MG: Hi, Great to meet you, can you give us a brief history about Shadowbane
Hey, thanks for your interest in SHADOWBANE – Post Apocalyptic Power Metal from Hamburg!
The first roots of SHADOWBANE date back to something like 2006 when Lukas (git) and Rene (drums) met the first time in a rehearsal room in Hamburg after looking for power-metal-enthusiastic fellow musicians. Stefan (vocals) joined soon and Moritz (bass) followed in 2008, songs evolved and in 2010 finally the first complete line-up featuring second guitarist Falk released the Demo EP “Dystopia” and played the first show ever. Falk was later substituted by Dirk who recorded the debut “Facing the Fallout” with us and meanwhile quit. Since early 2014 with Markus SHADOWBANE are complete again and ready to attack!
MG: "Facing The Fallout" is released next month, what are your feelings as the date gets nearer.
We are of course very excited! It’s a fantastic feeling to know that soon people all over the world will be able to get our music. Recently a radio DJ from Japan contacted us to play our music, we get reviewed in different media around the world, metal news pages even in languages we don’t understand or can’t even read announce „Facing the Fallout“ and people – like you – are interested to get to know more about us. I think everybody would be proud if something you have put so much of your creativity and hard work, dedication and power into gets this kind of notification. And of course we are very curious how finally the audience will like the album in January!
MG: Why the title "Facing The Fallout"?
We follow a dystopic concept within our lyrics and also try to include this within our shows. Our songs refer to various end-time scenarios and we hence call our style “Post Apocalyptic Power Metal” – also describing the music being rather rough in the power metal genre. “Facing the Fallout” is not a direct quote from any song, however it is a catchy phrase stating the overall topic of many songs: Huge – even apocalyptic – threats and fighting them. You need heavy scenarios to support heavy music with heavy emotions ;-)
MG: Do you have any favorite tracks on the album and why
Any member of SHADOWBANE has his own favorites, and they happen to change over time… I think all of us love to play “Dystopia” on stage which already was featured in an older version on our demo EP and became sort of a band anthem often celebrated the most by the crowd. As musicians rehearsing the songs very often however the younger tracks are fresher to our ears, such as “Tear Down the Walls” or “Bleeding Skies” (the latter one is the first video for this album as well).
MG: What are the bands plans for 2015
We will celebrate our release with a live show on February the 6th and then intend to do some more great shows (we always intend that by the way…). Furthermore we hope to return to songwriting again, after the organizational stuff concerning the release are finally done! It was a lot fun, but also much more work than expected.
MG: Can you give me some insight into the bands name
We collected a lot of ideas and skipped all that were totally disliked by someone in the band. Then we cancelled all already to be found in the Encyclopaedia Metallum. As nothing was left over, we started over again and additionally decided that we would prefer a name with two or three syllables – as those names to our personal experience seemed especially suitable to be yelled by the crowd. I hope now everybody visiting a SHADOWBANE show knows what to do to in order to proof this hypothesis ;-)
MG: Did the band all have an input into the album art work
Yes, and we are very proud of it! We discussed internally what we would like to see on the artwork – of course our mascot Mr Radiation (or meanwhile Ms Radiation) and various other ideas came up. We then discussed this a lot with Stefan Riermaier from our label Pure Steel Records who contributed important objections and additional requirements from a professional perspective. The overall concept agreed by us and Pure Steel then was sent to Markus Vesper who (among others) was suggested by Pure Steel and his work was known to us due to his work for our friends in Black Hawk and WarcrY. Then he did a simply amazing job.
For people not knowing Hamburg, by the way, the ruins in the background are easily identified to be the remains of our hometown…
MG: What would be your ultimate goal for Shadowbane
Goals tend to grow with everything achieved… So I don’t know, if there ever is an ultimate goal - no matter whether in live or in SHADOWBANE.
But of course everybody has dreams. For me personally that would be standing on a festival stage I used to stand in front of as a fan for many years ;-)
MG: Feeling towards the metal scene in Germany
Well, we’re part of it, and as everywhere there are highs and lows – but considering the many festivals and bands existing or growing during the last years I think we are rather well off. Heavy metal might not be part of the popular culture as in Scandinavia, and metal is only in exceptional cases overshooting subcultural notification, however that also tightens the scene.
MG: Which bands influenced you growing up and now
SHADOWBANE members are born within a timespan of almost two decades, thus everybody has different roots. Nevertheless obviously all of us love and loved traditional heavy metal and power metal. Some of us also have their heart partly in fields as true, thrash or progressive metal…
It’s not a secret that many SHADOWBANEs have been attending the Headbangers Open Air regularly as a fan during the last years – so the musical taste is quite obvious \m/
MG: What have you been listening to lately
The last show of a bigger act where most of us attended as a fan was the Accept show in Hamburg. In the rehearsal room I remember someone putting on Hell, Gamma Ray, Rage,… during setting up the equipment.
Personally in my car I currently listen to the latest records of Hammerfall, Accept, Bullet, Stallion and also some older stuff by Stryper, Alice Cooper, Debauchery or Lordy.
MG; It’s been another good year for metal music do you have any personal favourite albums
Ok. I think now I only can make a personal statement… The Stallion album!
MG: Tell me why we should buy "Facing the Fallout"
“Facing the Fallout” is – and I think I can say this in all modesty – a professional power metal album with great tunes, strong guitars and a contemporary production. And all that despite the fact, that we do SHADOWBANE as our hobby. But that is also the strength – we didn’t (need to) make any compromises; you get an album by metal enthusiasts the way we wanted it to be. And still it convinced Pure Steel to release and promote it.
So you get raw and untamed heavy metal enthusiasts music - obviously still satisfying professional expectations.
MG: Three words to describe Shadowbane
Post-Apocalyptic Power Metal!
MG final words for your fans and our readers
We thank each and every SHADOWBANIAC and SHADOWBANGER out there for their loyal support throughout the years and encourage all of your readers to check out our music, our video and keep on supporting heavy metal \m/