Interview Albert Ambrosi – Asgard, Bonavox- Heiko Kleine – Neerken Hello Albert, how are you doing? Hello Heiko, everything ok, thankYou. Are you Guys in Lock-Down at the moment? Yes, but we go everyday at work, furthermore you are allowed to go out to buy food, medicines and something important like that… I suppose at the moment everyone in Europe knows this well. Please tell us about your new album; “Ragnarokkr”? I’m really satisfied with it! Actually it is the first time in so many years that I succeed in making just the kind of music I wanted to do since the beginning! This mixture of metal and romantic rock of the 70’ies with influences from the middle-ages, celtic-folk and other ancient music forms is really exciting to me. I also find interesting that in this album there is much variety and diversity: there are many different moods and feelings and there are both, short and long tracks: the shortest is 2 Min. 44sec.; the longest over 11 Minutes! Whats the meaning behind the title of the album? And what are the lyrics about? According to the old norse mythology Ragnarøkkr is the day of the final cosmic battle where the world will end and everything dies. We found it exciting how many similarities there are between the ancient literature describing the age before Ragnarøkkr and the present days. Even hard diseases and epidemics are described there! The lyrics deal also with ancient european culture and traditions, such like shamanic rituals as part of our heritage, of our roots. Can you tell us about the writing process and time in the studio recording the new album? Well, the writing process took some years. We spent a lot of time arranging and discussing our music in the rehearsal-room. The last three years we met each three months for a whole week-end of rehearsal sessions in South Tirol. We also made some demo-recording in order to compare different versions. As we felt our music had become enough “mature” , we went in recording-studio and there everything went easy because we knew exactly what we wanted and we had improved a lot. How was it to work with Roland Grapow (ex. Helloween, Masterplan). Why you choose him to be your partner in producing this album? I love Masterplan, so when I thought which kind of production I would like for Asgard the answer was simple! To work with Roland in studio was a big experience and a pleasure at the same time. He is a really nice guy but he can also be very rigorous. I found it really great about Roland that he explains everything he does! Who was responsible for the Nice/ great cover of the new album? Our singer Franco did it. He is a professional designer. Why did it take about 20 years for you to record a new album? What happened in all these years with the bandmembers? Life pushed everyone in different directions. Someone gave up to make music, some others have got a family, are very busy, didn’t have time anymore. How did you Guys get in contact with Pride & Joy Music? We just wrote some labels and proposed our music. With Pride & Joy we had since the beginning a good feeling. They liked our music, so there has been no problems! The band started in 1986, please tell us something about the start/beginning of Asgard? We were all very young and unexperienced at that time. But I think we made good music, so we got soon good reviews, airplay in several radio stations and invitations to regional festivals, later to european compilation LPs etc. The first years we were a pure melodic-prog Band, however I already wanted our music much heavier… Why took it about 5 years til you Guys recorded your first album; Gotterdammerung in 1991? Those years music-business was a little bit different compared with today. It was just normal that a band had to wait some year to get a label-contract. Record companies were used to inquire bands very carefully before to take them and send them in a recording-studio. During the years the band worked also with Nick Griffiths former sound engineer of Pink Floyd on Ibiza? Please tell us the story and how it was working with him? It happened on the occasion of a band-contest. A label wanted to find the best 30 italian bands in order to send them in big recording-studios with famous studio-producers. We went to Ibiza (Spain) and recorded our music under direction of Nick Griffiths and engineered by Denis Herman, both typical english: they always spoke low, slowly and very relaxed… one could almost imagine that in the breaks they drank tea! For a very young band as we where this was a kind of diving in the world of professionality: a big experience. We learned a lot out of it! Any news about a Tour after the release of the new album that Will be released in May 2020? At the moment we don’t have any plan. We would really like to play live. We will see.…. Do you have any dream band that you would like to play live with? Oh Yes! Each of us. The common denominator for us five could be Iron Maiden, I suppose. What are Some of your favorite bands? Franco (singer) would say: Dream Theater and Queensryche Andrea (guitarist): Iron Maiden, Avenged Sevenfold and Lordi. Paolo (bassist): King Crimson and Rush Kikko (drummer): Iron Maiden, Death and Pantera I (Albert, Keys): Queensryche, Genesis (until 1979), Saga and Fejd Do you have a last word to our readers? Don’t spread the disease. Stay at home and listen to good music!
