Interview with Knaat
The Good things of Southern Germany
It doesn’t happen every day a band releases a very good debut-album. But Knaat did so recently so we thought it was about time we had a little chat with these Germans.
When I first heard about Knaat I looked you guys up at facebook and I noticed you were talking about Korpiklaani and Equilibrium as interesting when the band started. How important are these bands for Knaat? ‘They were a major source of inspiration when we first started out because we always looked up to them when we were on concerts such as Paganfest or Heidenfest in Munich’. They played a big role when Knaat was searching for an style of their own, but they don’t sound exactly like them. They think Finntroll and Ensiferum are the bands which influences can be heard more in their music.
I can imagine it’s a very special feeling when you have your debutalbum released so I’ll ask the guys of Knaat about their feelings with this release. And I learn they didn’t really know how the people would react to the Album at first, since they think they let them wait for simply too long. But the overall response has been great so far and they think it’s just an awesome feeling when people tell you they like what you’ve produced. Definitely an experience they would like to have when they’ll produce a second album in the future.
Knaat released the album mainly because we felt like it. ‘We wanted to share our music not just through platforms like myspace or youtube, sometimes people want to listen to music in cars for example and a CD is still the way to go’. But they’ve never pushed themselves to do it, which was the biggest reason why it took so long. But they reached a point were they simply realised that there were enough songs to record an album right away.
When you start a band there are a lot of things you have to find out for yourselves and when you’re going to record an album, there’s again an awful lot of things of which should be taken care of. And this are often not things musicians can do themselves. If you can are a musician, drawing an album-cover is a whole other art for instance. But Knaat was lucky to have their bass player Nico who had some contacts already, because he did stuff like this with the band he played in before. And so it was that Knaat didn’t find it hard to find the right people and offers.
‘Die Lichtung’ is an album like a lot of debut-albums with the best songs from the earlier years with two exceptions. “Leidensweg” (sort of, it’s something in between older and newer =)) and “Sturm auf Windhelm”. And this is about the whole repertoire, they have two newer songs, but they were finished when the recording were already done, very unfortunate.
Many band release an nice album first and then gigs will follow, but Knaat did this the other way round. It must be a great experience to perform a Paganfest, although it was only in one venue. And they can only underline this ‘The only term to describe it in the right way: Incredible!!!’ It even exceeded their expectations because they expected a number of somewhat 200-300 people who would watch them play. But over 1500 people came and listened to and after the concert there was also the opportunity to talk to some members of the greatest pagan-bands. ‘Truly amazing!’ according to Knaat.
The ultimate dream for these Germans is the same as in a lot of other bands touring with a Pagan- or Heidenfest tour.
But in the meanwhile there are other gigs, one of the ways to get more gigs is to have some bands which they’re good friends with, like we see with a lot of other bands. In Knaats’ case a good example is the Swiss Pagan-Band Abinchova. They met when they played together in Munich last year shortly after Christmas. The same thing will happen this year, in exchange they going to play in Switzerland two days after the gig in Munich.
But is remains a great wish to play at bigger concerts again and they’re prepared to wait a while for this, but if it’s up to them it’s going to happen sometime.
At the end of this nice chat, we always wonder if bands have something to say to the readers of Folk-metal.nl, and the guys of Knaat have a very important one, they’re probably are looking for a big sponsor in Souther Germany: Bavarian beer > Any other beer =)
By: Michel