Thanks, Greg! This really makes me proud, man!

Well, basically more than only positive. What really surprised us most was that especially the Metal press really was into the new album. It was some conscious decision to make a heavier album and to turn more towards Metal, and now that we can see that it's been accepted for sure, it's a real relief.

Well, to be honest, there's not that much to say. You know, we have the very fortune that Robby Boebel, our guitarist, producer and main songwriter, owns his own studio, which means we can record whenever we want. The song writing process in E1 is pretty simple: Robby writes a new tune instrumentally, sends over the file or CD, I compose and write my lines and lyrics and then come over to his place to record. Then the other guys come in and do their parts – that's it! The only difficulty we had during the production of the album, was that probably about a year ago, Robby decided to make a turn in heaviness and song writing, which I in the first place did not understand – but in the end, looking at the final result, he was absolutely right! We did the exact album we wanted to do!

As I said, Robby and I write all the song and he also is the producer – and did an amazing job for sure.

Absolutely! As I said, Robby did a turn about a year ago. We've almost finished the album when he told me he wasn't satisfied with the result. Back than, we simply did Criticize The Truth Pt. II musically. Robby's position was that if we'd do a second record sounding like the first one, we could never ever change or try out something different. We would be set to one style forever. I gotta confess that I did not understand him in the first place, but after quite some time I found out he was right. You know, all the live shows and touring we did, except for the Gods Of A.O.R. festival, we played with Metal bands, which definitely had an impact on the band's sound. Also, getting a second guitarist changed our way of playing, so, yes, we simply wanted to turn heavier, more towards classic Metal.

Your definition of E1 is perfect, my friend! Well, is their any room...hm, you gotta ask this once again in about a year. We managed to get a great deal with Europe's biggest Metal label, so I guess they think they can make some money out of us. The point is, there's not much bands around doing that sort of style these days – this might be a chance.

Fabulous! Saxon was fantastic! The guys treated us more than only fair and we learned a lot from these guys. You know, when we had to offer to do the Saxon tour we were pretty unsure if we fit to such a Metal line up, but in the end, I guess, our sound was more similar to the Saxon Metal then the other two (by the way fantastic) acts: Riff and Hook!

That's sad these days! We really wanna go on tour, but yet we couldn't find a band to go out with or we simply didn't get the slot! It's so much fun, doing live shows with these guys, believe me. What's for sure is that we're gonna do some of the bigger festivals this year.

Absolutely! We played with bands like Annihilator, Testament, Doro, Masterplan, you name 'em! This definitely had an impact on the band's sound. We didn't plan this in the beginning, but soon as we tried to re-arrange the songs for a live show they became heavier. To be quite honest with you, I felt way more comfortable doing Wacken than doing the Gods Of A.O.R. because we turned to heavy for A.O.R. ears!

Well, E1 originally was planned as Robby Boebel's first solo album, which I was to sing. Soon, after we met for the very first time, we realized that this was way more than just a solo project. Together with Hutch Bauer on bass, and Shakra-drummer Roger Tanner, we formed Evidence One. Shortly after the release of our debut CD Criticize The Truth we had the chance to tour with Saxon, this was when Roger left the band to concentrate on Shakra only. We got Rami Ali on drums and Wolfgang Schimmer as second guitarist in to do the European tour. After the tour, as you said, we did a couple of festivals, including the Wacken festival. At Wacken, Robby hat a little talk with Mat Sinner, who's working for Nuclear Blast Records. A couple weeks later, Robby sent over new E1 material to Mat and shortly after that we had our deal – now our second album Tattooed Heart is out!

Criticize The Truth was planned as Robby's solo album, we didn't even have a band name in mind. Then we decided to form a band, only as a project. When we got the offer to do the Saxon tour, we haven't been playing live before! In fact, the first night of the tour was our very first live show ever! Coming back to your question: A project quickly turned into a full band!

For sure, it's kinda strange, being amongst way heavier bands but, in fact, NB does a great job! They really seem to be into what we're doing, probably because we're different!

Depends on how this album sells!

That's no big deal. At first, we wanted to name the band Evidence but there's already a lot of bands out there by the same name. So we added one to point out we're the only ones...

That's the great Thomas Ewerhard, who also did many Spock's Beard, Enchant or Edguy covers. I sent him a concept of how I wanted to cover to look like and he designed it perfectly! Seems like he did look inside me brain! Absolutely amazing! Yesterday I got a picture of a fan, who really tattooed the cover between the shoulders! That's a really amazing tribute!

Definitely! You know, I'm a kid of the eighties. With all those big arena acts on the one hand, and all those big hair bands on the other. Going to a concert meant party the whole day through, not only during the two hours of the show. I remember looking at Iron Maiden's Live After Death album artwork for hours! Reading and discovering all those certain bits an' pieces. Also, bands like Twisted Sister or Dokken really rocked – I still don't wanna go to a concert seeing my fellow neighbour! I wanna see a Rock Star on stage to drift away and forget about life for a while – no matter, if he's an evil looking death guy or some hairspray poser!

Nu Metal was never my kinda fashion, I only felt for Matchbox Twenty, which wasn't Nu Metal at all. Talking of bands of the last couple years, Edguy, Masterplan, At Vance, Spock's Beard or Rhapsody, speaking of bands of my youth it would be Yngwie Malmsteen, Whitesnake, Y&T, Dokken, Great White or Twisted Sister. As for my favorite singers, it's actually four that influenced me most (besides classic rock voices like Glenn Hughes, David Coverdale or Joe Lynn Turner):

Robert Plant, he could do whatever he wanted to, and always was groundbreaking; Jon Bon Jovi, because in his eighties days, he was the fuckin' best rock voice on the planet; Ray Gillen (R.I.P.), to me the ultimate Hard Rock singer, and finally Sting, because he's so different to anybody else!

You know, the more you get into the business the more you find out, how much money and connections rule everything. Unfortunately, the days of a good song making a good band are long gone. If you have the name or the money, you can get successful and you can get the best of critics! When the internet came up, you could find really honest critics on albums, because it was the fans that told the bands when they did a shitty record. The print press was way over it. I'm working for a German Rock magazine for a couple years now, so I know what I'm saying. For sure, every band is happy to read good reviews, but I'm pretty sure if another band on a way smaller label would have released our album they wouldn't have got as much attention to them. I'm damn happy with the situation I'm in right now, because I worked fucking hard for years, but I don't do things different then years ago, but now there's open ears on higher positions. You know, I read fantastic critics about crappy records only because of big names and vice versa! The best thing for any Rock fan is to listen to the songs and decide for himself!

Take a look at our website, check out the songs and decide by yourself. Power to the music!!! Thanx, Greg!