Andrew Slaidins caught up with Falk Maria Schlegel, keyboardist for the band Powerwolf and they discuss their new album “Wake Up The Wicked”. The ninth album from the band enters new territory sonically and sees some bold moves in what he considers to be one of the finest examples of Power Metal to date this year.
The band’s lead single from the album, “1589”, has surpassed a million streams on Spotify and YouTube in just two weeks. A North American tour kicks off later this month which is to be followed by a European Tour. If you haven’t discovered Powerwolf, there is no time like the present.
Falk : Hey Andrew, how are you doing?
Andrew : Hey, are you welcome to The Rockpit and welcome to Australia. How are you?
Falk : I’m great thank you. It’s nice to talk to you about the new album, “Wake Up The Wicked”.
Andrew : Congratulation on ‘Wake Up The Wicked”, it’s an amazing listen from start to finish. It really is one of those seamless albums, it’s quite a piece of storytelling. I’ve had it on repeat for the last few days and it’s really captivated me.
Falk : Awesome, thank you. I can tell you it’s the same for me. Even though I played the organ on that album and looked after it right through to mastering. I had that same approach, it always felt like we were telling a story while allowing each song to stand on it’s own. When I’m listening to the last song, ‘Vargamor’, then I skip back to ‘Bless ‘Em With The Blade’ and it feels a little bit like it’s rolling into itself, that’s the exact energy we aimed to deliver. I’m super happy with how it flows and turned out.
Andrew : There really isn’t a beginning or an end point in it when you play it in that context. It just flows so well and that was one of the things that I really enjoy about the record is that it’s just a seamless play. It really is a wonderful listen. Congratulations to you all on it.
Falk : Thank you. Thank you.
Andrew : Now over the 20 plus year career, Powerwolf has just gone from strength to strength. Who are the band’s earliest influences?
Falk : I mean our context is the old school heroes, like Judas Priest, Iron Maiden and Savatage for example. We are in this awesome position where we have made our very unique sound in the past 20 years, and we really feel comfortable in having this unique sound with Attila Dorn’s voice, the church organs, all the different instruments we use and we don’t have any limits in the song writing process. That means for us of course, that we don’t want to hide our trademark sound and style. We always try to develop here and there, we like to add more details by using certain instruments as we did for ‘Heretic Hunters’ which is an example of that or ‘Sinners Of The Seven Seas’ has a different approach as well. For us it’s always like an adventure and we don’t know where it will end; the starting point is always the same. We try to bring the live energy we experienced to the next level into the next album and in this case for “Wake Up The Wicked”, we had a live studio session for the latest album. When we had this Corona shit and we had didn’t have that live experience anymore, but we need that power to write proper songs and I guess you can really hear that and can really feel that.
Andrew : Well that’s it, the last album “Call Of The Wild”, that was an amazing record as well; but this album just seems to have something extra, it’s broken down a few more barriers and broadened more boundaries in what you guys do and how you guys sound. It’s been a really solid and consistent evolution to your sound to where we are now with “Wake Up The Wicked”. I think you kind of answered that previously, but ultimately, what’s the shared vision and how does that affect writing? Do you consciously go in, okay, we’ve got to go and up the ante with what we do? Is that something that you guys are always pushing yourself to achieve?
Falk : Absolutely. I mean the thing is we need to have every single album and our evolution in what we did before to write the next one. There is no “Call Of The Wild” without “The Sacrament Of Sin”. There is no “Wake Up The Wicked” album without “Call Of The Wild”. In this case, on “Wake Up The Wicked”, we really tried to make the songs shorter. My impression is, as you said, “Call Of The Wild” is a really strong album, but for me at this point feels a little bit overloaded here and there. We try to really find a good balance between this pure heavy metal energy and allow space to our instruments. Sometimes we really try to let the songs breathe to give them some space to highlight Attila’s voice or the piano for example, we look at reducing elements. For example “1589” we built it up step by step adding power and energy, then you have to refrain once everyone comes together. It’s abiut controlling the dynamic to give a song the best of everything. On “Wake Up The Wicked”, we worked with Joost Van Den Broek again and he also did the mix for this album, his involvement was from quite early in song writing process even with the first ideas for the album. Together we looked at each song and what should be there, what can we do here? What can we do there? Which instruments could we add? The children’s choir we added to ‘We Don’t Wanna Be No Saints’ was just an idea and they nailed it. It’s perfect for the song. Everything develops step by step and I don’t know why, but “Wake Up The Wicked” sounds fresh; fresh and new and white and I don’t know why it is that way, but it feels really like when we did the rehearsals for the live show last week, we can play every song and have it work live. You know what I mean? It was like next we are able to do it and have this live atmosphere. All of the songs are quite short, all around three minutes thirty or something like that.
Andrew : Three and a half to four minutes at a quick look.
Falk : Exactly. It’s great. It just happened that way, it’s not like we had to do it like that but it was more like we don’t need to add any more elements to make a song better. When you focus on the main part of a song then you only need three minutes thirty or something like that.
Andrew : You mentioned the ability to give yourself some space and use dynamics; there is that keyboard part in the later part of ‘1589’, which I just adore. I think that when I first heard it I went, my god, this is just thinking so outside of the box because it just adds another level of tension and drama to it. When you actually watch it in the context of the clip as well, the video for it, it’s just like a wow moment; this really does tell the story and I have to congratulate you on that video clip as well. That is just a stunning piece of mini cinema. It was really nice.
Falk : That was absolutely the approach to do more like a movie than a music video. When the band is only playing, we really try to tell the story of Peter Stumpp the werewolf of Bedburg which is a well-known story in Germany. One of the most important tales legend wise we had back in the day and it was absolutely fascinating. It’s one of the best things we can write about; the legends like that of Peter Stumpp in which superstition, anger and fear are interwoven into an epic story that we can tell. We saw the casting for Peter Stumpp and the person who played peter Sumpp; Louis Cusato was a great actor and the perfect choice. We did that video in South England in November. It was cold, rainy, foggy, like it always is in England, we had a huge cast of 50 people and almost one week we did that video and the approach was a little bit like Tim Burton style stuff and you can really feel the pain in the character how he was struggling and then he was sentenced to death as a scapegoat. At that time, it was quite common to find a scapegoat in some outsiders. For myself, I even went to Bedburg near Cologne to see the small village where he lived and also had the opportunity to do some hiking around the area. That allowed me to get a feeling of that time and I think we did an incredible job of bringing it to life on the set. The approach of ‘1589’ was a little bit, well not only a little bit, it was completely different but the piano and in all of the parts actually our aim was to really deliver a scary atmosphere through its arrangement. I don’t know why, but I’m completely in love with the song. We have had really good reactions about the song because it was a different for Powerwolf, it’s not only performing and some flames, it’s more than that.
Andrew : Now the director of that Adam Baker, had you worked with him before?
Falk : No, we hadn’t; we contacted him when we had this idea for ‘1589’. He also did a video with Sabaton’s version of Motorhead’s ‘1916’. We had contacted him as we already had song done and both sides already had visions for the song. Adam proposed we can do is this and this and here in the UK. My country is full of these beautiful forests with huge tree roots and trees it’s awesome, and we had this museum village where you can see Atilla walking and the band. Step by step we built up the scenes. We really were involved in the casting and which actors we’ll have on set. I will say it was tough and rough to make a video like that, but the end result is awesome. Working a whole week for a clip that takes only four minutes to watch really was hard work. The clip we delivered tells the story so well the way we did it.
Andrew : The clip is done in such a tasteful way too. Once I watched the clip I had to watch it several times just to take in all the detail that’s in there. It is a stunning piece of video and congratulations to everybody.
Falk : Thank you. Thank you for that.
Andrew : The other amazing thing about it is ‘1589’ in two weeks has surpassed a million streams on Spotify and over YouTube. Are you surprised by the response to the song?
Falk : It’s difficult to explain. We are always a little bit excited and we are always a little bit, I don’t want to say scared, because we do love our songs of course, and then when we first release a single, we are really excited to know what people are thinking or think about a song. ‘1589’ is a little bit different than the previous songs we have released as a single. Leading up to the songs release people had countdowns happening, people were like watching live and did live reactions to it. When I saw the reactions were so brilliant and people really loved the song and the video clip, then I was a little bit calmer. For me it was like, oh my goodness, the people love the song the same way we do. That’s good to see and good to hear. I normally I don’t read many comments, but in this instance people were really like, oh my goodness, what are they doing here? There was so much detail. Or you see Matthew in the clip, he’s standing nearby the priest; oh there fight was on the other side. People were really watching it again and again to find Easter eggs or look for wherever the band was. It’s great. I really love it. We also did a documentary about it that we will release later on, then you will see how huge the work involved was. It’s all based on a true story, I mean if that had taken place, that was really bad story back in the days. A lot of trials in those days, witch trials. There were trials and not very fun times I would say.
Andrew : “Wake Up The Wicked” doesn’t come out into the world until July 26th, so there’s still a bit of a wait for the rest of the world to hear it. How would you best sum up the album? If ‘1589’ is the lead into it, how would you best describe the rest of the record.
Falk : I would say it’s a perfect mixture between very fast songs like ‘Bless ‘Em With The Blade’ or ‘Wake Up The Wicked’ and some mid-tempo songs with ‘1589’ and ‘Vargamor’. Some awesome sing-a-longs like ‘We Don’t Wanna Be No Saints’. For me it’s a perfect mixture between pure heavy metal madness and good sing-a-longs and it is what powerful stands for me especially. I’m talking for myself, it’s my absolute favourite so far, so I’m super happy with it. I don’t know other than that, I can highly recommend this record if you like Heavy metal music you won’t regret hearing this album; I can promise you that.
Andrew : Do you have a personal favourite song on the album?
Falk : Indeed, ‘We Don’t Wanna Be No Saints’ because it’s in this tradition of demon’s best friend and dancing with the dead. For me as a keyboard player, I always like to dance behind my keyboards and some give me the opportunity to move my hips a little bit more here and there (laughs) it sticks in your ears from the first time you hear it. For example, when my family listened to that song for the first time, they whistled it the whole day and we just finished a video shoot for that song. I have all of those memories in mind, so probably this is my favourite song. I love the whole album, it’s pure madness.
Andrew : I made a list of my stand out tracks just in case you fired that back at me and I get asked what are my favourite tracks off the album. I would have to say ‘Kyrie Klitorem’, ‘Wake Up The Wicked’, ‘1859’, ‘Joan of Arc’ and ‘We Don’t Wanna Be No Saints’ they are the standouts for me. The whole album is amazing, don’t get me wrong, but they were the tracks that either it was a hook or a melody or as you sort of say that big chorus that really just that pulled me in. I can’t wait to see what you guys do with these songs live and I can, knowing the way that you guys are, obviously there’s a new stage show coming that will encapsulate it?
Falk : We’re building up a new stage. It’s going to be huge. Europe, will be the biggest production we have done so far. Even with, I mean the biggest venues we had so far, it’s really crazy how the ticket sales are going and we are still involved in the whole process with what we’re doing on the LED screens and everything. I always say we like to invite the audience not only to a music concert but also to a theatre in the power of word. We did it a little bit and at the monumental mass, this cinematic metal event we recorded during the pandemic and we tried to do it now as in a live situation that we build up a huge church or world or whatever and try to get the people in there. Yeah, that’s the approach and we are really focusing on that. It’s also the reason we don’t play any summer festivals, we just focus on our tour, which will start at the end of August in North America in L.A. and after that we’ll come back to Europe. Hopefully we can come to Australia next year. We have been planning that for years already, but we’ve never been there so far. It’s on my list; I want to, it’s time to bring the metal madness to your country.
Andrew : I had a look at those tour dates for North America and just the quality of the venue that you are playing there is just incredible.
Falk : Absolutely. Brooklyn Paramount and it’s awesome.
Andrew : Is this the band’s first time to North America?
Falk : This will be the second time? We did that last year for the first very first time and our very first show was in New York at the Times Square Palladium. That was sold out after two weeks, then we played another I guess seven or eight shows; I don’t know. Now we are heading back with a proper show tour and we’re super happy about the reactions because we’ve never been to some of these places before. My impression was that people are really waiting for Powerwolf and we just got sent some videos of the huge billboards on Times Square Palladium where a show was announced. To be honest, that makes me a bit proud to be there as well. The next step should be Australia, that would be really nice.
Andrew : I think this album will launch you guys again to another newer level of fans out here. We certainly do love our metal and we love good quality metal.
Falk : Thank you. I have heard that too about Australia.
Andrew : Aside from your part within the band, I read somewhere that you’re also very on the business side of the band, with stage design and obviously a lot of the internal management. How did that come about? Was that something that you consciously fell into and took an interest in or did you have a background in those sorts of things?
Falk : No, I don’t have a background there. I have always been interested in the behind the scenes things and have always been involved in the stage appearance, in the outfits, in the layout of the stage, props and everything. The reason is I wanted to, and in the meantime it’s so much work and effort we have to do. Sometimes it’s a little too much here and there, but we have a team, we have a really good crew we are working with. But the thing is we always want to deliver our vision and sometimes my impression is that not everyone or not everybody understands what we want to deliver (laughs). It’s the same with artwork or with t-shirt designs and everything. And we’re working with a lot of artists and always with the idea of our own ideas. Some artists are really good to paint it to get the right attitude for it, some other artists see Powerwolf in completely different way, and that’s the reason we as a band always try to have our very, very own vision on stage, nearby the stage, how our t-shirts look, the layouts for the artwork, we’re really involved in it. For me especially, I’m super interested in doing such things to be part of, not part of the crew, but a part of the master plan of everything we do. Sometimes it’s also a lot of work to do, but we want to be in that. We don’t need to do it, but we want to.
Andrew : That’s fair enough too. We are almost out of time. I can’t believe how quickly this has gone. It’s absolutely amazing to talk to you and to talk to you about the album. It must be quite a wait now. It must be a bit of a hurry up and wait now waiting for August and September to come around for you to be able to take these shows to the live arena. How many songs would you be playing from “Wake Up The Wicked” in the new live set?
Falk : That’s a good question. We have rehearsed every song from “Wake Up The Wicked”, which is not normal for us. Normally we pick some out that are the features songs, but we try to give every song a chance. But it’s quite obvious that we’re going to play ‘Sinners Of The Seven Seas’, ‘1589’ and ‘We Don’t Wanna Be No Saints’ for sure. We have this feeling, that we really need to play this album live. We don’t know how we will yet, I mean it’s a luxury problem to have (laughs). The thing is to write a set list for two hours with nine albums is really a struggle because you have to pick some out, you have to leave some classics behind. It’s really difficult to play a wide set list. I think you need a good mixture between the new songs, the older ones and the classics. ‘We Drink Your Blood’ is very important to us and will always be a part of the set, you have to play your classics. We’ll see what’s going to happen. I’m not a fan of only playing the new songs; it’s very important to play what the fans want and come to hear. It’s the same with Iron Maiden. I mean Iron Maiden has to play ‘Two Minutes to Midnight’ and ‘The Trooper’ if they don’t ……..
Andrew : They would start a riot
Falk : That’s it, we would always try to have a good mixture between everything, but it’s a hard decision to make here, especially now because we love the new songs very much.
Andrew : Absolutely. Again, congratulations on the record. Have we got a release date for ‘We Don’t Want to Be No Saints’?
Falk : Not yet. I should ask Lisa or the management. No, I don’t know. Were involved in almost everything all of the time. I have to ask someone (laughs).
Andrew : Thank you so much for chatting with me Falk. It’s been an absolute pleasure and I would love to talk to you again when you guys do lock in plans for Australia. It’s been an amazing chat as brief as it’s been. Congratulations to you and the whole band for such an incredible album..
Falk : Thank you. You’re welcome. Take Care.
