GERMAN EXTREME METAL Live at B-hof Würzburg

Posted on May 8, 2012 by Kumi666

On 14th April 2012, finally this amazing show German Extreme Metal (organized by Hakan Gülsem) came true! It means those four kick-ass band – PARASITE INC., BLEEDING RED, ALL WILL KNOW and SOULBUND from my support bands shared the same stage at that night! Kai from one of those awesome bands PARASITE INC. showed me how it was… Thank you so much Kai for your efforts! So, here we go!

Well, how can I start now? We (PARASITE INC.) were looking much forward to that gig in several ways. First it was a honor for us to play in Würzburg with some bands we really like and listen to and that are also supported by you. Personally I was eager to see SOULBOUND and ALL WILL KNOW live and to share the stage with BLEEDING RED again after a long time.

Okay, we reached early at the venue (a really cool youth centre by the way) and first we met there was Johnny (SOULBOUND). First words of him were some greetings from Hendrik (SYRANIC) kinda like “you fuckers still haven’t sent your CD to me”. Hendrik I am sorry and hope it reached you meanwhile :).

After having a look at the venue and saying hello to some guys from the bands I wanted to hang out in a castle park near the venue but didn’t recognize the closing times. So, once I wanted to get back to the venue I was imprisoned there and couldn’t get out anymore… Uh-oh, I was in trouble, haha. Luckily a guy found me and opened the gate for me again, so I was back right in time for the show of SOULBOUND.

What can I say about SOULBOUND on stage? Beside that they are really friendly and relaxed guys(like all other people at this evening btw.) their show looked totally professional and motivating. Oh, and the songs are punching much more than on CD! Only problem for me, the show was too short ;).

SOULBOUND

Actually I feel sorry that I can’t say much about ALL WILL KNOW. I only was able to listen to the first 2 songs with a great show but I had to prepare for the gig behind the stage and couldn’t recognize much of them. Too bad coz I really like their songs and I hope I can see them once again with their complete line up.

Note: For some reason, Mo(on clean vocals) couldn’t join the show at that night.

ALL WILL KNOW

Well, how can I say about our gig? It’s always hard to describe a gig of yourself coz you don’t see it like the audience sees it, of course. So I only can speak about my personal impression and for me it felt rather as a messed up one… Kevin used my wireless transmitter and already after the intro he started losing it over again. (Dude, you jump too much hahaha ;) ). I remember Benni also dropped his sticks and personally I felt like cursed with the show: First I got electric shocks from the microphone over again, then I dropped my guitar pick over again during the songs, got nervous and messed up with playing. That never happened to me before lol. What a mess. Remember: Pick holder have their sense. However I hope the people could enjoy it anyway a bit :)

PARASITE INC.

I was relaxing then with another great show of BLEEDING RED. There’s nothing more to say about it: Great is just great! And it was really cool to share the stage again after years now :)

BLEEDING RED

After the end of the show we joined the organizer with the other bands to a metal club not far from the venue and hung out there for a while with talking, drinking relaxing and playing table football. @SOULBOUND: You have to practice ‘til our next meeting to beat Sammy ;)

All in all it was a great evening with great people and I think I can speak also for the rest of the band if I say: Thanks to you all for the awesome time and we are looking forward to see you again. Also thanks so much to Hakan for the great organization.
Stay Heavy \m/

The blast photo of guys from SOULBOUND, BLEEDING RED, PARASITE INC. and ALL WILL KNOW! (Unfortunately, Mo and Danny from ALL WILL KNOW couldn’t join in the photo. But all you guys are always on my mind!)

The comment from SOULBOUND about this photo:
At this point greetings and thanks to Hakan and Kumi (Japan) for their energetic support of that quadripartite team. (Kumi, thanks a lot for all your effort and for all your support during the last years for all of us! – this show was for you!)

PS: As you maybe know we are still recording our album and I can tell you that the guitars are almost done now as well as many parts of the drums. We start with bass and vocal recordings soon then, so be prepared for the upcoming weeks with some news about it.

Thank you so much all guys from PARASITE INC, BLEEDING RED, ALL WILL KNOW and SOULBOUND. I really love you all! You guys rules! Kumi666

Check out the bands official facebook pages:
www.facebook.com/Bleedingred
www.facebook.com/ParasiteInc
www.facebook.com/ALLWILLKNOW
www.facebook.com/MusicSoulbound

BLOODSPOT vs SOULBOUND round.II － SOULBOUND interview

Posted on March 13, 2012 by Kumi666

Check out the round 1 at first, if you didn’t try it yet. Bloodspot VS. Soulbound Part 1

Me: How have you guys been these weeks?

Mario: Actually pretty well, thanks! We took a little time off to concentrate a little more on playing gigs and getting new songs together, we really needed that. All this organization stuff is getting pretty dull after a while and it’s kinda nice to get your creativity going for a change. Times like these give us new energy and motivation to carry on and to remember ourselves: Fuck yeah, this is awesome!

Me: I had an interview with you guys about the new CD “Towards The Sun” already, so this time I would like to hear about your gigs those past months. How was BAD SANTA RETURNS tour on last Dec? How were the gigs with Bloodspot guys? I heard Bloodspot are the great live band! Is that true?

Mario: The gigs we played just after putting out our new CD were pretty amazing, the first ones we played were all set up for the Bad Santa Returns Tour 2011 with our mates from Bloodspot and Hope Dies First. We had such a fuckin’ amazing time touring with them and we also got to sell a whole bunch of copies from ‘Towards The Sun’! It feels really good to see people who don’t know us appreciate what we do and buy our CD after they saw you on stage.

Me: How do you think about Bloodspot’s new songs?

Mario: Holy f**k, all we can say is: Thrash- /death metal at its finest! Doesn’t matter if you’re listening to their CD or their live performance, it’ll blow you away. Buy this CD; you won’t regret it, cross my heart! They’re such talented guys and they can manage the one thing that very few bands accomplish: They sound even better live than on CD!

Me: Now a bunch of “Towards The Sun” CDs are available in Japan. How do you feel about it?

Mario: First of all, thank you, Kumi, for making this possible! Of course, it’s fuckin’ awesome to know, that a few thousand miles away your own CD is being sold in 3 of the biggest Stores in Tokyo! We just couldn’t believe it until you showed us the picture! (laughs) Right now, we’re pretty curious about how the Japanese people will react to our music; we can’t wait to find out!

Me: As you told me, you guys signed with the record label and “Towards The Sun” will be officially available in Europe on this March, right? Do you have any plans for the official CD release day? Will you guys have a release party or so? Do you guys get any nice reactions about the CD from the listeners already?

Mario: That’s right! We’ll play a few concerts with our friends from All Will Know, great guys, check them out! We’re not planning to do an actual CD release party, the release date is just the date from which you can purchase the CD in digital online stores, like iTunes and so on. Yeah we did get a lot of feedback and we were really surprised about them, since this is our first CD and we were not really sure how people would react but all in all, people who bought our CD were pretty stoked and of course we were, too!

Thanks so much Mario!

Check out Soulbound’s very first CD “Towards The Sun” !
SOLBOUND Facebook: www.facebook.com/MusicSoublound

Soulbound’s professional music video from Towards The Sun – Halloween

References: All live pictures of the band “Soulbound” by Rune Fleiter. www.rune-fleiter.de

BLOODSPOT vs SOULBOUND round.I － BLOODSPOT interview

Posted on March 6, 2012 by Kumi666

I had interviews with BLOODSPOT and SOULBOUND on February, wanted to ask them about the tour together on last Dec, wanted to know what they think about each other. Okay, here we go with BLOODSPOT this round!

Me: How have you guys been these weeks?

Howdie: Well, last week we renovated our rehearsal room to make it more soundproof. Until we finished the construction works, we do our rehearsals in another room which is not that comfortable than ours. You have to know that it is very cold in Germany right now, so we are freezing all the time while working and rehearsing.. more or less anyway we are writing songs for the next album right now and as far as I can say, they are getting very brutal until now!

Me: Congrats for your success for Embrace The End tour 2011. You guys played in some other countries, right? How was that?

Howdie: Yeah, the whole tour went very well and besides Germany we played some shows in Slovakia. That was a very amazing experience! Maybe even the greatest experience in our whole band-carrier so far! We just had such a fantastic time together with our Slovakian brothers in Mandragora. They took very good care of us, making us feel comfortable, checking the hostels, getting us to the next club and just being very nice people! You absolutely have to check their music out !!! (http://www.facebook.com/mandragora.sk) If you want to get some impressions of our time in Slovakia, just check out our YouTube-channel and the “Embrace The End Tour Diaries”. BLOODSPOT YouTube channel：http://www.youtube.com/user/BloodspotHatesYou

Me: I also would like to hear about BAD SANTA RETURNS tour on last Dec. How were the gigs with Soulbound guys?

Howdie: Just a month after finishing the Embrace The End Tour we had the possibility to hit the road again and it did simply blow our fucking minds! We met the guys of Soulbound for the first time and after being a bit unsure about what we should think of them in the beginning, it turned out to be a real and familiar friendship! We had a lot of fun together on this tour and we really enjoyed watching those fuckers going crazy on stage! We will definitely stay in contact and share the stage again!

Me: How do you think about Soulbound’s new songs?

Howdie: I’m not quite sure if they played some new stuff, which is not on their new record. But to talk about “Towards The Sun”, I think it’s a fuckin’ great record! After Felix of Soulbound showed it to me the first time it hit me right away! I listened very much to it after we finished the tour. To be honest, some parts are a bit to soft for my taste… but anyway… they did a really really good job on this. Although there are a lot of different styles in their music, it sounds absolutely uniform! they build up great song-structures and show that they know how to write great songs! besides catchy hook-lines and great melodies you’ll find a very heavy and fast riffing to it! On stage they present the songs even more brutal and powerful!

Me: The album “Embrace The End” is the real kick-ass one and it’s one of my top albums in 2011. Did you guys get a lot of positive reactions directly from listeners in the world already? As you know the album is also available in Japan. How do you feel about it?

Howdie: Great to know, that you like the album so much! We got all kinds of different reactions from “newcomer of the year” to “disappointment of the year”. But overall the feedback is very positive! Seems like some people out there really like what we are doing. Most of them are from Germany, but we also got reactions from different countries like Austria, Slovakia, United Kingdom, Indonesia, India or USA and it makes us feel really happy and proud. It’s the same with Japan, we are absolutely excited about the matter of fact that our album made it into your record-stores! So we want to sent you a big kiss and say THANK YOU for your great passion supporting German underground bands! We are very honored to have the possibility to be a part of all of this!

Thank you so much Howdie!

The kick-ass of kick-ass album “Embrace The End” is available now!

BLOODSPOT Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/bloodspotmusic

Soulbound interview about “Towards The Sun” PT.II

Posted on February 28, 2012 by Kumi666

Me: Actually, I surprised about the vocals especially in the chillout version of Down In Destruction, that’s really brilliant! To tell the truth, I had not thought you were one of the best singers with the past demos before, but I was totally wrong… How did you have more fabulous vocal style or just the singing voice than before?

Band: First of all, those demos you talked about are almost over 2 years old, we all did a significant development since then and so did my singing of course. But still we’re in a process where we constantly looking to improve ourselves, we’re pretty sure that our next record will be even more awesome than Towards The Sun. This process would be pretty tough if we wouldn’t have the right people on our side who always help to improve ourselves. Plus those demos were recorded with cheap equipment, we don’t even identify ourselves with those demos anymore, it’s all about Towards The Sun now!

Me: My favorite song in “Towards The Sun” is just the title track. Do you guys have your own favorite song in it?

Felix(g): Mine’s the Chillout Remix, it shows a totally different side of us, I really like that!

Jonas(b): I’m gonna stick to Down In Destruction, it just makes me wanna do the hair windmill, hell yeah *laughs*.

Mario(d): I think I like Broken Pieces the most, I listen to it at work while I smash my work desk.

Patrick(g): I’m havin’ a real good time with Sunrise, I use it as my wakeup ringtone. Always a good start in the day!

Johnny(vo): My favorite is “Towards the Sun”. It has so much variety, it’s pretty technical, some parts are more like “In your face”, some parts are very smooth … also it’s a cool song to perform on stage.

Me: Could you introduce each song one by one?

Band: Basically our songs are based on dealing with emotional problems we all have in our lives. Mostly about those found in interpersonal relationships.

The most important point we want to show with our music is, that we want people to deal with those problems in a positive, forward-looking manner. It’s not about caving in and giving up. It’s about standing up to those problems and about telling them exactly what you think. Don’t look back, don’t let those problems bring you down; always look forward, towards the sun!

Halloween is about someone who has to dissimulate himself towards people in society in order not to be the odd one out. Society makes us wear different “masks” to every special occasion in life; we change in order to get along with people who we think are important or are worth getting along with.

Broken Pieces is about a person who was a really big part of my life and then left me and it totally destroyed me. This song is about dealing with her like ‘I don’t need you, I’m better off without you”.

Curse Of Vanity is about someone you really can’t stand and you just literally wanna rip that persons head of. Also, it’s about dealing with it in a positive manner: Wrath. Yes, wrath is a positive thing in our opinion, as long as it is used right. Curse Of Vanity is about saying:” Go to hell! Get out of my life you jerk, I hate you!

Towards The Sun , well, it kinda explains itself. It’s all about pushing forward, don’t let anyone bring you down, go ahead, don’t look back, do whatever feels right for you and stand for it!

Down In Destruction: Depressions are becoming a bigger deal every day, especially in Germany. Some of us know what it’s like to be in such a situation and with Down In Destruction, we want people to get this thoughts out of their system in a positive and forward-looking way!

Me: The artwork of “Towards The Sun” looks totally simple but kinda expansive. What is the point?

Band: Of course we wanted the layout to be related to Towards the Sun, so we came up with the idea of designing the cover like an orbit, with planets, stars and of course the sun, which you can see once you remove the CD from its place in the case, that’s a pretty cool effect because you literally have to reach “towards the sun” in order to grab the CD and put it in your player. That way, our fans can relate even more to the concept of “Towards The Sun”.

Me: Now the whole world of Soulbound were revealed with “Towards The Sun”, right? What’s next? Do you have any plan for this year already?

Band: Well damn right we have! Playing even more shows, reaching even more people, having even more fun with this than we’ve ever had! We’re really looking forward to creating a new album and of course bringing you guys some fancy new T-Shirts. Maybe there will be another video, maybe some other cool stuff, stay tuned, stay with us, stay Towards The Sun!

Thank you so much guys!

SOULBOUND
Towards The Sun
1. Eclipse
2. Halloween
3. Curse Of Vanity
4. Down In Destruction
5. Towards The Sun
6. Sunrise
7. Broken Pieces
8. Down In Destruction – chillout mix

Facebook: www.facebook.com/MusicSoulbound
Official Web Site: www.soulbound.de

Soulbound interview about “Towards The Sun” PT.I

Posted on February 21, 2012 by Kumi666

Me: First of all, congratulations that you guys finally released the very first professional recordings ”Towards The Sun”. How are you feeling now?

Band: Thank you Kumi! It’s hard to describe how you feel after almost two years of endless weekend-recordingsessions, tons of photo-shootings and a bunch of concerts in between. All we can say is, we’re so glad that this huge project has come to an end and we’re even more stoked about showing our stuff to other people. In my opinion that’s what they call ‘to carry off the bays’.

Me: The band signed with a record label already, right?

Band: Indeed we did, we’re really happy to call Deafground Records our supporter; they’re helping us out with promotion issues and lots of other stuff. Best regards to our friend Maurizio and of course to the rest of the awesome Deafground crew! It feels really good to know that there’s someone who’s supporting us, big relief!

Me: You guys replaced the second guitarist from Jens to Patrick, huh? Do you mind if I ask you what happened in the band? Could you introduce Patrick to Soulbound fans anyway?

Band: That’s correct, well, look, being in a band is a really time consuming hobby – I’m not really sure if “hobby” is the right description for that what we’re doing, it’s definitely a whole lot more than that. You got to make the decision yourself, spend time with the band, or spend time with your friends, family and so on. Jens’ decision fell on the latter and that’s perfectly fine for us. There was no fight and there never will be, he was a good friend in Soulbound and it’ll stay this way.

Band: Anyway, let’s talk about Patrick! He’s a fuckin’ great guy and we got along with him very well since the first time we met him! You get to know each other very well, when you’re on tour and we had a whole lot of fun together! He’s a great guitar player and also an amazing graphic-designer! We’re really happy to have him and also we’re pretty damn sure that you guys will also like what you’ll see and hear on stage!

Me: I noticed Hendrik Kröger from Syranic did a great job as a producer this time again. How was the recording process with him?

Band: Damn right! Hendrik is an awesome producer, working with him was really pleasant and he really exceeded all our expectations with the record! I think the communication between the band and their producer is the most crucial part when it comes to setting up a record. We really got to know each other during this time and the mutual respect kept growing every day, we’re really happy about that. It all went so smoothly, we couldn’t imagine someone else doing the job that Hendrik is doing for us!

To be continued… Stay tuned!

By the way, “Towards The Sun” is already available at famous metal CD stores called disk union Hard & Heavy Ochanomizu, Shibuya, Shinjuku and their online store, also you can find it on Amazon Japan. Check it out!

Check it out the professional music video Halloween!

Soulbound on Facebook

Soulbound music video “Halloween” ～ behind the scene

Posted on November 29, 2011 by Kumi666

The melodic metalcore band from Bielefeld just finished their first music video for their song Halloween. I’ve got some comments from each guy of the band, plus I put the video on the end of this blog. Check it out!

Jonas: Well, first of all, thank you for giving us the opportunity to talk about this, feels really nice to share those impressions with the world. You know, since this was our first video shoot we didn’t really know what we’ve gotten ourselves into (laughs) but I think it came out really well and we’re really proud of what we accomplished. Sure, there were some really long days at the weekend and it wasn’t always fun, especially the night where we had to shoot outside at 923561512 degrees below zero, not cool.

Johnny: Yeah I remember that night! (laughs) You jumped around like a squirrel on speed and yelled “Holy **** it’s so cold!” over and over again. Well, among those sometimes frosty days, there was one day which literally made me scream “Hell Yeah, this is awesome!” Of course I’m talking about the day were the people from our local dancing school agreed to join us at the set. It was so much fun with them, they were so disciplined and of course every single one of them was an absolutely flawless dancer. Even though we had to shoot the dancing scene over and over again in many different settings they always kept smiling and you could see that they had a really great time.

Johnny: They joked around with us and were really making us feel comfortable, thanks again guys, you were absolutely amazing!

Felix: Definitely, props to you for sticking around until the end! Oh and by the way, it was pretty awesome what a whole bunch of stuff our film crew brought along! I was like “Dude! How much gear do you need to film a music video?!” Turned out every single thing was needed to let the video look as good as it does right now (winks). Most of the place was occupied by the light equipment; I felt like I was standing in a football stadium, it was so awesome!

Jens: Yeah dude, I felt like it was 11am! Real pity though, what you gotta pull off if you want to shoot in public! One scene was shot in a subway and we thought it was no big deal but we were so dead wrong. There was so much paperwork and stuff do and sign, pretty annoying if you ask me, it felt like they didn’t wanted us there at all (laughs).

Mario: Yeah but even though some parts were not that much fun, we sure had a really great time shooting this video. We can’t thank our crew enough, there were so many people around the set who all put so much effort in this video, thank you guys! And to be honest?! I hope that this was not the last time we get the opportunity to shoot a video like this, it really was a worthy experience and a whole lot of fun!

Halloween

You only see my mask
That’s not what I find in the mirror
Disguise is a cushy task
It’s the only time I see clearer
Disconnected from my reality
It’s the time for sensuality

Now face it
Be honest
Show what’s behind the mirror
My real faces

So let it out
I have no doubt

That is what I am
What I feel could just be on Halloween
I’m just feeling free
Only on Halloween
Freaking out loud
Act myself out
Shouting out loud
I take myself out

It’s my time in the year
An easy way to escape from low times
I’ll get freedom from my fear
The only day I can act in my prime
Disconnected from my normal life
It’s time for my intestine strife

Now face it
Be honest
Show what’s behind the mirror
My real faces

So let it out
I have no doubt

That is what I am
What I feel could just be on Halloween
I’m just feeling free
Only on Halloween
Freaking out loud
Act myself out
Shouting out loud
I take myself out

It’s my time in the year
An easy way to escape from low times
I’ll get freedom from my fear
The only day I can act in my prime
Disconnected from my normal life
It’s time for my intestine strife

Once in a while
To be exact on the 31th of October
Which is the only day in the year
I’m allowed to act the way I was naturally born
At the same time, I’m dying to be a hero and a monster
This day is the only day I can be free
And this day is: Halloween

That is what I am
What I feel could just be on Halloween
I’m just feeling free
Only on Halloween
Freaking out loud
Act myself out
Shouting out loud
I take myself out