THE SORROW Bassist: CHIMAIRA 'Did Some Stuff' On Tour That 'We Didn't Appreciate That Much'

A new audio interview with bassist "Tobi" Tobias Schedle of Austrian metallers THE SORROW conducted by Vassil Varbanov of Bulgaria's Tangra Mega Rock is available for download at this location (MP3, 2.5 MB). An excerpt from the chat follows below.

Tangra Mega Rock: You are from Austria — a country which is not exactly famous for metal music. OK, we are familiar with PUNGENT STENCH, of course, but is there a local band that had a particular influence on you?

Tobi: Not directly. There are bands like PUNGENT STENCH that you mentioned or BELPHEGOR, who at the moment are really growing big all over the world. But I can't say that the local bands had any influence on us directly. I mean, we were in touch and still are with bands from the Austrian community but not that there was a really big input. We live really close to the Swiss and German border and the German bands had rather a bigger influence on us.

Tangra Mega Rock: What is the biggest lesson that you've learned after so many live shows?

Tobi: We knew it even before playing all those shows — you have to give always 100% and you have to be always prepared as good as you can if you go on the big stage. I can't say there is a big lesson for playing live but there are some things we learned while touring and it's that you have always to treat everyone as you want to be treated. Some bigger musicians sometimes forget that point. And we always said to ourselves that we never want to forget where we come from and how glad we were when someone treated us nicely so we want to give this the band we are touring with back as well.

Tangra Mega Rock: So is there a succesful band that treated you guys really badly?

Tobi: No one treated us really badly, but I can say there were some points on the tour with CHIMAIRA when we told them, "OK, guys, this and that aren't really right to do." I don't want to mention any details there. And still, we like the CHIMAIRA guys but at some point they did some stuff we didn't appreciate that much.

THE SORROW has been confirmed as the support act for Brazilian thrashers SEPULTURA on their upcoming European tour beginning on February 6 in Sofia, Bulgaria.

For a list of all the confirmed dates, go to this location.

THE SORROW's sophomore album, "Origin Of The Storm", will be released on February 27, 2009 via Drakkar Records. According to a press release, THE SORROW "have surpassed themselves with 'Origin Of The Storm' and are set to deliver an album that is a real highlight, their familiar brute and extremely refreshing manner of celebrating their contemporary metal sound having been perfected on their new album. The raw parts get down to business with even more determination, the riffing is even more refined, the chorus even bigger and more anthemic than on their first album. At the same time, THE SORROW move in the tradition of contemporary metal acts such as TRIVIUM, IN FLAMES and SLIPKNOT. The metalcore passages, which were still strong on the debut, have moved into the background, although the band continue to include this facet in their sound while enjoying forays into all kinds of different metal segments. This should hush even the last sceptics who accused THE SORROW in their early days of sounding a little too much like KILLSWITCH ENGAGE, seeing that what we get to hear on 'Origin Of The Storm' is much more diverse. The chorus of a real killer like the brutal 'Raising The Devil' brings JUDAS PRIEST to mind rather than getting tied up in technically tangled sounds. The amazing density and power, the pure, unadulterated metal on 'Origin Of The Storm' is an outstanding characteristic of the new THE SORROW album. Power, energy and anger in combination with well thought-out arrangements and breathtaking chorus parts — it seems the band have learned a lot in the past one and a half years and have summed up the essence of their musical work."

THE SORROW's debut album, "Blessings from a Blackened Sky", was released in July 2007 via Drakkar Records.