Progressive death metal outfit Alkaloid can be called a so-called super group, even though the musicians in the band aren’t as high-profile as the ones playing in more commercial acts. Still, the musicians involved have a whole sea of credits, which ties them to bands like Obscura, Dark Fortress, Noneuclid, Blotted Science, Necrophagist, Hate Eternal, Spawn of Possession, Aborted, God Dethroned and so on. And that’s just a few of the bands Alkaloid members have played in.
Alkaloid are made up of the seasoned guitarist, vocalist and classical composer Florian Magnus Maier aka Morean, drummer Hannes Grossmann, guitarist Christian Muenzner, guitarist Danny Tunker and bassist Linus Klausenitzer. The band was founded by Hannes Grossman and Morean, who wanted to take progressive death metal up another notch, which they proved with both albums, The Malkuth Grimoire (review HERE) and Liquid Anatomy (review HERE).
The band members are pretty busy with other bands, so catching them live is quite tough. When it does happen, it’s more of an exclusive appearance, which by some coincidence went down at this year’s edition of Metaldays (report HERE). Before the festival, Hannes Grossman and Morean took some time for an interview to share their thoughts on making music, the scene and plenty of other stuff.
Rockline: Welcome to Metaldays, you two. As far as I know, this isn’t your first time here. You played here years ago with Dark Fortress, right?
Hannes Grossmann: With Dark Fortress I was here for the first time, as far as I remember.
Rockline: Now we’ve got a pretty exclusive thing here with Alkaloid. Since you formed, you haven’t even played 10 shows?
Hannes: We can always pretend we’ve been around longer so we look cooler. I made the first demo for the band back in 1994.
Rockline: Already back then?
Hannes: I was about 12 years old and it sounded really bad, so I deleted it. But it counts!
Morean: I started back in 1987.
Rockline: You started out quite differently. You were basically …
Morean: Technically speaking, really bad …
Rockline: Morean, you started on flamenco guitar, if I got that right?
Morean: I always played electric guitar. When I was twelve, my parents signed me up for classical guitar, and I’m really glad they did. At the same time, I always wanted to play electric, which I did alongside the classical. At seventeen I also got into flamenco and played until I couldn’t anymore (after being diagnosed with hypermobility, Morean stopped playing flamenco – editor’s note). Through all of that, I was also playing in metal bands.
Rockline: As for your work in music, Hannes is busy with the Mordor Sounds studio, helps record drums for bands’ albums and plays a lot live too. Morean, we know you’re also the vocalist in Dark Fortress, and a composer.
Morean: Composing is my main occupation. I have a classical education, which lets me write music for orchestras and string chamber orchestras, and I’ve got a second opera in the works. These days I mostly play electric guitar. What matters to me is that the work stays interesting, so I make sure I’m not doing the same thing all the time. I like the job where I compose, because I’m always creating new things. The challenge is in my hands to go somewhere I haven’t been before, which is really fantastic. As a classical composer, they tell you when the piece has to be finished and which instruments you can use, but nobody tells you what to write. There’s more freedom in that than in metal or rock music in general. But it’s also pretty tough, because you start from zero, with no presets. To keep things interesting, it’s better to have no presets, and I wouldn’t change that.
Rockline: Speaking of freedom of expression, you can feel it in Alkaloid too. When you released your debut The Malkuth Grimoire in 2015, you went beyond the borders of progressive and extreme. It feels like a transition of your work into the metal field.
Morean: That’s about right. Before this we all did different things and we still do different things, which is also what ties us together in this band. In my case, creating for Alkaloid is largely connected to how I create as a classical musician, which also comes with this incredible freedom and with musicians who will play everything I put in front of them. But we’re still a band, and I get to play the crazy stuff I write with my friends.
Hannes: Sometimes it’s good to have some limits. When you can be creative within a frame, it’s not about rules but about a framework where you have lots of options, but they’re not endless. You can end up overdoing it or being too weird and not getting to the point. As for limits, for example, we have three guitars, which still gives plenty of options. But if you have an orchestra, you’ve got so many more lines for how to use the orchestra, while here it’s just a five-piece band. So you can’t do everything, you have limits, which is good. First, you have to somehow play it live, which sparks creativity in a different direction for me. Let me put it another way. If you have a drum solo and can only play 8 notes, that’s the rule. Then you use a certain dynamic or pattern based on that. You’ve built a frame and you create something within it. And if you step outside the frame, it can get really interesting. Of course, it can’t be done by accident, with you just doing whatever you feel like. There are certain paths where it works and certain ones where it doesn’t. If you pick a set of limits before you start composing, you get much closer to the point you want to make.
Rockline: Your first release was undoubtedly a top-tier achievement. The question was what you could offer next. With the second album you again showed how you think “out of the box.” As an example I’d pick the song Kernel Panic, which sounds like you drew the inspiration for the sound from what prog rock bands à la King Crimson and Yes were doing in the eighties. And then it turns into death metal. And you close with a twenty-minute track, which again proves you have no limits. But going back to the start of the album, where did the idea come from to create something that sounds like eighties progressive rock?
Hannes: I had an idea and you have to start somewhere. In this case the starting point was in my AxeFX amp, where I found a guitar preset. I played one note, then I started connecting things and it was interesting. By accident it was in seven-four time and it sounded cool to me. After that I recorded it and left it for a week. Then I came back to it and told myself I could make something out of this. The link to death metal sounded natural to me. It starts out pretty quiet, then the drums come in and the song gets more and more dynamic, and then I thought …
Morean: Why stop here?
Hannes: Exactly, why stop if we all agree on it? A good example is Opeth, who were the first to get widely accepted for combining two different styles that have nothing in common. I’d say that’s a combination of Celtic Frost-style death metal and progressive folk. And when the two are combined, it sounds organic. I always thought, why focus only on brutality when you can bring in other elements too? If you start with an acoustic guitar and vocals, for instance, you can end up with a Nile-style song. It depends on how you do it, because an effect can make you sound superficial. It has to be built into the notes and the composition, and it has to develop naturally. If you force in something that maybe doesn’t fit, well, that’s your choice.
Morean: And you end up with a juxtaposition of two things and no reason why they come together. I approach it from the other side, more from the inside, where you have your creative mind. In my head I hear the sounds of the music I want to hear. And after that you’re tied to your fingers and the reality of playing music. I try to separate those two things, because the vision I have in my head has to be as clear as possible. So if the vision calls for a reggae beat, it comes into the music naturally. It’s not some cerebral decision along the lines of: “Let’s do something weird so people get confused.” That wouldn’t work for me, maybe for someone else who isn’t used to this kind of thing. Basically, you have to let creativity flow freely and unobstructed.
Hannes: I agree 100%, and that goes for Kernel Panic too. Usually you love certain things, and you draw inspiration from them. Two of my favorite bands were Rush and Morbid Angel, and I don’t know why I wouldn’t combine that. It’s natural to me. Like, when I’m in the car listening to music on Spotify and I build a playlist to listen to, it’s not necessarily going to be just one genre on it. It’ll be everything. The problem is when someone only leans toward death metal and simply doesn’t want to hear stuff from the eighties. But that’s not my problem.
Rockline: You guys in Alkaloid are very experienced writers. How does your music actually come together? Do you have concrete ideas already constructed in your head, or is it all pretty spontaneous?
Morean: For Kernel Panic it came more spontaneously. But the stuff I write for the band, I had before the band even existed. It was a strong desire I’d been living with, which was also one of the reasons I joined the band. For example, I can write the whole Dyson Sphere saga (a concept Morean started on the debut – editor’s note). When I wrote the first chapter of it, I realized it was nowhere near finished. For me it’s something I carry around for years before I sit down and finish it. In that case it’s not spontaneous, because I need more time for it to develop, and only once I know what I have to do do I sit down and turn it into music. We don’t get together to jam with each other, which would also lead to an interesting result, but there’s too much logistics involved for us to meet up.
Hannes: I think we also wouldn’t be honest about it. Maybe for some people and some bands. But it often comes from the idea that this is where inspiration comes from. Like, say you drink black tea to get inspired. So it comes from the things you do, but you don’t know what you’re doing. If we “jammed,” maybe it would turn out cool, maybe not.
Morean: Maybe we could try getting together in the same room once. (laughs)
Hannes: And it would take us quite a lot of time too.
Morean: When it comes to writing music, we’re pretty similar. Everyone writes their own stuff on their own, so we polish the details on our own too. At the same time, we give each other complete freedom, so we can write whatever suits us. When we’re writing an album, there’s a whole pile of stuff on the table. Really a lot of stuff. After that Hannes pulls it all together into a whole, because the recording, mixing and so on happen at his place. So far it has all worked out, with these things becoming one coherent album. Which is also a surprise to us.
Hannes: Which also has to do with the sound, because I have to mix for two months straight. I have to build all the sounds basically from scratch. And that takes really long. There’s the occasional “accident” along the way too. Take the song Chthulhu, for example. I had a riff and passed it on to Florian. I had no idea what to do with it. It sounded like a tribute to Morbid Angel, which I didn’t want. I wanted it to sound like Alkaloid. So I gave the song to him and he finished it his own way. That’s something I want: to hand ideas on to him.
Morean: Well, if you’ve got riffs like that one, I’m honored! Maybe this is a bit detailed, but I’ve been wondering my whole life what the point of the second verse is. The first verse is there to build excitement before the chorus, if we’re talking about that kind of songwriting. And in the second verse that’s gone, because everybody’s waiting for the chorus to come back. Right now I take complete freedom over when the second verse comes. I go somewhere completely different, otherwise it’s a waste of time if you have a riff for the verse and a riff for the chorus, which is way too boring for me. Behind every little piece there’s a door you can open.
Hannes: I’ve always been fascinated by where you can take classic songwriting. You know, the basic structure of verse – chorus – bridge, but not the typical way. A good example is Rapture by Morbid Angel, where the verse is the chorus and the chorus is an instrumental riff.
Morean: Something fantastic about death metal, especially brutal death metal, is that you can use abstraction. In harmony and rhythms, you can make things as dark, complex and dissonant as possible. And you’re under no obligation to follow the structure of a pop song.
Hannes: You can do whatever you want. You can throw in a drum solo and write riffs on top of it.
Morean: You’ve got a lot of freedom of expression. You don’t get that in power metal, for example, or in other stuff that feels like a cage. You can have ten seconds of something that’s considered an idea, and that’s a song after that.
Hannes: I deal with structures a lot. Sometimes when I get to a new part, when I come up with a new riff and don’t know what to do with it, I just sit in the studio at the computer … In that case I have a folder on my computer called “Attic.” If I don’t need something, I just stash it in the “Attic.”
Rockline: And at some point you come back and look at what’s in the folder?
Hannes: Maybe. But what I do know is that this is the verse. Sometimes that changes too, but it has a function. When I write, I try to be very functional.
Morean: I don’t do that at all. I write music all the time and when the time comes, I just finish it off.
Hannes: In the metal scene it’s like this: you compose for other people. But I don’t feel other people when I write material. (laughs)
Rockline: I hope you’re careful with your “Attic.” You know what happened with Kirk Hammett when he lost his phone.
Morean: But the fact that he couldn’t remember any of the riffs also speaks for itself. (laughs)
Rockline: You write music separately, each on your own. But do you really never get together for any rehearsals to practice a bit?
Morean: No, we usually get together for the group photo shoot once the album is done. (laughs) We’re always in touch over email, sending stuff back and forth. Now and then we do something together, but it doesn’t require us to sit side by side with our instruments.
Hannes: It’s just details.
Morean: It would be nice, but we’re pretty far from each other. From my house to Hannes’s studio it’s exactly 666 kilometers. (laughs) Nowadays there are other efficient options, because the idea of a band getting together over a weekend to rehearse isn’t possible.
Hannes: We write everything and send it to each other. I know the others pretty well musically. If I write, say, a few chords for one part, I think: “Chris would love to have this part. OK, Chris, play a solo. Whatever you want. I trust you!”
Rockline: When it comes to the actual writing, do you two carry the bulk of it, or do the others contribute their own songs too?
Morean: We’re all music writers. But Hannes writes all the time. Easily three albums a year. I have lots of ideas, but I’m pretty tight on time. For Alkaloid I have to sit down and work, which is more work than writing ordinary songs. For the first album Chris had a few songs, Linus had no time, and neither did Danny. So the first album was written by just me, Hannes and Chris. For the second album something similar happened with Chris, so Danny and I wrote more. But that doesn’t say anything about how we work. I’m always happy to hear the sound of our friends. For the second album Chris contributed some crazy solos, which meant he’s still here. Linus contributed bass lines too. It’s more like it just happens. Like the weather. We have no idea what it’ll be like next time, because maybe I won’t have time either. I think I can say we’re anti-dogmatic. In the creative process we definitely don’t want to rule anything out in advance. Because that’s part of the adventure and that’s what we’re excited about.
Rockline: The first album also has a few songs that make up the Dyson Sphere concept. A smaller part of the second album is also considered Dyson Sphere, while the other songs stand on the album on their own. Can we expect the Dyson Sphere concept to take over an album in full?
Morean: That’s definitely my goal. I’ve had the next parts in my head for years. Since I finished writing, I was really sad that the writing was over. When I’m writing material, I want to just keep going. So I’ll take it as far as possible. The whole Dyson Sphere concept is based on the Kardashev scale, which measures by numbers how advanced a civilization is. Right now the story sits between two and three. So, between controlling the solar system and controlling the whole galaxy. The next step is controlling the universe and becoming a god. But the scale goes on, because you still have the multiverse, which takes you into other dimensions. It’ll be quite a challenge to make something that makes sense in our three-dimensional world here. But you go step by step. Not only with this concept; I want to see through to the end the other stories I’ve started writing too. The themes I choose are complex and mysterious enough to last through the next albums. It’s the same with the Lovecraft theme, because I still want to say everything about his biology, the octopuses, since the only limit here is your imagination.
Rockline: Your music isn’t exactly meant for thousands of people in a crowd shouting “Hey, hey!” along to your songs. What kind of listeners would you say your music is meant for?
Hannes: I see myself here as a sixteen-year-old discovering crazy new stuff. There’s nothing you can do about that. I’ve noticed in the metal world, now that everything’s on the internet, that there are two types of listeners. Some are those, you know what “schlager” means … There are exactly the same ones in metal, except here we’ve got guitar and double bass. On the other hand there’s the audience that listens to progressive music. Bands like Between the Buried and Me, Meshuggah, Opeth are more serious, because it’s not all about the chorus. Both audiences are growing, but they’re completely separate. Obviously, there are potentially lots of people who’d follow us, you just have to use the channels to reach them. A lot of people think pop music is really hard to make and consider it art, which it isn’t. It’s actually very simple. The hardest thing is getting an audience for it. Look at Metallica. They haven’t made a good album since 1991 and they’re still popular, because they use so many channels. It’s not even a metal band anymore, it’s more of a company. In that case you can do whatever suits you, because you’ve got the channels.
Morean: You can always do whatever you want. The question is whether anyone will listen or not. Honestly, that’s not always in your hands, even if you work hard. But I couldn’t care less who listens to our music. I’m happy if anyone listens. Even if nobody listened, I’d still make it. When I do classical music, the piece is played by orchestras. And older people come to listen, and I’ve even seen them headbanging to my classical works. Everyone is welcome here and I hope people will listen before they decide they don’t like it. All these genres and walls too … That’s all in your head. If I started thinking about that, I wouldn’t get anywhere. I passionately avoid that kind of thinking. I write the same music whether it’s a string quartet, a big band, Alkaloid or Dark Fortress. I write the same way, but when the medium changes, the audience changes too. When I create, I don’t sit in little boxes sorting music into them. I used to do that, and when I decided one day to say screw it, I became so much happier and freer in my head. I don’t care what you look like. Okay, you shouldn’t be a pedophile or a Nazi, but everybody else is welcome.
Rockline: We’re at the end of the interview already. What are your plans for the future? Lots of people could still get to know you. Can we hope for a tour, or are you so busy with other things that something like that isn’t possible? Now that you’re on Season of Mist, will touring be easier?
Hannes: With a label it’s easier to go on tour, but what you need is a booking agent. It mostly rests on us here. I’m older than I was ten years ago. When I started with Obscura, I was in my twenties and still a student. It’s different now, when you have to pay bills. For us, in terms of promotion, I think we should do something that makes sense. If the offer is good, then it’s all reasonable and the investment pays off. Then we’ll go on tour, but not every one, because we have to decide it’s all okay for us. If not, we’ll play some shows and festivals and keep writing music. Maybe there’s another way too. A friend of mine does video production. Maybe we could hire him to film our material in the studio with lots of cameras. We’ve already thought about it, but we’ll need to sync up our schedules. Of course we want to play live. If you play 45 minutes a day, you have nothing from the rest of the day. There are bands that are on tour for whole months and earn nothing.
Morean: That’s how it is, you have to have other jobs to afford to play shows in front of an audience that paid for the show while you get nothing out of it. That’s why it’s pretty limited, no matter that people say: “Come here, come there, why don’t you do this and why not that …” But if people knew what so-called offers we get, they’d run away screaming.
Hannes: If you want your investment to pay off, you have to do a lot for promotion. On the label’s side you can invest time and money in video production or in songwriting too. Songwriting is the best business decision. Better than having a good web shop is having good songs. It sounds pretty arrogant, but a lot of bands obviously forget that.
Morean: Honestly, instead of posting a photo of my dog every other day, I’d rather write a few decent songs every two years and offer something that lasts and has value. Instead of posting random shit out into the world.
Hannes: If we keep things more exclusive, it’s not about elitism, it’s about the reality of things around us. If you have the mindset of a young musician who has to post everything on Instagram or else nothing happens. People just don’t see your dog. Doesn’t matter, you’re just wasting time.
Alkaloid at Metaldays 2019:
