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They gave us the Bard’s Song, they belted out Mirror, Mirror with us and took us to Valhalla. I’m obviously talking about BLIND GUARDIAN! These icons of the (German) Metal scene have influenced the musical taste of whole generations of fans and it was a true honor to be allowed to conduct this interview with Hansi Kürsch! Read now how the singer manages to stay true to himself and what special thoughts he had on the song Destiny!
Huge thanks to lightinmirror.de for the amazing pictures!
Shieldmaiden’s Voice: What makes BLIND GUARDIAN unique?
Hansi Kürsch: I think it’s the intensity and the credibility with which we do music. In addition, there is the innovation, which actually has not come to a stop yet. It’s not that we have to strain ourselves to find something new within our field. Besides all these points, we are also very curious and somewhat down-to-earth.
SV: Last year you released The God Machine. How is this album different from your previous releases?
Hansi Kürsch: It’s on point and there are a lot of people who say it has a lot of throwbacks, especially to the 90s. That’s true too, but it has a very modern feel to it at the same time. I don’t think anyone would say it’s an oldschool album, even though people compare it to the 90s. There’s also nothing retro about the way we construct songs. In and of itself, every song we make is a Unicum. We don’t have any set patterns and we leave a lot to chance in songwriting. On the other hand, we are very focused and critical of ourselves. People will get a high quality album, which they are used to from us – at least I hope they are used to it – but it’s a consistent, well thought-out development of our music.
SV: We’re just coming out of a pandemic. Which influence did that have on the creative processes behind this album?
Hansi Kürsch: First and foremost, it gave us more time in the production. We were able to polish it a bit more than we did with the past albums. We always give the albums quite a lot of time and we are also very focused when working on them and with this album we have just been given an extra year, if you wanted to look at it positively. But I think the energy is different. We definitely let the frustration shine through in the music. You can tell that there’s a band on fire on the one hand and that there’s a certain frustration on the other.
SV: Would you say that this makes it more worthwhile to listen to?
Hansi Kürsch: I think it would have been worth listening to as it is! But it’s very homogeneous and we had this time to think more about it and in such a phase you certainly think more about what you want to express or if you want to have something on the album that maybe isn’t absolutely necessary and if you really focus on the things that do the songs good.
SV: If you compare the time now with your early days, the scene has grown tremendously and there are so many artists. How do you manage to stay true to yourselves, in light of the fact that there are so many other offers for the fans?
Hansi Kürsch: That’s not an easy question to answer, because everyone deals with it a bit differently. I write most of the songs together with André and he tries to ignore or keep away from all new musical influences. I think that you can be inspired by everything, and that includes new and maybe old music. If you know yourself and know how to deal with new experiences, and have these new experiences in the first place, you always have the possibility to stand out from the rest and incorporate the new universes into your creations up to a certain point. You don’t become a copy or a clone just because of that. This will never happen with us, because everyone in the band is so capable of criticism that we also react very sensitively when we have the feeling that we are too close to METALLICA, for example, or anyone else. Because we do very individual songwriting despite everything, which is improved or refined in the band as a collective, we never have the danger that the focus is too much on one person who could determine the way too much. We can assimilate almost anything, to put it in Star Trek terms. It will always bear our stamp and in that is how we remain true to ourselves.
SV: You briefly mentioned your inspirations. What are your most important inspirations for your music?
Hansi Kürsch: Hard to say… Sometimes it’s the stuff I listen to. I listen a lot to the old stuff from GENESIS and PETER GABRIEL. That doesn’t help me so much musically for BLIND GUARDIAN, but the approach helps me anyway. If I don’t know what to do, which doesn’t happen that often because many things come from an impulse, then I ask myself the question „What would person XY do with this?“ Sometimes the penny drops and a melange emerges that nevertheless sounds more like me. We have a number on the new record called Destiny. I’ve never communicated that and it has no relevance to the others, but there are various verses in that song where I asked myself that very question! I literally asked myself, „What would Geddy Lee [RUSH] do?“. It has nothing to do with Geddy Lee, I sing completely different, the music is completely different, but I’ve heard from a few people that the number sounds like RUSH or if we were inspired by RUSH. So you can tell, but it doesn’t feel like it’s forced. It’s still something new!
SV: So you really assimilated it!
Hansi Kürsch: Yes, I assimilated it!
SV: You’re also going on this tour. Is there ever a point at which you’re going to have enough or where you just don’t feel like doing this anymore?
Hansi Kürsch: No! When we started, my thought processes in this regard were not age-based at all and it was kind of assumed that within 10 years you go to the top of the Metal world, you’re a Rock Star and I wouldn’t have thought about what would have come after the 10 years. Not that we had a timeline or anything, but it was a certain self-image, because otherwise you don’t have to start making music professionally if you don’t believe in it like that. For us it took a lot longer and maybe it wasn’t enough to get to the top, but we got relatively far. There was also a very long time when none of us had any thoughts about the time and the coming years. Then at some point in the middle we had a discussion about how long we were going to do this, but for the last 15 years no one has thought about that. I sometimes think about my age now and then think how it is to still have to sing certain songs in 10 years… I won’t be 70 then, but I’ll be well past 60 and maybe you have to change the concept a bit then. But so far, I don’t know what to do then…
SV: Maybe put a chair on stage?
Hansi Kürsch: [laughs] The chair on stage is one thing, but the other is the basic energy that the music demands from you. If the guitarists were to play sitting down, then nothing would come across. You would lose a lot of the energy. It’s no different for me. Of course, we want to continue for a long time and see if we can make more moderate music at some point that will still fit.
SV: Unfortunately we are already coming to the end and therefore now the last question: If you could wish one thing for the future of BLIND GUARDIAN, what would it be?
Hansi Kürsch: Dass wir so zusammenbleiben, wie wir das momentan machen und dass wir noch viele Jahre lang Musik machen können. Dass der Austausch mit den Fans so bleibt, wie er ist und dass wir nicht nochmal erleben müssen, dass Festivals und Konzerte verboten sind. Das würde ich mir für BLIND GUARDIAN und die Welt wünschen. Und noch, dass die Menschen wieder zueinander finden und den Spaß, den man bei so einem Festival hat, mit ins Leben nehmen!
If that’s not a great closing statement, I don’t know what is. It’s always a real pleasure to talk to such talented icons as Hansi Kürsch is! Now that we’ve had two Power Metal interviews, it’s time for a little change of pace, don’t you think? Check back the day after tomorrow for another of my highlights!
Shieldmaiden's Voice 