Rockezine.com interview with Galloglass on Dec 29, 2005

with Norbert Geiseler on Dec 29, 2005


		Can you briefly introduce the band to our readers? Hi there. This is Nobby, the guitar player of Galloglass. We are a melodic power metal band from Hannover, Germany. Carsten Frank – Vocals, Norbert (Nobby) Geiseler – Guitar, Kai Mühlenbruch – Guitar, Dirk Kühner-Zelmer – Bass, and Lorenz – Drums. Most of us are musicians as long as we can remember. We are always making music because we love music. We found each other in the fall of 2000, recorded a demo and sent it to some labels just to see what would happen. But then we got the possibility to sign to Limb Music. We produced our debut (“Legends From Now And Nevermore”) which was released in 2003 and after some memorable gigs with -among others- Wizard, Goddess Of Desire, Mob Rules, Domain, Eternal Reign, etc., we started immediately with the songwriting for the current album "Heavenseeker".
		“Heavenseeker” has recently been released, how have the reactions been so far? There are mostly very good reactions from the press and the fans. But some people seem to be disappointed with “Heavenseeker”, because it’s a bit different from “Legends…” But we don’t wanted to produce a second “Legends…” album and become boring and doing the same stuff again and again.
		Are you satisfied with the way the album turned out, or would you liked to have done some things differently? We are very satisfied with “Heavenseeker” and the way it turned out. If we could change one thing, we would have released it much earlier. ;-)
		How do you feel that Galloglass has progressed since your debut album? Well, the new album shows the band even more mature, tougher and more direct. We think it’s the result of our musical evolution. We did not plan to produce a more aggressive second album. We didn’t think about it during the songwriting process. We just wanted to involve new elements in our songs. It became clearer the more our new material was finished that the result would be a bit heavier than the “Legends...” material. But it’s still Galloglass, isn’t it?
We did not plan to produce a more aggressive second album.		What bands have influenced Galloglass’ style the most? There are too many bands to specify them all. Some of our favorite bands are for example: Blind Guardian, Iron Maiden, Angra and Rage but also bands like Pantera or Testament. Our influences came from all of them. Maybe you notice on “Heavenseeker” a little influence of Annihilator but principally we always try to create our own style. Of course, we don’t invent the metal completely anew, but we are trying to be different than the whole mass of melodic metal bands all around.
		Is there a deeper meaning behind the word Galloglass? There is no complete storyline with a giant story like on concept albums. There is just a main theme on “Heavenseeker” that is getting through the song lyrics. It’s about the fight between good and evil, heaven and hell, light and darkness. We wrote liner notes for each song for the limited booklet. So we don’t want to give the secret away to early... ;-)
		Do you think the popularity of the metal scene at the moment is good for the scene in general, or would you rather see metal back in the underground? It can not be bad that good music is going to be popular. For us, making music is having fun. And it’s even more fun to play concerts for many people than for a few in the underground.
		The German metal scene is delivering a whole lot of new and promising metal acts. Do you see this as an advantage for Galloglass, or as unhealthy competition and how does Galloglass differ from the rest of the scene? Well, on the one hand it’s of course an advantage if people look at the German scene because they know the quality of the German bands, like Edguy etc. On the other hand it’s hard to being noticed in the big mass of bands out there. So as you said you have to be different than other bands. We try to do this by including uncommon elements like the violin or some thrash metal elements.
		What album is currently playing in your CD-player? At this moment it plays the album “Sunborn” from Deadly Sin. A very talented metal band form Germany.
		What was your best concert and what was your worst? One of the best concerts I have seen was the Blind Guardian gig in Wacken 2002. One of the best concerts we played with Galloglass was the Wilhelmshaven gig with Mob Rules. (The concert you can see on our limited edition DVD from the “Heavenseeker” Digi Pack.) The worst concert I have seen… too many… The worst concert with Galloglass… there was none ;-)
		Thanks a lot for the interview! Is there anything left unsaid? Thanks a lot to all our fans for supporting us the last couple of years. Hope you’ll enjoy the new album as much as we do. Cheers, GALLOGLASS!
		(Frank van de Voorde)