Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Brescia / Circolo Colony / Italy
Interview date: 04.02.2014
Alex Beyrodt has been one of the most prominent German heavy metal and hard rock guitarists of the last few years, if not one of the top European ones. He was discovered back in the eighties by the great guru of German metal, Matt Sinner, when Alex joined his band Sinner. Today Alex Beyrodt is a hugely respected guitarist who serves as lead guitarist in Primal Fear, Sinner, Vodoo Circle and Silent Force, as well as in the »Rock Meets Classics« project. If you’re looking for a synonym for being booked solid 24 hours a day, Alex Beyrodt is the name you want.
Alex took a few minutes to chat about Primal Fear, the freshly released album »Delivering the Black« and all his other musical activities, right before the band’s show in Brescia, Italy.
RockLine: Alex, you’re out on a new European tour with Primal Fear, presenting your fresh new studio album »Delivering the Black«. How are things going for Primal Fear on the tour right now?
Alex: Everything’s great. The crowds are stoked, the reactions are fantastic, and attendance is very good. Actually, all our shows are sold out, or close to it. We can also brag that even the dates we played before the album came out, since it dropped in the middle of the tour, were already really, really well attended. And that’s great. We’re very happy. I don’t know what’s going to happen tonight here in Brescia, but that’s another story.
RockLine: You jumped into Brescia at the last minute. It’s a show that was booked at the last minute, and the only Italian date too. You got here from hot Spain, and then you head back home to Germany, where The Messenger join you as the support act. How do you feel the crowd reactions differ at your shows when you play at home in Germany versus abroad, so on stages outside Germany?
Alex: We started the tour in Germany, and The Messenger were with us in Spain too, but then their transport van got broken into and all their gear and personal luggage got stolen. Otherwise The Messenger would be playing tonight here in Brescia as well. As for crowd reactions at our shows, the fact is that outside Germany, especially when we play for example in South America, like Argentina, the reactions are very strong and intense, and the crowd doesn’t hide the fact that they completely merge with our music during the show. They sing the lyrics passionately, especially the choruses. In Germany we have to grind a lot harder to win over our home crowd, to get them interested, to spark that interest. But that’s just the difference in the character of the audiences from the get-go. Still, it’s clear that the crowd at home appreciates us too. But that doesn’t mean we can get lazy. Especially not these days, when every single fan of our music counts. It does happen that we play some venue outside Germany where we have to work even harder than at home. But that’s not bad. Nothing wrong with that. As Germans we’re used to grinding. It’s kind of in our blood.
RockLine: Let’s talk about your new studio record »Delivering the Black«. How would you describe the process of making it, and what are the main differences between this album and the previous one?
Alex: »Delivering the Black« is my second album with Primal Fear. The first was its predecessor, »Unbreakable«. You know what the basic difference is? On the new album we got together in the studio as a band. Usually the method today is that every musician in the band works on new material alone, separately. Locked away in their own studio. Both approaches have pros and cons. But this time we said we wanted to make an album the way a real band does it. Not each of us working on new material separately behind our own computer in our own studio. So when we recorded the album, we were all in the studio together. The whole band. Maybe that’s also part of why »Delivering the Black« is the best-received studio album of our whole career so far. It climbed into the top 20 best-selling albums on the German charts and landed at number 13, which is a dream for us.
RockLine: Year after year, Primal Fear is becoming a proven constant that keeps gaining more and more support from the metal community. That’s the feeling, anyway. Your albums boast outstanding quality and a recognizable, you could even say characteristic, sound, while your tours are getting bigger and bigger, with more and more dates, and they now regularly take you to other continents as well. How do you, as a musician, experience this process?
Alex: It’s true. Today the harshest realization is that you have to play more and more if you want to survive. Which, to put it plainly, means bringing home enough money. Money from album sales is a thing of the past. Unfortunately. That ended a few years ago. A band like Primal Fear, or similar bands in »our music category«, simply have to aim to earn money from touring and from selling official merch on the road. Sadly we’re not Metallica, who can afford to make a bad album, an album where the recording and the whole release project including promotion costs, say, 20 million dollars, and that bad album will still sell well enough. And that’s not fair. It’s not right. That’s why bands like Primal Fear are pushed up against the wall and have to prove themselves that much more and grind way harder than some other bands who, back in other times, simply had more luck than they have brains today.
RockLine: You’ve also got Voodoo Circle, and you released a new studio album just last year. We saw you at Hi-Rock Festival?
Alex: In Inzell?!?!
RockLine: Exactly. I’m wondering how you manage to juggle all of this. You’re constantly very busy.
Alex: It’s true. I’m busy all the time. There are really two hearts beating inside me. One is the classically trained one, let’s say, leaning toward hard rock and melodic rock. I’ve played a lot of classical music in my career and performed with it too. The other heart beats for heavy metal, but the kind of heavy metal where melody is always clearly front and center. That’s what I do and what I did with Silent Force, and what I’m currently doing very successfully with Primal Fear. Anyway, these jumps between two musical worlds don’t cause me any headaches whatsoever. When the call comes that Primal Fear work is on the horizon, I throw myself into Primal Fear completely free of baggage, and when the other situation comes up, it’s exactly the same with Voodoo Circle or Silent Force. Speaking of Voodoo Cirlce, look, there goes our keyboard player, ha ha ha,… (points at Jimmy Kresic, who has just walked into the »backstage« area, ed. note)
RockLine: You’re like a kind of family.
Alex: That’s true. We try to run all our musical business within this family. That’s very important. It’s about bridges of trust between us, and they’re very solid. It has to stay that way, because that’s best for all of us. That’s also why Jimmy Kresic is here tonight in a different role than the one he has when we play shows with Voodoo Circle, but he’s with us helping Primal Fear in other capacities. Precisely because he’s a man who’s worthy of great trust.
RockLine: What can you tell us about your musical background? Which musicians and bands inspired you as a teenager to decide to become a musician? Whenever I watch you with that famous cream-colored Fender Stratocaster strapped on and listen to you play, I can’t shake the feeling that you were in awe of Richie Blackmore and his work?
Alex: That’s true. I’m a huge Richie Blackmore fan. I definitely love Jimi Hendrix and Randy Rhoads too. I got the chance to see Randy live at a concert with Ozzy Osbourne, but I grew up on Richie Blackmore. So Deep Purple, Rainbow. I was given the incredible honor of sharing a stage with a person like Ian Gillan. A rock icon. That was when we did the »Rock Meets Classics« project. Deep Purple’s music shaped me not only as a musician but as a person too. Today it’s really hard for us musicians. Money doesn’t come easy. But when the opportunity comes along and you get to share a stage with someone who, as a musician, represents a big part of your life, who with their work and the mark they left on rock music actually helped shape you, that’s the greatest possible payback for all those years of grinding and sacrifice. That’s when you get a sign that you’re on the right path. That’s the real moment of truth. And it lies in your heart. Nobody can take that away from you, and no money can buy it. Knowing that you’re on the right path and that you keep walking it is something priceless these days. Usually that doesn’t come together with piles of money, though. So you have to give something up. I’m very proud that I’ve played on stage with Ian Gillan, Glenn Hughes, Paul Rodgers and similar giants of rock music. Next month I’ll be on stage with Joe Lynn Turner and Alice Cooper. And I won’t have to pay a thing for it. What’s more, I’ll get paid for it. Ha ha ha,…
RockLine: Over the years, one name has been especially tied to your career. Matt Sinner. Through your work in Sinner, Primal Fear, Voodoo Circle and now Rock Meets Classics as well. How do you see your relationship with him?
Alex: Matt and I have always been great friends. We’re not connected just through music. We’ve known each other for years. Whenever I have some kind of problem in life, I lean on Matt. He always shows up with really good advice. I joined Sinner in 1988, and before that I was a big fan of Sinner’s music. Then suddenly I landed in the band. At first we played around Germany, later around Germany and Europe. Even America, Japan. Matt is really the catalyst of my whole career. He helped my musical career change completely, take off. So I’m immensely grateful to him for all of it. It always feels like we just met yesterday. We’re constantly having fun, enjoying the things we do together. As if all those years we spent together never actually happened.
RockLine: Your longtime musical comrade Tom Naumann has also returned to the Primal Fear camp on this tour. Watching Primal Fear on stage today is a bit like watching the first Sinner front line, minus Ralf Scheppers of course. How does it feel to be standing shoulder to shoulder with Tom on stage again?
Alex: We get along phenomenally. Naumann and I played together in Sinner between 1988 and 1997 or 1998, I don’t remember exactly right now. We sound great together. There’s chemistry between us. And that’s exactly what we were talking about a few days ago. That chemistry. In the »nightliner«. It was five in the morning. We hadn’t seen each other for almost 20 years. But when we found ourselves together at rehearsals again after all those years, it felt like we’d last been together yesterday. As if nothing had happened in between. As if those 20 years had never been there. When we both started our careers as professional musicians, in our early days, we learned from each other. On stage today, I don’t even need to watch what Tom Naumann is doing on the other side of the stage. I know exactly what he’ll do in a given situation and how he’ll react to it. And that element, a rare but hugely important quality in our kind of music, keeps me endlessly inspired and entertained up there.
RockLine: Are there any wishes or goals left on your musical journey, any idea you’d still like to realize?
Alex: Hmm… I think very short-term. The first thing is that I somehow have to survive this year. That’s the first plan I have to map out and carry through. This year we’ll be playing live very intensively with Primal Fear. All around the world. And that demands my full focus on Primal Fear right now. So that’s where I’ll be putting pretty much all my energy this year. In 2015 a new Voodoo Circle album will come out, followed by a new Voodoo Circle tour.
RockLine: What about Silent Force?
Alex: Silent Force? Of course, during this several-year break it turned out that the audience had by no means forgotten Silent Force. Actually, this six-year gap between the previous album and the new one, »Raising From Ashes«, shows that people started demanding us, and so the reactions to the new album, as well as to our live shows, were far bigger than I ever dared to hope. The Silent Force name is also rated higher on the metal scene today than ever before. At first I was very skeptical when we changed singers. Michael Bormann, who used to sing in Jaded Heart, stepped in for D.C. Cooper. D.C. and his vocals had always been a kind of integrity of Silent Force’s sound and character. Still, that risky change paid off big time. This success with Silent Force came completely out of the blue, so it means that much more to me and I’m very proud of it. Another proof that it was worth sticking it out and waiting. During that time some things in my private life got sorted out too, and that also helped everything for Silent Force fall into place nicely. Given all the commitments with Primal Fear, Sinner, Vodoo Circle and Rock Meets Classics, the longer break was kind of a given. And it was just last year that the time was finally ripe for a new Silent Force album too.
RockLine: Is there any unspoken thought still weighing on your mind that would be interesting for our readers?
Alex: Yes. I’d like to say that I play for the people, and that whatever I play, I always play with heart.
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