Prepare For Launch – Here Comes Edguy

Germany's Edguy don’t take themselves that seriously, with a new album called Rocket Ride that features comic book cover art, and with a vocalist that's clearly clinically insane, the guys seem to be having a good time while creating some of the best power metal songs along powerful epic ballads. With their 7th studio album, Edguy take another step forwards in attempting to bring a different and unique sound to their songs by recording most of them live in the studio. To find out more about the recording process and what's going on in the minds of band members, we spoke with the band's guitarist, Dirk Sauer.

Hi Dirk, Again you're on the verge of a new release, are you excited or are you used to this already?

Of course I'm excited, you always are. You have that time were things happen that you never know, like how many people are going to buy the album, what would be the chart entries and stuff. It's pretty exciting.

How are the press reviews so far?

They're good, that's why everyone is so excited. It's really good this time because everybody really loves the album and all the reviews are good around the world, and I would say, everybody is looking forward to good time hopefully.

Your new release is unique in many ways, first and foremost is the fact you recorded the basics live, in one room at the same time. How did you prepare for the official live recording session?

The thing is that we didn't really prepare for it, because it happened coincidently in the studio. Of course we rehearsed a lot before and there have been rehearsals at the studio as well so in one point our producer, Sacha, said that we should try a live recording. We actually didn't think its going to work so we checked one song, and then he said we should do the whole album like this, so we thought "Hmm.. if we are good enough to do it, we can do it!", cause we never did it before, so we didn't know but it turned out very well. I think it's pretty good for a record, because it sounds very human and gives a special feeling to the whole thing, and I think we did quite a good job.

Did you do it in a few takes?

Of course we did a few takes for each song, but after we played a couple of times in the studio we did the recordings in like 2 or 3 takes and it usually worked.

You have been friends with Sascha for a long time, why did you choose to work with him just now?

Well, on the Hellfire Club album, we did the drum recordings with Sacha, which was the real first recording of Edguy that we did with him. He was helping us out with the Live album before, so in this situation we knew that he is a pretty smart and he is a good guy to work with and very funny. He is always sympathetic and we can get along pretty good with each other so that's the reason we chose to work with him this time. He is doing a great job as a technician, besides that he is a great guy, as a friend I would say.

Rocket Ride's sound is really different than what I used to hear in Edguy and I still having a hard time trying to adjust to it. Do you think that Edguy fans will like this change?

I hope so. I mean, of course the sound is completely different then the sound from the previous albums. This time we tried to create a special sound for our songs, and also we wanted to have the whole record sound like compilation with different songs, and I think we did a good job with this one because everybody was happy with the result. The production sounds very new, very retro, but on the other hand it sounds pretty powerful, and I would say it's the best record sound we had so far.

I really enjoyed the Superheroes DVD, finally there's some proof of how much crazy you guys are. And speaking of crazy, I had the chance to see you guys for the first time at Wacken this year, and I really want to know if your arrival with the helicopter was planned in advance or did you really get stuck in traffic?

[Laughs]… Actually it was planned, to be honest. It was a gag, it's cool.

And the part where Tobias climbed the entire stage was pretty crazy….

He should know what he is doing, he is old enough really.

Anyway, what inspired you to make the song "Trinidad" and chose it to finish your album? It sounds as if you where stranded in Hawaii with some nice looking native girls, dancing to some Island tunes…

[Laughs]… That's the feeling this song have. Tobi came up with the idea, I think he pretty much liked the word Trinidad because it sounds like some far place. We worked on this song in the rehearsing room and it turned out to be like that. German "Rock-Hard Magazine" said that we invented "Tropical Metal" with that song, which is pretty funny I would say.

I think it should be heard during the summer, not now in the middle of winter.

We couldn't wait for the summer with this album because of one song, so you can take it as something to make living in winter a little bit easier… [Laughs]

Another song I want to speak about is "Superheroes". You chose it to be your title song; it is included in your EP in two versions, also in Rocket Ride, and of course in your cool Video-Clip. Do you think it represents Edguy in the best way?

Actually I would say yes, it's quite short which is pretty good because it was the single from our album and it was the theme. It's pretty important and I think it's a very good song to get to know the band also for open minded people I would say. Cause it still a Metal song, but it's something cool for people that are not into metal music as well.

What would you choose to be your next single and/or video-clip?

We don't have any plans for the next single yet, first we need to release the album. If it turns out that there is a need for one, we got to check it out. Actually it could be "Trinidad", that would be funny of course. I could imagine doing a good video… like you said, with chicks and stuff, maybe a few drinks…

Last time I spoke with Tobias, I asked him about the guest appearances in your albums, but this time as far as I know there are no guests in Rocket Ride. Didn't you feel there is a song fit for someone else, or you just decided not to use anyone?

Well, we got a few choir vocalists, but I don't think we had a need for a guest musician. "Judas of the Opera" [From the Superheroes EP] was pretty cool because it had a clean touch so we said this could be used for second voice, and we chose Michael Kiske [Former Helloween Vocalist]. But on Rocket Ride, we really didn't thought about making more guest musicians this time.

One of the funniest moments on the new album, other then the song "Trinidad", is at the end of "Catch of the Century", where Tobias mumbles about loads of things like a lunatic. Was it a result of the live recording or did he just go nuts at one point and wanted to put it on the record?

I don't know if he got goofy or not. I think he kind of freaked out at one point, and then someone said we should do an ending like this… So then he really freaked out… [Laughs]

There has been many rumors about you guys on the past few months, one was saying Tobias was getting married, the other was about Felix & Tobias having a sex change and the last one was about Tobias committing suicide. What is the ground for people to say or know such things?

There are some rumors like the sex change that came from the band actually. Like, we were talking with the record company about comparisons to Nightwish so we said, "Ok, we need a female singer, but we also want to keep Tobi so the only thing to reach this thing is to cut off his Penis and change his sex"… [Laughs] Then, we said this could be funny news to post on our webpage, and check how people react to it.

But the other things, like the suicide, were posted by somebody at a place you can create your own fake headlines, which people write, so somebody out there who doesn't like Edguy or Tobi posted it somewhere. The funny thing is that most of the people believed it before they saw it's not on other pages. It takes like 2 minutes to check out if it's true or not but they just spread it first, and then stopped thinking about it… But Tobi is alive, I talked to him today and I will see him tonight.

Why did you change your regular epic theme of the cover-artwork into something more comic-like?

Actually, I'm not sure if we keep it or go back to Epic stuff, but the thing is that when we did the "Superheroes" song we thought that comics-like cover would fit perfect to this song. That's why we did it and everybody liked it, so we said why don't do it for the full album as well. "Rocket Ride" is another title that you can compare to the comics as well. The guy that did the artwork is really cool and he did a very good job, so we said to him that he got to do the cover artwork for the album and that’s why it turned out to be comics as well. But I have no idea what's gonna be on the next one.

Do you know if there any plans to come back to Israel during this tour?

I have no idea right now but I would love to come back there. Israel was awesome, it's so beautiful… I think that in the last month it has been quite calm over there if I remember… Anyway, I hope we can come back pretty soon.

Well that's it for now, I hope to catch you again on the roads and maybe even in private when you'll not be late for your signing sessions… 🙂 Have a great time, and Good luck!

Thank you, take care!