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Interviews '10:

Rowan Robertson
Ross Mc Ewen
The Poodles
Ghost Machinery
The Shadow Theory
Vanden Plas
Phantom-X
Hallion
Al
Back from Ashes
Cornerstone
Primal Fear
Lillian Axe
Beyond Fallen
Van Canto

Contradiction
Seventh Calling
Icarus Witch
Wicked Sensation
Crazy Lixx
Treat
Björn Fryklund
Kristoffer Gildenlöw
Sins of America
The Needful Things
Forcentury
Raven
Arms to Amen
Irony
Wig Wam
Dark Quarterer
Knife
Bloodwork
Resomus
Warpath
Victory

Interview: RAVEN

                 
JOE HASSELVANDER                                     JOHN GALLAGHER

Hello dear Joe, John and Raven, how are you doing? I am so exited bout having this interview with you guys. I am glad to see that you are still rocking and rolling.

So I got some questions for you:

1. Joe, please introduce your band to us first - for all those younger people who maybe didn´t already know you for example...

Joe: Mark Gallagher(Guitar), John Gallagher (Bass) and yours truly, Drums.

John: Hi, well, we are RAVEN...the original nutcase band!!! we've been playing balls out rock n roll for ...36 years now!!!! (Jeez!!!) and enjoying it now more than ever! We combine metal, power, craziness, musicianship, songs ...and guess what..entertainment!!!

2. You are playing together for many many years... so hows the bandfeeling in the year 2010?

Joe: We are more energized than ever especially after our tour of Japan last summer! We were received by the Japanese fans as if we were the Beatles! It was fan mania all the way! A lot of them even found out our train scheduling from Osaka to Tokyo and were there waiting for us at the train platform with their albums and photos they wanted autographed! We are also very excited about our new album being picked up by SPV and Metal Blade Records with solid touring in Europe and America to back it up!

John: great - especially with the release of the new album & looking forward to a lot of shows this year!!

3. So after ten years you will release your new album on 29.3. in Europe and 30.3 in USA. So hows Raven sounding in 2010, is it still the old ways we like best? Or do you sound more modern these days?

Joe: It has been such a long time since we last released an album that we decided to really put our heads together on this one to come up with the finest compositions possible! We re-evaluated our long career together and asked the question, which albums from our back catalog did we consider the strongest and most spirited of the bunch. That would be "Nothing Exceeds Like Excess" for it's sheer hyperactive mayhem and "Architect Of Fear" for it's deliberate down and dirty heaviness! We blended these two factors together but this time with John paying particular attention to the vocal melodies and taking whatever amount of time it took to make everything seamless into now what has resulted, our best album to date.

John: Well this album is a bit of both - it has the live feel we need...the songs are really good, we play very well on them..the sounds are top notch and we touch on the past in that it SOUNDS like us..and we do have some "new" stuff to push the envelope a little!

4. How long did the recordings take? How long did you take your time for this new CD? And whats the main theme of the songs?

Joe: We started on this 2 years ago with a high quality demo of four songs at "Assembly Line Studios" in Washington, D.C.. The sounds were so good that we were signed by King Records in Japan almost immediately but at that time it was not possible to get into production until a much later date and we still had to write more material for the album. We sent each other hundreds of songs over the next few months until we found the perfect matches for the over all vibe of our powerful demo. We recorded the backing tracks in one week but gave ourselves plenty of room to add the intricate vocals and all the great ear candy that would make it an iconic album. All in all, it took about a year to get it perfect.We felt that our fans after so many years, deserved the very best we had to offer!

John: the actual recording time was not so long, but the album basically took 10 years due to Mark's accident in 2001 where he was lucky to survive a building collapse...almost lost a leg...was told he'd never walk again...well he's quite a stubborn guy & has proved all the doctors wrong..he's doing great. Once he back back up & running we did some demos in 2006 & then did the album in 2008 ..in a 3 week period...but the magic was the planning in picking the songs - going in with not much rehearsal to keep the "edge" and recording quickly. Then we took time with some overdubs(but not many) and with the mix & the mastering this album we allowed ourselves the luxury of sitting back & taking time to listen..and redoing mixes if it was not 100%. Our engineer Kevin 131 did a spectacular job of capturing what we wanted - and putting it together!

5. Lets talk about concerts.... We know you will play Hellfest in France in June and also you will play Germanys Wacken Open Air. So are you already exited bout these big festivals? I know you will play some more in Lübeck, Brande-Hörnerkirchen, Balingen...:-)

Joe: We are totally psyched about these festivals as well as many more that we are playing in Europe this summer. We are also going out on a much deserved North American tour in the fall and witer which ends in late January on a heavy metal cruise ship and then on to some dates in California. Nothing better than grinding metal riffs and tropical sun!

John: yeah! really looking forward to Rocktower, Hellfest,Sweden Rock, HOA, Wacken, Graspop, Alcatraz...and between HOA & Alcatraz we'll do a few shows in the Netherlands....should be a blast! then in Sept/Oct we are doing shows in the USA in places we have not played in years..also looking forward to this!

6. Whats Raven doing after the Cd release and the touring?

Joe: We will be focusing on a new album and staying more active than we have been previously. Got to pay the bills!

John: eventually more writing - already I have "the bug" and have started to record some ideas....but we will be doing a "Metal Cruise" in Jan 2011 - "70000 tons of Metal" from Miami to Cozumel Mexico..and back...thats gonna be NUTS! we get to do 2 sets, hang out with the fans and a lot of cool bands..Saxon, Uli Jon Roth, Sodom...and many more - check the site 70000tons.com!

7. Joe, you are in business for tons of years... so you can surely tell many stories about the band, the musicians you met, the parties you had and so on.... so do you remember which the funniest thing was happening on a tour while you were over here in Europe?

Joe: The tour we did for "Architect Of Fear" in 1990 with Running Wild had to be the craziest tour I've ever been on. It seemed that every day was filled with comical moments that you could only see in a movie! One that comes to mind was an event that happened mid-tour. We changed bus drivers and got this crazy German guy who looked like the french comic book character, Asterix. By this time both Running Wild and Raven were sharing the same bus.We decided to take our days off at the beach in Biarritz, France and each of us were afforded double pay by our management so that we could unwind from the labor intensive tour. We drove to San Sebastien which was just over the border in Spain to get excellent wine at a cheap price. I remember the bus driver getting 2 giant basket loads of wine and fresh fish and shoving everything, baskets and all through the back door of the bus and steaming out of the parking lot of the wine store with the employees chasing us and yelling "Hey! Come back with those baskets!" in Spanish. We immediately headed for the border drinking ourselves to death all the way until we got back to the beach in France whereupon the driver attempted to drive the bus right on to the beach making all the local sunbathers run for their lives in terror! The bus sank up to the wheel wells in the wet sand and we were now stranded! Our 3 day stay there was a surreal moment in time as we were all completely out of our heads with a constant soundtrack of old Budgie albums blasting from the stereo of the strange tour bus stuck in the sand. Not to mention us crazed heavy metal sun burned space hippies dancing around the fish smothered fire in the center of everything! The townspeople were in shock! For further research, check out the Raven documentary from that tour by SPV, "Electro Shock Therapy". It says it all!

John: too many...some not so funny at the time!!! ( and most are unprintable!) but I do remember things like we were on the road with Running Wild, and their drum riser was this huge pirate ship with a big figurehead at the front..we found an enormous clown mask & stuck it up there - looked great...same tour, the main guy of Running Wild, Rock'nRolf..he had 2 identiacl explorer guitars...and wore a big leather jacket for the first few songs...so later in the set Joe put on the jacket & guitar and walked on stage next to Rolf copying all his stage moves...looks like twins..and when he turned around and looked - the look on his face! priceless!!!

8. Please tell us something about your solo-project THE HOUNDS OF HASSELVANDER and about the musicians which are involved in your solo project?

Joe: The Hounds Of Hasselvander is an extension of my earlier solo career which was how originally got on the music business radar. I believe enough in my sound to keep that going as it gives full license to play it as heavy as I want it and at that same time showcase my early musical influences. I also enjoy being a guitarist as much as being a drummer. Most of the time drummers are looked at as primitive cavemen who have no real musical ability other than banging on things. I knew long ago that if I was to deliver my ideas of what heavy metal really is that I would have to do it as a guitarist and front man.
I currently have a working group in Jean "Boomer" Grenier (drums) and Eric "The Beast" Cabana( bass) who duplicate the albums perfectly. We play mostly on the east coast and mid-west of the U.S.but we would like very much to tour Europe and show the fans what it's all about!

9. Which other projects are you and the guys involved with?

Joe: At the moment I'm involved with my old band from the 1980's, "Death Row" who most people know evolved into Pentagram. We are on tour all across Europe as a three piece in April of this year. We start in Italy and end at the Roadburn Festival in Tillburg, Holland. This band is super heavy and in the Black Sabbath style. As for the rest of the band, they have real day job careers and play covers with local bands on the weekends to keep their chops up for The Hounds..

John: this is it pretty much!!! Joe just did an ep of his doom music that kicks ass (The Hounds Of Hasselvander) and I'm very busy with a new line of signature bass guitars built by October Guitars here in the States...we almost have the prototype ready, I designed the body & this prototype will be an eight string bass..with a tremolo!!

10. Well once you were supposed to make music with former Attacker Shouter Bob Mitchell, right? So what´s up with this project?

Joe: That was a project called Black Hag which was the brainchild of a talented guitarist named Peter Vooras. We got Bob Mitchell from "Attacker" on board as the vocalist for Pete's Sabbath/Rainbow sounding material. Unknown to me, there were a few disgruntled ex-girlfriends in the closet that decided upon hearing of this project, to get together and amass an internet smear campaign against Bob and Peter which ultimately drove Bob Mitchell away from the project and the grief that these jealous has-beens were inflicting. Soon everything seemed to just crumble away and it became obvious to me that their hearts were not in to it anymore. I am hesitant to join forces with people that don't show professionalism because they can't handle the big time. When presenting a new band to the public or releasing a new album you have to realize that part of your job description of being an entertainer is being slagged by critics, other bands and ex-groupie girlfriends alike! I say, "Get it done and fuck'em!"

11. Which German bands do you like most?

Joe: This is a difficult question to answer as I only listen to bands from the '60's and '70's. My favorite German bands from that time are, Night Sun, Amon Duul II, Nosferatu, Lucifer's Friend and The Rattles! But if I had to choose modern day German bands I would probably say Kreator, Destruction, Sodom and Rage partly because they are all my good friends and when they come to America all of us in Raven come out to support their efforts.

John: oh man...from day one loved the Scorpions...and Accept ... we apparently influenced a lot of bands like Kreator, Sodom, Rage, Doro or so they have told me!! and they are all very cool people ...and kick ass bands!!

12. Any last words you would like to add here?

Joe: Susi, it's been a blast talking with you and to all my fans please come to the shows I'm doing in your area! Keep it "HARD' keep it "HEAVY" and keep it "REAL!" . God Bless!

John: thanks to all the fans for enjoying the ride & supporting us - hope you like the new album & we'll see you on the road!!

WWW.RAVENLUNATICS.COM 

Joe and John - thank you so much for talking to me and all your fans. I saw you guys live back in January 2000 with U.D.O. and Trinity at the Hafenbahn in Offenbach, Germany and it was amazing, you rocked it. It was a pleasure to have RAVEN on the Interviews with Rocket Queen *Promotion* - I wish you and the guys good luck with the new record. Keep it metal, Susi

Raven on tour 2010: