Zur deutschen Version geht es hier.
Want more Rockharz? Check out the reports on Day 1, Day 2, Day 3 and Day 4.
When I prepare for a festival such as Rockharz, I listen to each and every band in order to decide which I want to interview. When I listened to the first tunes of Hamartia by TRIBULATION, I was immediately captivated. They were the first band that I contacted this year and, coincidentally, the first band to confirm the interview! Match made in heaven (or hell)? Doubtful… But I cherished it nevertheless and their live set was so perfect that I loved my choice even more. Read now about which otherworldly topics guitarist Adam Zaars and I talked about! So much beforehand: Sadly, we have to wait a bit longer for a new album!
Huge thanks to lightinmirror.de for these amazing pictures! You made it really hard for me to chose pictures!
Shieldmaiden’s Voice: If you had to describe TRIBULATION’s musical style in three words, which would you choose?
Adam Zaars: „Metal“ would be the first one! „Dark“ would be the second one and… I’m almost saying a lot of things, but I keep coming back to „Open-minded“…
SV: It’s hyphenated, so technically it counts!
Adam: Yes, exactly! So: Metal, dark and open-minded!
SV: What would you say inspires your music the most?
Adam: The will to create!
SV: This year, you released an EP called Hamartia. What distinguishes this work from your previous releases?
Adam: The obvious thing is that we have a new guitar player that also contributed to the songwriting: Joseph Tholl. Lyrically it differs from what we have done in the past. We always tried to stay away from worldly or political matters of any kind and we still kind of do that. On this EP it’s more allegorical in the sense of every-day-affairs, but shrouded in religious and symbolic language. That is different from what we did before!
SV: I find it interesting that you say that you try to keep away from worldly matters. Would you say that the pandemic has had an influence on you as artists?
Adam: In one way, it very much had an influence: We couldn’t play live. The entire industry went to a halt and now everything is more expensive since we have inflation. That is the obvious thing and it affected and affects everyone, including us. Creatively, I don’t know really. Except for not going out and playing live, my life pretty much stayed the same during the pandemic. On a creative level it didn’t do much.
SV: Which themes or topics do you always want to convey to the listeners?
Adam: We never have a message and we never want to tell the people what to think or what to do. As I mentioned before, we always try to keep it otherworldly to some extent and to keep it in some occult sphere. If anything, it’s hopefully making people more patient with everything and preventing them from relying too much on the modern world. Sometimes people complain about the long intros and we try to ignore that. If we want to do a 2min intro, then we’re doing that. Making them patient and maybe have them read a book while listening to us is something we could achieve with our style!
SV: You’ve been around as a band for quite some time already. Do you feel pressured to succeed even more with each new release?
Adam: Yes and no. When we write music, we rarely let the outside world interfere with whatever we’re doing. We are not letting expectations get to us. There is also the side to it that we’re participating in something and people do have their expectations. While there is some pressure, we honestly try to ignore it as much as we can and focus on making something that we think and feel is high-quality music. Sometimes that is difficult, but most of the times we manage quite well!
SV: How has your creative process changed over the years, especially now that you have a new guitar player, as you mentioned earlier?
Adam: We have only done this one EP with Joseph, which are only three new songs if you don’t count the cover we did. In a way it’s too early to tell. I imagine it will stay pretty much the same. In the past, our former guitar player, Jonathan Hultén, and I shared the writing and composing duties for the band. We did our things on our end and then came together to give each other feedback. While it probably won’t change much, this time around we worked a bit more closely with each other on this EP. If there is any difference, that would be it.
SV: What are goals that you want to achieve with the band in the future?
Adam: We want to continue growing as a live band and, to be honest, it’s also your goal to gain a bigger audience because we want to do more than we were able to do so far. In order to be able to realize that, we need a bigger budget and we also have to pay people to work for us. It’s a true goal to make the show we want to do.
SV: What do you have planned in the near future in order to make that happen?
Adam: Ah, well, just another album. Same old, same old [we laugh]. But really, we gotta take it one step at a time. At the moment, a new album really is the only focus. Who knows what’s gonna happen until then.
SV: Are there maybe any interesting tour dates that you’re going to have?
Adam: Not in the near future. We’re going to Mexico in September which is going to be fun. But other than that… We’re hopefully recording the album in November or December and there will be a festival summer after that. A tour is like over a year into the future.
SV: But you’re going to support GHOST, are you not?
Adam: Yes, that’s the show in Mexico!
SV: Are you excited about that?
Adam: Yes, absolutely! Mexico is awesome and to be able to support GHOST there will be amazing. The show was sold-out in like an hour, so I’m very much looking forward to that. It’s gonna be incredible! Mexico City is exciting and playing a show like that there is huge.
SV: If there is something that you could wish for for the band, what would it be?
Adam: I suppose, as I said earlier, it’s to become an even bigger live band. We’re very secure with the albums and they get great reviews and we’re very spoilt when it comes to that. We even got awards and all that, but we would love to do bigger shows. It would be amazing if more people would hear and love our music.
SV: If you could give the fans, you do have, all over the world, one message, what would it be?
Adam: Stay true to yourself!
Let me tell you: If there is one band, out of all the bands I interviewed during Rockharz, that is worthy of some really excessive fan love, the it’s TRIBULATION! Make sure to check out their awesome merch! We got ourselves some Hamartia shirts and the artwork is seriously amazing!
While we already got through four of my interviews, we still have seven more to come. So stay tuned!
Shieldmaiden's Voice 