Hi there, thank you for having me. I'm finally back to my daily routine after my summer vacation and ready to teach the guitar again to my new students, which is what I do for a living..

I'm the lead/rythm guitarist and componist at Abinchova and we're a melodic death / folk metal band from Lucerne, Switzerland. How the band came together is a really long story. So I'll make it a bit shorter. The band was founded in 2005, but in 2007, most of the old band members left the band. This is also the point where I joined the band. I was already playing in another band with a few other Abinchova band members and so we decided to join both bands together and only continue as Abinchova. I had already written a few songs but it was only in late 2008 when our current singer Arnaud joined the band that we really started to re-work Abinchova from the ground up. We basically changed everything. Logo, musical genre, lyrical language – you name it. In March 2009 Abinchova played its first real show and this event also marks the moment when our band became the group that people now know and listen to.

Each band member has its own musical preferences and they all have an influence on our sound. Of course, I have a larger influence than others because I compose a lot of the songs, but in the end everyone brings in their own distinct style. My biggest musical inspiration are other great musicians and songwriters. I work hard to get to their level and this is also what keeps me going.

Abinchova was founded in a village called Ebikon. Abinchova is the Latin name given to that village in the late 9th century.

Booking a studio and having deadlines is always very stressful, especially when it comes to creating music. Many of the songs on WEGWEISER were only completed a few days or weeks before we entered the studio. There were a few times when I thought that I wasn't able to bring anything together anymore, but after a few jams and late night writing sessions, we managed to make it work. Some of the songs we never even played together before recording. That was quite the interesting experience!

As it is with every new album, you really want to one-up yourself in regard to your last output. You become more critical of your musical ideas and throw away a lot of things that you might have been okay with in the past. For me, songwriting was never an easy process. But good things need a while to come to fruition. Composing songs is not only a creative, but also a learning process that sticks with you for the rest of your life. You always refine yourself with every new song you begin to write.

Well, our music is mostly about old Swiss tales and myths. Our new album WEGWEISER basically wants to bring these beautiful and strange stories to life with music. However, when it comes to lyrics, you'd be better served to ask our singer Arnaud, who writes our lyrics and designs our CD artworks. He is the expert when it comes to this topic.

Folk metal has been around for quite a long time now. However, it can still be seen as a young genre compared to other metal styles. It is interesting to see the rise in popularity folk metal has experienced in recent years. Gigs are still well attended and this gives me the feeling that folk metal might be a genre that is here to stay. I think this is also due to the openness of the genre, which allows different metal styles to come together under one roof, often united by the use of unusual instruments, which is great!

It's a bit of both. Sure, people have always shared music with each other. But the internet has broadened the scope considerably and facilitated the way people can come across free music, legal or illegal. Internet downloading is great for smaller bands from every corner of the world, because they can potentially get a lot of exposure, something they could have never achieved by handing out demo tapes at shows. The biggest bands in the business are also not really hurt by it, since they already have a set income with tours and fixed deals. Medium sized bands however, the ones that try to rise to the top, are mostly hurt by online piracy. They might potentially sell a lot of CDs, but a lot of people just download it instead without paying. In the end, the music industry is now shifting to a business model where they try to sell you the things that you can't download: real concerts and merchandise.

We all have different tastes here at Abinchova, but here are my personal favorites:
Symphony X – Paradise Lost (one of my favorite prog metal bands)
Arch Enemy – Anthems Of Rebellion (very good melodic death metal with brilliant melodies and some sick riffs)
Ensiferum – Ensiferum (Jari Mäenpäa's first masterpiece, a must have in every folk metal collection)
Children of Bodom – Hatebreeder (sadly, the new albums are a big disappointment, but their old stuff is still gold)
Wintersun – Wintersun (for me this album is on the top of the folk metal / melodic Death / symphonic genre)

I have been playing music live since I was a little kid, but there is something to be said about sharing the stage with bands that you've been listening to for years. Suddenly, you are playing a show together – That is crazy! And of course, it motivates you to further push on with your own band.

Hey guys, see you soon at a concert or festival near you, cheers!