"Songs For The Last View" : a record "made in Lacrimas" !

Interview réalisée par Metalo



Date : 2008-10-12

MySpace Lacrimas Profundere: myspace.com/lacrimasprofundere


"A Pearl" from "Songs For The Last View".

Radio Metal : Lacrimas Profundere is a band that needs no introduction in Germany: your albums usually do very well in the German charts. Did the tour with Apocalyptica bring you what you needed, that is fame outside of your country?

Oliver Nikolas Schmid (Guitare) Yes, it helps a lot! It was rock´n´roll! You know, we played in London at the famous Astoria Club; they robbed us in Barcelona; a flat in Birmingham day off in Madrid and some gigs in Paris, Dublin and from Dover to Calais! After the tour we did the mix together with John Fryer (HIM, Depeche Mode) and the mastering with Roger Lian of Masterdisk (Metallica, Pantera, Overkill, Aerosmith). And this tour helped knowing exactly what we wanted: a sound smelling the dust of the streets, the smoking air in the Night liner and the red wine of last night! If you listen to the album you smell it all and we love it!

Last year was a rather eventful year for Lacrimas Profundere. Can you tell us more about the resignation of bassist Daniel Lechner and vocalist Christopher Schmid and about their successors? The vocal (and physical) likeness between the two singers is astounding!

Being in a band requires time and health and I understand that someone would like to live longer than 45 years (laughing)! This was the reason why Daniel left the band! Christopher doesn’t have time for the touring, the festivals and he likes so many other things more than taking showers in bad club or sleeping in some fucked up hotels and spending hours and hours in the bus to enter every fucking stage in this world! But as for the others and me, we would do anything for those 40 minutes on the stage! The night liner is my classy hotel, the laundry near the club is my bathroom and the tent near the stage is the Hilton! You need band members who breath this motley side of live to reach your goal and my brother won’t continue this way! After that it was fucking hard to find someone as good as he was to replace him! We did auditions with tons of singers or people who called themselves singers! And we’ve found some very talented guys but not the 100 percent Man! I just came back from a festival and Rob sent me a link to his myspace band page because he is a very huge Lacrimas fan and wanted to know if I liked his music! We searched for a new singer and I really liked his fucking good deep voice! So, two mails and a phone call later, he entered our rehearsal room! At our first rehearsal, some songs sounded so similar that I thought: “fuck off there is my brother near me”! He drinks, wears black and smoke cigarettes, he’s a wild mix between Ville Valo, Davey Havok and Jyrki 69! Those points were enough to work with us!

Almost every single one of your albums and EPs is marked with the evolution of one or several aspects of your music, although the basis remains obviously the same. Your latest album, Songs for the last view, is no exception: this record is more aggressive, more accessible, but also more varied. On your website, you even claim that this album is the goth « Apetite for Destruction »! It looks like you’re not trying to find your own style, but rather to avoid doing the same thing twice. What do you think?

Nobody creates anything new in the music scene, it’s like asking the question: what could you do better in a Table dance Bar? Every riff has been played, every breast is shown and so many words are said, so as a band, you only can change the mixing proportion! I like descriptions like these that could answer your question: we created a Monster with 69 eyes, Pete Steele legs and a Guns´n´Roses Dick, so we have to domesticate it, nothing more nothing less (laughing)!




Is there any concept, any guiding idea behind the new album?

The whole record talks about the “last view”! You always read that your whole live comes back like a short trailer in the last seconds before you die! So our record tells the story of this little Nikki Sixx, included alcohol, whores, relationships and drugs! At the last tone of the Intro he dies, and at the last note of the record he’s brought back to life with the song “while”! I really like the book “the heroin diaries” from Nikki. So: life is beautiful, to use the words of Nikki Sixx!

What is the « Pearl » video all about? This video is subtle and rather puzzling, because the story it is supposed to tell isn't very present. The band takes the central place. Was it intentional?

The story is a kind of gothic/rock road movie and this is what the song is talking about! Rob and his girl steal money and his girlfriend dies because of that!



Can you tell us about the digipack version of the album? What more can we find on this version?

This version includes 4 bonus tracks and a one hour long DVD including a live show, a tour movie, Video clip and behind the scenes stuff! It’s funny; you have to buy it!

In an interview you gave to Spirit of Metal in 2004, you insisted on the difference between gothic rock and « rock n sad », a genre of which you would be the sole representative. Can you explain this difference?

We simply found what we were looking for: being the whiskey in the cola of HIM and the Gin in the tonic of the 69 eyes! Sunglasses, leatherjacket and fast lane – it feels something like James Dean metal! We’re trying to withdraw the colours from the rock music, paint it black, mix it with melancholy and a deep voice, and here you are, rock´n´sad is born!

Is goth metal « too goth » for you ? Is that why you wanted to add this rock’n’roll touch ?

No, too metal! You know, we like heavy riffs, but in the past, goth metal was more with female singers and with this bombast of keyboards and this is not our cup of tea!




What do you think of bands such as Sentenced or Poisonblack? Don’t you think they perfectly fit your definition of Rock n sad?

I like both bands a lot! At our tour together wit LACUNA COIL two years ago we met Ville and his Poisonblack guys and we had a fantastic time together! So, yes, our definition could fit perfectly to bands like these!

The gothic scene is becoming bigger and bigger, to the point that it's almost a trend now. This style and attitude, that used to be marginalized, are now very trendy. What do you think about that?

Trends and styles come and go! Here in Germany the hype is already over and bands like Rammstein or AC DC are at the top again! It’s like a circle but we don’t give a shit to trends and simply try to stay on our hangover highway and don’t stop for too long!



This genre has also been mocked a lot. People often make fun of caricatural "goths", with their love of make-up and their talent at looking depressed. What is your opinion on this subject?

Like I said, music is not only music, it’s sometimes a living attitude! I like people that don’t look like all the others and often it looks great! Gothic girls are the beauties of this century!

I make a habit of concluding my interviews with a silly question that has often little to do with anything: is it true that you had to urinate through the window of your rehearsal room when the band started up?

Who told you that? It’s true! We had a rehearsal room in the 2nd floor and beneath there was a room with a very long roof so we could jump out of the window onto the roof and piss “downstairs”! We were just young kids that wanted to make parties, drink alcohol and play loud and we were simply too addle to use the steps (laughing)! But this was a long time ago and trust me, the owner of the roof wasn’t happy about this situation! You have to imagine: you look out of the window and yellow rain falls down and spills your flowers (laughing)!

Thanks to Vincent Tassy "Rosariüs", (http://www.obskure.com), for his help.