ATROCITY (Eng.)
– Hi, thanks for your time. What are you currently up to? How is everything doing right now with ATROCITY?
Alex: Thank you, it’s such a great feeling having completed the production of the first part of our trilogy «Okkult»! At the moment we are promoting the new album, preparing our video shooting for «Pandæmonium» and our live shows.
– You have just released your new album after 3 years. What are your expectations on it? And how is its feedback being so far?
Tosso: Its been a lot of hard and detailed work for this album. We are very happy with the final results. I already had the chance to hear some songs of the album in a metal club and it sounded killer. I hope the fans will enjoy the album as much as we do. The international press feedback has been very good so far as well. We can’t wait to present the album in many live shows after its release end of april.
– This new effort is entitled «Okkult», which is the first part of a trilogy. Please, tell us a bit about the record’s concept and what are we going to find on the next two parts.
Alex: “Okkult” features obscure and dark stories with their own backgrounds and we bring them to live in turning them into metal songs. I was always very much into history, legends, myths and the dark backgrounds and secrets of mankind and researching them from different sources. The idea to start the «Okkult» trilogy came up after the release of the «Atlantis» record (2004). The research of the «Atlantis» secrets have been very inspiring, so the next step was to make an epic trilogy about the mysteries of the world. An even bigger challenge and concept, this is why we decided to make an album trilogy. The lyrics relate to occult magic, mysterious places, conspiracy theories and mysteries that are still unsolved. Actually it’s great to take the listener and ourselves on a heavy trip through the dark and mysterious tales, happenings and places of all times. We digged out some very obscure stories like the one of the super sinister lady “La Voisine” (we use this pronuncation of the name). This song tells a dark chapter in the history of mankind, and actually was discovered in connection with the «Affaire des poisons» in France. It’s set in Paris of the 17th Century and the song is about Catherine Monvoisin, which was known as «La Voisin» as witch and poisoner. She told the the fortune for money, selling poisons and love potions, magic plant and broke off unwanted pregnancies. She and the former priest Abbé de Guibourg celebrated black masses where also infants were sacrificed which she had previously bought from the poor people. The blood of the children they used as ingredients in potions, too. She was booked by many members of the nobility, among others, the mistress of King Louis XIV, Madame de Montespan, who wanted to get through the black masses more power and influence in society. Madame de Montespan used the potions in order to get the love of King Ludwig upright, and she mixed the potions in his food and drink. There were rumors members of the nobility were killed by poison, and so research was driven. One day a young woman from the aristocratic circle close to King Ludwig died. Then investigations were intensified to find the poisoners’ source and to smash the conspiracy. La Voisine and other witches of the Paris witch circle were arrested. Due to the good contacts with the mistress remained La Voisine long spared from torture. Nevertheless, she was sentenced to death at the end in the «Affaire des Poisins». La Voisine was executed. Later, they found the remains of 2.500 infants in her backyard of her house, and so after La 
Voisine’s death, the entire extent of her cruel deeds obvious. The paradox of the story: It turned out that the young woman died of natural causes and she was not poisoned as many other nobles. This shows how the so called “magic world” is part of the “real world” and this crime story turns occult. A turn like in a movie like «From Dusk tip Dawn» but in the real world. Agatha Christie couldn’t write a better story. Another important aspect on the album «Okkult» is the intersection of power, politics and religion in our world. Because religion and superstition occure exactly where the man pushes his knowledge to its limits, primal fears can take control over the mind. This concludes in a policy based on the principle of fear. Religion and politics play on the fears of the people, thus they control. For mankind the greatest fear is darkness. The best example is processed in the song «Masaya (Boca del Infierno)». The cave system of the volcano in Nicaragua Masaya was regarded as an input for the indigenous population in the dark underworld. To ward off evil spirits, there were rituals of human sacrifice. When the Spanish conquerors emerged in Masaya, there was a cross erected to exorcise the devil. The Spanish conquerers thought that this was one of the entrances to hell. Two completely different cultures with different languages and peoples, and yet a common fear …
– It seems on this new release you have mixed all your musical sides: brutality, darkness, heaviness and certain epic/bombastic sounds. Was this something you were looking for or do you just go with the flow?
Tosso: Openness towards new influences is the idea behind every album we’ve recorded, also as we started to compose and gain ideas for «Okkult». Atrocity has as very creative «soul» and personality. All these different facettes and evolvements of our band have never been planned or decided rationally. They happen because of our love to and passion for music and the will to push the boundaries..to move in exciting and new musical territories. We always took a high risk with these musical adventures and made it difficult for the press to categorize the band. But its not our intention to be categorized…we wanna play the music that we feel, instead if bringing the same kind of albums on the market over and over again.
– Still about such; is what we find on «Okkult» the actual ATROCITY’s personality or is it rather a sound that matches the concept behind the CD?
Tosso: I would say both. As already mentioned above – Atrocity has a very creative personality. But all in all the intention behind our latest release was to make lyrics, artwork and music fit together very well…to obtain this kind of «okkult sound». Surely, it is a question about a basic band concept. There are bands being very happy doing the same music for decades. I don’t think that’s the concept of ATROCITY. Nevertheless, the OKKULT trilogy will have a clear line in all three parts. So «Okkult II» and «Okkult III» will certainly follow the paths of the first «Okkult» album.
Alex: To put our compositions and albums in an over-all view, past to present, I think «Okkult» contains many elements from our musical past, especially the very heavy stuff from our 1990’s album releases but also «Atlantis». «Death by Metal» is the best example for that: Our tribute to Death Metal actually contains the main riffs of the song, which I wrote originally in 1991 and also brand new riffs! So «Okkult» combines our roots with new musical ideas, and this is simply a new era for Atrocity after such a long history of challenging metal music!
– Atmospheres also help enhancing the aforementioned elements, in fact I would dare say atmospheres on this effort play a really important role. How important is the whole ambience for this record?
Alex: Absolutely. Sound, concept and visuals are strongly bound to each other on «Okkult» to make an exceptional and maximum impact on our audience. To each track on the album we have created an atmosphere, or lets call it, a setting of impressive messages and images. The cooperation with the Canadian sound designer Katie Halliday (SAW movies) was supercool, she made some really dark atmopsheric sound effects! We met Katie on tour in Canada. As we told her about the «Okkult» concept, she was excited to take part in such a huge metal production. As she is a big metal fan, too. Our friend and director of the Lingua Mortis Orchestra Victor Smolski transcribed and directed our classical ideas. For such an ambitious project you need people with great musical knowledge of course. Victor did a fantastic job! Liv Kristine, and a choir, are also contributing to the atmosphere of the album. The idea was also that the orchestra should not sound too clean and beautiful, it should sound much more evil like in good old Horror movies!
Tosso: We wanted to have a very dark atmosphere on the album, just like in the great old horror movies. You find these elements in the orchestra on OKKULT and of course also on Katies great sound effects, that she contributed to the album. If you just listen to the opening track of the album «Pandæmonium» you’ll get an idea of what I’m trying to describe. It leaves a hell of impression on the listeners!
– With the production you have managed to capture perfectly those atmospheres. Once more you have taken such duties at your Mastersound studio so, would you mind to tell us how did the whole process go?
Tosso: Thank you for your compliment! We wrote and recorded all songs in our own studio and headquarter Mastersound, evolving over a couple of years collecting ideas for music and concept. On top our producer is Alex, this enables us to be totally free and independent with our musical ideas. We took the time we needed for the writing process and had in the end many songs, from which to chose the songs for the album. Almost all sounds on the album are handmade which gives the album a very organic and dirty sound. The sound on the OKKULT album is absolutely fantastic in my opinion. We put a lot of time and effort in creating the different sound components. As guitarist my goal was to build a strong and intense but also very transparent sound, so you can hear all playing details. Next to the superheavy drums, bass, guitars and vocals you also have the Lingua Mortis orchestra on the album. The orchestra recordings were the only ones that didn’t happen at Mastersound but in White Russia under the guidance of Victor Smolski. What i like about the production is that its very transparent and powerful and dynamic at the same time. The songs are brutal and sometimes very fast, but they also have chorusses that you can shout along, which is something i sometimes miss in nowadays extreme metal.
Alex: The composing process was highly exciting and creative. Tosso and I are a hell of a song-writing team, besides being long-time friends for 20 years. We are 
both perfectionists, which meant an endless number of sleepless nights at Mastersound Studio hehe, anyway, it was definitely worth it: The production of «Okkult» is exceptional, combining harsh and brutal metal with epic, bombastic atmosphere triggering the extreme sinister vibe of the occult powers.
– As I said earlier, this could be considered one of your darkest, heaviest and brutal albums in years, somehow it seems you are going back to your Death Metal roots keeping the strong symphonic side as well. It seems you are always looking forward and pushing boundaries but, did you ever look back to any of your earlier albums while creating this «Okkult»?
Sander: „Okkult“, I think this album is in a way coming full circle and reconnecting with the metal roots of the band. In my opinion this album feels maybe like a logical step forward from the “Atlantis” album and I think it’s a mix between the classic death metal albums, the “Atlantis” record and new added influences that go from black metal to modern sounding metal. It’s also the best and heaviest sounding production on an Atrocity record ever.
Alex: For sure the «Okkult» trilogy is the most sinister work from Atrocity. And yes, some call us the „metal chameleons“ because we have combined so many different musical sides under the name Atrocity, and crossed borders no other metal band has gone before, too. We were always looking for new challenges and ideas. Well, besides all experimental stuff we never gave up our heavy side or denying it! We played the heavy stuff live, classics like “Necropolis”, “Blut” or “Fatal Step” from our first albums have been in our live setlist as you can see on the Live in Wacken DVD. Ok, when we played “Werk 80 only” sets, it was different of course (laughs). Our brutal side or the more experimental stuff like the “Werk 80” albums are both part of the Atrocity history. Let’s see it like that: I like the idea to be in a band which is able to deal with several musical concepts and styles. What is a better: A movie director, who does only horror movies or a movie director who is able to do horror movies, blockbusters as well as action or fantasy movies? Just like guys like Peter Jackson or Sam Raimi. We don’t like to be pushed in only one category, we are free thinkers of metal.
– The cover artwork was crafted by Stefan Heilemann and, if you don’t mind, I would like you to elaborate a bit on how did you work on it and what does it represent.
Alex: I had a pretty clear idea about the artwork by picking one song of «Okkult» as the main theme, and Stefan Heilemann did an amazing job visualizing our conceptual ideas of «Okkult». However, I saw it as a necesity to use real images, i.e. living «creatures» and not imaginary, fictional ones. It was just superb that we discovered the female snake-artist Cara. Moreover, some friends made it possible to do the photo session in a historical vault. The cover artwork is dedicated to the story behind the song «Necromancy Divine» which tells the cruel tale about the ancient witch Erictho. She was a necromancer and lived in the times of the Roman civil war between Caesar and Pompeius around 50 AD. She took dead bodies into her tomb and brought them back to life with painful rituals, filling boiled blood into the corpses and whipping them with snakes. By bringing back the dead to life, she forced them to forecast the future. We actually used the original Latin lyrics of the rituals in the song «Necromancy Divine». When we recorded it, Sander was joking if we continue to record those ritual chants like that in the middle of the night we may risk a Zombie attack at the studio haha! Mastersound Studio is based far out on the country side, surrounded by fields and forests, and there have been ancient battles, too (laughs).
Sander: We were just lucky hehe
Alex: By the way this is a real photograph, we took the picture in an old vault. It was quite an experience for me to put the snakes around the neck of our witch «Erictho»!
– All this about «Okkult» being said; how could you describe it in just 3 words?
Alex: Brutal Epic Darkness or you could say also: Brutal, aesthetic, profound. «Okkult» is viciously aesthetic as well as historically informative in every aspect.
– The band’s line-up has never been one of the most steady ones but, can we expect the current one to last at least for a few albums more?
Tosso: Actually the bands line-up was pretty steady over long periods and even today you have Alex as a founding member and me, being in the band for twenty years now. But of course its not easy to combine and coordinate being a musician with private life and family. And just like in marriages things can go well for a long time but sometimes not forever. Nevertheless I’m very optimistic that you will see the same band line-up continuing the next years (laughs). «Okkult» is just a starting point to something new and exciting.
– You’ve been around for over two decades now so, after so many years of musical career, what have been both the best and worst moments with/for ATROCITY?
Tosso: Maybe one of the worst moments was our cancelled show at Wacken Open air 1998. We were prepared to do a big show with pyros, cages, big stage set, go-go dancers and had a top slot, supposed to be playing right after Savatage. But then the nightmare took its toll: Due to schedule limits problems on our stage, we were told that our show can’t happen. It felt horrible and on the ten hours ride home to South Germany we were singing Marche Funebre all the time.
But….one year later we returned to Wacken and played at «Prime Time» a «Blockbuster show» with lots of pyros, effects and dancers. That was definitely one of the highlights in our career, as well as numerous shows and tours all over the world we did with our bands Atrocity and Leaves’ Eyes. It’s crazy – 40 countries, 5 continents…which is one of the greatest things in my opinion, when playing in a professional band.
– And what’s left for you to get into the music world (playing with certain bands, doing any special cover, etc.)?
Alex: Good question, at the moment we would like to play some cool tours with «Okkult» and we are also in talks to do a special «Okkult» show with a bigger stage set on a festival. We will see what happens. A cool idea in general would be to perform together with Laibach “Die Liebe” or to bring Diamanda Galas on stage with Atrocity. I’m also looking forward to the «Okkult» treasure hunt no other band has done before. We want to make something really special for our fans, and not the usual way of releasing a new album. So there will be no conventional bonus tracks on the «Okkult» albums! In return, all fans can actively engage in a kind of treasure hunt. For the respective «Okkult» albums, we will hide one song on an “occult site”, which is the “missing track” to each album. For the first «Okkult» record that certain place will be in Europe. All original recording tracks and mixes of these songs will be destroyed by our own hands, that also means we as a band will also not be able to listen to these songs until they are found. They are in the truest sense of the word: Unique. So you can be part of the first Metal treasure hunt ever! The Digipak LTD version will have a great artwork and also contains the hidden code and first evidences for the treasure hunt! You need to identify the code of the hidden numbers to get a password. Actually this is the name of the hidden song! Once you found it, you will be able to enter the treasure hunt on our website, www.atrocity.de! You can log in with the password and the treasure hunt can begin! We are really looking forward to this quest!
– Finally; what are your near-future plans?
Sander: We are planning some tours at the moment. As Alex says, we want to play with «Okkult» as many shows as possible, so tell all your promoters to bring Atrocity over!
Alex: In a few days we will be shooting a videoclip at an ancient castle. Moreover, will play our first show for the new album on 27th of April here in Germany which we all are really looking forward to!
– That’s all, thank you once more for answering our questions. If you want to add some final words; feel free to do it.
Alex: Thanx for this interview. Greetings to all our fans in Spain! Join our treasure hunt!
Tosso: Thanx! Check out our new record, its well worth!!
Sander: See you on the road!
