Kanonenfieber: The War to End All Wars.
The tragedy of war is that it uses man’s best to do man’s worst. No one encapsulates this artistically more accurately than Kanonenfieber, a one-man project led by Noise from Bamberg. Spending countless hours reading the letters of souls long gone from the Great War, Noise has brought these dead soldiers back to life with his LP, Menschenmühle. But he has now unleashed his latest EP, Yankee Division and a new single called Stop The War, an anti-war song for Ukraine and we wanted to hear what he had to say.
We fire the cannons of The Heavy Metal Citadel in honour of our latest guest, Noise.
Thank you for sitting down with us. What is it like finally playing live in this plague-ridden, war-infested world?
Hey there! Before we start I wanted to thank you for the opportunity to have this interview! So, yeah. Finally going live. Yesterday we had our fourth show at the mighty Ragnarök festival and today it will be our fifth gig in Erfurt. One can really feel that people are thirsty for live shows. Two years of being locked down demanded their tribute. Especially in Czech and Munich, people were going all in. It was simply amazing.
Having written and played everything yourself, was it difficult finding members for the band to play with and can you tell us a little more about how you chose your brothers in arms?
I played in many bands before, so I know quite a few musicians. The guys I picked for Kanonenfieber are some of my best friends. I‘ll start with the rhythm guitarist. I’ve known this guy for 13 years now. Together we founded our very first metal band and played together in all bands I‘ve been part of ever since. The guitarist and I broke up with this first band to join another band in which I played the drums. One member of this second band was the current bassist of Kanonenfieber.
So, I‘ve known the bassist for more than ten years as well. Besides playing the bass he is the second live-voice in Kanonenfieber. He has some great vocal cords. The drummer is a good friend of mine and an outstanding musician. In my opinion, he is one of the best metal drummers out there. (Guess he will be blushing reading this, very humble guy) and finally, the lead guitarist is my go-out buddy. He was my hero back in the days as he was considered to be Bamberg‘s guitar-god. I picked those guys very wisely, as the characters have to fit together to be able to tour in peace and harmony. And so far, I did not regret my choices one second!
What kind of set-up did you have when you were recording Menschenmühle to get that particular sound?
Alright, for all the non-tech nerds, better skip this one. For the guitars, I used my beloved Knaggs Kenai with SH4 Seymour Duncan Pickups. I split the signal and ran one into my amp (Friedman) and recorded it right away from the cabinet (Marshall Vintage) with an sm57 and a condenser microphone.
The second signal I kept as DI and blended it into the signal recorded directly from the amp. Vocals were recorded on a CV12 from Avantone into a Focusrite ISA One. (For Yankee Division I used a TLM49 into an Avalon preamp, the best combination ever). Drums were recorded midi on my Roland e-Drumset and then picked up with the SSD drum sampler. I have a UAD Apollo as Interface and use a MacBook Max with Studio One. The rest is tons of plugins.
Verscharrt und Ungerühmt is an acoustic ballad-like departure from the rest of the album. Can you talk a little more about it and can we expect more of this in the new album?
I wrote Verscharrt und Ungerühmt right after I finished all the other songs for Menschenmühle. The approach to writing the lyrics was different from the other songs on Menschenmühle, as it was not inspired by a letter or a document from WWI. For me, it was the summation of all the books, letters and reports I‘ve read over the last couple of months. I wanted it to sound like a song being played by a soldier in the trench. And yeah, I am the worst singer I know, but I guess that is okay at least for this song. For the next LP, I have not planned anything like this. If I feel like doing another acoustic song I‘ll do it. If not, I won’t. I don’t give myself boundaries when it comes to songwriting.
You’ve said your other project, Leiþa, is more personal, complicated, and profound than Kanonenfieber. You also have Non Est Deus, with a sonic assault against organised religion. Are these 3 projects outlets for these different themes that you want to write about or are they more for you to try different musical ideas?
See, I write music all the time. As I experiment a lot, I can’t just force all of this output into one project. Songs from Sisyphus would not fit on Menschenmühle as well as a Kanonenfieber song would not line up with a Non Est Deus song. It‘s a different approach, even if a lot of people tell me that the projects sound similar. I mean they are written and recorded by the same guy, produced in the very same way, how should they not sound alike, besides the fact that they have completely different song structures and approaches to riffs and songwriting. Haha.
The way you released Menschenmühle was very guerrilla, in that you didn’t have huge financial backing, there weren’t established labels behind you, but you nevertheless made a huge impact through social media and word of mouth. A lot of bands are making waves going at it alone and through social media channels, do you think the era of labels is coming to an end?
I don’t think that the era of labels is coming to an end. At least in metal, they will stick around. Let me explain: Imagine the typical metalhead. He wears a band shirt or a hoodie, a battle jacket with dozens of patches, pins and buttons on it and collects CDs, tapes or vinyl. Or he collects all three formats as I do. Now imagine the typical pop listener: Yeah, nothing. And Spotify.
Due to the fact that metalheads love merchandise and physical goods all this stuff has to be crafted. If you take a look at the billboard vinyl charts 2021, nine contenders in the top ten are metalbands. Those metalbands don’t even have a fragment of the streams and click those cloud rappers have, but still, they sell way more physical goods. To conclude all of this: All this merchandise has to be produced, packed and shipped. That’s where the labels come into play.
You don’t need a label to release your music and do the marketing for you nowadays. If you are willing to spend uncountable hours creating content, caring for your social media, connecting with webzines and blogs, doing interviews, creating a vibrant website, and setting up a newsletter… you can do all of this on your own. Where it gets tricky is the merchandise part. And let me tell you, I had no idea of all of this before I released Menschenmühle. The financial background for Menschenmühle was pretty much non-existent. We made 300 CDs, that’s it. Back then I didn’t think that those will sell out in the next couple of years. Well, they sold out pretty fast. We reinvested the money and pressed another 300 CDs.
As we sold those, we could afford vinyl, sold those, so we could afford shirts. That is how it went. We reinvested every cent that came in and still does. Selling is one thing. Packing, labelling and shipping all of that stuff are another. I am very grateful to have someone caring about all of that. I would have never been able to manage all of that on my own. And have in mind that you need someone for the whole administration thing as well. Accounting, inventory, taxes, all of that. The paper-war. By signing to a label you can avoid all of that extra work but your cut will be very small. You decide!
Having done so much research into the Great War, to what degree do you think propaganda had impacted those men to march to their deaths, either willingly or otherwise?
Propaganda was everything back then. People were told glorious stories about pride, dignity and honor. In the end, most of them died in the mud, torn apart by shells.
While artists such as yourself and your allies in 1914 talk about the horrors of warfare, do you think there is such a thing as a righteous war?
That is a tough one. I don’t think war itself can be righteous. What can be righteous is defending your life and the life’s of your beloved ones. If you fight against oppressors for that reason, one could call it righteous. Besides that, I can’t imagine any scenario.
Some would say it’s nearly impossible to be apolitical and be an artist that covers war, to whatever degree. Would you say that is true?
No, I wouldn’t say it’s true. Kanonenfiebers Menschenmühle and Yankee Division are 100% apolitical. All you find in there will be historical correct content without choosing any side or position. Would you say that a documentary about WWII is automatically political? I don’t think so. And that is the exact way the lyrical content of those outputs from Kanonenfieber should be looked at. A documentary about war.
You’ve said in previous interviews that much of the lyrical content of Menschenmühle came from you reading letters of soldiers from WWI. Letters in times of war always produce incredible emotions and connections with those who wrote them. While it is acceptable to talk about WWI letters do you feel artists would ever be able to do the same with WWII letters from either side without encroaching onto the more controversial fringes of Black Metal?
At some point, I‘ll try to cover WWII. My great-grandfather drowned after the passenger ship he was on was sunk by a Russian submarine. He left a diary. Together with a good friend of mine, we started to translate that diary to make it readable. Then I printed it, made a hard-cover book from it and gave it to my grandmother. She has never read those words before, as it was written in old German script. So, if I made a concept album from that diary, could anybody say it is political? Could anybody say something against it? Against the life and death of my great grandfather, who fought in Poland, Ukraine, Italy and then died on a passenger ship in the Baltic Sea?
You’ve said all the earnings from your latest single STOP THE WAR, which at the time of this interview had over 133,000 views, will be donated to the "Caritas Emergency" aid. Did you want to speak a little more about that and the contribution you’ve made?
Sure! At the very moment, the war in Ukraine began I knew I had to do something. I have friends in Ukraine, you know. I was sent all these terrible video clips and the media in Germany was going crazy. I sat down for 3 days straight, wrote the song and lyrics, recorded it and produced it right after. We were able to collect over € 4,200 through donations on Bandcamp and the donation auction I set up. Just for the first donation period! We‘ve collected another € 1,200 on Bandcamp and I am auctioning the artwork of Stop The War together with some collectable gimmicks right at this moment. To be honest I still feel like not doing enough. I try to spread awareness and indeed collect some donations. But seeing so many people helping refugees at the borders while I am working or sitting in my studio makes me feel bad. We all could do more I guess.
You and 1914 seem to have formed a strong friendship over social media, how did you guys first connect and can you talk about playing together live in the near future?
1914, got to love these guys! I spent many hours texting and video-chatting with their frontman Dmytro who is such a great guy. He knows so much about WWI history, it‘s crazy. On his days off he goes out and collects shells and items of soldiers that have fallen in WWI close to the region he lives in. He even digs for the remains of those soldiers and buries them at a dedicated graveyard to give them a worthy burial. We are planning to play live together as soon as possible! But indeed, the war stopped us from doing so…
You put out a great newsletter charting the rise of Kanonenfieber which gives insight into how quickly everything happened all at once. What are the next priorities for the band?
Thanks, I am glad you liked the newsletter! At first, there will be a lot of playing live. Our booker is working like crazy and we are trying to tour as much of Europe as possible. Besides that, I am writing new Kanonenfieber material. Yet, I can’t exactly say when the time for another release has come, but it won’t take too long!
Tour, Drink, Collab
Name one band you’d want to tour with, one band you’d want to drink with, and one band you’d want to collaborate with.
Tour 1914
Drink 1914
Collab 1914
Before the Gallows Selection
You have one song to play before the hangman marches you to the gallows pole, what song do you choose?
Bell Witch - Mirror Reaper. That‘ll be a 1 ½ hour march.
Thank you, Noise, for all the insight and for speaking with us. We wish we could be at more of your upcoming live shows and we know you’ll keep bringing our fellow heathens the most crushing metal from the frontlines!
To all you readers, make sure to support Kanonenfieber on Bandcamp and follow all the latest news on their Facebook and Instagram! Until then, FORWARD, MARCH!
