HoD: We're in Hannover today, in the Musikzentrum. Actually we're standing in front of it, in the bus.

Chris: Actually we're sitting in front of it.

HoD: Right, we're sitting. I have two very lovely persons with me and they can introduce themselves at first.

Chris: I am Schulz from Unzucht.

Daniel: And I am Chris Harms from Lord of the Lost.

HoD: That's a bit strange, because I had a date with Lord of the Lost and now Schulz is also here. Why?

Chris: We just thought, as we have the same record label now, we don't do anything alone.

HoD: I see, so now you will always be...?

Daniel: „You never walk alone.“

 

HoD: At first, you're playing already the second concert. You were in Madgeburg yesterday, right?

Chris: Yes.

HoD: Today is sold out, so it should be a great atmosphere and you also have two support acts.

Chris: We had two opening acts for the whole tour, which started in September, and it's already the second last concert from altogether 16. We had one opening act the whole time with us, our good friends from Darkhaus, which are also in the nightliner with us. Therefore we have this large battleship, so we all have space, with crew and two bands, there are 24 beds occupied. That's very crazy and it gets very crowded in the night. It's a lot of fun with these booze buddies. And we also had rotating opening acts on tour, for the last three dates Erdling.

HoD: Yesterday the atmosphere was also great?

Chris: It was not as great as it will be today, because Magdeburg on a Thursday is a bit difficult. Magdeburg became in general a complicated town for bands in the last years. It's a bit retrograding, like Rostock, and it's also a large venue where 1200 people fit in. When only 200 are standing there, it is much more difficult to party than in a sold out venue. But we don't control ourselves or have less fun and I hope the crowd neither, but it's for sure a harder pill to swallow than laying in a well-feathered nest, like a sold out Musikzentrum.

HoD: Tomorrow you're in Gießen and then you're on your way for the 'Christmas tour' in Herford and Chemnitz.

Chris: Right, we're playing at the Darkstorm in Chemnitz and in Herford we have a small 3-band-closing concert with Unzucht, us and Stahlmann.

Daniel: That's the 3-part-team with which we started playing at the beginning of our band history.

Chris: Yes, I think we had this combination very often.

 

HoD: You now have 5 albums on the market and...

Chris: Really? Five? Four.

HoD: Five albums. With 'Swan Songs'...

Chris: Okay, I don't really count this one. But then you're right. It are four regular loud rock-albums plus 'Swan Songs'. We see this classic-stuff more like an internal side project. It won't be called 'Lord of the Lost' but 'The Lord of the Lost Ensemble' in the future, to separate it better. Therefore it will be clearer, because many newcomers can't really separate it and ask themselves 'Why is this album that calm?'. Four loud albums and the calm one.

HoD: When I listened to the first four albums I thought 'That's Lord of the Lost'. But when 'Swan Songs' came out I thought, before I listened to the album and because Lord of the Lost is quite loud and hard, 'How does this work as an ensemble, as a classical ensemble?'. And I thought it was really great, but I'm interested why you got the idea. I know many bands do something like this, many big bands already made a classic-album, but you're existing for not a long time. How did you get the idea to make a classic-album?

Chris: The idea wasn't coming from us, it was given to us like by destiny when we had the Gothic meets Klassik in Leipzig in 2013, with a full symphony orchestra, and it was clear we had to do this. Then Gared and I were, as a pair, supporting Blutengel's tour, who also did classic, and we performed with a bit singing, piano, cello and acoustic guitar. We realized how it works when you don't use a full symphony orchestra but a small ensemble to change the songs, which seems to be quite absurd for Blutengel as well. They make somehow gothic-electro-pop and did the classical stuff very nice. I like it much more than the normal stuff from Blutengel. And then we were sure, we had to do this. There wasn't really the question of doing it or not. Thus we all have a classical background, except our bassist we are all classical studied musicians, it was obvious.

HoD: You said, to separate the projects a bit more the one will be called 'Lord of the Lost' and the other one 'The Lord of the Lost Ensemble'. Does it mean you're already planning something and it won't be the last time you're doing something like this?

Chris: There will be a 'Swan Songs Vol.2' at the end of 2017.

HoD: And when will be the next regular, loud album from Lord of the Lost be released?

Chris: Summer. I don't know if it will be July or August, but summer next year.

HoD: Which status does the album has right now?

Chris: You mean level of production? The writing was finished a while ago, although some songs have been added, like always, and the recording just started. We take another way this time, drums at the very end. We started with the guitars right now and also the electronic is ready. We arranged the album completely different this time. The electronic stuff is already finished, then guitars, bass, vocals, then the electronic will be refined and at the end we will see where the drums fit, what will stay electronic, and then the drums will be recorded at the very end.

 

HoD: In the last time it got common to remaster, remix or rearrange a song, like Unzucht also did. You did a song for Tanzwut 'Der Zeitdieb' and Teufel told me he only sent you the text...

Chris: Just the vocals.

HoD: Or just the vocals and you did everything around without hearing the original song once.

Chris: We always do it like this, except we know the song. We also did this sinfonic-remix for Unzucht.

Daniel: 'Deine Zeit Läuft ab'

Chris: There I already knew the song, but otherwise I would have said 'Just give me the vocal recording and the speed' and then we search new harmonies and new chords and rebuild the whole song. For Tanzwut I didn't listen to the original, we didn't knew it, only had the speed of the song, to edit it in our audio-program in the right time-grate, and thought about what could be used for the vocals. Everything else was recorded by us, as Lord of the Lost. When I finished and sent it to Teufel I said 'Now I want to have the original.'

HoD: That's exactly what he told me. I thought it was very interesting.

Chris: Actually, we always do it like this.

Daniel: That's great, because you're really free. Good idea.

HoD: You're really free and it's very interesting, because I listened to both songs very often and both have their right to exist, but they're both also very special.

Chris: It's funny that our approach is completely different. Our song is shuffle, means 6/8, but the original is a 4/4. We didn't know this. It worked perfectly for a shuffle like it was sung, rhythmically a bit more free. It was very funny. Some fancy polka-elements and gypsyish-piano also included. This one got very absurd. We made it on tour. It was mixed in the studio, but developed on tour, with laptop and interface in the backstage, mainly the backstage in Stuttgart, which we changed into a studio.

HoD: For sure a great thing. It's very remarkable and I know that Teufel remembered this.

Chris: He wanted to have the electronic-parts because he said 'Hey, when we're playing this thing live we need these electronic parts, because we don't have a keyboarder.' because he really thinks about playing our version live someday. He said 'Somehow this sucks, now I'm annoyed because your version is much better'. It was a nice compliment.

Daniel: It was the same for us. It was our first EP.

Chris: Also your first remix.

Daniel: It was also our very first remix and then we already got such a thing, where a fast rock-song was changed into such a reduced piano-track. It was unbelievable. Very awesome.

HoD: I think it's also very exciting to hear how artists are interpreting soundtracks and accompanying them with music.

Chris: Sometimes I like electro-remixes, I think it's totally okay to have an IBM-dance-remix, but for many it's like they hear 'remix' and immediately think of a technoid, electronic dance-version. I see it different. I think that's boring. If every remix I get or make would be a dance-version, that would suck. Therefore we try to interpret remixes a bit different. They also often are not called 'Lord of the Lost Remix' but 'Lord of the Lost Version', because that's exactly what it is. When we do a remix for another band it is our whole band, only someone else is singing. That's not really a remix, that's a completely new song. Just with another vocalist, not me. That's more like a new version for me. The word 'remix' does not really fit.

Daniel: That's exactly how we proceeded with your 'remix' for Afterlife.

Chris: Great, such a fast track which sounds so much like Unzucht.

Daniel: We just used a little bit of your electronic, but the rest is completely new.

Chris: And also much faster.

Daniel: Chris also gave in a new vocal record, so we didn't have to speed it up somehow.

Chris: Right, it didn't work. They did everything new, or much faster, and wanted to have me as a second vocalist next to Schulle. So they sent me the thing. I recorded my singing completely new for the remix.

Daniel: It's more a mixture between cover-version and remix, but not really a remix.

Chris: Did we make anything else for you or just the one?

Daniel: You did the one and we the one? Was there anything else?

Chris: It is about time again, right?

Daniel: Actually yes.

Chris: Then let me know.

HoD: I know for sure a lot of cover-versions from you. You also did one for Subway to Sally for their 20^th anniversary, right?

Chris: Right, it was really a cover, because I'm also singing. This was Eisblumen.

Daniel: We also had another one, where we worked together, one your album.

Chris: Harms&Kapelle. Right, we also worked together for my german-side project.

 

HoD: It's really cool that Daniel is here, because we had a survey for our radio which was 'Who do you want to hear in our radio?' and there were two which were in the lead.

Chris: These were Alex from Eisbrecher and Lex from Megaherz.

HoD: No, precisely not. Chris Harms was demanded by the female fans. Unzucht came in second place. Therefore I think it's great to have you both here. It means I killed two birds with one stone.

Chris: We killed two bags with one cat.

Daniel: Nice picture. Lord zum Sonntag.

Chris: It already exists from Tobias Mertens.

 

HoD: I got a hint to ask you a question. You have quite elaborate makeup on stage.

Chris: It's not elaborate. It looks elaborate. Actually we only daub like little boys play in the sandpit.

HoD: I should ask you: What's your inspiration? Regarding outfits and makeup.

Chris: Makeup is like this: One starts, the other one watches and it becomes a process with its own internal dynamics. There are very few shows where we plan our makeup and synchronize it. For very big festivals we plan beforehand what we will do. We all always love 'makeup-bands'. Doesn't matter if KISS, Marilyn Manson, the early David Bowie, T-Rex, Sweet, Rocky Horror Picture Show or Behemoth. We always loved it, everything between black metal and glam rock. It's just great fun for us. There isn't really an inspiration, except we all love to paint, on us. The clothes... I always try to bunch how the music sounds and how you can transform it optically, like a movie. Reversed from a soundtrack. How someone, like Hans Zimmer, is writing a soundtrack for a film, I try to think of pictures for the music. Then some things are just there. When Full Metal Whore was formed it was clear it had to be gray. It should have looked a bit end-time-like, ashy, gray, this torn wool pullover like from the Matrix-movies.

Daniel: You should mind I also wear gray today.

Chris: Right! These things that are left over when it's the end of the world, then everything's gray. And I also like to wear gray, it surely doesn't attract attention.

HoD: You have to add, Chris Harms is wearing a black scarf today.

Chris: Yes, that's right. That's... crap. Just a very dark gray. It's nice that I was a Waldorf pupil, so I can handle needle and threat as well as a sewing machine. This means, the outfits you can see, the gray ones, were made by me for the whole band. Meaning I'm privately a fashion designer as a hobby. To be precise, I made the outfits together with my wife.

Daniel: Chrisselord Lagerfeld.

Chris: She designed and painted them on, cut them low and patched them with pins, how it look like in the end, and I sewed it together. I was the executive level.