EDGUY Guitarist Says 'Rocket Ride' Sees Band Incorporating New Elements

The Streets metal webzine recently conducted an interview with EDGUY guitarist Jens Ludwig. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

The Streets: First of all, congratulations on your coming album, "Rocket Ride", your 7th one, that is released on the 20th January. I've already heard it and it's a great album, I love it! What do you think, are you happy with the result?

Jens Ludwig: "Yes, I'm pretty happy with it. I think everyone in the band is pretty happy with the result. Because it's some songs that did surprise even us, and I think it's very good to still have the ability to surprise people and to include new elements in the music and just don't copy yourself all the time. We're pretty comfortable with the new album, and so far the reactions are good as well, so I can be pretty satisfied."

The Streets: Personally I think "Rocket Ride" has that distinctive EDGUY sound, but still it seems less power metal and more heavy metal, do you agree with that?

Jens Ludwig: "Well, I would say it's maybe less speed tunes than in 'Hellfire Club', but if you compare it to albums like 'Mandrake', we had already there only 3-4 up-tempo songs, so well, I don't know, maybe we got a little bit bored of making only fast tracks. And we changed a lot of things concerning the way of recording and producing the album."

The Streets: Yes, that leads me on to my next question. The production is excellent, I love that '70s sound! Tell me a bit about how you recorded it.

Jens Ludwig: "Well, it's actually a way that was very common in the '70s. 'Cause we recorded the basics (bass, drums and rhythm guitar) of the songs live, and it came somehow by accident. This time was the first time that we worked with an external producer, Sascha Paeth, and when we were in his studio to record demo versions of the songs, just to show him what the songs are all about and work on the stuff, he recorded the stuff we played live and he just came into the recording room and said, 'Hey, guys, this is sounding awesome!' It had so much more energy than if you do it step by step, and he asked us if we wanted to do the whole recording live. Actually we were not prepared for doing this, but on the other hand we are a band that rehearses a lot, that means we're doing all the song writing in the rehearsing room, so for us it didn't make such a big difference if we're playing the songs in the rehearsing room or in the studio. We did that and that's maybe why it sounds so fresh and more down to earth. Besides that we also took a step back concerning technology, we recorded everything on analogue tapes, which in the digital century is not particularly common nowadays. It adds a certain warmth to it, it sounds somewhat deeper. And that was actually something we wanted to achieve."

Read the entire interview at www.streetswebzine.com.

(Thanks: hot_turkey_ed / www.metalsetlists.com)