With:	Lanvall [Guitars, keyboards]
Conducted by:	Jeff
Published:	31.01.2005
Band profile:	Edenbridge

- Well, Edenbridge is becoming more and more famous everyday, but I will ask you however the traditional first question, could you introduce the band to our readers?

Edenbridge were formed in 1998. Sabine, Kurt Bednarsky (our former bass player) and myself played together in another project before and when drummer Roland entered the band the line-up for our first CD-production was complete. We recorded "Sunrise in Eden" in 1999 on self-finance basis and sent it to about 30 labels around the world. Two weeks later Massacre records offered us a deal. The album was licensed to all important markets of the world (Japan, Korea, Taiwan, South and North America) and was a great success. In late 2000 we were on European tour with our label mates Pink Cream 69 and Axxis. In 2001 we recorded our second CD "Arcana" which marked a big step forward. Then we went on tour with Metalium here in Europe which led us from Spain to Scandinavia. Right after we went to Korea to play a show on the International Busan Rock Festival in front of 20.000 people and a double-headliner show with Sinergy in Seoul. In January 2003 our third album "Aphelion" saw the light of day followed by a triple-headliner tour with Trail of Tears and Sirenia through Europe. A show on the famous German "Summer Breeze Festival" in front of 12.000 people followed. In April 2004 we played our first shows in Russia, Moscow and 2 shows in England on the Bloodstock festival which were a huge success. Then our first live-album/DVD "A Livetime in eden" came out and now our new album "Shine" is out.


- After four albums, what is your feeling regarding the band, your music? In a few words, how it's going?

Wonderful. I really see the band rising now. We will go on tour with Angra next week and will have a lot of shows in France where our album is officially released by Replica Records. At the moment we have the best Edenbridge line-up, our new bass player is a killer.






- Tell us a bit about your last album, "Shine". What are the topics of this album? Do you have a message or is it after all only "music" and nothing more?

I have to tell that I am totally happy with the new album. It's the first time I can listen to one of my albums with total joy after it's finished which is a very good thing I thing.
We don't have any of those all-the-way-through-doublebass-songs which bore me to death meanwhile. I think it was necessary to change everything a bit after 3 albums. For the first time we have big choirs in our music, phenomenally done by Dennis and Sabine which give the music a whole new dimension. A lot of songs are based on triad rhythms which are a lot more groovier than those sixteenth patterns. The songs themselves are all a bit longer with more parts in them but not to be misunderstood this has nothing to do with being more progressive. All songs have absolutely catchy hooklines.
Lyrically this time I was inspired by a lot of movies. "The Bicentennial Man", "The Legend of 1900", "October Sky" and "The Canterville Ghost". My faible for Star Trek also came through again in the songs "Move along home" and "What you leave behind", 2 DS9 episodes.
In general Edenbridge stands for positive music, thoughts and feelings from the beginning on.


- With "Shine", we can discover 10 new songs. Four albums in five years, Edenbridge seems to be extensively productive. How long was the songwriting process for the album?

After our last album "Aphelion" I took a songwriting break for about half a year concerning Edenbridge. In Summer 2003 I started to collect new ideas, just wrote them down and put it aside again. So after 3 months I had a pile of sheet of papers with ideas. So I started to work out all the arrangements and songs from those ideas. This took me another couple of months. Therefore I would say that "Shine" is a very fresh album and it's quite different to the 3 albums we've done before.






- Shine is really diversified, we even have the luck to have a really nice song a bit Folky "Wild Chase". Who is under this idea?

I love other musical cultures, also the Irish folk music. The funny thing is that the song starts with Chinese Gu Zheng sounds very slow and then turns into this Irish melody. It's the same melody and chords only the speed doubles. So you can see those two different cultures are not so far away from each other.


- Who are the two guests on your album, Dennis Ward and Astrid Stockhammer?

Dennis Ward is the bass player of Pink Cream 69 and our engineer. We've been working together with him for years. And this time he was even more important because of his fantastic backing vocals. Astrid is my sister and it's the third time she can be heard on one of my albums. She did violin on my third solo album "The Pyromantic Symphony" and she sang backings on the Edenbridge debut "Sunrise in Eden".


- Do you think that Edenbridge could release an album of Folk Metal instead of Symphonic Metal one day? With a female singer it could be really original (we have the proof of it with "Wild Chase" or maybe that this song was just for "fun"?)

No definitely not. Edenbridge stands for a wide variety of sounds, so this would limitate the band too much. I like when everything is possible to realize.






- Do you have any favourite song in Shine? If you think to all the Edenbridge material what would be the song that you'd raise above others and is there any songs that you'd want totally forget?

Every song is like a baby to me. Most of the time it's the long songs to which you have a special feeling cause it took you so long to finish them. From the new album "And the road goes on" is a very special track cause it represents the variety of Edenbridge very well.


- The band did lately an important line-up change. Can we know why and could you introduce the new bassist? Who is Martin we will tour with you soon? Is it possible that he becomes a "real" member of the band?

Frank Bindig is our new bass player. He's from Germany and has an immense powerful sound. Personally he's one of the finest guys I've ever met and it's great to have him in the band. Martin Mayr is a guy I know for years and I asked him if he likes to play the tour. There we will see if also fits personally to the band. He's playing is unbelievable. He's guitar teacher and can nearly play every style of music on the guitar, an unbelievably talented musician.


- What do you think of all this Power Metal bands with female singers? Are you not a bit afraid of it? Evidently, everybody can play its favourite music, but is it not a bit dangerous for this musical style? [too much of something can kill it? you see what I mean]

Why should it be dangerous ? Does anybody have a problem with too many male fronted bands ?


- You'll do an important tour with Angra and Manticora soon. Can we have some information about it? Maybe we will have some surprises [Maybe Sabine will sing with Angra?]

As I said it's great to be on tour with Angra. We know the band personally for 4 years now. We did our album "Arcana" and they did "Rebirth" at the same time in Germany and shared the apartment of the studio with them and now we met again. Sabine sang on their new great album and who knows maybe she will sing with Angra on the tour too ?






- About Angra, can we know how Sabine took parts to the recording of the last album of the band ? How was the meeting ?

Angra finished their production and our started. Angra searched for a woman and so Sabine was asked to do this. She did her parts in 2 hours or less.


- Are you planning to do a DVD ? Maybe you'll record something during this tour [or maybe you did it before for "A Livetime In Eden"?]

We did a DVD together with our live album, so it was a double package. But we will surely do a real DVD with a full Edenbridge concert in the future.


- Thanks a lot for this interview, I will be in Paris to support Edenbridge [and the others bands evidently] then let me wish you good luck! Now, if you have anything to say to our readers? That's your turn...

Hope to see you all on one of our shows in France on tour. Thanks for all your support.

Thanks for the interview, Lanvall

www.edenbridge.org

Many thx to Lanvall, Endenbridge and Mr Roger Wessier at Replica Records