By Christopher David<\/p>\n
August 11, 2015 Thalia\u00a0Hall, Chicago, IL<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Christopher David: So tell us a little about how you went from The Oath (Sadonis\u2019 previous\u00a0band) to Lucifer.<\/p>\n
Johanna Sadonis: The premature ending of The Oath was not really planned, so when that\u00a0ended, it was a bit devastating. So, I thought, okay, I\u2019m just going to turn this thing around as\u00a0swiftly as possible, make something new, and march on. I founded Lucifer, and Dino (Gollnick,\u00a0bass guitar) was with me pretty much from the start, because we\u2019d already discussed him\u00a0joining The Oath. The same goes for Andy (Prestidge, drums), who played with The Oath on\u00a0the record and live. I was looking for a guitar player, and our label boss (Rise Above Records)\u00a0suggested Gaz Jennings (of Cathedral), and lucky for me, he said yes.<\/p>\n
CD: A good suggestion!<\/p>\n
JS: Yeah! Yeah, it started very quickly, within a year. Since the end of The Oath and the\u00a0release of the first Lucifer album (in June), about a year. It was a lot of work but it was really\u00a0good.<\/p>\n
CD: So, I don\u2019t know how it is in Europe right now, but in the states, we\u2019re seeing a bit of a\u00a0renewed interest in the whole New Wave of British Heavy Metal movement from the late \u201870s\u00a0and early \u201880s.<\/p>\n
JS: Yeah, in Europe as well, a lot of the younger metal kids are rediscovering all the NWOBHM\u00a0bands. Andy also plays in Angelwitch, they just had a comeback where they played all the\u00a0metal fests, obviously with other bands like that as well.\u00a0Dino Gollnick: Johanna also DJs at a club in Berlin that\u2019s really popular, and they focus on\u00a0playing more of that kind of stuff.<\/p>\n
JS: Yeah, I\u2019m DJing, but we\u2019ve also had a monthly, old school\u00a0heavy metal night for the past six\u00a0or seven years.<\/p>\n
CD: It seems like every show I go to of that genre, from bigger bands like Judas Priest to\u00a0smaller bands of that genre, is jammed again. Saxon, Diamondhead, those bands are touring\u00a0again and drawing good crowds. It\u2019s phenomenal to see, as a fan.<\/p>\n
JS: It\u2019s so great for the bands to be able to get out there and appreciated like that again, yeah.<\/p>\n
CD: I was curious to ask about that because it feels like you\u2019re coming from that place a bit.\u00a0You released a limited edition 7\u201d of covers by Angelwitch and The Rattles, which blew my mind.\u00a0The Rattles cover (\u201cDevil\u2019s on the Loose\u201d) was such an obscure choice, and a great one.<\/p>\n
JS: Yeah, that was a bit of an homage, because it often gets forgotten, especially in Germany\u00a0itself, that we used to have quite a cool \u201870s rock scene, you know? And of course, music\u00a0fanatics and musicians know this, but the average kid isn\u2019t really aware of how cool Germany\u00a0was at one point! The Rattles had only a small phase with their girl singer, two or three years,\u00a0and they had those two hits, \u201cThe Witch\u201d and \u201cDevil\u2019s on the Loose.\u201d<\/p>\n
CD: Very cool. So regarding the Lucifer album, you recorded most of it live in the studio, is that\u00a0right?<\/p>\n
DG : We were just together in the room, yeah. We didn\u2019t use every single thing we played in\u00a0there, as such, but the rhythm section, yes. The bass and drums are pretty much live, Gaz just\u00a0had to add some guitar bits and solos.<\/p>\n
JS: We evened out some things, and we did overdubs of guitars and vocals, there are tons of\u00a0guitars on the record.<\/p>\n
CD: It does have very layered, throaty guitars, with a feel to the production that really harkens\u00a0back to the late \u201860s, early \u201870s.<\/p>\n
JS: I picked Candy Bomber Studio on purpose, because Ingo Krauss previously ran Conny\u00a0Plank’s Studio, which was known for a lot of Krautrock. He has this studio in Berlin with all this\u00a0cool, vintage equipment, it\u2019s really wonderful, and they\u2019re not really known for metal albums.\u00a0And I thought it\u2019d be good to take it out of context.<\/p>\n
CD: In terms of the overall sound of the record, the studio ended up being perfect for what you\u00a0were going for. And as far as songwriting, it\u2019s one of those records that sounds like it\u2019s meant to\u00a0be taken as a whole, it\u2019s very cohesive and the songs work really well together. Was that\u00a0something you planned in terms of your vision for the record, or did those just happen to be the\u00a0songs that you had ready to go?<\/p>\n
JS: It was deliberate, and of a different concept than The Oath. The Oath had similar\u00a0influences, with the nods to \u201870s heavy rock, but The Oath was a little more raw, guitar wise,\u00a0and was leaning much more toward that New Wave of British Heavy Metal style, which I wanted\u00a0to take out of Lucifer to make things a little more eclectic, I guess? And Gaz has his own\u00a0language of guitar playing, so it makes that stand out, he has a real style.<\/p>\n
CD: You\u2019ve discussed how The Oath\u2019s dissolution wasn\u2019t a planned thing at all, but given that\u00a0you had such a clear idea of what you wanted this band to be, and that the shift in sound was so\u00a0deliberate, is this something that you might have done anyway, in retrospect?<\/p>\n
JS: I don\u2019t know, you know, if you put different people in a room, you get a different chemistry.\u00a0Linnea (The Oath) had a much more punky, Motorhead style of playing, and she and I would\u00a0write songs together that way, as opposed to Gaz, where the outcome proved much different.<\/p>\n
DG: And you also wouldn\u2019t want to recreate the same thing you\u2019ve done before, regardless, you\u00a0want to take things to a different place.<\/p>\n
JS: I thought it\u2019d be stupid to do the same thing over again. It was okay to get one thing out of\u00a0my system and move on to another.<\/p>\n
CD: Stylewise,\u00a0I think your vision of Lucifer leaves things a bit more open to diversity in terms\u00a0of your sound, as you go forward.<\/p>\n
JS: Yes, it leaves it open for us, we\u2019ve already been talking about that, actually, what we could\u00a0do next.<\/p>\n
CD : Being that this record is called \u2018Lucifer I,\u2019 my hope was that there was a \u2018II\u2019 on the horizon,\u00a0even though it\u2019s probably a bit soon.<\/p>\n
JS: There\u2019s a saying in Latin, nomen\u2020est\u2020omen\u2020(\u201cthe name is a sign\u201d), that if you give something\u00a0a name, you\u2019re sort of conjuring whatever follows? And I thought, I don\u2019t want to repeat history,\u00a0you know? If the \u2018I\u2019 means we have to continue\u2026<\/p>\n
CD: …then you must make a \u2018II.\u2019<\/p>\n
JS: Exactly!<\/p>\n
CD: I\u2019d like to talk about your lyrics for a minute. I\u2019m always curious as to the lyrical approach\u00a0that songwriters take, and it seems like they fall into two camps, which sometimes cross over.\u00a0There\u2019s the narrative approach, where you\u2019re trying to tell a specific story, and a more\u00a0impressionistic approach, where it\u2019s more about creating an atmosphere that lets the listener\u00a0interpret what\u2019s happening in the song. How do you typically approach it is\u00a0it one approach\u00a0versus the other?<\/p>\n
JS: I first write the melodies, and I like to treat vocals as an instrument, so I\u2019ll just basically sing\u00a0\u2018blah, blah, blah,\u2019 but then usually as I keep working, it brings up some sort of feeling or\u00a0emotion, a memory or association with something. So for me, lyrics are very personal,\u00a0sometimes several stories combined, and obviously shrouded in some sort of symbolism.\u00a0Certain symbols or figures, images that represent something specific. They all mean something\u00a0to me. I think that music really should take you away to some sort of parallel universe, you\u00a0know, so I think it\u2019s good if things aren\u2019t quite clear. People can use their own imaginations and\u00a0make their own interpretation to apply to whatever they associate it with, more than if it was \u201coh,\u00a0my girlfriend left me, etc.\u201d<\/p>\n
CD: From a songwriting standpoint, are you all working on things together now? I know that\u00a0you and Gaz worked on long-distance\u00a0demos for this first record quite a bit. Is it now more of a\u00a0\u2018band\u2019 situation?<\/p>\n
DG: I think it\u2019s going to go more in that direction, yeah, as a band. We\u2019ve been talking about the\u00a0next album being a more collaborative effort. That should be interesting, and it\u2019ll change our\u00a0sound yet again.<\/p>\n
JS: And I would say that even though these songs were demoed, the way Dino and Andy\u00a0learned the songs, they put their own style into the songs, so it really did become the \u2018band\u2019s\u00a0song,\u2019 in each case. But yes, songwriting wise,\u00a0we\u2019ll take more time now to sit and write as a\u00a0band.<\/p>\n
CD: Can\u2019t wait to hear that. How\u2019s the North American tour been so far?<\/p>\n
DG: It\u2019s been great! Chicago will be the tenth show. We started in California, which was\u00a0beautiful, drove up the west coast, cut through Salt Lake City…we\u2019ve seen some amazing\u00a0places.<\/p>\n
CD: Well, I\u2019m very happy for you. The record is phenomenal, and the midwest has a huge\u00a0metal and hard rock fanbase, so Chicago will be good to you tonight.<\/p>\n
JS: Thank you so much. Hopefully, we\u2019ll be good to Chicago!<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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