Hi Steffen, it is about a year ago that we also did an interview, about the previous album ‘A Dying Wish’. How are you doing?
Fine. I am taking care of PR and many interviews at the moment, because our new album ‘Hail The Abyss’ will drop on Friday, combined with the release show, so we are preparing the concert in our hometown and we will play the whole record, so we have to rehearse, but we are looking forward to Friday.

It was not so long ago since we had the former album ‘A Dying Wish’ which was dedicated to the bass player. Does it mean that right after this former album, you already started writing for this new album?
Yes and no. The fact that the recent album ‘A Dying Wish’ was released at the very end of the pandemic, it meant that we had not the chance to play many shows. So we had intended to do a national tour, but a big part of those shows had been postponed or later cancelled. So we did not know how long it would take to be back on the road, how long it may take to just play concerts overall again. Instead of forcing new shows, we’d rather sat down and started writing new songs. Instead of waiting and just wasting our time, we thought ‘okay, maybe that’s it for the moment, we better record a couple of music videos and write some new music together. That is the reason why the album is here so early.

That is nice. The only good thing on the pandemic was that there was more free time and that many bands have used this time to be creative…
Absolutely and we are one of the – I don’t know, million bands – that faced the same issues. So we just tried to see the positive things. Yes, we had more time, but at the same time we were also able to make video productions. For the previous album we made one music video for ‘the title track with Grupa 13 in Poland. It was a very nice experience, so looking back it was, not only successful, but also the theme of Grupa 13 was excellent prepared and it worked super well and we are very happy how the music video turned out. So for the next album, we just thought ‘okay, if this worked, let us record two music videos. So that is the reason why we have ‘Hail The Abyss’ and ‘As I Walk Through The Gateway’. These are the first two singles and we combined it with some nice quality videos. The pandemic had some problems and big issues, but on the other hand, as you said, some bands had more time for writing music. We took the time for writing music and also for the music videos. We are looking forward, not backward.

The world is more or less back to normal – except that it is more expensive – but recently you toured for the first time ever in the US. How do you look back at this adventure?
Well, we have been in the situation that Obscura worked on a North American tour and I am playing in both bands. I have been able to bring Thulcandra on the road and with the combination of both bands, it made sense, because we could share the crew. We always work with the same people, we also work with the same backline and therefore it was a good start for Thulcandra. So the entire tour was a big success. We had nine or ten sold out shows in North America. It was a co-headline tour of Obscura and Fleshgod Apocalypse from Italy and Wolfheart from Finland and Thulcandra supporting the entire fest. It was a really nice experience. All the bands worked with the biggest respect for each other. We always helped each other in case there were some problems. For example we had to face the issue that one of the mountain passes we had to pass was entirely frozen and not anyone could go through it, so long story short, we arrived very, very late at the next venue. Then we had just 45 minutes to set up everything, but instead of cutting the support band, all the bands – without discussing about it – said: ‘okay, everybody plays, but every band plays a shorter set. So we had all the four bands on stage. This is real comradeship. I would play a tour with all of these bands in a heartbeat again. If they say it was a tough tour, if they say it was a successful tour, all of this for me is right, but for me it is not only about having a successful tour, it is about how you do it. With those bands, it was simply excellent and for Thulcandra it was the best way to introduce the band to the North American audience and we have been able to play proper shows every day. Only half an hour, but as opening act, this is just normal. But people really seemed to like the band. So there was a very good feedback and they also made us think about maybe playing another North American tour next year.

You did a long tour there, isn’t it?
Yes it was about five weeks long and we did all major markets, so we had one day off. We enjoyed it. We enjoyed every minute of it.

Going back to the writing process: what were you inspired by to write lyrics this time?
I would say that the entire album is very diverse. So each song is different from the other. There is no song that gets repeated by itself again. So therefore we also thought that the lyrics should be very diverse as well. We on purpose decided that it was not going to be a concept album. It has all kinds of loose, different stories, but they all focus around the topics we also worked with in the past. So it is not a concept album, it is more the idea of writing a very diverse record with many different pallets if it comes to music, but also to lyrics.

‘The Final Closure’ struck me because it is very intense and your voice almost sounds weird and sick in that song. Can you tell something about that song?
‘The Final Closure’ was actually meant to be an extension of the title track of our previous record, There is one song, called ‘A Dying Wish’, which we thought was going to be the slowest song of our entire career, but in the end we thought ‘okay, on this new record we want to go a little bit further with everything, so we wanted to play shorter songs, faster and more aggressive and we thought ‘maybe we can do that, but also go into the other direction’. So on purpose this song was meant to be even slower than ‘A Dying Wish’.

It is also nice that you have those semi-acoustic parts in the music and this time I have the impression that it is more focused on two interludes and that the entire album as a whole is more heavy. Do you agree with that?
I have to say from my point of view. We include acoustic guitars, because you have so much more dynamics and you can say so much more. It is simply a third stringed instrument for me. It is not only the bass or the guitar, it is an acoustic guitar and that offers so much more and the thing is also part of the musical DNA of the band these days. So we need to include it somehow. At the same time the acoustic guitar is an instrument you cannot edit the same way as the electric guitar. So there is always something very, very personal in the playing. This is something you cannot fight it, you cannot edit it and I love it, because it is absolutely honest and true.