TIMELESS RAGE: "When going to concerts, I see many extremely good, young musicians and significantly more women on stage than a few years ago"
While travelling around the world, one should still not forget to keep an eye on the music scene at home. Funnily enough, it was a friend from the US who recommended this band located just around the corner (at least from my point of view ;-) So our next stop is in South Germany, where we meet with all members of symphonic powermetal act TIMELESS RAGE.
Band-Links: WEBSITE / TWITTER / INSTAGRAM / FACEBOOK
They released their amazing debut album "Untold" on February 25th, 2022, welcome to learn more about them here:
Thanks for making time to answer my questions today. Could you please introduce yourselves and TIMELESS RAGE to our readers?
Mace: We are a six-piece symphonic powermetal band from the Black Forest, Germany. The driving rhythms are built up by Klaus on drums and myself on bass, our guitarists Michel and Christian provide heaviness and melodies, Anna makes things epic with her keys and orchestration, and Frank delivers the lead vocals. When it comes to the backing vocals and choirs, we’re all in.
You just released your debut album "Untold". How do you feel about it, and how was the reception so far?
Klaus: It's a really good feeling to finally have finished the album, as it was an important milestone for the band after many backlashs. So far, the feedback has been very positive, both from our listeners and the press. The reviews are around 8/10, and almost everyone names a different song as the "best" track. We're very flattered, and grateful for the amazing feedback.
That's awesome, and well-deserved :-) Let's take a look at the enchanting cover artwork as well as the booklet with its detailed design: What can you tell us about its origins, and how does it reflect the album thematically?
Anna: You can see some of our songs being visualized on the cover: The galaxy in the background stands for "Far from Home", the water for "Ocean Twilight", lava and clouds for "2 Elements", and inside the book, the lyrics of "Untold" are written. I created the cover myself, Simon Bossert made the final touches and the booklet, in which you can find one picture for each song. "Disunity" for example is represented by a masked demon that fits to the line "you're a devil in disguise", or the "Warrior" is kneeling in front of his sword.
Could you dive a bit into the album's topics with us please?
Frank: We didn't write a concept album here but selected songs that harmonize well, and still show a rather broad picture of us. The lyrics have a wide variety of topics - from dealing with loss or the end of a toxic relationship to space travelling and personal turning points, everything is there.
Musically speaking, you're strongly rooted in power / symphonic metal. Where do you see your main influences?
Michel: That's not so easy to say... Taking a look at our favorite bands reveals a pretty wild mix from dark and evil to happy metal. An overlapping of these idols and strong influences can be found in two or three members, but I doubt that we sound like Symphony X or Hammerfall for example, just because some of us like to listen to them.
The most common denominator is our love to music which brings melodies and harmonies together with atmosphere and heaviness. If you throw all these ingredients into one pot and stir well, the result is TIMELESS RAGE.
And it's delicious ;-) Could you briefly describe your songwriting / recording process please?
Christian: The writing process can be very different: Sometimes Klaus has an idea for a story and Anna transforms it with some orchestration, trying to tell it musically. Another song might start with a guitar riff or a vocal melody. As a next step, I take care of the pre-production and we sharpen the raw ideas, searching for sounds and arrangements that underline them emotionally. Since there are so many of us, different snippets are added little by little until they have evolved into a full song.
Regarding the recordings, we do the instrumental and choir parts ourselves in the rehearsal room or at home, and I put everything together to a great whole. Frank prefers to go to Bazement Studio for his final vocals, where Markus Teske also did the mixing and mastering for "Untold" and refined the songs.
“Untold” is your debut album, but you’ve been around for a while already. So let's make a little time trip please: When and how did you get together?
Klaus: Actually, the roots of TIMELESS RAGE even go back to 2008, when I founded the band together with guitarist Sebastian Kunze. Musically speaking, we sounded a bit darker back then. Things really took off in 2012, when Anna and Michel, two more musicians from the current line-up, helped to shape our sound - that's why we prefer to call 2012 the real founding year of TIMELESS RAGE.
After our first EP in 2013, "Forecast", we had some cool gigs, and also worked on new songs for an album. Several line-up changes slowed us down for a long time, but when Mace, Christian and Frank came aboard, the album project gained speed again.
How did you come up with your name, and is there a deeper meaning behind "Timeless Rage" for you?
Klaus: Our guitarist at the time, Sebi, really wanted to have a "Rage" in our name, but since we are not just "Rage", and Peavy Wagner was simply there before us ;-) we were looking for something epic that would also express the melodic component. We disagreed for a long time, so one day I opened an English dictionary, closed my eyes, and randomly pointed at a word: "Timeless". Since we all liked it, TIMELESS RAGE was born...
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That's awesome :-) You talked about some cool shows before - What was your most memorable so far?
Mace: My first gig with TIMELESS RAGE comes straight to mind in this context: I was barely a few weeks in when we went to play at the Börsencrash Festival, together with Masterplan and Paragon. There was an amazing atmosphere in front of, on, and behind the stage that night - What a great start!
For metal fans worldwide, Germany is well known for being the home of many great rock and metal bands. How would you describe your local music scene, and is there anything special about it? And did you notice changes over the past few years?
Christian: In the Black Forest region, there is a tendency to darker and harder sounds actually, we have a lot of black, (melodic) death and thrash metal acts here. You can find this direction in our songs as well, sometimes music-wise (like in "Piece of Heaven" or "Breathless"), sometimes more lyrically ("Ocean Twilight"). But we also try to play with contrasts and bring together complete opposites (as for "Warrior" or "Far from Home") - Symphonic powermetal fortunately allows a lot of variety.
When going to concerts, I see many extremely good, young musicians and significantly more women on stage than a few years ago. I think YouTube has contributed a lot to this, as musicians can easily learn from the best now, and also by spreading the word that metal has nothing to do with genetics.
Indeed. What can you tell us about your future plans?
Michel: We want to continue writing songs that we like, and when it can be planned again, playing a lot more concerts. Anyway, there will be more life signs from us than in the past years.
Band-Links: WEBSITE / TWITTER / INSTAGRAM / FACEBOOK
Looking forward to this. Before we wrap things up, is there anything else you'd like to add here?
Anna: We want to thank you for your support, and of course everyone who has read the interview up to this point.
Was my great pleasure :-) All the best for you and your musical plans \m/