 Intervju - Udo Gerstenmeyer, Chinchilla 1. What are you up to right now? We are playing some shows in Germany, write new material for our new CD and we are happy about our new CD, cause it's one of the best things I've ever written. Lots of interviews, we have done the last 6 weeks, showing me the interest for our band, a lot of congratulations. We've got excellent feedbacks for "The Last Millennium" from the press all over the world and from our fans. 2. Tell us about your new album The Last Millenium. The Last Millenium is about the weakness of mankind. The ambitions for power, glory and wealth, there for they do everything. For everything in our life's you have to pay a price, there is always the difference between good and bad, black and white and you have to make a decision, in the end, if you are dead, there is the big purgatory and there is always your own bill, which you have to pay for and the amount of your bill depends always on your efforts. 3. Tell us something about recording the songs from The Last Millenium. I wrote the music and the lyrics, like the three albums before. Thomas worked out the melodies and vocal lines for three songs, the rest was my part. It's difficult for the others to become a part of the creative process, cause I wrote the album in my home recording studio. If I had an idea, I started working it out. It's not import on which instrument. I show you the way I prefer to work. I wrote the basic guitar riffs and the main keyboard parts 3 month before we enter the studio. Then I arranged the parts in my little home recording studio. 8 weeks before we started to record I begin start writing the lyrics. Two weeks later it was finished. After that Thomas and I start working out the melodies and vocal lines. You can always hear the instrument on which I wrote a song on. When I wrote a song on my keyboards, it sounds like the Swedish or Norwegian kind of Heavy Metal, when I wrote it on my guitar, it sounds very European. This mixture makes our music very interesting. We recorded 12 days and mixes 10 days. First we recorded the drum and the bass parts. Then I went in the studio to record then rhythm guitars. Ingmar Schenzel, the second studio engineer, who recorded the parts, called it the guitar army, `cuz for most of the songs we needed 8 to 12 traces. That's crazy, but it sounds wonderful. After that was finished, we recorded the vocals and the lead guitars in exchange. The keyboard parts were finished by myself, before we went in the studio. Marc only played the solos and the keys on "Victims Of The Night". Then we made a brake, `cuz it's always better to listen to the recordings with clear ears. After three weeks Achim and me started to mix the songs. The most important work for a good CD. With out any doubt, I think it's the best album I've ever written. For example, Demons we call or The Highest Price. Demons we call It's about the 13 grey eminencies who rule the world. They were brought into this position and now you can't get rid of them. Nobody wants to have them, but they are still here and rule the world since generations. Always the same clan. This makes our political leaders look like puppets on a string. They only have to function. The Highest Price It's about a guy, who got bitten by a vampire. Therefore he got a eternal life, but there're two sides of the coin. He can only live at night and he's always on the hunt for blood. After a while he gets sick of it and wants to die. After he managed to die, he finds out, that this was a mistake, again. The devil waits for him and makes him pay his deuce, cause nothing is for free. The lyrics are very important for me. 4. Is it on purpose that the girl/angel on the cover of the album looks like Britney Spears? That's only a chance. I don't think that Royo did that by cause. There are a lot of girls that look much more beautiful than Britney. 5. Which song, of all your albums, stand out as your personal favourite? I don't have a favourite song, cause I wrote the songs and they come all straight from my heart. It's like living in a family with lots of children. You can't say that you love one child more than the other, cause every child has his own character and his personal own way to be a part of your heart. They are all different but you love all of them. For me it's the same with our songs, they are so different, but I love each single own. 6. What is your best and worst tour memory? It's always funny to be on tour. There is nothing, which licks you off from music. You drive from town to town and you play Rock 'n Roll, that's what we want. To meet our fans and have fun with them. Our best live experience was the Tour in France with Vanden Plas in 2000. France is a very nice country for German Heavy Metal bands, cause the audience gave us a kick each night, they are really crazy. The intro started and their fists went high, they began to shout like I've never heard before. Man, that's a feeling you never forget. At the end of our show Tommy started to divide the audience in a left and a right part. He sang "Cause I --- stole your love" and first the right part, then the left part sang after him. The audience was always louder than the PA. That's crazy. Some guys followed us from town to town, like in Germany in the 80's . The worst thing was the bus at the Demon Tour, cause we were 21 people in one bus and the heating didn't work. In summer no problem, but it was February, that was very bad. We had to sleep in our clothes seven days, then we got a new bus. 7. What band have been the most fun to tour with? And worst? That's a difficult question, but I think the Demons are the winner. There was not one angry word the whole tour. We shared everything on board, no trouble in a bus with 21 people, that's great, we had a party each night. We never got trouble with other bands, there were only good memories. 8. When can we expect to see you in Sweden? Now we are back from our European tour with Demon and Tad Moros from Feb. 19th `'til Mar. 3rd and we played shows in France, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy, Germany and Austria. Now our record company is trying to get us on a bigger tour, also for this year, with a big headliner and I hope it will be possible then to play in Sweden. We all think that we have to play in Sweden, perhaps on a Festival. 9. What do you do when you're not playing or writing music? Tommy and I are big football freaks, our favourite club is VFB Stuttgart. Sometimes we go to a match or watch Premier world. For me it's very important to meet friends and have fun with them. 10. What's your craziest experience as a musician? Maybe you witnessed it happen but didn't participate in it? For me my craziest experience was to meet Paul DiAnno and Killers at Wacken again and to have fun with them the whole two days. Paul and Killers are very friendly people and it's good to call such musicians, like Demon and Paul and Killers, "friends". 11. Tell us something nobody knows but only because they haven't asked you yet. Something you've always wondered why interviewers never ask. Okey, we have a new bass player, his name is Josh and a new drummer his name is Rob. I have given so many interviews so there is no question they haven't asked. 12. Any message to your Swedish fans? See you, maybe on a festival or on tour. If you are interested in more Information about Chinchilla please take a look at our homepage. Watch out for the power, with out you and our fans we are nothing, keep rock 'n roll alive!! Chinchilla - Official website
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