End-Of-Year Review 2015

► Lord of the Lost left an eventful and busy year behind. The band around frontman Chris 'The Lord' Harms is known for their stylistic experiments anyway, thinking for example of the salsa-metal-piece “La Bomba”, but the 5 gentlemen never wandered thus far off the band-typical glam-goth-path like in 2015. In spring, “Swan Songs” was released, an acoustic-album with 13-LOTL songs in an orchestral-ballad style. The corresponding acoustic-tour followed, the concert in Hamburg was filmed and captured on the “A Night To Remember” DVD for eternity, which was published at the end of the year. Prior to this, in July, with “Full Metal Whore” there was the so far hardest release from the band, a complete contrast-program with a little scandal around the provoking-slinky artwork or tourposter with the same picture. Chris Harms recalls the year.

You released both “Swan Songs” and the “Full Metal Whore” EP. There couldn't be more contrast, at least looking at your previous works. Was 2015 therefore for Lord of the Lost also an year of extremes?

Retroactively, it's quite hard for me to accept we're really talking about just one year, it feels like a significantly longer period of time. This year was really a musical roller coaster ride, thus everything like planned. We wanted to make this year a year of extremes from the very beginning, to burst limits and to enlarge our scope, in which we want to move in the future, permanently.

When you look back on 2015 now: Did everything work like you wanted it to?

Short and crisp: Yes.

What upset you most in the last year?

What happens in the Near East and Europe: Refugee crisis, Paris, thereto new elections and trade embargoes by the big powers. There is currently a lot of mischief in the air, which puts us in an anxious mood. Some artistic sensitivities are however luxury problems and require no mention.

Please give away some internal secrets: What were your most memorable or strange experiences in 2015?

The acoustic tour might stay in our minds most emotional. About curiosities, we're always up to something before and after our shows, that's always like a group of fifth-graders. I hope we will stay like this a long time. Most weird this year was by far the participation on the Full Metal Cruise. To be trapped with 2,000 metal-heads on one of the biggest cruisers of the world, loud music, sweat and blood, where normally roulette is played or variety shows can be enjoyed. This was very, very extraordinary and we hope for a repeating. But also M'era Luna and Wacken are always highlights, and also to witness the last Blackfiel-festival was very emotional and also a great honor.

You also toured a lot offside the festival stages. How can people imagine your life on tour? How do you pass time, apart from the already mentioned fooleries?

Our life on tour is less thrilling than many imagine or want to imagine. On TV of the Lost you can only see the climaxes, and despite all fooleries, life on tour is mainly work. And depending on who from band and crew is working on which site the whole day, it could happen that you don't change a word with someone for the whole day, because there is way too much to do and because of the increasing specialization on single tasks from a growing crew, the We-feeling often has to make way for an overall objective, the great show. All the more important it is for us to spend time together with everyone in the nightliner after departing, because it's exactly this teamspirit and friendship in our band and crew that constitutes a big part of our nature.

You started some fan actions again, like the photo contest for the “Full Metal Whore”-cover. What were the most touching moments regarding this?

We just have the most incredible fans! It might be because of how we set examples with our contests, how we associate with our fans and how we share our lives with the world on TV of the Lost, or we just attract people like this. To have fans passionately like this makes us very proud and that's not natural. We always have to make this clear to ourselves. So much attention and self-affirmation are not healthy.

Since some time your active in the studio again. Can you say something about the current state of affairs?

This time, we take an unusual way in the studio. Since the album has textual and musical a quite futuristic approach, we finish the electronics at first, then we record guitars and then bass, whereas both elements, together with synths, should result in a confusable melange. Then drums and percussion are going to be recorded and maybe some more classic elements. Vocals will be recorded in between times, whenever it feels best for me. This way makes a new and differently creative process possible for us. For this endeavor, we got Garbor from Formalin on board as a co-producer. This leads to completely new facets in the electronic part of our music. As always, nothing stays as it was.

Please give a forecast on 2016. What could fans expect from Lord of the Lost?

Sadly I'm not allowed to reveal the most interesting things yet. But there are two things we are looking forward to happily: At first our ensemble-premiere on festival stages namely at Castle Rock and M'era Luna. And essentially our new album, which will be released in summer 2016. Apropos, the album title was released long ago, it's located at the end of the text from the last song on our last regular album. Have fun researching!