PRIMAL FEAR Bassist Talks '16.6'

Metal Asylum recently conducted an interview with bassist Mat Sinner of German power metallers PRIMAL FEAR. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Metal Asylum: The last two PRIMAL FEAR albums, "New Religion" and "Seven Seals", contained a lot of orchestral sounds. How much of that carried over to "16.6"?

Mat: Not much, because we have two guitar players that are absolutely outstanding, great guys, and we wanted to get back to more guitar-based songs like we had on "Nuclear Fire" and "Black Sun". We wanted to be more prominent in the guitar sound on "16.6", and with Henny Wolter and Magnus Karlsson, it was so easy to achieve that. I think there are only three songs that have the orchestrations. See, if PRIMAL FEAR is playing live, we are a metal band, and if you take all this orchestral stuff too far, then we either have to hire a keyboard player or even a string section to make the songs sound as they should on the album. So, if we took this idea too far we would have to make a decision, either go more metal or more orchestrated. With "New Religion", we were crossing the line to somewhere we didn't want to go. So we had to go back more to where our strengths were, and with Henny back in the band as a full-time member and as a songwriter, it was important to go in a more "Nuclear Fire" vibe.

Metal Asylum: What does the title "16.6 (Before The Devil Knows You're Dead)" signify?

Mat: Well, we had a lot of time to work on this album and as a result we wanted to come with a creative title, a riddle, instead of something that was completely predictable, like "Riding the Eagle", for example. And every journalist in the world asked me about this title, so we gave people something to think about. (laughs) The number 16.6 has something to do with the band, its not a birthday, not a release date, nothing from the Bible. It has something in common with the band and people familiar with the band and this code will figure out what it means.

Metal Asylum: Tom Naumann played guitar on the PRIMAL FEAR debut, "Jaws of Death", "Devil's Ground", and "Seven Seals". Henny Wolter is on "16.6", "New Religion", and what are my two favorites, "Nuclear Fire" and "Black Sun". What have both guitarists brought to PRIMAL FEAR's music?

Mat: They stay fresh and have time to rest, haha… No, we never would have had Henny leave after the "Black Sun" tour if he didn't have problems with his family. With Henny, it was a real professional split; Henny is one of the most friendliest people in the business and a great guy to have on stage with you. So it was a heavy loss when Henny left and we tried to get Tom back in the band, back in shape, and give him a second chance, which was very difficult for us. But Henny gave us a notice he was ready to come back to the band, record and tour with us. Henny is absolutely the PRIMAL FEAR guitarist we want to play with. As far as what Tom and Henny have brought to the music, Tom and Henny's playing are very similar; Henny is a little more diverse and his riffs are a little more complicated. But the playing is really really similar. Both are Les Paul players, both are very experienced. In my view, Henny is a little more grown up and has better character.

Metal Asylum: Do you ever see Tom returning to the band again?

Mat: No, never.

Read the entire interview from Metal Asylum.