Eisheilig - September 2009

Interview with

Dennis Mikus (vocals) of Eisheilig

EISHEILIG front man Dennis Mikus is a straight-forward guy who is not afraid to speak his mind and to offend the elders. This becomes evident in the following interview where he discusses the provocative, apocalyptic and very political new EISHEILIG album ‘Imperium’, comparisons with other bands, the newly evolved superficiality, repetition and shallowness in today’s music and the generally miserable state of the music business that was to a great extent caused by illegal downloads and that in fact did not leave out his own band. He is not afraid to take a tough stance and often has his very own opinions about certain touchy subjects. …but enough of that - read for yourself what exactly he had to say!

Reflections of Darkness (RoD): Hello Dennis! Thank you very much for taking your time to answer a few questions. First of all I would like to know what you yourself think of EISHEILIG in the year 2009. What specific point in your career have you reached now, and how would you describe your development as a band in the last few years?
Dennis: I must admit we didn’t go the easy way in the last years. It has been (and still is) very important to us to be able to do what we want to do. ‘Imperium’, for example, is a lot gloomier than its predecessor ‘Auf dem Weg in deine Welt’ (On the Way to Your World). Our albums are always summations and reflections of certain situations, and they never repeat themselves. We don’t want EISHEILIG to be reduced to a certain formula that is always the same.

RoD: With your new album ‘Imperium’ and songs like ‘Tanzt das Kapital’ (Dance the Capital) and ‘Imperium der Schande’ (Imperium of Shame), you present yourself as provocative, offensive and political as never before. Were there any particular contemporary or personal experiences that influenced this more extreme orientation? Why is it so important for you to take an even clearer stance in the year 2009?
Dennis: If you really try to understand our world order, you will of course have to look at a lot of books, documentaries and statistics that are very helpful. But it’s mainly the answers to your own questions that reveal a terrifying reality. Why do thousands of people still die every day? How and where do the mightiest companies produce their goods? What kind of system lets millions of people work for pittances just so a few can profit from it? Why are the receivers of our Hartz IV program reliant on clothing and comestibles produced by even poorer people, just because they are the cheapest ones? Why can one single person (such as ALDI boss Theo Albrecht, whose capital amounts to about 15 billion Euros - almost the same sum of money that 2,5 million receivers of Hartz IV have at their disposal per year!) amass a boundless amount of money despite those miseries?

RoD: Can you explain to us the exact concept behind ‘Imperium’?
Dennis: There is no concrete concept, actually. We have opened a new chapter of our band history with ‘Imperium’. Lyrically, I felt the need to touch upon quite political things that bothered me, and I actually don’t care about how these things are received by the general mass in the end. I’m just straight-forward. There wasn’t any calculation behind it, and we didn’t intend on pursuing any “music biz strategies” or telling fairytales.

RoD: What kind of reactions do you hope to get with ‘Imperium’? Are you afraid that the listeners might consider the concept as being too drastic, or do you take everything rather easy?
Dennis: I’m sure the album will be extremely polarizing, and we are aware of that. In general it is quite unpopular to reveal your own political attitude because this always leads to confrontations. Nevertheless, on ‘Imperium’ we make no secret of our left-wing position. Whoever prefers to live with bands that strategically hide their political attitudes should do that. I always hear critics asking how we can talk about the misery in the world when we are making a lot of money with our CD afterwards... Well, I can only say that we have never earned one cent through record sales. It would be cool if it was like that because it would give us the chance to realize a lot of different projects.

RoD: All in all, one could say that your new album has a certain apocalyptic feel to it (not only because of song titles such as ‘Das Letzte Gericht (The Last Supper) and also conveys an extremely dark atmosphere which is probably darker and gloomier than ever before. Which drastic musical and lyrical changes have intentionally and unintentionally become apparent throughout the making of the new album, compared to the previous ones?
Dennis: I think the starting point was me being sick and tired of the general musical landscape of today. There are just too many repetitions nowadays, both in a musical and lyrical sense. Bands always cover the same stale topics, just with a different line-up and a slightly different band image. It has become extremely boring. I think a lot of the stuff that is being sold or that is being supported by the radio stations - no matter what genre - is just extremely dishonest and unnecessary. We’ve never seen music as a commercial service or a product that is being sold. To us, it’s a form of expression - no more, no less. In my opinion, 80 % of the bands that are currently active are just way too unspectacular and weak. It happens way too often that putative provocations or the exhaustion of an overdone cliché are simply determined by a strategic plan aimed at achieving economic benefits. We, however, wanted to do an album that simply states what we thought is necessary to say.

RoD: With ‘Imperium’, you produced an album solely by yourselves for the first time. How did you come up with the decision to do everything on your own, and how did this newly gained control give you some more freedom or some more opportunities for evolvement?
Dennis: In the course of the last few years, we managed to build up our own studio where we can record everything by ourselves. This means that we don’t need to pay other people anymore, and of course we are less hard-pressed in time aspects.

RoD: In some reviews, you have been compared to Milan Fras (vocalist of LAIBACH). Are LAIBACH in general an inspiration for you, also when it comes to provocative album concepts?
Dennis: LAIBACH has gone its own and oftentimes very rocky way, and I think that is very admirable. In general, however, those comparisons are quite unnecessary. The whole thing isn’t about LAIBACH, RAMMSTEIN, UNHEILIG, or EISBRECHER. We are EISHEILIG, and we have been around for some time now. Period! I’m always surprised how all those German heavy bands with German lyrics in particular have to fight with such a mass of comparisons. Whenever I listen to the crap on 1Live radio, I find that all bands sound the same. And nobody gives a shit about these 3:33 minutes of monotonous and shallow crap. If that is the musical culture of today, then the only thing left is to say farewell! Apparently there are more Dieter Bohlens and Detlef D! Soosts (two popular representatives of “shallow” German pop music culture) than we thought!

RoD: I also think that your spoken-word vocals on ‘Imperium’ seem to be very authentic and forthright. Can you tell me more about it? What was your feeling during the recording process?
Dennis: Well, I was looking for a possibility to vocally live up to the topics that we touch on ‘Imperium’, and I was also trying to include more lyrics into the songs than before.

RoD: Would you agree with me that you are in a way going back to your roots on your new album, and basically leave less space for electronic experiments, while instead focusing on straightforwardness and immediacy?
Dennis: We never had this particular moment where we deliberately wanted to go “back to the roots”. We always do the stuff that we are motivated for. The rest is up to the listeners.

RoD: The last song ‘Now We Leave’ is the only song with English lyrics. What was your incentive to leave familiar German ways?
Dennis: There’s no specific reason for it. We know that some people from all over the world listen to us, so we just wanted to include a song that they can understand without too much translation work.

RoD: How do you think has the “dark scene“ here in Germany changed throughout the 10 years that you have been around?
Dennis: In the last few years, a lot of great new bands have come up, which I think was good because the scene got bigger and attracted a lot more fans. On the other hand, I think everything should have more attitude and less “catwalk compatibility” and “chichi crowd”.

RoD: So how do you think can a new band in the gothic/metal/dark electro area still cut a dash nowadays, or how can an already established band keep the fire burning without drowning in the mass or constantly repeating itself?
Dennis: That’s a hard question. Of course there are many ways to attract attention. I think it would be better for bands not to care that much about their appearance and their performance, but rather let the music speak for itself. I don’t have anything against entertainment but I prefer bands that just go onstage as naturally as they are, and when they then start their set, one immediately knows how the band works. The problem is that many bands really let their marketing managers (who obviously have a strong interest in selling the “product” to as many customers as possible) interfere into their work.

RoD: What kinds of challenges are left for EISHEILIG in the future? What are your plans for the coming weeks?
Dennis: Right now we are preparing for our upcoming live shows. I honestly can’t say what the future holds for us. What I do know, though, is that making music is still a lot of fun for us. I guess that’s enough to be able to embrace the future in the best possible way.

RoD: Is there any specific band or artist that you would love to work with or go on tour with in future?
Dennis: Yes, even though she has meanwhile become one of the biggest artists (which kind of makes collaboration with us impossible), I couldn’t think of a better person to collaborate with than Lisa Gerard (DEAD CAN DANCE). In my opinion, she has the best voice of today’s times. And it would actually not be my intention to sing a duet with her, but it would be awesome to make her sing one of our orchestral songs.

RoD: How do you feel about the current state of the music business, especially in terms of the digital revolution that is taking place right now? Do you, as a member of an established band, think that a new medium such as the internet is more of a danger or even a useful tool?
Dennis: The internet could be very useful for bands, composers, filmmakers and book authors. But if we compare the advantages with the damages that it does, I can only think of it in a negative way. People are suffering from the delusion that we musicians earn enough money anyway and that illegal downloads are therefore okay. What they forget is that these downloads in fact endanger our existence as a band. It’s not about complaining on a high level, but it is a fact that one rarely has the chance to make a living from music anymore, let alone has money for a good and suitable production. Studios and record labels are closing constantly, and the focus is more and more on already established bands. Newcomer bands rarely have the chance to make it in the biz anymore unless they find a generous investor. What I also find really annoying is the fact that various CDs are already up for download in the internet before they are officially released. The only ones who receive CDs before release are press people, so there must be a lot of black sheep in this field.

Nevertheless, a lot of these press people think it is impudent if we don’t send them a finished and complete promo CD. I’m seriously wondering how far these people think... if you only send them parts of your CD, they don’t write about you because you are “too small”. And big bands don’t have that problem, obviously. Every magazine always writes about a band such as Metallica because they are big enough, and therefore their writers even attend those huge studio listening sessions just to get a small taste of what’s to come since there aren’t any promo CDs at all. All of this is a vicious circle for smaller bands. This is just one problem of many, and of course I don’t want to point a finger at all the press people out there, but I think a bit more farsightedness is needed today, and if there are no fresh newcomers, the magazines will also start to struggle. The problems with the illegal downloads have to be taken seriously because, to state numbers, there are at least 15,000 illegal downloads per 500 sold CDs. And this is an amount that can even break the toughest and biggest bands.

RoD: Speaking of other bands... What is spinning in your CD player right now?
Dennis: I believe it is PINK FLOYD again.

RoD: So is there anything that you would like to leave us with before we close this interview?
Dennis: Thank you for the interview!

RoD: Yeah, thanks to you as well for taking your time, and good luck for your future endeavours!

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