PRIMAL FEAR Bassist Talks About 'New Religion', Upcoming Tour

September 29, 2007

Grigoris Chronis of Metal-Tempe.com recently conducted an interview with PRIMAL FEAR bassist Mat Sinner. A couple of excerpts follow:

Metal Temple: How did you eventually ink deal with Frontiers Records. This — fine, anyway — Italian label is famous for its AOR/melodic rock/hard rock roster and I must say I was a little bit worried 'bout how the new PRIMAL FEAR would sound like. How did you come in contact? Is your contract valid for more albums in the future?

Mat Sinner: After six albums, one DVD and one "best of" album on Nuclear Blast, we all felt that we need a fresh breeze of air in our sails! We've negotiated with at least 10 European record companies and in the end we had the feeling that Frontiers gave us the best vibe, motivation and offer. It doesn't matter if they're selling mostly melodic bands. It matters what's their vision for the future and they've signed Rob Halford's latest solo album, too, and I'm sure there will be more metal acts signed in the future. The contract was worked out for a longer period!

Metal Temple: What happened to Tom Naumann anyway?

Mat Sinner: He turned his back on us in the studio and wasn't happy with anything, at least with himself. It is a sad story and I keep all the details for myself. Tom has his great moments in PRIMAL FEAR and we thank him for the past, but we had no other chance and have to change something.

Metal Temple: Do you feel PRIMAL FEAR is a band that should experiment/broaden its horizons from album to album? I'm saying this since many fans would like the band "stuck" in its highly-performed classic heavy metal style while some others will applaud songs like e.g. "Fighting the Darkness" or "Everytime It Rains".

Mat Sinner: Well, nasty people called us the best JUDAS PRIEST cover band in the world, then we're working on new vibes and different horizons exactly these people telling us to stay with one style of metal. I think the musicians should decide for themselves and we're looking out for new challenges, elements we've never used. Metal is overall so colorful that we don't want to focus on just a little part of the entire possibilities!

Metal Temple: Speaking about this two specific songs, I can't keep away but ask whose idea was it to include a male/female duo for "Everytime It Rains". The Simone [Simons, EPICA]/ Ralf [Scheepers] dual voice attack surely is impressive but — do not misunderstand it — I found the song to be kinda "mainstream" for an -in-your-face band like PRIMAL FEAR.

Mat Sinner: We love that fans and people are surprised. You have 11 tracks on an album — why should there be no space to try something exciting or even stupid? I don't know an album where I really admire all tracks. Ralf and I had the idea to try out something we've never done before and we're really pleased about the result. Simone and Ralf did both a phenomenal performance on the track and delivered a new color to the PRIMAL FEAR sound. We will be a metal band forever, but from time to time we will do some crazy and controversial stuff for sure! That's the salt in our soup!

Metal Temple: It was good news to see PRIMAL FEAR heading on tour with the living metal legend Udo Dirkschneider. The tour will be a co-headline one, right? But you're also heading to USA for this year's ProgPower USA VIII plus some Japanese dates. Three months on the road! What's your expectations for this tour? How important is for the band to play live? Don't you feel "fed up" sometimes, being on the road continuously?

Mat Sinner: We know that it is a long tour and we will continue playing South America, U.S., Canada, Russia and even more dates in Europe next year. We will give this album 100% our support. The tour with U.D.O. will be a double-headlining tour plus a third band as special guests. I think it's really useful to have two headlining acts on one bill. It's more interesting for the fans and the music of both bands fit very well together. I can't wait to be out there!

Read the entire interview at Metal-Tempe.com.

PRIMAL FEAR's video for the song "Sign of Fear" has been released and can be viewed below.

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