Crédit : Micha Gröger
7 years after "By The Strom", the German band Craving is back with its fourth concept album "Call Of The Sirens". Here, Ivan (vocals, guitar), Wanja (drums) and Jonas (guitars) talk in detail about the production and thematic aspects of the album, their desire to sing in several languages, and their covers of two Eurovision hits :
To begin with, can you introduce Craving in a few words?
Wanja: Epic Extreme Metal!
Ivan: Craving is a three-piece metal band from Germany. Everything started in 2005 and in 2023 we are about to release our fourth album “Call of the Sirens” via our new label Massacre Records.
Your new album "Call Of The Sirens" will be released in a few weeks. Have you already had some feedback ?
Ivan: Yes, we had so far five to six fantastic reviews with 8-10/10 ratings.
Wanja: I have also heard some very positive feedback from people who have seen our music videos and listened to the singles!
7 years happened between your previous album "By the Storm"and the new one "Call Of The Sirens". How can you explain this?
Ivan: We had difficulties with our prior label, which was very demotivating and threw me back a lot. Now we are back with a new strong business partner and are ready to go all in with music again!
Wanja: There were several factors involved, like line-up changes, the pandemic and difficulties finding a good label. But we are now very happy with Massacre Records, so the long search and wait paid off!
New album but also new line-up with the addition of Wanja Gröger and Jonas Papmeier, how was the writing process with them ?
Ivan: It was very smooth, easy and a lot of fun. We did everything ourselves except for mixing, mastering and the artwork.
Jonas: Basically, Ivan sends me some files, I record my parts over it and send my files back to him.
Wanja: For me, it was really cool working on the drums and coming up with my own ideas on what to play. Ivan basically gave me all the songs and told me to do whatever I wanted, and so I could get really creative! Many of the guitar riffs were just perfect to play cool drum beats to because there are many accents and details that I can go along with. On the other hand of the spectrum, we also have the sort of parts that are more a “wall of sound” where I could act a bit more freely and almost “improvised”.
This album was mixed by Christoph Brandes, how was the work with him?
Ivan: We have been working with Christoph for 10 years now. I really like the final result, which is basically balancing between a raw and a more modern production. The mix sounds very aggressive and epic at the same time, which pleases me a lot. Also, he nailed the epic factor with big choruses. Christoph is always fantastic to work with, because he is such a cool and laid-back, down to earth dude. 11/10 would highly recommend.
Wanja: I am also very happy with the drum sound, which can sometimes be a real challenge to get right in this kind of genre.
You mix different influences, so how would you describe the sound "Call Of The Sirens" ?
Jonas: Epic!
Ivan: In one review, the style was described as Blackened Heavy Metal, which nails it in my opinion. We describe it as Epic Extreme Metal – Melodic Black Metal meets Melodic Death Metal spiced with some traditional Heavy & Power Metal.
Wanja: It is hard to pinpoint exactly, but I see it as a mix of black/death metal with epic trailer music or something. Plus, some heavy and thrash metal thrown in here and there.
Ivan: Elevator music (laughs)
If we get into the details, this new album is about the complexity of real-life events and social issues. Is this something that has always impacted you? Or was it the COVID period that aims to write about this subject? Ivan: The concept came in 2019 after I had a mental health issue resulting from many factors. One of them was a result of meeting a person with a high level of narcissism. This gave this album the concept and the name “Call of the Sirens”. The title was older though, at first, I wanted to write Penelopes’ Prayer Part II with Odysseus being tied to a mast listening to the Sirens’ Call. The rest came naturally, we have topics like psychopathy (Gods Don’t Negotiate), despair (Prayer for the Rain), alcoholism (Blood ovFranconia), war (Star by Star) or fury (Mich Packt die Wut).
Can you tell me more about the choice of the title "Call Of The Sirens" ? Did the mythology inspire you in the writing process ?
Ivan: Oh sorry, just answered this in the prior question. No not quite,Narcissism has inspired this title. We do not have any mythological or pagan background, never had, never will have.
Jonas: You could say that in a sense, although Call of the Sirens is written about relationships with people with narcissistic personality disorder, we use the mythology for the imagery. In a way, a narcissist person can be a modern-day siren. Like a siren's song, their charisma can enchant you and draw you in while hiding their true face. And once you realize that something is wrong, it is already too late, and you are drowning in the ice-cold water of their manipulative world devoid of any empathy.
With all these elements, we can consider that it is a concept album? Ivan: This is correct, yes. It’s a concept album about Psychopathy and Narcissism. You can find the backstories of all our songs on our website under “lyrical concept”. If anybody is interested feel free to check out cravingmetal.de!
We hear women's choirs in some songs. Can you tell me more about it? Can we say that she represents the sirens? Ivan: We have been working with Michelle Bouma since the “By the Storm” album. I love her voice and call her jokingly “Angel Voice”. Check out her project Mortifero and her black metal band Asargarum. But she is not the only woman singing on this record. Another good friend Esther Sarai Devries is accompanying her in the chorus. On “Death March” you can hear Theresa Winterhalter, a colleague of mine, singing the chorus with me. Originally it was supposed to also be sung by Michelle, but it was not fitting her range well.
Wanja: The female vocals give an excellent contrast to Ivan’s voice, especially his harsh vocals, and it is this contrast that makes the music so special to me.
Can you tell me more about the album artwork which is full of detail? You worked again with Andrej Bartulović, I guess he helped you to define the visual artistic image of the band? Ivan: Andrej and I have been working together since 2012, he did all the artworks for Craving since 2013. I love him and his work. The idea for this cover came from him, and he worked on the details with feedback from me. For example, the planet which you see in the background represents “Star by Star”. The idea with the pink logo was also his, I guess it represents the vulnerability, but to be honest I do not know why he has chosen the pink color, but nevertheless love the final result!
On the track "Gods Don't Negotiate" we find Marek from Cradle of Filth. How did this collaboration go? Ivan: Marek and I first met briefly at Wacken Open Air where I did my three months internship back in the summer of 2015, and we stayed in touch since then. In 2018 I worked for the musical instrument’s retailer Thomann as a video producer and have invited Cradle of Filth's Marek and Chales for an interview and session to our YouTube-Channel. The video is still online; you can check it out if you like! Marek has a unique style, and it was a no-brainer for me to ask him. And Cradle of Filth had a huge impact on my musical development and is one of my very favorite bands. I love their music and it’s a huge honor for me to welcome Ashok as a guest on our album. To be honest, I never heard such a creative solo in my life, it’s basically like he wrote a song within a song.
In the album there is a particular song that meant much more to you than the others that you want to talk about ?
Ivan: These songs are very personal and specifically based on my life experiences: “Call of the Sirens”, “Mich packt die Wut” and “Death March”.
You write songs in different languages (german, english, russian and ukrainian) can you tell me more about it? Are these some languages that you speak fluently, especially Russian and Ukrainian? Or is it a kind of challenge to sing in new languages for you ?
Jonas: Yeah, it is a tradition since the first album for Craving to have songs in all the three languages Ivan speaks. And due to the cover song Shum by Go_A we also expanded to Ukrainian this time. We decided for this cover even before the war started. But with the current situation we are happy to have songs on the album in all those four languages.
It’s not the first album where you sing in these different languages? Can we say it's like a signature of Craving ? Or a desire to expand your music all over the world?
Ivan: Absolutely yes to all three. The first idea to use Russian came back in 2010 when recording our debut album. I was reading the poetry of Nikolaj Gumilev a lot and you can find one of his poems on every album of Craving since 2013.
We find in bonus two covers of Eurovision Songs Contest (and I must say that the song of Shum is my guilty pleasure. It was a nice surprise to hear you cover it). Can you tell us more about them? I guess your musical taste is very open ? Is this a television program that you support and enjoy?
Wanja: No need for the pleasure to be guilty. ;) I personally enjoy ESC for the most part. Especially in recent years it has been very interesting to see all the different musical styles competing there. Shum was one of my favorites in 2021, and I had a lot of fun turning that song into something super extreme!
Ivan: The idea came spontaneously, firstly I wanted to cover El Diablo out of tradition, due to the fact that we covered Only Teardrops, both songs are written by Thomas Stengaard. I thought it would be funny to repeat this, plus El Diablo fits the topic of the album. Shum was a big surprise for me, and I was very keen to turn it into this folk death metal song. My grandmother is from Ukraine, and I was born in St.-Petersburg, Russia, which I left at the age of 12 in October 1998, four months before the current government was elected. I am against the war, and we actually wanted to tour Ukraine in 2014, but then the first conflict started.
This year we find Lord Of Lost who represents your country Germany. I guess it's a positive point to see Metal music more and more represented during this contest?
Wanja: Absolutely!
Ivan: Yeah, Lordi were the first ones who did it back in the day.
What are the next plans after the release of the album? Do you have any tour planned?
Ivan: Recording the next album, which already has a concept! Andrej is currently working on the artwork and Wanja is about to start the drums pre-production this summer. We hope to get on a tour, but it’s more or less beyond our control and I have only two arms and one head and am not able to plan tours on my own at the moment. We did I think three EU runs from 2013-2016 and are looking forward to going back on the road, but as mentioned before it’s more or less beyond our control right now.
Wanja: But of course there are a couple of festival gigs etc upcoming! Check our website for info on all upcoming shows! https://cravingmetal.de/live-the-future-the-past/
To conclude this interview, I let you say the final words: Ivan: Thank you so much for this detailed interview! I hope you enjoyed our musical output. Thank you for your support and huge thank you to our fans, label and the PR-People at massacre/believe who are doing a fantastic job for us!
Cult Of Metal : Thank you for this interview and your answers, I wish you the best with this new album !