The BIG Über Rock Interview - Torsten Ihlenfeld (Brainstorm)

The BIG Über Rock Interview – Torsten Ihlenfeld (Brainstorm)

Written by DJ Astrocreep
Saturday, 13 October 2018 04:40

On a recent excursion to London for another gig, I took the opportunity to catch up with Torsten Ihlenfeld from German dark power metallers Brainstorm, to have a chat about musical longevity, comparisons to Judas Priest and creating epic songs!

We started by talking about the fact that the band have been going for almost 30 years…

Yeah makes us look very old! *laughs* It’s actually something we’re pretty proud of, that long journey we did.

You’ve got your 12th album just out, ‘Midnight Ghost’. How does that compare to your previous works?

Well, as everybody says, the newest one is the best one *laughs* I think it’s in a pretty good line compared to the previous ones. I think we meant to improve our own sound during the years and we always try to stick to our roots without getting stuck. We allow small changes to keep it interesting for us and for the fans. I think it’s definitely a Brainstorm album but we did some changes in the writing and producing process, so I think it’s a very diverse and interesting album and the fact that we worked with an active producer this time. You can hear that on the album.

Do you think it’s helped that you’ve now had the same line up for half of your albums as well?

Yes, it helps a lot because we’ve known each other for such a long time, you know. All the other guys are doing things and you know how the song develops in the songwriting process. That definitely helps a lot but you have to take care that you don’t do it as business as usual, but the fact that we love making music and we love doing the music we do keeps it interesting for us and we hope it’s still interesting for the fans. The fact that we’ve been doing it for such a long time we seem to be doing something right I guess

Do you have a particular way of writing the music? Would you, say, you come up with a couple of riffs and then go into practice with them or do you write in the studio?

Yeah depending on… we’re still a real band, we are a rehearing band so we meet at least once a week still in the rehearsing room and the main songwriting process is between me and Milan (Loncaric), the other guitar player, and Andy (Franck), the vocalist, but the way the songs develop differs. Sometimes one of us brings a riff or some idea to the rehearsing room or we jam in the rehearsing room when we’re starting to develop the songs.

In the end, what makes a Brainstorm song is the final arrangement which is done by the whole band and what was different this time is we took some more time. Usually, it’s a two-year turnaround and we took two and a half years this time, so an extra six months’ time. It helped a lot with the songs and we gave the songs time so when we had the basic song usually you’re trying to finalise the song with arrangements and we’d put some basic song ideas aside for six, seven or eight weeks and then started working on the final arrangements. The biggest difference, I think, when we entered the studio we had fixed the songs for about 90 per cent but the last 10 per cent we worked on together with Seeb, who was producing the album. This was very interesting because usually, we would do everything on our own, so we’d write everything on our own, we’d record everything on our own. This time we went to the studios that Seeb uses and went in just as recording musicians and songwriters, not also as engineers; and we recorded far away from home so we could concentrate and be totally focused on the album.I think the result proves that it was a good decision.

Some of your songs are darker than a lot of other power metal tracks, is that something that you deliberately set out to do when you started off?

I think it was a natural development because back when we were young, like every young musician, you have so many influencers and idols and you’ll cover songs before you start writing your own songs. We have always been interested in so many different kinds of metal music, of course, the traditional big ones like Maiden, Black Sabbath…

I actually pick up a lot on Judas Priest in what you do…

Yes, definitely, but even bands like Megadeth, Testament and even Slayer or the American power metal bands like Savatage or Queensryche. I think during the years, we developed our own style, which is, as you say, darker than the usual European power metal stuff but that’s what we love to do!

I’ve noticed that with the new album, one of the tracks, ‘Jeanne Boulet (1764)’ starts off quite soft. It’s a lot different from your usual power metal before it kicks in properly. Was that something you wanted to deliberately try out? I think that ones a couple of minutes longer than the rest as well.

Yes definitely, we wanted to have a really epic song on the album. It’s eight and a half minutes and yeah, it worked out amazing. It had a very special atmosphere when we wrote the song and in combination with the lyrics, I think it turned out to be a great song. It takes a long time to record such a song, like on the ‘Ambiguity’ album, we had ‘Beyond My Destiny’, which was some kind of comparable epic, or the trilogy of the ‘Soul Temptation’ album. But we don’t get into the rehearsing room and say “well today, we will write an epic song”. It has to develop and so if no epic song happens so no epic song will be on the album. It worked out so well and we all love that song especially in combination with the lyrics. Andreas is such a freak when it comes to history and even horror stories and all that stuff, it’s a very good combination I guess

Do you think that’s maybe where you’re going to head towards as a band then? More along those kinds of lines?

We don’t plan it so if it happens, it happens, but we don’t like to sit down and say that the next album has to sound like this or that, or it has to be more fast songs so we just let it happen naturally and then we will try to make the best album.

Do you think you’ll ever write a full power ballad or slower track?

Oh yes, why not? *laughs* We did that in the past. When you listen to ‘The Path’, the last song on the album, it’s kind of a semi-ballad. Also a long time since we had such kind of a song and I think this is somehow what makes ‘Midnight Ghost’ special, at least compared to the previous two, three or four albums. ‘Midnight Ghost’ has a lot of diversity from the songs; I think it’s the whole power metal spectrum. You have fast songs, you have epic songs, you have rockers – so, yeah, there is everything you would need from a metal album

One thing I noticed when listening to ‘Midnight Ghost’ is that you don’t actually repeat any riffs. Some of the more modern releases can be guilty of that at times. Is it still hard to be as creative after you’ve been in the band for so long?

No, luckily! *laughs* It’s because we love what we’re doing, we’re all music maniacs so we still listen to a lot of music. We still listen to, of course, the bands that we listened to 30 years ago. Luckily, we still have them like Priest and Maiden and all the great bands but we also listen to everything that is new and interesting. It would be a shame, there’s so many great bands out there and so much talent so it would be a shame to waste that. Whenever we need we rehearse or even if we just meet at the weekends so we’re not just musicians. We’ve known each other for more than half of our lives and we’re real friends and I think that makes it, on one hand, kind of very special, because I think not that many bands have that for such a long time for such an intense relationship besides the music. We still look forward to every rehearsal we have, because we meet with friends and we do what we love to do. We’re creating music and we’re lucky that we can do that and for us, it’s a very great gift to be able to do that for such a long time. Twelve albums, that’s a long time back

You mentioned about Maiden and Priest, we lost Black Sabbath last year, when they retired, Slayer are coming up to their final tour. Who do you think is likely to step up into the main festival headliner slots? Is there anyone you can see?

That’s very difficult, very very difficult because I think many of the festival organisers and even the music industry miss building up the next generation of headliners and I think we would have to see it differently in the future. I don’t know if there will be bands like Maiden and Priest and Sabbath again, such iconic bands that everybody knows and everybody’s going to, but we have great bands that could step into that. Maybe not in that dimension, but we have bands that are making outstanding music that are able to set up big shows because they are commercially successful. Of course, it’s a matter of taste but looking at bands like Sabaton, they managed to create a huge following and they’re doing heavy metal!

They never stop touring as well! *both laugh*

They never stop touring, and this is great to see. Our scene or being in the scene so long shows us that no matter if you’re a big or a smaller band, you’re in a living scene. No matter, if it’s more or less in the focus of the public metal, has been a strong scene with a strong following and with dedicated fans and that’s a big difference between for example pop fans that are forgetting you after the second song.

Five chords and that is most of pop!

Yeah and that is something that I think brings metal people together and makes them such so different. You can meet every metal fan and talk to them and then you’ll have one common base, no matter if you knew them before, you know you could meet them in McDonald’s, you could meet at a concert and you know what you’re talking about. As long as the fans know the music, and even know the musicians behind it as long as it is as it is it doesn’t matter if there are such big headliners in the future. Maybe it’s getting a bit smaller. Maybe we’re not going to have just 2 big headliners on at a festival. Maybe we’ll have five or six headliners and attract the same amount of people

How do you think – whether it’s music or metal in particular – it’s changed from when you started out in the late 80s compared to now because obviously, we’ve had the invention of the internet and things like that. Do you think that’s been a positive influence?

In the end, definitely, because the world has got a lot smaller and you can reach more people worldwide. When we started there was no internet but there had been strong local scenes. That’s a big difference to nowadays, you don’t have such strong scenes in your city. It’s more like you don’t even have bands that are from the same city. One is from London, the other is from Birmingham, the other one is from wherever and they meet once a month or just sending songs back and forth. I think that was better when we started because everybody knew each other personally. You went to the clubs at the weekends, you had bands playing, local bands playing every weekend. Nowadays you have many bands playing at the weekend because everybody has to go on their own because of the internet and download to make some money but the happenings, the smaller club happenings were more interesting back in the day

Is there a gig that you have played at that feels like it was the best gig that you’ve ever done or just really really good in comparison?

There have been so many great shows that you keep in mind for yourself. It does not have to be a particularly special show with many people or whatever. Sometimes the small club shows that are more intense than maybe some festival shows.

In your face rather than…

Yeah. Sometimes those shows are what you remember more so because the contact with the fans after the show are more direct than when we play the big festivals. Of course, it’s fun playing in front of 20 or 30 thousand people but where you’re coming from that’s the club shows, that’s where you build your following. That’s where you build up the band and without those shows, especially in the beginning, you would not have been able to release 12 albums over the years.

What’s your backline, your guitar, your amp, what do you use?

Ok me and Milan, Engl – great German amps. One of the best you can use for metal. I play Schecter guitars and Milan plays Jackson guitars. All good metal stuff I would say. The Fender is also a great guitar but not particularly for metal.

Ok, one last question now. If you had to cover any pop song, like a mainstream song, hat song would you like to do?

That’s hard. One of the most interesting songs to cover because I like it very much would be Innuendo by Queen.

It has a lot of duelling guitars and Flamenco guitars as well as another epic song! *both laugh*

Yeah, that would be one that would be. It would be a lot of work, especially for the vocals, but that would be something more interesting!

• ‘Midnight Ghost’ is out now via AFM Records. You can get your copy HERE.

www.facebook.com/officialbrainstorm/