Solemnity: interview w/Sven The Axe (vocals, everything)

The album title “Opus Barbaricum” sounds ancient, mysterious and almost warlike. What meaning does the title carry for the band?

The original one was "Nightmares In The Neighbourhood“, but as a lack of lunatics made it impossible, I thought of any cool titles and rememberd one on my fave albums by Yngwie Malmsteen "Magnum Opus“ and I already had the cover artwork drawn and on my table.  One thing came to another at that point and "Opus Barbaricum“ was born. Just googled if any other album had this name so far. NO?! Great!!! Got it.

Tracks like “Empire In The Underground”, “Escape From The Matrix” and “Idiocracy” suggest darker reflections about society and reality. Was there a larger concept connecting these songs?

The Covid idiocracy was a main thing behind it. Nobody asked questions, everybody believed like sheeps everything. There was the swine or the chicken flue a few years earlier, but it was far weaker orchestrated, but if you look what the intention behind it was it was the same scheme with the same people making money out of it and spreading fear around the globe. If you look these days how they tried to promote Hanta it looked almost surreal as they did not even made the effort of making this work, but for sure they will do better in spreading the fear on Ebola or something else. All is about the spectre of fear to keep humanity down. Climate fear, wars, epedemics, starving, havingn no money, no job, etc. keeping people in fear makes the elite feel pretty good and calm if you know what I mean and only a few try to break out of this cage. Actually Helloween´s "I Want Out“started pretty early in my life a mode of thinking by myself and not believing something without questioning it and making my own thoughts on it.

Solemnity has always balanced serious epic heavy metal with strange humor and unusual ideas. How important is that balance for the personality of the band?

This is a must. Alice Cooper has lived this for his whole life and I can´t tell you how much I love him for this. He has never been a preacher, but he draws the people to things and told them just to think about it without pushing his sight of the things. Horror always works best with humor. Dumb movies like the “Saw” or “Hostel” were really terrifying, but if you take things like “Tales From The Crypt “or “Army Of Darkness” this is my world.

“The Sleeper” adapts Edgar Allan Poe into a Solemnity song. What attracts the band to horror literature and gothic storytelling?

I always loved the poems of Poe, his dark approach to quite natural things and the old American speech had a special nature for me that was fascinating as it was much more colourful of what they express today. I´ve worked on this song for almost 22 years and it was a constant puzzle that never came to end. I think I recorded more than dozen versions of it, but it never felt right. The poem is not structured like a song so you miss a refrain which makes it quite difficult to arrange a melody around it so you only can evolve the hooklines and transfer it in other dimensions in the progress of the song. Well, I´m really happy now after 22 years of pain of giving birth to it.

The German underground metal scene has changed a lot since the late 1990s. What differences do you notice between the old days and the current scene?

Those like us who made metal in the late 90s were a relic of a dying scene. 80s hair metal was dead, grunge and new metal took it over. We had no crowd, no support, no record companies interested and were fighting on our own, but we had belief and a vision. At least I, as some in the band always proved to be like brakes while I was the motor going always on eleven. The current scene nevertheless feels very arrogant to me to be honest. It seems when people once saw a band for a reunion they just make a mark on a piece of paper that they saw them and then skip to something else like soul collectors. I had many talks to people I really love that reunited their bands after decades as well and they all tell me pretty much the same. You get one or two shows rehearse like hell for months and then the interest is beyond zero, not even worth all the efforts you´ve gone through. Moreover there´s a weird competition thing going on. In my early days we tried to meet up with other people. We played at their base and those at ours and did grow together. Today it seems that everybody is just fighting against each other to get more sales. Maybe that´s only my impression, but it´s an impression I can´t deny.

Solemnity once shared music connected to orchestral influences, including the Bathory interpretation with members of the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra. Would you like to explore orchestral material again in the future?

I always loved to re-arrange things and songs that´s for sure. Even those speed metal songs of Solemnity has their root cause on an acoustic guitar which is always the kind of my guide track when it comes to creating. I have nearly any song completely mastered acoustic guitar versions and especially with the new Melancholost side project material it gives me more freedom to discover new soundscapes. Since I searched more than a year for somebody to release this stuff I already have tons of material written and already recorded, so it maybe not classical, but has some cool vibes of Dead Can Dance or Loreena Mc Kennit as well, with some strange instruments not known to rock music at all. I always had classical influences, because I covered a broad spectrum of sounds and going always a step further prevents the music from being static or growing boring somehow. So expect the unexpected I´d say.

You also released the darker Melancholost project around the same period. Did working on both projects’ material influence the one the other?

No, not at all. It was one evening when I decided I need a second shelf as some songs did go in a direction that you hardly could offer it to someone that liked Solemnity for the past 28 years, but they were too good to throw them away. Some I would call goth rock, maybe gothic metal, some 70s influenced rock, some things coming up next year sound pretty much like Sisters Of Mercy, The Mission or Fields Of The Nephilim. I always listened to a broad spectrum of music and with Dorian Opera in 2011 I was part of a great progressive rock journey as well. I don´t want to be limited and I like the excess in every direction. On a song for the next Solemnity album if it ever will be released you will hear a Mongolian hammered Dulcimer instrument called Yang T ´Chin which I own for 30 years and it was damn time to use it for a recording. In the past some band members said, boah you can´t do this or that, but to be honest I´m far beyond living in any limitations these days. Mercury, Bowie, they all became big because they were crazy, so I think it is time that the Axe is going mad now as well. The way we went was only little successful, so I cannot predict what holds the future, but ridin’ little more the crazy train cannot be wrong I suppose.

Looking back at albums like “Reign In Hell”, “King Of Dreams” and “Circle Of Power”, where do you place “Opus Barbaricum” inside the Solemnity history?

A new chapter has been opened. Every time had its highs and its lows and it is natural that for some things you would decide or judge differently today. After so many years I have often thought about what were the limitations that we never gained the success that I always wanted to have and I always ended at the same point lamenting that none other in the band wanted to get a step higher like I did it. When I was writing all the new stuff I had contact to some old members, but those “demos” were already so good that I though why to get back to the studio again working on overhead mistakes to wipe out, doing this and that again when you can turn it into perfection by yourself. I got a portable Pro Tools studio these days, pretty much what an engineer like me dreamed for about 30 years, so I had the chance to work every night in any hotel room on my songs. I don´t think it is arrogant or so, but it was a personal thing that I wanted to make MY albums and only in the way I loved it, no compromise, no excuses for this or that. I know it´s confusing these days if you record an album by your own, but I learned engineering and I play a down of instruments for almost 40 years though people know me only as the singer of a band, but I produced dozens of records as well so this “Magnum Opus” became “Opus Barbaricum” or even “Tales From The Poisoned Apple”.

After the long hiatus and return, what does Solemnity want to achieve during this new chapter of the band?

Hard to say, as it definitely depends on the feedback of the fans as well. I will not get back on stage just to play one or two shows. It´s too much work to reload it in the way I would love to and when it comes to shows it is even much more complicated today with pyros, etc. than fifteen years back. I think the 2012 line-up would be ready to step in and enter a stage within a few months, but we need to see. For Melancholost it would be another thing as we are already rehearsing, but I have to admit that I have something really huge in mind which is a mind blowing concept. As a newcomer this will be hard to realize, but I´m already working hard as hell on the second album and we will see if we can get this production on a stage one day. We have a creative core of three people, but ten people on stage so as always with the Axe no main streamland, but High Hopes.