Since the mid-nineties, Germany's SUIDAKRA have been busy creating Metal music that was a bit different than that of their peers. Back then, the term Pagan Metal was unknown and they were thought of as just a different kind of melodic Death Metal band. But with the recent climb in popularity of bands like FINNTROLL and ENSIFERUM, more people are discovering SUIDAKRA and the result is that they are receiving more well-deserved attention than ever before. With their ninth studio album, "Crógacht", being released this year and their participation in the recent Pagan Knights tour, SUIDAKRA are poised to gain their greatest level of recognition yet.

Let's talk a little bit about the new album, "Crógacht". Tell us a bit about the concept behind the album and how closely you worked with Kris Verwimp.

"Kris came up with the whole concept - we gave him total free space this time because we knew that he did it before, not on the record - he just released a few books with illustrations and stuff like that, so we talked before and we told Kris that there was going to be nine songs, so he divided the whole story into nine chapters. So what was really different to our previous releases was that usually we just finish the song writing enough that we just start with the lyrics. This time we knew which song deals with which theme, you know, which part of the story, so I just compare it to writing a movie sound track. It was pretty cool. The 'Crógacht' story deals with the hero Cúchulainn and it tells his adventures. It's Irish mythology... it would take too long to go deeper into details, but it's a pretty epic story and at the end you have this tragic faceoff; his son Conlaoch who has to fight against his father, but they do not know that it's father and son, so Cúchulainn kills his only son and he just realized after he killed that it's his son because he saw the ring, which is also on the front cover, that he gave him as a child. It's pretty cool."

Tell us a little bit about the production process.

"We decided to, of course, go with the same studio we did on the last two records because Martin Buchwalter, the producer, is a very good friend of ours and he really did his job very well. You can compare him to SUIDAKRA because we always develop our technical skills, song writing skills and he's the same, you know - he's never satisfied with the production, so he just works on himself, on his equipment and he knows many things about SUIDAKRA, so this time he had the song rehearsal demo from us just before we entered the studio, so he had some new ideas and was really helpful. We are going to visit the studio again in the future because we are very satisfied with the result."

Where would you say "Crógacht" stands against your other albums?

"In my opinion, 'Crógacht' is the most well balanced album we've ever made. It sounds very, what's the word... mature. We just put all the experiences we've made in the past into this album and worked very hard and detailed, so it's a very long lived album - you can listen to it twice, much more and you just find some new stuff you hear. And we wanted to keep it much more brutal and aggressive and melodic at the same time, so it's a vey well balanced album. It's my favorite one."

Now I have a question that you probably get all the time, so bear with me on this one. (Arkadius laughs) You're a German band, but you choose Celtic themes. Why?

"Celtics were settled in the whole (of) Europe, in west Europe, so we have a feeling, what's the word... we just feel close to the Celtic culture, you know? But I have to say at the same time that the Celtic stuff is not the main thing in SUIDAKRA because we don't see ourselves as a pagan band - we're just a Metal band that uses this Celtic stuff as an influence, just part of SUIDAKRA. We have on the other hand, of course, this whole melodic Death Metal stuff, so we don't see ourselves as a Pagan Metal band. But it's a very important aspect of our music."

Speaking of that aspect, what do you think of the recent explosion in Pagan and Folk Metal?

"You know, to be honest, I don't really care about it because it's like every trend. There are so many bands getting up and getting famous, but for me personally, I think there are so many bands that sound the same, so it's kind of boring - I'm not really interested in that kind of trend stuff. I mean, when we started to use all these pagan elements, at that time nobody spoke about this word 'pagan'; it was in 1997, so for us, it's nothing new. Of course, it's a good for us to get much more recognition and stuff, but we just concentrate on SUIDAKRA as we always did."

What is the possibility of getting a North American licensing deal? Albums like "Lays From Afar" are pretty hard to find outside of Europe.

"The main problem was that the first three albums, except the first one because it was self production, self financed, but the following three albums were released on a small label, which was really a rip-off label and it doesn't exist anymore, I think. So we are working now with our label to re-release the albums, but that's kind of hard because all of the problems with the copyright and stuff like that, but I think we are going to release it because I know that it's hard to get these albums because the distribution at that time, when all those albums were released, was mostly in Germany and then in a few European countries. We are working on that, so I really hope that we have the chance to re-release them maybe this year or maybe next year."

What are your thoughts on the rise of National Socialism within the Metal scene?

"I think it's crap because for me, personally, it does not belong to Metal; it's not what Metal is for me. Politics and stuff like that, it's not Metal. Metal is Metal. And we as a band, we are not of the attitude to point the finger at someone and bring our message - we just want to entertain. So I think it's really crap because it's not good for the Metal scene, you know, especially MTV and other people do not really know what Metal is and you hear the whole shit stuff, so it's not good."

One of the things I've noticed about SUIDAKRA is that you guys are really good about answering your fanmail on MySpace.

"Yeah."

Is this a conscious effort to be more fan friendly or is it just that you actually to do care about the messages?

"No, I really care. I also love to talk to people after the shows. A lot of bands, they just disappear in the backstage room and stuff like that - that's not our thing. I mean, this is why we are on tour and this is the same on MySpace. I mean, people sit in front of their computer and they just want to say something and I think it's really important to answer that, you know. It's kind of respect. And I really appreciate every comment and it's not the thing about being friendly; I just know all we have reached is because of the fans. I really appreciate the support, so the smallest thing we can do as a band is to answer."

Now that you've been to America twice, what is your opinion of American beer? (laughter)

"I've only had one good beer and it was in Texas - it was Bock. It tastes similar to German beer, it was really good, but the rest... you spend more time in the restroom than on drinking it. (laughter) It's like a Coke or a soda, stuff like that, so it's not that good. So I'm (going to be) really glad to be back in Germany for some real beer."

What is next for SUIDAKRA?

"What is next? When we return from this American tour, in Germany we are going to play some Summer festivals and then we are working on the European tour and then we will start to write the new songs for a new CD. Our plan is to enter the studio next year, but I'm not sure if it will work - it depends on how many places we play. We already work, so we only have the weekends for writing songs and stuff like that, together, of course, during the week I play on my own, but when we are playing together at shows, it's impossible."

Okay, is there anything else you'd like to add?

"Yeah - thanks for supporting SUIDAKRA. I really enjoy being in the States and we hope to get our asses back as soon as possible and check out the new album, 'Crógacht' - you will like it." [FIN]