The darkness with yearning surrounds the soul. I'm losing myself in the waves of melancholy. The melancholy is sweet and tender. There is no way back to the reality of the gloomy world. Full moon's light glances at my window… I'm listening to the PARAGON OF BEAUTY new release and rereading the interview with Sol…

Tell us some information about your band…

You must know, that we all come from a very small village in southwest Germany, near the French border. We started in 1994 with the same line-up that we have now. What should I tell you more? Our history is boring. We recorded 2 demos ("Starwoven" and "Snowfall Summerdream"), the "Wundenozean" EP, our debut "The Spring" and now the MCD "Seraphine far gone gleam" We are more than a band, quite an insane family with weird ideas... just listen to our music.

What means dark metal for you? It's a way of self-expression?

Generally we hate categories labeling a band as "dark metal", "gothic metal" etc. But I know that most of the listeners want such categories because they prefer some genres and so they can better make a choice between the plenty releases each month. Our label decided to call our style dark metal and somehow this OK. Main themes of our music are melancholy and inner tragedies. We try to forge a deep relation between lyrics and music. Maybe making music is a kind of self-expression. For me personally it is something different. I want to touch the listeners deep inside the wild and beautiful land called soul.

How do you think, metal music must terrify pop & rap lovers?

People who like pop or rap will always be terrified by metal. Pop is nothing more than a kind of entertainment; rap is a way of life that totally differs from the metal-attitude. I think each one should hear what he wants.

With which of non-metallic band do you want to play a show? For what reason?

Together with Fish. As you know we recorded a cover version of the great Fish-song called "The Company". Fish is the former vocalist of MARILLION. He left the band after 4 albums and started a solo career. He made always-honest music and managed to capture sad emotions in great progressive rock. I love everything of him.

Why doesn't everyone like metal, to your mind? (It is so great!)

Music is a matter of taste. Some like this, some like that. Most people don't like aggressive or sad music. Live is sad enough they think.

What is your loveliest T-shirt?

The shirt I always loved very much is "Gothic" from PARADISE LOST. It is the one with the logo at the back and a crucifix at the front. Apart from this I love very much my KATATONIA longsleeve with the princess sitting on a half-moon.

They say that in future everybody will wear steel-shining clothes and as bald as an egg. Oh, man! What will happen with our lovely metal?

There will always be new trends and retrospective bands that are only copies of the great classics. Why should I hear the new bands making true metal? I listened to the classics, IRON MAIDEN, HELLOWEEN, KREATOR... many years ago and if I now want to hear such music, I listen to my old CDs and LPs. In the end, quality will survive.

Now more seriously and closer to your latest release… You have a girl in the band, I guess. Why don't Taisha sing???

The main reason is, that Taisha is our bassist. We never wanted to integrate female vocals in our music. Apart from this, she has a beautiful voice.

"Seraphine - far gone gleam" is a romantic and a bit depressive album, am I right?

"Seraphine" is not a real album. It is thought as a MCD containing special songs that wont fit with the material for our second album. The main theme of "Seraphine" is a deep yearning. In the booklet you'll find a comment to each song as an introduction to the theme.

What you wanted to say with the pure black color of the CD?

We wanted to express the solitude of a yearning soul and found it best represented with this dark and simple style.

What are the greatest dark metal bands now, to your mind? And how does it go with dark metal scene at all? I think black, death and heavy are more popular…

The greatest band in this style is KATATONIA. Apart from this I can mention ANATHEMA or AUTUMNBLAZE. Concerning the development of the scene, I'm not interested in the future of that is trend at the moment. Quality will always survive.

Tell us, please, about your passions. Poetry, for example… Or something else?

Apart from making music, I like poetry and write for my self as often as possible. Unfortunately I have not so much time due to my job as social-worker. At the moment I read Kafka. Other favorite authors are Hesse, Garder, Blake and Robert Schneider.

Maybe you want to say something, but I did not asked of you? (about your perform at Wave Gotik Treffen 2000, for example).

Thank you for the interest in PARAGON OF BEAUTY. Don't remind me on the Wave and Gotik Treffen. In this spring I had a serious accident and destroyed my right elbow. I was not able to play drums for many weeks. Because we didn't want to cancel the gig, we worked hard to integrate a session drummer. Then we traveled to Leipzig to play the gig and it was canceled because the organizators were unable to pay the sound- and light companies. But the chaos was pretty cool. Apart from this, my elbow makes me now no more problems. Next week we'll go to studio to record a new song for the second label-sampler "To Magic II".

Final message for your Belarussian and Russian fans…

Keep on enjoying our music and be a part of our insane world. Visit our homepage to sign the guestbook: http://Paragonofbeauty.cjb.net