 Interviews - Wytchcraft
04-21-2004, 02:02 AM
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by Chris Barnes
May 28, 2003
 Doom metal is spreading globally at a rate I don't recall ever witnessing before. The popularity of the genre has given recognition to bands such as Germany's Wytchcraft, who really deserve the accolades due to them for their mature approach to epic doom. They have just released their EP, Grenzganger, and are poised to put themselves on the map as one of Europe's best young doom bands. Guitarist and cofounder Daniel Westheide gives Hellride the scoop.
Hellride Music: Well, this interview is a long time in coming and I apologize. Hopefully you guys will still feel like answering my questions. Take us from the beginning of Wytchcraft to the present day. You guys started out as a two piece and a drum machine if I'm not mistaken and now boast five members. How'd you get together and whose in the band?
Daniel Westheide: Well, the band was actually formed out of a jolly mood by Paze Kestner and me in the beginning of 1999. When we were on holiday with a common friend we realized that both of us were very much into bands like Candlemass, so doing a doom metal project together was a logical consequence. We had already had a bunch of songs after only a very short time, so, not finding any other musicians to complete the
lineup, we recorded our first demo-CD as a two-piece. Later on, Kai - searching for a doom band at some musician's marketplace in the internet - joined us as a vocalist, while Eric, whose own band Twilight Pictures had sort of disbanded, showed an interest in playing the bass in Wytchcraft. The funny thing is that I got in touch with Eric through Jochen Fopp of Mirror Of Deception, although Eric lives only 20 kilometers or so away from me. We recorded a second demo CD called To Die In The Arms Of Winter, again with a drum computer, only to give a sign of life after three years and to present the new lineup. It was only in late 2001 when we finally found a drummer in Fabian Regmann. We had already met or been in contact with some others before, but they all turned out to be would-be rock stars who wanted to earn lots of money with playing music. But hey, we are a doom band! Unfortunately, at the same time that Fab joined us, Paze had to leave. He lives very far away from the rest of the band and was very busy with university and his other band, so it was impossible for him to rehearse regularly. However, only a few months later, the lineup was complete again when Markus, who had already played together with Eric in Twilight Pictures, replaced Paze. So this is our current line-up which we are really happy with.
Hellride Music: So, did Wytchcraft start out playing the same epic style of doom you now play?
Daniel: That's difficult. At least, it has always been our intention to play this style of epic doom, and since many of the songs on Grenzganger date back to the early days of Wytchcraft, I'd actually have to give a
clear "yes" as an answer. However, when Paze was responsible of the vocals, we sometimes didn't really sound epic, but rather psychedelic. In a couple of reviews we were even compared to Pink Floyd, although they have never been an influence for us.
Hellride Music: Speaking of Grenzganger, this is a very well done CD EP. It looks beautiful (great packaging) and sounds great. No small feat in that this was a self-release. Who was responsible for designing the packaging? How did you guys come up with the money to pay for the studio, packaging, etc.?
Daniel: Thanks, Chris! We all are also very happy with how professional the new EP turned out. It's finally a product you can give to people without saying, "But don't pay attention to the cover and the bad sound - it's
all self-made..." The design of the packaging was done by Wolfgang Milde, a good friend and neighbor of our guitar player Markus. The whole packaging, however, is based on pictures taken by our bass player Eric. Getting the money together for the studio and packaging was not all that difficult. We had already got nearly half of the money we needed from live shows and shirt sales, the rest was then equally divided among all
band members. Since the studio recordings cost much less than the result sounds like, it was no problem for all of us to get the money together. After all, we had planned for quite some time to do the recordings, so there was enough time for everyone to save some money if necessary. However, I do hope that we will be able to finance our next recording to a higher extent from sales of the EP and merchandising instead of private savings.
Hellride Music: What does "Grenzganger" actually mean, anyway?
Daniel: "Grenzganger" is the German word for someone walking on the edge, daring to touch or even cross borders in an artistic sense, and for us that's what playing doom metal is all about. It's just no shallow mainstream music and will never be. We had a bunch of English titles in mind, but we couldn't agree on any of these, so suddenly Markus came up with "Grenzganger" which we all liked immediately because of its meaning and also its sound. We actually noticed that there is no literal translation of this in English...
Hellride Music: Yeah. At first I thought it was a curse word or something. Was the EP written as a band or mostly by individuals? How did the recording sessions go?
Daniel: Three of the songs were already written when only Paze, Kai and me were in the band. I wrote them in complete isolation at home, only armed with a classical guitar, a pencil and several sheets of manuscript
paper. The arrangement, however, was done in the band later, and everybody have their degrees of freedom at their respective instruments. The opener "From Dusk Till Doom", on the other hand, emerged from a completely different approach. I came up with a couple of riffs and ideas, and in the rehearsing room we all together formed it into a song. The latter approach, of course, is much more spontaneous which I think can be heard when you compare the song with the other ones on the EP. I suppose that in the future our songwriting
will be a mixture of both approaches. Sometimes it is simply better to take the time to work out a song with complex guitar harmonies and so on at home, while I also don't want to miss the feeling of spontaneity that arises in songwriting as a group process.
As for the studio recordings, we had two weekends for recording and mixing the four songs. I must say that the most strenuous thing of such a recording session - as strange as it may sound - is doing nothing and just waiting for the other ones to complete their parts and listening for any possible mistakes on the recording. Although we all were quite tensed up, the recordings went fine, so that we still had the time at the last day to do some extra stuff we had imagined, like the classical guitar in "The Circle Of Life" and the keyboard parts that our engineer played and arranged on the fly. Really impressive!
Hellride Music: I agree. You guys played the recent Doom Shall Rise fest in Germany with bands like Voodoo Shock, Mirror of Deception, the reformed Revelation and of course the mighty Reverend Bizarre. How was the fest? What did you think of your performance? Who, in your opinion, had the best performance there?
Daniel: The fest was a huge doom celebration with a very unique, relaxed atmosphere that I haven't come across at any other festival before. I think that this was not our best day and we have played much better
gigs in the past, for example at the Doom Shall Rise! warm-up gig only one week before. We played our songs a little too fast which changed their mood and took the doomy feeling out of them somewhat. But in the end, even if there are a number of negative reviews of our gig there, there were still lots of people who liked our performance there, so I am quite satisfied after all. A huge thanks go to Jochen, Frank and Roman for organizing this event and giving us the opportunity to play there. I personally most enjoyed Reverend Bizarre. Although they had many technical problems they still created a very intense atmosphere with their ultra-slow doom. But the band that had the best performance, in my opinion, was Forsaken from Malta - epic doom at its finest! Their gig was full of energy and the singer even got the crowd to participate in a sing-along part although many were certainly not familiar with their songs.
Hellride Music: Who would you count among your musical influences? How about lyrically?
Daniel: Musically we were initially all influenced by bands like Candlemass and Solitude Aeturnus, but especially Markus also by various power metal bands. However, we do try to create a sound of our own, and I think we have already been quite successful at reaching this aim.
Lyrically, there are quite a number of influences, however, the least of them are other lyricists. While the lyrics written by our bass player Eric are mostly inspired by winter, nature and loneliness (he is the kind of person who likes to spend his holidays alone in the Norwegian winter), Kai's lyrics are inspired by war and history, philosophy and his own experience. The majority of the lyrics so far, however, were written by me, and some of them are also very philosophic. For example, the idea for "The Circle Of Life" came to my mind when I read about the philosophy of Empedokles who wrote that due to a sin, the spirits and souls are bound to earthly life and have to go through a number of incarnations before they are cleansed and can exist free of a physical
body in the realm beyond. "Questions" on the other hand is clearly influenced by Shea's and Wilson's lluminatus trilogy with its highly absurd conspiracy theories.
Hellride Music: Well you guys are quite diverse in the lyric department. Has anyone (besides myself) likened Kai's upper register vocals to the Cure's Robert Smith?
Daniel: Yeah, we have heard that before. Kai doesn't like this comparison at all, hehe, but if several people have Robert Smith in mind when hearing his voice, there must be some truth in it... other comparisons we have heard were Glen Danzig as well as "NWOBHM style vocals". I think he just sounds like Kai. He has a very individual and polarizing style of singing in my opinion. There are those who have big problems with his voice and those who love it. I think it's okay not to like his style of singing, but I go mad if anyone criticizes him for singing out of tune because that's definitely not true.
Hellride Music: What constitutes fun for you guys? When you aren't dooming out, what do you like to do?
Daniel: Well, of course dooming out is the biggest fun for all of us, but apart from the band and drinking, our interests are quite varied. While Markus is an enthusiastic live action role-playing gamer, Eric is very much into canoeing, biking and hanging out in gothic discos. Fabian, on the other hand, is very engaged in a club called Project Blue Sea which aims to protect all kinds of sea animals. Kai is a real fan of old BMW's from the 60's to 80's, in car racing and in history, philosophy and politics. Finally, I like going out to metal discos, reading
(always getting a good laugh from Terry Pratchett's Discword novels) and lately watching comedy series from the UK.
Hellride Music: What does the future look like for Wytchcraft? Anymore recording or live show plans?
Daniel: Surely. At the moment we are trying to get a number of gigs outside of our local area in order to promote the GrenzgangerEP. Next gig will be in June near Dusseldorf with Still It Cries, Suidakra and Invoid. So
all German readers check out our website for details. We haven't planned our next recording yet, but while promoting our new EP and playing live shows, we are also busy writing new songs and rehearsing some material that we still have up our sleeves. It looks like some of this will be more epic than everything we have done before.
Hellride Music: Sounds great! Thanks for the interview. Anything else you'd like to add?
Daniel: I have to thank you for your support and this interview, Chris, not the other way round. To all doom maniacs out there, take a look at our website where you can download a song from the new EP, e-mail us (contact@wytchcraft.de) or just buy Grenzganger. ;-) Doom or be doomed!
 Purchase Grenzganger at the Hellride Music Superstore
Read the Hellride Music review of Grenzganger
Visit the Wytchcraft website at www.wytchcraft.de
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