Russell HughesGerman metallers Eskimo Callboy are about to drop their third album, The Scene, at the end of August and RUSHONROCK managed to grab lead singer Sushi Biesler to chew his ear off about a few issues.
RUSHONROCK – I read that you wanted to take your last album in a more serious direction lyrically, did you do that again with The Scene?
Sushi Biesler – Compared to the nonsense lyrics we partly used in our first songs from our EP from 2010 we definitely got more serious. We like to have fun, and that does not only find expression in our live shows but also in our lyrics, some funny stories we tell.
But as we grew bigger as a band, so did our influence. And it would be a shame if we wouldn’t use that influence for some positive messages. Also, although we are known to be a party band there is a reflective and serious side of Eskimo Callboy, too.
RUSHONROCK – Are Eskimo Callboy about having fun at all times, especially on stage?
SB – On stage, definitely. That’s why we go on stage. To share some good times with the people coming out to see us. We surely can’t make all the everyday life problems disappear, but to clear your mind and to get some new power and motivation there’s nothing better to freak out a rock show.
But of course, it would be a lie if I said were having fun at all times. Just like any other human being we’re struggling from time to time. Then its important to find an output for the negative emotions, don’t ever pile them up or they will hit you double as hard some day.
Our output is our music, and also our shows. That’s pretty much the reason why I speak about two sides of Eskimo Callboy.
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RUSHONROCK – Do you ever feel any pressure when it comes to producing albums, especially now you’re about to release your fourth?
SB – That’s the main reason why we sometimes struggle to make progress during our song writing. You get up early, I mean, “musicians-early” at around 1pm, and you work on some song idea for the whole day. And you end up noticing that it sounds just like a song that you already wrote two years ago. But, as a musician, it gets boring to do the same thing over and over again. So we always try out something new, whether its guitar or synths sounds, or complete different styles of music.
Another thing is the over all expectation of your fans. On the one hand, they like you for your past albums and hopefully for your character, and they supported you, which again gives them some sort of legitimation to make demands on your future work, but on the other hand you don’t want to let these expectations limit your creational process. It’s a thin line. But we made it. And as we’re very satisfied with this new album, we hope that our people will be too.
RUSHONROCK – When you write lyrics for your songs, is it difficult making the transition from German to English or does it just flow?
SB – As you might notice from my answers in that interview, we’re not quite the native speakers that we wish to be. But we can use the English language fluent enough to write our lyrics and some major faults can be corrected afterwards. Anyway, what’s most important is the flow of the chosen words. Different words have different melodies. This is the hardest work.
RUSHONROCK – You worked with Fronz from Attila on The Scene, what was that like?
SB – Very uncomplicated. He’s an easy and very friendly guy. I reached out to him with the help of a common friend. We talked about the song, he checked it, he liked it, some days later he sent his feature. Same when we shot the video. We found that date, he was in Cologne for a show, we picked him up and well, you wouldn’t expect that structuredness and professionalism from a band guy.
RUSHONROCK – The video for MC Thunder made me laugh! Tell me about that, how did you come up with the idea?
SB – The work on that song began with the idea of a guy stealing a car after a party night. I wrote that story, and I liked the ambiguity when he talked about the car, as if he was talking about a beautiful woman.
We had some parts of the instrumental finished and put those lyrics on it. We thought it would be cool if this guy had a name, so we called him MC Thunder, simply because it sounds stupid. The video is just our visual interpretation of MC Thunder himself. A friend of ours, and also a pretty famous German youtuber, was happy to play his role in the music video.
Some of us flew over to L.A., rented an old Cadillac and shot that video within 3 days. Never before was it that easy, but its our absolute favourite video so far.
RUSHONROCK – taking The Scene tour to Japan, Germany, Austria, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus – does the atmosphere and how the audience react to you change depending on the country?
SB – A bit. Normally I don’t believe in stereotypes. But some countries differ a bit, just from their behaviour during the shows. Japan for example, they freak out during the songs, but between the songs, it’s just dead silent. The first time we played there, I thought I had accidentally insulted the mothers of our fans or something. But they were just polite, and listened to what we were saying.
Russia for example is just crazy. They stage dive from every possible high spot in the venue, and they don’t even care if there are people to catch them. But what unites them all is that they love to share some good times with us. And no matter which country we’re in, that’s the reason why we do what we do.
RUSHONROCK – Will there be a UK tour in support of The Scene?
SB – Hopefully soon. The thing is, the people need to like our music first. And next to so many awesome bands from the UK, why would you guys need the Germans to come over?! But we always work hard for our goals, and whenever we played UK dates on our tour it has been a great pleasure for us. I’m pretty sure there will be UK dates on our next tour leg.
RUSHONROCK – In my opinion, there are definitely hints of bands like Crossfaith in your music, especially on the song The Scene – are those the sort of bands you’re listening to at the moment?
SB – We’re totally honest when it comes to those topics. And although we know Crossfaith, it’s not this band that we got inspired from. Every single one of us has different preferences in music. That’s why our songs split up in so many different genres. Our song The Scene was more influenced by bands like Marylin Manson, Limp Bizkit and maybe Korn a bit. We absolutely love Nu Metal. But we tried to interpret it our own way.
RUSHONROCK – There are some big, poppy choruses in your songs – do you listen to that style of music much?
SB – As long as we make music as a band, poppy choruses, that you can easily sing along with, have always been an important part of our songs. We love pop music. But we also like hard guitar riffs and breakdowns. That’s the original reason why we sound like we do. We always wanted to combine those two genres.
And of course, we listen to pop music a lot. But not only that. We also like rap music and electronic music. When you’re really into music in general you should not limit yourself to just one genre. Music is good when it sounds good in your ears. The rest is unimportant. It’s all about the emotions the music brings up in you. You look like the typical metal guy and like the new Kendrick Lamar album? Go for it.
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