Swiss hard rock legends Gotthard release their much anticipated new Album ‘#13’ via Nuclear Blast on 13th March this year. The band features Australian Nic Maeder on vocals. We caught up with Nic to find out all about it…
Mark: Hi Nic, great to catch up, it’s been a while since we spoke. I think the last time would have been for ‘Silver’ but the first when you came on board with Gotthard for ‘Firebirth’.
Nic: A while ago now.
Mark: So nine years with the band now and four albums, that’s pretty productive.
Nic: I mean it’s going well. The wheels turn and things keep moving on so it’s all good.
Mark: You’ll have to forgive me, as I’ve only had one spin but the new album ‘#13’ is sounding good, people are saying it’ the most diverse album since you’ve been with the band but I’m not really getting that my ears are just getting a great Gotthard record!
Nic: Yeah, I heard that quite a bit and I was surprised by that comment, to me I didn’t realise it was that diverse, but I suppose it might be that I’ve heard it so many times. But I don’t really hear that. It was a fun process too this time, normally we do one touring year and then have a year making the album and repeat that cycle but this time because of the ‘D frosted’ tour we missed a years so we were all eager to get back into writing. And this time the whole process actually happened quite fast.
Mark: So did you still write in the same way? I think it was you, Leo and Freddy that initially sat down to nut out the musical bits, melodies and things. Then you’d go off and finish lyrics. Is it still like that?
Nic: Yeah, it’s the same process really. The only difference with this record is that some of them started out just with Freddy, and some just with Leo. But some were done altogether as well. We were pretty busy at the time, we all had little things going on and we were still playing as well, we had a few Festivals and whatever, so whatever time we had we got stuck into it. So it was a bit different but ultimately even if the two of us start a song it always ends up with the three of us putting it together.
Mark: I think after a first listen it’s “Every Time I Die’, that, and the bluesy one ‘Another Last Time’ that grabbed me the most.
Nic: Oh right ‘Another Last Time’ that was actually the first song we came up with, Freddy came over my house, he had that riff and it went from there. Then we had ‘Better Than Love’ and they were really the start of it all. We were really happy the way the mix came out for ‘Another Last Time’ it really worked well straight away and didn’t need too much work, you know. We just pulled up all the faders and it was there!
Mark: Then there’s the epic ballad ‘I Can Say I’m Sorry‘ and the 70’s psychedelia of ‘Rescue Me‘– it’s all there!
Nic: Yes.
Mark: By then I knew we had a great album on our hands.
Nic: Thank you.
Mark: I’m always intrigued by a band’s choice of cover songs though – whose idea was it to cover ABBA?
Nic: Well that was actually a funny one. I got asked by Swiss TV –they were doing this Christmas thing – an ABBA Tribute TV show and they were asking a lot of singers if they wanted to come in and sing an ABBA song. So they asked me and I thought “ABBA?” I don’t know… So I said “Let me think about it” and I took a few days. I have a little home studio here so I listened to a few ABBA songs and thought “Maybe S.O.S.?” I thought I could do my own version of that so I just had a go at that at the piano, and listened back to it and was surprised that it worked. So I decided to do the TV show and I showed the guys in the band and they all loved it. And Leo actually turned around and said that years ago with Steve they’d wanted to do a version and he had it on a tape deck somewhere, and old demo version. So we thought let’s do it! Of course we did a different version to the one I did on TV, we kind of beefed it up a little bit! (laughs)
Mark: Gotthard are well known for their great covers and you always seem to do the songs justice as well as make them your own. I loved ‘The Mighty Quinn’ years ago but this is up there with that for me.
Nic: And it’s actually the first cover the band has done since I joined. I think they used to do one on almost every album before that.
Mark: You’ve got a big European Tour ahead, with Shakra on-board and also some dates with our old mates Bob and Tony from Magnum.
Nic: Yeah it’s gonna be great. We’re really looking forward to it especially as for the last couple of years we’ve been doing the ‘D frosted’ acoustic thing, so we’re itching to get out there and plug the guitars in again (laughs).
Mark: So ’#13’ cunningly titled, with it being the thirteenth studio album, but the cover puzzled me a bit – two cows about to start fighting?
Nic: Yeah, I get asked a lot about that! Initially it was going to be called ‘Round #13’ and that’s kind of why you have the fighting thing going on. And then it got changed to just ‘#13’ I can’t remember why, but by that stage we’d found this amazing photograph of these two cows. It’s a traditional Swiss thing they do each year with these cows that fight and we thought that the photo just had a lot of power to it and so we kept it.
Mark: Take us all the way back Nic – do you remember the first time music really touched you and you decided that was going to be it for you?
Nic: Yeah I do actually, it was I think the first time I heard ‘Hell’s Bells’ on the radio as a kid when ‘Back In Black’ was just coming out, when I heard that on the radio that was it. I just became completely crazy about AC/DC and went from there, I picked up a guitar a couple of years later and started playing in High School bands and I knew then that there was really nothing else that mattered. It’s like a disease that gets you! (laughs)
Mark: Everyone I think remembers that moment when it all just clicks into place. Now taking it forward a little more, can you remember the first song you wrote?
Nic: Oh wow, yes it was (laughs) what was the name of the band? I remember! It was a High School band called ‘Satan’ (laughs) and the song was called ‘Heavy Metal’!
Mark: (laughs) that’s the most rock and roll answer I’ve had so far! I’ve been asking that question over the last few weeks and most of the songs have been inspired by broken hearts!
Nic: (laughs) we were more rocking!
Mark: I think you win that one!
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?
Nic: Honesty I think ‘Back in Black’ would be it because it’s the first album I ever bought and it just marked me so much and it would have also been a very strange time for the band so I think it would have been incredible to have been a ‘fly on the wall’ for that one.
Mark: It would have been an incredibly testing time.
Nic: Of for sure I don’t think anyone who wasn’t there could possibly imagine what it must have been like.
Mark: Imagine you’re back in Melbourne for the night and we can book you a table at the best restaurant with four other musicians – who would you like to spend the night eating and drinking with?
Nic: (laughs) I’d probably only need one, I’d love to have a nice bottle of Bordeaux with Bon Scott. I think that would be one of the craziest things ever! That’s all you need!
Mark: And we always close with the easy question… What is the meaning of life?
Nic: 42!
Mark: You’re going the Hitchhikers route which is cool with me! That’s great. ‘#13’ is a wonderful album, it’s going to seriously impress a lot of people out there and if you’re out in Europe like I know a lot of our readers are then you should be grabbing a ticker to see Gotthard re-electrified!
Nic: (laughs)
Mark: And when you play the home dates in Switzerland I see you’re playing a few venues out around the country rather than just the big cities?
Nic: Yeah well that’s what we decided to do this time around instead of just sticking to the main big cities we’re playing a few country towns. A lot of these places still have big halls so you can still do quite large concerts there. Our concept was to play more shows rather than just a few big ones and really go back to those small towns where the band started.
Mark: It’s great to see a band going back to their country roots. Thank you so much for talking to us today Nic us Aussies still live in hope that one day you guys will make it down here.
Nic: Let’s hope so. Cheers mate. Take care.
