Hello Sharon, First thanks a lot for asking me for an interview for your web magazine and giving me a chance to tell you something about our new album and also to give you some more information about the songs, especially about the ones you didn't like so much. Maybe it is interesting for your understanding and gives you the "Idea" you were looking for in your review.

The "Nightfalls" album is very variable in different styles and kinds of Rock and it really rocks! It's a fine mixture of nearly every kind of (Hard) Rock that exists. Not because we tried to make such a mixture album, but each of the songs grew during the recording process into the version which is on the album now. And all of them are and sound like ROACHCLIP. Each of us has been working often and for a long time with different kinds of music and with different musicians. Some of them you asked about later and we'll talk about them later, from every kind of Rock up to classical orchestras and covering nearly everything in between. For us it's part of the growing process and to look at and listen to every existing musical direction and pick the part out which might be the best for the song. In that moment it is not interesting if this comes out of Rock, Country, Classics or whatever. Anything that makes every Song special and fine is good. For us it's inspiring fun to look outside the box and just do what we think is right and good. We really have fun while working and we just do what we want with every song. You didn't like the French Song "Le Bon Roi Dagobert" and you had no idea why we wrote a song like this and why it sounds like a happy children's song? Well, the reason is easy. It is a happy children's song. Now. But 223 years ago it was a song mocking the French King during the French Revolution. We live in a region which is close to France, about 30 km to the border, which is, thank heavens, no longer a real border in the EU. Our French neighbors love that song and we had lots of fun making it. You should have been with us in Colmar at that party where we played it live for the first time. I will never forget that fun and the people who wouldn't let us stop singing nearly all of the more than 40 fantastic and indeed very funny verses of this song. I will never forget this my whole life long.

They are people just like all of us. First I have to say that I have not worked with Udo Lindenberg at least so far, you'll have to ask Oli Noack about working with Herr Lindenberg, because I don't know him personally. Working with Paul Samson, that was when we were recording the "Till Morning Light" Album in 1989/1990, was great for me. I was pretty young and he was for me something like my big brother or my "Rock Father". It was lucky for me that Paul worked during that time in the same studio as we did and we came into contact with each other. I was very upset when I heard about his sickness and his early death in 2002. Playing with Nicko was really great fun. Fritz, Arti and I accompanied him, playing a row of "drum clinics" in southern Germany. He's a very nice and funny guy, making jokes all the time.  Also he is a real good mate and buddy. One of the shows he played sitting on a waste paper basket because his chair was broken. For him no problem but for all of us a kind of running gag. It was great that Nicko came to Fritz, Arti and my CD release party for the album "The Targets – When LA Died" (just another project in 2004) and jammed (and drank ;-)) with us all night. For all of us it's very interesting and exciting to work with different musicians in different styles. It is for sure a good experience. We are lucky that we had these chances in the past and hope to have more of it in future.

You asked about our inspirations?  The answer is: Everything we like and what provides good material for good songs.

I cannot say anything about that. I don't know Blaze Bayley in person and I have never tried to copy anyone. Not as a singer and not as a guitarist. I'm just myself and that's OK for me.

You like "GL298" but the title makes you wonder? That's an easy one too. "GL" means "Gottes Lob" which is a German hymn Book and the number of the song is 298. I was inspired by it while I was sitting in church one Sunday morning because my then 9-year-old daughter Cosima (by the way, she wrote the bass lines of Track 10 "Stay With Me" and played parts of the piano) had a rehearsal mass for her  first communion . I was pretty tired and almost falling asleep because we had just arrived back from gig a few hours before. The Song "Gott Unser Herr Wie Bist Du Zugegen" (GL298) crawled into my brain and got stuck. I recorded it at my home studio directly after leaving church.

The album is very different with many different influences. And all of them a part of ROACHCLIP and a part of myself. But if you put the question like that I would say that the most representative songs are "No Reason", "Buffalo" and "Praying Mantis". Don't forget that "Le Bon Roi Dagobert" is a "Salut" to our French neighbours  and "St. James Infirmary" a "Salut" to our deceased drummer  Nenad Keul, who died in 1992, which marked the end of ROACHCLIP until the reunion, with the album "ROACHCLIP - The Return" in 2009. These two are for sure very special songs.

Yes, it has happened really a lot in the last 26 years. But to tell the whole history here would spring the bounds of this interview. All the band history is on our website www.roachclip.de and in the booklets of the CDs "The Return" (1985 – 2009) und "Night Falls" ( 2009 – now).

I hope I see us all on stage or in a studio in top health and having lots of fun with likewise healthy and fun friends and families, making many people happy and glad and having fun with our music. That's what I hope and wish. And that many people love our projects and help us and others by ordering the CDs directly from us. Of course, these CDs come with personal dedication. Greetings!