The Night Eternal – Interview met Robert Richter (guitars)
Robert Richter: “Of course every one of us likes to listen to a bit Fields Of The Nephilim, or something like this, but we are still a heavy metal band”
The Night Eternal is een naam die meteen vertrouwd klinkt voor een metalband, maar toch is het derde studioalbum ‘Cold Velvet’ onze eerste kennismaking met de Duitse band uit het Roergebied. Ze zijn nu onder de vleugels van Metal Blade Records genomen en dat is een geknipt moment om eens nader kennis te maken met deze heavy metal band met melancholieke gothic toets. Het soort muziek dat we altijd wel op prijs stellen. Daarvoor klopten we aan bij gitarist Robert Richter.
Vera Matthijssens Ι 17 augustus 2026
How did the band come into being in 2018 and what were your influences from other bands?
That is a story we have told already many times, but the idea to form a band was when I was recording an album with my band I had before (Manifestic – Vera), in the Basement Studio of our back then drummer and Ricardo just came by. We had a little chat and we said ‘okay, we know each other for years and years now – we knew each other I think six or seven years – and we always talked about making music together and we never realized that’. We decided to meet and make some music together and two weeks later we were already in the rehearsal room and it was one of the first The Night Eternal rehearsals. And if we are talking about some bands back then, it was a time when I listened a lot to Tribulation, ‘The Children Of The Night’ album, I think this was really the album that made me want to form this band. That was the spark.
You released the EP in 2013 and two albums on Ván Records, how did this road to success continue?
We released ‘The Night Eternal’ EP on Dying Victims Productions, then went on to Ván Records to release the album ‘Moonlit Cross’ in 2021 and ‘Fatale’ in 2023. We toured a lot. We played a lot of concerts. I think, only in 2024 it has been 55 gigs in one year, which is for a small band really a lot of concerts in one year. From then on I think, and after 2024, we already planned on doing a new album and of course wanted to record it already earlier. When you are touring a lot, you don’t have much time for anything else, some things are getting left behind and then finally last year we could enter the studio and now it is coming out!
Yes and I think you are pretty excited, because you are now signed by Metal Blade, a bigger label…
Yes, exactly. It really feels like a second debut album, because Metal Blade is – if not THE – one of the most influential labels on earth and there are only a few labels that are as big as Metal Blade in the genre. Finally it feels like we are releasing music and the people are waiting for it (chuckles) and this is a good feeling.
It surely opens some doors probably…
Yeah definitely. You get a lot of trust upfront from all people that have been following Metal Blade for years throughout the eighties, nineties, 2000’s, and so on. I am really curious what other people think about the new album. If they will like it…
Let us focus on the new album ‘Cold Velvet’. It was said in the info sheet that you did some new things, kind of challenges in comparison with previous album. What is such an example?
If you listened to the first album, you could really say that it is like straight heavy metal with maybe a dark touch on the second album. This is already more what I would call The Night Eternal style, playing heavy metal. Now the third album has everything we wanted to have in our music and of course it still has heavy metal on it, but also a gothic rock vibe, there is a eighties hard rock vibe. It has more sinister, darker feelings in the music as well as in the lyrics. We have even some guitar-synthesizer stuff in the background going on and on this album the focus was really to develop the songs to do an album that is like the dark heavy metal. A heavy metal album with a sinister wild west touch let us say (laughs). I think it turned out well.
It is pretty hard to label, because as you said, there are elements of several styles in it….
Now my question to you: what are you hearing on the album? What styles?
Well… that’s different from what has been written in the info sheet from influences I would say, because of the vocals, it reminded me of Amorphis… vocal-wise only.
(astonished) Okay, this is really something I read on some YouTube comments, but I really cannot understand, because none of us is listening to Amorphis and when I read this, I listened to some Amorphis stuff and isn’t it like really a modern kind of metal, this Amorphis stuff?
But your singer also has that kind of tear in his voice… the melancholic touch…
Okay, I know what you mean, definitely.
Do you call your style ‘gothic’ or not? There seems to be a kind of deviation in words in ‘dark melancholic heavy metal’…
No, we don’t. If you want to call it like this, you can call it like this, but we are not like gothic rockers or something like this (chuckles). Of course every one of us likes to – from time to time – listen to a bit Fields Of The Nephilim, or something like this, but we are still a heavy metal band. Of course I had already heard from people who were listening to gothic music, that they like the new stuff. So I know where that is coming from, but it feels more like The National or even the two first U2 albums and eighties rock. And of course if you mix that up with heavy metal, you are getting a sound that maybe reminds you of gothic rock. That is totally okay.
What struck me as well… that you are a four piece now and there is no permanent bassist anymore… I saw that there are several people helping you out on bass in live situations, isn’t it? What is the situation exactly?
The situation is that we have two different bass players. One is Kerem Yilmaz from Imha Tarikat. He is also living in Essen, our home town and a very good friend. He is nearly a permanent member, because he does not only play bass live, but he also helps us in terms of some management things and so on. So he is a really important piece of The Night Eternal. And on the other side we have a live bassist Marco Justinger from Witching Hour. He also played bass – as a guest musician – on the new album. We are always asking them both, if they want to play the gigs. For example, this Summer most gigs Kerem is doing and on the touring in October and November with Messa, Marco is playing all the shows. Except one. That is totally okay for them, because I like to share the stage with Marco, I like to share the stage with Kerem, they are both fine guys. They also like each other. Kerem has also a lot to do with his main band Imha Tarikat and Marco plays in Witching Hour, he plays in Chapel Of Disease and also in some other bands. There is a lot going on and that is why we think we need to have two bassists.
One of the things that put a stamp on the excellent result, is your cooperation with producer Michael Zech, the guitar player from Secrets Of The Moon… what about this experience?
When talking about Secrets Of The Moon, we are getting back to the gothic touch. They also had some gothic elements on their albums and when I talked to Michael in the studio, he also told me that the reason why they formed Secrets Of The Moon back then, was that they wanted to do music as Fields Of The Nephilim did it on one of the famous albums, I think it was ‘Elizium’. He told me this was like the main thing why they started the band. Maybe that is why there is a gothic touch on the album. But your question was how it was to work with Michael. Well, a great guy, he is a musician, he is a guitarist. I finally felt that the producer really understood what I was talking about. Not just sound-wise, but really song-wise, that he also really had a vision for the song or at least understood my vision of the song and he supported me and us, for getting everything together for the song. It really felt like he is a member of the band. I would say yes for a second album with him.
You have created three video clips so far. The first one was for ‘Where This World Ends’, that’s the one with the synth-guitars I think…
Exactly, this is one of the songs with a synth-guitar, but we have even four videos. One is coming out in the beginning of August and one is coming out with the album, on the 21st, two or three days later. The video for the first one ‘Where This World Ends’ It is a performance video and we had the idea to do some guitar synthesizers as we loved to hear on Iron Maiden albums like ‘Somewhere In Time’ and ‘The Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son’. I think also our listeners like the sound from what I have read so far. We all also love it and maybe, when speaking of the next album, there will be even more of them, maybe not that subtle in the background, but maybe even more in the front.
The second video is the one for ‘Caught In A Spell’. It has the vibe of a night drive and there are Harley Davidson motors in it…
There is a knight driving a Harley Davidson and we thought it was exactly what suits the vibe of the song (chuckles). We shot three videos with Robert Piel. The first was edited by Ben from Metal Blade and the second and third one is going to be edited and also cut by Robert Piel. I am really looking forward to the third video. If we are talking about the future, maybe it is not the last time we are going to see a knight riding a motorcycle in the videos. The third video is going to be for ‘The Veins Of Time’, it is the fifth track of the album, it is like the opener of the B-side. The fourth single and focus track is going to be ‘Eurydice’, the second song on the album.
I also applaud that there are many guitar solos on the album, that’s an Iron Maiden thing I guess…
Yeah thank you very much. I wanted the guitar solos on this album really to be very melodic and really emphasize the melodies.
The last track ‘Dance On Crimson Ground’ is longer and a bit epic. It even gets dramatic and towards a climax, isn’t it?
Definitely. We were always arguing about it, if it is a ballad or not. We finally agreed on it that we would call it a power ballad. The climax in the end just felt natural and the best way to end the album. The last song as ballad, it shows again a completely different side of the band and our music. It really ends this album in style.
Conceptual the album was conceived as a bridge from ‘Fatale’…
Exactly. This means that the first song ‘Where This World Ends’ serves as a bridge between the previous album, the kind of heavy metal we played on ‘Fatale’, and the style of music, the style of heavy metal we play on ‘Cold Velvet’, but this has nothing to do with us doing a concept album.
In the meantime you even played on a festival in the US as small band! What about this experience?
In 2025, last year in March, we played on the Hell’s Heroes festival in Houston, Texas. It was definitely one of the highlights of the band so far. It was really stunning!
What are the plans for the near future?
The plans are first of all to have a big party to celebrate the release of the new album called ‘Cold Velvet’. On the 20th, 21st and the 22nd of August we have release shows going on. In Kassel, we have one in Hamburg and one in our hometown of Essen. On Thursday, Friday and Saturday. After this we are looking forward to touring with Messa in October. I think this is going to be 21 or 22 shows within a month. Starting in France, going to Spain, through the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland and I think the last gig should be in Italy. After this, in December, when everything has calmed down a little bit, we maybe are already going to start with a little preproduction for the next album, because I already have lots of stuff for the next one. This year – until the end of the year – it is going to be pretty packed.
To round off, let us have a look at the artwork…
The artwork was once again crafted by our good friend Nona Limmen from the Netherlands. She is a really famous photographer, famous of pictures that really give a sinister, dark, melancholic vibe, so everything The Night Eternal music stands for and Nona Limmen also has in her art. After she already did the artwork for ‘Fatale’, the previous album, for us it was clear that she also has to do the next one and actually she even shot all the promo photos, the band photos for us and this is for me really a great collaboration. No need to change that!
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