KadavriK

Interview with Niklas Pietsch (vocalist, rhythm guitar) conducted by Eddie Risdal in 2010

KADAVRIK are a German metal band. If I don't explain it any more many people will start thinking about power metal, thrash or folk-metal. KADAVRIK are none of these, I'd rather say that they sound a bit untypical for a German band, rather leaning towards the Finnish and Swedish extreme metal heritage, such as Children Of Bodom, older In Flames, Dark Tranquillity and such. In a relatively short caréer (they started playing instruments barely 7 years ago) they have achieved quite a lot, and now they have had their second album, "Wine Will Turn To Blood Again" out on the streets a few months.

We hear from vocalist, rhythm guitarist and main composer Niklas Pietsch on the past, present and future of the band.

Hello, how are things for you and KADAVRIK right now? Still much happening or are you going into a more relaxing period after a hectic Autumn in 2009?

We have some cool gigs to come, among others our 6,66 Years of KadavriK-celebrations and a festival with Unleashed and Tyr. But all in all, we have much more time for personal affairs and for stuff like festival applications for this Summer. Autumn 2009 was a really cool time, shows every weekend, meeting a lot of people and spending endless hours in our tour-van.

As I've already mentioned you have existed for less than 7 years, but already have released two demos and two albums. What do you think is the most important factors to be able to get that far in such a short time? I mean, you didn't even know how to tune the guitars when the band was formed!

Well, I guess I am a quick composer. When there are enough songs written, we all can't wait to produce a CD. Right now, we already have a complete new album composed, but we won't hit the studio before 2011, as we want to spend all our energy and money into touring and festivals this year. It is really funny if we think back to Autumn 2003, when we rehearsed the first time, and all we could play was Deep Purple's "Smoke On The Water" and "Baptism By Fire" by Marduk.

What band, album or song made you want to play your instrument? And how did the five of you get together to form a band, did you all know each other or did some of you advertise for musicians?

I guess it was Children Of Bodom, Sentenced, Kataklysm and In Flames that made us form a band, we loved these bands and we had the illusion, that it couldn't be so difficult playing this music. But how wrong we were...

We all knew each other from before, we have been together in the same class since we were in the first grade of primary school, except Frank (Schlegel; drums). He joined our class in fifth grade. Chris (Bosmann; leadguitar) and Marcel (Pieper; keyboards) even knew each other from the kindergarden. We simply all had the same dream of playing in a band together, so we met and decided who will learn which instrument. Said and done, after a month we had our first rehearsal.

The last band member not mentioned by now is bassist/backing vocalist Oliver Rüth, so now he has his name in this interview as well.

You have had a remarkable development in your playing skills, what do you feel is the main factor; hard work, lots of rehearsals, live gigs or talent?

I guess it is a bit of everything. We do not have great talents in music, but there are like 50% that are less talented and about 50% that are more talented. Combined with some hard working on our skills and lots of liveshows (that are important for the routine), it works out pretty well, as you hear. Sometimes we are even surprised ourselves how good our skills have become.

Both albums are self-released, how can it be that no label has signed you yet? Do you feel that you can do a just as good job promoting and distributing the album yourself? Personally I can't really understand that no labels have showed interest, have you been lazy when it comes to promoting yourself towards record companies or what?

We have sent our promopackages to almost every label in Germany and there are really, really many labels in Germany. We got little feedback, but we did not want to sign a too small deal, that brings more costs than profit. This year, we try making our name bigger and more popular by playing more shows and using all potential that the internet offers, to find a serious deal for producing the next album in 2011. But we all think, that a nowadays band can grow and proceed quite well without a label. In times of a dying record-industry it may be quite smart searching for new ways to become a rockstar.

What do you feel is the biggest difference between "...Unil The Die Is Cast" and "Wine Will Turn To Blood Again"? Was there a certain goal that you tried to reach with the second album, something that you in retrospect maybe felt you didn't quite get as you wanted on the debut?

Uh, difficult question. Both albums are really awesome (at least they are for us). Maybe we just grew a little older and got more skilled, so that the current sound is more adult and complex. The only goal we tried to reach was to do the best work we could, and thats what we did. There is no song or part we are not happy with, not on UTDIC and not on WWTTBA. We never produced anything that we are ashamed of today.

A very important thing indeed! When I read interviews myself with band members that don't want to talk about their past because they are ashamed of it, then I really don't see the point of going on with it, right?

You seem to be pretty active on the stage, is it easy getting gigs in Germany nowadays? You even played on the Magic Circle festival, which is arranged by Manowar, right? Was this a highlight in your caréer? You have also been support for a lot of bigger bands recently, probably reaching a lot of people that normally wouldn't go to a KADAVRIK headliner gig, how is the response from these? Do you get a lot of new fans? Does anyone say that you are better than the headliner?

Getting gigs is never easy, sometimes the gods are with you and you have shows every weekend, and sometimes, you have to go through months without a single stage to hit.
Our show at the Magic Circle Festival was great, though we played on the small stage, that still was maybe the biggest crowd we ever rocked for. It was an awesome weekend, we even met Eric Adams. He was riding by on his chopper with a beautiful girl on the backseat through the backstage area. We gave him our album and had a short chat with him. Playing shows with big bands is always great, meeting the bands and reaching new audience is cool. The feedback has without exception been mindblowing so far, and many people were surprised how „small“ our band really is when they visit us on Myspace the day after the show. And yes, it's funny, but there were really people telling us we were better than the headliner on some shows. This is of course a great praise for us.



The pictures in the booklet for "Wine Will Turn To Blood Again" are a bit special, and seems to be thoroughly prepared, displaying Jesus' last meal, what is the thought behind this? And who are all the others (except the band members) on the picture displaying the 12 disciples?

The thought is, that there is a new Messiah to come, a dark and evil one, as the good one obviously failed. It seems as it is not the human nature being a Christian and loving everyone. This is basically the concept behind the title track. And this visual concept fits very well to what "Wine Will Turn To Blood Again" is all about, as the metal-looking, modern and evil disciples are drinking blood from my arms. The "stand in roles" were played by some of our best friends. We invited them to honour them and give them not only a place in our hearts, but also a physical place in this artwork. Of course, there are many more people who deserved to be on this picture, but we could only offer eight roles to play.

How does the future look for KADAVRIK? Do you have any new material, and if so; can you tell a bit about what to expect, if it's more of the same, more complex, faster, slower or what.

Oh, if we could look into the future, we would probably rule the world right now. But we don't. As I said before, I have all the scores for a new album on my PC right now. But I will keep on writing more and more stuff, so that in 2011, when the next album is about to be recorded, we have a great pool of songs to select the top 10 from. It will be faster and harder, but, at the same time, melodies will be catchier than ever before, and we will use elements, scales and styles, that we never used before. Maybe with this album, ruling the world comes a step closer.

Is your music available from iTunes, CDbaby or other physical or digital online stores? And people have predicted the death of the CD format for several years now. When do you think it will happen?

No, we spread our music ourselves. You can order a CD by sending a short and informal email to band@kadavrik.com. For orders from outside Germany, we offer a digital MP3-version of our album, to save shipping costst, but of course we also send our physical CD if the buyer is interested. Check out the tracks on Youtube. Some fans uploaded tracks from our current album there.

I think there will always be CDs, like there is still some vinyl on the market. But I guess digital and free music will gain more and more importance, and bands, that are not working for money will profit from this, as all those ticks in the industry are no longer important to spread music, and the money people are willing to spend for good music reaches musicians directly. For us, this is totally okay. Music qualitity and diversity will increase and there will be more live-activity.

We've come to the end and here's your chance to tell the readers whatever you want.

Okay, support metal, support this mag and support us! ;). And leave a message on Myspace.com/kadavrik when checking out what we do! Thanks Eddie!