HEAVEN SHALL BURN Guitarist: 'You Will Never Be Disappointed If You Just Hope For Things'

September 8, 2006

Guitarist Maik Weichert of the German deathcore demons HEAVEN SHALL BURN recently told MTV.com that the group's new album, "Deaf to Our Prayers", is more intense and more menacing than 2004's "Antigone".

"Most bands don't want to do the same record twice but want to have the same success with the record," he explained of the band's fifth studio offering, which landed in stores this week. "So they don't change so much about it. You never change a winning team. But we wanted to do a more brutal album. I guess a lot of people expected us to go more commercial, but we did the opposite: We played the most brutal songs at the beginning of the record, so it's like a punch in the face from the very beginning. We wanted to show people from the first moment that we didn't wimp out."

"We expect that everyone who has been into us will love this record," he added. "We didn't betray our style or change the good things we had. We just tried to make it even harder, which is what our fans expect. We just hope for things — we don't expect things. You will never be disappointed if you just hope for things."

On whether Ozzfest would be a good fit for HEAVEN SHALL BURN, Weichert said, "I wouldn't say we'd never play it, but I see that stuff as some kind of mass product, and smaller tours, I think, are a lot better," he reasoned. "On the other hand, Ozzfest is such a legendary tour, and gives people an opportunity to see a lot of bands. So you have to see, as a band, how it is for you — whether you want to do it or not. I'd rather play just a few shows and be 100 percent for those shows. When a band plays 300 shows, sometimes you can see that those bands are just bored and exhausted. I don't like that. We'd rather go on tour with 20, 30 shows and give 100 percent every night than go on tour and waste ourselves."

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