ChitChat - With Dani Löble from HELLOWEEN
INTERVIEW BY BEN LAMB
BEN:
I'd love to start off with how you've been in this last year and a bit with all the craziness, I know you'd love to tour and get around, how have you keep yourself busy and excited during this time?
DANI:
To keep doing stuff and stay active as much as we can, during the pandemic, everything got canceled, all the shows got canceled. So I think like, we found different ways to use our time. So recording was a great tool. That's why I ended up doing the Go Ahead And Die record with my son during a lot of the months of the pandemic. And now it's getting ready to get open up. So hopefully we get back on the road. Looks like we got a tour coming up already in September, and many others probably next year. So I'm very used to making many recordings. And we made a really, really exciting record. And I also do some videos live on Facebook of me just playing my riffs of my career. And that kind of filled up the time a little bit. But the most of it was enjoying the making of the Go Ahead and Die records. It was actually really fulfilling.
BEN:
You have had, and still continue to have so many amazing, original bands and releases, what keeps you excited and intrigued in finding new avenues?
DANI:
My own curiosity in music. Trying to tackle some sounds that motivate me. So I really enjoy all of them. You know, there's so many projects and with different people. I like to play with different people, I think I learned a lot from them. And it's always fascinating to me to, to jump from one project to the other, because they can be quite different from from each other. And the new one, which is Go Ahead And Die, was really cool because it was my son. It was something I wanted to do for a long time, but never really had the right time to do it. But COVID came and it was like perfect timing for us to do this together. We were both here. But it's really my passion of making music that keeps me interested in continuing. This kind of never ending search of always trying to make a record better than the last one. And then keep doing that, you know. And I know it's a big catalog, and there's so many records on it. But I always like to think that I haven't really done my best one yet, that's still to come. The search continues. It's always fun, because the cool thing about making records is you really don't know what's gonna happen to them when you're making them. There's just a big, big mystery. (laughs) It's not really on your control, you don't dictate what happens to an output, the fans dictate that what happens to the records, so it's not your control. It's something that's beyond your control, you put it out there and then the people either embrace it or not. The journey is more important than the destination. So you know, the struggle to making this record is what makes it fun.
BEN:
Compared to working with your brother or your peers, how'd you find working with your son for the album? Was there different processes you had to change up?
DANI:
We have had some musical experiences together before this, he did play bass for Soulfly during a period during a tour of Europe, some American shows, and we also did a tour of Melbourne. I watched him grow up and watch him become a really good musician in his own right, with his own band. So I feel very comfortable playing with family members. Of course I played my whole life with my brother in Soulfly. I also play with my brother Zyon on drums. So it's very natural, the most exciting was actually making the whole record a father and son project. Which is really kind of an original idea. I don't think there's many of those out there. I had the chance to do it. He asked me, and I thought if I have the chance to do this, why not?
BEN:
I also read that when you were staying in the desert with your son for a period of time, you were watching a lot of horror and intense action movies with your son, is that a way you've always been influenced when it comes to music writing in general?
DANI:
When we’re making the record, we're totally off the grid, completely off the grid, we're in the desert, just jamming. And searching for riffs in the middle of the desert was great. It became a like a little ritual thing that we had going, we got to work all day on the material. And it was very hot here, around 35 degrees. By the end of the day we’re super tired, we're exhausted, you know. So all we want to do is put our mind on something else. We had this collection of Universal movies, Black and White movies from the 30s. So we watched one just for curiosity, and it was so quick, so we said let's watch another one. And then it became something that we ended up just doing. It wasn’t planned, we didn't really plan to do it like that. I think that had a little bit of influence on the sound of the record as making it real nostalgic, the sound of it is very old. Watching those old movies, they're a really beautiful art form, you know, because you have all the digital effects that you have now. So you get that same kind of feeling like this people made those movies in a great real way you know without gimmicks so we ended up making this record like that too. Like we didn't want any gimmicks on the tracks. We just wanted to make it like very old school, like playing live.
BEN:
Yeah, absolutely. And then in terms of more musical influences, I was reading that Igor showed you a lot of more modern and current metal bands, did that inspire you and shape this record?
DANI:
He grew up with me showing him all of the stuff like Napalm Death, all the classics you know? Celtic Frost, Discharge. Then he ended up showing me some newer stuff which is cool. And with our age gap, I kind of show him music from when he wasn't around when those bands were doing cool stuff. He was very little, you know? So I kind of told him stories about touring with bands and playing with Napalm Death and stuff like that. But I think it's great because for generations like my own, we take on what we think extreme metal is, and Igor has his take of what he thinks extreme metal is and we also add Zack to the mix, he's also a great drummer and he played on one of our favorite records of last year, which is a Black Curse record. When you put all that in the blender, the result is fantastic. The record fires on all cylinders and has deep rooted influence by Discharge and Celtic Frost as well as many other influences throughout the whole record.
BEN:
Yeah, and then because of this meld of your view of metal and then Igor’s view of metal, did that mean that the writing was very collaborative as well? Or was it kind of you took a few songs and then Igor took a few songs?
DANI:
No, we wrote the stuff together on every song, The fun part of this was sharing the riffs with him and ideas and you know, he wants to include a lot of old school feeling, he was more towards keeping it in that kind of hardcore feeling from the Discharge records. And I was really inclined into some of the blastbeats bars which are a little bit more modern, like more of the more recent bands do that stuff like you know, like Neckrot or stuff, but I think the fun of it is to do it together. So you know it becomes be like a friendly competition like I do a secret riff. And he wants to outdo my riff. So he comes up with a with a riff that challenges my riff and then I show him what I got. And then he's confused. So that becomes a friendly father/son competition of playing riffs. (laughs)
BEN:
I'd love to get an idea of what's what's down the road for Go Ahead and Die. Are you looking to tour the record down the line, or go back and maybe write while things are still closed down? What's next on the horizon?
DANI:
The beauty of the album is it’s probably perfect for really small venues, we would not play to a lot of people. And that should be the way it is presented. In a really ugly, dirty, smelly club. It'd be perfect for this kind of music. So we're probably gonna cook up some kind of tour for next year with some underground bands, and go hit the road man. There's so much anger and energy on the songs and a lot of protest-sounding kind of songs, screaming that every night and singing that with the fans. And everybody that knows me knows I love the life on the road. So definitely. We’ve got to do something with it, there'll be a lot of fun to bring the songs to the road.
BEN:
Then hopefully down the line we see you back in Australia.
DANI:
I really love Australia. We always have great, great fans down under you know, so for sure we'll keep an eye on it!
Australian Physical Pre-Order: Here – further formats to follow.
