Hello Richard and Silenius. A brand new Summoning album is finally about to be released. As I understand, it wasn't that easy to carry out the work this time. Please tell us about the recording process and how the problems you encountered reshaped the album.
Protector: The new album is finally finished and I already have the promo CDs in my hands. Everything turned out perfectly in the end. We have a really cool guitar sound this time, which will be much more dominant than ever before, with an aggressive black metal tone. The guitars are less rhythmic this time and more in an arpeggio style.
But you're right that there were many problems. The main one was my work for my other project DIE VERBANNTEN KINDER EVAS. I finished all the new songs more than 2 years ago, but due to the singer situation I couldn't release them until now. First, the old singer Tania wasn't able to sing the new tunes, and then after I found a new singer, she had so many psychological problems that she couldn't sing for more than 18 months. Since those songs were older than the new SUMMONING songs, I wanted to release them before SUMMONING. Well, eventually I gave up waiting for her and decided to release SUMMONING first, but of course there was this huge delay.
Anyway, 2 days ago the new singer of DVKE was here in Vienna (she came from Greece) and the tracks are finally finished, so a lot of the troubles are solved now and I really feel very relieved.
"Oath Bound" is the title of the album. It makes me think it refers to a certain episode from the Professor's books?
Silenius: No, not really. In contrast to "Let Mortal Heroes...", we wanted a short title again that simply sounds good, like "Stronghold". But of course you can interpret it in many different ways. As the album deals with topics from "The Silmarillion" again, on one hand it refers to Morgoth, who swore to conquer all of Middle-earth. On the other hand, it refers to his counterpart Feanor, who swore revenge on Morgoth after he stole the Silmarils. But it also refers to us, the band, who have sworn never to change our concept and musical style.
On "Oath Bound" you use choirs again. Do you make them yourselves, or are there guest singers on the album? Do you consider using live instruments instead of synths on future releases?
Protector: We sang the choir parts ourselves. We sang each part twice and in different vocal styles - high, then low, then high but rougher, etc. So in the end we had 16 vocal tracks, which I arranged into a choir.
We will certainly never use live instruments. Well, there is a real flute on one short part, and I also used an Arabic drum on another short passage, but mainly I will not replace any synth parts with real instruments. I see no reason for that, as we never tried to sound like classical music and we greatly appreciate the total independence that keyboards offer. And especially now, when all bands are starting to add an orchestra, I'm totally not in the mood to do the same thing METALLICA or KISS did.
Back in 1999, you experimented with female vocals on the track "Where Hope and Daylight Dies". Since then, you've never used them again. Does that mean you weren't satisfied with the result?
Protector: Stronghold was a quite unusual release for us. We lost sight of our real style a bit and tried to do something different. It was the time when most older bands were changing their style. Unlike them, we kept ours but added many elements that we hadn't used before - the much more traditionally played heavy metal guitar riffs, and also the female voice.
Since then, we've returned much more to our original SUMMONING ideas, focusing more on the epic orchestral arrangements than on what "Stronghold" was, which for us was the most rock-oriented album we ever created. We don't think we'll ever use female vocals again - not for solo singing, but maybe as choir support. We haven't planned that yet.
The CD will be followed by an as-yet-untitled mini-CD. How soon will it come out? Will it contain unreleased early material or unpublished songs from the "Oath Bound" recording sessions?
Protector: It's far too early to say anything about the release date of the mini-CD after "Oath Bound". We only know that it will contain a song that didn't have enough room on "Oath Bound". It's already recorded and almost mixed. Silenius also wants to make 2 new songs for this mini-CD, and maybe we'll add some different versions of older songs (like instrumental versions of older songs).
On "LMHSYF" you have lyrics taken directly from JRRT's "The Hobbit" (like "South Away" or "In Hollow Halls Beneath the Fells"). Did you have to ask permission from the Tolkien estate? Is that the main reason you never include song lyrics in your album booklets?
Silenius: 90% of all lyrics on all Summoning releases are taken directly from Tolkien's poems. The basic reason we never included them on our albums was not a licensing issue. In the beginning, we lost our lyrics after the "Lugburz" sessions and were forced to leave them out. Later, we made a tradition of it. But meanwhile, all the lyrics have been posted on our homepage, which unfortunately went down but will be repaired soon.
As I understand it, for "Oath Bound" you recorded a song entirely in Orcish. What is it about? And what source did you use to learn the Orcish language?
Silenius: The lyrics in the Orc language were written by a good friend of ours who is also a total Tolkien fanatic. The song is called "Mirdautas Vras" and deals with Morgoth's aim to conquer Middle-earth. It is the only song closely connected to "The Lord of the Rings"; all other songs refer to the legends of "The Silmarillion".
With the rapid pace of IT development today, you can build a recording studio using just a home computer. That's why I think hobby musicians would be interested to know what hardware and software you use to create music.
Protector: Sure!! Definitely, this is something really great. I think it's wonderful that nowadays, with a not-so-expensive PC, you can do recording work that in the past only very wealthy people or people in expensive studios could afford, paying a lot of money for each day. Now you can easily do multitrack recordings in top quality and add amazing effects just by installing new software.
In the past, when I only had a 350 MHz computer, I used a very expensive soundcard that did all the audio processing without touching the CPU. Now I have a faster system, and the soundcard doesn't matter as much anymore, as long as it's not too cheap.
For MIDI and audio recording I use Cubase SX3; for mastering, Wavelab. In the future, I'm planning to replace all my old hardware synths and use only software synthesizers and orchestral simulation software, but it's too early to give any details since I haven't planned it all out yet.
Following up on that, what do you think about using pirated software in music recording?
Protector: I think that if you really work a lot with a piece of software and even earn money from it, it's only fair to buy it. But I don't think it's fair to ask a poor band making a new demo to spend a lot of money on software. I understand any band that would look for a crack instead.
SUMMONING has never expressed its views on religion or, at least, never applied them to the music. So it would be interesting to know your opinion on the Muslim protests over the publication of Mohammed cartoons in the Danish press. Do you think people have the right to make fun of someone else's faith? And if they do, where's the line?
Protector: I don't like any kind of religion. I make no distinction between Christianity, Satanism, Islam, Paganism, or anything else. For me, religion is generally something that prevents people from using their own brains and from seeing and understanding the world through logic. Religion is mainly useful for monarchs to keep their people ignorant and easily controllable, because people who believe in words written centuries ago instead of trying to understand reality will always be easier to treat as slaves.
As for the Mohammed cartoons - since I don't believe in any religion, I don't really understand all the protests over some unimportant cartoons. But at the same time, I wouldn't make jokes about other people's religions either. Apart from that, I think Islam isn't really that different from Christianity. It's just that nowadays, Islamic regimes have a lot of power, whereas the power of the Catholic Church has faded over the centuries (hopefully). If this had happened in medieval times, I think anyone can guess how the Church would have reacted.
In the early 90s, you were members of the Austrian Black Metal Syndicate, which I assume no longer exists. I suppose it was growing up that brought it to an end, wasn't it? It would be interesting to know what the former members are up to now.
Silenius: The main reason for building up this Black Metal Syndicate in the early 90s was to create a platform for like-minded people and black metal fans. At that time, you have to imagine that black metal was only listened to by very few people in Austria. Through this platform, there was a way to gather and get in contact with bands, tape traders, labels, and magazines in Austria who supported this music and ideology, who helped each other and spread the latest news and propaganda of the genre. But later, as the main bands got their record deals and gained a wider platform in the public eye, most of the members went their own way and the rest simply disappeared.
SUMMONING members are known for a number of side projects they are or were involved in. So it's useful to draw a line from time to time: what's still active and what's finished, what's in progress and what are the future plans...
Silenius: The only other band besides SUMMONING that I'm active in is KREUZWEG OST, in the military industrial style. The latest CD, called "Edelrost", was released on the English label Cold Spring, which specializes in neoclassical, military, and power electronics music. Soon there will also be a licensed version from Irond just for the russian market. Most of the other bands I was involved in are dead and gone, especially PAZUZU, who emigrated to Canada many years ago. I might do some session vocals for AMESTIGON again, but that depends on whether they make any new releases.
Protector: First of all, I want to say that I don't consider my other projects "side projects" because all of them are equally important to me. Just because SUMMONING is the best-selling one doesn't mean it's the main project. It also depends on your perspective and musical interests - for example, for many people DIE VERBANNTEN KINDER EVAS is the main project and SUMMONING is the side project. Anyway, for me, both of my other projects (DIE VERBANNTEN KINDER EVAS - melancholic orchestral dark wave; and ICE AGES - dark, cold, futuristic music) are very important for keeping the music fresh and inspired. It also helps keep SUMMONING's style pure and prevents us from misusing it for unnecessary experiments or style changes. If one of us ever gets the desire to create something different, we focus on one of our other projects and don't disrupt the mood of the SUMMONING songs.
Coda. Something you've always wanted to say but no one has ever asked you about...
Silenius: No, I think everything has already been said. Thanks for the interview.