Flotzilla was a Swedish fanzine in the second half of the 80’s, written in Swedish. Here’s an interview translated to English.
BLIND GUARDIAN
Here we have five guys from the town of Krefelt in Germany, they call themselves Blind Guardian and play music in the borderlands of old Helloween and to translate it into Swedish it goes something like this, ultra awesome!! I haven't heard their first album "Battalions of fear" yet but the latest product called "Follow the blind" is damn good. So I thought I would write a letter to their bassist and singer Hansi, said and done, I didn't have it right away but after a few weeks of waiting a small package appeared containing everything from cassettes to stickers, cars and damn everything, but the important thing was that there were some answers to my questions and of course there were!!
I might have to point out the fact that the interview is a bit old (mid-July), but I hope it won't matter that much!?
Here in Sweden people don't know much about Blind Guardian, so why not start from the beginning?
- In the old days we called ourselves Lucifer's heritage, and under that name we recorded two demo tapes that went by the names "Symphonys of doom" and "Battalions of fear", with the second one we got a contract with a label called NO REMORSE RECORDS. Before we went into the studio to make the first album we changed our name to Blind G because we didn't like the old name anymore.
- When the album was presented to the German metal press, it got only high ratings and good reviews, and that helped us sell records, we sold 10,000 copies in Germany alone.
Your album Battalions of fear has been out for a while now, what have you done since the album?
- After a lot of playing and a tour in Germany in -88, we went into the studio for the second time in the beginning of -89. Then to record the second album "Follow the blind", which I personally think is much better than the first, our music is speed metal with a lot of melody in it. You can compare it to Helloween's old productions and Savage Grace's first "Master of Disguise".
I have never read anything about Blind Guardian in any major magazine like Metal Forces or Metal Hammer, why?
- German Metal Hammer writes about us sometimes but never on the color pages, on the color pages you can only find bands with big record labels behind them, like Noise, Roadrunner or major labels. Last year our label wasn't big enough to cost us a color page. Metal Forces hasn't written anything about us because our album hasn't been released outside the borders so for them we are an unknown band, but I hope that will change now that "Follow the blind" is out because I have sent out many copies to foreign zines.
Your music is melodic speed metal, and if I look at the German scene I have to say that there are quite a few of these bands like: Rage, Vectom Scanner, Vendetta etc.. What do you think is the reason that Germany has so many such bands?
- It's pretty simple, the whole scene likes the old Helloween, when we started for example, four/five years ago we were all big fans of the Helloween ep.n and we thought that's how we want to sound and I think a lot of bands thought the same thing.
If I look at your lyrics for the "B.O.F." album I see that many are very Tolkien inspired, but there are songs that break the mystery like the title track, which is about the USA and Reagan, can you tell me about that and other songs?
- First of all I'll say that I like fantasy, especially Tolkien's Lord of the Rings (Sagan om ring) and there are some songs on the album that say a bit about the saga, I like to make lyrics with a magical feeling about it, that's all. I also like Stephen King & Follow the blind is based on the book "It". When I wrote B.O.F. I was mad at the American government because the Russians wanted to take down the medium-range robot towers, but all Ronald said was no, and another thing was when he was on a TV show, where he claimed that the Russians had been the first with nuclear weapons and the last reason why I wrote the song was that most of the American people think the same way as Ronald, they don't care about the rest of the world, but the important thing is to be a good American and watch TV. The funny thing about it all is that the German people are that way too. I wouldn't write a text like that now, it's not good to write political texts because heavy metal has nothing to do with it.
Please report dead links!Tell me about Krefeld?
- Krefeld is a small town in the middle of Germany, it is located near the Ruhr area so there is a lot of industry, and everywhere in Germany where there is a lot of industry there are also plenty of heavy metal people, most of them prefer bands like Testament, Slayer Metallica but also some progressive bands like Fates Warning and Queensryche. There are plenty of metal pubs and concert venues here. Everyone here has beer as their favorite drink, it is like everywhere and everyone looks forward to the weekend, also like in most countries, I guess. Here we also have many unknown but very good bands, the bands that I give the biggest chance to get a record contract is Everon, they are really good musicians and sound a bit like Rush. And then we have Bronze, which is a regular heavy rock band with a lot of power and humor in the songs. And then finally Heavenwood, who plays melodic speed like us.
Any closing words?
- Mosh to all the heavy metal crazy people in Sweden. Buy Flotzilla and read this interview and after that you can go and buy our new album. Unfortunately I haven't bought any Europe albums because that's not my style.