This is a mailer interview with Chris Klapper from the German Power Metal band Custard. Bandinfo: https://www.facebook.com/custardband

Hello Chris Klapper, how are you doing?

# I am fine, thanks. I hope you are doing good as well.

Do you know the guys from Soul Cages, I think they where also from Herne, Germany..?

# Sorry, never heard about them. But Herne has a quite big music-scene and it is nearly impossible to know everything. But will try to find out about them.

Custard started in 1987. A long time ago. Do you remember those days? Can you tell us about these great time’s in the history of metal. The metal scene was huge in the 80’s..?

# Sure it was a great time but maybe it is just because we were much younger and spent the majority of lifetime in Party and getting drunk. I think it had some more magic these days, because not everything was just there by opening the internet. Maybe you bought some really shitty Fanzines which were not more than some black and white copies stapled together and here you found out that a gig will be in some city near you or that an interesting band is releasing a new album. So if you had insider in-formations like this you were the man for a week.

I have to say that i did not hear about Custard last years, so when i some time ago received a package from Pure Steel, opened it and found a new Custard album. I thought lets do the interview..?

# This is because we are lazy bastards 😉 We just release albums every 4-5 years maybe. We are not doing that for living so we have no need to proceed fast. It was something else back in the days and we tried to push forward. In 2005/2006 we really pushed it to maximum with regular work Monday to Friday and after job just jump in our van and hurry to a gig. Most likely gigs on Friday, Saturday and sometimes Sunday- and Monday back to work. That was not the best time for our family or social life and this ended up with a nearly split up band. So we made full stop, replaced some musicians and came back with a new attitude and different mindset.

When i look to your discography, i see that it’s quite normal that you guys releasing every 5-7 years a new album so…….?

# As said, there is no point where we say “now we write a new album”. It is a very slow but permanent process. We collect ideas as they appear and record them. Just parts maybe. And if we get an idea how the next album should be- so basically find a cool concept, like the Roman Empire thing we used right now, then we go through all the ideas we recorded and see if some of them match the theme. No hard work going on here.

Only to buy at the Merch Stand…..

Can you tell us how you became a metal fan and when you started to play the guitar?

# It was a matter of my social connections. My friends were living this Heavy Metal attitude so I was forced to do so as well. And as more I really got what this music and lifestyle is about, as more I felt it was my way to go. Making a band was a strange decision we made at a party- so very drunk. Somebody remembered this the next day, but nobody was able to play an instrument. But anyway we started, got instruments, got a rehearsal space, got some crates of beer and just did something. Maybe one day you will find out, that I don’t play guitar but drums 🙂

What are some of your favorite bands?

# I personally like Helloween, Maiden, Priest, Accept, Motörhead and  some of the newer bands like Kissin´Dynamite, Powerwolf or Amaranthe. I am not really open minded here, even if I listen to metal radio stations quite often and get a lot of input. I always come back to the old guys for some reason.

Okay… The new album…” Imperium Rapax”. Please tell us about he writing process, time in the studio, etc…?

# For the music I described earlier, that this is a permanent process. Olli, our singer, is the man who come up with the concept of Roman Empire. Actually it is already our 3rd album with a concept-frame. We really enjoy moving in this kind of frame set and take some of the stories as songs. We can add our own view to these stories and play with the feel. We are lucky to have really good recording facilities at hand. For mix and mastering we have a long time friend Thanos. He is really kind of producer to us. He adds a lot of his ideas to our songs and he really pushes us to get the best results. Extremely capable man on our side.

What about the lyrics, what the Custard Fans can expect…?

# We act in the frame of the stories everybody learns in history lessons at school. Sure we use our words to paint the story line, but in general everyone knows the rough story about Romulus & Remus or Hannibal crossing the Alps with Elephants, right ? Since you are well prepared for the interview you already know that these stories are in correct chronological order and start from Romes foundation to the end of the full Empire. More or less 1.000 years in a nutshell.

Any live shows planned, after the release of the new album?

# HM…, we started planning for some release shows, but we were forced to re-align the plans basically each week, because of new regulations from our dear government. We do not want to organize gigs which get most likely canceled due to social distancing needs, so we stopped our live activities fully. Let’s see when we can start again- maybe this summer, maybe summer 2023, who knows.

I like the live Youtube video//Witch Hunter. Has Holger Surray more for us to see in the near future..?

# This was never meant to be released. Holger is a long term fan and he always record something for himself- but we got hands on it by chance. I also think that this rough live-video is quite cool. Some special character. You can find a lot of Custard videos on YT. Have you checked the recent official video for the track Morituri te Salutant ? Great stuff.

Do you have a last word to the readers of Bonavox.nl….?

# It is quite a while that we played a show in NL and I don’t see the reason. I really hope that we can come over soon and meet you guys again.