Interview by Rachele Valente
Shortly after the last Italian date that took place in Bologna as headliner for the Paganfest, Eluveitie comes back to Italy, but this time as the support act for the Swedish band Sabaton with the Hungarian band Wisdom. On the occasion for the release of the new album (compilation), “The Early Years”, Chrigel and Anna gave a little appetizer about it, remembering something of the early beginning of their musical activity. Here you are with our interview!
Today Femme Metal has the pleasure to welcome to Chrigel and Anna from Eluveitie. Hi guys, how are you doing?
Chrigel: Allright!
Anna: 🙂
Your last show in Italy was last year in Bologna, as the headliner for the Paganfest. Now you’re coming back in Milan, supporting the Swedish band Sabaton. Why did you decide to be on tour with them?
Chrigel: Because we’re masochist 😀 No, they were just looking for another band to join this tour and we’ve been asked and we thought “Yeah, it’s just a great opportunity for us to expose our music to a completely new crowd”, because in this tour a lot of people are coming for them and it’s like a really different crowd. I mean: most of the people like classic heavy metal and stuff so we just thought “It would be cool to present our music to people that maybe don’t know who we are”… so… that’s why we decided to join this tour!
This is the first tour without your own guitarist, Simeon who has recently left the band and you’re playing without Päde, who’s coming back in a couple of weeks. Can you explain what happened?
Anna : Well, Päde died unfortunately, that’s a sad thing (she jokes with Chrigel). No, he has to do a work-shit and so he couldn’t join us and Sime left for a personal decision. We didn’t get any fight.
Chrigel : He was actually thinking of it since a year or maybe more… I mean: he just wants to reach some personal goals. He was thinking about it for a long time actually, so yeah, the time has gone.
After the great success of “Helvetios” you released with Nucler Blast “The Early Years”, a collection containing “Vên” completely re-recorded and a remastered version of “Spirit”. Why did you decide so?
Anna: ‘Cuz it’s cool 😀
Chrigel: Yeah, I mean: both albums have been sold out since a quite long time and many people were still asking for them so many people actually told us “Yeah, you should release them”, like management and the record company. Everybody told us “Yeah, re-release it, seriously!”. Everybody wanted that, but we thought “That’s cheap to just re-released it, it’s not that cool, we don’t want to do that!” and then we had the idea to completely re-record “Vên” which sounded for us at least like an amazing idea, because, you know, those songs are about 10 years ago, those songs are kinda developed together with us and we just thought “It would be cool to re-record it again and just see how the songs sound today”, so yeah, that’s why we decided to do that!
Just before the release date of “The Early Years”, you published on your official Youtube channel a lyric video for the song “Lament”. If I don’t get wrong you said you had completely revised the song. What can you tell us about this choice?
Chrigel: To be honest, I wasn’t too happy with the old lyrics. I mean: the original lyrics were written from a point of view of today looking back to the time of Helvetians and I actually made the exactly same thing but with the time switched and the lyrics now, the new version, are also looking back to the Helvetians but just from 2000 years later. Helvetians were already Romanized and stuff and it’s written from that point. That’s a different version but I prefer it!
“Vên” was released in 2002. At first, there was a song more you couldn’t finish to write. Now, in 2012, this song is finally completed: “Divico” will be part of your own edition of “The Early Years”. Why in Nuclear Blast version of the album the song will not appear?
Chrigel: One reason why we did this now is also because of our 10th anniversary and we just thought that it would have been cool to do something special as well and also to give people something that just comes directly from us. It’s like a personal birthday present or something like that! That’s also why we did this own edition because every little detail about the album is done by ourselves, I mean: everything is done by ourselves. We wanted to have something special on that too so that’s why!
Can you tell us something about “Divico” song?
Chrigel: That’s cool! I like it!
Anna: Yes, I like it too.
Chrigel: It’s just a song about a character of Celtic history which played an important role in the Gaulish Wars and the history of Helvetians.
You have changed some lyrics too. How did this decision come out?
Chrigel: We revised them, the lyrics basically are still the same, especially the Gaulish part in the lyrics, I’ve just corrected, you know, because it was 10 years ago and my Gaulish back then was “very little” and very bad, especially the song “Uis Elveti”, the lyric was catastrophic, if it comes with the grammar and everything it was really, really bad! Today I know much more about the Gaulish language and I’ve just corrected. I mean: the lyric is still the same, it’s just in a better Gaulish 😀
If I’m right you’re planning a big show in Zurich, this December, the second edition of your own festival “Eluveitie and Friends”. Can you tell us something about this show?
Anna: That’s a great opportunity to make a own festival and invite bands and friends of ours even if something arrive many people that we ever known that’s pretty cool.
Chrigel: That’s actually a kind of “special guests”, we basically invite bands from somewhere, bands we toured with and then there’s always a kind of “special guests”, it could be anyone.
Anna, let’s talk about your upcoming solo album. Why did you decided to work on it? Are you excited about it?
Anna: Yes, I’m very excited! I decide to start on my own stuff like, I don’t know, two years ago but in between I did stuff… It just kinda happened and I don’t plan anything. More people behind me pushed me to do it… It’s a lot of kind of developing.
In these years you have joined many side-projects playing different instrument and singing. How did you manage to do something? What are your personal plans now?
Anna: I don’t really think about what I gonna do in the future, what I doing in the moment is just music, music and music and not really anything else. I’m really happy about this and I have to be proud of it and Eluveitie is always first of course and so everything else is just filled around…
What are your future plans?
Chrigel: Pretty much as she said. I mean: right now we’re on tour until next Spring or so… I mean: I’m pretty sure we’ll work on new material for a new album, to be honest we’ve already started but yeah, we don’t have many plans exactly.
Thank you for your time. Would you like say something to our readers?
Anna: You’re awesome! Thank you!
Chrigel: Thanks for your interest in Eluveitie!
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