Feuerschwanz is a band that’s apparently really busy. Besides the many performances at various festivals this summer they even come out with a new album this summer. Time to meet with this band! A rather laborious conversation with the two front men, “Hauptman Feuerschwanz” and “Prinz R. Hodenherz III ‘, which was mainly due to language problems. A conversation about humor, the medieval times, and of course the new album!

Can you tell anything about Feuerschwanz for the people who don’t know you?
Feuerschwanz is a band which makes music based on medieval times. We resemble knights, and most of the time we’re drunk. We drink mead; mead is our blood. And we have a lot of fun doing it!

In your biography you state that you’re already trying since the medieval age to break a curse. What is this curse you’re talking about?
This curse is very complicated. It was a witch which cursed us to complete several difficult tasks. All these different quests are very long to explain, so it’s up to the reader to look it up in our biography. Up until recently these tasks haven’t been accomplished. These tasks vary from a 1000 girls who need to lose their virginity by us, 1000 kilo of radish needs to be eaten, and all the lyrics of Schandmaul needed to be farted, backwards! Very difficult.

Do you like it better in this age than in the medieval age?
Yes, especially the toilets! And right now, we have our new coach (their tour bus) in which we can go to the gig, we can even sleep in it, and we don’t have to walk to our gigs anymore!

Your lyrics are all humorous, but do you all have the same kind of humor?
Of course, everybody has his own sense of humor, but we developed our own style during our 800 years of touring. But we heard that the Dutch people doesn’t like the German humor. Feuerschwanz is the perfect example that Germans can be funny. Therefore we really want to play in Holland, to show you the evidence!

Do you think keeping up this kind of humor would be a problem in the future?
Everyone writes the songs when they have inspiration. Sometimes you don’t write for over a week, or over a year. Furthermore, we work together, so we can help each other. The main point is that it requires much energy to write such humorous lyrics. We try to keep up for the next couple of years. For now, the vibe is really positive, so we will continue at least for the next few years.

Is there somebody who writes all the music? Or is it a group process?
Mostly it is a group process. However, during the making of the new album ‘WallhalliGalli’, Hauptman Feuerschwanz and Hans, der Aufrechte, provided all the lyrics and the music. Inspiration comes mostly from strange events on tour. From these events, someone said it is a great idea to make a song from it, and the week thereafter, the song is finished. And then, together, we develop the song further during rehearsals.

What is your mains source of inspiration?
Alcohol! Haha, no, the main source comes from playing gigs, and seeing the crowd moving and partying. When the spark jumps over, you think on how you can draw inspiration from that, and how you could possibly top that.
Furthermore, we sing about partying. We want to converse that partying is great, and that it even is an important aspect of living. We want to say that you need to see life as one big party. People are always busy with working, and they need to have fun once in a while.

You already mentioned the next album ‘Walhalligalli’. What can we expect from this record?

This time, we were guided by the Northern Gods. And the way these gods party has inspired us. We traveled up there, and partying with Odin, Thor and Sleipnir was great fun! That’s also something you can hear on this next album. And this next album will be a bit heavier, more rock. We need hard music, hard beats to get the crowd moving, and this album will be a party of the highest quality!

What is the title based upon?
Halli Galli is a western dance, some kind of squaredance. That’s where the name comes from. Furthermore, ‘Halli galli’ stands for party. The title, a mixture of ‘Walhalla’ and ‘Halli Galli’ is thus the party of the gods.

What it’s like for you to play on a metalfestival?
We have a special status here. It’s great, to stand here between the other bands and to see that the people are enjoying us. If you could come on stage and see all these people having a great time, it’s awesome.

And what do you prefer? A metalfestival, or a typical medieval festival?
We prefer festivals like Roskilde or Rock am Ring, haha! No, those are festivals with which we can play with the great bands. These festivals are our ultimate goal, all other performances are the way to get there.

You played a few times on the burgfolk festival. What was it like to grow in such a way that you’ve started out as a starting band, up until the headliner?
It’s great! Though we think you can throw a good party in the afternoon, but we like it better to play during the evening. The organizer of the festival once sat with us to drink some, and he felt the ‘party-energy’ burning within us. Therefore he decided we must play in the evening.

In the past, you altered typical fairytales, think of Snowwhite and the Pied piper of Hamelin. Can we expect another ‘ruined’ fairytale on Walhalligalli?
Actually yes! We wrote a song about an ancient Czech fairytale called ‘Rübezahl’ for this album. It’s about an old man living up in the mountains.

If you need to choose, would it be ‘Met’ or ‘Miezen’?
Pffff.. That’s a difficult question.. I really can’t decide… Next question please!

Because of your stage-outfits, you look a bit like those typical Life Action Role Players (LARPers), are you LARPers yourself?
We know it, and we know people that do it, though none of us play it. Therefore, I can’t tell you much about this phenomenon.

Do you have any last words?
We want to tell you a final story, and it’s about the shirt ‘Met Not Stand’ (the lack of mead). It’s an emergency situation all over the world. We have a good intuition, because we drink the mead. We try to gather the activists on our side to fight the lack of mead. Within a few years, the mead will run out. Therefore we want to try to prevent this!

Furthermore, listen to Walhalligalli. Drink with us on better times and it would be a pleasure to play in the Netherlands!

By: Nick
Photography: Feenstaub-entertainment