Folk metal heroes Eluveitie released their latest album “Origins” last year and has been their most successful release to date, garnering rave reviews from critics and fans alike. The band just announced a headline tour of Australia in May 2016 so we caught up with founding member Chrigel Glanzmann who just came off the stage in Norway to chat about the tour and more.
Andrew: So you are obviously on tour at the moment, how has it been going so far?
Chrigel: Long but good, yeah. It’s been almost one and a half years of touring now and it’s been good, we were in Scandinavia and it’s all good.
Andrew: You are touring on the back of your latest album “Origins” that came out about a year ago so how has the fans been responding to it?
Chrigel: Well honestly the reception has been amazingly good, much more than we expected. The album charted amazingly good all over the planet, it was ranked 1 on the Heatseeker charts and it was ranked 1 on the Swiss album charts and that was something we never would of expected and it was kind of weird. The songs on the album seem to be nice live songs so the audience has enjoyed so yeah, it’s been really good!
Andrew: Well congratulations on that, it’s obviously been a huge success for you. What do you think has been the reason for the success of this album? Is there a particular reason that fans has been responding so well to these songs?
Chrigel: Honestly I have no idea. I mean we’ve been doing good for years anyway but this was our most successful album. It’s a growing process anyway, we’re just here being thankful doing our thing and playing our music and being happy doing so.
Andrew: Fantastic to hear! The big news for us in Australia is that you guys will be coming down here for a tour as well so we are looking forward to that!
Chrigel: Yeah it’s been way too long since we’ve been to Australia actually so we are really looking forward to finally come back.
Andrew: What do you remember from the last time you came down here?
Chrigel: Honestly it was one of our most amazing first runs in a territory where we had never played before. Everything was amazing, the crowd was amazing, the cities were amazing. We just love everything, every little detail about it.
Andrew: Did you get much chance to do some sight seeing at all?
Chrigel: Not so much, usually there’s not much time on tour unfortunately. I had a few hours to walk around Brisbane but otherwise I just walked around the city a little bit, it seems really nice to me. That’s basically it because as I say, on tour there’s not really time for sightseeing or anything like that unfortunately.
Andrew: As far as the shows are concerned, what can the fans expect this time around?
Chrigel: Next year we have kind of a special show planned. Just recently we came up with this Evening With Eluveitie show in North America and it turned out really amazing. I think fans, including ourselves can agree on the fact that it was probably the best Eluveitie show ever so far so we’re bringing that to Australia. There will be an extended set, at least a 2 hour show including songs from all our complete discography and an acoustic session so I think it will be good!
Andrew: Wow OK well that sounds exciting! Is it difficult to pick a setlist for that as you have quite a few albums now?
Chrigel: Yeah sure! The idea behind the acoustic part is a couple of years ago we released an acoustic album which was called “Evocation I” and at this very moment actually, we are working on the second part of this acoustic content and we plan to go and release next year “Evocation part II”. That’s all part of the idea behind acoustic block of shows.
Andrew: And what is the idea behind the acoustic stuff? Any reason why you wanted to do this kind of stuff?
Chrigel: Just musical reasons really, we just really wanted to do that one back in the day basically.
Andrew: I don’t know too much about your history and how you guys got started. How did the band first form together and what were the reasons for playing folk metal music?
Chrigel: That happened I think 13 or 14 years ago and I was playing death metal for quite a long time. I formed my first death metal band in 1991 but I’m also playing traditional Celtic folk music for a long time and I always wanted to combine the two because that kind of music I love playing. At some point I decided to form a project that kinda brings the two together and that’s how Elvueitie formed.
Andrew: OK cool. Well folk metal has been kinda up and down, at least in Australia anyway but was there any particular band or musician that influenced you a lot to get into this kind of music?
Chrigel: No not at all. When I formed the band, there was no folk metal scene or anything like that. It was never like, OK let’s form a folk metal thing or something. In fact I hardly knew what folk metal was, back then there wasn’t any term for it. I don’t even know that much and it’s the same for all of us. None of us actually listens to folk metal, all the bands we know in that genre we basically know from touring. They got booked and we got booked together and so we got to know each other but it’s never something that we focus on at any time. It’s just like I say, back in the day I wanted to form a death metal band but at the same time, bring in traditional Celtic folk music. To us the most important thing musically is that both are important the same way, it’s not that we wanted a death metal band with some folk influences or a folk band with some metal influences but it should be 100 percent death metal, 100 percent folk music at the same time and that’s what we did back in the day and that’s what we still do today.
Andrew: So you do you consider yourselves then to be some kind of pioneer or innovator in the genre because it is quite popular now?
Chrigel: Honestly I wouldn’t know, I just don’t think about that. I know around the same time back then there were other bands like for instance Finntroll who we are actually good friends with and who kinda do the same thing. But I don’t know if there is any band that you can say that started it but who the fuck cares anyway, it doesn’t matter! I just don’t think about these things, I play music and I’m happy with that!
Andrew: I find it very cool that you use traditional instruments as well which is not common in metal bands. Do you find a lot of fans are surprised by some of that stuff that you use?
Chrigel: Probably. To me it feels pretty natural because if you want to play metal, it’s pretty obvious to use drums, bass and guitars and it’s the same vice versa. It’s obvious to use things like a harp and all that, it’s just the most common instrument in Celtic music so to us it’s just the most natural thing to do.
Andrew: Very cool! Well we are looking forward to seeing you in Australia next year, thanks for your time. It’s been a pleasure and we will see you next year!
Chrigel: Wonderful! We are looking forward, we can’t wait!
ELUVEITIE AUSTRALIA TOUR 2016:
Perth – Tuesday 17 May – The Capitol
Brisbane – Thurs 19 May – The Zoo
Sydney – Fri 20 May – Manning Bar
Melbourne – Sat 21 May – Max Watts (Hi/Fi)
Adelaide – Sun 22 May – The Gov
Tickets and tour details can be found at Tombowler.com.au.
