Review/Photos: Holly Lucian

Interview: John Newton

As I walked into The Fillmore New York this past 9/9/09 I was worried with the small crowd that had (or should I say hadn't) shown up for Edguy's gig.  The band can actually claim that they are “big in Europe” without bullshitting, but here in the States things are a little different.  Not only is Edguy's style of power metal simply more popular in Europe than it is here, but they also had two other major bridges to cross in order to pack the house- 1) there was a last minute change of venues for the show, and 2) ninety percent of NYC's metalhead population was just a bit uptown at Motorhead's massive headlining gig.  Despite those few hurdles when Edguy hit the stage the crowd was
still not a sell-out, but was looking more respectable.  The boys began the show “Dead or Rock” (meh), but then picked up the pace with “Tears of A Mandrake”.  The atmosphere in club was jolly, nerdy and extremely metal. Tobias chatted with the crowd in between songs and after a pretty
successful few chants of wooaawoa-call-and-responses took the opportunity to divide the floor in two halves- the 'pussy section' and the 'metal section'.  Seeing as no metal fan wants to be in the 'pussy section' (actually, I'm sure some guys might enjoy that) this technique really got the crowd screaming at each-other to see who could be the louder half. 

They began back in with “Lavatory Love Machine” which fit in perfectly with the playful vibe that lingered from the chants.  “Vain Glory Opera” and “Superheroes” were separated by a pretty clever drum solo, and then the band finished out with the somewhat sleepy “Babylon”.  They didn't wait to long though before playing an encore set of “Sacrifice” and a kick ass version of “King of Fools”. The show ran about 100 minutes, and was worth missing Motorhead over - the only complaint was that there was nothing from Avantasia [Tobi's other band] and it would have been nice to hear “Mysteria” live.  

My buddy here at DMM, John Newton, got a chance to talk to Edguy's Jens Ludwig about the this tour and the bands most recent live CD – Fucking With Fire prior to the show.

Direct Metal Music: How are you doing man?

Jens Ludwig (JL): Pretty good, it’s a nice Saturday, well it’s raining, but everything’s fine so far! 

DMM: And you’re in Germany right now? 

JL: Yes, a home right now, we have a little break between festivals, and after the last festivals in August, we’re gonna come to the states to play some shows there. 

DMM: I was just talking to some of my friends in the Midwest and they’re really excited to see you guys on the upcoming tour.

JL: That’s awesome, it’s going to be great.

DMM: I’m a little bit disappointed that you guys are going to come to Texas

JL: Actually we never made it to Texes so far, and we regret it! We’d definitely like to play there.  And with things like that, booking the tour, well it is a booking agency matter, and they have to figure out a certain routings and thing, unfortunately so far it hasn’t happened for us to play in Texas, but we would really like to go there. 

DMM: I am not just saying this because I’m from Texas, but Texas metal fans are insane!

JL: Yes, I would hope that one day we will make it there!

DMM: You put out the new album last year, and you have the new Fucking With Fire live album / DVD out now, how did the US tour gets set up? 

JL: Well, especially in Europe it [fan reaction] was pretty amazing, we’re still going to have to see how things work out in the States, but for the European tour and the first part of the world tour which included South America and Japan, it was really good that we have had more people come to the shows than on the last tour.  And you know nowadays, for me at least, the status of a band can be seen when you attend a concert.  It’s not only about record sales, because everyone is talking about the new album anyway, but when you have an increase in the number of people coming to your shows, it says that the band is still on the way up.  So in that regard everyone in the band is pretty happy seeing that more people are coming to see us on this tour that on the previous ones.  I really hope we get the same results when we come to the United States. The timing this time is pretty good .[with regards to the release of the live album/DVD ed.]

DMM: Well I think that the market that you’re hitting, the Midwest and the event down into Virginia and finally finishing up in California, I think you guys will enjoy it and get a good response. 

JL: Actually I’m really excited about this tour because, we have done some tours in the States before, but since last or we did with Kamelot, a lot of people at the show’s didn’t really know about us before, and I think we left a pretty good impression on those people.  Almost all those people I’m sure we’ll come back to see this on the headlining tour, so I am really excited about this tour, and don’t forget Canada as well of course.! 

DMM: The Canadians definitely love their metal up there. 

JL: They’re good audience, but the Americans are as well.  The only thing is that this time that we are coming around there will there are a lot of other European bands touring States [at the same time] as well, I hope we don’t steal each other’s crowds you know?!?!

DMM: It’s kind of funny the way metal touring seasons work. I was talking to a friend of mine in Chile recently, and the he was telling me that they get the tours in the Fall, we get all the tours in the spring and Europe gets the tours in the summer but it seems like there are a lot of great bands from Europe like you said touring this Fall in the States as well..  You guys have been playing together for seventeen years now, and have put out fourteen records, which is basically an album a year are most of your career.  How do you guys keep up with yourselves and stay motivated to keep on putting out new records?

JL: I don’t know, we just enjoy it you know?  We don’t do this because we have to do it, and you can’t compare it with a regular job, you know like something you would have to do, it’s just that we’re really enjoy it you know, and we’re really look forward to all the aspects of what we do, like going to the rehearsal rooms and recording songs that will be on another album, or be it going on tour again, these are all the things that we really enjoy and we want to do. So really, none of us consider it work, it’s just entertainment to us and something that we really like to do. 

 We never have to force ourselves to do anything, cutting another record, doing another tour, it’s just what we want to do. The good thing about it is that we’re all fairly young, I mean we’re not that old (laughs), and we still have a lot of creative potential.  You know all these years have proved us as songwriters, as musicians, and hopefully as human beings as well!  The whole band is living a dream come true, and this is true for all of us, so nobody has to force us to do anything.  This is why we can keep up and continue to release good albums, and how we can keep up playing the shows, it is because we love what we are doing.

DMM: It also says to me that you guys must be really close friends, is that correct?

JL: Yes, and actually we’ve known each other for so many years that we probably know some things about each other that we honestly don’t want to know! We have really grown together in the last few years. I can still remember our first European tour that we did. We didn’t have any crew, we were just traveling by a caravan, driving ourselves from show to show, and being stuck together that little space [presumably the van] for six weeks really kept us together after surviving that. Everything after that has been luxury! So we really came up the hard way, and nowadays things are much easier for us! But all of these experiences and things we have gone through together have made us stronger and closer together.

DMM: What’s been the toughest thing that you guys have had to overcome as a band?

JL: Whew…. That’s a hard question!

DMM  I ask that question, because from the surface or a from afar, we see you guys as a group with a great sense of humor and showmanship that looks like one of the happiest bands in metal quite honestly, Hasn’t there been something or a situation at some point in the bands career that has been pretty tough for you guys get through?

JL: Well I really have to think about it, because I really don’t remember at any time we’ve ever had in any real drama in the band. Of course we’ve always had a lot of arguing going on in the band, but we’ve always been able to find a good compromise and find a way through it. I think that because everyone in the band really appreciates what we’re doing, so nobody would go away easily for some stupid bullshit. I think that’s basically the key for our stable lineup and the success of the band so far in that regard so far..

 DMM: Fucking With Fire the live DVD is the first official live recording that you guys have put out. Why has it taken so long for a live album to be released?

JL: Laughing…. Because we tried it before and never worked! Seriously, ever since the Mandrake tour in 2002, we’ve always had the aim to record one of the shows for DVD, but something either on the technical side or whatever would always go wrong. I remember for sample, on the Hellfire Club tour when were recording the Superheroes as well, and it failed because of some technical problems. A lot of cameras broke down in the middle of the set and that’s why we only used the three songs for the Superheroes DVD and 2006. We have all this bad luck, really bad luck with recording a DVD. Actually this time everything was really working great, and we are really happy to finally released a live DVD, but you’re right it took a very long time, but we always wanted it to have a very good sound, and if it doesn’t sound the best, then there’s really no reason to release the DVD!

JL: How did you guys pick Brazil to record the live album?

DMM: Actually there was more bad luck before that, because we had originally planned to record it in Europe where we were performing on the tour. There was a really nice system in the Czech Republic where were playing as well, and there was a lot of planning and organizing, where we told the promoter that we wanted to film the show there because they had a camera team there anyway to record everything, so we told them that we wanted them to film the whole show, and make the DVD out of it and everything. But after the show was done which was a pretty great concert, we went to the film crew to ask them how is the material came out and asked if we could see any of it, and they were like, ‘we thought you’re gonna bring your own camera people so we didn’t record anything!’ At that point we started to look for alternatives, and since we’ve been to Brazil before, and the crowd there is always amazing, you can really rely on those people, we just chose Sao Paulo to record the DVD.

DMM: How large was the crowd that night in Brazil?

JL: It was something in between five and 6000 people.

DMM: Brazilian metal crowds are known historically for their energy and passion, I think they have actually become mythic in their enthusiasm for live metal.

JL: Yes definitely. The thing for us is that in Europe, and I think in the United States it is quite similar, that you can see a lot of concerts, there are a lot of bands, and if you want to go to the show, you just go. So for the people in Brazil, a concert is very expensive, and sometimes they save their money over months just so they can go to the concert of there choice, otherwise they just don’t have the money to go. So if they go to a show, they’re really thankful for everything that you give to them and they are really into it. I think that’s the biggest difference in the crowds when comparing America or Europe to some other countries.

DMM: How did you guys choose the set list for the DVD?

JL: Well actually it was almost the same set list we played on the whole Rocket Ride tour. So basically when we were putting together the set list for the tour, we always have a sort of pool of songs. Some of the songs are fixed points in the set list, because we have to make sure that the show is working properly, and some of the songs we have the freedom to change every evening. With every album that we make it’s getting hard to do a set list that satisfies everybody.. There will always be people that want to hear different songs that you haven’t played, but we try to make a good overview of all the albums, and of course we try to choose songs that the people know so that the audience can interact and sing along. The DVD was basically the same set list as the Rocket Ride tour with a few extra things thrown in because we were recording.

DMM: From a fan standpoint where do you think is the highlight of the DVD?

JL: Of course the highlight is the show itself, but when the second song Sacrifice starts, and you see the people reacting, and how great the atmosphere is, you know that’s a moment where I actually get Goosebumps on my arms every time I watch it! I think for many fans Seduction Injury will be rally nice to see. Many fans are very interested in the behind the scenes footage and others are really more focused on the show, but for those who are interested in the documentary and behind the scenes footage and the interview parts, they’re pretty funny as well.

DMM: Shifting gears back to the last album Tinnitus, it seems to me that when comparing the album to Rocket Ride an E. P. it just seems like this album was put together in a different way, is that true and if so what was different about the way you put this album together?

JL: It was actually written in the same way we always write all of our albums, Tobi comes up with the main ideas, and then we work on the songs in the rehearsal space. But at some point I agree with you, because the Rocket Ride album for example was the first album that we worked with an external producer ever. On the previous ones, we also had songs that way into different directions but since we didn’t have any producer and since the mix has been done in the same studios, at the end everything sounded all very similar. It all had the same sound, you know? Since Sascha (Paeth) is doing the production we’ve tried to get every song what it needs.  If it’s a song that need some more hard rock direction, then we’ll give it a whole or more hard rock sound. If it’s a heavier track like Sacrifice for example, it’s gonna get a different sound than some other song, and that’s how it seems we have more diversity concerning the songs on Rocket Ride then we had on the previous albums. It’s just a matter of giving the songs the right sounds.  But I personally feel that Rocket Ride was maybe a bit too ambitious, and that maybe we were moving it in too many different directions, even though it revealed a lot of fun  experiments like adding reggae in there. But in the end, I can understand why people might think that it’s going into too many directions.  I think with Tinnitus we have the same diversity, and we still have different types of songs going in many different  directions, but the whole album sounds like more of a unit than Rocket Ride and that’s what I’m really proud of.

DMM: I really enjoy the album,  and one of the songs that struck me personally was Speedhoven. To me it’s like eight minutes of virtuosity, can you comment on that song?

JL: Well as the title implicates it’s about basically a little bit about the Beethoven story. Taking the story into today, the idea behind the song was that Tobi thought that even Beethoven had a lot of critics when he was riding his greatest symphonies. This song is about the idea that maybe Beethoven just turned deaf because he wanted to finish his final masterpiece without having to listen to the critics. So that’s the idea behind the song, and it’s not to be taken too seriously, but the idea behind it is really great I think.

DMM: How do you guys maintain your sense of humor, especially how dark and mystical metal is becoming recent years.

JL:  It’s a combination I think a lot of things but one thing that we talked about earlier that we’re really enjoying what we’re doing, and actually we’ve never tried to be something that we’re not. If you see us acting a certain way onstage making jokes and what not, it’s the same way we’d act backstage afterwards and when having a beer with you,  you know? We don’t try to be somebody else, we’re just ourselves, and that has a lot to do with the personality of the band. There’s definitely no reason why we should have any negativity onstage or in our music. Right now there’s a lot of negativity going on in the world, and I think when people go to a concert, you shouldn’t tell them how shitty that life in general is. You know what I mean? When they go the show, they should be able to just forget everything and have fun for two and a half hours. And the same is with us, as many problems as all of us might have, of course everyone has problems, you know when we’re on stage and we are performing, we forget about everything else and we just try to have a good time.  There are plenty of people out there who will tell everyone about how shitty life is, but we don’t see it that way, we just want to show people that there are still a lot of things that you can enjoy in your life.

DMM: What about your rig? What is your setup these days?

JL: We have changed the Gibson guitars, which for me personally is a step upwards. But ESP are great guitars as well, but with the musical changes on the new album there’s a lot more heavy guitar, and just comes the easier with the Gibson Explorer. No offense but, for this kind of music Gibson guitars are just better.

DMM: Well tell me about your setup. What about your pickups and your amps?

JL: I play a standard ‘76 explorer, there’s nothing special about it. I use the pickups that came with the guitar.  Besides that, usually I play the-vintage model, my amps are Marshall’s, and when we go overseas I have a Vox preamp with the Wah pedal that you can easily attach to any amplifier in the world, so I can carry my sound with me anywhere I go.  That way every night you have your own sound, to be honest its sounds pretty awesome.

DMM: When did you pick up playing guitar?  How old were you? 

JL: I started to play the first time I was seven years old, my grandfather was kind of a professional musician himself, but not in playing in bands, he was playing the organ in church and playing piano in bars and all that stuff. He was really into it, and encouraged myself and my oldest sister to learn any instrument we wanted. I chose the guitar.  I thought that it would be fun, but when I started having lessons I quit because I thought it was so fucking boring! A couple of years later I discovered the guitar again, I think I was ten years old, and then when I was eleven I met Tobi. Shortly after, I bought myself my first electric guitar.  So you can say since that point, when we were twelve years old I really started rehearsing and playing the instrument, and Tobi and I became bandmates. 

DMM: That’s like twenty years of playing…

JL: Well, I have to admit that I’ve never been the most technical player in the world, because I’ve always been bored with practicing scales and stuff, and for me it’s always been about having fun while playing. I guess I offer this advice to anyone who wants to play that you should enjoy playing the music, and it’s better to play songs along with a CD that you really like than it is to spend a night practicing stupid scales.

DMM: What was the first metal album that you owned?

JL: The first metal album that I’ve heard was For Those About To Rock by AC./D C

DMM: Did it have a profound effect on you?

JL: Yes of course, I don’t know what kind of music I would be into or playing if I hadn’t had the chance to listen to that album.  I don’t want think about it.

DMM: You might have been playing polka with your grandfather man!

JL: Probably!