Voices Of Destiny

Interview date

Février 2010

Interviewer

Ostianne

I N T E R V I E W

Interview Chris Gutjahr, Lukas Palme


The album will be release in the end of this month. How the promotion is going?

Chris: So far the promotion is very promising. People can already listen to a complete song on Massacre's website, there will be many reviews and ads in magazines in the near future and we will also show up on some CD compilations.

As "From the Ashes" is your first album, can you introduce your band?

Chris: Voices of Destiny consists of five members. Chris, the guitarist and Jens, the bass player started the band in spring 2004. After a short while they invited Erik, the drummer and Lukas, the Keyboarder to join their project. In October 2005 after playing a few smaller shows in the area the decision was made to separate from their singer at that time. Already in November of the same year Maike joined the band to complete the perfect line-up of Voices of Destiny.

"Voices of Destiny" has a strong meaning. Why did you choose this name for the band?

Chris: Actually it was a spontaneous idea to name our band "Voices of Destiny". Our drummer Erik came up with it and we liked the sound and the meaning. It just fits the style of our music perfectly. Anyway we do not attach too much importance to the name. It's all about the music.

"From the Ashes", what does mean this title for you?

Chris: The title "From the Ashes" and the complete album itself is a request and an encouragement to consider the results of past happenings and to start all over again. Additionally we just found it ironic to give our first album a title that sounds like a second chance or a rebirth although there was nothing before.

What were your inspirations when you wrote this album?

Chris: Every single song has its very individual background and is connected to personal experiences. Most of them are about feelings, opinions and states of mind. Some other level criticism to the society and its effects on the earth. There was not one special theme we wanted this album to be about.

And what were your states of mind during the recording?

Chris: The recording process passed off in pretty much the way we wanted it to. Of course there were a few challenging moments in which we had problems to stick to the schedule or even were in some kind of creative crisis. But we were able to solve these situations. We were always focused and excited about what the album would sound like in the end.

Lukas does the growls on the album, but it’s not the main sing. Sometimes, it's even more like backing vocals. Why his voice stays in the background?

Chris: We are still in the process of integrating these vocals in our music. The idea came with the endeavour to put some kind of contrast in our songs and make them sound more heavy and aggressive where it's needed. But they were never meant to take the part of the lead vocals. Although there will probably be certain songs in which Lukas will be doing more growls and be equal to Maike's voice. We will see on the next album.

You are coming from Germany, but all the songs on this album are in English. Do you think your music doesn’t fit with German language or is it for another reason that there is no German song on "From the Ashes"?

Chris: The explanation that our "music doesn't fit with German language" is pretty close to reality. In the opinion of Lukas as the songwriter the English language is more singable and more fun to perform than the German language according to Metal music. In most cases it sounds more emotional and poetic.

What give you the desire to do symphonic/epic metal?

Chris: We all just love this kind of music. It was not like that we picked a style in which we considered our chances to be best to become a famous band. We wanted to do something heavy, fast but at the same time atmospheric with a classical touch.

If you had to describe your universe in three words, which ones would it be and why?

Lukas: To describe my universe as "my view of the world" in three words I would say unfair – inhospitable – challenging. There are so many things happening which should not happen and make you want to hide in a perfect dream world. And when you look at it in a realistic way you will just have to accept it and work on yourself to hold your ground.

For you, what is the ultimate recognition for Voices of Destiny?

Chris: To play a huge show for thousands of people and just be sure that they share our passion for this music. That's all our band is about.

According to you, does the success can change your view of music and your work?

Chris: As it is our debut album, which isn't released yet, we don't know what to expect and what success means. Anyway our view of our work already changed in the way, that we will work on this project even harder. But we hope that our view of music as a wonderful art and our passion will never change.

There are a lot of reproaches, which can be done to the symphonic metal as: a lot of bands don’t have a lot of inspiration and do the same music than others bands, or they just are copies of known bands as Nightwish or other bands. What do you think about this sort of general points?

Chris: People generalize it too much – they see the line-up and think: the same line-up = the same music. Every band has its own characteristics and develops itself in a kind of unique direction. But this is not a problem which only symphonic metal bands have to deal with. In most cases that bands get badmouthed it's people who do not even know very much about that certain style of music.

You know, in France, we see Germany as a big country of metal. There are a lot of bands, which come from your country, the Wacken Open Air and a lot of festivals. So we idealize your country and think there is a lot of tolerance for this music! But how is it in reality?

Chris: It is not like the German mainstream would listen to Metal. There is a big Metal community but you can't compare it to the masses that listen to other more popular music like Hip Hop, House, Rock, etc. And this is a reason for bands like us having problems to be able to play live and present ourselves.

What do you plan to do for the upcoming months? Maybe a tour in Germany ?

Chris: We're planning to play as many live shows as possible. Of course, if there is a chance to go on tour it would definitely be the best thing that can happen to us.

And with which bands would you love to tour?

Chris: There are definitely a lot of bands we would like to tour with. Everyone has his own preferences, but since we are close to the release of our debut album it would be a great promotion to play some shows with bands that fit our style.

And finally, have you something to say to end this interview?

Chris: Hi out there, we are Voices of Destiny from Germany and this year we will come up with our debut album "From the Ashes". We gave our best to create a good metal album and hope you will enjoy listening to our music as we enjoyed producing it. Keep rocking!