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Interview with

Scream Silence

SCREAM SILENCE is a Goth-Rock band from Germany. They will release their new album ‘Aphelia’ on 20th April. After hearing the new album and immediately falling in love with it, I did a mail-interview with some of the band members. I’m really looking forward to see them at the Hexentanz Festival in two weeks.

Why did you release a new album so quickly after ‘Savourine’ (2006)? Some other bands would have gone to holidays after that success.
Wolfi: Truly…? You can’t do this in these days. We have so much material and songs, which we can work with. We try to push ourselves forward. It would also be unfair towards our fans.
Hardy: Somehow we can’t be quiet. You have to remember: when you release an album the work for it is already over for about three months. Because we are also responsible for the promotion now, maybe it will take some more months until the next releases.

How could you write, record and produce ten new songs in this short time?
Hardy: As we said before we have much material. Also we have our own studio and that’s a great luxury. We just started to work on some songs, recorded some guitar lines, added something here and took some parts away.
Wolfi: Some songs got finished very quickly. The recording sessions didn’t take such a long time, because the songs were already pre-produced and everybody had the time for searching his place in the structures of the songs. All in all there were about one and a half years between the two albums. That’s not so little time.

Searching for the word “Aphelia” you can find some links to butterflies. There is also the explanation for “aphelion” – the point of greatest distance of a planet from the sun. What kind of context is there between that and your new album?
Robert: We show “Aphelia” as a little girl. She is a symbol for the fragility of the human soul. In my opinion most people are very melancholic with a very fragile soul, although we are all very funny outwards and having fun together.
Hardy: Her name is symbolical derived from “Aphelion”- coldness and darkness are parts of nearly all lyrics on ‘Aphelia’. ‘Elegy’ was about managing the past and ‘Saviourine’ contained songs about all kind of fears. The new album is about the feeling of loneliness and narrowness - and where could it be lonelier than at this place? 

Because of titles like ‘Kerosene’, ‘The vitriol’ and ‘Harvest’ dark interpretations are suggesting themselves. How much space do you want to leave for the listeners understanding?
Hardy: Our metaphoric lyrics are leaving enough space nearly always for the listeners to interpret their own story into a song. There are also some songs, which are telling a special story. ‘Kerosene’ is about a strong fight in a relationship and how inflammable you are after losing enough wrong words - like kerosene. ‘The vitriol’ is ambiguous, which is very nice. You can use it for the high-explosive substance, but also as a malicious and resentful comment. It fits well in my opinion.



It’s no secret that your fans especially love your epic gothic rock ballads. ‘My Eyes’ is another impressive example for it. The strings are a special highlight of the song. Whom could you work with?
Hardy: This time we waived of guest musicians for the favour of the planned Live-DVD. As usual I made all the string arrangements, but this time they weren’t “real”. I don’t exclude that we will work with guest musicians for our next releases. It’s always interesting how much more living the sound is when a real human is playing.

The album also contains three live songs, which were recorded in December 2006 at the K17 Berlin. Will there be more releases from these recordings?
Robert: These songs are the beginning of the planned Live-DVD. We don’t know yet, when it will be released. We also need so much more material and that’s why we will record the upcoming concerts. After all these years it was the right time showing a little view of our little world. It will contain live-recordings, everyday situations of every band member and so on…

You did the video ‘Creed’ of the last album. Which song of ‘Aphelia’ is the best for such a visual component?
Wolfi: It’s not that simple this time. There are some songs on the album, which could be used for a video. In my opinion ‘Kerosene’ and ‘The vitriol’ are songs for a good visual work.
Hardy: At first we had to manage the release of ‘Aphelia’ and a video for a single is not planned this time in favour of the Live-DVD. We will record some concerts the next months and release them as ‘Best of’ in a Live-DVD with an EP in autumn. That’s our plan at the moment. If we will find the time, we will make a video.

The new album is going to be released at the 20th April. How will you present the album live? Are there already some plans for a tour?
Robert: Of course we want to be as much as possible on tour. We want to present the new album to the audience. We will play some concerts in spring and some festivals in summer. After that we will be touring through Europe in autumn. We will play in Germany, Eastern Europe, Italy, Switzerland and hopefully in Spain and France for the first time.
Hardy: We don’t like long tours, because we love being in the studio. If you want to see us, take a look at our homepage from time to time. At first we will party the record release at the K17 in Berlin.

Rene Gödde, your long-time live musician became a whole band member now. How did he qualify himself for this new role? When will you contain him on your homepage, so we can get more information about him?
Hardy: When Robert was sick two years ago, Rene spontaneously joined the concerts. Since then he was our second live guitar player. Until that time we can’t imagine playing live with only one guitar. There is much more pressure in the songs with two guitars, it’s more rocking. Rene, who has long-time experiences as a guitar player, is also very creative. So it was only a question of time, involving him into the albums. The sound got harder automatically. The homepage is going to be updated now, so the information will be added.



Some years ago you refused an offer of Columbia Records. Why did you do that and did you ever regret this decision?
Robert: In late 2003 we met a kind A&R person in Berlin at the Sony Center. We noticed very fast in what we would get involved. So we decided not to accept the offer. In favour of our musical freedom we gave up the fame and started our own label in 2004.
Hardy: It’s really much more work, but you keep the whole control about all creative and other processes and you don’t have to work with time pressure. This has always been mostly important for us. We never regret the decision.

Hardy, your voice truly grew over the last three albums. It developed from very deep tones at the beginning of the band into a clear rock voice with various tones. How did you work on your voice? What kind of new possibilities did you get as a singer and songwriter out of this?
Robert: Also a good singer can grew as it is shown here. Somehow Hardy is always topping his performance from one album to another.
Hardy: If you dare to cross your borders and try something new, you quickly realize how various your own voice can be. In my opinion, also guitars are even more interesting while not using only High-Gain sounds on the whole album.

Wayne Hussey (THE MISSION) said, your album ‘Elegy’ was his album of the year in 2005. What kind of importance does this statement have to you? What is more interesting for you - the praise of another musician or of a fan?
Wolfi: It’s nice to see that we also found open ears there. It’s always flattering to get appreciation by other musicians, but the opinion of a fan is even more important. To say it in another way: it would be even more necessary, if the fans didn’t like our work.
Robert: It’s really important for us to keep the connection to our fans. There are also some people supporting us with that. Now it’s time for blinking at our road-team ;-) Thanks a lot.

Because you are working really fast: Are there already plans for the time after ‘Aphelia’?
Maybe holidays…, not really. The festival season is starting. We will get some more dates for it soon. A tour is planned for November / December and we already have some now songs in the background.

Thanks a lot for your time.

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