Disbelief and the magic of music
Since their inception in disbelief have been a band that no one can quite put a label on, varied musically, but a strong songwriting ability, 20 years have now passed and their thank you release ‘Heal’ shows them closing one chapter and opening a new one with the search for more band members. Vocalist Karsten "Jagger" Jäger took time out to reflect on their recent release, band influences and of course discuss the future.
Hello Disbelief, how are things going? You have recently had ‘Heal’ released upon the unsuspecting world, congratulations on this release, your ninth. Have you been pleased with the response thus far? After 20 years, what keeps you motivated?
Thank you for your congratulations, yes it's our ninth release now and it's a present for our truest fans while we've to celebrate our 20th anniversary and we want to do something special for our fans and for us. Our motivation is still alive like in our first days of the band, it's the magic of music, our meet and greets with them on our shows, the contact to all those bands that we've met in the past, it's still like a drug, the adrenalin on our live-shows that we need that holds us young and fresh, pure Rock'n roll!
During the recording process, have you done anything different in the studio this time?
It was the first experience for us to make the experience to work without a producer, to do it alone with our collected experience of all those years that we've worked together with these brilliant producers like Andy Classen, Tue Madsen or Michael Mainx. We have had the possibility to work together with our guitar-player Witali Weber who is the owner of his record-studio called Fillitalli – studio, so it was perfect to take enough time to realize HEAL!
The production is strong, is this something you work on with each album or is it a natural progression?
It's a normal process; we try always to develop our sound like a formula 1 racer, to tune it and to pump it up.
Are there further releases coming soon, as I noted on ‘Heal’ half of the album is made from covers and a re-recording. (Apart from celebrating your 20 years in existence).
Next we'll start with the songwriting. We'll see how long we'll need for that but when I'm looking forward I hope that our next release will be out in 2012!
Related to the above question, why did you decide to re-record ‘Shine’?
It was a wish of me to re-record Shine. When we've recorded Shine in 2002 we've used a new studio, where Death Metal was never recorded before, so it was an experiment with the sound, I was not really satisfied with the result of it. The new version is more directly, more in front, a hit in your face like we love it.
Out of the covers, there is excellent heritage on display by the bands you chose to pay tribute too, King Diamond, Killing Joke, Crimson Glory etc, I particularly liked the King Diamond cover from ‘Them’ (‘Welcome Home’), it was really good to hear this song without falsetto vocals. How did you choose these songs and what do they mean to you?
‘Welcome Home’ is one of the best songs of the good King, there is so much happening in this song, crazy! But I think especially the sound on “Them” is not the best, so we decide to show this song in a modern way , give this song a strict sound and make it more brutal in my opinion, I like our version very much and it was a great pleasure for me to shout out the words of the King. Crimson Glory's ‘Red Sharks’ shows very good what you can make with a song when you change the tuning of the guitars, the guitar – riffs shows a new darker, more brutal colour. The drums work more aggressive in our version and off course are the vocals are not as high as the vocals of Midnight (R.I.P.), the singer of Crimson Glory. Because of Killing Joke we're still fans of this band and so we decide to record ‘Love like Blood’ because of the fact that this song was the first one of Killing Joke I've ever listened and it catches me directly. A very simply song but very emotional because of those very special keyboard -sound that they've used.
Disbelief has always showed variation with a distinct groove and good song writing ability, what normally inspires your music, lyrically and musically?
Always it has to be aggressive, fresh and something special when we write new material for a new recording. In lyrically like in musically way I think the inspirations come directly from life, like you feel and to be exactly in this time when you write this stuff, it's a mirror of our inner selves.
What was the inspiration for the striking artwork for ‘Heal’? Who was the artist?
The artist is the same one who did a great job for our artworks from our previous albums Infected, Worst Enemy, Shine and 66 Sick. His name is Thomas Ewerhard and it was cool to work with him again, especially for our 20th anniversary album HEAL! It looks menacing but it's very positive!
You have been with Massacre Records since 2001 (apart from a brief deviation for the ‘66Sick’ release), you obviously like working with this label, do they work with you more than other labels you have been associated with?
They are trusting in Disbelief and our music, that's not so easy in the universe of all those labels. We're not sounding like other bands and also very individual, so we're not easy to describe. Massacre hold us always a door open even if we've changed to Nuclear Blast, so we're very friendly and thankful to them.
I witnessed your show at Summerbreeze, you had a large following, how did the set go for you personally? The sound was very good, much better than some festivals I have been too!
Oh, our soundmixer Schwaabi said after the show to me that it was for him it was a perfect sound, we work now 14 years together and I've never heard such words through his mouth! I liked the show, it was a cool sound on stage and the audience was very thankful like everytime when we've played on the Summerbreeze – Festival. See you hopefully again their in the future!
What are your impressions of the festival and were you able to check out any other bands over the festival?
We've played their live on Friday, so I take the chance and stay one more day at the Summerbreeze to have good time their, to meet good people and to listen to some good bands like Cannibal Corpse, Hail of Bullets and Hypocrisy. The last time that we've played on the Summerbreeze was in 2005 in Abtsgemünd, now they've a new area, it's growing bigger and they reach now over 35.000 freaks, amazing!
Do you have more live shows lined up? Does the UK appeal as a touring location (apart from the obvious cost to get there)?
We'll supporting Six Feed Under on their next European – tour in December. The most dates of the tour will be in Germany and besides their in Switzerland, Austria, Czech Rep., Poland and Romania. For next year I promise we'll be go more on tour and hopefully we get the chance to play live in your country again, I'm looking forward, yeah!
How is your search for a new guitarist going? I only heard ‘Heal’ through an MP3 release, who recorded guitar on the album and was it Alexander playing live recently?
At the moment we're searching for two new guitar-players, for our live situation we need only one, Alex Hagenauer of Soul Demise is still supporting and helping Disbelief. All guitars on the actual album HEAL! where done by our bass-player Joe Trunk.
Do you intend to wait for a new member before entering the studio once more?
I think in the near future we've to be creative, so we don't want to wait until the new musicians are in the band. We'll see how long does it take to find the new one's but I'm looking forward for doing that in a exciting way, the music and the new band members!
May I congratulate you on your 20 years and your album release ‘Heal’. Thank you for your time and I hope to catch you guys live again at some point soon.
Wish you all the best Paul and a big Thanks to you for supporting Disbelief, see you!!
