PRIMAL FEAR Frontman Talks State Of Metal Scene, BLABBERMOUTH.NET And Bucket-List Goals

Matt Coe of DeadRhetoric.com recently conducted an interview with vocalist Ralf Scheepers of German/Swedish power metallers PRIMAL FEAR. A few excerpts from the chat follow below:

DeadRhetoric.com: What are your views on the metal scene today? Where do you think things are healthy and where do you see room from improvement on both the fans perspective as well as the musician side of things?

Scheepers: That's the thing, over the years many things have happened. We have talked before about the techniques when it comes to recording and the advantage of it. There is a lot of disadvantages, due to the printing press suffering and the Internet coming up. The Internet not only affected the press, it has really affected the music industry. They literally slept when it came to MP3 files and getting the rights to copyright terms over it. This was the beginning of hard times. I feel like things are coming back a little bit. People buy songs and albums on iTunes and in audio platforms where they have to pay for it. Kids are educated in the way they have to buy music now and not go into a store to grab everything you need and not pay for it. Online magazines now are out there where people can get information so fast. You can hear and read interviews I did yesterday on Blabbermouth the next day. So it's a very quick thing that has advantages and disadvantages as well. The readers are now informed pretty fast. On the other hand, I remember the times when I bought the magazines every month and I would be curious as to what was happening again and having everything in one spot.

DeadRhetoric.com: I agree, when it comes to the Internet you find that people have opinions about everything without being experts in the field, versus some of the in-print journalists who have written about the scene and talked about the music for decades…

Scheepers: Absolutely. It started also with Blabbermouth. Now they have restricted comments to the point where people have to sign in through their Facebook account when they bitch about something. It was a pain in the ass over the years. People could leave their comments on [there] anonymously and it really stole some nerves, personally. They have made things official that you need to post with your profile, and now people have a footprint and accountability.

DeadRhetoric.com: How do you explain that your home country is considered one of the ideal destinations for heavy metal, and has never really lost its way even when tastes may change and new styles are introduced?

Scheepers: That's hard to answer for me. I don't want to say that other countries are not open-minded like Germany. Music from the West, the East — other countries in Europe. If you see the festivals like Wacken where people come from all over the planet to join us together, this is an indication that there can't be anything wrong in terms of our country's support for heavy metal.

DeadRhetoric.com: Right, and people forget that this festival originally began decades ago with a few hundred to thousand attendees…

Scheepers: I was fortunate to play one of the first Wacken festivals with GAMMA RAY back in the day. There were maybe 2,000-3,000 people there, it was outdoors already — it was just us playing on a stage built from a truck trailer.

DeadRhetoric.com: What are some of the bucket-list goals left for Ralf Scheepers to accomplish both musically and personally?

Scheepers: Bucket-list, of course, is to keep the standards we have. Music composing-wise, it's not so hard; I want to keep this standard for many, many years. Improvement is always good. Looking back is always a bad thing so looking forward is a good thing. If it comes to touring, Australia for the first time will be great this year.

Read the entire interview at DeadRhetoric.com.