Interview date: 06/20/2008
It was a real honor to chat with bassist and co-founder of German power metal heavyweights Primal Fear, Mat Sinner, when Primal Fear stopped off on their “New Religion Summer tour 2008” for a gig in the town of Moraro near Gorizia, Italy. That everything revolved around this year’s European Football Championship was confirmed by the very spot where we did the interview, and by the guy we did it with. The interview took place right on a football pitch next to the festival grounds, and Mat Sinner is well known as a die-hard football fan and a living, breathing football encyclopedia. He used to play himself, up front as a striker. He admitted he wasn’t exactly great with his head, but he had a nose for where to stand in the box to get a good ball for a goal. Of course, the first part of the chat was all about football, there was just no avoiding it, and then we quickly switched over to music….
RockLine: It’s been ten years since the band got started. Looking back, what can you tell us about Primal Fear today?
Mat: Very simple. I’m even more convinced that it was a one-of-a-kind moment when we founded the band in 1998. It was a truly phenomenal decision. We started out without big expectations. We simply felt the need, for ourselves, and also because the kind of music we wanted to play didn’t exist back then, or rather, interest in it had pretty much died down at the time. But it’s like with other bands, there are ups and there are downs, even though we keep trying to hold on to a certain level, a certain character, a certain essence that we’re recognized for. We keep working to stay out there in public, so people can trust in our consistency and the rock-solid core of the team. Basically, the band is really tight all the time, with no swings or turbulence inside it. What you see is what you get.
RockLine: Summers are festival season. You must be pretty seasoned by now.
Mat: Yes. We always use this time to play festival shows, or shows where a bigger crowd gathers, like bikers’ meetups and so on… But it’s a different experience compared to our own headline tours, which we usually do in autumn or spring. Especially when it comes to the crowd. These festival shows are really important, because the audience isn’t necessarily all Primal Fear fans, they can listen to different kinds of music, not just metal. That way we get the chance to introduce our music to them and bring it closer to them at these festivals.
RockLine: You’ve got a new record out, New Religion. In my opinion it’s quite different from your previous ones. What can you tell us about it?
Mat: That’s true. For the first time we said to ourselves: “Let’s try something completely new.” Don’t get me wrong, it’s normal for a band to keep moving forward and put out new albums that aren’t all the same, but with New Religion we felt we could push the boundaries and grow creatively one step higher, reaching a new standard.
RockLine: Was working with Magnus Karlsson a deciding factor in that?
Mat: That too. Magnus Karlsson is a unique guy. He’s a multi-instrumentalist. He’s a great collaborator who already worked with us on the album “Seven Seals”. He’s open to different challenges, to trying out different musical things. On the new record he helped write four songs, and he also contributed keyboard lines and solos on two tracks.
RockLine: Magnus Karlsson is a musician with an outstanding pedigree, and I think that now, as a member of Primal Fear, he’s a huge gain for you.
Mat: Magnus proved himself a great companion on our last tour, “10 Year In Metal”, which was his baptism by fire with Primal Fear. It also turned out that the guitar duo of Henny Wolter and Magnus Karlsson is one of the most successful and best that Primal Fear ever had. Magnus can be a great entertainer, too. Primal Fear are entering a completely new creative period. We’re really looking forward to these new challenges.
RockLine: Today Primal Fear are a kind of guru to younger bands. How do you see things now, when bands are starting their careers, compared to Primal Fear’s early days?
Mat: It’s getting harder and harder for new bands to build on solid ground with a first or second album. Internet downloading has turned things upside down, and really the whole boom of the internet and everything it can offer you today. It’s easier to record an album now than it used to be. You can record it at home in your room. But it’s hard for musicians to fight this growing download trend. Recording in professional studios is still just as expensive. Most bands try to produce things cheaper, because labels don’t sell many albums anymore, to keep investment costs as low as possible. So bands try to record albums at home, with computers, which isn’t good for the development of the bands themselves, especially career-wise. Since it’s much harder to sell albums today than ten years ago, that really hurts the scene. But in the end, whoever has real talent will always survive. In any situation. In my opinion the labels also made a huge mistake, because they were too lazy to get moving and realize ten years ago where the expansion of the internet and downloading could lead, and how it could hurt album sales. Now it’s too late. The labels make a big racket and complain, but ten years ago it was their job to do something about it. Labels have no right to complain. Ten years ago they were raking in good money and sleeping soundly, and now they’re the ones responsible for the trouble, because they didn’t think about it earlier.
RockLine: These days there are more and more cases where, precisely because of this rampant downloading, more and more metal musicians are giving up their professional careers.
Mat: That keeps happening. And it’s getting worse. You can’t be angry at the fans. Metal fans in Brazil, for example, probably aren’t exactly in the wealthy part of the population. If those guys can get music for free on the internet, let them take it from the internet and spend the money they’d otherwise spend on records on food instead. The ones to blame are the people who make internet downloading possible, of course.
RockLine: Primal Fear are one of the few European bands that has also left a notable mark across the pond over the past ten years. You’re doing really well over there. How did you pull that off?
Mat: They really appreciate us there. Our tour with Rob Halford a few years ago was hugely important. Since that tour we go back to play shows in the US at least once a year. We have a solid fanbase there who truly appreciate traditional heavy metal. Today there are few bands in the US who play music like Primal Fear, including in terms of sheer energy. The melodic side of metal bands from Germany or Scandinavia is very attractive in the US. Of course, album sales aren’t enormous or big, but we sell about the same number of records as in Germany. We’re very happy we can rely on this solid base, but like I said, the US isn’t a big market for metal today, and even though you’re forced to play, say, a Monday night in some dive and sometimes it really gets to you, in the end, generally speaking, it’s had good results for Primal Fear so far.
RockLine: What happened with Tom Naumann?
Mat: He did some really stupid things related to Primal Fear that wrecked the trust between us, between the band’s members and Tom, so working with him no longer seemed to make sense. It would have been very damaging for Primal Fear. And for Sinner too.
RockLine: How do songs come together in Primal Fear?
Mat: It’s always different. Everybody in the band contributes their own ideas. We pool them at meetings, check them out, and then decide which ideas to use, where and when. Sometimes I get great inspiration for writing verses, but the worst is when you end up having to sit down at a table and say: “Damn it, now I have to write a song!” That doesn’t work. The idea has to come spontaneously. Like when I wake up at seven in the morning and some melody starts ringing in my head. It sounds great to me, and I immediately grab a recorder and sort of quickly jot it down, and tell myself we absolutely have to try this out. That’s what you call magic. You can’t control it, you just have to let it flow on its own. And it’s always different. Sometimes you spend 14 days on a song, other times you can write it in ten minutes. You can never predict it.
RockLine: So what are Primal Fear’s plans for the future?
Mat: Right now we’ve got shows lined up until September. A few offers have come in for shows this November, so we’re planning a few gigs in the fall too. As for a new album, the plan is to head back into the recording studio at the end of this year. We’ve actually already started writing new material. Four songs are done, almost five really, and we plan to write another ten. The mood in the team and the spirit in the camp are really great right now, so those remaining ten songs will get written very, very quickly. The mixing should happen in January next year, and the new album could then come out in May 2009.
RockLine: Mat, thanks a lot for your time, and I wish you a great gig here at Morarock festival.
Mat: Thanks to you too.
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