Eluveitie – Lucid Folk Metal From The Alps
In the last couple of years the folk metal genre has been growing around the world, while most bands playing it hail from the frozen Scandinavian countries. But folk metal can be played almost everywhere, and if even France is has a folk band or two, then it's about time for Switzerland to provide us with a band that is influenced by its own rich folklore – in comes Eluveitie. The band exists for about 4 years, but after a successful demo and the release of their debut album "Spirit" not long ago, the 9 musicians in Eluveitie have grown to be a real band and managed to make their way safely, along with their unique folklore instruments, between all the trolls, barbarians and other creatures of this genre. So in order to find out more about Eluveitie and their strange instruments I caught up Chrigel Glanzmann – founder and "Uileann Pipe" player of the band (among other instruments) – for a very interesting conversation.
Although there's Intro to this interview, presenting the band, can you describe in your own words, how did the band came to be and what is your goal?
Originally Eluveitie was not a "band", but more something like a "studio-project". I wrote the material for the first MCD ("Vên") and looked for musicians to record it. So it was like a "one-man project with 11 guest-musicians" if you want, *Laughs*. After this MCD was released in 2003 it was really ardently received by scene and press. So, some guys of the studio-line up decided to transform Eluveitie into a real band. That was in winter 03/04. And since then we’re just on our way as a band, playing many shows, recording CD’s and so on. The goal? We all just love that kind of music and want to play it as much as possible. Like many other bands we’re working hard to "move forward" of course.
Eluveitie's current line-up is built of 9 musicians, and in the last 4 years since you started out, you replaced this amount of members, if not even more. Can you explain why the band requires so many members and why all these changes happened?
I require that number of members because I want to use all those instruments. And the line up changes… well, the first big change was during the process described above, when the studio-project turned into a band. At least the half of the studio line up really worked as guests there and wouldn’t have had the time to join Eluveitie (as a band), because of their full-time engagement with their own bands. Since then a couple of more line up changes happened. The reasons were sometimes a question of time (as we began to play more shows, some people couldn’t afford that much time anymore, unfortunately), but in most of the cases the reason was – as strange as it might sound – that a member moved far away. Our former drummer went to work in Bosnia, our former HurdyGurdy player moved to France to her future husband, and so on. The current line up is pretty strong though… and we all hope that none of us will find "his girl of life" somewhere in another country (when we’re on tour or so) and move with her afterwards, *Laughs*.
"Spirit" is your first full length release, although some people, including myself, managed to lay a hand on your first Demo/MCD, "Vên". Though it doesn't have the same quality [as spirit], it did sound better then most Demo's you can expect from a new band. How did you manage to make such an effort for this release?
*Laughs* what should I say now? I mean, we just gave our best. All involved people were more or less experienced musicians. And I also brought up hell of an amount to record the songs in a professional studio. Well, guess that’s it. We just tried to do the best that’s possible at that time.
I can say that "Spirit", came as a great breeze of change in what we used to hear in this genre. You introduce a unique combination of sound and melodies on each song. What can you tell us of your process of composing a song?
Thank you! The whole composing process is strongly folk music orientated. It’s not that we create metal and then add some folk-elements. So, at the beginning of a song, there’s normally a folk-theme, as well as an atmosphere, a whole idea of what the song should sound like. And then the writing progress begins.
How did you come to use such special instruments with your music, rather then just using keyboard for all melodies? Please describe some of these "not so popular" instruments to us.
We just hate keyboards, *Laughs*. No, I mean, they’re okay. But when a keyboard is used to "replace" a folk instrument, then this is just the same like when the guitars would be made by "samples" or so. It’s just not "the real stuff", we think. Hmm, probably some of the less popular instruments we use are maybe the HurdyGurdy or the Uilleann Pipe (Irish bagpipe). The HurdyGurdy is, if you want, something like a violin. But it has much more strings – it also has kind of bass-strings that make a constant, accompanying tone. And instead of a fingerboard you have keys and instead of a bow, there’s a wheel that’s constantly striking the strings. Furthermore this wheel can be moved rhythmically to strike the bass-strings with a variable impact. So you can play a melody and a rhythmical bass-accompaniment at the same time. An instrument pretty difficult to play.
The Uilleann Pipe is actually "just" a bagpipe. The main differences to most other bagpipes are that firstly you don’t blow up the playing bag (under your left arm) through a mouthpiece, but with a bellow (under your right arm). Secondly it’s "reed" (the little wooden thing that makes the sound) is much bigger than at most other bagpipes – so, the "chanter" (the melody-pipe) is one octave lower and it has this "wailing", mellow sound. And thirdly, the Uilleann Pipe has six "drones" (the bass-pipes, playing constantly) – Three with the same tone in three different octaves and three more with "regulators" – with which you also can play a melody. So, you can play a main melody (with the chanter), a bass-accompaniment and a harmonic and rhythmic accompaniment at the same time. Also a pretty difficult instrument.
From where do you get the influence for your Metal parts, and from where the Folk parts?
The influences for our music (be it metal or folk) comes just from the music we personally love and listen to. This is a lot actually – ranging from Black Metal, Melodic Death Metal, Metalcore, etc' to Heavy Metal, Rock, Alternative, and so on, and lots of Folk Music of course. *Laughs* our folk parts are strongly stamped by the traditional music of all countries with Celtic roots, but mostly the Irish and the Breton tradition.
When you started, did you consider yourself first as a metal band or as a folk band with metal influences?
No, actually Eluveitie always was (and was considered as) what it is today.
Not many people know of Switzerland rich folklore history, and the Helvetii, which used to inhabit your land. Can you explain how did you become interested in such stories and what inspired you to write about them?
Well, I think this is just a completely natural thing. It’s about "our" own roots. When bands like Thyrfing as Swedes basing their Scandinavian lore and their Viking history, this is just the same. They focus their roots. The same do we.
Are there any other Folk Metal acts from Switzerland area, are you familiar with their members or maybe with other bands not of this genre?
Yes, there are some few folk/pagan metal acts, but most of them are not professional. Some work as one-man projects. There is another folk-influenced band, called Excelsis. Great band! But it’s not exactly what you’d call "folk metal", it’s more something like power metal that’s influenced by medieval Swiss folklore and folk music. But they’re definitely cool – as musicians and as persons. However, Switzerland is not (yet?) the big country in exporting folk/pagan metal. Yes, we’re friendly with some bands from Switzerland – the death/black metal combo Tribes Of Caïn for example. But mainly we’re friends with a couple of other folk/pagan metal bands from other countries. Odroerir from Germany, Natan from Belgium or Skyforger from Latvia for example.
Do you think Eluviete can work only as a folk act, with your special instruments but without the metal? Will you consider of doing it, if the offer was presented?
Well, of course we COULD play as a folk act. But then we would have to re-arrange our songs firstly, of course. But it’s not really the idea of Eluveitie. Once at a metal festival in Holland, we played – as an addition – a purely acoustic folk-medley taken out of diverse of our songs. What we’re thinking about now and then, is to release a mere acoustic MCD with some mystical folk-stuff on it. We’ll see.
Are all Eluviete members into metal or is it strange to some of them to see this sort of crowd during the shows, mush-pits, head-banging and such?
No, it’s not strange to anybody, *Laughs*. When we play with other bands, you can see us in the front row shaking our heads too, when we’re not on stage, *Laughs*. But we’re probably not the "typical" metalheads. All of us love metal, but all of us are also pretty open musically and also like diverse other styles of music – be to listen to it or to play it.
I understand you just ended a tour with Odroerir over Europe. How was touring with such a large group of musicians and what can you tell us about your experience on the roads? Funny stories will be welcome.
Before the tour there were discussions about this, yes. But all I can say is that it went extremely well. We all had such a fucking great time and we became really close friends with Odroerir. They really rock, great people! Funny stories? Hmmm… We (both bands) plan to release a tour diary on our websites soon. There were tons of "funny stories". In the end, I think, it was just a "normal" tour of two metal bands, including the whole sex, drugs & rock’n’roll shit, you know. Well, not that much drugs, but seas of beer, mead and whiskeys, *Laughs*. But what made it really special and great was the interpersonal aspect, that we all really grew together as friends.
Besides Odroerir you performed alongside many metal acts, small and big. Can you tell us who were your favorite people on the roads and who were the least, and why?
Hmm, so far it happened really seldom to us that we played with a band we didn’t get along. Two or three times maybe. Normally we always have a great time with all bands we share the stage with. Of course (now, after the tour) our favorite buddies are Odroerir. But we also always have a great time and party with Natan (Belgium), Korpiklaani (Finnland), Slechtvalk (Holland) and Royal Anguish (USA), with which all we played several times so far.
Are there any plans for a second release already? And if so, are there any details you're willing to provide us?
Yes, of course we’re heavily working on new material. But so far there are not many details I could share. We will head on where we ended with "Spirit". We hope and plan to release a new album end of next year.
Last, please state your final words for the Israeli fans.
I just thank you a lot for the interview and all readers for their interest in our work! Horns raised!
