Maybe you will find a few interesting words about the band?
Tomaz (guitars): In normal life the five "endarts" are
handsome and gentle guys but get prepared to watch us on stage. An example: we
all love IRON MAIDEN's "Power Slave" and so a few months ago we
decided to disguise ourselves and played a gig as the 'five bloodspitting
mummies'...
Ingo (drums): Some interesting words? Hmmm, well, we are all great
soccer-fans, but that's not really interesting, isn't it? Ok, here's a little
story: We're just planning the recording of a new CD containing some cool
cover-versions of good old rock songs. We love THE SCORPIONS very much and
tried to get in contact with Klaus Meine (their singer). We told him, that we
gonna record a killer-version of "Big city nights" and wanted him to
sing some parts together with our singer Larz. But a few weeks ago, the
Scorps-management wrote us: "No way, folks. He doesn't have the time to do
that, but Mr. Meine wishes you all the best blablabla..." Sad but
true.
Surely, Planet Rock is a great album, but why it is called so? I guess
you are playing more metal than rock…
Ingo: Yeah, that's true! But we think, that almost every metal-band has
their roots in ROCK. The title "Planet Rock" was a result of a
brainstorming after the consumption of vast mountains of cold beer. We thought,
this would be a funny title for our first official longplayer. And by the way,
there are so many stupid titles (especially in the Death/Thrash scene), that we
wanted to create something totally different. Ok, our next album will be named
"Satanification of mutilation, Part 666", hahaha.
How you have got the idea to make an awesome cover version of Daddy
Cool? Old good song, you have listened for ages?
Tomaz: We love playing cover songs that have not so much to do with
heavy metal, because there are so many metal bands covering songs from Black
Sabbath or whatever. Furthermore one can say, that we're no metal-puritans. Each
member of ENDART has its own taste of music. We're looking forward to produce
some cover songs from for example by NENA, STATUS QUO, John Denver and
SURVIVOR's hit-single "Eye of the tiger".
Ingo: It would be the greatest thing for me, if our band recorded a
brutal and groovy cover version of "Hot Chocolate", but the rest of
the guys have another opinion concerning that. (Sigh)
Don't you think that a band could easy live only making covers? What is
your point of view on 'covers making'?
Tomaz: Playing cover songs is very funny. The people who join our
concerts enjoy our cover songs as we do, but nevertheless composing our own
stuff is much more important to us. In my opinion a 100% cover band is not a
"real" band. Playing music is much more than beating a drum or
pulling the strings of a guitar.
Is there any level you want to reach and after that you will say:
"Enough! We got all we wanted!!"
Tomaz: I guess the most important thing for us is having fun in playing
music especially when we're doing a concert. ENDART now exists for nearly 11
years and we really don't have any ambitions to become "rockstars". At
the moment we're enjoying the fact that our new album "Planet Rock"
is distributed by Zomba across Europe, because we did our sooner releases on
our own. So you can imagine that not so many people bought our records.
What do you think about people in t-shirts 'Jesus - the only
choice'?
Tomaz: I think it's Ok to wear t-shirts but it depends on the weather
conditions: if there's extreme cold weather outside you'd better wear
leather.
Do you know a band, which can (or can't) be recommended for a guy who
never listened metal?
Ingo: Of course there are some great and important bands that are the
personification of metal. And a guy who never listened Metal should listen to
these songs: "Wasted years" (IRON MAIDEN), "There's gonna be
some rockin'" (AC/DC), "You suffer, but why?" (NAPALM DEATH) and
last not least "King in Crimson" (Bruce the god Dickinson).
Oh! I guess, I forget to ask about the most boring thing: what does your
moniker stands for? Does it mean 'The end of art'?
Tomaz: When we decided to call our band ENDART we didn't think about
'the end of art'. 'ENDART ' stands for the German notion "entartet"
which means "to be degenerated". During the times of the fucking "third
Reich" in Germany lots of artists, musicians and writers and their works
were called "entartet". It was prohibited to listen to their music;
their books were even burned. Many of these artists were discriminated, killed
or they left Germany as for example Thomas Mann.
Besides, what is the worst name for
a metal band, to your mind?
Ingo: I think, every name is OK, as long as
it doesn't have any fascist or discriminating meanings.
What feelings you want to awake with
your music?
Ingo: Well, on stage, we create a strange
mixture of many different feelings and emotions: A lot of power, hate and very
much fun. We love to see a banging crowd with a laugh on their faces when we
play on stage.
How about coming to Belarus and
conquer our audience? Where you wish play at all?
Ingo: Oh man, this would be a really great
thing for us!!! Do you think it could be possible to arrange this? We don't
need very much: Just some bottles of booze and a banging crowd that just wants
to celebrate a big and funny party... We played a lot of gigs in the last
years, but we never left Germany. So it's time to conquer some other states and
spread the PLANET ROCK-Virus, yeah!
You drink booze? Like drugs? Love
sex? What is your usual kind of relaxation???
Tomaz: Of course we drink gallons of beer,
are addicted to hard drugs and each member of the band needs about 4 or 5 chix
per day...(laughing) in normal life we're doing quite normal things to relax
ourselves like doing the dishes or washing the car but on tour it may happen
that we really drink gallons of beer and so on...
Back to "Planet Rock". The
lyrics are very impressive! Damn!!! It is worth reading! The main idea in a few
words, please…
Tomaz: I think our lyrics aren't written in
the typical death metal style. Sometimes our lyrics base upon stories of famous
authors as for example Shakespeare (Mother of dread and fear) or Edgar Alan Poe
(Malstroem). Generally one can say that our lyrics try to tell stories,
sometimes in a pathetical way, but they are not telling the reader what to do.
He's got to make his own decisions.
Looking inside the CD we can find
interesting photos where you are with different ammo (and names like - wing
commander and so on). Is it a tribute to Destruction??
Ingo: No, it's not a tribute to Destruction. Our layouter and our
photograph wanted us to look like some Metal-Warriors from Planet called Rock
and it looks really cool, doesn't it? I can't say more to this, cause these
names (wing commander, engineer etc), the pics, the title and the layout are
just some stupid and funny ideas after consuming many gallons of beer...
The page of salutation and "thanx to" is really nice. Maybe
next time you will mention Tony Ihonin from Belarus - it is me?!
Ingo: Yeah! You will find your name on our next output, that's for
sure... One question to your "name": It sounds like the name of the
Black-Sabbath-Guitarist. Are you a fan of them? I love this band very much;
Ozzy is one of the greatest singers ever! He could be the president of Planet
Rock and you could be one of his ministers...
Do you consider yourselves as a band that will change metal? Maybe you
are the representatives of the "new century metal music"?
Ingo: Oh no! As our beloved Tomaz said a few questions ago, we're all
playing (and living) this kind of music for 11 years now. We love Metal music,
but we won't change it. Other bands should play the style of what you call
"new century metal music", but we're not interested in that. We love
these traditional guitar-killer-riffs, low and aggressive grunts and blastbeats.
That's the way, we like it...
Want to say something special?
Ingo: Hmmmm, what about the taste of your local beer in Belarus? Is it
worth testing it? What about the Metal-Scene in your country? I never heard
something about bands from there!
Some words to the readers…
Ingo: OK metalheads: ENDART would like to say the following to you: It
would be the greatest honour for us, to visit you in your country and play some
cool metal-gigs. If anyone wants to play ENDART in Belarus: Contact us,
everything is possible.... You can order our new CD PLANET ROCK via Internet if
you can't buy it at your local record-dealer. Just visit our homepage www.endart-planetrock.de. And of course many thanx to you, Tony Ihonin, for
this interview. 1000 Greetings to your local metal-scene and never forget:
SOLDIERS OF METAL, AGENTS OF STEEL!!!