Heaven’s Guard is a German symphonic metal band.
Interview conducted on January 27, 2021
By Dan Locke
Heaven’s Guard is a German symphonic metal band that was founded in the beginning of 2017.After one year of searching for the right members, the band become in the early month of 2018 completed. The music is described by powerful and mystic melodies, epic orchestration and classical vocals combined with powerful and heavy guitars creating a unique sound.
What is your upbringing?
Steven: I was born near by Hanover. After two years, I moved for years to Berlin and then to Hamburg. With 14 Years, I then moved back to my hometown Hanover, where I live since. After finishing school, I started to study industrial engineering.
Karsten: I started learning to play the accordion when I was 8 years old. 4 years later I started to play the piano, too. My education was a classical one. But I loved to play some music after listening in the radio. In this way I practiced playing music only by Hearing.
Kevin: All my life I have lived in a small village near Hanover and when I was 5 years old, I got my first drum set from my grandpa. Since then, music has become a big part of my life.
Chris: I was also born in Hanover and spend most of my life near Hanover. But not all, in my youth we moved to north rhine Westphalia for a couple of years and I also worked abroad for 1.5 years. After school I studied mechanical engineering and especially in my first years after university, I had the chance to travel a lot to work in different countries. In school my friends and me were listening to metal a lot and at one night we had the idea to start our own band. So quite the classic way on how to start playing music.
Doreen: I was born in a small town in Thuringia. After my education as a medical technical radiology assistant and some years of work I studied earth science in Hanover.
How did you discover music?
Steven: I was pretty old when I actively started to listen to music. That’s about the fact, that there was no music, I got attracted to. In my 5th grade of school there then was this one friend, who introduced me especially into Nightwish and Children of Bodom and so into the world of metal.
Karsten: When I was 12 my older brother listened to rock bands like Queen or AC-DC. So that was the rock music I listened to first. I loved listening to the radio channels (it was in the ’80s) and step by step I found more genres and music for me.
Kevin: As I said before, I started playing drums very early. Through my father, I listened to older metal bands like Uriah Heep, Black Sabbath or Deep Purple from a very young age (I remember jamming ‘Smoke On The Water’ by Deep Purple with my father when I was young, he played the guitar and I played the drums, a very nice memory) and discovered more and more great (metal) bands from time to time. Today I can say that I listen to almost every kind of metal – thanks to my dad.
Chris: I actively listened to rock music when I was quite young. Starting with Rock ´N Roll, continuing with Hard Rock, and at the end coming to Heavy Metal. I´m still listening to a variety of different genres, but they have to rock.
Doreen: Music has always been a part of my life. When I was young my mother took me to country festivals. Relatively early I had favorite CDs that I borrowed from my parents, I think I still have them today ^^ My own taste in music developed with Alanis Morissette, Evanescence, Linkin Park, Within Temptation, Marilyn Manson, and Lacuna Coil to name a few.
How did you start to write music?
Steven: I wanted to start a band with original music. For that, you need to write music, so I started writing. That sounds boring so spoken, but it is the trigger that initially brought me into writing music.
Describe your music.
Steven: I think the term “Symphonic Metal” describes it the best. For sure you could start comparing us to different bands/musicians and find similarities to them. In the same way, you can do it with those artists as well. In the end, we all have our influences, which will be found in our songs and the way we play them.
You band is a German Symphonic Metal band. How did you form the band?
Steven: After playing some rock in a rehearsal room with some guys, I recognized, that I tilted more and more towards the wish of playing some harder stuff, which I couldn’t do in this formation. So, I kept my eyes open for a band, that hit my preferences, and which was looking for a guitarist at this point. The fact, that there are not a lot of symphonic metal bands out there led to the point, that the only option was founding a band of my own. I so started looking for musicians in the region, that fit my imaginations. That was in 2017. From that point, it took over a year until all positions were filled. From then on, we started working. And now here we are.
How did your band get its name?
Steven: I always got attracted by the idea of supernatural entities (e.g., influenced by the series: Supernatural). And without any religious background, I like the idea of the existence of entities like angels, demons, heaven, and hell. Those are abstract terms of an idea, that lies beyond human understanding. The absence of a strict definition of those entities leads to a lot of freedom to play with those. Also, with those terms there comes a bit of epicene and majesty.
Our name then results from a consideration about what a “Heaven” could mean in the first place and I came to the idea, that a place without a specific subset of my current life, that contains e.g., some persons or things, could impossibly be a heaven for me. With this idea in mind that every subset defines heaven for every individual. Shouldn’t you keep those things safe then? In the end, everyone is guarding his own heaven and is therefore somewhat Heaven’s Guard.
What was your first performance at like?
Steven: Unofficially, our first gig was a test gig in our rehearsal room with some friends. We wanted to test things out a little bit. Well, we screwed terribly up. And I’m sorry for everyone who was there. But we learned a ton of stuff from this and in the end, it was the best idea to do this.
Officially we played our first gig at a smaller town near Hanover at the date of the Fête de la Musique. And it primarily was hot. Burning in purgatory would be understated. For sure we were terribly nervous especially because it was the first stage experience ever for half of us. But it was pretty cool in the end and surprisingly most of the things worked out as planned.
What makes a good songwriter?
Steven: Music is a matter of taste. Clearly, you could define criteria for good songwriting and analyze a song regarding to those criteria. But in the end, if you can serve someone with your music and even if it is just one person in the world, you did a good job.
What is the process of writing your music?
Steven: It usually starts with the idea of a story. From that point, I have a feeling of how the song should feel like. Everything develops from that state. But I tend to have the melodies written down before thinking about the harmonic structure. If the song is more or less completely arranged, I send it to the others and we start to rearrange things until there is nothing more, that we can give to the song.
Do you belong to any to songwriters’ organizations like the International singer-songwriter association, SESAC, BMI or ASCAP?
No.
What was the title of your first original song? Did you record it?
Steven: It’s called Veiled in Mist and will be on our first album. You can hear a demo version of this on YouTube.
Tell me about your first single. “The Cause of Destiny”?
Steven: Our universe is a spooky place with a bunch of wonderous laws. You can calculate the behavior of a system if you know the current state of this system. This principle is based on the law of causality. But if you can forecast every system if you have just enough information and computing power, this leads to an absence of free will and the existence of what we would call destiny. Everything would be already written down at the point this universe threw itself into existence. At the same time, we live in a place where everything is blurred, and chance is what actually rules. Messing with those concepts leads to a lot of confusion and questions. This song is a valve for that.
Tell me about your LP “Pathfinder”.
Steven: Pathfinder will be our very first album. There will be 10 tracks and maybe there will be an extra track. At the same time, we have song called “Pathfinder” that contains the idea behind the line of throughout the album. To say, this not a concept album, but there is a kind of red thread. Also, we still are finding our still and how we want to sound, so it also shows this process.
What is your favorite track on the album?
Steven: Difficult question. It might be a song that’s gonna be called “Platos Cave”.
Doreen: A song called “Symbiosis”
Kevin: Yes, difficult, but it would be “The Cause of Destiny”.
Karsten: It is “The Cause of Destiny”.
Chris: “The Cause of Destiny”.
How is your crowd funding coming alone?
Steven: We are just a small unknown Band. By December 2020 we had neither a decent release nor a significant fanbase. The crux is that without concerts, due to the pandemic or a release, you can’t build a fanbase. And without a fanbase, you can’t crowdfund. We now have about 20% of what we need to produce this album. At the moment we try different approaches to reach people, which des improve our campaign. But despite all these difficulties, it is a great motivation for us to see that people from other continents, who listen to our single, are pre-ordering our CD and are willing to also pay expensive shipping fees, to support us. This is really a great honor for us.
What are some of the pecks people get to contribute to your crowd funding?
First of all, you can pre-order the Album in physical and digital form. Furthermore, we offer signed items like signed CDs, Drumskins and so on.
How do you stay healthy while performing?
Steven: Warming up is the key.
Karsten: Yes, and talking to friends having a drink. Do something absolutely normal.
Kevin: I guess a good warm up is needed, but also a good feeling within the band. So, a little talking and having a drink together as a kind of pre-show ritual is pretty nice.
What are you’re feeling about streaming music?
Steven: Again, difficult to answer, because there are few correct answers depending on the point of view. As a small band, it is fantastic, because we can distribute our music with a mouse click to the whole world. For me personally, the problem in the music industry seems to be more a misdistribution of the money streams.
What song from the past is in your mind right now? Moreover, what is the meaning that song means to you?
Steven: Kissing the Shadows by Children of Bodom
Kevin: Right now, i often think about ‘The Sound Of Silence’ by Simon & Garfunkel.
Chris: One by Metallica, as this was the first Metal Song I actively listened to and also the first music video I ever watched.
Doreen: Yesterday I watched Queen Of The Damned. Now I’ll have an earworm again for weeks from my long-term favourite song Forsaken by David Draiman.
Both (Pfizer and BioNTech) and Moderna have conclude Phase 3 Study of the Coronavirus vaccine. With the both vaccines, it takes two shots. How many people do you think will take it and how many will forget to take the second shot?
Steven: Hard to tell, how many people will take it. But I think for those who take it, the number of people forgetting the 2nd shot will be insignificantly small.
To make things a bit more complex, there is talk that people could either mix the manufactures of the vaccines or in the case of Moderna studies have shown you could take a half doses for the first shot and still be alright for the second vaccine. Do you feel that this is right?
If there would be reasonable scientific arguments for doing so, this should be fine.
How long before the whole world will be vaccinated against the virus. You have to remember there only has to be a 70% for Herd immunity (Herd immunity occurs when a large portion of a community (the herd) becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. As a result, the whole community becomes protected — not just those who are immune.)
Pretty hard to tell. There are so many unknown factors right now, that it is impossible to have reasoned assumption
How was it to be able to finally go back to the stage on Nov. 11th, then be told it was postponed until March 20th?
We were aware that a cancellation for this gig had a higher probability than the chance that it would actually take place. So, it was not a surprise. For us, it would have just been a nice evening that didn’t happen. But for all the owners of concert venues it is a great tragedy because they lost their income while they kept the costs.
If “Video Killed the Radio Star” do you think that the Covid-19 virus has killed live music? Do you feel the Covid-19 virus going to affect the music business in the future?
We do not have any specific statistics, so all statements on this are suggestions. The fact is, that this whole live music industry is broken right now. But we have the feeling, that the demand for concerts is increasing exponentially with every second thing are locked down. So, people will grasp every possibility for live music as soon as it is possible again. And with demand, that high, it should be possible to rebuild what got broken.
What have you been doing with your self-quarantine?
We all had the luck to not be put under quarantine, but we try to avoid leaving the house anyway. We used this time specifically to produce our single and set up the crowdfunding campaign to fund the album.
Karsten: That´s right. But I also spent much time with my family. Especially I cared about my children because school and kindergarten were closed.
Kevin: I’ve been reading a lot and as Steven said, on the one hand, we’ve been using the time to get the crowdfunding campaign going and produce our first single, on the other hand, I’ve been practicing a lot of our songs at home and trying to keep a positive spirit in this sad situation.
Chris: I also use the time to practice the songs, so when we can finally hit the stage again, we can rock it.
Doreen: I also practiced a lot. I also took up a few hobbies like drawing and playing the piano.
Have you discovered or rediscovered any new hobbies?
Steven: No, not that I would know.
Karsten: Not sure if it will be a new hobby, but I reactivated the embroidery machine of my wife. I produced patches with our band logo and band name.
Kevin: No, I’ve only read, practiced drums, or written a few poems myself, not sure if anyone will read them someday. But all these things are old hobbies of mine.
Chris: No, only intensified the existing ones.
New hobbies actually not, rather refreshed old ones.
95% of people said that they have changed the way they watch television. This includes people who don’t have television and using their computers to do streaming of programs and movies. Which is your favorite streaming channel?
Steven: I think Twitch, Amazon Prime and Netflix getting my attention to even shares.
Many artists are doing nightly concerts over either YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. In October that is going to change at least on Facebook. Facebook is cracking down on livestreamed shows that include recorded music with new terms of service, preventing artists from using the platform for “commercial or non-personal” purposes, unless they have obtained the relevant licenses. The updated music guidelines state that users “may not use videos on our products [which include Instagram] to create a music listening experience […] This will include [Facebook] Live,” and stipulates that such content should be posted for the enjoyment of friends and family only. How do you think this will change the landscape of Facebook?
Steven: Since this has not been relevant for us, we even didn’t recognize this change in the terms of use. At least in our environment, Facebook wasn’t a tool for streaming live music anyway. Services like YouTube or Twitch seem to be more common for that here.
How can bands keep their fans if they cannot play live in front of the fans and sell merchandise to them at the show?
Steven: At least for Germany, even streaming a concert is impossible because there are only persons from two distinct households allowed to meet. So even rehearsing is forbidden. But I don’t think that bands will lose the relevant part of their fanbase anyway. But for example, the band Dragon Force started to created content on Twitch and I’ve seen several musicians to do similar things. At least, that is a good option to stay in interaction with fans and maybe reaching new fans as well.
Is pay to play still a thing? Now pay to play also means thinks like playlist on the internet and opening slots for a major band on tour.
Steven: Yes, it is. Even for local concerts, there is pretty often the requirement for bands to either pay for being allowed to play or at least to buy a specific number of tickets, that the band can distribute.
What about Holographic concerts in our living room?
Doreen: Holographic concerts were pretty cool but rather futuristic or did I miss something ^^ But I would just miss the atmosphere that has a live concert. As a big fan of live performance, I would miss, among other things, the hours of waiting in the cold with the subsequent unspeakably great feeling to stand in the front row. And my soundbar could never reproduce the sound of an arena.
Steven: Affirmative
Government heard the call of thousands of music creators and included protections for the music community in the omnibus bill. In addition to extended and improved unemployment benefits and small business loans for freelance creators, the package includes several bills which the Recording Academy, its members, and the larger music community advocated for. From the Save Our Stages Act, provided a lifeline to performance venues and promoters, to the CASE Act, which creates an avenue for smaller creators to defend their copyrighted works, Congress has ensured that both music creators and those who act behind the scenes to bring music to life are given the support they need during this difficult time.” Will this help save the industry?
Steven: Speaking for Germany, there are not enough help programs for the affected parts of the industry.
In the past if a musician stops doing music, they find a new career. For example, David Lee Roth from Van Halen became a music, licensed EMT in NY for 6 years, San Spitz (guitarist for Anthrax) became a master watchmaker, Dee Snider (Twister Sister) voice over work for SpongeBob SquarePants. If you can’t do music what would you like to be doing?
Steven: In this moment we all are either fully employed or studying. And we are far away from generating any returns from this band.
What is your happy place?
- Steven: New York City, by a lot.
- Karsten: Deep forests, no matter where they are.
- Kevin: Everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
- Chris: In nature with my hiking backpack or on the sea in a sailing ship.
- Doreen: Oh, I do not think I have just one. Over the years, I’ve tried to create several. I learned that I was more balanced when I could sing or when I am in nature. Through my studies, I was able to travel to many great places like Tibet or Mongolia. Such journeys changed me every time and I find new places that are my happy places. Be it a campfire in the middle of nowhere or the rain pattering on a tent.
Spotify just deleted 750,00 songs, mostly from independent artists. Was your saved?
Steven: We were not affected!
Anything you would like to say in closing.
Steven: To everyone who has listened to our single. We need your aid to finance the whole album. So please check out our campaign and if you can help us with any amount, no matter how small, we would be very grateful.
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