Interview

DEVIL'S TRAIN (2012 - English version) - Jörg Michael

Everyone knows Jörg Michael for his work with Stratovarius, but there's now a brand new brand in which he'll kick your ass: DEVIL'S TRAIN!
Haven't heard about it? Read this buddies!



Jörg MICHAEL: Hello this is Jörg! Good morning? Good evening?

SBM: Good evening… (Laugh)

Good evening! (Laugh)

Thank you! How are you?

I’m good, thank you very much! How are you?

Fine, after a good day of work!
Thank you for giving me a little piece of you time, we’re here to talk about DEVIL’S TRAIN.
The album is now available, so how do you feel about that?


I’m very excited about it. It has been a very long born baby, and now finally it’s the year and people showed some interest for us and you’re able to present it to the world and this is great.

And so what was the first reaction of the public and the journalist concerning the album?

Surprisingly very good! In Europe and now also North America and South America, reactions are very good and I’m not saying this out of the blue… We got very high, like 9/10, 9/9, and this kind of things, so it’s really surprising and good! And I’m very happy that people share my opinion about it.

Of course! And can you tell us how did the project born and how did you join it?

Explain it all will be a little longer… So I’ll try to simplify as much as I can…
The singer is the main man behind it. He was born in Greece, but he lives in Germany since 25 years now, so actually he gave me call, a couple of years ago, because I have like a small booking agency in Germany. And so on and in the conversation, we thought that we were kind of clicking together and so I could explain all the rough start and finally we made it with touring together with Stratovarius. And he told me about his rock’n roll project he wanted to give birth to, and he had this in mind since many many years, but finally he found our very cool guitar player. And he found our guitar player in Thessaloniki with Laki.
And actually LIA (Liapakis) is a good friend of Gus G; and Gus G knows Laki because they have the same guitar teacher and they’re coming out from the same town, and this is how he joined in actually. And then when we were together on the tour with Stratovarius he asked me if I wanted to join the project, and he called it “A rock’n roll project”, that is the official word. And I said “Yes I’m interested” and so I heard the demos and I was really impressed by the guitar work on this demo… And I asked him if it was one old guy from here or there and he said “No I found the guitar with Laki, he has the same guitar teacher than Gus G and he has a very extraordinary talent”. And so I said “Yes sure, I’m in, that sounds really good”. From there on we said “Let’s try to do it”.
So he sent me the demos, I listened to it, I went home, I recorded the album, and first time we also met, with the guitar player, we made the songs around in the control room and we did the album in one day. It was right, and fluently this idea came out of it, in the end of the day we still needed a bass player. The guys thought that they had somebody which actually will be able to feet in. But finally after they checked out this guy, and another, and another guy, we found out that this was not exactly the magic we needed, and so they asked me.
And the band or the guy, who, for me, sounded like this in my career so far, on the bass, was Jari Kainulainen. And I remembered the first record I did with him with Stratovarius and so I said “If you want to have a guy that has actually the magic and everything like this, you definitively have to ask Jari”.
They gave him a call, he said “Cool to play with Jörg again”, and he came down, played the bass, and now you’re here, promoting our album and we releasing it in the same time.

Thanks for the explanation Jörg… And is it the reason why you left Stratovarius? Is it linked?

Well no, no… Nothing to do with it actually. First of all, DEVIL’S TRAIN was just made to be a project. Much later when we heard the final version, then it became clear that we wanted to turn this into a band; it was like a natural process.
To stop Stratovarius was completely for a different reason. It was just a coincidence, there were things that happened into my life at the same time but I wanted to stop anyway.

OK so now let’s talk about the album. It’s very influenced by blues rock, but it has a very powerful heavy metal sound. So what were your inspirations while writing or recording?

We have to see that through all the years, when we started our musical career we had been influenced by bands such as Led Zeppelin, The Who, Deep Purple, Queen… Later on the new wave of British metal, like Judas Priest, Motörhead, Iron Maiden, the first two albums… This is what we listened, what we’ve been influenced by when we were kids and that we always like. It is a sort of vision we all had and it was important for me to find somebody who shared this thoughts, and we wanted to bring this alive, with a new flame. We just needed to find the right people.
And these are basically our influences. For example the guitar player, if you ask him “What is your biggest idol” he would say something like “The biggest idol for me was Jimmy Hendrix, because he invented that all”. And he is influenced by guys like Gary Moore, Michael Schenker, not like any other modern guitar players, influenced by Steve Vaï or Yngwie Malmsteen or so. We needed to be back to the old school stuff, because it’s what we’re influenced by. But on the other side, beside the first bands we’ve listened to, we also have a musical career… Me with Stratovarius, Running Wild, LIA with Mystic Prophecy and stuff like that, so we also have influences in the nineties stuff like the “Black album” of Metallica, or other stuff that came out, and this is all we put into this band and all these ingredients make the band sounding like that in 2012. I would say in the end that it’s like a big bowl of the bands out of the seventies but we put a little bit of the nineties and of the beginning of that century, and it’s basically how this band is sounding: kind of blues metal or whatever you put on it; blues rock or something else, that suits well.

And how goes the writing process in the band? You told me that you recorded the album with Laki, but what about the writing?

The writing process was a little bit different when first, LIA met Laki. Then they got together and had a lot of ideas, worked on them, put the ideas together; so most of the songs are done by them. The lyrics were all done by LIA… So this how it was created, and basically, LIA and I put here and there some arrangements, ideas but the basic compositions were done by LIA and Laki.

You already had a lot of band, but is it the first time you join a band playing that kind of music?

Not really, because it was also the reason why he asked me if I wanted to be part of it, because he also listened to others records as Laos or House of Spirit which I did in the nineties, and he said “What I need for this music and this album was not the talent that you showed on Running Wild or Stratovarius. I want you to play this and I know you can do it, because of all the other records I heard”.
So it’s of course a surprise for many people that I can play music like this, but I have also done this before and that was not so popular. Because people know more my work on Stratovarius or Running Wild and so they think “Oh yeah this is a power metal drummer, he is not the right drummer” and when you hear the record you say “Oh it’s Jörg Michael” and you expected me to play double bass from inferno or something like that, but I also like to show different sides of me and LIA knew about it, that I have a past like this.

So you might have a lot of fun recording the album, right?

Totally yes!! Yes! (Laugh)

An as the album is kind of blues rock or whatever we call it, it sounds like Texas somehow. Did you drink Jack Daniel’s during the recording?

(Laugh) Well no… Actually I don’t drink so much during the recording sessions.

So serious…
As you said lyrics were done by LIA and it seems to be based on women, sex and all that stuff… Is that right?


Yeah sometimes, but not only. There’s a song called “The Answer” talking about the sense of life, why are we here? There’s a song like “Coming home” which is questioning why are we going to war? It’s about a soldier who wants to go home.
And usually it’s rock’n roll stuff as you said… There’s also some experiments, like for example LIA’s first experience in a whore house and stuff like that.
We don’t want to scream to the world, we just want to have fun; we want to live the magic of the moment basically, leaving the worries behind. Have a little bit of every lasting minute in your life, at least for once in a day… This is in a couple of songs and it brings you in a good mood. That is not a philosophical intellectual message we want to bring to the people, we just want to celebrate the time and every each minute in a day.

And so what are the next steps for the band? As I know you haven’t played gigs yet, so is it the next step?

That would be a normal step but it will be a little hard to find some good live slots… We try our best, but our next step is now of course to do more promotional and try to present the album. We are now producing our second video which will come out in 5 or 10 days I suppose, and then doing more interviews and going together for rehearsals and bring this music on stage! But there is nothing confirmed now so I hope soon that we’ll have thing to say tell about that.

And can you tell us what the next video will be? Or is it a secret?

No it’s not a secret… Basically the first video we’ve done was for “American Woman” which is a cover song… And this will be our first single called “Sweet Devil’s Kiss” and this is not a secret and it will come over soon.

Concerning the touring, even if it’s not planed yet, are you excited about touring with this band?

Actually I am… I’m very excited to do that. I know and you also know that the situation in the music business changed in the last couple of years. I really don’t know what to expect… We are really newcomers, not many people know about this band, so when we’ll have the chance to do it, we will be very excited to do this but we need to show a little bit of patience because it’s a brand new band, few people know things about it.
It’s up to you guys who have listened our music and know our name, to tell the people to support us… That’s the only thing I can ask you, I’m already very happy that you support this band and doing this with an interview with me. But I think we have to show a little bit of patience until things really come to life, it’s not like you have a new band and within three days you can show it to the world and do this big tours, nobody really know about us yet. That’s the first approach; we’re doing this since a couple of weeks you know…

Well I can just tell you that I really had a blast listening this album, and I would be proud to help you with interviews, promotions and stuff like that…

Thank you very much…

You’re welcome!
And have you planned to stay in DEVIL’S TRAIN for some times or are you searching for another band?


Hum no… This is my idea, this is my new band, I’m very happy with this music, and I put my heart into it. It makes my little heart jumping up and down my friend. And I’m still very excited when I listen to it and I have this album since a couple of months already.
So I really like to find my whole passionate feelings for music and playing the drums big and I came to present this album live.
And it’s what we have to do now, to find some gigs contracts and present this band to the world. But this is not a project for me, this is my band and I’m happy with it.

Got it! Well I guess we’re reaching the end of the interview, so I leave you the final words if you wanna say something to the French fans.

Well, for our fans here and our new found fans in France, I’d like to give you a best regards, I wish you happy holidays, and whenever you have the chance and the time to check out a new band, why not try the DEVIL’S TRAIN? Take a ticket, the Devil is the driver himself and for a few minutes in your live, you won’t think about you worries, that’s the message you know. Check it out and go ahead buddies.

Well thank you so much Jörg for your time, enjoy Paris, I really hope to see you on the road with this band.

Thank you so much, all the best, and good evening.

Good evening!

 
Critique : SBM
Vues : 2316 fois