RAGE

With greater kick

Not waiting for deserved congratulations and gifts for the 25th anniversary of their artistic work, Peter Wagner’s group decided just at the beginning of the year to go all the way and release one of the best albums in their history. I guess that every self-respecting fan of this German dinosaur already has “Carved In Stone” in his collection. So I recommend reading interview with the band’s frontman as a simple dessert to an excellent album’s content. In the meantime let’s open champagne and raise a toast to Peavy.

- Very casual question at the beginning. You’re 25 years on stage. During all this time you led very hectic life subordinated to extremely fixed scheme: recording an album – giving interviews – going on tour – counting money – recording next album – and so on. Don’t you ever feel like letting it all go to hell and warming a sinful body on some tropical islands where the only music is wave roar and birds’ chirrup?
A great prospect but... all in due time, in fact I’m still closer to the retirement (laugh). For the time being however, I feel good with how I live. Everybody has his worse days and moments of doubt. Of course me too. Every time, though, I come to a conclusion that playing in a band is what I like to do the most and probably I couldn’t imagine myself in a different role. Being a musician isn’t actually that boring as you’re trying to suggest but it can be very tiresome. You’re free but you must submit to a certain discipline and requirements without which you wouldn’t be able to function. For instance giving interviews. Generally I like to talk and even more to listen to compliments (laugh). I also realize that it’s absolutely necessary to provide an album with a decent promotion. But being several days on the phone and answering the same questions would bore everyone. However, you can’t get annoyed with that, everybody wants to get to know as much as possible but some of them just lack imagination (laugh).

So I’ll try not to get you tired too much but of course some questions must be asked. Although some time has passed since your parting with Mike Terrana, I didn’t had a chance to ask about it. So – why did you get rid of currently one of the best metal drummers?
To tell the truth Mike wasn’t a typical metal drummer. He’s more into jazz what is clearly audible in his style of playing. Of course this wasn’t the reason for our parting. Personal matters decided. Mike was playing with us for a very long period. During recent 3 years in RAGE he’d changed very much. Not only he was gradually losing his interest in playing this kind of music but also he started to be more and more aggressive and had negative attitude to everything that we were doing. He stopped talking to us, we started to lose our contact, he even didn’t felt like touring with us. In this recent period it was so bad between us that it led to foolish quarrels and scrambles. I have no idea what was the reason for such aggressive behaviour but I can only suppose that it’s an influence of some kicks that Terrana overdoses in a gym. This chemistry often messes people up. Finally we couldn’t stand it anymore and decided to get rid of him. It was the only way out. We don’t have any contact till now.


- His place was taken by Andre Hilgers – a musician which has already played in many bands but most of them are rather little known so there’s no point in giving their names here. Was it a good choice?
Definitely. Andre became a real band member in a flash, our fans very soon accepted him as well. His style of playing is completely different from Mike’s, he’s a more metal drummer, brought up with this music from the very beginning. He absolutely can play heavier and more bluntly. Someone like Andre perfectly matches the puzzle entitled RAGE. We knew that some of our fans loved this jumbled Terrana’s style but, to tell the truth, sometimes we got irritated with it. Instead of creating a steady rhythmic backing this guy was constantly playing his solos and doing strange things. Comparing to him, Andre is more focused and his play added a greater kick to our music. Besides, it’s a very technically playing drummer, he doesn’t have any problem with the stuff made up by Mike. We’re together for more than year and everything’s fine. Atmosphere in the band is great, we’ve just recorded our new album and we can’t wait going on tour with this stuff.

- You worked with Andre yet before he became an official member of RAGE.
Yes, some time before the official change in lineup Andre worked with us as a session drummer when we recorded an anniversary compilation for Nuclear Blast. He told us he was always a great RAGE’s fan. Later, when we parted with Terrana, we organized an audition for candidates for a drummer and Andre taking part in it seemed to be the best choice for us. He got us even with the fact that he knew practically the whole our material. (laugh)

- Let’s talk about the album. I dare state that “Carved In Stone” is one of the best albums in your career. I haven’t heard RAGE so lively…heavy metal for a long time. I don’t have anything against your previous releases but you came back to stronger playing at last.
Thanks. I think that this album got a bit of atmosphere in which it was created. “Carved In Stone” is one of the less problematically created productions that we made. When working on it we had great fun and most ideas came up very spontaneously - although as always under the watchful eye and ear of the despot - Victor (laugh). Because of Andre living close to us we could make rehearsals almost every day. With Terrana it wasn’t that easy as he usually lives in Denmark which made it difficult to meet. Today it’s different, more convenient. This all very positively influenced the album’s feeling.