Munarheim Interview

After the EP ‘Liberté’ in 2013, and the albums ‘Nacht und Stürme werden Licht’ in 2014 and ‘Stolzes Wesen Mensch’ in 2015 we had to do without new releases of Munarheim for a while. But now they’re back with a beautiful new album ‘Willens & Frei’, delivered in German and international edition. The style of the band is a very exclusive one with distinctive vocals, harsh, sad, full of pain. There is a nice contrast of these vocals with the light flutes and whistles and there are these awesome choirs and orchestrations. Time to chat with singer Sebastian about all these things.

Opinions

Congratulations with the new album ‘Willens & Frei’. How is it received until now?
“We are getting very good feedback at the moment. People are sending us very kind messages 😊”
Are the reviews important for you?
“It’s always nice to read good reviews and being mentioned in magazines and other media.”
Are they important in a sense of advertising or do you like to get feedback from magazines etc.
It’s important to be present to reach and extend the audience. But I think it’s not really the most important always having 5/5 stars and so on. Most oft he time it’s very subjective and a matter of luck who is reviewing your music. If the people don’t actually listen to your music all the good reviews are just words of comfort.”
We at Folk-metal.nl think that’s very true, what we write about an album is just the opinion of one of our team-members. We like to give all bands some extra attention.

Silence

It has been quite a while since the last album, what was the reason for this?
“We didn’t set a deadline. We decided to take as much time as needed. We didn’t want to have any pressure. Because of this ideas had more time to naturally develop. Some songs like „Weiße Rose“ were written in a few days. Other songs were transformed several times. Some over and over again. Sometimes also backwards. But it was good to have enough time to experiment with our music and our sound.”

Munarheim is still unsigned, do you think this is a pity, or is this a choice of your own?
“That is a choice of our own. We are proud to say that we make every single step in writing & producing our music by ourself and also manage the whole distribution. We want to have full control of our music, our image, our marketing… everything. It’s very time-consuming but it’s nice to realise our ideas the way we want it to. For example the „limited edition“ of our new album. I don’t think any label would have produced it the way we did. But it’s the way how we want our music is presented.”

Friends and Music

Munarheim has a very distinctive style, are there bands you like to be compared with?
“I think that’s very difficult. I hear people talking about us and comparing us to bands I never imagined (because of their musical style).”

There haven’t been a lot of changes in the line up, are you a very tight bunch of friends?
“Yes we also do much together in our free time. It’s not just „this ist he guy I’m playing in the band with“ but „these are my friends and we also do some music“

Composing

How does the songwriting works in Munarheim, since there are so many members?
“Most songwriting (music) is done by Sebastian. We talk an debate about his ideas which he shows us and for example Helge is adding some riffs or Wolfgang some specific Drum Rhythms. But the framework is done Sebastian, people are adding their own ideas and after that he merges everything together. Lyrics are written by Pascal. He lets himself be inspired by the raw recordings and writes the lyrics matching the atmosphere of the music. But never randomless. There are always very personal.”

Do you find it difficult to write music for so many instruments?
“No I think not. Not difficult but very very time-consuming. Especially because of the orchestra. That was really hard work over several months. Also an aspect why it took so long till release”

Are you planning to tour in the near future?
“Would be nice but unrealistic. We are with too many with too many different time-schedules. As a consequence we try to concentrate on not as much gigs as possible but the right ones.”

Languages

How did you come up with the idea of releasing the album in a German and in an international version?
“Because we know that many there are many people listening to our music without speaking german we also wanted to give them the possibility to easily understand the lyrics not only as being translated on paper but also being able to actually listen to them. They are important for the songs and only listening to the music without understanding the content would only be half as nice.”

Do you think the lyrics work better for a peticular language?
“Both german and english versions are uniqe as it would be with any other language. The rhythmic characteristics were different and so some passages distinguish more or less. I don’t prefer one but I am more used tot he german version because oft he writing and recording process. If we would have started with the english version it would be vice versa.”

By: Michel