Rockezine.com interview with Domain on Oct 10, 2006

with Axel on Oct 10, 2006


		Please introduce yourself and the band to the rest the world. Hi everybody, I´m Axel Ritt, guitarist, producer and composer of the band DOMAIN (www.domainband.net). DOMAIN is a Melodic-Metal, Power-Metal, Epic/Symphonic-Metal driven band from Germany and we got our 20th anniversary this year.
		How would you describe your own sound? Our sound is characterized by three main points: 1.) virtuosic guitar-work, 2.) Epic keyboards with lots of fanfaric synth-brass, 3.) Big chorus hooks with big choirs voices. We created the typical DOMAIN-sound in the late Eighties and modernized him until now.
		How did the recording sessions go? All in all it took about 1 year, 10 hours a day to produce the complete works of "Stardawn". I had to supervise the production of the additional Best-Of CD and the bonus-DVD as well, so I´m happy that this burden is gone for a short while.
		Are you satisfied with the result? Oh yes!
		This is already your second release in two years. Where did you find inspiration to write songs that fast and songs that lasts so long? I´m thinking in music the whole day and I´m still looking for new challenges. At home, I´m listening to the classical godfathers like Tschaikowsky, Bach and Mozart and the actual giants of film score music like John Williams. They inspire me a lot.
		Is there something like a concept behind “Stardawn” or what kind of emotions, feelings, lyrics or stories holds the album together? No, it´s not a typical concept album. After the success of the last DOMAIN-album "Last Days Of Utopia", we had a long discussion within the band regarding the orientation of the upcoming album. I didn´t want to leave the new epic-symphonic path we´ve headed but some of us favored to step back to the traditions of the Melodic Metal background the band celebrated in the albums before. So we decided to divide the complete album into two partitions. One partition should satisfy the wishes of the longtime fans, the other one should strike the right note for the new fans, who, for example took "Last Days..." for the debut album of the band. To create the first partition, all of us picked up their hooks, ideas and arrangements to place them in the new songs, which finally had been completed in our rehearsal studio. To create the second partition, the band permitted me to exploit my whole creativity by composing a complete 25-min. symphony, divided into 7 chapters, basing on a story of our singer Carsten. This opus made me pushing the envelope. The sheer monstrosity of "Shadowhall" took about 3 months of pre-production and arrangement/score-works before I could start with the actual recordings. All in all, it took almost one year to finish the album. Never before have that many tracks been recorded, has the orchestral arrangements be that extensive and never before had that level of virtuosity been performed. I believe that we´ve strike a balance between past and present, between yesterday and today, still looking for the musical borderlines we didn´t reach until now.
		What does the artwork show/should it express? Well, there are some assumptions that the Egyptian empire and his technical predominance has grown that fast because they had some contact with extraterrestrial life-forms. You can´t evidence it but it´s a good basic for interesting stories and guess-works. The whole story is written in the lyrics of the title track "Stardawn".
		From your point of view, what is your favorite track on the new album and why? Well, I love the fast tracks like "All In The Name Of Fire" and "Crystal Stone Island" because these tracks gave me the chance to show a part of my virtuosity, but of course, "Stardawn" is my big favorite. To make a long story short; the biggest challenge of my life, bigger, more complex and more exhausting than anything I ever did before in my musical career.
		What are the plans for 2006/2007? We´ll do a tour in spring 2007 and some festivals in winter 2006 and spring/summer 2007. And of course the songwriting of the upcoming album has already started ;-)
"I like the page a lot"		Did you ever visit rockezine.com? If yes, did you like it? If no, why not? Yes, I´ve visited it. I like the page a lot, well organized and effective.
		When you may fill in the final question for yourself. What would ask yourself then? What will be your future plans?
		What’s the answer on your own final question? DOMAIN ´til I die!
		Thanks for answering my questions. Thanks Jeroen, you´re welcome.
		(Jeroen Habets)