SYRANIC complete interview with EAT magazine
It’s about a year and a half ago, I was absolutely hyper with their amazing songs from “The Windscale Inception”, couldn’t sit still anymore and worked really hard for spreading the word about the EP, here’s one of the results of my passion , hell yeah! The interview is an old one for their history and I really love it. Actually, SYRANIC are still my number one! So, I’m proudly show you how they answered to their first time Japanese metal mag interview. *grin*
SYRANIC interview with Japanese metal mag EAT magazine issue 94 (May 2010)
SHIT MUSIC FOR BAD PEOPLE! THIS IS THE WORST
MUSIC MAGAZINE IN THE WORLD – EAT magazine
～Opening Statements by EAT magazine～
"Metal is one of the best ways to canalize your emotions and to free something inside you.” By Julian Parusel
Hendrik Kröger (g) from KILLTRIBE that we run their interview on the previous issue founded SYRANIC before he join the tribe. They finished their 1st EP “The Windscale Inception”. The impression of their thrashing and edged extreme metal sound with stubborn-like is as same vector as ARKANGEL, HEAVEN SHALL BURN and others, but SYRANIC made it more emphasize their lyrical melodies like step into a kind of the works of human. The balance and the contract of those elements made their sound more intensely. Now, the amplification and the evolution of German Extreme Forces has been speeding up with raising a cloud of dust, it reminds a fierce attack by German soccer team at World Cup 2010. SYRANIC is just standing in the forefront among those forces. We had an interview with Hendrik and Julian by e-mail.
(by EAT magazine May 2010)
SYRANIC - Hendrik Kröger and Julian Parusel
The interview with EAT magazine Japan on May 2010
Q. You seem to be few playing shows from this fall to winter, but what will you be doing as Syranic until then? I guess you will be playing as Killtribe during that period as well right?
Julian: We will be playing a tour in Spain this summer and we also got some festivals coming up. We are really busy with everything concerning Syranic and prepare for our tour through Germany which will be played this autumn and winter. Moreover we are starting a campaign to get as much reactions as possible in the rock and metal press in Germany and Europe. Our EP is going to be released this month and we are going to use it to get label contacts, we got a lot of stuff to do as you can see.
Hendrik: There literally isn't a single day nothing happens in this band. We always have something going on and I love it!
Q. When exactly did you start playing Syranic? Did both Killtribe and Syranic start around the same time?
Hendrik: I wasn't a founding member of Killtribe so I don't know when this band started. But I created Syranic before I became a member of Killtribe. It all began in 2008, with me and our old drummer Geerd playing around after the breakup of our last band. At that time our song "Endless Open End" has been written. We always used to record the whole rehearsal session, then checking out the best ideas at home and continue writing on them until we're at a point where we have to take it to the rehearsal room again. That was and still is a very productive way of songwriting.
Q. Please introduce us the other members. How did the four of you get together?
Hendrik: We had quite some changes in our line-up since the beginning. At the time Geerd and I created "Endless Open End", Geerd suggested to send a demo to Julian, who didn't know me back then. He had a break from music for 2 years during this time after his last band called "Mahout Operator" and actually didn't wanted to be active again. He only did some singer/songwriter and jazz stuff, but he liked "Endless Open End" so much that he came all the way from his home - which at that time was 500 km away from our studio - to record the vocals for the preproduction with us. At least he broke up his studies and moved to cologne to be part of Syranic.
The first line up change appeared in 2009, due to different problems Geerd and the both of us had to go separate ways. Fortunately Stefan Klebingat, drummer from the insane technical metal band "Under The Pledge of Secrecy" helped us out on the EP, so we still were able to start the production in time. Also Helge Jansen from the former metal band "10 Fold B-Low" played bass on it. We weren't able to find permanent members for the band for a long time, so we figured: Let's give them a reason by producing the best songs we can and thus make them an offer they can't refuse, haha.
Fortunately this worked out really well and a number of good people became interested in playing for this band. The guys ending up on stage with us in the end were Kamil Albrecht on guitars and additional vocals and Jan Plücken on bass - who both are also playing with our good friends from Eleonore - and Daniel Schneider on drums. We found some insanely talented people there and I am really glad to have them on our team.
Q. I guess the common musical background for both bands is extreme music, especially heavy metal. How do you try to differentiate the sound and the concept between both bands?
Hendrik: We have a strong concept for the music we want to create with Syranic. We want the heavy parts to be as brutal and mind-fucking as anything there is and the soft parts to be extremely beautiful and catchy, too. Of course in the end you will end up doing the music you like to listen to yourself, but that only helps the concept in this case, because everyone in this band not only likes extreme metal genres but also we are all big fans of soft and melodic stuff like Karnivool or Dead Letter Circus.
Julian: That is absolutely right! We had the idea to transform the classical metalcore and modern metal formula of brutal songs with clean choruses into something special by exaggerating the whole classical concept. I think we already have done quite a good job on our first EP and we will stay on this path for sure. Something which also should be mentioned is that we are not only metalheads. We had and have a strong impact from pop and other genres. I am listening a lot to swing like Django Rheinhardt or bigbands and I also worship artists like Dredge, Muse, Faith no More, Prince and so on. My dream is to create a death metal album with swing influences one day, but I am sure I will never get the other guys to write such songs - hahaha!
Hendrik: Yeah, I don't know, hahahaha!
Q. You told me that all the members are involved in songwriting for Killtribe, but who is the main songwriter for Syranic?
Hendrik: We evolved a lot of different techniques for songwriting over the years. The old songs were all written the way I described earlier, creating riffs in the rehearsal room and continue working on them at home and for some songs I create the riffs for myself and Julian then starts working on the vocals. But for the last songs Julian already had some riffs and vocal ideas in his head and so the two of us would meet in the studio or at home and work on those ideas for sometimes two days straight, having a completely finished song in the end. For example the song "Trans[c]ience" from our EP was created this way.
Julian: Yes, the songwriting for "Trans[c]ience" was different but it worked out really well. We wrote the whole song in one day, the craziest part was the chorus. At first we wanted to write a song without any catchy melodies but Hendrik still wanted a chorus in it. So I took the guitar and said: "Hey man I dreamed this part a few days ago - check this out" and played the chorus with the riff as it is in the song today. I am not kidding I dreamed exactly about this son of a bitch. I think you can say that Hendrik and me are the main songwriters but the other guys already have a big impact.
Hendrik: Yeah I'm a real popbitch and need my melodies, haha. But with Julian as the counterpart there's nothing easier than writing a great chorus. This guy is unbelievably creative and I'll eat my hat if he hasn't already stashed enough ideas for choruses to put on at least the next three records!
Q. How do you feel about the outcome of this new EP “The Windscale Inception”?
Hendrik: I was completely responsible for the recording and production of this record and that was so much work, literally hundreds of hours and I currently can't imagine doing this again for the next record, but I'm glad I did for this one time. We really have a good product in our hands now, and that gives us loads of opportunities. There were moments I thought I was going insane, but getting all those reactions from our fans now gives me the feeling it was all worth it.
Julian: Hendrik has done a hell of a job on the EP! It was a hard time but it was more than worth doing it, the fanbase is already really strong and we got so much preorders from all over the world - I think it is the greatest reward we can get for our work. Thank you to everyone who supports us - we appreciate it!
Q. I assume you guys will work on a full length after this. What will be your basic idea or an image of the upcoming album be like?
Hendrik: Yes, we already began writing some songs for a full length record and I feel really good about them. They do the job of fitting the style we are going for even better. I love the technical parts already and those choruses will be huge! We are on a great way of enhancing our typical sound.
Julian: Something I can already say about this is that the full length album is going to be more spiritual than "The Windscale Inception". The lyrics on our first EP are mostly dealing with social circumstances and humanity faling to solve its problems. I think the longplayer is going to be way different, we already have written a real beast called "Yalda" and the Lyrics are absolutely not comparable to "The Windscale Inception".
The idea is to write the lyrics like a conceptalbum and "Yalda" is going to be the final song, which already stands for the whole idea of our upcoming album. "Yalda" is a song which stands for the greatness of life and the connection between all beings who exist today and who have ever existed. Sounds like I got too much drugs in my veins hm? I should better switch to beer and whiskey again that is more metal! Haha, no I mean it and it is a great image for a longplayer.
Q. What does the title “The Windscale Inception” mean?
Julian: That is a good question. It is not quite easy to explain - I'll do my very best. The lyrics on "The Windscale Inception" are mostly dealing with humanity failing to solve their problems. In the beginning the vocals have been simply facts about disasters of our modern time like the lake Karatschai in Russia, the most polluted place on Earth. I used this theme for the lyrics of "Death Facility One". This disaster took place in a nuclear facility in the Ural where plutonium for nuclear warheads was produced. The Soviet scientists just lead the river which ends in the Karatschai lake through the core of the reactor to cool it and back into the river again - they really didn't give a fuck! Therefore you die if you spend 60 minutes close to this lake.
Nemesis is also one of these songs. it is about the irony that humankind is the first species which is able to realize that its limited resources are overcultivated but still is trapped in the principles. We are so convinced that we can solve our problems with technique that we can not see our real role in life in a modest way. We are still the same monkey which is just living in a technical world and we can't see how overstrained we are actually in this modern world. Relating to the themes of these first lyrics we were looking for a metaphor and found it in the town Windscale in Great Britain. The first nuclear disaster, which has been the most serious worst-case scenario with a reactor before chernobyl, happened exactly in this town and the british government just changed the name into Sellafield to keep it secret. The facility is still in use today and is polluting the Northern seas just as "La Haque" in France with radioactive garbage. The lyrics are all about the human hubris to rule and the failing of every single one of us. This sounds really depressed and dark but actually "The Windscale Inception" is a really positive piece of music even if it is hate-filled. I believe that we are all aware of our responsibility and know the difference between good and bad. It is the main conclusion of the EP: "Things are going bad but we can face and change them, if we become aware of our own role in this big game called life."
We called the EP "The Windscale Inception" because it is the beginning of our creative work as a group of musicians and because "Windscale" is a metaphor for the human hubris that technology is the solution for all our problems. I believe it is not! Technology is developing way too fast for us and we can't cope with the speed of changes in our environment. All that technology does in my opinion is accelerating the growth rate of our societies and this is just causing bigger problems, not solutions. Humanity is at a turning point and it is in our hands to deal with our problems in a responsible way or not. There will be just loosers or just winners, it depends on us! This is one globe, one nature and one humankind - we will swim or sink together. So "The Windscale Inception" is a metaphor for both: the beginning of our work as musicians and the beginning of a time which will change the human history once and for all.
Q. Have Killtribe and Syranic ever played together in the past?
Hendrik: Not yet, but I'm pretty sure this is going to happen some time in the future. There is no intention to do that, but I'm positive the bands will come across on a metal festival or something like that.
Q. I think Syranic has more melodic sound compared to Killtribe. What kind of a message or an idea do you try to get across to the listeners with Syranic?
Julian: Metal is not just music - it is straight into your face, brutal, intense but always two things: honest and passionate. Metal is one of the best ways to canalize your emotions and to free something inside you. You get up and fight for the things you believe in, I feel it in the moments in which I am on stage and every time I write a song. It is this feeling which is meant for the person who listens to your songs or who is moshing on your gig. You share a moment and this is what I always want the listener to feel. It is a journey we do with our music - come with us!
Q. You told me previously that you have a big influence from Adam of Killswith Engage. What are some of the points that you admire about him as a guitarist?
Hendrik: Yeah, Killswitch Engage influenced my style a lot. I like the way they write compact and catchy songs. And they always have great choruses. It's quite obvious that our song "The Mindscale Inception" has been influenced a lot by Killswitch Engage. Also "Nemesis" isn't completely free of that. Yet with the new songs that influence is almost completely gone, though I'll always admire the compactness of their songs.
Q. Like you, Adam also does a lot of sound for different bands. Is this also some of the points that inspire you about him? How do you think about his sound producing works?
Hendrik: Well, I guess we chose a quite similar career, but it's not something I did for that purpose. Though I think he produced some of the best sounding metal albums of all time, most notably "The Awakening" by German metallers Caliban. I love the sound of that album, it's incredible.
Q. What is your favorite Killswith Engage song?
Hendrik: I don't listen to them that much these days, but I still think that almost every song on "The End Of Heartache" is a hit. Though the best song ever by them may be "Fixation On The Darkness" from their first record. I'm pretty sure there is no song I've played on my guitar more often than this one, haha.
Q. How do you think about the current metal / extreme music scene in Germany?
Julian: I think there are a lot of passionate musicians in Germany and the current metal and extreme music scene is really big. We got bands like Caliban and Heaven Shall Burn which where founding members of the metalcore scene and we got some great melodeath, metalcore and modern metal bands around here. The scene in Aachen and Cologne is really good for example, there are so many amazing bands out of this area like Eleonore, trickORtreat, Under the Pledge of Secrecy or Last One Dying. Moreover there is a huge Beatdown and Metalcore scene in Eastern Germany. You can say that there are not many well known bands but the underground is absolutely alive.
Hendrik: Hell yes, I love the underground bands from our region. We really have a high density of great bands here and I'm not just saying this. Also on a national scale there are a lot of bands who have some reputation all across the world as Julian already mentioned. It's kinda funny when you read about "German Metal" as a genre, but I get it - we do have a common style here.
Q. Who would you say is the all time greatest band of Germany?
Julian: My girlfriend Julia while she is playing guitar and my balls when I let them slide over a piano… Oh we are talking about metal right? Well that is hard to say - my favorite band in Germany is "Heaven Shall burn" right now, but my all time favorite German band are the noise-rockers "Harmful" from Frankfurt. Great songs, great live-band - awesome! I've seen them with "Faith no More" the last time and it was one of the best concerts I have ever seen. One thing you got to know about them is that Faith No More bass-guitar player Billy Gould also played for "Harmful".
Hendrik: Rammstein! An incredible and unique band! I'm not a fan of their latest stuff but their 2001 release "Mutter" is in my opinion one of the greatest metal albums ever. And to date it is one of the best sounding! Also my style of writing has been influenced by that album for a long time.
Julian: Ah yes Rammstein. That fits with my balls on the piano - "I hurt you and you are mourning silently" I love them!
Hendrik: Bück dich!
Q. Who named the band Syranic?
Julian: It was me. At first the band was called "Spinal Shock" but we have never been really happy with this name. Hendrik gave me the task to find a name which starts with S and ends with C and it should be one word. This task took me weeks I guess and I worked on it for a really long time. At last I ended up with "Syranic" and the greatest thing was that this name had a real meaning already.
Hendrik: That is the task I gave you? Holy shit, do I suck. But I guess in the end it worked out pretty well, haha.
Q. What is the meaning behind the name Syranic?
Julian: It is a description for our sound which is personated by a figure of the Greek mythology. This is Syranis, demigod of cruelty and mercy, the son of Eros and Hamysh-Git, a creature of Chaos from the outter void. The manic character of our songs is perfectly described by this demigod. We destroy everything you are and lift you up again when you are down. Syranic is heaven and hell in every song, we ARE Syranic!
Q. The environment of music and the relationship between artists and listeners have been changing drastically with the spread of internet. As a musician, how would you want to keep playing music in the future?
Hendrik: Of course with the introduction of MP3 and thus the possibility to get all the music you like for free the internet has a big downside to the music industry.
But we as Syranic use the internet to our full advantage. I can not imagine how we would ever have gotten the possibilities of playing shows and getting fans in these dimensions if it wasn't for the internet. Hell, we wouldn't even be doing this interview right now. Also the very convenient ways of talking to your fans and giving them the opportunity to talk to you are great. You can create a very personal relationship with your fans nowadays.
Q. How do you see the general rock scene of the first ten years of this millennium?
Hendrik: I must say I love the music that has been coming out this last decade. The Nu Metal genre in the beginning was fun and I also like all those modern polyrhythmic bands that came up during the years. And even when it comes to popular music, I love the stuff that has been coming out this decade! You would be shocked about what music from the top artists of the years I listen to. Nothing compared to the 90s, I really don't like the sound of that decade.
Julian: I have nothing more to say and agree in all points - it was a lot of fun and a lot of great music was released! Keep it going guys!
Q. What is your favorite metal album that came out in these ten years?
Hendrik: Holy shit, that is a tough one! The problem with that question is I have something you could call band ADD. I can really adore a band for maybe one year and then I go like: God, they suck. I'm kind of extreme about that, haha. But the albums I loved the most were "Silhouettes" by Textures from 2008, "Ascendancy" by Trivium from 2005, "The End Of Heartache" by Killswitch Engage from 2004, "Deliverance" by Opeth from 2002, "Toxicity" by System Of A Down from 2001 and as I said earlier "Mutter" bei Rammstein from 2001.
Julian: Wow Hendrik is right, this IS a tough one but I can answer it. My favorites are: "The Audio Injected Soul" by Mnemic from 2004, "Alien" by Strapping Young Lad from 2005, "The New Black" by Strapping Young Lad from 2006, "Stabbing the Drama" by Soilwork from 2005, "Figure Number Five" by Soilwork from 2003, "Stone Sour" by Stone Sour from 2002 and "Deaf To Our Prayers" by Heaven Shall Burn from 2006.
Q. What is the goal for Syranic?
Julian: To fuck your mind!
May 2010 EAT magazine issue 94
SYRANIC “The Windscale Inception” EP review by EAT magazine issue 94
The debut EP of SYRANIC formed Hendrik from KILLTRIBE, Kamil Albrecht from the vox of ELEONORE and others. With thrashin’ riffs have relevance to FEAR FACTORY, conclusive melodies have the backbone of KILLSWITCH ENGAGE, and hysterical screaming vox like Devin Townsend, they created very sharp spirals with full of various eras right-on music sense. SYRANIC placed their sound with a lot of extreme metal icons, and also they show us some part of a traditional metal and heaviness mood from end of 90’s (they rejected that era as “dislike” though ). This is a really good EP that you can take their passion of their obsession as a German metal band with knife-edged sound images from the start to the end!
EAT magazine
SYRANIC
THE WINDSCALE INCEPTION
1. Endless Open End
2. Trans[c]ience
3. Nemesis
4. The Mindscale Inception
5. Death Facility One
At this moment, they are having a long break and I am waiting for, oh wait! we all SYRANIC fans in the universe are waiting for their come back to the scene.
We love your real-hell-fucking-kick-ass-metal!!!
2nd Oct. 2011 - Kumi666