically done for us. We started looking on the Internet to try and find artwork for the cover of the album. We checked many fantasy sites until we came across that great picture of Luis Royo. Then we contacted Royo’s agent and asked him whether we could use the picture for our album. Luckily the picture wasn’t licensed to someone else yet so we could use it. It is really a great picture and we are very happy with it.
		Thank you for this interview and good luck with your album! Anything you want to add to the interview? I really would like to come to Finland some day! Show the Finnish metal fans some new faces, maybe we can realize that in the future!
(Frank van de Voorde)