Well what to say about "Klagebilder"? It’s our new bay and again a "German album". We’ve decided to do it because it’s not only 15 years of Crematory and as well 10 years since the first German album named "Crematory", which is still one of the biggest sellers of us. During the years our fans kept trying to demand another record with German lyrics – so we thought the time was right to do it. Furthermore as you might not know: „Revolution" was completely finished with German lyrics before we handed it over to the responsible people at Nuclear Blast. After they’ve heard it, they denied to release it because of the German lyrics. We had to rewrite and re-record the whole lyrics and vocals very quickly to guarantee an release of „Revolution". Back then we decided that this would have been the last time that a record-company would interfere in our creativity. As „Klagebilder" developed and it was clear to be a German album Massacre Records were very keen to do it – as they did the first German album called „Crematory" 10 years ago as well.

Working on Crematory-songs is not the easiest thing, haha. As we all have day-jobs and families this is more like a "Weekend Warrior"-thing. Of course everybody throws in ideas and as we’re all listening to different styles of music – the magical sound of Crematory is absolutely unique. For us "Klagebilder" is already a classic. It combines all the individual strength we have to one big bubble. We are very happy to use this ‘beauty and the beast’ vocals as we have two guys who can do it in perfection. If we wouldn’t have Felix and Matze Crematory would sound completely different and I don’t think we would really find a suitable substitute for any of them if one day they would stop making music. We are very pleased to see that we are really top-priority at Massacre Records. We know the guys for so long as we started our career with them. It’s good to come home and see familiar faces if you know what I mean.

For Felix it’s hundred times more comfortable to write lyrics in his mother language. Before he wrote them in German as well and we had to have a native speaker translate them and fix them with the rhythm of the song – sometimes that was very hard as German and English are really not the best friends when it comes to pronunciation and singing rhythms. The red line is that Felix always talks about very personal feelings, pain and sadness. It’s his experiences he describes and that could happen to everybody else as well – so all is personal stuff with a moral to others. Life is really inspiration enough. Things that happen to you every day are sometimes for yourself more important than global events. We don’t want to preach or teach. We just want to show what’s happening to us, what our problems are. Maybe you can identify with us? Maybe you have the same problems like we do? Maybe we find a way out of misery together? Or maybe you just don’t care and think we are stupid assholes? Well – that’s all up to the person who listens to our music. We don’t say that our way is the only way – we just say it’s our way to solve our problems – maybe it can help you a little bit as well.

As mentioned before it was more or less a patchwork recording. We were popping in and out of the studio to do our parts after work – there’s really nothing special about recording-sessions as long as nobody deletes parts, haha.

Puhh – hard to say. I think "Klagebilder" is not so heavy than "Revolution". We focussed more on guitar and vocal-melodies and catchy chorusses. The biggest sound-changes were anyway made after "Awake" ehen our former songwriter had left the band. Since then I think Crematory found a new sound and we’re trying the shape it better from album to album.

Nothing special. I like to watch the support-band and walk a little bit round the audience or merchandise-stall – just to hang out with some fans and having a beer. 30 minutes before our show we finally meet up for final checks of equipment and calm down a little bit – but that’s pretty much it. We’re Gothic, but we’re Rock’n’Roll as well, haha.

Too many, haha. Well every tour is special. Every band is special. I miss the time when we did 4-6 weeks tours – that was pretty cool. But with families and jobs we can’t do that anymore. Really – there’s no band I could name I preferred touring with. We always get along with everybody. For me personally shows outside of Germany are very fascinating – I like to see other people and culture.

What a question, haha. The first gig is always shit. You’re nervous, you (and the audience as well) drink too much, you play shit….but everybody likes it. So – it went normal for me.

Ugh – a very heavy one! I’m very interested in smaller, unknown bands – but I like the classic metal bands as well. Metallica – Ride The Lightning is THE metal album of all times!!!

Too many average bands releasing too many average albums. Years ago it was not possible to do records or CDs of your own. You were bound to have a record-deal – that was something like "natural selection". Only the best band got a deal and the chance to sell their albums worldwide. Nowadays with the internet and the high-standard home-recording equipment everybody can do and sell CDs. At the moment we a have a 2-class society in the scene. The old farts like Iron Maiden, Judas Priest etc. pull a lot of people. The Metalcore-bands really do good for the youngest of the young but inbetween there’s a big vacuum…

This is all top-secret, haha. It’s a law that everything that happens in a tour-bus or on tour will be kept inside. I think if you watch our "Liverevoltion"-DVD you will see that being on tour with Crematory means that a lot of crazy things happen. A story to tell is the invention of "Tequila Suicide" by our Backliner Tobi "The King Of Palz" in Thessaloniki. We were drinking the whole night when Tobi decided to do something new. He inhaled the salt through his nose, drank the Tequila and pressed the Lemon juice in his eye. Crazy. He kept going and we joined. After about 9 rounds the rest of the bar visitors joined…it was great fun. So since then this is the official drink to get the party-license with Crematory!!!

We have some festival-shows settled for next year – but as far as I know there’s no further plans at the moment. But of course we like to play!!!

I hope that we can continue and improve on releasing high quality albums and play some more shows all over the world to meet our fans eye-to-eye.