In the second and final part of our interview with the Blind Guardian guitarist, we talk books, Game Of Thrones, The Wire and the integral role storytelling plays in his music.
“At the moment I’m reading a book by Patrick Rothfuss – it’s a trilogy – the first book is called The Name Of The Wind; the second one, which I’m reading right now is called The Wise Man’s Fear,”1 Blind Guardian guitarist Marcus Siepen tells me, eager to talk about his extra-musicular influences. “It’s actually something that Hansi (Kürsch, vocalist) recommended to me – we recommend books to each other, and that’s something that he discovered.”
“It’s very well written and it’s kind of a mix between Stephen King’s way of storytelling and bits of pieces of whatever… like Harry Potter. It’s a brilliantly written book – and Hansi might use something like this for inspiration for future lyrics,” he says, bringing the topic back on point. However, narrative and storytelling are never far removed from the music of Blind Guardian. “
“I think it’s just part of the whole thing, Siepen says. “We’re perfectionists when it comes to our work so we spend so much work writing the music and I think Hansi spends just as much work writing the lyrics, so I think it’s important because I can’t really imagine one of our songs having the same impact – or even working at all – if it had some cheesy, standard, pop song lyrics like, ‘oh, I love you baby;’ It just wouldn’t work. …I can’t imagine being without those lyrics.”
“At some point we’ve been called ‘Tolkien metal,’ says Siepen, with some disdain, “because we had Nighfall (In Middle Earth, 1998) about The Silmarilion and Tolkien songs before but, as I mentioned before (in part one of the interview), we don’t like to limit ourselves with all these labels and lyrical ideas.”
Even with their strict dedication to musical storytelling, Blind Guardian aren’t afraid to step outside of their comfort zone (and back into everyone else’s) on occasion.
“We have some covers of metal songs but we also like to do covers of songs that people might not expect to come from blind guardian or a metal band in general,” says Siepen, discussing what just might be the greatest cover song in all of history in their version of John Farnham’s “You’re The Voice.”2
“It’s a great pop song!” exclaims Siepen. “We were just talking about songs that we could do as a cover and – I don’t remember who suggested it – somebody said ‘You’re The Voice’ and everybody was like, ‘yeah, let’s do it,’” he tells of a situation rather similar to the band’s decision to revisit the concept of 1995’s Imaginations From The Other Side for their upcoming album Beyond The Red Mirror. “It’s just a song we always liked and it was fun to cover it.”
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GGQwgBqXYk]
Not that they’ve ever been a band to do so, but now, more than ever, Blind Guardian have no need to compromise their fantasy-steeped musical take – with TV shows like Game Of Thrones and Vikings dominating ratings and the film adaptations of Tolkien’s The Lord Of The Rings and The Hobbit cleaning up at the box office.
“I have to say that I like the books better because I feel that the TV show is getting further and further away from the books and it changes a lot, which I don’t like that much, but the actual look of the show is amazing,” says Siepen of Game Of Thrones.
Throne games!
“Obviously that show has a big impact on mainstream audiences that might not have had any connection to fantasy stuff before because that show is a very well-loved show – whether there are changes or not, it’s still a good show – and it gets a lot of press coverage here in Europe. So it definitely introduces a lot of people that have no contact with fantasy at all to the world of fantasy literature and stuff. So yeah, it might introduce some people to our music,” he says, considering Game Of Thrones’ power as a recruiting tool for Blind Guardian and power metal fans in general.
”Game Of Thrones (or more specifically the Song Of Ice And Fire series on which it is based) has been a topic of songs for us before and it might a topic for songs again but that’s also something that we don’t necessarily want to be tied to,” Siepen says. “It’s not that we will be ‘the Game Of Thrones band’ now and we’ve been the ‘Tolkien band’ before; it’s just… It’s Blind Guardian,” he concludes, in what’s becoming somewhat of a mantra.
“I’m big-time into TV shows,” Siepen continues, “because I think (the quality) is much higher than most of the cinema movies done today. Stuff like Game Of Thrones comes to my mind, obviously; but… also stuff like Boardwalk Empire, Walking Dead, The Wire; all that stuff. I’m a big TV show fan.” But don’t expect to hear any Blind Guardian songs about the Barksadale clan anytime soon.
“It wouldn’t really fit, unfortunately,” Siepen concedes, somewhat forlorn. “The Wire, to me, is one of the best, if not the best, show on TV,” he goes on, “It’s amazing. But talking about the Baltimore drug scene in a Blind Guardian song sounds wrong. I think we have to stick to different topics.”
Michael K. Williams as Omar Little, Siepen’s favorite character from The Wire.
As for Siepen’s more direct musical influences: “I’m listening to a lot of stuff,” he says. “A band I have newly discovered – like last year – is Mastodon, who I really like. Their last album is brilliant, so is the one before,” he tells me, rather surprisingly; “Crack The Skye, The Hunter; I love all those albums.”
From here, however, Siepen settles into more expected and traditional fare. “The album that’s in serious, heavy rotation for me at the moment for me” he says, “It’s a brand new album but it’s not really new – it’s Queen, who just released a new album (Forever) …which is mind-blowing. All the old stuff, from the first couple of albums from before bands became so heavy; back then they (Queen) would have been a pure, hard rock band,” he contends.
In this interview’s least surprising turn, Siepen tells us, “I’m friends with a German band called Powerwolf, which is a power metal band, and I’ve just been to one of their concerts – the final show of their tour – like two or three weeks ago,” he adds. “I’m always listening to new music and it’s always a big influence on me; wherever I go, I always have lots of music on me.”
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHsVGDzBNjg]
Take Blind Guardian’s ambitious new album, Beyond The Red Mirror, with you from January 30th via Nuclear Blast. Check out part 1 of the interview here.
1 That would be The Kingkiller Chronicle, with the yet-to-be-released, third book in the series to be called The Door Of Stone.
2 Available on special editions of their previous record, 2010’s At The Edge Of Time.
