BLIND GUARDIAN Will Focus On Songwriting For New Album, Other Projects In 2026

In a new interview with Brutal Planet Media, BLIND GUARDIAN frontman Hansi Kürsch spoke about the German power metal band's touring activities in support of 2022's "The God Machine" album. After the interviewer noted that Hansi and his bandmates had spent a lot of time on the road this past summer, Kürsch concurred. "We did far more than we were intending to do," he said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET). "But they forced us with money. We couldn't say no. And at the very end, it was the full summer, without really recognizing it in the first case. And so, yeah, this is the third year in a row where we are touring. And so, yeah, we have to come to an end, and after this [fall], this is the perfect opportunity for us — we do a tiny little show in our hometown [of Krefeld, Germany on December 19] when we get back from the U.S. But this is it then."

Speaking about BLIND GUARDIAN's plans for next year, including a possible follow-up to "The God Machine", Hansi said: "For us, yeah, it's about songwriting and doing the business, which is behind touring and everything. And, yeah, we have neglected a few things, which we have to come up with. We're working on additional projects for BLIND GUARDIAN, such as acoustic albums. This all needs to be somehow fixed and finished in, hopefully, 2026 — if not in '26, then in the beginning of '27, for sure. And then it's about time to go back on the road. But for us, I have to say now this is the longest span of touring we've ever done, because usually we do, like, 12 months, 18 months. And because everything was a little upside down when we started touring [in celebration of the 30th anniversary of] 'Somewhere Far Beyond', this was a longer stretch than expected."

Elaborating on BLIND GUARDIAN's upcoming music-related projects, Hansi said: "We took all the time for the touring, and we did some acoustic improvements on some of the stuff. What we have in mind is doing an acoustic version of [BLIND GUARDIAN's 1998 album] 'Nightfall In Middle-Earth', and that's on a pretty good way. We have accomplished a lot of stuff, but we have to investigate and improve that in the next year."

Hansi went on to say that he and his BLIND GUARDIAN bandmates are always working on band-related stuff, even when they spend long stretches of time at home. "There is always interaction between the members, and we come up with concepts and ideas for how things could go on," he explained. "But the main focus is to survive a tour always. Even if you're at home, the thinking is, 'Okay, how can I improve my physical strength, my health, how can I be mentally in the shape of going to tour again?' And then you have a private life, of course and family. That's what you're spending the rest of the time with. But that is, unfortunately, always very limited."

BLIND GUARDIAN's fall 2025 North American tour is seeing the band bring its celebrated album "Somewhere Far Beyond" to life on stage. The trek kicked off on November 19 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and is making stops in major markets, including New York, Toronto, Chicago, Los Angeles and more, before concluding on December 13 in Los Angeles, California at The Wiltern. Support for the tour is coming from special guests ENSIFERUM and SEVEN KINGDOMS.

Less than two months ago, Hansi spoke about a possible musical direction for BLIND GUARDIAN's next album during an interview with Canada's The Metal Voice. After co-host Jimmy Kay noted that BLIND GUARDIAN's sound and overall production approach couldn't get "much bigger" than it was on some of the group's most recent efforts, Hansi concurred. "Yeah. That was my feeling after '[Twilight Orchestra:] Legacy of The Dark Lands', and I was happy when we went into a direction which we have taken with 'The God Machine', though from the basic songwriting, it was not too far away from 'Beyond The Red Mirror'," he said. "The way we treated it during the production and in the mixing has transformed it into something like a hybrid. This is what I meant when I said, well, 'The God Machine' has a bit of references of what we did in the past. So .. my impression [is that] we shouldn't go further down the road when it comes to orchestration. There will be classical composing, I'm pretty sure, in the future, but we won't take it as far as 'Legacy Of The Dark Lands', at least not in a long time. And, yeah, you know how long it took us to produce and accomplish 'Legacy Of The Dark Lands'. So, I doubt there will be anything like that, but we all feel it is time for the let-your-hair-down stuff. Even though I have to say once we're in the studio, we do not have that much control where the journey is finally leading us. So, that is open to a certain extent, but the passion for, I'd say, easygoing music is there in the band. And we felt encouraged by that also by the touring we did for the last now almost three years. That also fills us up with energy. And once we finish all this touring and we get back to the songwriting, usually there is a bit of this [same kind of] sense in the new songwriting. So I'm quite confident it will be more into such a direction."

In the summer of 2024, Kürsch told MetalMasterKingdom.com about the progress of the songwriting sessions for BLIND GUARDIAN's next studio album: "We started songwriting a while ago, but I think we skipped all the ideas we've had. We do that from time to time, because if the span in between the real songwriting and the ones we did before is so big, then it doesn't make sense to keep on working on these songs because you do not get back into the mode, and so it's better to just put them aside. And some of this stuff really got forgotten over the years, and we never touched it again. So, we will start from scratch zero right now. We are still in the mode of 'live band' [due to all the touring we have done]. So I would expect the next songs to be heavy — heavy and aggressive."

Asked if the next BLIND GUARDIAN album will be musically similar to "The God Machine", Hansi said: "That's difficult to say, because 'The God Machine' is more of a production result than it is in the songwriting itself. The songwriting is not too different from what we did on [2015's] 'Beyond The Red Mirror', but the way we treated the songs in the studio is so different. So the result turns out to be, obviously, differently impressive to people. I would say, yes, we go for individual [songs]. With the lyrics, I am more focused on this than having a conceptual album. When having a conceptual album, you may go musically in one direction also. So we go freestyle."

"The God Machine" was released in September 2022 via Nuclear Blast. The cover artwork for the CD was designed by Peter Mohrbacher.

Prior to "The God Machine"'s arrival, BLIND GUARDIAN's latest release was the all-orchestral album "Twilight Orchestra: Legacy Of The Dark Lands", which came out in November 2019 via Nuclear Blast. To create the concept, lead guitarist André Olbrich and Kürsch worked alongside German bestselling author Markus Heitz, whose novel "Die Dunklen Lande" was released in March 2019. The book is set in 1629 and contains the prequel to "Legacy Of The Dark Lands".

BLIND GUARDIAN's previous "regular" studio album, "Beyond The Red Mirror", was issued in 2015. It was the band's first LP since 2010's "At The Edge Of Time", marking the longest gap between two studio albums in BLIND GUARDIAN's career. It was also the group's first album without bassist Oliver Holzwarth since 1995's "Imaginations From The Other Side".

BLIND GUARDIAN's core trio consists of Kürsch, lead guitarist André Olbrich and rhythm guitarist Marcus Siepen. Drummer Frederik Ehmke has been with the group since 2005, while Dutch bassist Johan Van Stratum joined in 2021.

Drummer Thomen Stauch played on BLIND GUARDIAN's first seven albums before being replaced by Ehmke. Frederik made his recording debut with BLIND GUARDIAN on 2006's "A Twist In The Myth".

Photo credit: Dirk Behlau