Eluveitie – 24-02-2015

Interview with: Chrigel Glanzmann
By: Basak Günel

Everyone knows about Eluveitie when it comes to pure f*cking folk metal! After having released “Origins” in 2014, the band has been touring like crazy in almost everywhere in the world. This time, it was even more exciting because the band has played for the first time in Turkey.

Before the band’s show in Istanbul, I had the chance to interview the mainman Chrigel Glanzmann about the tour, the latest album & band and also his personal opinions about folk metal.

Welcome to Turkey! How is the tour going so far?
It’s going really well, thank you!

Any highlights of the tour, so far? Any best or worst moments?
That’s hard to say. Russia has been really good, we have just come from there. We are also looking forward to playing in Turkey.

“Origins” (2014) has been released a while ago. What I realized with the latest album and also with “Helvetios” (2012) is that there is a harsher sound in both of the records. Was there any other influence behind this?
Not actually. The music of Eluveitie is a natural process; it’s not that we sit down together and decide how the next album should sound like. I think Eluveitie albums are always a mirror image of where we are musically today.

But, what influenced songwriting for “Origins” is that period after the “Helvetios” tour and before I started writing the music. The last tour lasted 2,5 years and in those 2,5 years we played shows every day and practiced a lot. In those years, everyone of us grew up a lot as musicians and that definitely influenced us as musicians; some lines have much higher level and the songs are bit more complicated. It’s always just an organic process.

You play a lot of instruments in the band. What is your favorite musical instrument to play?
All of them! But if I have to decide, I have to say the Uilleann pipes. It’s like a hate-love relationship. It sounds so beautiful, but it’s also ridiculously hard to play. I’m also still learning a lot.

Are there any other instruments that you are learning besides the Uilleann pipes?
On this tour, when we were in Ireland, I bought an Irish flute and from time to time, I learn to play it.

So I guess we can expect new instruments in the next Eluveitie records?
Yeah, that’s the goal.

The line-up of the band has changed a while ago. [Last year, Nicole Ansperger joined the band as the fiddle player and Päde (bagpipes, whistles) has been replaced by the session musician Matteo from Krampus.] What do you think about this? Does this line-up change affect the band’s sound in live shows for example?
I don’t like line-up changes and it’s something difficult. At the same time, it’s a chance to get some fresh wind. We are trying to do that. I think it’s working well, it’s different but it’s still Eluveitie.

Eluveitie has not released any DVD yet. Are there plans for any DVD release in the future?
We actually planned to release a full DVD around 2-3 years ago. And we just didn’t want a live DVD; if we were gonna release a DVD, it should be really extended with complete tour reports and live shows in European festivals, so basically a lot of material.
We planned it and we hired a company for that and then the tour started. In the first weeks of the tour, Anna [Murphy; hurdy-gurdy, vocals] fell ill seriously. She was in the hospital for half a year and we continued the tour without her so we cancelled the whole DVD production.

Since then, we didn’t have the opportunity anymore. But it’s still something that we would like to do. What we started doing right now is gathering material on the first leg of this tour. We didn’t start the whole process like we intended to do with the whole concept. And also in the North American leg, there will be a camera guy with us. We don’t know what will happen but I can say that we started gathering the material.

“Origins” was one of the most anticipated albums of 2014. Do you have any favorite album(s) of 2014 and any album that you are looking forward to listen to this year?
Last 2 years, I haven’t listened to music as much as I wanted to. I almost have no idea about the scene. One thing that I was most looking forward to was the latest Entombed album,“Back to the Front” (2013). I was a bit disappointed though.

Eluveitie is considered as one of the best folk metal bands. As a successful folk metal band, how do you evaluate the folk metal scene in general and in your home country, Switzerland?
To be honest, I have no idea about the folk metal scene. When I founded the band, there was no folk metal scene and I had no intention to form a “folk metal” band. I barely knew what folk metal was. It was just about combining two elements; death metal with traditional folk music . That’s what we began with. Surely, we tour with a lot of folk metal bands but none of us actually listen to folk metal.

[Regarding Switzerland], I have only heard of Abinchova and two guys from Caladmor are good friends of mine. Other than that, we aren’t in Switzerland most of the time; we are touring a lot. And if we are there between the tours, we just stay at home and enjoy the quietness. If we are home for longer periods of time, then we are occupied with the album.

You have achieved a lot as a band; you have even won a Swiss Music Award for ‘Best Live Band’. What is your next achievement then or do you have any?
It surely looks fancy with the award and all but it’s definitely not the reason to play the music. Those things don’t mean a lot to us. Our next achievement is to keep doing what we love to do. That’s the biggest achievement. Speaking for myself and for the band, the best achievement as a musician is if you play your instrument and your music and put a smile on the face of the people in the audience.

Any plans after this tour?
We have one more show after today and then we have a break for two weeks. After that, the next leg of the tour will start and this tour will go on until autumn 2016. I also started working fort he next album.

Special thanks to: Chrigel Glanzmann and Nuclear Blast Promotion

Links:
Eluveitie Official