1 – [von Branden] (origin and meaning of the band’s name, short bio with highlights, discography, etc):
Herr von Branden: Well, [von Branden] was brought to life by Vestriz von Mesopotamien and myself, Solarian von Branden, in 2004. We created ourselves to not be part of humanity anymore, as we prefer to watch and help them destroy themselves from a distant point of view. In August 2005, we welcomed our third member Arminius von Theesfeld, who completed Dynasty [von Branden]. We are not a common band, as we do not exist in that common sense. All three members of [von Branden] are nothing but shadows of their once only human beings. We have no past to tell about and no future to poison, we only exist to take advantage of the linearity in this world. Our name refers to some former German aristocracy, along with the literally meaning of the words: [von Branden] stands for the fire we went through to leave behind the chains of continuity. Furthermore, I like the sound of the words. It has the same vowels as “cellar door”. We’re about to release our debut album “Scherben”, following two demos “Behind the Rain” and “Ignoranzkult”, which by the way were never released.
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2 – “Scherben” (writing & recording process):
Herr von Branden: The process of writing and recording our songs needed a long time. Originally, we wrote and recorded the songs only for ourselves, to get rid of all the things we couldn’t bear anymore in daily life. Then one of our guest vocalist showed our first demo to GreyFall, who then contacted us and asked for more songs to release an album. So after Arminius became member of the band, we started a second recording session, the result of which is our second demo “Ignoranzkult”. After signing to GreyFall, we rearranged, remixed and remastered the recordings and added another track to complete the album. So it was a slow process over three years I guess, from the idea of two entities to our debut album “Scherben”, although we spent very little time in studio. We had the help of some guest musicians during all recording sessions, therefore each song sounds unique and it is hard to label our music to one genre.
3 – Lyrics (influences, themes, messages):
Herr von Branden: We basically sing about concrete situations of our life, which is in my opinion unavoidable to create honest music. I admit, we concentrate on some really melancholic and sad moments, and in the end it’s all about women, relationships, hopes, disappointments and losses. I use to talk to some special persons in our songs, who were part of my life, to show them a different point of view. Maybe some listeners will find their own experiences reflected in our songs, at least I hope so. But primary, all music is written only for ourselves, to keep us a memory of few special moments. We try to focus all we felt into the words and music, to combine it and paint a drawing of our souls. The album is entitled “Scherben”, which means fragments or broken pieces. It stands for the way I look at people, who are made of “Scherben” deep inside. Everytime you are deeply disappointed, you break into pieces, are told to find strength and put the pieces (“Scherben”) back together. With time, you are nothing but a mask behind which you hide your ruined inner self. Nothing is more disgusting for me. We do not want to spread a message, we just want to make people feel what we felt.
4 – Album frontcover / artwork (who, why, meaning, …):
Herr von Branden: The artwork was done by Lukasz Jaszak, and I’m very satisfied with his work. We had some intense conversations, as I wanted the artwork to be the visual part of our music. So we talked about very personal issues, and he always had great ideas how to interprete our wishes. I think he was the perfect man to complete our album visually, he can be really proud about his work, although it fitted perfectly for sad reasons. The whole album shows transitoriness of existence, of relationships, of everything that is important for a human soul. If you look at the front cover and then open the booklet, you will surely be shocked someway, as it definetely looks different than you would expect it to look. This was really important for us, to have some controverse and disturbing artwork that expresses what we feel and that completes our music. Beautiful in some melancholic way, but shocking honest and different.
5 – Tori Amos “Winter”. Why?:
Herr von Branden: Hehe, why not? I love the original version of Tori Amos, and again, I have very personal memories concerning that song. Some special person gave it to me years ago, but somewhen the feelings of the original version did no longer fit to my feelings listening to the song. So I asked Vestriz and Arminius to do a cover version and record it. I wanted the song to sound desolate and accusing, torn apart between sorrow and blind anger. It was an experiment in studio, like all of our songs. We tried to work with single clean vocals for the first time, and I admit we still have to learn controlling it. But we decided to put that song onto the album, and I do not regret it.
6 – Musical and other kind of influences:
Herr von Branden: We’re pretty open minded musically I think, but there is no special band or musician to mention. We just listen to a lot of different styles… As long as the music touches our heart, we do not care for any genres. We try to not copy any existing band or even copy ourselves, we always try to find new instruments to use and new ways to express our emotions. We simply want to create a drawing of a special moment, along with all the feelings and the atmosphere we remember about it. Not a simple photo, but captured thoughts and emotions, to keep these moments alive for us. We do not forget the suffering… Sometime I use to say that we are influenced only by rain; imagine the raindrops falling, the calm sound, the wet world around, the smell and taste… this is the atmosphere we want to create.
7 – GreyFall:
Herr von Branden: Well, we signed to GreyFal only few months ago, but we knew that they’re interested in releasing our material since about two years. I think they can support us very well, although we originally never intended to release anything. Our friends of Mandrake are on the same label, so we knew what we can await and I’m sure we made the right decision.
8 – Tour to promote the record:
Herr von Branden: We are not sure if we will play live. [von Branden] has been growing steady since the beginning, but we never thought about performing gigs in the beginning. We would somehow like to, but have to consider the problems on stage as we’d have to either play with our guest musicians or use some playback for some instruments. I’m not a friend of playback at all, but next point is that we do not know if we should present ourselves in flesh and blood, as the “real” bandmembers are nothing but shadows of their once human beings. Let’s first wait for the reactions to our debut album and then see if there are enough people who want to see us on stage, haha…
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9 – Final Message:
Herr von Branden: We thank you a lot for giving us the possibility to talk to you and your readers, we appreciate it a lot! I hope some of your readers will give our different style of music a chance. “Keep the pain alive inside!”
Yours,
Solarian von Branden
