A few days ago the fans of Blind Guardian had the chance to chat on-line with the front-man of the band, Hansi Kursch, at the band’s official IRC channel, #tavern. The channel, as expected, was crowded with more than 130 people. Hansi was precise at his appointment with his fans, and he stayed for more than two hours, to answer everyone’s questions! Many news and interesting things can be extracted from this chat, so here we have, exclusively on Sweet Suffering, Hansi Kursch’s chat! As it will be somewhat tiring for you to read the exact transcript of the chat (which can be found at the channel’s homepage: http://bards-tavern.virtualave.net/), we have resumed here the most important pieces of the chat.

What is most important, for all of you I’m sure, is when will Blind Guardian release a new album. According to Hansi it will be out possibly sometime in 2001, and it probably won’t be a concept album, as Nightfall In Middle-Earth was, but it will have Tolkien-related songs. Also it will probably contain some songs from the EP that was canceled. The album, as Hansi says is 60% ready, having 7-8 songs ready and wanting 5 more to complete it. The album will be produced by Charlie Bauerfeind and Andre Olbrich. One of their older songs that will be probably included in the new album will be Harvest Of Sorrow. Musically it will be something between Imaginations From The Other Side and Nightfall In Middle-Earth.

Hansi also spoke about their orchestral project, which is currently on hold, but it is about 50% ready. As Hansi said, it will have two parts and that the first part is ready. It will probably be released after 2002. Also after doing their regular album, they will consider doing a second live one. 

As you may have heard, there were rumors, or at least wishes, that Blind Guardian will be featured on the Lord Of The Rings movie soundtrack. Hansi was asked about this too, and as expected he dismissed the rumors. But as he said, he would pay to see (hear better!) the song Lord Of The Rings to be the main motif of the movie. He also said, that if they were asked they could provide classical music for the soundtrack of the movie.

Some fans asked Hansi about the lyrics he writes. He said that he would like to write about the Rheingold (Wagner, you know) saga, but Andre refused doing that. When he was asked if he was considering to write lyrics about themes other than fantasy, he said that fantasy is the only thing he is good in! 

When asked about Blind Guardian’s influences over the time, Hansi said that Queen and Iron Maiden are, and maybe Metallica. His favorite singer is Ronnie James Dio, but he thinks that Rob Halford is the best metal vocalist ever. Other singers he likes are Peter Gabriel, Freddie Mercury, Ian Gillan and Geoff Tate. His first touches with metal/rock were with Deep Purple, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath and other legendary metal bands, as he said. He’s also a great 70’s rock fan and he thinks than nowadays there are too many bands copying each other. He’s also a classical music lover and his favorite composer is Mozart. 

The fans also asked him a lot of other questions, which vary from personal ones, to trivial and funny ones! So if you want to see these, go check the transcripts!

Aris

This chat is copyright (©2000) #tavern. You can chat at #tavern by connecting to one of the Othernet (http://www.othernet.org) servers (/server irc.othernet.org:6667) and you can also check the channel’s site at the following URL: http://bards-tavern.virtualave.net/

We would like to thank Cybertroll, Haplo and Soth for their kind permission of using this transcript, and Feanor for the chat! :)