RAGE – Victor Smolski

www.rage-on.de
www.victorsmolski.de

Not to be confused with the famous Australian music video program of the same name or the latest FPS epic by Doom mastermind, John Carmack.

RAGE are a three piece heavy metal band who hail from Germany. Since 1984 Rage have consistently put out amazing albums, expanding upon the elements of speed, power and thrash metal. This year celebrates the release of the band’s 21st album. Ironically called ’21’.

Metal Obsession’s Anwar Rizk had the pleasure to speak with Victor Smolski; multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer and Russian race car driver extraordinaire. We discussed the dynamics of Rage’s new album, ’21’ and its dark overtones.

Metal Obsession: Rage’s new album, ’21’ sounds amazing. Could you tell us a little about how it all came together?

Victor Smolski: The new album’s sound is very dynamic. It has a mix of both our typical heavy metal sounds, but we included an orchestral sound which I like a lot. We introduced a lot of new elements into the mix. We found that our fans like out heavier songs, but there is a mixture of fans who like the orchestral elements as well. We decided to merge the two together on ’21’ and I think it came out pretty well. I was able to include a lot of orchestral elements into the mix which help give the album a good dynamic. I’m looking forward to playing these songs live when we tour because there so great to play.

Recording and tracking segments from the ’21’ recording sessions.

MO: Did you find the process of ’21’ much different to ‘Strings to a Web’?

VS: Not really. There was a lot of talk about the arrangement of songs with the orchestral sound. I usually don’t like recording demos.

I’m not a fan of home recordings and so forth. When a song comes to me, I want to jam straight away with Peavy and Andre and see if it works. This album is very rudimentary. We know what we like and want. The orchestral parts we wanted, we put together ourselves. Its not as easy as you think though. [laughs]

MO: There is alot of dark tones on ’21’. I assume it wasn’t the most fun process to be writing about so much negativity?

VS: Yeah…[laughs]. Normally we just have a lot of fun, but this is how Peavy works. This album has a very dark tone which suites Peavy’s lyrics really well. One of the songs, ‘Forever Dead’ deals with Peavy’s relationship with his father. He had a very tough relationship with his father and this is just a way for him to express himself. Its a very personal album with a lot of private lyrics.

Peavy likes to express himself through music. There are also a lot of songs on the album that deal with a lot of true events. Songs like ‘Death Romantic’ and ‘Serial Killer’ are based on real events. Again, its very dark and real. But that’s not to say we have dull and boring lives filled with tough times. We just love what we do and we hope everyone else does as well. This is just the concept we were going for on the album. But we all had fun making it which is the most important thing.

MO: The story behind ‘Death Romantic’ is quite bizarre. Its about an arranged suicide of three girls on Facebook. Is that right?

VS: Yeah! We heard about it on MTV. Stories like this have been around for a while on the internet and its crazy to see what goes on Facebook sometimes. Its scary to think that someone you meet on Facebook could be so innocent, yet after you get to know that person, they turn into animals. The internet is an interesting place. A lot of crazy stuff goes on. A lot of bullshit and dangerous stuff seems to be a constant thing when it comes to the internet.

I mean the internet is a useful tool, but it scary to think what some people use it for. Especially when kids are involved. Some people essentially use the the internet to fulfill a crazy fantasy. I think both parents and kids should be careful when using it.

MO: A couple of months ago. An Australian newspaper [Herald Sun] posted an article, stating that heavy metal music is a catalyst for depression, anxiety and suicide. Being in a heavy metal band yourself and speaking out about these issues. It must frustrate you to hear something like this?

VS: You know. First of all, its a very stupid way of thinking towards something. I don’t understand the people who post this kind of stuff. Its completely idiotic. I hate all these kinds of sensationalized stories in the media. It builds up a lot of frustration because the people who write these articles don’t necessary understand the music. I mean when we play live, its a very positive experience. People have fun and we see it as a good way of experiencing life.

I think a lot of people just feel threatened by heavy metal music because they don’t understand it. I mean we always tell our fans that whatever happens in your life, never give up and just enjoy the time you have. Heavy metal, especially, is a great way to meet new people because you’re constantly surrounded by people who like the same music you do. You can share that experience with so many people and heavy metal is just a great experience all together. To me, life is really great. I say, just ignore what these people say about heavy metal music because its meant to be enjoyed.

[Editors notes: Click here to read the full newspaper article.]

MO: I think a lot of these people are very general when it comes to something like heavy metal. I guess they only want to see what they believe to be true. What is essentially based on tradition and insecurity.

VS: Yeah! That’s exactly right.

MO: Having worked with Charlie Bauerfeind for so long. Do you trust his judgement?

VS: Yeah. I’ve worked with Charlie for the last 10 or so years. We’ve done about 8 albums with him and its always been a perfect team. He’s really great at what he does and he always knows what we want from the production side of things. For me, to produce an album is very easy because I can concentrate on what I really want out of an album.

We have all found a perfect relationship with Charlie because he knows us so well. When we have an idea, we can always bring it to him and 100% of the time he’ll know exactly what we want. Its very easy to communicate with him, because he knows exactly what I want. From start to finish he does an amazing job, plus his a really nice guy too.

MO: RAGE seem to be the only band these days (with a few minor exceptions) to release an album every 2 – 3 years. Have you found it difficult to keep up with this demand when most bands these days gather greater success from fewer releases?

VS: Yes, its become very difficult at times. I mean for RAGE,  its been almost 28 years and this is our 21st album. We don’t necessarily listen to what other bands are doing and say “Lets do that!”. We don’t have pressure from our record company to release something when they tell us too. We do it because we enjoy playing music. RAGE will always be like this, no matter what.

I mean every album we release is different. The fans always find something new on each album. Take ‘Speak of the Dead’ for example. We always try to find something interesting to put on every album we make. We don’t look at RAGE as a job, we look at it as something more fulfilling. I guess that’s why we have so many ideas, you know? [laughs]

Suite Lingua Mortis’ taken from Speak of the Dead. Performed with a full orchestral at Wacken Open Air in 2007.

I like that we don’t have pressure from anyone. We can do what we like, the way we like it and not think to much as a business. I think its the wrong way to go about it when you have a deadline and only want to make the record company happy and totally forget about how you feel about everything. Again, we don’t think of the band as a business. We play music because we enjoy it.

MO: Any chance of RAGE making it to Australia for the upcoming ’21’ tour?

VS: To be honest it hasn’t been discussed yet and there hasn’t been much interest for a tour from promoters, as of yet. We hope to make it down to Australia one day because its a place we have yet to tour. I really hope ’21’ gets a lot of peoples attention and gives us the opportunity to come down and play for you guys.

I see a lot of Australian’s come to Europe to see RAGE play, so I do know we have fans down in Australia. Whenever we meet up with out fans after shows, we always seem to bump into Australian’s and they ask us to tour the country all the time. I’m hoping we can make some contacts this time and organise a tour because it would be great to come down to Australia.

We have a lot of tours coming up soon. We will play in Europe for a couple of months then head to Japan. We will also go to Russia and South America and a few summer festivals. We will be touring a lot, so we hope to come down to Australia during the upcoming tour.

RAGE‘s new album, ’21’ will be available via Nuclear Blast Records on February 24th, 2011. – www.nuclearblast.de/en

A local release via Riot! Entertainment will soon follow. – www.riotact.com.au

You can get a free copy of the debut single, ’21’ via the link below.
RAGE – Twenty One (Download)