1. Hello HvS, my pleasure in doing this interview and it’s such a honor to be speaking with you today. Those don’t know who you are and your contributor MvM, could you introduce yourself to what you do for the band?
HvS: It´s my pleasure, thanks for having us! I am HvS, I do all the music, songwriting and production in Panzerkrieg 666 while MvM is doing all the vocals. Everything else around the band (promotion, concepts and ideas etc.) we share 50/50 respectively do it together.
2. Ten months ago, during your holidays you decided to start a black metal project just to do something else. Does PANZERKRIEG 666 finally became a “serious” and solid band now?
HvS: Definitely! It started really as just a fun project during our time off at the end of last year, but it was a really cool experience. We both have been playing in metal bands for more than 20 years, but for the first time we did everything by ourselves including recording, mixing and mastering. The result turned out surprisingly great and we were really happy with the outcome. Indeed the first EP already sounds better than what a lot of black metal bands are releasing nowadays.
With all the experiences and learnings we got from producing the first EP we already finished the second EP, which sounds a lot more powerful and brutal than the first one.
3. You are pretty involved in your local scene since 20 years now. What is your favorite part of writing and performing music? What are some of the challenges you face as a musician?
For me as a songwriter its really cool to see the songs evolving from the first idea to the final outcome. Especially when MvM puts his vocals on top of it, some things can really turn out completely different then I had them intended to be – which is great. After putting the vocal tracks to it, a few songs I did not like as much before turned out to be one of my favorites!
I think it is quite difficult for underground metal musicians nowadays. On the one hand you have great possibilities like home recording in a really good quality or releasing your product worldwide on Spotify or Apple Music with just a few clicks, which is amazing.
On the other hand, the scene is flooded with so many bands that its really hard to get recognized by the people. Although we think with the first EP we put out a great product (and the second will be even better), its definitely difficult to get the name out and stand out of so many bands and releases that are coming every month.
4. You play a sort of war black metal as I call it, I think this topic fits very well with your raw and rough sound. Is this an accurate appreciation?
I think so. We wanted to play extremely brutal and blasting Black Metal, so I guess the war topic fits the songs really well. After all, whats more extreme and brutal than war?
5. In fact, “Panzerkrieg” is a German word which means “tank war”. As far as the “war concept” go, how important Germany’s history is to you guys?
For me personally its not really that important. Its just a really interesting dark and brutal topic which is fitting our songs really well. Though we don’t exclusively cover the topic of the 2nd world war, for example on the second EP there will be a track called “My Lai Masacre”dealing with the war crimes in My Lai 4 / Vietnam in 1968.
6. You have one self-titled EP released so far containing 5 tracks, which was the hardest to compose and why?
HvS: This was – for me at least – for sure the song Wartorn. For me it’s a lot easier to compose a brutal blasting 260bpm Black Metal track than a mid-tempo song, especially regarding drum beats and fills as everything has to be really well arranged and in place. Although the song turned out really good (and stands out well also inbetween the high speed blasting tracks) it was quite difficult for me to come up with that.
With a 260bpm track its always easy to just put a blast- or skank beat under the guitar parts…but with slower songs its just a lot more difficult to find something fitting.
7. I´ve read you have already second EP recorded and even some material for a third EP. How often do you rehearse as a band in between writing new material?
HvS: That’s right, the second EP is already completely finished and will be released by Human Noise Records as a digipack and by us on all streaming platforms on 03-03-2023. Indeed a third EP is also completely recorded and is in the last stages of the mix. So we are quite productive, as always.
Actually we only rehearsed two times so far. We have a live-drummer since September though, so we will probably rehearse on a somewhat regular basis in the next months to prepare for some live shows.
8. You are also surprisingly productive, writing quite a bit of music. How do you guys go about composing your music, who is responsible for what and can you describe how you get new material out so often?
HvS: We developed quite a smooth workflow for our songwriting and recording. With the modern possibilities of recording we can do almost everything at home.
Usually I start with recording the guitar to a metronome in Cubase as well as the bass. When I have the raw guitar and bass pieces I build a song structure with them and arrange everything with the hopefully fitting drum parts. When the song is ready, I send the demo version to MvM who writes lyrics and vocals patterns to the song and sends it back to me. When we are happy with it and collected enough songs for an EP, we will move our recording gear to our rehearsal space and record the vocals there. After that, the real work with cutting, mixing and mastering starts, which is a nightmare. But once its finished, we are usually quite happy with the outcome.
9. HvS, given the fact that you are a multi-instrumentalist, which instrument do you prefer the most? Which instrument did you start playing first? Do you have idols among famous guitarists?
HvS: I started with playing guitar in 1995 but took a long break from it while playing Bass in various Death Metal bands in the german scene. Guitar is my favorite instrument as it gives me the possibility of creating my own songs, something I could not really do while playing bass for a long time, so that’s great.
As far as favorite guitarists go, not really. When I grew up, I admired the shred players like Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, Paul Gilbert etc.
Nowadays for me its not about the technical playing anymore as it is more about the songs themselves. I enjoy it a lot more to have songs with simple but effective guitar riffs and a nice structure on them.
10. What sorts of things do you gentlemen enjoy outside of the musical realm? What are some things about you that we would never guess otherwise?
We all work full time, so there´s not even so much time to do stuff, as we put a lot of time and effort into Panzerkrieg 666 and also another band that we both play in. Personally I enjoy travelling, eating at good restaurants, going to the gym etc.
Interesting fact that you wouldn’t have guessed? We all like cats! Also our new drummer. I guess that’s a requirement if you want to play in Panzerkrieg 666!
11. Germany has some great if underrated black metal bands that never seem to get the acclaim or attention of their Scandinavian peers. Why is that? Does the German scene lack the ‘notoriety’ of the Swedish and Norwegian scenes?
To be honest I don’t know if Germany really has some underrated Black Metal bands. Personally I don’t care too much about the scene here nowadays nor did I hear anything from Germany that interested me Black Metal-wise.
12. As a black metal band, what are your opinions about the stereotype that the “original black metal” (formed in the 90’s by the early Norwegian bands) is fading away from its true origins?
Again, I don’t really have a strong opinion on that, as I have zero interest in 99,9% of these bands.
13. That's all the questions I have for you man. I'll let you have the final words by saying whatever you'd like to our readers and your fans out there.
HvS: Thanks a lot for the great questions. You can check us out on www.panzerkrieg666.de, there you can find all the links to all relevant platforms such as Youtube, Spotify etc.
The new EP “Wolfpack” will be released on 03-03-2023 as digipack cd and online. If you like extreme blasting Black Metal with catchy riffs, choruses and a great production, you will like this one!
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