HOLY MOSES Singer Talks About Reissues, Future Plans

Mark Carras of RockMyMonkey.com recently conducted an interview with Sabina Classen of HOLY MOSES. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

Rock My Monkey: I got to ask about your bassist Robert, had to check into a mental hospital back in August. Is his health better now, and will he be able to continue with the band?

Sabina Classen: Yes. This is a real problem. We don't know actually right now. He is still in big problems, and so Oliver will play all the time bass since Ozzy (Robert Frese) got ill, & will still play the bass. We had one show with Ozzy for an anniversary show. He came back. He was still ill, and Oliver played the second guitar. But like it looks right now, we will go on as a four-piece, and we will have Oliver on bass, and not Ozzy. He has to recover, and I think it seems to be like more one more year. Nobody knows if he really comes back to do this kind of music, and what his life will be in the next month. So, yes, we keep his place, but it looks more that we are going on with a four-piece, and with Oliver on bass.

Rock My Monkey: Okay. Cool. So the door will always be, the door is going to be kept open for him for a longer time to come back when he is healthy and ready, then?

Sabina Classen: Yes, yes. We are waiting that he gives us a message if he can come back or not. It has to be on the doctor's side, also. But until this time, we will keep the door open for him, and we will see what the time will bring us.

Rock My Monkey: I hope you don't mind me asking this, but is this a drug related thing, or is there something deeper?

Sabina Classen: No, it's something deeper. It has nothing to do with drugs or alcohol, or something like that. It's hard for me to explain in English words. It's something really deep, it has to be, we think, from his child, since he was a child, and some family things. I don't know, really. Yeah, he has been in a lot of talks with doctors, and everything. He has to see what it really is, and how he can come over everything. Yeah, we have to see, and we have to believe in the doctors and what they say.

Rock My Monkey: Cool. I think that that's very commendable of you guys as a band to stand by him and actually go through this with him. I think that definitely projects the community attitude of what makes metal so great.

Sabina Classen: Yeah, I think so. This is really important, because he's also a good friend of mine over a lot of years. On the other side, we have always the band, because if we were to stop now, and wait like one or two years, that would nobody help. So for him, we talked to him, for him it's really important that we go on, and that we have straight away making this new album, already touring, and do all the organization. And then we will see if he can come back or not. Perhaps this is also, I mean, as a musician, I think it's a problem for a lot of musicians, you are playing live, you are playing on a huge stage, a lot of audiences are looking at you, and then you come home and you can fall into a hole. And you have to manage this. Somebody can manage things like that no so good, and other people can manage it good. I'm working in the management of the band, and working for the label, so I'm doing a lot of things. So I don't have a hole I can fall in. So we have to see how somebody can help him, and also be rooting on his side, this is for sure.

Rock My Monkey: You actually talked about, and mentioned already, the flood of re-releases that you guys did. How do you, for those that aren't familiar with them, how do the new versions of these cds differ from the originals? Have they been re-mastered? Is there extra tracks? What can fans look forward to as far as the re-releases?

Sabina Classen: Well, we did keep the original sound, because we had no chance because the original multi-track was not anymore there. We had to take the original file of the CDs, we put them into the computer. We started to make, for example, "Queen of Siam", the first one, never was released on CD. It was only vinyl. So we put this one into the computer, we checked out that we had not so much strange noises. (laughs) We did a little kind of re-mastering. But the important thing was to keep the atmosphere from the old style from '85 and '86. Plus we did new covers. We did a full booklet with all the lyrics. We did, sometimes we put on as bonus tracks live shows, how we are playing songs right now. For example, from Wacken Open Air, and so from good shows. Also what we did, as a special wish from the fans, we put on these re-releases old demo tapes. Some of those demo tapes were in '81, and had only music cassettes. And we put those music cassettes into the computer, and it was like a trip through my whole life. When I listened to the tapes from '81, I was "Oh, god." I mean, the recording, there was one microphone on that recorder, a small recorder. But I think that the fans really liked it, because we did real special things with all the photos nobody saw before. I was looking in my camera, and looking what I have old stuff from HOLY MOSES. Scanning in really old photos from us all.

Rock My Monkey: Cool. Now, you say you've already worked on the follow up to "Strength, Power, Will, Passion". When do you think, when can fans in America expect that release?

Sabina Classen: Hopefully the U.S. company will release it to the same time we are doing it in Europe. I mean, now we have the problem we were signed with the "Strength, Power, Passion" album to Crash Music. The re-releases are signed to Locomotive Records. We will now see how we will go on, if Crash Music is taking the new album, or Locomotive. But this time, I will talk, and it depends on with which label, Crash or Locomotive, that they have to release it to the same time like in Europe, because we have a lot of fans in the U.S. I can see it on MySpace site. They're coming a lot wishes that we are playing in the States. And to organize the all out tour, also playing first time for us in The States, it's really important to have nearly the same release date like in Europe. But I think, we are preparing. I prepare right now everything already. So that we have like — I think it can be in the end of September or the middle of October of 2007 that we have a world wide same release date all over the world.

Check out the entire interview in text and MP3 format at this location.