Promotion for Need To Believe album 2010
Promotion for Need To Believe album 2010
Marc Lynn
of Gotthard Interview February 23rd 2010,Brew House,Gothenburg,Sweden
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In the Gotthard camp how does the writing
process work?
It starts of course with an idea at home while playing your instrument.And
make the first little parts like a vers maybe or maybe an idea for a chorus.
But you can't go ahead so you bring it into the band. When were in the writing
process we meet like two days a week.And the rest of the time we work on our
on trying to figure out new ideas.
Sometimes you have a song in 5 minutes and sometimes you have to put it away
and then take it out about two weeks later to work more on it.
Or sometimes another song is coming and it's missing a certain part and then
you take a fitting part from an unfinished song and it might fit perfectly.
So it's all a little bit spontaniously but the basic is like we are not a band
that writes on tours.
When we are on tour,we are on tour.When we search for new songs we really
need to calm down you know.
We can not write during the weeks we have shows and going back & forward
to the studio.
We need to finish the live section and then focus on writing new songs. Settle
down and then try to write new songs.
How many songs are usually written and
recorded for each album?
190 but they are all bad ;) . No usually there are around 20 songs.After all
these years now we know what songs that are not fitting.
We try alot different ideas and sometimes the idea you had while writing it
and has become kind of dead or another band have done something like that song.
Except sometimes a producer comes in and says Hey I really like that song try
to do it like this or that and it will sound much different.And sometimes that
works out very well.
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How come you picked Need To Believe as the album title?
Need To Believe was for us a good statement. First of all for what's happening
in the world with the economy,the rich making the game and the poor have to
pay for it.
There are not only bad guys in the world so Need To Believe is for like the
working people to keep their jobs,feed their familys and so on.
And the second thing is that we after 20 years that we still believe in making
strong records,like right now touring and that we still have alot to gain.
That we can go to many countries cause there are still many people out there
that still haven't discovered Gotthard yet.
And we still believe,Need To Believe that touring and all that stuff there is
still something for us to gain.
So this is a little bit of a double sense.
Ok...I have to ask about a song that for me is a favorite
and I'm sure would have been a live favorite as well-
Why didn't "Ain't Enough" make the standard version of Need To Believe?
This is funny because this is a song that we added as a bonus track on the limited
edition only.
When you write an album we have a certain standard.
Let's say you have your road in the middle and let's say it's 20 m long and
a certain song is at the 21m line and then you're not sure if you should put
it in or not.
Becasue you have a certain style and you wanna keep a certain shape of the album
and this song was for us basically based on the 2-3 first Gotthard albums even
from the songwriting and we wanted more.
And that is why it didn't make it.It's not one of the strongest songs in our
opinoin.It was a band decision to leave it out.
It doesn't mean that we don't like the song,maybe we just didn't work hard enough
on it?
And we don't even play that song live,not even tonight ;). I'm sorry about.
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What is your favorite Gotthard album?
Every band member says the last album.At it's time every album is fantastic.
The first one (Gotthard-1992)for me is magic because it has this special sound
on it.
The third album (G.-1996) I like because it's the first time we reached a point
where we were really happy about an album.It sounded great,it was powerful.
Then the acoustic live album DeFrosted (1997) this was a fantastic playing album.
Not only rock becasue we rearranged the songs and there's alot of melodies on
it.
Homerun (2001) was a special level because the people really loved it. The "Heaven"
song was huge song specially for the large audience.
Then comes my personal favorite Lipservice (2005) I like that one really alot.You
can crank it up loud and everytime it sounds harder.
And the new one Need To Believe (2009) there's alot of melodies and intressting
arrangements on it which we never have done before.Alot of that came from the
producer.
I have to say we have a few good albums :)
What bands or/and artists are/were the biggest influences
on Gotthard?
When you grow up and you're around 10-11 years old then you really start discover
alot of music. You get a little bit more money from your parents so you can
buy your first records.
And in the time we were in that age it was the 70's and band like Led Zeppelin,Rolling
Stones,Deep Purple and
then later on it started with the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal-Iron Maiden,Motörhead
& Judas Priest.
And then even later on with Bon Jovi and those other great bands.
My old vinyl albums have those songs with like 10 minute solos in the middle
of a 12 minute track and today it's different you know.
It's 3 minute songs and a 10 seconds solo and this you have to cut out for the
radio stations.
But good times come back you can hear it on the radio and see it on tv and that
is great.
Because I like rock and rock is something positiv.
Other bands I really like is The Sweet and Wishbone Ash. The classical way of
rock from like Rainbow to whatever :)
Any plans to make a "DeFrosted-Part
II" album of various recorded acoustic sets during the tour?
Steve & Leo have prepared about 20 songs to play in the acoustic set and
have people call out what they wanna hear.So that part of the show changes every
night.
We are planning something like Defrosted II because it was many years ago
we did the first one (1997) and now we have many more songs to choice from for
it.
Songs that we can rearrange and play differently.But we don't know when this
will be happening.We do want to do one for sure but we don't know for sure in
what way yet.
It should be different than the last one,maybe with a big orchestra,I don't
know?
Will there be a live DVD recorded on
this tour?
On this tour no.The big production is over and our last dvd Made In Switzerland
is still very active out there.
Such a dvd costs alot of money and you can not afford it these days to spend
that much money on a thing like that.
Made In Switzerland was made because after such a long time we really wanted
to make something very professional so we recorded that in a very big hall with
14 cameras all moving around.
And then we gave it away almost for free to the people becasue they got with
the live album as a cd/dvd package for the price of one.
For us it wasn't really big business for realease it like that but we wanted
to give our fans something extra.
We will do another one for sure but it has to be special maybe something like
DeFrosted part II kind of dvd?
Any plans to play a whole album live
from start to finish?
Yes,no problems for us to do that but no plans to do that now at least.
We are recording some shows on this tour in Germany,Switzerland and the last
gig of the Scandinavian leg of the tour which is Copenhagen.
To have some material for some bonus stuff in the future.
Any plans for a box setwith unreleased
tracks and b-sides?
No not really.But right now you can buy through our website http://www.gotthard.com/
a special edition of the Need To Believe album.An only 500 pieces limited LP
box set with song book
and the bonus track "Speed Of Light", which was only released in Japan
until now. And it's hand-signed and hand-numbered.It's been out for 3 weeks
and the first 180 are gone.
It's a little big expensive cos the the weight of it,but it's something very
special.I think we will do more special things like this in the future too.
What is the proudest moment so far in
your music life?
Still to be here after 20 years with so many same band memers and still having
success.And still have the world open because there's still people to discover
us.
Having great concerts still and having fun doing this. Still touring,still discovering,still
working and making plans for the future.
How does the rest of 2010 look like for
the band?
We're planning to play Russia,Switzerland and we hope to do some open air shows
in Europe this summer.We have been put on every festival as availible but we
have no respons yet.
The year is still young so the festivals look for the top bands first so we
are waiting and are looking forward & hope that we will have a great summer
season as well.
We might do some December/Christmas shows too.Steve & me will go on a 3
week long bike trip in America.We need a little break and it's gonna be fun
riding our Harley's :)
We also might start writing new songs within this year too.I think we still
have many great records within us.
Thank you Marc & nothing but the
best.
Thanks,See you at the shows.
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Interview by Andy Flash 23/2-2010
