Encryption Interview With Norbert
Hartmann and Christian Klein
Interview in 1999 by EvilG
If you're wondering who Encryption are then I suggest you read our Featured
Artist (two MP3's available) spotlight on the band, then check out
this very cool interview with Encryption's vocalist and guitarist.
Metal Rules!!
You bio states that the band was formed in Dachsbach, Germany which
is a little village with about 1000 inhabitants. What is it like being in
a metal band in a small place like that?
Chris:
Well, as you can guess we are the only heavy metal band in Dachsbach, so
we're in a kind of exotic state... many people here know us, and whenever
you meet some of these people, they ask questions like " do you still
play this terrible kind of noisy music?" - somehow it's funny. But
although most people (above all elder persons) don't like our music, most
are very tolerant. Normally, we rehearse two times a week in the cellar of
my parent's house, and until yet the neighbors haven't complained about
the noise. That's really very fair. And I also have to admire my parent's
patience and tolerance, as they have to suffer week for week... but my
mother even likes some songs, at least the melodic parts; all in all we
are known here as the guys with long hair and noisy music - but after all
it's ok!
Metal Rules!!
Are you well known in Dachsbach and in underground metal
circles in Germany?
Norbert:
Well, of course we are well known in Dachsbach, as nobody else is making
such noise as we do in a little village like that! And also nobody is
looking so ugly! Yes, we are the "stars of the village"!
Concerning the German underground scene, most of the Zines or bands should
know us, even if it is just by remembering our name. We keep contact to
many Fanzines and bands and are featured on some Underground-Samplers.
Chris:
I agree with that, although there are not many metalheads in our village.
Most people know that we have a band, but they don't know what the band is
about. There are some younger people at our age that listen to heavy
metal, and they also attend the rehearsals from time to time. It's not
easy to evaluate how far we are known in German metal underground circles;
we had a huge amount of partly unbelievable good reviews and also could
sell more CDs than we'd expected (about 800/900). I think if somebody is
really into the underground scene, he already came across the name
Encryption. But most people are not very deep into the underground, the
"normal" metalhead goes in the next record store and buys some
CDs every month; those people probably never heard the name Encryption.
Metal Rules!!
Is the band still based out of Dachsbach?
Norbert:
We are all living in the surrounding area of Neustadt/Aisch, the next big
city with about 10.000 inhabitants. We all live in different villages,
which are all not far away from our rehearsal room in Dachsbach.
Metal Rules!!
Do you play much in Dachsbach, or do you mostly play in other parts
of Germany and Europe?
Chris:
It's a pity, but we don't have very much gigs. We are already very
satisfied if we can play one gig a month; and even this can't be fulfilled
every month. We have never played in Dachsbach so far, as we don't have a
location where concerts could be organized. So when we play, we play
somewhere in our region, mainly in small youth clubs. Now and then we play
in bigger cities, for example in Nuremberg; but we have never played
outside Germany.
Metal Rules!!
Have you played at any of the big open air metal festivals that
occur in Germany?
Norbert:
I think you mean the WACKEN OPEN AIR or WITH FULL FORCE near Leipzig...but
no, unfortunately there is nearly no chance for a band without deal to
play there. It would be a great experience for us to play there and if we
will get the chance, we will take it, of course. But this will strongly
depend on our label, if we'll ever get some...
Metal Rules!!
How would you describe the state of metal in Dachsbach or in your
region of Germany?
Chris:
Well, in Dachsbach there isn't a state of metal at all! There are some
people who listen to heavy metal, and there's our band, but that's all.
The situation improves in the bigger cities around us, like in Nuremberg,
Erlangen & Fürth in the one direction and Würzbürg & Kitzingen
in the other direction. In these cities and its surroundings, there are
more bands and also more people that listen to heavy metal. In Nuremberg,
there's even a radio station promoting and playing metal once a week!
There are also many concerts of well-known acts in Nuremberg and Würzburg,
so all in all we must be pleased with the situation here - there are worse
metal-regions in Germany, that's for sure! But outside the big cities the
situation is not very comforting. There are a lot of cover-bands that draw
an unbelievable high amount of people to their really bad shows -
sometimes about 1000 people!! In a way, these bands are destroying the
scene for bands with self-composed music, as everybody attends the cover bands
(because there you'll meet a lot of friends and so drinking large amounts
of alcohol is more fun) instead of going to a youth club to see some metal
bands. So it's very difficult to organize metal-gigs, as mostly there
aren't many headbangers that attend the shows, and the risk of loosing
money is very high.
Metal Rules!!
Has the band done a proper tour yet? If not do you think it would
be possible?
Chris:
No, we haven't done a tour yet. And I don't think we will - unless we had
the support of a label. Because without a lot of promotion, you needn't do
a tour here, nobody will come to the shows. It's even the same with
well-known acts: if there is no promotion, only very few people attend the
shows. Of course we would love to do a tour - but there are more problems:
we all have to do something besides our music - going to school, study,
work - and so it would be very difficult to find a period when everybody
has the time to tour. But if we someday would get the chance to do a tour,
we would give all for making this come true!
Metal Rules!!
Besides the show you did with Iron Savior and Edguy in April 1998
in Nuremberg has any other well known bands had you open for them?
Norbert:
On June 9th we did the support for MERCYFUL FATE at their concert in
Nuremberg. I can say that we are satisfied with the peoples reactions,
even if it always is a little bit difficult in front of a crowd, where
quite nobody knows your songs. If we think of the music, the gig with IRON
SAVIOUR and EDGUY fitted best, even if we're a little bit "more
extrem"... other well known bands we played with were DARKSEED and
NIGHT IN GALES.
Metal Rules!!
Where has most of the positive reaction come from for your CD
"Shrouded in Mystery"?
Chris:
It came just from everywhere all over the metal scene! It's unbelievable,
but we haven't got any really bad reviews until now. Naturally, not all
reviews were totally euphoric; some reviewers didn't like the way Norbert
sings, but everyone admitted that the music is on a high level, even if he
or she didn't like the style. Maybe the fanzines were a bit more cheerful
than the bigger magazines, but we got very good reviews in big magazines
as well.
Metal Rules!!
With regards to the artwork for "Shrouded in Mystery"
- where was the inside and back cover scenic photographs taken?
Chris:
The photos are even older than everyone of the band is. They were taken by
my father about 25 years ago; my parents then traveled through Denmark, Sweden,
Norway and Finland, and my father took some very cool pictures. The back
cover photo is taken from the North Cape, the northernmost point of Scandinavia.
The scenic picture inside was taken in Sweden.
Metal Rules!!
What is the cover artwork of? To me in kind of looks like tree trunks or
mountains under water?!?!
Chris:
Well, actually it's a cave with stalactites and stalagmites! Someday we
had the idea of using the picture of a cave for our cover, and luckily we
found a guy from a neighboring village who did cave-expeditions and had a
lot of photos. Anyway, it looks somehow mysterious and so fits perfectly
to the name of band and the album.
Metal Rules!!
Since "Shrouded in Mystery" was written/recorded in 1997, what
has the band done musically in the past 2 years?
Norbert:
Well, we just didn't fall asleep and wait for a deal or something, but did
a lot of promotion, played some gigs and concentrated in creating new
songs, which is really "hard work" at Encryption and takes quite
a long time, but that is another story.. . . We rehearsed about 2 times a
week regularly, just as we do right now. Myself, I'm doing some voice
education for about one year.
Metal Rules!!
When will new material be recorded and released?
Norbert:
We have plans to enter the studio (the same as on "Shrouded...")
in October, but we still have recorded some new songs on 4 tracks for
promotion and for ourselves to see what we still can do better and for
some choir-ideas, which we won't neglect on the new CD. The new CD will
hopefully be released at the end of this year or in spring 2000.
Metal Rules!!
Has there been any major label interest in your music?
Chris:
No, unfortunately not. It's a bit frustrating, because our reviews are
better than those of some signed bands... but so what? It's a sad fact,
but without some business connections your chances are not very high. At
the moment, an underground label shows interest in signing us. There's
nothing certain yet, but we would be interested too, and I'm quite
confident that we will agree on cooperation. I think that maybe sometimes
a smaller underground label is better than a major label, because it
really cares about its bands and you aren't one band among hundreds.
Metal Rules!!
Will you release your next CD independently, or will you only
shop it to the labels in hopes of them distributing and releasing it?
Chris:
As I said we hope to cooperate with this underground label. But in case we
didn't find an agreement, we would first record our album and then try to
shop it to some labels. If this fails, too, we will release the stuff
independently, as we already did with our first CD. Our new songs will be
definitely released, no matter if we find a label or not!!
Metal Rules!!
What is the deal with www.welcome.to/metal?
It's not just Encryption on there, is it a label or just a webzine that
promotes German bands??
Chris:
Well, that's no big deal. It's the idea of Kai from the German underground
fanzine "Eternity"; he provided the address and asked us if we
want to participate. The idea was that everybody should use the URL welcome.to/metal
on flyers etc. in order to do promotion for all the bands on this site. It
goes like that: the surfer that comes for a certain band sees that there
also other bands in there - and maybe he or she checks them out! The
welcome to metal site is closely linked to the eternity-homepage (http://eternity.heavy.net),
and Kai also provides free space for the band's homepages. What is more,
the link welcome.to/metal
can easily be beared in mind!
Metal Rules!!
Has the Internet been helpful in getting the word out about the band?
Norbert:
Yes, we received a lot of "interactive contact", mainly through
e-mail because of our homepage, or we got in touch with online-zines via
e-mail ourselves (remember our first "touch", haha...??). It's a
fast and easy way to communicate, you can get all the scene news you want
and check out bands you're interested in by loading down some sounds.
Until now, many (online-) zines published reviews or interviews of us, so
it was and is very helpful indeed. (Without the internet, how the hell had
we had the chance of getting in touch, man, haha...? - You see...IT
FUCKING RULES, DUDE !!)
Metal Rules!!
Besides the band, what do you guys do?
Norbert:
Unfortunately, we can't afford living from our music, so we all have to go
to work our to study. By now, we don't even think of earning money from
our music, although we won't damn this thought from our heads... In our
free-time we like Metal-Parties, concerts and beer. Myself, I prefer going
fishing.
Metal Rules!!
Originally the band's name was "Cryptic" but due to
legal reasons you changed the name to something that is quite
similar..."Encryption." Does the band name play any part in an
encrypted message that you are trying to convey to people? Or is it simply
a band name?
Chris:
It's simply a band name without an encrypted message. When we started,
Oliver (bass guitar) came up with the name Cryptic, and we liked the sound
of this word; so we decided to call the band Cryptic. After we received
the message that we had to change the name, we wanted the new name to be
somehow related to the old one, and so we took the noun encryption instead
of the adjective cryptic. It's maybe not very spectacular, but that's it.
There's no encrypted message - let the music do the talking!
Metal Rules!!
What bands, old and new, do you look up to...and what bands
have inspired you?
Norbert:
In our band there is everything heard, starting from pure Power-stuff like
HAMMERFALL 'til Black Metal à la EMPEROR. Everybody has its own favorite
style, which makes it a little bit difficult always to find a compromise,
when we're creating a new song. But maybe this is the reason, why some say
the music would remind of a mixture of German Power and Swedish Death
Metal and if you like one of this styles, you'll like it anyway. As you
can see, we're certainly inspired by many, many bands, but just to mention
some, I can give you the following: ICED EARTH, BLIND GUARDIAN, IN FLAMES,
DARK TRANQUILITY, IRON MAIDEN.
Chris:
Norbert is right; somehow you are influenced by all kinds of music you
listen to. But I think that you are mainly influenced by bands that you
listen to for a very long time, so to speak your all-time faves. Thus, new
bands (for example the mentioned Hammerfall) only have marginal influence
on our music.
Metal Rules!!
What style of metal would you classify yourself as? Power metal? Melodic
death metal? Thrash metal? Or just heavy metal?
Chris:
That's a difficult question. I think that you can't judge your own music
appropriate, because you're confronted with it daily; the distance is too
small. I prefer other people to evaluate our music, but if I had to decide
for myself... well, we have elements of many metal styles in our songs:
Thrash, Death, Power,... but all in all it's just Heavy Metal. Yes, I
would prefer Melodic Heavy Metal.
Metal Rules!!
This one is for Norbert...Since you write all the lyrics for
the band...what topics inspire you? Perhaps you can give me an example or
two about what exactly inspired some of the lyrics on "Shrouded in
Mystery." Also, what does the title "Shrouded in
Mystery" refer to?
Norbert:
"Shrouded..." is no concept album, if you mean that, every song
has its own meaning. We just think the title fits perfectly to our cover
artwork, to the mystical and secret mood the correspondent Intro is
spreading and last but not least to our name. My lyrics are about things
like apocalyptic things or science-fiction, like the song "Predator
one". I hope everybody can feel the power and strength of the
"Predator", when listening to the song, haha...
On the contrary, song's like "Oblivious Vapours" describe
certain feelings or moods I've been in. Well, it has been really no very
happy mood, as you can read...for me, this is a very personal song, it
shows a little bit of my inner self, but also, when taking a look at the
music, it's one of my favorite songs we ever did, maybe it is a real
"intensive" song, if you can say so...
"Lack of animosity" is a song against all those suckers, who
follow simply every stupid trend, I really can't stand this! So, I tried
to do the vocals on the verse a little bit more aggressive. You can say,
that it is also strongly depending on the riffing and melodies a new song
has, if the vocals are getting more tough and aggressive or more clean and
melodic, like in "Fog's kiss", which tells a kind of ancient
love story.
Metal Rules!!
Oone more particular to Norbert...Since English is your second language,
do you write lyrics in German first and later translate them into English?
Norbert:
No, when I'm writing down new lyrics, I'm completely thinking and writing
in English. I've never tried it another way, but I think it is the best
way for me to do it like that. To be sure that there are not too many
mistakes, the new lyrics are always read by some American friends, but
fortunately I don't have too much problems with the English language.
Metal Rules!!
What other German bands are you guys into?
Chris:
There are so many German bands we like... if I had to mention all, you
would need definitely more webspace, haha! So I'll just mention a few:
Blind Guardian, Running Wild, Rage, Sodom, Kreator, Gamma Ray, Iron
Savior, Helloween, Night In Gales, Accu§er, Dark Millennium (R.I.P.),
Atrocity, Depressive Age, Morgoth, Holy Moses (R.I.P.), Tankard, Darkseed...
and at least another hundred bands! There are also a lot of very good
underground acts in Germany, some of them are: Eternal Sadness, Behind The
Scenery, Aardvarks, Blackend...
[I hope I got your question right ... if you meant whether we are
involved in side projects, i can tell you we aren't. We want to
concentrate on Encryption, and this takes a lot of time, so a side-project
is hardly possible. I don't want to exclude the possibility that there are
side-projects in the future, but it's not very likely (due to the lack of
time).]
Metal Rules!!
Do you have any gigs lined up for the next few months?
Norbert:
In July we are playing two gigs, one of it is an Open Air event with
certain metal bands from Germany. We like playing live and always try to
do our very best, so we don't care about if this events are not the
biggest ones, maybe the big ones will show up in future...hopefully,
haha... In autumn, of course, there will be another IRON IRONY festival!
Metal Rules!!
Do you guys organize the "IronIrony-Festival"? Tell me a
little about it, what the name means, what bands will play at it this
year, how large the attendance is for the festival, where it's held etc...
Chris:
Oh, the name sounds funny for every English or American ear, doesn't it?
Well, again a word without meaning or sense - or does the word
"iron" make sense together with the word "irony"?!
In 1997 Path Of Debris (a death metal band from southern Germany) and we
decided to organize a metal-festival, and the guys from Path Of Debris
came up with this name. It sounded cool somehow, and so we took it. The
idea behind the festival was to organize a gig that is bigger than normal
gigs. I already said that we have the problem of small audiences, and so
we thought if we did a lot of promotion and had 5 cool bands, maybe more
metalheads will attend the festival. In 1997 there played Darkseed,
Blackend, Path Of Debris, Destiny and our band. There were two festival
days: On friday we played near Landshut (in Kelheim) and on Saturday we
played in our region (in Unternesselbach). Friday was not very cool, as
there were the normal small audience - but Saturday was really special!
There were about 250 metalheads (that's a very good number of people for
an underground festival in our region!) and the festival developed into a
real metal party. In the end, there were almost more people posing and
diving on stage than before it; and there were people from different
fanzines and bands that came from all over Germany (Kai and Katja from the
"Eternity"-zine even came from Berlin, that are about 500km!).
After the festival, about 25 people started an after show-party in our
house, and we celebrated till the next day... a detailed
"history" of this legendary first ironirony can be found on our
homepage! After the fun and success of the first festival, we decided to
make an ironirony in 1998, too. This time, only we organized the festival
which took place again in Unternesselbach (this village is so small, they
even haven't street names!!!) with the following bands: Night In Gales,
Eternal Sadness, Aardvarks, Euthanasie and Encryption. There were even
more people (ca. 350) and this was a big surprise, as on the same day
there were playing a lot of cover bands in our region. All in all it
was the same procedure as the year before: a lot of noise, a lot of fun
and an extreme after show party (Somebody joked last year: "Hey,
let's do only the after show party...!")!! Of course we have to
organize the festival this year, too, as it has become a real meeting
point for the underground scene. It will take place in late October,
naturally in Unternesselbach; but until yet, there aren't confirmed any
bands.
Metal Rules!!
Well that's all from me for now! If you have any words or other
news to pass along to those who will be reading this interview now's your
chance!!
Chris:
First of all, we want to thank you very much. To be "featured artist
of the month" is our greatest honor so far! We really appreciate your
support. I'd like to encourage all readers to visit our homepage and
listen to the soundfiles. Don't hesitate to e-mail your opinion, whether
it's good or bad! We will answer all mails! Finally Geoff, good luck for
the future and your webzine! Heavy Metal is the law!!
Norbert:
Stay open minded, 'cause Metal is not the right place for certain
ignorance, fuck fashions and don't hesitate to get in touch, even if we
sometimes may bite.
©1999,
Metal Rules!!
