Metal Hammer Germany 02/2024
My translation
Interview (part 2):
I had that thought with 'Rain On The Graves', where a lot of things sound very spontaneous and you also seem to apply unusual vocal techniques.
The piece has a very special genesis. I was at a wedding in a very beautiful part of England, the Lake District. Many 18th and 19th century poets lived there, including William Wordsworth.
He is buried in Grasmere,where the wedding took place. So I went on a little pilgrimage, walked around the church and looked for William Wordsworth. And there he was!
It was raining, gray, gloomy, very British, very melancholy. I thought of rain on gravestones - I liked the expression; I didn't know what to do with it, but one day I might be able to use it for lyrics for a song. I stood there for half an eternity. I can't say exactly why ... Was it
the irony of seeing that all that is left of this great poet is a square stone in the ground? And what would he think of it? I pondered these thoughts.
Then Roy and I were sitting opposite each other with guitars in his living room; we hadn't spoken much for half an hour, strummed and waited for something to kick off and get us out of a little creative lull.
I said, "Z, why don't we do something in the style of early Fleetwood Mac, something bluesy,something like 'Green Manalishi' or 'Oh Well', with a simple beat, and 'Crossroads'-style, where a guy meets the devil, something with that kind of vibe."He hits an occult-sounding riff, we played around with it, and then the line "There is rain on the graves" comesto mind again. It developed so quickly, my brain was exploding with ideas and we had to record it immediately so that we could sort it out later. We then came to the middle section, andI realized: It no longer sounds like Fleetwood Mac. (laughs out loud)
But that's the point: you start with something and end up somewhere completely different. Then I wrote the lyrics; the vocals in the chorus are quite high, and I could have sung the verses in a different key but I liked the way my voice sounded ...
...namely deep, rushed, and a bit Spoken Word-like ...
Yes!"In a country churchyard ..." - it sounds a bit like Johnny Cash. I thought that was cool and we left it at that.
Then we sent it to Mistheria (aka Giuseppe Lampieri, who completes the studio band along side drummer Dave Moreno - editor's note) in Rome and asked him to do whatever he wanted with the keyboards. He sent about twenty keyboard tracks back to us, from which we were to choose what we wanted. I listened through them, and before the bridge it literally blew me away: "Holy fuck, turn that up!" In the sixties there was this
artist Screaming Lord Such, this madman who was brought on stage in a coffin to jump out of it screaming.
That keyboard sounded to me like Screaming Lord Such with his insane organ player.
While recording, I asked Roy if we could put an effect on my voice; not all the time, just on occasional words. He doubled the voice and lowered
it down an octave. It now sounds like a voice from hell - that fits perfectly, because we're talking to the devil at a cemetery."I'll be here when you're long gone, I'll see you in that grave." That's how we work; we threw ideas around and saw what fits. As a result we added lots of little details to the pieces,vlike little Easter eggs. That's what makes the songs interesting!
My attention span is very short; I get bored quickly. With a lot of Maiden songs we end up repeating the chorus an awful lot.
"The red and the black, the redand the black, the red and the black." Somehow that seems to work live, but personally I think to myself: Okay, yes, we've already done that. Now, can we please move on to the next idea?
When we were working on 'Eternity Has Failed', I re-recorded the song again, actually went further back tothe way it was on the demo, to a more
Black Sabbath-esque' Heaven And Hell'-vibe. I played the keyboard part at the beginning in Roy's living room; the keyboard sound I had chosen
was "trumpet" because I had Tarantino or Morricone in my head. ButI only played it on a modest keyboard, and it was never my intention that it would end up on an album. I wanted real Mariachi trumpets to get people in a wild west or desert mood right from the start!
Roy then found this Peruvian flutist who brought in this ghostly flute playing; these are not Mariachi trumpets but I didn't mind because it sounds fantastic.
You were talking about things that have never been heard from you before this album. For me, the one that stands out is 'Shadow Of The Gods': a larger than life piece that evolves from an orchestral ballad into prog rock before it gets heavy!
It was written in 2014 and was almost finished at the time, we just had to put real drums on it, and I have recorded a few more vocals for the heavy part. I had already thought about the comic and the idea of putting the human soul in a kind of gel. That's what the lyrics are about: "One drop creates the light" - it is the act of creation of the universe. A very cool song! When we recorded the track, we didn't yet have
5.1 and Atmos mixes - but now we do. There is a stereo mix of the album, which sounds great, but the Atmos mix sounds incredible! On certain
tracks it works better than others. For many heavy metal bands it doesn't make much sense to mix in Atmos because the sound has to be frontal - there is very little that moves in the room. Some of our songs like 'Many Doors To Hell' don't differ much from thes tereo mix.
But 'Shadows Of The Gods' - wow, the Atmos mix is incredible, because there's space and timpani and brass - the orchestra
just flies around. It works wonderfully!
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