Primal Fear Exclusive: Angels In Black
Blake Kuehn, Contributor
Thursday, May 24, 2001 03:19 PM
Exclusive Interview With Ralf Scheepers: German Metal Commandoes
Set World Aflame With Their Nuclear Fire!
In 1849, a German historian wrote “the power or weakness of Germany determines the fate of Europe.” Often
lauded as orchestrating the events that led to the unification of the German state, a reconciliation with Austria
and strategic alliances with Italy and Austria, Otto Von Bismark, and the German state he created, have long
been recognized as important factors in the international stability that characterized the last quarter of the 19th
Century.
So what does this have to do with heavy metal you ask? Plenty. Much like Bismark’s political accomplishments
and contributions to the international community, no one can deny the prominent and important role Germany
has historically played the past two and a half decades in the world of heavy metal. Starting with the Scorpions
in the mid to latter half of the '70s and continuing throughout the '80s with bands that pushed the metal envelope
like Destruction, Sodom, Kreator, and Helloween, Germany continues to proudly wave the flag in the name of
heavy metal.
So it’s no wonder that a band like
Primal Fear is able to easily carry
on the German tradition of creating
no-holds-barred heavy metal that consistently dominates the European scene by drawing in thousands during
the summer festivals like Germany’s Wacken Open Air and the Gods Of Metal Open Air in Sweden. With their
first American show ever at the New Jersey Metal Meltdown and an upcoming appearance at the Milwaukee
Metalfest, Primal Fear remain poised to assault U.S. audiences with their fiery brand of German power metal and
their most recent album Nuclear Fire. Nuclear Fire is a conglomeration of all the quality ingredients that make a
fine metal album. It’s hard, it’s melodic, and it’s everything in between.
I caught up with frontman Ralf Scheepers by phone who gave me the lowdown on the latest with the Metal
Commandoes.
KNAC.COM: Y’all just finished up a stellar showing at the New Jersey Metal Meltdown and are slated to play
the Milwaukee Metalfest. Any chance on hitting the west coast at all?
RALF SCHEEPERS: It’s always been a big dream of ours to come to the west coast. I hear a lot of stories and I’d
like to come over to just enjoy the sun a little bit. Basically, if you get there you go for a couple of days when
you’re on tour and then you leave again. So it’s pretty hard to enjoy anything.
KNAC.COM: Even though Nuclear Fire has been out for a bit already, have y’all started writing material for the
new album?
RALF: Yeah, we’ve already started. We finished the tour and now we’re
starting to rehearse again for the festivals. Of course, everybody is
collecting ideas at home. After the summer’s activities we’ll go back
home and start to rehearse and write the songs together.
KNAC.COM: Nuclear Fire and the two previous albums really illustrate the impact Judas Priest has had on y’all.
Do you find the constant comparisons to Judas Priest and Rob Halford flattering or is it annoying?
RALF: I can tell you now that I’ve been singing for over 20 years now and since I’ve been opening my mouth
singing, everybody has been comparing my singing to Rob Halford’s. It’s a great honor to be compared to one
of the best vocalists in the world, but on the other hand, Primal Fear is a band on its own with five musicians
coming from five different influences. Maybe it’s coincidence that it somehow sounds like Judas Priest at times
but it’s not on purpose.
KNAC.COM: Was there anything y’all wanted to accomplish specifically with Nuclear Fire that y’all hadn’t
previously?
RALF: The thing is when you write something you always sit back
and listen to it again and again and think about it if it’s good
enough. You always have more songs than you have on the CD.
We then have conversations where we sort things out where we
say that these eleven or twelve songs belong to the CD. Of course,
each and every CD you do is a big challenge so it’s always the next
step is the biggest step. So of course we’re concentrating on
writing the best we can.
KNAC.COM: Do you find yourselves focusing on specific themes?
RALF: You know we just write about our lives and maybe some
science fiction stories. We just want to find a thing of
entertainment. We don’t want to bore people with the bad things of
the world. There’s enough coming from the news anyway so we
just write down what we have as personal experiences in our life or, like I said, science fiction stories you know?
KNAC.COM: Do you think consistently focusing on such “metal” themes might be a hindrance?
RALF: No, there are a lot of people out there who crave what we are doing. The
younger generations are listening to this stuff more and more. We found out on our
European tour that younger people were coming to the concerts again and that’s a
pretty good sign.
KNAC.COM: Do you think there’s been a solid musical progression in the three
years since the first album?
RALF: Of course. If you listen to the three albums you can really hear the
progression. We are much more tighter than we were in the beginning. The band
has to find each other. There are five people writing songs, collecting ideas and
putting them together. Everybody is composing.
KNAC.COM: Prior to joining Primal Fear, you recorded three successful albums with ex-Helloween guitarist Kai
Hansen’s Gamma Ray. Why’d you decide to leave?
RALF: The guys wanted me to move up to Hamburg because
Gamma Ray is based in North Germany and I’m coming from South
Germany. I said, “Of course, I’ll come but I’ll have to quit my job so
there has to be something that I can do to make money.” There
wasn’t so there was no offering so I couldn’t do it. Plus the whole
atmosphere in the band wasn’t that good anymore. Kai wanted to
sing again on his own and I had made my application for Judas
Priest. I spoke to the guys and they understood it because they
would have done the same if they were in my position but it’s like
when you have a relationship with a woman and you say you’re
fooling around with her girlfriend. In the end, we just decided to go
separate ways.
KNAC.COM: How far did you get in the auditions for Judas
Priest’s vocalist spot?
RALF: Not far at all. I was waiting for two and a half years to hear,
preparing myself. I actually had a band together covering Priest
songs each and every day almost. Glenn was doing his solo album
so I had to wait again. I got promises that I would be invited but
that never happened. In the end, they sent me a letter that they
found their man and I wouldn’t need to audition.
KNAC.COM: Since you couldn’t quit your day job when you were with Gamma Ray, is Primal Fear at a point
where you can concentrate on the band 100% of the time?
RALF: We could do it as a full-time job but the thing is that it’s
always a step back if you lose the money you get each and every
month because everybody wants to have a car and a flat. It’s not
enough to do it just on the music.
KNAC.COM: What do you think sets Primal Fear’s music apart from
everyone else or, say, Gamma Ray?
RALF: In my opinion it’s much more aggressive. I think Gamma Ray
is pretty much more of the bombastic, the classical stuff and Primal Fear has much more of the balls of rock n’ roll
from heavy metal.
KNAC.COM: Has the fact that bassist Mat Sinner works at Nuclear Blast Germany
helped y’all in any way?
RALF: No it’s changed nothing because he wasn’t working there when we started
at Nuclear Blast. We mad the first demo and sent it to JVC in Japan and had the
contract there first. Then Nuclear Blast was coming to us and said that they wanted
to sign us. Of course there are a lot of things that are going easier for us now that
Mat’s in there.
KNAC.COM: How was Henny’s transition from Sinner into Primal Fear? Was it a
natural fit?
RALF: It was somehow his big dream to play in Primal Fear as well. We sat down with him and he said that
Sinner wasn’t going that well for him anymore. We were searching for a substitute so it was very easy to take
him into Primal Fear because he wanted to do it and likes the things we were doing.
KNAC.COM: Since you primarily focus on the European touring market, are y’all trying to do anything special to
reach more U.S. audiences that you can’t reach by touring?
RALF: Hopefully in the future we can do a small tour and of course this can lead to bigger tours down the road.
