Eluveitie – Chrigel Glanzmann

Swiss folk metallers, ELUVEITIE are just over half way through their world tour in support of their fantastic fifth album Helvetios, a touring cycle that is about to include a lot of firsts for the band including making the journey to Australian shores along with China for the first time.

Metal Obsession.net had the pleasure of speaking with ELUVEITIE lead vocalist and founding member Chrigel in the lead up to this tour.

Metal Obsession: As is the first time for Eluveitie visiting Australian shores; what can we expect set list wise from this tour and what are you looking forward to most about visiting here?

Chrigel Glanzmann: To answer your first question, we’re basically a death metal band, but of course our music also contains traditional Celtic elements. I think the thing worth seeing at an Eluveitie concert is that everything is handmade. We’re 8 people onstage and we come up with a whole bunch of traditional/historical instruments. I mean what you hear on an Eluveitie record is what you get at an Eluveitie show really. Of course we are extremely looking forward to coming to Australia also, especially as none of us have ever been there before. We are very curious and cannot wait to get down there.

MO: Will you get much free time to take in the sites while you’re here?

CG: No, unfortunately not. I mean sometimes that happens on tour. Unfortunately there’s not much time to look around. Maybe next time!

MO: Are there any Australian bands that you are familiar within the say Death Metal/Folk Metal Genres.

CG: Ahh that is a very good question! Of course there are Australian bands I’m familiar with, but in terms of the heavier genres, not so much. There is a Christian Death Metal band called Mortification from Australia, which I remember. They were signed to the same label that we are today I believe.

MO: Most overseas bands have a challenge when it comes to the logistical side of things of touring places like Australia. I can imagine a band such as Eluveitie were you have 8 members onstage not including any of the road crew, it can be even more difficult however. I’m assuming that this would also be a challenge even when it comes to touring places like North America, etc also. How do you deal with these kinds of things in such a large band?

CG: Well, to be honest- I mean to the band itself it’s not that much of a challenge. It was a couple of years ago certainly I remember. If you’re a band working together on a professional level, that is something you have to learn anyways, it doesn’t matter if you have three members or ten members, you have to learn to work and live together anyways. That’s what we are and that’s what we do. In that terms it’s actually not much of a challenge though, we’ve been a band for such a long time now, so these kinds of things seem to get easier over time. Logistically of course it is a challenge (laughs). I mean of course, if you come to places like Australia, it does make quite a difference if you have to pay for three flight tickets as opposed to eight flight tickets.

MO: Yeah, we’re not exactly close or cheap to access from Switzerland either that is for sure!

CG: The same goes for touring in general, many metal tours today, the tour buses are shared between 2 bands, crew, etc, which is kind of impossible for Eleuvitie having 8 members. So to answer your question, it is a challenge but really only in logistical nature.

MO: The latest album Helvetios has been out for over a year now. How has the reaction to this album been both worldwide and back at home now that the dust has settled on this album?

CG: To be honest, it has been incredibly well received. Usually when we release an album we actually don’t have any expectations, basically because, what’s the point. Nobody knows the future; we just release an album and see what happens. When we released Helvetious over a year ago now though, what happened after the release is actually way beyond what we could have ever dreamed of. It was really well received and entered the charts, much higher than what we would have ever thought possible.

MO: Was that at home in Switzerland or elsewhere also?

CG: Yeah, it was pretty much everywhere. It was our first album to enter the US Billboard Charts and it charted well in lots of places in Europe as well. Switzerland in particular was quite crazy as it entered the main charts at number four, which was kind of mind blowing to us, as I don’t think that had happened before in Swiss music history.

We do of course have a lot of melody in our music, but after all it’s still extreme metal with screaming vocals. Usually that kind of music does not enter the charts at such a high rank. It was pretty weird to see, I don’t remember exactly but I think rank one was Lady Gaga, two was Eminem and three was something like Amy Macdonald and then it was Eluveitie and we were all like what the fuck? How did that happen! [Laughs].

MO: It’s always refreshing to see the heavier styles of music charts so well, especially when the charts are so dominated by pop music of the time.

CG: Oh yeah, of course. It’s actually really much more than we expected. We started the Helvetios world tour basically at the same time as we released the album. So we’ve been touring with this album for more than a year now and also the reactions of the live crowd have been very good also. I believe the songs from this album are good live songs I think; well they’re fun to play anyways (laughs).

MO: I understand the concept behind the Helvetios album is based around the Gaulish Wars. Can you please elaborate further on this concept?

CG: Sure, yeah. Maybe first I have to say what Eluveitie is about in general, which is basically a narration of history. It has been like that on all of our albums, we’re basically just stealing from the ancient cultures of where we come from, which would be the Gauls or Celtic people. Celtic is basically another word for Gaul, pretty much the same thing.

What we are doing with the lyrics is a narration of Celtic history and culture. The last album focuses particularly about the Gaulish wars which was a very dark chapter in Celtic history , but never the less despite how sad it is, it is also a very important chapter in our fore fathers history. The story is of a war that happened around 2000 years ago. To put it in short, it is a story of the Roman Empire invading free Gallia; it was quite a long war that lasted nearly 10 years.

The Celtic tribes were a free people that did not belong to any kind of imperial force, they were not organised centrally either, there was not like one Celtic super power or anything like that. Every single tribe was in on its own and taking after their own duties. One day there was the Roman Empire, which was an imperial force and constantly expanding their empire and they decided one day to invade the Celtic lands, what happened afterwards was a war that lasted nearly 10 years, this is the story the album tells, it’s not a very bright story actually.

MO: It is quite an interesting subject and probably quite a fitting story for a death metal band to tell also. The Gaulish wars are not something we people from Australia are perhaps overly familiar with however. Is this a subject that you were taught in school or did you happen to gain interest in this subject elsewhere.

CG: Yeah, sure. To be honest, I’ve never actually thought of it that way though. We are basically just narrating Celtic history because it means a lot to us. It is our own history and of course we learn those kinds of things in school, but it something we all took a deep interest in outside of schooling also.

MO: I’m sure with the status and many people like the band; it also helps to make more people interested in Celtic history too.

CG: Maybe yeah, to be honest though and without wanting to sound ignorant or anything, I don’t really care if they do either. When I’m writing the lyrics, it is a topic that means a lot to me personally and I’m basically writing them for me personally.

If people are interested in them and like them, sure that’s a bonus and I appreciate that, but it’s not really why I write that kind of lyrics. I also don’t see music as a medium to transport any kind of message or whatever either. I don’t want to preach anything at anybody. I mean you go to a heavy metal show to band your head off and have a good time and not to learn or something (laughs).

MO: [Laughs] Yeah that is completely understandable. So what does the future hold for Eluveitie over the next 12 months or even beyond?

CG:[Laughs] I don’t know that. Do you know the future? If so I have a few questions for you!

MO: [laughs] No I’m afraid; sadly I do not possess such powers! Allow me to re-phrase that one if I may. Are there any major touring or album plans for the band over the next 12 months?

CG: As you mentioned earlier, we started the touring cycle for Helvetios over a year ago now and this album touring cycle will keep us on the road until September this year I believe, so after that it will be nearly a 2 year world tour.

Once that is done in September, we’ll have a break for touring for a couple of months and this is also when we will start working on the next album. I have actually started working on the concept for this next album during this tour already; I’m working on it right now. So after September we’ll start working on these songs for the release.

MO: The only time I’ve ever been able to see you guys before happened to be on the pool deck stage at last year’s 70,000 tons of Metal Cruise. The cruise itself was quite a unique floating festival, but is there any other shows that strike you as being similarly unique, memorable or out of the norm, compared to that of perhaps a regular Eluveitie show, that you have played either previously or since these shows?

CG: Those shows you speak of on 70,000 tons were absolutely amazing. It was a fantastic time and I can speak for all of us on that one. That was a completely unique and memorable experience for us no doubt. To answer your question though, about 2-3 years ago we played a headline show in India, which was probably the craziest show we have ever had and was also very unique. It was a show played in front of a very mixed crowd, there was an entire section for people of Muslim beliefs, lots of Military and the whole stage was built out of bamboo. Never the less, it was quite a big show. I don’t know the exact numbers but it was something like 20,000-25,000. It was quite amazing and I can safely say I had never played on a bamboo stage before then [laughs].

MO: I’ve watched some videos that you’ve posted on the EluTV Channel on YouTube of late and it seems like that you’ve visited or about to visit some interesting areas including South America and China as part of this world tour. The videos are all quite interesting also, is there anyone in the band in particular who looks after this YouTube channel and handles the updates?

CG: Yeah, we’re going to China straight after Australia and it will be our first time there also.

MO: I’m sure they will be quite unique and memorable shows in their own right.

CG: Oh yeah, I believe so. [Laughs]. In answer to your question though, it’s pretty much all of us that have something to do with EluTV. Unfortunately we’re not always available to update it as often and regular as we’d like to though, but we try to be as active on there as possible. To be honest it’s actually the same with our website and Facebook, it’s all run by us.

Basically the reason is we want to be close to our fans, we are here today because of our fans, and they gave the opportunity to be where we are today. We believe that is something no band should ever forget and it is that reason, that we try to be interactive with our fans, running things like video blogs and running our own Facebook page. If people write us a message, they will get an answer by a member of the band. They might have to wait a while, because there are quite a lot of messages but they will get a response from an actual band member eventually.

MO: Do you have anything you would like to sign off on before we are able to see you guys in action on Australian soil next month?

CG: Well from me, thanks very much for the interview and we all want to thank everybody for taking an interest in Eluveitie and all of our fans. We honestly cannot wait to get down there and are looking forward to this tour a lot!

ELUVEITIE touring Australia this May. Tickets on sale now via Metropolis Touring.

Thursday 23rd
Brisbane
The Zoo
BOOK YOUR TICKETS

Friday 24th
Melbourne
Billboard
BOOK YOUR TICKETS

Saturday 25th
Sydney
Metro Theatre
BOOK YOUR TICKETS

For more information go to: www.metropolistouring.com

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