Max Birbaum
Lunar Shadow
Thank you, I'm fine. It's a little bit busy at the moment, for I do the whole PR for Lunar Shadow on my own, for Interviews like this one and I have exams coming up, but I am always glad when people are interested in Lunar Shadow and our work.
'The Smokeless Fires' are our passions. Things inside each one of us, that keep us going in life, things that shatter us and break us down. It is love, friendship, anger, sadness and sorrow, determination and perseverance, the things that we burn for and the things that burn us. Those are 'The Smokeless Fires'.
Adam had already done the artwork for our "Triumphator" back in 2015, so we already knew each other. I always liked his way of painting and I knew he was the right choice for the motive I had in mind. I told him though, that I wanted a painting that was a bit unusual for his style, something different. It was important to me, that it is not a classic Heavy Metal cover, no swords, mountains, castles or barbarians, I am a little tired of this. I wanted to depict one of the smokeless fires that we all know, one of the strongest ones there is: love. Love can ascend us to the highest spheres and tear us down into the deepest darkness. Love is incredibly strong and fragile at the same time, it is everything when we don't have it and sometimes thrown away, when it is there. Love is strange and beautiful, somehow like our own music.
There certainly is a certain, slight change in our sound. That is just something natural that happens, because I don't want to record the same album over and over and over again, that would be boring. I just try everything that I want to try, artistic freedom is extremely important to me. As of the atmosphere, "Far From Light" was an album about death and therefore extremely dark and pessimistic. "The Smokeless Fires" has quite a different approach, also speaking of the lyrics and the overall concept, which is way more humanistic and introspective, turned to the inside of man and its struggles. There are even light moments, moments of fighting and winning, of overcoming mountains and issues. That is in my opinion the reason for the slightly different atmosphere.
I really like the outcome of this album, which is a rare thing for me to say, as I am very critical when it comes to my own music. I think we all did our best on this album, there is a lot of work and effort into it and I guess you can hear that.
Well, I wanted to explore these feelings that all of us have, that I have. Feelings of being lost, of fighting against everything, of loving, of being loved, of hate and sorrow and desperation. I wanted to write about these things, for they are the essence of our lives, the reasons we live.
Robert was already a good friend to most members of the band, so he basically never was the "new one" or had to be introduced or something, that made things very pleasant for everyone. Robert has a bigger vocal range than Alex who sang on our first two releases. We were able to do things with the vocals in the studio, that simply weren't possible before technically, that was interesting. I think you can hear this on the album, how different his voice sometimes sounds, from aggressive, fast parts to the silent and fragile ones. Also Robert was very determined from the beginning, he learned our whole set in about two weeks and brought new fire into this band with his enthusiasm and positive attitude.
My favorite track would possibly be "Hawk Of The Hills", for it contains all of Lunar Shadow's trademarks, fast Dissection-riffing, silent parts, twin guitar attacks and dreamy lyrics.
I also like "Roses" a lot, because it is so different from our other songs, it was really fun to write this, I had actually never written a catchy song before, that was a real challenge.
There is no way back. And it's good that there isn't a way back, because we would only copy times that are long gone. Why would we want to do that? We should try to create our own era, with our own visions and ideas, our own ideals and aesthetics. I don't think most bands understand this. They try to imitate something, that was already there 35 years ago, either because they don't want to follow their own ideals or because they are unable to create them. I don't want to follow or imitate. I want to create and burn.
I don't like this nostalgia. Nostalgia is soothing, but pointless. Those times never come back. I am sure, that the 80s were a cool time for Hard Rock and Heavy Metal, but times have changed and it's good that they have changed, because standstill means death.
It is also simply impossible to compare this, everything has changed these days. Ways of distribution, the labels have changed, streaming, social media, everything in music has changed compared to the 80s. The old mechanisms don't work anymore.
There is this example I like to quote about MANOWAR, who BEFORE they even had one song finished were sent to a villa in Florida by their Label Atlantic to write some songs. Can you imagine this? Your label sending you to relax in the sun to write a little bit of music while drinking cocktails, something like that is completely impossible today. It was a different time, but things are as they are.
It always hurts me to see what has become of MANOWAR, for years already, because their early works are extremely important to me. I don't go to their shows anymore too, because I don't want to support them with their behavior. Joey is very clever with social media though and also with manipulating his followers by tricking them into the belief, that the band is constantly being harassed by promoters and all the cancellations, the contracts, the lies are just to protect the fans. And it works, I sometimes still read the comments. Yet this is only my personal point of view, people are free to do and to enjoy what ever they want. That also includes Sabaton, I don't really know the band, I won't rant on them here or tell you I hate them. I simply don't care about Sabaton, that's all. They seem to have enough fans obviously, so the decision makes sense.
Speaking of new bands at the moment I prefer Vulture's "Vengeance", for they have a very unique sound that really speaks to me. They are also wonderful people and good friends. I would also like to mention Turbokill with our pal Dan Kanzler on guitars.
The only metal gods are Judas Priest, ha. Thing is, the big bands are coming to an end. Those stadium-bands are history, who shall follow them? Ghost are very big at the moment (I like them). Sabaton? Volbeat? Not too interesting. There are no real follow-ups to Maiden, Priest, Kiss and Rush. The only thing, that we can do is to try to create something that is thorough, honest and strong. We must try to keep our integrity, stay true to ourselves and our fans.
Right now there aren't any plans haha. As you might know I don't really like to play live, we also don't want to tour. We have one festival gig confirmed for summer 2020, but that's it at the moment I am typing this. I don't consider Lunar Shadow a live-band, also I am tired of playing guitar at the moment and I'm happy that after three months of recording I can finally take care of other stuff instead of music.
Max: Thanks a lot, it was nice talking to you!
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