Germany has had some great Rock bands over the years. But for every towering neon-lit behemoth like Scorpions, there are a hundred lesser-known bands with equally impressive catalogues who somehow never seemed to gain momentum outside of their native land. But when I think of German Rock I think of much more. Over the last few weeks we’ve caught up with the new breed like The New Roses and Kissin’ Dynamite and now it’s time to revisit some of those great bands that are still keeping the flame burning for 80’s styled rock like Mad Max, who along with Bonfire would have to be near the top of my list. I never had the chance to catch up with Michael Voss before unless you count a few words whilst waiting for Herman Rarebell to play in a field in rural Oklahoma. So here it is,in his first ever Australian Interview Michael talks about the new Mad Max album ’35’, muses on the state of music and lets us know where it all began…
Michael: Hello Mark this is Mr. Michael Voss on the telephone.
Mark: Hi Michael great to speak to you.
Michael: You too, this is a first for me after all these years my first interview with Australia. It’s great.
Mark: I’m sorry it’s taken me so long, but we finally got there. We like great music down here, and your latest album ‘35’ certainly fits that bill. I’ve actually seen you play live once before, well actually twice a few years back now in a field in Oklahoma at Rocklahoma almost ten years ago now (2009).
Michael: Oh yes. I remember Rocklahoma, a couple of years ago now, but we’re still here and still doing it.
Mark: And thirty five years into a career you’re still producing some great music. What keeps you so motivated so many years down the track?
Michael: Well when I started when I was 14 years old I felt that it had to be my destiny to run around with a guitar and sing. The first two songs I wrote were so bad, but it kept me going and it started this passion in me. There’s a fever and a passion I have for music, in creating music, in working with musicians and being a creative man was always my goal.
Mark: And as well as Mad Max you’ve produced some great bands as well and seen technology change completely?
Michael: I started producing 15 or 16 years ago. When we first started recording you always had to go into a studio and that was very expensive and nowadays it’s still expensive if you spend a long time in the studio but the market has really changed and the world of music changed and the way you made it changed too. I had only one chance in the middle of the 90’s to try the new techniques with an Apple and the synchronising analogue machines until analogue was finally gone and you could record totally on your computer.
Mark: Yes things have certainly changed since 1982 when you put out your first album, it’s been five years now since your last release ‘Interceptor’ which I really enjoyed, what have you been up to in that time?
Michael: Well it was not really five years because we came back in 2015 and played a couple of shows here in Germany and we put out a ‘Best of’ album plus a ‘Live DVD’ that we shot at “Bang Your Head’ plus a ‘Best of’ the first three Mad Max albums which we re-recorded. Then in 2016 we had a talk about recording new stuff and I started writing, and Jürgen (Breforth) started writing lyrics together with Jason Smith a great guy from the States, a great lyricist. But then unfortunately or bass player Hutch got very ill and so we had to wait until he fully recovered and that cost us time, so the album title ‘35’ really it’s a little more than that in years but we didn’t want to change the title.
Mark: What’s a year between friends! I notice that the album opens up with ‘The Hutch’.
Michael: Yes, yes, yes that’s dedicated to him and he wrote the song. And with the album title if you switch the numbers 3 and 5 to 5 and 3 you get my age as well. That might be a little in joke there.
Mark: Let’s have a look at a few of the other tracks on there, starting with the single ‘Beat of a Heart’ a great song and one that really sounds like the band back in the day, to me it takes me back to ‘Night of Passion’?
Michael: You’re right – we don’t want to invent something new. I think we have our sound, that’s what we want to play, we have the right and that’s how I see our market, I don’t want to sound new, if someone was to say to me that we sound like a mix of Accept and Dokken I’d say “Yes, you’ve got it” I just want people to be able to enjoy it, take the album and rock and bang their heads. There’s a few fast songs on it, there’s a slow one, a big ballad and it’s these things that made us become musicians and fans. And first of course you have to become a fan and take it from there and once you’re a musician you pick things up. But you’re right when you say it sounds like it was from back in the day –‘Beat of a Heart’ was originally written in ’86.
Mark: Wow, that’s a great riff.
Michael: Yes, I remember I had the song for the band Casanova and we pitched it to them but they didn’t pick it and the riff always stayed in the back of my mind (at this point Michael proceeds to sing the riff). But I had it in my mind crystal clear, it’s a real Dokken-like riff and so all the good things from the 80’s are in there, and then on top of that the riff for ‘D.A.M.N.’ that’s from ’86 as well so there are a couple of really old riffs on there. And then the riff to ‘Thirty 5’ that’s a riff from ’86 or ’87 as well.
Mark: D.A.M.N. is a great song too, that one took me back.
Michael: If you’re listening to Dokken and something like ‘Standing in the Shadows’ that finger-picking sound with the guitars always sounded great. (Michael sings the guitar part to D.A.M.N.) So we had that from thirty years ago buried away somewhere, but why not bring it out? So I played these ideas to the boys and Jürgen said he could write some great lyrics to that so we went from there.
Mark: And with those mentions of Dokken and the echoes in those riffs it’s great to see you picked a Dokken tune as a bonus track in ‘Paris is Burning’ not maybe an obvious Dokken cover but one that goes all the way back to the band’s time in Germany?
Michael: (laughs) I did a couple of things with Mr Don Dokken, I like him, I’ve known him now since 1991 when we first got together when we had management from Gaby Hoffman (who managed Mad Max and Accept and also played a part in getting Don Dokken’s original demos to producer Michael Wagener for what became their debut release)…
Michael: So I was invited to one of these song-writing sessions in Los Angeles and we got together with Don Dokken where we came up with a song and tried to record it with him for Schenker (Michael), and another for Herman Rarebell’s album. And I thought as this guy is such an influence for the entire band what about doing a bonus for the fans but not a typical choice like ‘It’s Not Love’ or ‘Lightning Strikes Again’ or ‘In My Dreams’, instead let’s take a really old one. I remember when this British Heavy Metal started in ’81-’82 (NWOBHM) and around that time they had been to Germany and recorded, and at that time it was Juan Croucier on bass, and I first heard that song there and thought what a great song – it’s passionate, it’s fast, and it’s got great melodies – I think we should try it. So the band said yes, let’s give it a go. So I e-mailed Don and said “We need you on that track” and we tried a couple of times but unfortunately it didn’t happen, so we went for it anyway as we had the demo recorded and finished it. But I would have loved to have had a duet on that one with Don, but maybe next time?
Mark: Maybe, that would be great. Now Michael, as this is your first Australian interview and some of our readers might not yet have discovered Mad Max, can you give the fans a glimpse of where it all began? Take it all the way back for us – what was it that made you realise that music was going to be your life? Was there a defining moment or a gradual realisation? Thinking back to your early memories of music, what was it that firs made you decide you needed to be in a Rock and Roll band?
Michael: What keeps us young and what keeps us kicking and alive is that there is always something to inspire us all. This is such a big planet you know and the most important thing at the end of the day to me is to record some great music and spread it. In the end the people decide on their own if it reaches their hearts. That’s why we keep on doing it and that is why we are so happy to have SPV (Mad Max’s label) who give us that chance to record albums and spread the word. And that is what makes us very happy.
Mark: You mentioned early that you started out with music when you were 14 years old, what was it that started that love?
Michael: I’ll tell you what I don’t tell this very often but because this is my first Australian interview I’ll tell you the truth! (laughs) and I don’t think I’ve told her before so thankfully my girlfriend is not in the room (laughs). I started in my room just jamming around with tennis rackets. So I was just messing around and then one day somehow my Aunt came up with a guitar, just a nylon stringed acoustic guitar and I had no idea what to do with it. I was 12 or maybe 13 and as I had no idea what to do I left it. And then there came a chance to play a concert at school, a charity concert, and so we formed a band and at the time I was so in love with this girl. So I thought if I start to sing now, and try to play guitar then she might be my girlfriend. So we tried and we practiced and we got on stage and I thought “Yes, this is it” it felt so great to be up there. And right after the show I said to her at 14 years old “I played for you, I sang for you, I dedicated you a song, are we together now?” and she said “No”. And that’s the story I tried, I didn’t find love but I found something I loved on stage. And I’ve loved being on stage ever since, feeling the lights, hearing the audience. And that first night we felt like Gods, it was great. And you want to have that feeling again and again.
Mark: That’s a great story. With an album like ‘35’ you must be itching to get out there any play it live? Are there more shows planned?
Michael: We are planning that now, there is a tour coming up but I can’t talk about that yet, but we will play from the middle of November and then there are a few international shows at the end of the year. But the dates will be out soon, I think next week. We are of course focused on the German market but any chance to play we will try and get out there.
Mark: Europe has always been great for Rock music, I think Europe kept it alive when everyone else seemed to be falling over themselves to be fashionable.
Michael: That is absolutely right, I chatted this morning to Rudolph (Schenker, of Scorpions) who I think are coming down to Australia soon?
Mark: Yes, they’re playing here with Def Leppard in a couple of months’ time.
Michael: Wow, that’s great. I talk to Rudolf as he’s a friend and of course told him that if there’s ever a chance to open up for the Scorp’s we’d love to.
Mark: Now that would be a great triple bill.
Mark: Now let’s get down to a few of our more off the wall questions we ask everyone the first time we talk. If you had a table at a restaurant and could have 3 other musicians, past or present, who would you like there to talk to?
Michael: I can name three guests right? I’m stalling, this is hard! Number one, I’d love to talk to Mr Richard Marx, he’s a great song writer and someone I’ve always wanted to work with. Number two, from Australia, would be Mr Keith Urban one of my favourite singers, guitarists and song-writers. And finally number three would be from Canada one of my favourite singers Lee Aaron.
Mark: She’s always great to talk to and I must admit the only guest at your table I’ve ever interviewed.
Michael: You know I sand a duet with her about ten years ago, we were doing a duet of a Suzy Quatro song ‘She’s In Love With You’.
Mark: A nice bit of trivia to bring up next time we talk.
Mark: What are you hoping the new album ‘35’ will bring for the band? You mentioned earlier you will be touring it domestically with a few International dates, but do you think great music can still break out these days or has the internet just ruined it for us all? Swamped by music are we drowning in a sea of streaming where the industry has lost its way and streaming services have devalued what some of us still find so precious?
Michael: Well that’s a hard question, and a difficult subject. But I just know and I feel that when the old dinosaurs aren’t there anymore, from Paul McCartney and The Rolling Stones to Aerosmith. When they’re not there anymore I just hope that there is a next generation. I see myself passing the torch to the next generation but I can’t see to many bands that will be as huge as those guys. I think there has to be a huge change in the entire system but I don’t know how that will happen. There are good things and there are bad things about the internet – I mean it’s great to talk to you now and to be able to spread your music around the world but I just don’t see that the music is valued as much anymore. I mean when I was young I used to pay 15 or 20 dollars to buy a new album. And I loved those albums, I’d play them 250,000 times! It was a treasure! I loved reading the lyrics, looking at the covers and I learnt to play guitar from those records. But these days it’s just “send mean e-mail with the mp3 links” and that’s it. It’s not even happening in real time anymore, it’s just so fast and gone in an instant.
Mark: As I get older I can categorically say that I appreciate the way music used to be treated more and more. And as technology leaps forwards I tend to try and ignore it unless it brings something positive for both artist and listener. I love vinyl and I’ll never stream until artists start getting paid reasonable fees. Steaming services generate obscene amounts of money and those that create that income for them see so little.
Michael: I must admit I have about 3 or 400 vinyls that I’m listening to in the evening time. I work the whole day then put it on in the evening and it gives me a great feeling
Mark: If you could have been a fly on the wall for the creation of any great album just to see how the magic happened what would it be and why? What’s the album that still resonates with you Michael?
Michael: For me that one is very easy – ‘Hotel California’ by The Eagles. It’s incredible. I love Don Henley, I love everybody in the band, and I’ve seen the several times live. It’s magic and especially what they do with the harmonies and the vocals. If I could be a fly on the wall yes please, let me watch those recordings!
Mark: And just one final question or you Michael, we save the easy one till last: what is the meaning of life?
Michael: The meaning of life is easy – just to be there, to enjoy and try to set a mark so the people can remember you. That would be mine.
Mark: It’s been an absolute pleasure to talk to you today Michael, thank you so much for taking the time. Best of luck with the album which all our readers should grab a copy of, and we look forward to letting people know about those tour dates too.
Michael: Thank you, I’d love to come back and talk to you again, it was a pleasure talking to Australia and hopefully sometime, somehow we’ll get down there. Thanks for talking Mark and when you need anything just drop me a line. Bye.
