Extreme metal masters Heaven Shall Burn visit Greece this summer and will join Amon Amarth and Kreator at Release Athens 2023. We had the chance to speak with guitarist Maik Weichert, who comments on their latest album, their upcoming show in Athens as well as their view of the music industry in general.
Read below our interesting chat.
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RockOverdose: Hey Maik, it’s very nice to host you on Rock Overdose! Let's start with the questions! We would like to know first of all how you see your last album “Of Truth And Sacrifice” three years after its release and the response it still has on the fans of music.
Maik Weichert (Heaven Shall Burn): It felt really strange when we toured for the first time again after covid, to play songs that we were 3 years old. It feels like you go out of jail when you're on stage again and you're allowed to do what you want. For us actually that break was a bit longer, cause before covid we did a life break, so actually we didn't play live before covid for three or four years. It's been a long time but it's been like a huge release and like an eruption. If you go out on stage and people were waiting for you all these years and your fans were even more enthusiast than it would have been with going out just after covid.
So, it’s been just great, it was a huge relief and of course we are keen to see how the songs will be for the people, who are their favorites and stuff like that, ‘cause when you’re off for so many years it really makes you unsteady and nervous and once you see everything is fine it feels the same and that’s a huge relief and we’re happy like little kids!
RockOverdose: HSB always managed to do different things on each album, but this time we had a daring double album of 97’ of duration. Knowing how you mostly work, I don’t think that was the purpose from the beginning. Were the songs composed so well that you didn’t want to leave them out and eventually lead to this double material?
Maik Weichert (Heaven Shall Burn): As I said before, we did a life break before we recorded the songs and that was a lot of when we set down and after the break we wanted to record and we realized it was a huge creative energy around and that there would be a lot of material for just one record, but we’re not a kind of band that records two disks and keeps one over the years and release it later, that would feel like releasing old stuff. We want to give everything we have at the moment it is created. It just felt like a double LP and of course, we were thinking of always which is the right time for a double record and watching bands releasing singles and singles we get out and release a double record which is actually totally anachronistic and stupid to do today, but it felt right and I think people really really managed to understand and to receive what we wanted to give them. Just wouldn’t feel right to release half of the songs we wrote because that’s not the whole portion of the creative energy we’ve found at that moment. We did what we just felt, people really contributed to the success of the record and buy it and still celebrating it.
RockOverdose: After this life break that you mentioned was it more challenging for you this time for the songwriting to get again back to creation?
It didn’t feel any difficulty, I think it’s always good to step a little back from music and have other influences, care about the rest of your life, and go back and see what the music holds for you. That is what Art is about! All time & all day thinking about rock n’ roll music doesn’t make you creative in the long run. If you want to go into a creative rush you also need to calm down before the rush, charge your batteries and everything. So, it really felt easier to write the songs after the life break!
RockOverdose: Let’s talk about the album cover it’s always something very artistic. I can realize there's a symbolism of this little naked child and the mother dying of the spear’s penetration, a symbolism of sacrifice, isn't it?
Maik Weichert (Heaven Shall Burn): Yeah! When I discussed the cover concept with the artist Eliran Kantor. He really wanted to go into symbolism with the terms “Truth” and “Sacrifice”. And of course, the naked child symbolized the naked truth and the mother of course is the symbol of sacrifice. I think the symbolism came along very well. We wanted to deal with the relation of truth and sacrifice, what are you willing to sacrifice for the truth, because so many people out there don’t want to hear the truth anymore and chose to live in ignorance, within lies and that makes their life easier. But I couldn’t live like that! Think of journalists getting killed because they write the truth, that’s an example that came to my mind when writing the lyrics and I think that’s an interesting approach which is also translated into a painting and came out perfect!
RockOverdose: Yes! It’s a very strong album cover and of course very strong message.
So, 3 out of 5 members of HSB have been together for 25 years and the line-up hasn’t changed the last 10 years. Is this maybe a secret of the band sounding still tight and ready to produce material full of quality as always?
Maik Weichert (Heaven Shall Burn): I think our secret is that we’ve decided not to be a professional band, in a way that we would play like 300 shows in a year and go to studio for one year and then go touring and everything. We decided that we want our lives besides the music. So we all have our jobs, I for example am a lawyer, and of course we don’t work full time like our jobs that wouldn’t work out with the music. We could easily live from the music, that’s not the problem but we have this balance between real life and music life, which really keeps us going as well in our real job and in music, because we don’t burn out, we don’t have creativity crisis, we don’t start to hate each other in the band, that keeps us going and when somebody left the band it was never because of we didn’t like it anymore, like our old drummer Matias or our old drummer Patric. They always take part of our new records, they are always in Heaven Shall Burn universe somehow, it’s just life that held something different for them, and couldn’t go along with the band anymore. We’re still friends. So doing a highly successful and professional band in Germany at least, that managed to be a happy band that keeps you going for many years! Too many bands out there are driven by the thought of “Ok, let’s do this and get through everything! This is our chance to collect money, etc”, of course, they do that for 5 years and after that, they run out of ideas, they hate each other because you know when you’re out on the road for many months or years, you don’t have the time to relax and clear your mind.
RockOverdose: That’s very interesting I hear from you. It’s good to have a balance between your personal life and the band, of course. But, when you started back in the 90’s did you expect to last so long?
Maik Weichert (Heaven Shall Burn): When I started I was almost 20 years old, I would have been a crazy freak if I think about the future in 20 years! You don’t think about the future when you’re 20 years old, you just look forward to the moment maybe for the next month or next year and you just enjoy life! It’s the coolest days of your life, you don’t think about the future but if you have told me that I’d be around with the band for 25 years, it would have sounded crazy to me.
RockOverdose: Being fans yourselves, I think it wouldn’t be easy for you to kill the fan you have inside if you still continue to be professionals and not having another job. But now you can balance this “fan” thing and the professionalism. So now it makes sense.
Maik Weichert (Heaven Shall Burn): Yeah, it’s what keeps us going. And also the covid was the best choice to do it like that cause we didn’t worry or fear losing money from the music, we had our jobs and we didn’t need music to fill the fridge, you know... If you sit down and write a song and you don’t have to think about feeding your children with the music which makes it easier for creative energy to flow. So, we kept that easiness that we had 20 years ago.
RockOverdose: You're also known for the massive amount of covers you have done, proving the upper statement of first being fans. Do you have a favorite of your covers all these years?
Maik Weichert (Heaven Shall Burn): Well, the Tiamat cover on “Whatever that hurts”, I’m really proud of that one. That one came out awesome. Of course, I love all the songs that we’ve covered, otherwise, we wouldn’t have covered them and another really favorite is “True Belief” from Paradise Lost. That’s a beautiful song and I hope we didn’t destroy it too much. Also, “Black Tears" of End's Of Sanity & "Valhalla" of Blind Guardian is also a favorite cover.
Though I can’t choose, I would say that “The Cry Of Mankind” from My Dying Bride, as my favorite.
Maik Weichert (Heaven Shall Burn): That is a great song as well! It was really joy recording that with our friend Andy from Solstafir, it's a great song.
RockOverdose: 20 years ago, you came for the first time in Greece. It has been a long 12 years since we last saw you here. Do you have any memories of your past Greek visits and what should we wait now that we’ll see you on such a large stage for the first time?
Maik Weichert (Heaven Shall Burn): 12 years already, really? Wow! We like playing in Greece, it's always the same from the first second we land to the airport! You're totally fanatic friends and crazy people! However, I couldn't live in the crazy traffic of Athens so when we come we don't stay more, only in Thessaloniki it was like a relief to go there and not being in Athens traffic. We make sure that e.g on our way to Thessaloniki from Athens we'll stop at Thermopyles battle place at the Leonidas statue, and of course, I'm a museum freak so I study the culture stuff, and Greek history is like heaven for me. I mean, the whole culture and history of Europe is inspired by Greece and especially if you want to work with symbolism in art you get inspired for sure.
RockOverdose: Yes, that's right! So, playing before Kreator this year at Release Athens Festival is of course something really great. Being compatriots with such great German bands and having your own band now, do you find similarities with them?
Maik Weichert (Heaven Shall Burn): Kreator is very important to me and to us, when we started making music because it was a very political band and Mille always voiced his political opinion. In the 90's when we had this big Nazi problem in the area where I live, I remember going to a Kreator show the stage was full of anti-Nazi t-shirts, and that meant a lot to me and shaped the way I think about it. Mille and Kreator have always been political but also metal.
When I was young I was really influenced by Sodom, which is my all time favorite bands. Also, we play together at the festival with Amon Amarth and I still remember I saw the first show of Amon Amarth outside Sweden, they had just a contract with a label from Singapore. To see like those bands at their very beginings also influenced me a lot, and I'm very very glad that I still call friends after so many years, people like Mille and Olavi Mikkonen. It's been a very long history together.
RockOverdose: You're very lucky! First being a fan and then a friend!
Allow me to also congratulate you for launching the Extermination Order project, the EP you released is really fantastic. Was it something you had in mind for long enough and why was it now the right time to be released?
Maik Weichert (Heaven Shall Burn): Thank you! Well, I do it with our old HSB drummer, Matias and we've been actually playing and writing this kind of music for more than 5-6 years already. So, it's not like a covid project, it's something we did before and it was now time to release some of the songs. We're huge Bolt Thrower fans, and the fact that the band doesn't release anymore just keeps me struggling like a junkie. I have to try to create my own music but of course without reaching that quality level, it's a ; legendary band nobody can step up to. It's like worship them and having the feeling....it's great to sit down with a friend and play the music you like without thinking about chart figures and stuff like that. It's just for the shake of good music.
RockOverdose: Has this project come to stay?
Maik Weichert (Heaven Shall Burn): Yes, it will be more stuff!
RockOverdose: Mentioning the charts, I think is the first time that HSB entered the german charts on top positions. Would you like to comment on that?
Maik Weichert (Heaven Shall Burn): Yes that's true! Today chart positions are not so important any more if you aren't at the top. If you're number one then it's something, but if you're number 2 nobody gives a fuck. That's the thing, if you negociate about playing positions and all that shit going on in the music business, they always tell you yeah, but they always tell you you don't have it, but you once have it people leave you alone and that's ok.
RockOverdose: What about the future of HSB? Any new material on the works?
Maik Weichert (Heaven Shall Burn): We are working on new material actually. Later next year there will be a new album, I'm pretty possitive.
RockOverdose: Thank you very much Maik! It's been a great pleasure to speak with you. See you soon end of June at Release Athens Festival! Wish you all the best!
Maik Weichert (Heaven Shall Burn):Thank you very much! It was a very nice chat! See you soon!
For RockOverdose,
Vivi Zapantiotou
Questions: Angelos Katsouras
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