SUIDAKRA

Journey to the Isle of Skye

Released about three weeks ago, the newest album of German Celt metallers bearing the name SUIDAKRA is actually the first material in their extensive discography that really earned my deepest appreciation. After some fairly average records band's leader Arkadius and his brothers in arms finally reached a new level of maturity. I can truly recommend "Crógacht" to anyone who is a fan of melodic metal music with some nice folk ingredients. Listen to "Crógacht" and you'll quickly understand what I'm talking about. Now get a preview of what's coming and read the following interview with SUIDAKRA's mainman.

-Hello Mr. Arkadius! How are you doing? Hope all is well with you. Is everything going fine at SUIDAKRA's camp?
Oh yes Darek, we're now preparing ourself for the upcoming US tour and we looking forward to all the events and happanings, that will follow after the release of the new album.

-I’ll try not to get you bored to death but of course some questions must be asked. After three years of waiting your brand new album entitled „Crógacht” finally hit the stores. How does it feel, to have a brand new baby? What has the response for this album been so far?
Oh it's a good feeling, I can tell you... hahaha After playing a few years almost the same setlist on stage, I can't hardly wait to write and record a new album. When we started to write we had a feeling that the new material is gonna be something special. And now it's finished, I'm more than satesfied and the response is great. The fans love the two new songs we presented on myspace and also the press is enthusiastic.

-The album was recorded in a new line up configuration, I mean Marcel Schoenen's absence. He left SUIDAKRA back in 2007. Actually, as your bio noted, throughout the years Marcel was leaving the band at least a few times... What happened this time?
Marcel lost the motivation to go on with the band because he concentrated himself more on his regular job. On “Caledonia” 80% of the songwriting was done by me and after the release Marcel told us that “Caledonia” will be his last SuidAkrA album ever. We had to decide if we continue or split the band. For us there was no other choice than to continue. We have still so many ideas and there is no reason for us to stop.

-Marcel's absence forced you to take over clean vocal duties. Was it a challenge for you? Did you get any professional singing lessons, to improve your skills? The questions is justified since your clean vocal parts on „Crógacht” are very good...
Oh thanx a lot. Yeah it was a new challenge for me and a special experience. Clean vocals are totaling different to the screaming vocals I did for all these years. I took singing lessons for about six months and started to write a few lines for the clean vocals. I wasn’t sure if it would work because I never did it before. But everything went perfect in the studio and I’m satisfied with the finish result.

-OK, now let's try to find out, what makes this album better compared to the other releases from so called folk-metal genre. Don't let me wrong, I don't want to lick your arse saying that „Crógacht” is the best album I have ever heard in my life. But this is definitely a very good album and I truly enjoy to listen to it. Songs are interesting, nothing to complain about Martin Muchwalter's work. I think this is very mature, well rounded album and you will probably agree with this...
Oh yes hahaha... You know we don't see SuidAkrA as a pagan-folk band, so we do not compare ourself to this genre. We have the folk elements, but they are just elements, not more. In my opinion “Crógacht” unites all the positive aspects and strengths of our sound. For me it's the most well-balanced album we've ever made.

-Musicwise, lyricwise „Crógacht” is a logical continuation of your previous works. In my opinion that's where your strength lies, I mean especially SUIDAKRA's enormous consistency. Throughout the years you have been working really hard to shape your music profile, to evolve from quite a primitive form known from your debut album „Lupine Essence” to a well thought out and sophisticated formula presented on your newest effort. How do you see band's progression through the years? What makes this new album better compared to your previous recordings?
I think the main differences between “Crógacht” and the earlier releases lie in the sound of the production and in our musical and songwriting skills. Both have improved on every record and while the first releases sounded quite raw it changed to a kind “controlled power” on the newer ones. On “Crógacht” we experienced how it works to write music according to a concept. I guess this would not have succeeded in the early days… The new material is faster, more bombastic & melodic at the same time.

-The whole writing process for this album was a bit different this time, because as you said in some interview „it was more like a writing music for a movie”. Could you unveil more details concerning the creating process of „Crógacht” album? How much blood, sweat and tears did you invest in this little plastic disc?
It took over 1 year to finish writing the new material and 1 month to record “Crógacht”. Like said in other interview before, the songwriting was different to the way of composing in the past. We told Kris Verwimp, our longtime graphic artist who was also responsible for the lyrical concept on ”Crógacht”, that the new album will include about 9 songs. He came up with the conpect and an according division into chapters. So before we wrote the first song we knew what the whole story and album should be about to express. We sent him the first recordings from the rehearsal room and planned which song would fit to which lyric. It was a new way of soundwriting for us. This time we had the oppurtunity to create certain moods and atmospheres according to the lyrics.

-This time Kris Verwimp was really occupied, creating the album artwork, the booklet and writing a concept story for „Crógacht”. Why did you decide to entrust writing lyrics to him?
We had the idea that Kris could create a lyrical concept for us many years before when we found out that he also released pagan comics & books that tell Irish stories. The problem was that we always finished the songwriting a few weeks before we entered the studio so there wasn’t time left to work on that. After the “Caledonia” album was released, we met Kris at one of our shows in Germany and we asked him about our idea. He was very excited to work on such a big project. He came up with the idea of using that Irish legend and we gave him free space to create the story like he would like to.
This way we got Kris involved into the songwriting. After the recordings were finished and I asked Kris a few days ago if he would like to work with us in this way on the next album again and he said: “of course!” ;-)

-„Crógacht” is a concept album, telling an Irish mythology story of the hero called Cuchulainn. Could you tell me some more about him? Since I'm not familiar with Celtic myths, it would be really cool to know some more about him...
The concept tells an Irish mythology of the hero Cuchulainn also called as the Hound Of Cullin. It would be too hard to go into details because it's a very complex story. In general we focus on his adventures and his journey to the Isle of Skye, where he seeks to learn the arts of war from the Scythian warrior woman Scáthach. His decisions during the story set the events in motion that causes his son Conlaoch’s tragic fate... But I won’t tell you how the story ends hahaha…

-Which is funny and interesting, you played a role of Cuchulainn in a video for „Shattered Swords”. Could you elaborate on this? Was it hard to shot this video? I watched it a few days ago and it turned out pretty cool. Man, you almost died by the sword!
It made so much fun to play the role in this clip. I wanted to hire a real actor to play Cuchulainn because the first shooting was at the end of November and we were at this time still in the studio mixing and mastering the new album. But Sebastian (producer of the clip) wanted me to play this role. I agreed and we all met each other to start. The whole shooting was relaxed and I especially enjoyed the makeup effects hahaha I love this wound in my face.... A few weeks later the whole band met Sebastian again to do the band shooting for this clip. All went better than expected. Because of the experience with Sebastian on the “The IXth Legion” clip we worked more as a team and get this flow into all this! If we will get the chance to do another clip... ANYTIME!!!

-Since the beginning SUIDAKRA has been associated with the Celts, their mythology, folklore, beliefs and other things. What is so special about Celtic culture? How did you get interested in it?
You know the Celt were settled in the whole Europe and left behind lots of hoof prints. We started to deal with the Celts in our lyrics because their culture have a lot of mythologies and it's a good opportunity for us to create stories without attend to if it's right or wrong, so we had much free space.

-Would you be interested in exploring other cultures through your art as well?
Oh that could be very interesting. I think they are so many different cultures with its history and legends/myths, who knows if SuidAkrA won't tell one of them in the future ;-)

-On the album can be heard some various folk instruments, such as bagpipes, tin whistles or banjo. Did you use REAL instruments or the tracks were just simply emulated? I'm curious because many folk metal bands boast about using real instruments...
No we used real instrumens on this album. Of course we could use a synthesizer but it's not the same. We had this time the opportunity to create a authentic atmosphere, which was really important to us.