 INTERVIEW WITH GÜNTER
First of all I must admit that it’s a great pleasure for us to have you back in business…
How do you feel that you returned with your new band CRIMSON CULT to discography?
Alex and me always knew that we will do a new band together, and last year the time was right :-)
It seems that Alexander Hilzensauer is something like your soulmate since you’re playing together in the BIG HEAT days I think! Did you face any kind of problems all these years of your partnership?
Not really! For the fact that we are living in the same house, we never lost our personal contact.
You are absolutely right, it’s more than a musical partnership, we are very close friends for over 20 years now.
What does the name of your new band stand for? Any particular meaning behind these words?
Not really; we watched the movie CRIMSON CULT with Boris Karloff by accident, and we thought that the name looks cool and sounds cool!
Can you tell us a few things about the cover of your album? Who was responsible for this bizarre painting?
That’s not a painting! I know this “guy” for years, he is hanging at the outside of a castle and everytime when I met him I thought to myself: “hi my friend, your time will come”. I made a photograph of this fallen angel and our artwork artist gave him the right look. The background innersleeve pics of the cover are made all by myself in a flowstone cave in ireland.
How you got in touch with Dockyard 1? Was it because of the demo that took a ravishing review at the German Rock Hard magazine that draw their interest?
Dockyard1 contacted us after the heard of a german journalist that I am back in the scene again.
The “Demo Of The Month” in the german Rock Hard followed later.
I guess that everybody would like to know the reasons behind the split up of STYGMA IV especially when everything seemed to go well with the band?
It looked so, but we had big personal problems after our last tour through germany, and therefore I had to decide to stop the whole thing. It was not funny at all because we played together nearly 10 years in the same line up. And the best time was at the beginning under the banner STIGMATA, when we toured over whole europe and GREECE as well. I will never forget this concerts in your country!!!
Who is responsible for the STYGMA IV site and merchandise as well?
Me, naturally ;-)
I let the homepage alive as thank you and memorial for all fans and friends.
It’s not a common secret that from the days of STIGMATA your sound was more than characteristic and quite close to the forefather of heavy metal Tony Iommi. Do you consider yourself as one of the spiritual children of his majesty?
I always was a huge admirer of mister Iommi, as everybody knows. His sound, his riffs, great and dark.
To continue the previous question do you think that being influenced by BLACK SABBATH marked your way of songwriting all these years?
In the beginning of my career for shure, nowadays I try to put all musical influences aside when writing songs.
A couple of weeks ago i was interviewing a young and promising band from the Southern part of Germany and he was insisting that in his area and Austria too, what we call heavy/power hasn’t the most appropriate response by promoters and fans as well! Do you share the same opinion or not?
Yes, that’s right.
But we will try to remove ourselve a little from this powermetal thing with the next CRIMSON CULT album.
Since the STYGMA IV days the lyrical aspects were one of the most strong and characteristic topic that simply makes the difference comparing to other bands! Are you still angry with the world we’re living, the corruption of politicians, the human loneliness in your lyrics?
Nothing has changed in our world since we came up with this dark lyrics, and therefore it is very important for me to write about all this scenarios; but for the fact, as a big fan of horrormovies, I have to add some vampire lyrics too Walter will be responsible for some lyrics on the new album too.
I was highly impressed by the vocals of Walter Stuefer… How did you found him and do you think that his unique interpretation pushed the final result of the album to a higher level?
Me too!!!
We saw and heard Walter with his coverband and knew it! This is THE man for CRIMSON CULT.
I think you will all be astonished when you here Walter sing in the future; he is getting better and better, I love him!! At this point I must say that Walter has a very fine character too; I never met a singer before with such a friendly disposition.
I consider the last song of the album “Centre of the universe” the epitome of CRIMSON CULT’s philosophy about music and in 8 minutes you succeeded to put all of your influences, your artistic point of view about heavy metal… What do you think of this particular song? Is the most suitable tune for someone that don’t know what C.C. is about to get in touch?
With STYGMA IV we had this progressive influences in nearly every song; with CRIMSON CULT we try to bring all songs more to the point, but there will always be one song to feature ourselve as “musicians”.
Especially our drummer Peter Bachmayer is such an outstanding talent with no technical limitations and great ideas. We will do a continuance of “Center Of The Universe” on the next album.
You’ve probably one of the most informative sites I’ve ever seen, anything that a fan wants to know about CRIMSON CULT! Do you agree with many people’s opinion that nowdays the site of each band is the mirror of their music…
Thank you very much!
We had this idea of the best service online for all fans too with STYGMA IV. It’s our expectation that we have regarding homepages from other bands, therefore we do it ;-)
It was a huge surprise for me reading that your favourite country is Greece at your profile… To tell you the truth, memories still hunting me from your magnificent gig in Athens many years ago… One of the most heartbreaking performances I’ve ever witnessed… What do you remember from that night?
We played in athens twice, and both nights where absolute brilliant.
The fans, the atmosphere, the food ;-)
I remember it was some years before our first gig in your country, when I travelled to greece for the first time to the island lesvos. I went down the gangway, put the first feet on the ground, and I felt: this is my country
Now I am visiting greece every year, I like your folkmusic too. But most of all it is the warmhearted kind of the greek people, I love so much!
Do you have any schedule plans for upcoming gigs and how difficult is for you to “transfer” the mood and the atmosphere of your studio recording?
We will see if it will be easier to tour with the next album. It’s not so hard to reproduce the atmosphere of our studiowork on stage, like in STYGMA IV we are using sequencers for the keyboard parts.
Listening over the years the complete discography of BIG HEAT/STIGMATA/STYGMA IV, my point of view is that you’ve always had a unique, individual sound and albums such as the stunning “The court of eternity” proves it! Which is your favorite album of all and the song that will always be the highlight of your career?
Like you and many others I too prefer the “Court Of Eternity” album. Believe it or not, I had the idea for “Crusade Of Lies” on a small beach in crete. Songwise I like “Fever Dream” and “Sleep” very much.
Which are the current plans for the band to promote your album? Any chance to catch you live in Greece?
I hope that CRIMSON CULT will get the chance to tour and finally to play in greece.
Thank you very much for your time, the last words belong to you...
Thanx to all of you who bought our album on the legal way ;-)
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