What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you remember that night? What would you point out from that night?
Bernhard: Lots of work 🙂
The organization, the guest coordination and invitations, the promotion for this show, the rehearsals etc…that was really tough and made me very nervous before the show..and in the beginning of the first three songs you can hear me singing totally out of breath :)…puh… But during the show I was coming down a bit and I could enjoy the evening. It was wonderful! A very close and personal party with band, friends & fans. I’ll never forget this evening 🙂
Harry: That is really an unforgettable experience. We never expected such a success and such reactions. The preparations for this show was really hard because we did most of the work on our own. The band was so good in that night and the audience was like heaven. There is no better drug than that. I wish we could do that again someday.
It´s funny you have entitled it as “Official Bootleg” when it has been recorded with several cameras. At least, you can see more professional work than in the typical Bootleg we all know. Why did you decide to call it like that?
Bernhard: In the beginning of this organization of the gig we didn’t plan a DVD or a live recording. Three days before the gig we were persuaded by a fan called Kleif Baltes to record the whole show. He said, it would be a shame not to save this event for the future. But we’ve had no money and no time to do this …so Kleif asked some friends and we asked some fans to record the show with cheap consumer cameras. Just to get something.
From the beginning on we know this recording could not stand our quality level we always try to get. That’s the reason why we called it “Bootleg”. The only chance to get the best out of it was: TIME. We need to reformat all these different movies in a DVD compatible file, than Kleif need more than 10 month to cut and adjust the material…only in his free time. Because of the unprofessional recording we have to fix a damaged microphone of Alex drums. It was really a lot of audio and video restoration work, just to get an authentic result of the evening. Very authentic because we haven’t had the time to fix mistakes of the band 🙂 
Now, after the release, everybody like the DVD very much and even the quality seems to be no problem. That makes me really happy& proud but I didn’t expected that 🙂
It is a long dvd but really interesting with very juicy and funny interviews. Are you happy with the final result? Do you think it truly reflects what happened that night?
Bernhard: Yes, I’m very happy with the result and the fans caught the evening perfect on tape. Like I said, mistakes, wrong lyrics, wrong notes within these 3 hours we keep it on the DVD. So it reflects the whole evening more than perfect 🙂
Harry: The result is very true. All emotions, feelings and even the music are real. You can’t catch all of what’s going on in such a night but with the result we are very close.
The two unreleased songs played that night were amazing, especially Hot Love. Why have these songs been hidden? I guess it was a special occasion to release them but don´t you think that theses tracks could have been part of previous cds?
Harry: It’s very funny how people react on these songs. They are really very old and no record company wants it in former times. Now as we are a label on our own, we can test even some old songs and are very surprised about the result.
Two more questions about the DVD. First, there is feeling of really close and attached band, almost like family, in which even ex-members are really comfortable with. After so many years touring, how do you accomplish that? It is really surprising for a band with musicians from different ages.
Harry: We are always trying to be fair to our musicians and they give it back to us. We make things clear from the point on when somebody starts to play with us so that there can’t be any misunderstandings later on.
Bernhard: AXXIS is well-known in the business to be fair to their partners and musicians. Beside all the trouble we have sometimes, we always try to have fun and keep a good harmonic atmosphere in our surrounding. Hey we’re musicians, Harmonics are very important 🙂
It’s always a give and take
I think the acoustic set is the best decision you could take as it gives the DVD a great range of songs and music. How is the response of the audience to these tracks? There will be people who will be surprised to see a band like AXXIS doing this, although many people knows o have already seen it in some of your shows.
Harry: We always play different songs in our acoustic part to keep it interesting. As we once started playing it years ago the reactions of our fans have been so good that we decided to keep it as a fix part of our show. We even played an acoustic tour in 1995 that was very successful. It’s a good thing to show the musical variety of the band.
Changing topics, in regards to your tour, You will be in Spain, only one show at Ripollet Rock Festival. It is always nice to see bands like you involved in Festival that are not so massive because people can enjoy a more close show. What do you expect from that show? What´s the attraction of a festival like this one? And, of the Spanish audience? We are known to be very passionate but I don´t know if Axxis agree with that.
Bernhard: We agree totally. Every time when we’re in Spain it’s like coming back.. The people are very enthusiastic and for us it’s like being on holidays :)I like the country and the people and the culture very, very much..It’s a shame that we get only this gig in Spain. But I also know that the Spanish market is quite difficult right now…unfortunately.
We have witnessed some changes in the members of the band but the musical basis of the band remains the same. How is it possible? I guess the vocals is the key but there other bands who change the main guitar and the sound completely changes, however, the continuity and evolution in Axxis is quite logical.
Harry: That is because the main song writers are always the same, Bernhard and me. And as we produce the music of Axxis on our own we have a clean idea of how the result needs to sound. So the influence of the other musicians is important but not that big.
Bernhard: I think our way of songwriting is always the same. We’re writing the songs only on an acoustic guitar. Our philosophy: If a song or melody sounds cool on only this basic instrument than we have to produce it. That makes us resistant from huge modern sounds and digital possibilities that only hide that the songs hasn’t got a good idea 🙂
Axxis is a consolidated band, with musicians who have been part of the band for a while. Is this the definite band? What would you stand out from the current members?
Bernhard: Different times, different people, different musicians. I like all of them even the members who left the band for some reasons. We’ve have had aleays a good time. But if you keep a band alive – since 22 years now – I think it’s normal that some members will get more or other experiences with other bands or other jobs. I could never be sure that this band is finally the definite band…times changed and bands too 🙂
After two years of the release of Utopia, Which conclusions do you have from that CD? I personally think that it contains some songs, like Utopia itself or Last Man on Earth, they could be fixed on your set.
Harry: It’s one of our best. Great songs, good melodies, good power. It’s possible that these songs are fixed in our set in the future but there are also some plans to do something complete different. For the next shows. In Germany for example we’re gonna play only songs from the first three albums (Kingdom of the night, Axxis II and The Big Thrill). Let’s see how the fans react to the old songs in the new times.
Bernhard: You always have to reflect the releases in the context of their time. like Utopia very much :)…but I like all our CDs. Some are good and some are better 🙂
The next question is a must, Is there a new cd in your future plans? Are you writing for the next project? In case you do so, Would it be harder and purer heavy, more towards Hard rock or a mixture of both?
Harry: We just founded our own label for the release of the DVD and that was a lots of work and now we are looking forward for the upcoming shows in the second half of the year. There will be plenty of time to talk about the next projects. There are some ideas but we need to fix them. At the moment it’s too early to talk about that.
Bernhard: Because of our label Phonotraxx and the DVD release we haven’t have the time to write songs. But to keep in training we recorded cover songs. That was a lot of fun because we got one rule: No Metal Songs! 🙂 We’ve interpreted pop songs and very strange songs in an AXXIS style…and I have had the chance to rehearse and improve my studio in some details. But we don’t plan to release this …right now 🙂
The last question is just an anecdote. We all know you usually speak in the language of the country you tour in. How did you come up with the idea? But, above all, how did you manage to have time between preparing the show, setting all up ,and so on, to prepare those “speeches”?
Harry: Every member of the band has his part for preparing a show and Bernhards part is to prepare the speeches. He starts with that even in the hotel where he used to talk to the girls at the reception. We are sometimes not shure if all words and sentences they give to him are real if you know what I mean. Sometimes we see people laughing out very loud in the audience that I am not sure what Bernhard is really telling in that moment.
Bernhard: Jo 🙂 Good to have receptions & fans 🙂
Thanks again for your time and we are looking forward to your next visit to Spain and your future projects. If you want to add anything or say something to your Spanish fans, this is your time…
Harry: Spain is always a highlight on our tour and I hope that we can play many shows and festivals in the future. Spanish fans are the best.
Bernhard: I agree. I hope that we would get more gigs in Spain in the future. Over the years we got to know a lot of people over there and it’s always a pleasure to visit all these different cities and areas in Spain. So keep on doing this you need to buy our DVD on www.axxis.de 🙂 By the way for Spanish fans we have an own Facebook site called “Axxis Fanclub en Español”
Thanxx
Belch
