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Interview with:

Down Below

DOWN BELOW will represent their federal state Saxony-Anhalt at the “Bundesvision Song Contest” on 14th February 2008 in Hannover at the TUI Arena. The band recorded a German-tongued song for the first time especially for this highlight. We spoke with the band about the new single ‘Sand in meiner Hand’ and their participation at the contest.

Reflections of Darkness (RoD):  First of all a happy new year to you. How did you spend New Year ’s Eve?
Down Below (DB): We celebrated in a circle of our friends and survived everything without bruises and without to be very hung-over.

RoD: You will perform at Stefan Raab’s “Bundesvision Song Contest”. How did that came into being?
DB: We applied directly to TV Total. Stefan Raab liked our material and then we were in.

RoD: Lots of people will be there. Are you already nervous?
DB: At the moment, we are busy with the preparations so there’s no time to be really excited or nervous at all. We’re well forearmed when we’re going into the battle of the federal states and this calms our minds a little bit. I think, the stage fright will appear right at the location and will be heavily sweat inducing.

RoD: The song you will present at the contest is called ‘Sand in meiner Hand’. Would you tell us something more about the song???
DB: The first thought was: What do you offer as a show... How do you represent your federal state? Then we had the idea that the Gregor Seyffert Compagnie is right on our doorstep, a lucky act of providence. The Compagnie caused a stir last year with their sensational successful show about the questionable hero Marquis de Sade. Down Below played a show at the opening event and got to see the play prior to its official presentation. Then it was obvious to use that synergies and the idea for Down Below vs. Marquis de Sade was born. Lyrically we were sure that if we would record a German-tongued text that it had to fit into the topic and had to be completely German. ‘Sand in meiner Hand’ is based on the idea to present Marquis de Sade as the evil ego of Neo Scope. Through Gregor we had the opportunity to work with Frank Fiedler aka Greenfeed for the artwork. Greenfeed is an artist who also descends from Dessau-Roßlau and he delivered really great ideas. To cut it short: With  a rock band and three artistic states of emergency, who all have 100% Saxony-Anhalt in the blood, we’re relatively self-conscious and don’t have to hide.

RoD: It’s your first German-tongued song. Wasn’t it a little bit strange to record a song in your own language because all your other songs are in English?
DB: Definitely. I made about 4-5 drafts before we came closer to the result. One should think that it’s easy to write a song in ones own language but as we usually produce all our songs in English, it was a big challenge for us. I think in the future, we’ll stick with English because in that language it’s easier for me to live and put emotions into the chant.

RoD: Did you get much consolation, when it was announced that you would participate in that contest?
DB: Of course the interest of the media has increased compared to 2006 and it’s good that way but the most important things are our fans, friends, partners and our fan page manager, who go along with us from the beginning and support us.

RoD: Did your life become more stressful than before?
DB: Sure, but I would call that good stress, these are energies you bring up with pleasure.

RoD: Is there anything else you want to say?
DB:  Specifically for the “Bundesvision Song Contest” we put a page with special features, videos, song snippets, pictures and more. Here you’ll get all the information about Down Below vs. Marquis de Sade and on http://www.vote-for-us.de/ you can re-impact impressively that Saxony-Anhalt has lots of things to offer.

RoD: Thanks for the interview and good luck at the “Bundesvision Song Contest”.

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