Added by Electronic Brain | 14 March 2015

DREADFUL MINDS

German Melodic Metallers Dreadful Minds finally got to release their debut album 'Love Hate Lies' (reviewed in Fireworks #68) at the end of last year after a ten year wait. Mark Donnelly put the questions to the band's lead singer Holger Weckbach about the new album and the reasons why it took so long to be released.

In 2004 you were about to release the album 'Broken' via TTS Media and ALIVE. What happened back then and what made you reunite in the end?

We put a lot of energy into the album 'Broken' and we were all really anxious about our debut album. Unfortunately, just a short period of time before the CD was due to be released, the record company announced bankruptcy. So, all our efforts seemed in vain. The whole hassle around that and some internal differences lead to the band splitting. In 2005 we decided to dissolve the band to concentrate on other projects, none of which led to any success. One thing led to another and finally in 2011, five of the former Dreadful Minds' members got back together. The band was finally completed when we found drummer André Tischler.

The band has existed for many years and you finally released your striking debut which you must see as quite a big achievement. What does it feel like after such a long time and what do you think of when looking back on the band's history?

It really feels really good to have our debut album on the market at last. After so many years, we finally accomplished what we already had in mind for the CD 'Broken' in 2004. It felt great as we had no one telling us what to do, although it was also very hard as we did all the recording by ourselves. This created a very inspiring environment on the one hand and on the other hand we sometimes had to struggle with some minor and major technical difficulties which, at times, brought us close to insanity. The only exception were the drums, those were recorded in the Kohlekeller-Studios. We think taking that long break from one another helped us to get back our old enthusiasm.

Nine of the fourteen tracks were originally included on 'Broken'. Why did you choose to include these on 'Love Hate Lies' approximately a decade later?

That's easy to explain. We found those songs to be worthy of being released to the public and not be forgotten. These are Dreadful Minds' songs and deserve to be heard by a wider audience so we decided to re-record them again with a state-of-the-art sound.

Another interesting reappearance is the track 'Caught In Illusion' which was originally on your demo tape 'Caught In Illusion' from 1995 and also on your demo CD 'Last Night' from 1997. Why exactly did you choose to include a song from your very early years?

'Caught In Illusion' is still a very popular song for our fan base and that is why we have decided to put the song on the CD. We slightly pimped that one a little, compared to the previous recorded versions, which were more or less demo recordings. Now the whole song sounds as it always should have sounded, especially the vocals that we enhanced and sound really great now.

'Love Hate Lies' comes along with a very powerful and interesting title. What's the idea behind the entire album?

The lyrics are different, often social and critical and also the big topic, love. We think the album title 'Love Hate Lies' represents the key message very well. That basically is what life is all about, isn't it?

Who are the musical masterminds behind Dreadful Minds?

The lyrics are usually written by me, Holger but my brother Rainer also contributed to one of the other songs' lyrics. As for the music, each of us has his share, so there is not only one real mastermind behind Dreadful Minds. At first there is usually a riff, or a melody, followed by the remaining instruments. In this way we always get quite good results in writing songs, but sometimes it takes quite a while to get all six heads together.

2014 saw the release of a lot of shorter length albums. 'Love Hate Lies' goes against the stream as it is a very long album. From a band's perspective, how did you decide how many songs to put on the album?

We just wanted to pick up all those great songs from our 'Broken' CD which never got released to the public, as we mentioned before. In addition to that, we wanted to put some very new and some quite old stuff together, resulting in, from our point of view, some kind of 'best of' album. Everyone has his favourite song(s) that had to be put on the album and all that lead to the final result.

Even though the main sound of Dreadful Minds is very melodic your music also shows a lot of Progressive and Metal influences. What would you describe your style as?

It is always difficult to name your own style exactly. As you said, we always put great emphasis on melody, which is strongly influenced by our keyboard player Uli Schlegel and his fine piano passages. Also important to us, of course, are the, hard, guitar riffs by Rainer Weckbach and Christian Wolf who are more into the real Metal stuff. This gets finalised by the dynamic and furious rhythm section of Jens Freudenberg and André Tischler. We have a wide variety of musical influences from Hard Rock to Heavy Metal and Progressive music. You might call it Melodic Metal Rock with the clear voice of Holger Weckbach on top of it. We think the combination of all is simply the sound that is Dreadful Minds.

As a German band you share your origins with some real Rock and Metal legends from the 1980s and 1990s. The market has changed a lot over the years. What's your personal perception of the current situation for Rock and Metal bands?

Since we are somewhat new to the whole business stuff, although we've played music together for quite a while now, we do not really have a real perception of what the current situation for other Rock and Metal bands is. All six of us have always been into Metal music one way or the other, feeling that especially Rock and Metal music itself is timeless compared to the more mainstream stuff. We all have to pay our bills and think it is very hard to be a full time musician, especially in Germany, and make your living from it. None of us are full time musicians and we have separate jobs to support our families.

New Year, new luck. What are the plans for Dreadful Minds in 2015?

We hope that this year continues as the last one ended and even gets better. We have finally released our debut album and at the end of December 2014, we had the opportunity to support the German Prog-Metal band Vanden Plas in our hometown Worms, Germany. Now, in January, we are starting to plan our gigs for 2015. We hope to play some festivals or go on a small support tour. Writing new songs is always a relevant topic as well. We are excited about what lies ahead.