Where dreams unite with metallic power
Remember, a few weeks ago we published our review of Elvellon‘s brand new album “Ascending in Synergy”? We already announced our interview with guitarist Gilbert (G.:) and vocalist Nele (N.:), which took place the day before the release. Both were in a very good mood, even after a long interview day. Here it is, originally held in German but translated into English for our international readers. We hope we have not done too much damage with the translation as not everything could be translated word for word. We tried to keep it as authentic as possible. For a better reading, I split the intrview into seven pages. By the way, have you listened to the album or even bought it?
Hello Nele and Gilbert!
It’s been a long day for you, I think I’m the last one today. So how are you feeling the day before the release?
G.: “It’s exciting. I don’t even know what to say. It’s definitely exciting. The release is kind of quiet. Well, the record is kind of coming out. It’s not like people are counting down outside my door or anything.”
I thought there would be millions of people outside your door waiting for you to release the CDs at exactly zero o’clock.
N.: “We’d love to have that many fans. Well, I think we know a few who really count the hours. Yeah, then I’ve had a few messages. I have. But as Gilbert says, it’s exciting. So personally, I’m very excited, I have to say. It’s a positive excitement. But it’s always exciting. You’ve been working on it for so long. And when it finally comes out, you must face all the criticism.”
Yes, of course. I’ve already written my review. I just haven’t published it yet because Mikaela from Napalm Records asked me not to publish it too early. And then I thought, well, I’ll ask you first, do you want it on the day of the release, or should I publish it a bit later?
G.: “Tomorrow is great.”
A Napalm recommendation
I must admit, to my shame, I haven’t really had you on my radar until now. But the cool thing is that you have such great people at Napalm who just send people on their own initiative, ‘Hey, there, I’ve got a great band for you. Do you want to give it a listen and write a review? And if you’re up for it, you can get an interview.’ and so on, I think it’s great. How do you like Napalm in general?
G.: “Mega. I think it works quite well. We all, we didn’t really know before, if you’ve never been signed to such a big label, you don’t really know what to expect. But I think experiencing it for real is another story. And what I think is great is that we have professional people around us who have years of experience, who are super nice, super organised and that just keeps us going. And we’re super happy, I think I can speak for everyone, right, absolutely. We signed at the end of 2019 or so, I think, and then it was quiet for a long time because Napalm were waiting for us to release a new album before anything happened. And then two, two and a half years went by, and it was like, yeah, they haven’t contacted us yet and then you don’t even notice it, you don’t have the feeling, yeah, somehow, we imagined it would be different to be on such a big label. And now we’re being bombarded, in a positive way, with emails and interviews and another magazine here and another magazine there, so we’re like, ‘Oh God, please don’t send us another email’. I’m totally grateful for every single thing, but it’s crazy, with our previous label, we had a lot of print interviews, interviews with print magazines, and now we have everything, so we have the podcasts, and the YouTube reaction formats, and I don’t know what all, so a huge range of people reacting to our music somehow, and it’s just overwhelming to be in that mass to be honest. I didn’t expect it to be like this.”
As One Unit
Is it just the two of you doing the interviews or are the other three also doing them?
G.: “The others too, yeah. Otherwise, it is too much.”
There are bands where only the singer or only the songwriter does the interviews and so on and then at some point after the 200th interview they’re just dead.
N.: “Yeah, exactly. First of all that and secondly we’re a very democratic band and we all play a big part in the end result and I think it’s just very important for us that everyone has a chance to have their say and we’ve always done it that way before, that we’ve always split the interviews, especially the print stuff and then Napalm came to us and approached us and suggested that we reduce these number of interviews and that actually makes a lot of sense but like I said it’s just very important for us in the long run that everyone can have their say.”
That’s great, of course. You’ll laugh, I noticed that when I listened to the album I thought, okay, sure, the vocals are in the foreground in symphonic metal, but I had the feeling, even when I read your biography on your website, that it’s a unit and not one person or one person is the boss and the others are the musicians who are just “involved”, but it absolutely comes across as a unit, which I find fascinating, of course, you can see it in all the arrangements.
N.: “Yeah, like I said, that’s super important to us and I don’t think you should underestimate that, we work very hard on it, we’re just five completely different people and characters and that’s hard, it’s like a real family.”