Sascha "Celestial" Latman

Winterhorde

From within the developing Israeli Metal scene, came this surge of coldness straight out from the cold seas. WINTERHORDE, a name that will surely rise up someday in the worldwide Metal scene, released its second album through their new label Twilight Vertrieb, "Underwatermoon". METAL TEMPLE talked to Sascha "Celestial" Latman, one of the band's founders, on the new album and WINTERHORDE in general.

By Lior Stein

• December 11, 2010

Also read: WINTERHORDE - "Underwatermoon" review

Hello Sascha, thanks for the chance to interview you for METAL TEMPLE as the founder of the Israeli, extreme Metal act, WINTERHORDE. What have you been up to nowadays?

Hello Lior! I'm fine, thank you very much. I'm busy as always shifting between my day jobs/university studies and rehearsals. The next month, the band has a couple of local shows to play, so we're rehearsing a new material. Moreover, as you may know in the end of July our new album "Underwatermoon" saw the light of day, so we're trying to promote it heavily and this is very time consuming thing. A lot of work, so I had no summer holidays, ha ha!

WINTERHORDE's second album, "Underwatermoon", was unleashed to the world. After the long work on the album, what were your personal expectations from it?

Personally, I'm very satisfied with the result and I expect that people, sooner or later will get into this album. I deeply believe that this opus won't stay unnoticed in the extreme metal scene, nevertheless its complexity and multi-genre spectrum. I always wanted to create a conceptual album and I guess we did it big time. It's more then just a record for me and I hope that our music will catch the listener's imagination and feelings.

Do you think that the album will serve the band's needs and even elevate it in the public's eye?

Yeah, of course. I'm sure that the album will introduce the great WINTERHORDE to the wider audience and it will perfectly show what we are all about. "Underwatermoon" is a big step forward for us as a band and I hope listeners will enjoy listening to it as much as we do. A lot of work has been done for this one and I'm sure we're going the right way.

What do you think of the album in comparison to your debut, "Nebula"?

Those albums are way too different. First of all, as you may know, technically, we have two new members appearing on this album – a new voice (Horeph) and a new guitar (Barakk), so it's natural that there will be a change in the sound. Secondly, we decided to go a little bit different way from our debut. I wrote this story and we thought that it would be a good idea to turn it into the conceptual album, whereas "Nebula" songs are not lyrically connected. Speaking about music, on this album we allowed ourselves to cross the genre borders which we had on "Nebula". We just let it flow without looking back. We wanted to go further with our musical passion, leaving categories and prejudices to someone else. We wanted to create the best album for us, treating it like the piece of art and not following trends of nowadays heavy music. Every single note on this album has its meaning and it's alive.

Since there are differences between the albums, what made you guys take a different route in your extreme Metal perception?

It just happened naturally. We weren't sitting and thinking about changing our sound. It took us about two years to compose "Underwatermoon" and during this time, a lot of things happened within the band like European tour, line – up changes and so on.

Let's take a look on what is "Underwatermoon". I assume that there is a story behind it because it sounds like a concept album. What can you tell METAL TEMPLE about it?

Yes, it's concept album. It was born in my head when we toured Eastern Europe and Spain. Those places had very strong emotional impact on me. The story, somehow, compiles all these magic moments we had there. It takes us back to XIX century Spain, when some young transit officer gets enchanted by beauty of a local gypsy girl. But this feeling wasn't shared and it ends tragically for all involved .There are ghosts and hunts with shootings as well, so don't expect any love stories here, he he.

Behind the story, which I understood that you wrote, you probably tried to send a message regarding something. If so, what is it?

I guess the message there is clear – evil always returns and pays you back.

Did one of you guys write all the lyrics or one took care of the music, how did you guys share the workload on this one?

Morgenrrot (keyboards) and me write all the lyrics for WINTERHORDE, and as for the music, everyone in the band contributes his part to it. "Underwatermoon" shows perfectly our team work.

I understood that you were partially produced by ex-CELTIC FROST, DARK FORTRESS and TRIPTIKON guitarist, V.Santura. How was your work relationship with him? How was it to work with a rather young producer?

V.Santura is one of the nicest guys I've ever met and it was great honor and pleasure to work with him on this album. At first he came to Israel to record the album with us and later we flew to Germany to mix it with him. We had a lot of great moments together and still I'm in touch with him. The guy has a brilliant musical hearing and great touch. I love the way he works and I adore everything he puts out. The man is very talented and it will not take too much time for him to become one of the leading producers in the genre.

"Underwatermoon" was released in the end of July under your new label, Twilight Vertrieb. How did you come in contact with the label through your label search?

We sent a number of 3-song promo packages to record companies and after a couple of weeks we've got an answer from Thomas, the boss of Twilight Vertrieb, who had shown his interest to work with us. We had another 3-4 interested parties, but Twilight was the most serious one to date.

What made you sign this particular label?

The guys were straight to-the-face, you know, without talking bullshit and we just thought that it would be right to sign with them.

What is next for WINTERHORDE and what is next for you as a musician in particular?

Right now, we're trying to play the more shows we can to represent our new album live to audience. We have another video clip to film, new merchandise to create and to provide a proper promotion for the release. There's a lot of work to do. The next year, WINTERHORDE will be celebrating 10 years adversary, so there will be a number of big shows with very special guests and stuff. We also plan to go on European tour in 2011 and start working on the new songs in between. For me as musician in particular, I would like to begin writing material for the new WINTERHORDE's album a.s.a.p. I love working on the new songs more then everything else. This is my essence of playing in a band.

Do you have a message for METAL TEMPLE readers and the worldwide Metal scene?

Thanks for reading it and hope to see you guys on tour. Hordes up!

Sascha I would like to thank you for taking this interview for METAL TEMPLE. I heard your album. For what I heard you guys have the power to change something in the Israeli scene and enter a bit more creativeness to it. Good luck on the road ahead!!

Thanks a lot!!