Interview with
Klaus Schill (synths, guitars, production) and Frank Zwicker (vocals & words) from Sea of Sin
I first saw SEA OF SIN as a supporting act for DIARY OF DREAMS in Dresden. A great, lively concert combining emotional and dynamic stood for the perfect opening of the evening. The new album of the project entitled ‘Tired of Chasing Ghosts’ is scheduled to be released on the 21st of April 2023 and it is a catchy, well-balanced mix of heart-rendering and ass-kicking. About the tour with DIARY OF DREAMS, their new release, their artistic path full of ups and downs, current music scene and who the title Ghosts really are.
Reflections of Darkness [RoD]: Hello guys, thank you for finding some time for our chat. The last time we met was on the 18th of March in Dresden. You were about to complete the tour with DIARY OF DREAMS. I must say it was spectacular. Could you reflect a bit upon the said tour? What were impressions, major highlights, or challenges?
Sea of Sin: Many thanks, it has really been really spectacular for us to play this tour as special guest of DIARY OF DREAMS - a dream come true for us. Playing venues like Markthalle in Hamburg, Täubchenthal in Leipzig or Columbia Theater in Berlin has been simply amazing, we had audiences of up to 900 people who attended the shows. Performing our music live in such fantastic surroundings has been a great experience for us! We had so much fun and met so many great people on tour, also made a lot of new fans. The crowd who mainly came to see DIARY OF DREAMS was really open-minded. We will surely never forget those outstanding moments and concerts. Though it has also been quite a physical challenge to play 10 shows in a row which we have never done before. What we want to point out: all members of DIARY OF DREAMS and the whole live crew have been so friendly and made us feel like home from the beginning. Which is meant literally when touring together in a night liner tour bus for 10 days. We really had such a great time with all of them - very special thanks to Adrian Hates and Albert Diehl (Contribe) for making this possible.
RoD: Your live shows are a combination of powerful rock kick and a very emotional, profound vibe. How do you feel about playing live? Do you recollect any particular concert that was special for any reason?
Sea of Sin: Our live sound is a little more towards rock than our album and single recordings. This is mainly due to the fact that Klaus plays electric guitar on all songs. In addition Frank sings his vocals live also a bit rockier than in the studio. We want to achieve a more energetic vibe and excitement on stage this way - and of course it is also great fun to play guitar live. Yet we keep the general mood and atmosphere of the songs: melancholic but also catchy. It is also important to pick the right songs for the individual setting and audience. Thank god we have more than enough tracks to choose from and it is rather hard to pick the final songs in the end.
RoD: You started your career back in the 90s, so you’ve gone through a long road so far. What do you think has changed in your approach to music making, live shows, and the music industry in general since you started?
Sea of Sin: Oh, that’s an interesting question that covers quite a lot of different aspects. In our opinion a lot has changed since the 90s. Regarding our approach to write music there have been the fewest changes: we still gather demos and song ideas and choose favourites which we record and produce afterwards. Surely technical inventions have made things easier to exchange song files and to realize pre-productions and mix-downs in your own home studio; though we still go to a professional recording studio to record the vocals. Concerning live shows we have only played rather selected and special occasions in the 90s - back then still performing as a trio (founding member Dirk on keys who had left the band in the late 90s). So it was kind of a kick-start in 2022 to play Live again after the long hiatus as a band. Unfortunately Covid has totally crashed the whole live music scene and venues, bookers and bands still massively suffer from the developments these past years - and of course also our plans before Covid to focus more on live shows.
The music industry in general surely has changed by far the most since the 90s with the rise of the internet and all its possibilities for music streaming services and platforms. The whole revenue ecosystem has been massively affected by this. In the 90s bands were touring in order to promote their new albums to push sales - which has totally turned around in the later 2000s when bands made most of their income through playing live and merch. Though we are happy and lucky to play a genre with very loyal fans who still buy physical products and CDs. Overall it has become very hard to make a living out of music even for bigger artists. On the other hand there also is a positive side to streaming, Spotify and Social Media - you can reach and connect with new fans all over the world, even without a record label. We are working 100% as independent artist and this helped us a lot to grow fan base an awareness after the comeback.
RoD: You had almost 18 years of hiatus in your career. You returned in 2018 with ‘Future Pulse’. Was this pause necessary? What did you benefit from it? Why did you decide to come back to music after all?
Sea of Sin: There was no such thing as a masterplan behind this. The decision was more of an existential nature when we both needed to focus on our business careers in the early 2000s. And soon Klaus moved to Hamburg and Frank had found his new home in Stuttgart. We really had a lot of bad luck at the end of the 90s, musically things weren’t going so well these days - the final turning point was when we had a second record label bankruptcy in four years after releasing ‘Urban Chemistry’! Things just weren’t meant to be back then it seemed. Klaus decided to re-build a home studio in 2015 and things began to get more serious again with remix jobs for THE NEW DIVISION and CAMOUFLAGE (for the track ‘Count on me’ ft. Peter Heppner under the remixer alias Chevy Baccole). In 2017 he started to work on re-edits of older SEA OF SIN tracks and Frank immediately was eager to revive the band too shortly after. A collection of those re-edits was released on the album ‘Future Pulse’ in 2018 and the band was officially re-instituted.
And things have turned out really great ever since, we achieved so much more than we ever expected after the restart - including the release of ‘Unbroken’ in 2019, our first album with completely new songs after the long break, several great remix collaborations (incl. MESH, THE NEW DIVISION, BLUME to name a few) and several top placements in Deutsche Alternative Charts with corresponding compilations and albums. We released a lot of new music and since the end of last year we’ve finally had the chance to play live again! A further highlight was the chance to contribute a remix for ANNE CLARK’s ‘Synaesthesia - Classics Reworked’ album in 2021, our remix of ‘Sometimes’ was even released as a first single and harbinger of the album. A great honour for us to collaborate with such an iconic artist as Anne.
RoD: Your new album, ‘Tired of Chasing Ghosts’, is scheduled to be released on the 21st of April, 2023. Could you describe the general vibe and themes included in the album?
Sea of Sin: Yeah, as mentioned the CD release will be on 21st of April, digital release will be one week later on April 27th on all digital platforms. We have released quite a bunch of new songs the past months - four singles and five remixes. These tracks will be on the new album together with the new single ‘Empty Places’ and a previously unreleased remix of ‘Don’t Let Go’ by our good friend ROTOSKOP. The last two years we have further worked on our own specific and distinct sound: maintaining the Synth Pop roots, blending Indie Pop influences as well as stylistic elements of New Wave including guitars as basic element of our songs. And we still want to make music that touches hearts and also sticks in people’s heads - we will always have a sweet spot for melodies and catchy hooks and choruses. In addition to all the digital releases we are still fans of physical releases and CDs (Vinyl unfortunately is just way too expensive and difficult to handle and plan ahead these days…). That‘s why we planned the release of the new album and CD in parallel. We had our good friend Christoph Fuchs of fuchsconcepts work on the artwork and packaging: we wanted to have a worthy and stylish product and we are really very happy with the outcome of the 6-page Digipac including a 16-page booklet.
RoD: The album is a combination of emotional songs such as ‘High and Low’ or ‘Don’t Let Go’ and dancy ‘Shine a Light’ or ‘Synchronize’. When you sit to write a new album, do you have a specific idea of what it should sound like?
Sea of Sin: Not really. This all comes in naturally - it is never a good idea to try to force creative decisions and outcome. In late summer 2021 we decided to work on new music again. Frank had gathered quite a lot of song demos and sketches the past months and we went through the tough process to select the best songs to work on as upcoming new singles. In the end we selected the five best songs for this: ‘Synchronize’, ‘High and Low’, ‘Shine a Light’, ‘Don‘t Let Go’ and ‘Empty Places’. The final sound and production then came by itself and organically, we always try to find a sound and foundation that fits each song the best. And we think it helps to have a wider range of song types to keep listeners involved and gain breadth.
RoD: There are a lot of great artists involved in doing remixes for you - THE KVB, ASHBURY HEIGHTS, or ZOOT WOMAN to name just a few. How do you choose the people you want to collaborate with?
Sea of Sin: As with prior singles we definitely wanted to include cool remixers again because it‘s always great fun to see what other artists will make of your songs and ideas and how they realize to bring other perspectives to surface, also in terms of club compatibility. We were very lucky to hire great international acts such as ZOOT WOMAN, THE KVB, ASHBURY HEIGHTS and THE NEW DIVISION to work on remixes. In the end it is a question of gut feeling and availability and also release schedule that leads to final selection. Generally we always try to choose remixers that are supposed to bring new aspects into the songs and let them shine in kind of new ways but still maintaining a certain SEA OF SIN sound. So it is important for sure that we love what they are doing. E.g. we both have been great fans of ZOOT WOMAN since their first album ‘Living in a Magazine’ in 2001, THE KVB on the other hand really add that Post Punk sound to ‘Synchronize’ which we really dig. It has also been a long time plan to collaborate with our friend ZYNIC who contributed the latest remix for ‘Don’t let Go’. There will also be a swap SEA OF SIN remix for ZYNIC coming out end of May 2023, so stay tuned.
RoD: What is the meaning of the title? What kind of ghosts did you have in mind while producing the sonic and lyrical content of the album?
Sea of Sin: The last few years have been extremely draining and challenging in many ways - for all of us! A lot is thrown at you every day, through the news channels and also through the omnipresent social media platforms. With increasing age and life experience, it helps a lot to sometimes see and approach things a little more calmly and reflected way. In terms of the music and the band, we are now totally on our own and just do our thing - without compromises or consideration for how it might be received. So we are not chasing after anything or anyone anymore, we are simply ourselves.
RoD: Are you planning any new live shows in the upcoming months? What can we expect from you in the nearest future?
Sea of Sin: Firstly we focus on the release and promotion of the new album. On April 29th we will have a special release party and concert in Hamburg at Die Hebebühne where we will celebrate our new album. And we have more concerts coming in 2023: we will be playing Black Zoo Gothic Glam in Hannover at Pi32 on June 10th, Rockfabrik Uebach-Parlenberg on July 1st and Dark Christmas Bawl Festival on December 15th at Subkultur Hannover. We hope for more shows to be added this year - let‘s see what’s gonna happen. In 2024 we also hope to be playing one or more of the bigger festivals. We’re looking forward to seeing and meeting a lot of you guys out there in the future. And not to forget we will have our 30 years band anniversary next year!
RoD: Many thanks for the interview!
All Live dates: https://ffm.live/seaofsin-official
All relevant band links: https://ffm.bio/seaofsin-official
New CD: https://www.poponaut.de/tired-chasing-ghosts-p-22089.html
All pictures by Lukas von Saint George
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