Rockezine.com interview with End Of Green on Jun 17, 2003

with Michael Setzer on Jun 17, 2003

End Of Green from Germany recently released their new album Last Night On Earth, a beautiful gathering of dark coloured songs. Perhaps not fit for summer, but surely fit for those rainy summer nights. Guitarist Michael explains to us what makes End Of Green tick.
		Your new album, Last Night On Earth has recently been released, what are your expectations for the album or in other words, what would satisfy you as a band? Well, of course we want a lot of people listening to it. I guess that’s always the main goal. I don’t think too much of record sales, but then again, if there’s one million thousand people purchasing our records I wouldn’t yell “Leave us the fuck alone”. No, I hope that there will be a lot of people that can relate to our songs – that would be quite nice.
		Metal heads could know End Of Green, since you released an album on Nuclear Blast back in 1996. What happened there? That wasn’t too dramatically. I guess we were too young for a label like Nuclear Blast at that time. And there was also the problem, that at that time we didn’t fit in their roster too perfectly. But we still have a good relationship with the boys and girls from the label. They have given us a lot of support though we were no longer a so-called ‘NB Band’. They are cool.
		You are on Silverdust Records now. How’s you relationship with the label? They hate our guts… No, Silverdust is the best thing that could have happened to us. They are 200% supportive and they know where we’re at and how End Of Green is ‘functioning’. I guess there would be a lot of record companies bitching at us for writing 11 minutes long songs like “Emptiness/lost control”. Silverdust don’t. They let us do what we want to do because they know we need that space for our creativity. That’s almost perfect. For the first time in our history we have been releasing two albums on the same label.
		The music on Last Night On Earth can’t be put into a certain genre just like that. How would you describe your music yourselves? I don’t know. Bands often see their music quite different than other people. Some years ago we created the term ‘depressed sub core’, which I think is quite a fitting one. We got soul, energy, we’re heavy… I often see our music as kind of bad weather tunes.
		Are you satisfied with the way the album turned out? In most cases “Yes”. There will always be things you’d do a little different once you have actually taken some distance from the album but I guess that’s a normal thing. For now I think we made a pretty damn good record (smile).
		Can you name three bands you would like to tour with? Jesus! Only three? Do you want me to be realistic? Then I’d go for Undertow, Jack Frost and Mirror Of Deception. In my dreams there would be too many bands to mention here. But Bay Laurel, Cold or Metallica would be quite fun, wouldn’t it? Or Portishead.
		Are you satisfied with the band’s career so far and what goals do you still want to achieve? When bands start out there’s always three goals: write songs, play live and get a record deal and strangely enough we’re still like that. We want to write more songs and play more shows and I think every band that loses those goals should call it a day. Personally I’d really like to make a living with our band. A lot of things would be way cooler, if we’d not have to go to work everyday to pay our rents. But then again, we’ll keep on writing songs anyway.
		What are your main influences as a band, musically and lyrically? Lyrically I’d say we’re influenced by those moments when you feel alienated, sad, fucked up and hopeless. I can’t explain why it is like that, but most of the stuff Michelle writes comes out like that. That melancholic side always shows its face. Musically we’re pretty much influenced by so-called Grunge music, Metal and old Goth rock. We all grew up listening to Alice In Chains, Nirvana, Melvins, The Cure, Metallica and all those bands.
		Any tour plans or festivals this summer in support of the album? In the summer we’ll play a lot of festival shows and in late September we’ll kick off our tour with Undertow. This will be quite a nice one, I hope. We’ve been friends for a long time.
		What’s your opinion on the internet and downloading music in relationship to End Of Green? I guess there’s way more people who know our songs than people who are buying our records… but then again: I don’t think that one download equals one sold record. That’s bullshit. I’m often curious what a band sounds like, so I download some songs to make up my mind. If they kick ass, I go and buy the record. In that way I guess mp3 downloads are good marketing tool. I know that record labels don’t see it like that, and probably I wouldn’t see it like that if I owned a label but correct me if I’m wrong: those bands that moan the loudest are those who sell 16 million copies anyway. Come on, when I hear Metallica or Linkin Park almost strip-checking people who leave the studio – they should see a doctor about their paranoia. Do THEY have to worry how to pay the next rent? Get over it, someone invented the internet, we all use it and sooner or later we all have to cope with the side-effects of technology. But obviously, I’d prefer people to buy our records.
		Why should people who are not familiar with End Of Green buy (or at least listen to) Last Night On Earth? Well, there are so many reasons to buy the record. The CD is round, and if you think it sucks you can still use it as a coaster for glasses, Frisbee or as a pocket mirror… I don’t know, I’m not good at marketing. I’d love to say “We’re an honest band, we’re heart driven and we rock a lot” but then again every band says stuff like that.
		Any final words for your (new) fans? Be cool to cats, don’t kill anyone and please listen to our songs. We have not written all those songs just for our private entertainment.
(Marc Lochs)