www.powermetal.de

Interviews
Holy Dragons
Interview mit Jurgen Thunderson & Chris Caine

# 01 - I've heard some songs and samples from your homepage before, but this new album "Wolves of Odin" is the first of your albums that reached us here at Powermetal.de and I have to say that I really like it a lot. How satisfied are you with how it turned out and how would you campare it to the albums that you have released before?


JT. Frankly speaking I liked how it turned out. The album turned a very fast, technically strong and powerful one. Besides, I've managed to realise some of my ideas of the general sounding of this album, for example vocals sound a bit lower in volume than it is now accepted; the drums are rather muffled and bass-guitar is very resonant, solid and it is very clearly heard through the whole album and one can hear all the details of the bass part - all these thing are exactly what is necessary for this album! In general, we oriented on the sound of the end of the 80-ties and I think we've managed to do it!

Chris: Well, I like the result, I mean the album and what we've got in the end very much. You know it's always very interesting to see how the album changes at different stages of the work over it, till it comes to its final result. First it's like a skeleton when there are only bones: melodies and ideas, then come muscles - arrangement of each song and then comes the skin -lyrics, and then we get the final result. And speaking about "Wolves of Odin" the final result is quite impressive, we've realised everything we wanted here in this album! If we compare it with our previous albums, this one is much faster and more technically complicated. Then, it has a definite conception, which goes through the whole album: Scandinavian spirit of the old Nordic legends together with the philosophical reflections over our present times and what is going on in the world and with the world now through the prism of these old stories.
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# 02 - If I remember correctly, "Wolves Of Odin" is your seventh album already, so Holy Dragons must have been active for quite some time. As I think most of our readers don't know too much about your band's biography, it would be nice if you could tell us a bit about when the band was formed, when you did your first recordings and how long it took you to release your first studioalbum.


JT. Right, it's our seventh full-length album.
The official date of birth of our band we consider the year 1997 when we finally had the first complete line-up and the first full-length album was recorded. In fact, the band called "Holy dragons" started to emerge in the middle of 1995 and even made a home demo-tape "Halloween Night", which included 6-7 songs, later realised on "Dragon Steel". But if we look even more back in history, the proto-type of "Holy Dragons" existed since 1992 under the name of "Axcess". At that time I met Holger - he was our singer for "Axcess" for 2 years and at that time there were composed many songs, which later were realised in "House of the Winds" and "Judgement Day". But "Axcess" was mostly a hard rock band a-la "Deep Purple" and "Black Sabbath". It was mainly my project and the name of it for me associated with lots of failures and when the current line-up of it broke out I decided to make another band with a different name.
"Dragon Steel" was recorded on the local studio "Family". It was a cheep, not very well equipped studio, but we've managed to get a result, which at that time seemed rather successful to us. And even now I think there's nothing to be ashamed of. It took us 28 hours of studio work to record everything.

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# 03 - Did you have many changes of line-up over the years, or have you mostly been the same couple of guys?

JT: Really, permanent changes in the line-up are one of the biggest problems of "Holy Dragons". In the studio there usually work three of us: Chris, our singer (first it was Dan, then -Holger) and me. I have to work not only as a guitarist but also as a drummer and bass-guitarist. Of course it takes me much more than a drummer to record the drums but there's no real alternative to that. I mean, that all those people with whom we tried to work didn't meet the necessary modern technical requirements or didn't want to develop together with the band and waste a lot of time working with the band too. And that made a lot of problems too. Lately, we were working with session drummer and bass-guitarist for the live gigs, but I think it's not a way out, so we continue to look for the new permanent members, who will meet all the necessary technical requirements and will be really in the band!

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# 04 - Your line-up does not feature a keyboardist, and you seem to be proud that you don't use any keyboards. Do you think that keyboard don't belong into traditional Heavy Metal, or is it just that you personally don't like to have key-sounds on your releases? I mean if I think about it, there's also quite some stuff that I consider really heavy and not necessarily "happy" Metal that also does include some keyboards... for example DIO's 'Rainbow In The Dark'...

JT: Nowadays there are too many bands in Metal, which use so much keyboards that they make up for the absence of keyboards in our band! He-he-he! When you start to listen to such a band and you hear only keyboards for two minutes that is really disappointing! If I wanted to buy something of this keyboard kind, I'd rather buy "Aqua"! He-he-he! In the beginning the keyboards were meant for atmospheric and epic spirit and then it has became too much...only synthesisers!!! I like the way many Prog-bands use keyboards, I LIKE the electric organ of John Lord. I like keyboards on the newest album of "Masterplan", the piano of Virgin Steel, Manowar or Savatage or in DIO's band the keyboards were super! But I don't like when bands, playing Metal want to seem "soft and mellow" and behave like a Chameleon (in English this word should be left exactly like this Chameleon!) He-He-He!!!

We wanted to make a counter-attack on this way of heavy metal. I don't want to make a "trade mark" from the absence of keyboards and to use this as some commercial device. To place on the back cover of our album a sign with the red-crossed keyboards was just an emotional decision as our answer to the "keyboard metal"! We saw something like that on the cover of some band and liked that very much. But in the next album, the newest one (for which the instruments have already been recorded)- now the work on it is in the stage of vocal recording - we used some keyboard sounding- for nobody could reproach that the absence of keyboards is just a poser-style or something like that. These keyboards are used more for atmospheric effects-there is even electric organ with the "overdrive" effect during 16 bars. On the gigs we plan to use these keyboard parts with the help of guitar synthesiser, which is also present on the album in some parts of it. But, in general there are very few keyboards there on the album and they are mainly used as an effect, but not as one of the main parts of the music- what we have in many bands unfortunately.

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# 05 - Have you always played without keyboards or is it a more recent decision to leave them out?

JT: Keyboards were present in "Dragon Steel" but there were not much of them, after in 1999 the keyboard-player left the band, we took a course for the more "hard" sound and decided to deal without this instrument, though some keyboards are present in the beginning of a couple of tracks in "Judgement Day".

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# 06 - You are signed to Metalism Records since 2002, and the first album you've released there was 'Judgement Day'. Since then, you have released four more albums, and 'Wolki Odina' is your fifth album for that label. It seems like you're satisfied with their work, aren't you?

JT: I like to work with "Metalism Records"! We've managed to avoid those negative moments, which many bands have to face. Before signing a contract with "Metalism" we were on the edge of being signed to one of the American labels; well, these guys not having invested a cent into the band and not offering anything worth in the contract, started to poke their nose into those matters, that belong to the musicians only! So, they got a very decisive "NO!" from us. In contrast to that, we have very good understanding with "Metalism Recs."- I could have said without exaggeration that I wish to all the bands such understanding with their labels.


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# 07 - To me it seems like they're one of the most active Metal labels in the former USSR, is that true? How is the overall label infrastructure in Russia and the other CIS-nations. Is it hard to get a deal with a good label?

JT: As of this moment, it is actually may be the only label in CIS, which provides support for its bands somehow. It's not a rich label and so far it can't afford many things that are available to the Western European labels, for example to provide full scale promo-tours, but in contrast to the competitors from CIS it does a very active promo-distribution, exchange and etc. The other labels in CIS for the rare exclusion, don't show any interest to the promotion of local metal bands, they are much more interested in sales of well-known top foreign bands, the CDs of which they sell by the license or in selling the pop music, which has much more bigger circulation. An album, which is completely ready with mastering and ready design can spend a year without any movement on some big studio, while the management of it will be mostly busy by the shipment of a couple of wagons with the CDs of a current pop-freak. And this metal CD will be released according to the remainder principal. In general, a classical CIS label is a firm, manly reprinting foreign artists for CIS and the local pop stars, such CDs will have a lower price than the original because of the absence of custom taxes and a lower price of the rent for the trading areas and the working labour. The band mainly does promotion itself or its management does that. I like to work with Metalism because this label is tending to develop not for the reprinting of the CDs but for the promotion of its own bands and is trying to work over the further promotion of these bands, as it is done by the majority of Western European labels.

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# 08 - If I'm not mistaken, there are very few bands from your region that are signed to a Western European or American label. Do you think there is no interest from those companies or do the bands prefer to work with Russian labels?

JT: Honestly, it's both. First of all, it's a financial matter. The thing is that for labels it's not very profitable to start their work with the bands of our region because of the high transport costs - the costs to bring a band for their promo tour, promo-acts, or something of this kind are the same as the fee for the top band. Naturally, in these circumstances it is easier to work with a more geographically available band. Here's another detail: European bands very seldom come to us. Mainly because of these reasons during the promo distribution the bands send their demos mainly to the Russian labels. And of course, to "Gun", "Noise" and "BMG" (he-he-he) and do the further distribution if there are no offers from these labels.
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# 09 - Do you think that Russian labels can provide enough support for an international success of their bands? I mean it's only slowly starting that the Western Metal scene takes more and more interest in Russian bands, and most releases are only available from specialised traders or via import, which is not so comfortable and keeps away many potential fans. What do you think could be improved for you as a band in that regard?


JT: Here everything is connected with the perspective of selling CDs mainly in European shops. Now in the metal Russian business there is no much many circulating - the sales are very much geographically limited, lots of difficulties which have appeared because of "fighting with piracy", which makes life for legal sellers and musicians much more difficult but pirates in the distant regions usually successfully manage to escape it. So, it is very difficult to establish the distribution of CDs not only into Europe (a lot of bureaucratic barriers) but even over the limits of some big cities. More than that, little provincial shops eagerly take big whole-sale of pop-music or co-operate with the pirates and not many of them have a big music catalogue - they are usually directed to satisfy the demand for the "pop-corn music" "Soyz Music" co-operates with "SPV", but it's one-direction co-operation, I mean "Soyz" releases "SPV" production but not vice-versa. When there will be signed contracts between studios about a regular and full scale distribution of the Russian CDs abroad, so then there will appear the CDs of the Eastern European bands in the shops all over the world, the musicians will get the opportunity to buy more high class instruments and as the consequence to record more quality material and the labels to make European tours. Let the listener decide what is good and what is not so good. The winners will be both: studios and musicians and what is most important - head-bangers, as music will become more variable. Probably the merge of cultures and traditions will give birth to some new trends in Metal. It's all very interesting and it can be unprofitable only for the people of pop-music as their piece of pie will be taken by new musicians, I don't think that well-known bands will lose something from that - if I listened to Iron Maiden, I will continue to listen to them and buy their CDs, despite the appearance of other bands, which I also like.

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# 10 - We're talking about Russia all the time, but you're in fact from Almaty in Kasakhstan. Is there any notable Metal scene in Kazakhstan or are you pretty much on your own? I know Plastilinovy Jinn, but they're not really pure Heavy Metal, and apart from that, I haven't heard much about Kazakh Hard Rock and Metal.

JT: Yes, Metal scene exists but it is somehow specific. First of all, in fact it is all underground, bands, which have released their music abroad the country we can count by the fingers of one hand. Second, practically all existing bands are oriented at American commercial nu-metal or brutal styles. In our city only there are about 30-40 active bands, but when I'm asked which bands I can recommend, I'm usually at a loss. We have a band, called "Nefornat", which plays not very heavy death metal of the old style; we have brutal bands, which lack a real metal background. But when I'm asked, "Where's Heavy? Where' Prog, Power, Speed or Thrash?" I have to put my eyes down. The things is that in the 80-ties there were a lot of Hard Rock and Prog bands and they all had a very high level: "Triumvirat", "Forpost", "Vist", "Terminal", "13", "Federation"- I can continue the list, but by 1994-95 they all split up. The reason of it is that in these years a financial system, that was established in the former USSR has collapsed and together with that there collapsed the system of rock clubs and new masters didn't see any profit in making live concerts, buying costly equipment, preferring phonogram pop-music. . The bands lost the opportunity to give concerts and rehearse. They were not used to rehearse in the basements or rent a rehearsing room and equipment for their own money and couldn't survive through that time.

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# 11 - Talking about your home country: You're from Kazakhstan, but you sing in Russian and if I may say so, you don't really look like Kazakh, so I would think that you're all of Russian (or other European / Slavic) descent. Is that true?

JT. That's right! We live in a very multinational country. Here everything has so much mixed up, that it's difficult to say who is of which nationality. If I speak for myself, I can say that I'm half German (by the way, the German community in Kazakhstan is very big, despite the fact that the three thirds of it have left for Germany), I also have some Greek blood, some Ukrainian and a little bit of Russian one! He-he-he! Our vocalist's grandmother was a Gypsy and that is really felt in his personality! The members of Holy Dragons were mainly of Slavic/European origin, but that doesn't mean that I have some racist views, it's not at all like that! In the fist line-up of Axcess all the members but me were Kazakh. I have made a conclusion that in representatives of oriental nations there prevail family values, children, career-making-necessary to provide for their families and the majority of this ethnical category are oriented at more stable and predictable spheres of activity, than music and Heavy Metal in particular. That is why, not many of them, having finished their University studies, continue to deal with music.
Chris: Yeah, that's true. We're not Kazakh, but I can't say that I'm purely Russian too: I have some Polish origin, some Ukraine, some Russian too.

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# 12 - If so, how does it feel to live in an independent Kazakhstan after the crumbling of the USSR. Are there any ethnical or religious problems between the Russian population and the native Kazakhs? Is the Russian population fully integrated in the "new" Kazakh society or are there any resentments against the former "imperialist" rulers?

JT: There are no big problems, it's not the Baltic States or Ukraine!
There are some interesting matters. First of all, a religious one. We never had a "warrior" - type Islam or religious fanatics. Our country is very religious tolerant. That's right, our Muslims observe their religious holidays, traditions, but nobody is imposing anything! If you meet a woman on the street, wearing "hidzhab" (Muslim religious clothes) or a man, wearing traditional Muslim costume (by the way, a chance to meet such characters in the streets of London or Paris is much higher than here!) you can be 95% sure that these people are foreigners. Faith is inside us, and the purely show- off attributes of it are displayed by either fanatics or by some not very smart people.
The second matter is that we have lots of mixed nation families. A have a lot of acquaintances and you can't tell by their appearance to which nationality they belong. It's already the relationship of nations by blood.

The third matter is the Russian language. It is and it will be in the nearest future the language of "professional sphere". I'll explain it. If a person in the frameworks of his professional activity is going beyond the usual everyday level and commonly known things he needs to have the information sources for maybe some workouts or upgrading his qualifications. You can take this information from books or Internet, but there are very few scientific books in Kazakh and they are very old and some contain mistakes or very old information. In contrast to it, in Russian there are lots of translations of any scientific, engineering or any kind of literature. The same concerns Internet. Kazakh language sites exist, but they contain practically no valuable information. And so, if a person wants to achieve something in his professional activity, he must have a fluent command of Russian and preferably English or any other European language. That's why many Kazakh prefer to educate their children in Russian language schools, leaving Kazakh as a "home" language, though now there are some measures for the popularisation of Kazakh, but these measures are not working yet.
Sure, there happen some small incidents, but mainly like quarrels between neighbours - mostly between rural dwellers with the low educational and cultural level. But in most cases the reason of such conflicts is too much beer in a company, he-he-he! And the last bottle, which can not be divided! He-he-he.

Chris: To tell you the truth, I still miss the Soviet Union very much and many people of our generation too. It was a great country and it's a pity that it doesn't exist anymore. In fact, Kazakhstan is a very peaceful multicultural and multi-ethnical state. Here we have about 100 nationalities living together and they all have peaceful co-existence.
: What concerns a new, independent Kazakhstan, there has been a lot of reforms here: economical, political, Kazakhstan is trying to integrate into the world community as an equal member as much as possible. There no clashes either religious or ethnical between the ethnic Kazakh and the people of other nations and here we don't have any resentments or misunderstanding between the Russians, Kazakh, Ukrainians or people of any other nation.
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# 13 - As a band I think you'll often have to leave your country and travel to Russia for gigs or for business reasons. Are there any difficulties in the exchange with Russia and passing the border between Kazakhstan and Russia, or is that easy to handle?

JT. Earlier, it was necessary to have an international passport, now you can just have your ID card, no visas, no custom declaration or any other documents, you can travel freely and cross the border ten times a day. Everything is very simple - the border is only custom control, which is intended to act as a barrier for drug trafficking and illegal migration from China and Muslim countries. The trouble is that the traditional drug routes from Afghanistan to Russia go through Kazakhstan and I think that this barrier will not be out of place.

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# 14 - I've heard from South African and Namibian bands that the Metal scene in those countries mainly consists of Afrikaners and other people of white / European descent, and that there's rarely any native African or black person coming to the gigs etc. How are things in Kazakhstan? Is the metal scene mainly made up by the Russians and Ukrainians living there, or are the native Kazakhs (Asians / Muslims) also involved in Kazakh Heavy Metal to some degree?


JT. Well, there is no strict division between the public, but let's say, there are less percent of Kazakh on a metal gig. Though I knew many Kazakh guys, playing Metal and just head-bangers. Probably the reason is in the family pattern, about which I have already said.

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# 15 - Is there any Metal going on in the bordering nations of Kazakhstan which seem to be and more Muslim dominated, like Usbekistan, Tadshikistan and Turkmenistan? (I just know YAT-KHA from Tuva, and I totally love that band, albeit not really Heavy Metal either. Do you know them?)

JT: I know about a dozen of bands from neighbouring Kyrgyzstan and I know about the existence of a few beginning bands. But still they are all in deep underground and they are more brutally oriented-like "true black" or "death metal", though there are some pop-rock groups. Uzbekistan, during some 15 years for me was a "closed country", nobody knew what was going on there... Many people thought even that there no more signs of a normal civil society there and everything that is shown is serves as a cover for journalists, that everybody left the country long ago and there were only Islamic fundamentalists left. . Not long ago, this "iron curtain" was lifted a bit and it turned out that despite the isolation of the country in general, there are lots of people oriented at European cultural values and many bands are trying to play music, including Metal. Unfortunately, because of the low financial level of the population the majority of these bands can't make a good recording - people play on instruments, made in USSR or Check Republic, very old ones as they were made 20-30 years ago, the result of this country being closed for rather a long time. About Turkmenistan and Tajikistan, I heard that there were some bands. Some have released their CDs on one of the Russian labels. But it seems to me, that it's very difficult for the bands to work, in Tadjikistan because of the low level of living and in Turkmenistan there is a very specific political set-up, which reminds me of North Korea.
I heard Yat-Ha live a couple of times but it was about 10 years ago.

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# 16 - But let's leave the geo-musical questions now and return to your new album. It's called 'Wolki Odina', 'Wolves of Odin' and most of the lyrics deal with old Nordic/Germanic mythology. What does fascinate you so much about the topic? Has it to do with the Russian nation initially being founded by "the Rus", who were Vikings, or do you think those are just suitable tales for Metal music in general?

JT: Now in Russia, Ukraine and Belorussia there are a lot of bands, who play Slavic Pagan (sometimes it is mixed with traditional Black Metal rarely Power Metal). Actually, the difference from Pagan is that they use old Slavic melodies and a different pantheon of pagan gods, but in general it is very close to the German. I'm much closer to the Northern European paganism but I like the Slavic paganism too, I think it's the "voice of blood". I can't say that I belong to the native believers, but I'm very close to it and I like it- in the album, that we're currently recording I have turned to the Turk paganism, which I also like very much! But the topic of ancient Greek or Roman gods, the favourite theme of many Northern American bands, doesn't attract me very much.

Chris: Well, I have always liked the Vikings and Scandinavian/Germanic mythology stories and folklore, I was always attracted by this stuff. I don't know, may be it's in my blood too, who knows?
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# 17 - In 'The Light Of Fires' you're talking about a "great stone idol with the face of a French girl suppressing the world under its stone feet". Are you talking about the Statue of Liberty here? Is it a political statement? Is it about Bush's "war on terror" in some regard?

Chris: You've got it right!!!! It was exactly the Statue of Liberty, that we meant in this song! But it's not the only the war on terror, that Mr. Bush has proclaimed. It concerns the role, that the USA are trying to take, the role of "the world policeman", the attempts to dictate the whole world how to live, the power of a mighty dollar and it's servants - the Wall Street clerks and the main thing that it kills our souls, what we're going to leave to our generations after ourselves? Only the light of the fires of our wars, religious and national conflicts?

JT: That's right! It was strange to see like in many countries, which are considered democratic, thousands of people with slogans against the war in Iraq and the governments, chosen by these people, completely ignored their opinion. But they didn't forget for a second the interests of the transnational financial corporations. Bush is just a puppet in the hands of the big business guys and everything was turned that the American war machine started to work for the interests of some private persons. If there were no terrorists, they should be invented to give freedom to some politicians. I think that we should put an end to terrorism and I consider it was correct to make such an antiterrorist operations like it was done by the USA in Afghanistan for example. But when under the cover of "establishing of the democracy" the governments start to ignore the opinions of common people it's not correct. Too many victims, too much blood! If "hawks" follow such logic, when fighting with terrorism, so for a start they should bomb the districts of London, Paris or Marseilles-you know, what I'm talking about - it's ridiculous! Well, everything reminds me of an old Texas story when "good guys decided to give a lesson to the bad guys" and the good guys are those, who have bigger guns! Ha-ha-ha!

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# 18 - A lot of the lyrics are going in a Viking direction on the one hand and in a fantasy direction on the other hand, but all of them with warriors and heroes, battles, courage and honour and the pride in Heavy Metal (especially in the title track)... So to speak it's a bit in the "Manowar-way". Do you like the typical "true metal"-lyrics? I like such poetry, but don't you fear that some critics might come up with the accusation that you're bathing in cliches? Or do you simply not care about what those critics might say?

Chris: First of all, there are no many songs devoted to Heavy Metal in Russian language. And second, I don't care much about the critics: I just like this topic and I like to sing about the things that I like, but if the critics don't like that, it's their problem! :))) Yes, Manowar guys have started this topic and everyone is free to continue that! :))) And by the way, a lot of metalheads like to hear songs about metal, it makes them feel like they are not alone, to feel like they belong to a big and honoured community and that's great!


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# 19 - You also use melodic and speedy guitars, but as mentioned before, you leave out any keyboards and sweet high-pitched vocals. Holger sings really powerful and aggressive. Is it important for you not to be considered as a part of the generic European Melodic Power Metal-movement with bands like Stratovarius, Rhapsody, Edguy, Freedom Call, and whoever might come to mind?

JT: These bands are simply "not my glass of beer". For me much closer is Gamma Ray of "Land of the Free" period, classical old Rage or Iron Savior, Judas Priest in the times of "Painkiller" or let's say Chris Impellitery. I like powerful, aggressive music, I don't like the broken rhythms very much or to be honest I don't like them at all. When Rhapsody appeared I listened to them with pleasure, but when there appeared hundreds of their clones, that kills music!
By the way, unfortunately on the territory of CIS (in particular of Russia and Ukraine) most of the bands, who play Power Metal went the Rhapsody and Labyrinth's way, except just veterans - Aria and some bands, founded in the middle of 80-ties, though all these bands play Heavy (sometimes with Thrash), but not really Power!

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# 20 - Which bands did influence you most, when growing up to be Metal musicians yourselves? Any of those, that I have mentioned in my review as comparisons? And where do you draw those Russian, folky melody lines from that frequently appear in your music? Is it a specific artist that has inspired you here, or is it simply in your blood?

JT: I was greatly influenced from one hand by the old Hard Rock bands: Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Rainbow, Black Sabbath; from the other hand by such band like Pink Floyd, though having listened to such an album like "Wolves of Odin", it's difficult to believe that. Then I was influenced by Annihilator, Megadeth or Metal Church but the biggest influence for me personally is everything connected with Iron Maiden or Ritchie Blackmore. Blackmore gave me a lot as a guitarist; I have worked out my guitar-playing style by playing his riffs and solos! And later it were Judas Priest, Manowar, Helloween, Gamma Ray and Blind Guardian, plus I'm (he-he) the fan of DIO for almost 20 years!

Those folky melody lines...mmm...I have never thought about that! I listen to lots of folk music but it's mostly Irish folk like Dave Spillian, or musician, playing on the edge of folk, like Mike Oldfield. I think that it's the influence of Iron Maiden most of all. By the way, I've noticed one interesting detail: on "Killers" (I just adore this album of IRONS!) there's a song "Chenghis Khan". Well, it is a typically folklore Kazakh melody! I'm just at a loss where they could hear it! But from the other hand I'm not very happy about the fact that during all those years that I've spent among the musicians not a single Kazakhstan band never have even tried to do something like that!!!!! I feel that we should quickly improve the situation. In the new album, which is now at the stage of vocal recording, there is such a song, though we've used Celtic melodies there too. The song is called by the name of "Tengry" the ancient Turk god.

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# 21 - Judging from your music, I would dare saying that there must also be some traditional German Metal that you like a lot... is that true? If so, which are your favourite bands from my home?

JT: Exactly! The majority of our favourite bands are from Germany! If we start from the very beginning it's Scorpions, the band, which here in CIS was always more popular than Bon Jovi, Guns n'Roses and Kiss and bands like them all taken together!:) They've always mega-stars here and I still think that they had great albums in the 70-80-ties and the modern Power Metal scene owes a lot to that band! We shouldn't forget such extraordinary guitarists like Uli John Roth and Michael Shanker! If we take a heavier part of music, for me "number one" is Helloween in the times of Kay Hansen and of course Gamma Ray. Yeah, I like what Helloween is doing now, but still I prefer the old Hansen Helloween! Then goes Blind Guardian, their earlier albums have influenced our band a lot; then Rage, Sinner, Scanner, Heaven Gates. Plus to that I sometimes like to listen to the old German art- rock like Eloy, Tangerine Dream and other "Krautrock" like Amon Duul, Can or Guru Guru - these are very old bands but they still give a portion of inspiration! Axxis is sometimes very pleasant to listen! Then, I can not keep from mentioning classics like Accept and Running Wild - mostly I like Wolf Hoffman may be because, I'm a guitarist! Ha-ha-ha! Then I like Iron Savior, Primal Fear, Paragon, Wizard and sure Masterplan, which has occupied my player this month! In Germany there are a great number of "correct" metal bands and I think that Germany is Heavy Metal Kingdom №1, though I like many old British and American bands and new Swedish ones, though the latter for me are sometimes too much "produced".

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# 22 - Talking about German bands, and talking with a musician from the former Soviet Union, I simply have to mention U.D.O. and / or ACCEPT at that point. Udo Dirkschneider is one of the few Western Metal "stars" that seems to care a lot for his fans in the East. The guys have toured the CIS, have co-operated with ARIA, had a "Live in Russia" album and a song with some Russian lyrics... Have you ever seen them playing live in your region or somewhere in Russia? If so, what do you think about them and their connection to Eastern Eurasia?

JT: UDO and ACCEPT have always been stars here together with Metallica, AC/DC, Deep Purple and Scorpions - 15-20 years ago the logos of these bands decorated all fences and school desks, still the most disciplined pupils (to whom I didn't belong, fortunately) draw them on the back of their exercise books! Now, everything is drawn by the rap graffiti....
I visited UDO's concert in 1998, when he came to our city. The house was full (the biggest concert hall in our city, 5 thousands of people), great sound, great job! A little before UDO, there came Nazareth- the sound was awful! We still have a lot of people, who think that "German Metal is UDO and a bit of Running Wild!" and they've never heard about Helloween, how ridiculous it could seem!

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# 23 - How are your touring activities? Do you tour a lot? Do you also play outside Kazakhstan / Russia / former USSR?

JT: Currently practically we are giving no concerts. First of all because we're having line-up problems (no bassist and drummer at present) and second - financial matters. We all the time get offers to come and play in different parts of the world but when the organisers of concerts learn how much is to bring the band to the place of the supposed concert, their enthusiasm vanishes in the air. So, here we laugh that "we're a very expensive band, but we'll get nothing from it!" So, to give concerts we should become a well-known band that concert managers could be able to pay for the air-tickets!

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# 24 - Plans for the future: Do you have any touring plans for the near future? Maybe any Western European dates or festivals some day?

Chris: Well, because of the reasons, mentioned above we don't have any distinct touring plans. But in case we overcome those difficulties and there will be somebody from the organising committees of the festivals, who gets an interest in a Central Asian band and invites us, we'll surely come and play!

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# 25 - Then there'll be two re-releases shortly: First a new version of "Twilight of The Gods" with a new cover and remastered. Have you been dissatisfied with the original version?

JT: The thing is that the first two releases were made by Metalism Recs. together with "Soyz" label. "Soyz" is the biggest CIS label, it releases a lot of pop-music and licensed Western Metal, but it is not much interested in working with the metal bands, except that you can see on the covers of such magazines like "Metal Hammer", "Rock Hard" and "Kerrang!". When the first party of CDs was over, we decided not to co-operate with this clumsy machine and to transfer fully to the Metalism Recs. One more thing: the first releases were done rather in a hurry and we were not satisfied with its design. As we've decided not to reprint the albums but to re-release them, so together with Metalism Recs. we decided to make their remastering. We will not change radically the sound of the albums, so you needn't worry, the sound will just become more pleasant!

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# 26 - Then Metalism will also put out 'Dragon Steel' which previously was only available from yourselves if I'm not mistaken. It will have English lyrics then. Why will you use English lyrics for that re-release, while all your regular albums are sung in Russian?

JT: It's because of the lyrics. It' s difficult to explain when you don't know Russian, but I'll try. If we pronounce one and the same sentence in Russian and in English, the Russian variant will be a bit longer. Originally the lyrics was written in English and it were mostly short, cut phrases, and when translating into Russian, we had to simplify them and as the result the texts became primitive sometimes. We've managed to translated the lyrics for "Thunder in the Night" and "House of the Winds" - in these albums phrases are a bit longer than on "Dragon Steel", but still the Russian language lyrics is a bit worse than the English one is there. Having tried several variants of translation, we decided to reject this idea. So, now, when we're making song in two languages, it's more convenient to write first the lyrics in Russian, so in English we have lots of space for the development of any thought.

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# 27 - I actually think that the Russian lyrics are something that makes your band very special, and I hope that you'll continue to write and sing in Russian in the future. Do I have to fear that you'll completely change to English lyrics one day?

JT: No, you needn't to be afraid of that. But we have future plans to make two versions of each album: in Russian and in English.

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# 28 - So that's it for now. I realised that I maybe bore you with too many questions, but we rarely have a band from Kazakhstan for an interview, so there has been a lot of stuff that I want to know... Feel free to announce or add whatever you like.

Chris/JT: To crown it all, we'd like to make a little quotation:
"Feel the power of the steel
We will get the score
We were born to fight and win
This Glory War!" (Holy Dragons "Glory War" - "Thunder in the Night")
Stay Metal and all the best!

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So long,
Rьdiger.