The Last Hangmen
Live videos from Metal Up Your Life on 06-Feb-2016
The Last Hangmen, All Will Know, Soulbound and Darkest Horizon shared the stage at Metal Up Your Life. You also can see some guys from Burden Of Life and Parasite Inc. in the absolutely stunning photo below!
You can check all those bands I mentioned above here. If you find something interesting there, please buy their music and merch and support those brilliant bands!
So, here we go with some fabulous videos from the concert filmed by ghostuser.de!!!
Off-stage shot 1 - merch booth
Off-stage shot 2 - couch potatoes ~ Kötti from Burden Of Life, Johnny and Felix from Soulbound
Incredible beautiful gifts from my support bands. I love you all!!!
Special thanks to Kai and ghostuser.de !!! Give your like for ghostuser facebook
The Last Hangmen – Greetings from Solingen LIVE
My favorite Melodic Extreme Metal band: The Last Hangmen from Dresden revealed their new song as live video on YouTube, check it out!
You can buy the song and their past masterpieces Executing Empire and Servants of Justice on their bandcamp page. Show your respect and love for the awesome band if you like the music.
THE LAST HANGMEN at OUT & LOUD 2014
Here's a brand-new OUT & LOUD report by my favorite extreme metal force in Dresden - The last Hangmen. Those hangovermen made their impression about the fest in the unique way. Enjoy!
Jason: Hey Kumi,
After Simon and me met at 7 o’clock to write this report for you, we drank some soft-drinks to improve our English. We had a little brainstorming and now it’s nearly midnight. So let’s start!
Hangmen: Even though we’ve got good memories about the Out & Loud Festival, there are significant blackouts which make it harder for us to write this report. Thursday, as Hangmen we arrived – Friday, as Hangovermen we awoke. Afterwards we had a few hung-over hours in Geiselwind and had to kill some time. After that the worst 40 minutes of our lives were to begin. We had to play a concert even though we had just one thought: where’s the next toilet!?
After a great piss we’d like to describe the most explosive memories to you. Let’s come to some facts. We met Kai from Parasite Inc. who was seemingly too sober for the whole time; compared to Kötti, who was always perfectly performing on the bottle climaxing with his performance on Friday night by puking in front of his tent. But one thing that animated us all to puke was Haimi’s hairdo. Haimi namely has got a girlfriend. She’s made him wear this sausage dog hair style; a sausage dog that loves to leave his tiny shit piles on the sidewalks. That’s what his hair looks like! Saturday morning we had an extensive discussion about our penises which we then showed to each other while downing uncountable beers. In the following piece of video evidence you see that Schafi couldn’t keep up with us:
Hangmen: Now, tits on the table. We had a great time at the Out & Loud Festival and met wonderful people (except Haimi). As you can see, we came home safely to Dresden looking most forward to finally take a massive shit.
Unfortunatley we lost our good, beloved friend and reliable companion Meick. RIP – you will never be forgotten.
We’d love to write much more, but unfortunately we’ve run out of beer and consequently run out of inspiration. Hope to see you soon!
THE LAST HANGMEN
The last Hangmen Official facebook
Here we go with the awesome live photos by Bettina ( Dark and Sweet Things ) !!!
The last Hangmen – The Official Video has been released!
The last Hangmen - The Abolition of Acquittal (Official Video)
www.facebook.com/thelasthangmen
The last Hangmen interview about “Executing Empires” – on Feb. 2013
“The broke down statue is a symbol for the revolution and for our development as a band.”
It’s been a long time after I had an interview with Simon about “Servants of Justice”, it’s more than one and a half years ago. So, how was your last year? How have you been feeling since you released the second chapter of the kick-ass Hangmen universe “Executing Empires”?
Pether:
The past year was awesome. We played many shows, our Crowdfunding worked out even more than perfect and we finally released our second album. It was a lot of work and we are in every aspect proud of the development of our sound. Especially our record release show was mind-blowing. The club nearly exploded as the crowd shouted our band's name after each track. Crazy and exciting.
Since I’m a big fan of Hangmen’s, I had expected so much about the new album naturally, and since I listened through it at the first time, I can definitely say it’s more than my expectations. Did you get any other positive feedbacks about the album already?
Pether:
We got much positive feedback from our fans, not only those who took part in our Startnext-Campaign. We sold many copies of the new album to all around the world and thanks to your efforts the most of them to Japan.
Okay, let’s step into the new chapter “Executing Empires”… As an opener of the album, “Overture to a Falling Empire” gives us much imaginations and curiosity for the following tracks with some sound effects like broken glasses, hams of propellers, explosion sounds and so on. It seems that the intro syncs completely with the album artwork, right? What did you aim with the very first instrumental track?
Pether:
As you discovered already, we tried to create a sound that matches the artwork, which depicts a kind of revolution or civil war in a scenario inspired by dystopias like Orwell's 1984 or the movie Equilibrium mixed with a visual style referring to the Futurism art-style of the early 20thcentury. So the picture we had in mind for the intro was a tyrant sitting in his massively oversized office of the party's headquarter, playing a farewell-song on his piano for his recently falling empire and gets finally killed by a plane crashing through the window.
As I mentioned above, the art is totally impressive and even I can find a kind of homage to the art of the first album “Servants of Justice” which appears as a statue but it’s going to be broke down and the five guys are hanging at the gallows…Can you explain a bit about the story of the artwork?
Pether:
We thought of a lot of story details for the artwork. The broke down statue is a symbol for the revolution and for our development as a band. Despite this it was a cool gimmick for fans of the first hour.
Stefan:
We tortured Jenny a lot with the inclusion of many small details in the picture. The statue being one of them, but there are a lot more gimmicks in it. The Five Guys hanging from the so called “Clothes line gallow” –inspired by WWII pictures -could be interpreted as the Five Guys who recorded the Servants, but since we are not Iced Earth, who change their Lineup with every album, this might not be the full truth. Take a look at the left of the Artwork and you will see Five People in Cloaks disappearing to the left. There are many possible Interpretations. Let´s just leave it that way.
You placed a huge orchestration in the intro and the outro for “Servants of Justice” but you didn’t for “Executing Empires”, right? Why?
Stefan:
For me Intros are always the first to skip when listening to a new Album, especially if the Intro alone plays for 3 or 4 Minutes. I want to listen to the Music and not something orchestrated as an atmosphere creation. So we had some minor discussions about this theme, but it all ended when Simon played the Intro Theme on an old Piano. We definitely were into the Idea of a real Piano Sound as an Intro. And since the piece wasn’t that long anyway it ended up as a small Intro, for Abolition of Acquittal as well as the whole Album. The Outro was more or less completed with the instrumental. The Outro of “Executing takes Time” serves as a CD Outro as well. Since with all the “real” tracks on this CD it plays for more than 50 Minutes an extensive Outro would have just been too much for any listener.
Every song of “Executing Empires” is just amazing, it has very melodic guitars, powerful and evil vocals, fast and dense drums…those are typical elements of Hangmen’s but everything turned to be more dynamic and overwhelming than the previous one. Can you introduce each track one by one shortly?
Pether:
The Abolition of Acquittal is an overwhelmingly fast lead guitar driven song. Compactly in your face Simon has written this track as the opener in order to show where the journey will lead.
The Holy Bond of Black Blood deals with the misbeliefs of (monotheistic) religion in general. It offers a more grooving sound to the listener. Speed attacks vary with slower parts. To push the chorus even more we used group shouts for the first time.
Defeat of Despair starts freaking fast again, but also contains brutal stomping parts with focus on bass and drums. It's the first song you hear on Executing Empires that is written by Stefan and you get a glimpse of his guitar solo skill. The lyrics are actually older than the song itself and express some personal feelings of me from the time I wrote them. We also experimented much with different vocal colors in this very song.
Or Forever Hold Your Peace is the first song of the little partial lyrical concept. It's about the already mentioned revolution, rising against oppression and injustice. Simon wrote some insanely catchy lead guitars for this one. The little spoken words part is Søren's voice by the way.
Downfall of Glory is part two of the concept. Here the victorious revolution turns into terror and has to fall, too. In this one you find the longest guitar solo of the album, as well as small bass solo. In the middle Stefan created an awesome kind of Old-school Death Metal part that I tried to emphasize with my vocals as good as possible.
Beyond the Crimson Nightsky is the first song Stefan wrote for The last Hangmen. It's through a great evolution until the version you hear on the album. There's a live incarnation of 2010 on YouTube if you want to check out the differences.
Sleep Tight is part three of the concept. Two brothers in arms find themselves on two different sides after the revolution. I think it's the catchiest song on the album. Simon developed some really possessing melodies for this piece.
Rotten Seeds is my lyrical favorite. It's a huge metaphor. On the acoustic side this one is our Thrash-Grenade and I really dig the blackish chorus. All in all Rotten Seeds sounds kind of atypical and is still 100% The last Hangmen.
With Legion of Sold Souls it gets even more blackish. But hell yeah this song got so much energy.
Even though the last track Executing Takes Time has no lyrics it tells a story just with the instrumental. I still get Goosebumps every time I hear this eight-minute-epos.
I would love to ask you about Crowdfunding by the way. It was a very meaningful challenge with the great result, right? Of course the album is absolutely worth buying but many people are trying to avoid paying for music nowadays, and your challenge showed us there’re still a lot of true Hangmen fans who are willing to pay for getting physical copies. What do you think about it?
Pether:
We were totally stoked that our fans put so much trust in us and helped us to fund the record in advance. We feel that Crowdfunding is a great way to involve the fans in the development of a band and push it further. But you are right it's important that people realize that if they don't pay for music, there will be one day no music anymore.
Stefan:
Most of the times you buy an Album via Amazon or in big electronic stores you are never sure who gets the Money you spent on the Album. The Store? The intermediaries for the Store? The Label? The Band? A good way to really support a Band is always to buy the Merch directly via the Band or in Record Shops that are in direct contact with the Band such as Disk Union in Japan. The Crowdfunding is just the next step to accompany a Band from scratch to the final Album and by this making a real Contribution to the Music.
Can I ask about the member’s replacement? What happened between Sören and the band? Did you find another permanent bass player already?
Pether:
Søren was too busy with his job to put enough energy in the band, so we all five decided that it is time to find some replacement. There's no bad blood and if everything turns out well, Søren will do the vocal production with me for the third album, too. We will soon introduce a talented freshman with our first concerts this year. If he fits in well and has fun with us, we will keep him. We're excited about hitting the stage with him. The official announcement will follow soon.
Since “Executing Empires” is a perfect album, maybe it makes a bit different to produce more fabulous album in the near future, haha. What is your next goal/plan at the moment?
Pether:
The plan is to push this project as far as it can go. So the next goal is to find a Label to spread our records even further. Since Executing Empires is a “classical” second release in the tradition of “faster, harder, stronger” our third one sure will explore other limits.
Stefan:
Since Simon wrote the biggest part of the first Album completely on his own and the Second one was more or less split in half between Simon and me, we are still defining our common Sound. So I guess the third album will be more of a real community effort on all our parts to create a real homogenous Album with our typical mixture of complexity and Catchiness.
This is the last question. I’m not sure you know it or not but physical copies of “Servants of Justice” got a kind of success in Japan, it’s sold out at the moment and a bunch of “Executing Empires” are going to be sold here now. What do you think about it? Please leave some message to Japanese metalheads.
Pether:
We are really happy that we sold so much CDs to the other side of the planet without a label. So we thank every Japanese metalhead for supporting us from so freaking far away. Hopefully one day we meet live and spread some fucking loudness over the clubs of your beautiful islands.
Shortly after the interview, the band revealed their new bassist – Jason Melidonie.
Check them more on…
Facebook: www.facebook.com/thelasthangmen
Official site: www.thelasthangmen.com
The last Hangmen – Crowdfounding(completed): www.startnext.de/en/thelaasthangmen
Check the past article and interview
Check a track from Executing Empires!
The Last Hangmen – “We need your help for making 500 copies of the upcoming album!”
As a pure metal supporter, I would love to post this blog. Just a short note to let you know that you can visit the link below or check the ad on the right and donate to The Last Hangmen for making the production of their second album possible:
It seems to me that their new challenge is absolutely pertinent: They are trying to avoid exploiters in the music industry and believe their fans only!
As you know, nowadays many metal bands are struggling with the awful situation of how to produce their own music or simply finance their band because of less income through exploiters like labels or some brokers as well as illegal downloads and piracy. So, I’m happy to know that one of my favorite Melodic Death metal bands The Last Hangmen didn’t give up in their tough situation and decided to believe PURE Hangmen FANS only.
If you want to get a copy of their second album "Executing Empires" and listen to it when they finished it with your financial help, please visit the site https://www.startnext.de/en/thelasthangmen and show your passion. It doesn’t matter how much you’ll donate, it all adds up. So, don’t be shy! Love and support the kick-ass melodic death force!
I’m already eager and hyper for their upcoming new album and I’m sure they will rock the world again very soon!
The Last Hangmen on Facebook: www.facebook.com/thelasthangmen
The last Hangmen: Studio Report # 2 - The Drums, Bitches
The last Hangmen Live @ SachsenRockt 2010 - LittleEase
An interview with The Last Hangmen about the album “Servants Of Justice” ( 18th June 2011)
Here’s an interview with Simon from The Last Hangmen on middle of Jun. This cool melodic death metal force based Dresden released their first full-length album on this July 1st! I had a great interview with Simon the guitarist, songwriter and the founder of the band. So, here we go.
Q: The three songs in your free "Promo 2010" are very nice! When did you guys start as "The Last Hangmen"? Could you introduce me about all the members of the band?
Simon: First, thanks for the compliment! Well, it all started with my solo project "The last Hangman" (still singular, back then). My other band had split up and so meanwhile I continued to write songs on my own. After a few years I missed the feeling of kicking ass live on stage, but I also didn't feel like joining an existing band. So I decided to start a new band - I had finished songs anyway...
Simon: I uploaded my songs to the internet, posted some requests and just after 2 hours I got the first message by a guy who offered his vocal-skills, even though I didn't ask for a vocalist. Well, what shall I say, somehow that dude managed to be our vocalist today...
But seriously, he, his name is Pether by the way, does a great job and right after some rehearsal sessions it was clear that he'll be the third permanent member.The third? Yes, in the meantime I accidentally got to know our drummer Ronny via the internet, although I was looking for another Ronny of whom I knew he was playing the drums. Before Pether joined us, Ronny and me rehearsed a few times and to make it short: from the first note we played together everything felt just right.
This all happened in May of 2009 and a few months later our lineup was completed by our bass player Sören, a good friend of Pether, and Pit (guitar) who later was replaced by Stefan who is also writing songs for us now; you'll hear a lot of him on our second album, which will really kick your asses again! So the actual lineup exists since about May of 2010 and, as it is, everything works out just fine.
Q: Okay, here's the main topic: You guys finished making the first full-length already and it will be out on July 1st, right?
Simon: Yeah that's totally right! Our debut album "Servants of Justice" will be out on the 1st of July 2011. Actually we planned to release it in fall of 2010, but then just everything lasted longer. Recordings started in March of 2010 and were finished in November, when the material was finally mixed and mastered by a great guy, called Victor Santura (guitarist in the German black metal band Dark Fortress). At this point thanks to him again, we're REALLY pleased with the result!
The first album "Servants of Justice"
1. The Gallow March - Intro (2:40)
2. Lupara Bianca (4:17)
3. The Hypocrite (3:24)
4. Crash Course Dying (5:38)
5. Little Ease (3:36)
6. Hang'em High (3:33)
7. Knocking Tombstones Down (10:09)
8. Cloak and Dagger Operation (6:23)
9. Withdraw the Hangmen! - Outro (1:25)
Playtime: 41:06s
Q: Could you tell me how the atmosphere of the album is? If you like, I would love to hear about the details of the songs, about the song titles or lyrics.
Simon: Well, what can I say about the atmosphere and the details of the songs...
At first I've got to say that it's quite hard to describe your own music, you know? At some point in the writing process you're no longer in the place where you can really feel what the music expresses. You just do your thing and you just know "what's right and what's wrong", you lose the objectivity, cause you build up some kind of personal relationship to the song. To be harsh: It's like the phenomenon that all parents like their children, although they're (sometimes) ugly like sh*t. So again and again I'm relieved when a new song gets positive feedback from "neutral" people.
Simon: Against this background, I'll try to tell you something about our music anyway, so here we go: Our genre would be Melodic Death Metal. In my opinion it's ridiculous to preach sh*t like: "Oh, our style is so new, you can't describe it with the already existing genres, so we have to put some stupid words in front of "Metal" and our OWN new genre is born. And oh yeah! All people will be SO excited what's hidden behind this new genre and everyone will listen to us, because we invented a completely new style".
In SOME FEW cases this MIGHT be right, but you just read things like this too often and too often it's just the 1000th rip-off of band XY. You can't describe one's music in a few words anyway, so I'm holding the view of just using the main genre that fits best.
Sorry, I'm drifting again...
Simon: The atmosphere of the album diverges widely. I think it's because some of the songs were written years ago and by the time my composing style evolved and my experience in writing metal songs grew. For the intro and outro of the album we wrote orchestral arrangements to frame the whole work. Then we've got songs like "Hang'em High" or "The Hypocrite" which by the way are the two oldest songs and which aren't by far as brutal as "Knocking Tombstones Down". Every now and then we've some really catchy riffs and melodies, "Little Ease" for example is the most melodic song on "Servants of Justice", it's almost one huge melody... Some parts are just evil, partly supported with dark synths, and other parts are bitter sweet like the outro of "Cloak and Dagger Operation".
Simon: We recorded the whole album without click by the way, which is quite unusually nowadays. We just wanted to catch some kind of live-feeling, what you can hear best in the outro of "Crashy Course Dying". As mentioned before it's really hard to describe your own music, so I recommend everyone who likes bands like Dimmu Borgir, At the Gates, Wintersun, the old Children of Bodom and so on, to take a listen to our music at our homepag or somewhere else - one mp3 tells more than thousand words...
Q: How is the activity of The Last Hangmen this year?
Simon: Right now we're especially rehearsing for live shows, but Stefan and I are also writing new material for our second studio album. Four songs are already done! We're planning to hit the studio in spring 2012 again, but of course it depends on our progress in the songwriting process (oh, nice rhyme! but it'll surely get lost in the translation, so... never mind...).
I assume that we'll need 6 months again to record the whole stuff. The whole recording process is pretty time consuming, in particular cause we do lots of the work on our own. So when everything turns out well, there COULD be a second Hangmen album by the end of 2012, but I wouldn't count on that!
Simon: The last months of this year we'll play some shows in Germany - to name a few: There's our CD Release Party and then there's the "Rock im Betonwek" Festival where Amorphis, Exodus, Alestorm and other popular acts will play, too!We're also still looking for a label who signs us. For now we're selling the album on our own. Well, that's pretty much it concerning our near-future-plans.
Q: Do you have any message to Japanese metalheads?
Simon: Yeah, of course! You guys rock!! We're SO DAMN LOOKING FORWARD to playing in Japan one day! People coming to concerts directly from work, still in their suits, and just partying hard and banging their heads off,
THAT'S THE SPIRIT!! SEE YOU THEN!!
The Last Hangmen are:
Simon Konze - Leadguitar
Ronny Garz - Drums
Pether Hantsche - Vocals
Sören Kube - Bass
Stefan Beckert - Guitar
Okay, how do you feel about the interview with Simon? Actually, I received their first album ”Servants Of Justice” in my hand just few hours ago and played it, it’s so awesome with melodic guitars and evil vocals! As Simon said, you can check them stuff out on their web site! www.thelasthangmen.com
18th June – Kumi666