MetalKings.Org - портал о роке и метале

Hanzel und Gretyl are an American industrial metal band, formed by members Kaizer Von Loopy (vocals, lead guitar, programming) and Vas Kallas (female vocals, bass, programming) in 1993. They recorded and released their first full-length album "Ausgeflippt" in October 1995. So there are 6 studio albums by Hanzel und Gretyl. On the threshold of new CD release, which should be out on November 11 and coming european tour, the band agreed nicely to give the exclusive interwiev for Metalkings.

MetalKings: Heartfelt greetings from Russia! I'll begin our interview with a question about about an upcoming new album. How do you evaluate your work?

Vas Kallas: Hello Russia! We just finished the new CD a few days ago!! Wow! It’s called “BLACK FOREST METAL” and it is exactly what we’ve been wanting to do for many years. A musical CD that dealt with the Grimm Fairy tale of Hanzel und Gretyl in the deep dark forest!

The sound is a departure from our usual style of music, but still very Hanzel und Gretyl.

Kaizer Von Loopy: It still sounds like us, just more SATANIC! "Satan is the new German"!

MetalKings: Which style is your new album? Will it be similar to the "Born To Be Heiled" or we will hear something similar to the earlier work of the group? Or it will be something completely new?

Vas Kallas: This is something new for us. It is not Industrial music. It has a Black dark metal vibe. It’s the best music for some really good headbanging or a scary walk into the woods at night.

Kaizer Von Loopy: this album is good for scaring your neighbors!! it scares the shit out of my cat!! i don’t really have a cat but trust me if i did, it would be scared!!

MetalKings: Who designs your covers?

Vas Kallas: We work with an amazing artist named William Boyd in the USA, who transforms all of our sick ideas into the exact visual hell and beauty that we want. Sometimes his art inspires us to write new songs and sometimes our song titles inspires him to make unbelievable art.

Kaizer Von Loopy: We met him at a show in Seattle, he came up to us and handed us some sick poster he did for our CD ‘Uber Alles’ and then disappeared for years!! We hunted him down and insisted he do our artwork!!! He's been doing our exclusive artwork for about 7 years now!

MetalKings: The song "Aufwiedersehen" from the album "Uber alles" stands out in your creativity, lyrical music, and text. Who or what the subject of this song? Do you want to write something like this again?

Vas Kallas: That song was written after 911 and it is tribute to that era in time. It is a bit sad since it says goodbye to the life we once knew here in NYC. Loopy sings this one. Not sure if we would write something as soft as this, but one never knows.

Kaizer Von Loopy: YES!! I had this song and thought it was a bit soft for "?ber Alles" but after all the sonic chaos of that CD it ended up sounding ok to us as an unexpected ending so we added it! Our new CD, "Black Forest Metal", is basically dark or hard all the way through!

MetalKings: Please tell us how you met

Vas Kallas: I was in a band called the Cycle Sluts from Hell signed to a major label in NYC. Loopy was involved as a song writer and came in as our bass player/guitarist towards to end of the band. When the band broke up in 1992, Loopy and i just wanted to keep writing music, so we created Hanzel und Gretyl!

Kaizer Von Loopy: That’s accurate. We met in 1987 when the Cycle Sluts From Hell began.

About 5 years later we began Hanzel und Gretyl.

MetalKings: Where did you get such love for Germany? How did it all began?

Vas Kallas: In my travels to Europe when I was much younger, I ended up traveling to Germany and living in Berlin. I fell in love with the German culture and language and the darkness of the Berlin Wall. It was fascinating and therefore a big influence in writing music. Berlin was very dark, cold, emotionally difficult and romantic. To me it represented deep art expression, plus the beer is the best!

Kaizer Von Loopy: When i was very young in the 70’s , my sister’s boyfriend from Norway gave me a vinyl of Kraftwerk’s Trans Europe Express! It blew my mind and i wanted to be a German robot ever since!! I thought all of Germany were inhabited by robots with red shirts, black ties and plastic hair and i wanted to move there!!

MetalKings: Since we are talking about Germany, do you still maintain contact with musicians from "Rammstein"?

Vas Kallas: We haven’t seen those guys for some years since their last show at Madison Square Garden in NYC in Dec 2010. We do hear about them through mutual friends over the years. It was very nice to see them.

Kaizer Von Loopy: We recently did an interview with Rammstein's documentarian but we can't discuss it's content or what it was for at this time. Stay tuned!!

MetalKings: Which German groups, except from aforementioned "Rammstein", you could tell us about?

Vas Kallas: Well we did some shows with Knorkator in Russia, which was good fun!! I recently saw a band named Vaarg from Germany which was good. But on the whole I don’t know too much about German bands.

Kaizer Von Loopy: I recently discovered Roland Kaiser a couple of years ago. He is positively SATANIC!!

MetalKings: Last year the group turned 20 years old. During this time, were there any conflicts between you, and how you overcome it?

Vas Kallas: Actually it will be 20 years in 2015 since the release of "Ausgeflippt"! And yes of course we've had extreme conflicts over the 20 years, since we are both insane passionate outspoken creative control freaks! We always think that we are right and the other one is wrong! But things have calmed down now since we’re getting older and those things don't seem to matter as much, or we don’t care or we’re just too tired to argue.

Kaizer Von Loopy: We argue mostly about the hotel room temperature and food!! holy shit, we must be getting old!!! LOL!!!

MetalKings: How often do you spend time together in everyday life?

Vas Kallas: When we are not touring or writing music or doing anything that has to do with HuG, we never see each other. But we’re always talking on the phone or texting, of course!

Kaizer Von Loopy: No bands like to hang out with each other if they've been a band for longer than 1 year!!

MetalKings: Question to Kaizer: why did you decide to create the solo project "KyzrWolf"?When are you planning to release a second album, and what we hear it?

Kaizer Von Loopy: KyzrW?lf is my evil animal spirit alter-ego that comes to life after i've drank too many beers!! you will very likely see him come to life onstage in Russia this November!!

Similar question for Vas: do you want to do something like that and release a solo album?

Vas Kallas: I would be very interested in working with other people if it was something that interested me, for live touring or studio work! I don’t like creating complete music on my own. I find that very lonely.

MetalKings: Do you get gifts from your fans? Which one is the most memorable?

Vas Kallas: The best gifts that we get are from Russia! Bottles of vodka and whiskey!

We love you guys!

Kaizer Von Loopy: Well perhaps the most memorable were in Russia and Ukraine on our second visit to the region in 2009. It was my birthday so the promoters in both countries arranged a cake for me to be brought out onstage at every show!! I think i had about 5 birthday cakes over a week!! Needless to say that was the greatest birthday week of my life!! Russia knows how to party!! we always start or end our EU tours in Russia so i either begin the tour destroyed or fly home destroyed!! lol

MetalKings: Can you name the little-known or unknown facts about yourself?

Vas Kallas:

1- I love staying home in my pajamas

2- I'm addicted to ice cream.

3- I can dance traditional Greek dances.

4- I am guilty of listening to American country music.

Kaizer Von Loopy:

1-I eat pizza 6 times a week at least,

2-I live near Yankee Stadium.

3-I’ll watch any show on television about motorcycle fabrication, restoring rusty broken

machinery or buying old garbage!!

4-I once got busy in a Burger King Bathroom.

MetalKings: How much time do you spend on the internet? Do you read reviews about your band?

Vas Kallas: I’m only interested to read reviews when we have a new CD. It's always interesting how people interpret the songs. So far we've been very lucky with reviews! And yes, if there is WIFI available, there is always internet addiction! It’s terrible. Nobody wants to talk to each other anymore, they just want to look at their phones. I do shut it all down sometimes just to get away from that chaos.

Kaizer Von Loopy: I don't read reviews or watch videos of Hanzel und Gretyl!! I'd rather live in an imaginary world where i am both loved and feared by all living things!!

besides, there's a million youtube videos of musicians falling off of the stage that i find morbidly pleasing!! I'm surprised i haven't found myself in there yet!!

MetalKings: What are some bands and songs that people would be surprised that you like?

Vas Kallas: I like to listen to good American country music. The dumber the better, because it's really funny to me. Besides that, I can listen to some gangster rap and if I was at a big dance club with some good friends and a lot of alcohol I would be on the dance floor all night! That’s Right!

Kaizer Von Loopy: I listen to Brooke Candy lately, her older stuff.. that bi*ch crazy!! her lyrics are impossible not to LOL to!!

MetalKings: To people who are not familiar with your band , the name is associated primarily with children's tale. What were you like as a child? Did you bring a lot of trouble to your parents, or on the contrary, were you calm and obedient children?

Vas Kallas: This is a funny question. As a child I was very shy and very lonely. I am an only child so I would play by myself in my fantasy world. I listened to music all the time. That was my passion as a very young child. When i was with close friends i would be very loud and silly and weird. I

was the strange one in the group who liked different music and wanted to dress differently.. As i got older my parents were always angry with me cause i was a little rebel playing loud music all the time.

Kaizer Von Loopy: I was told as a very young child i used to always throw my food or drinks on the floor and just stare at the smashed remnants so really, not much has changed!!

MetalKings: During your tour rounds, you've visited a lot of countries. What country would you like to come back to again and why? And which countries that you haven't gone to would you like to visit?

Vas Kallas: I want to tour in Greece! This is my dream, because I’m greek born in the USA and i want to play in front of greeks in Greece!! If anyone is reading this, please help us!

I also want to tour in South America! We hear that the music scene is amazing and the fans are great! I’d like to revisit Australia and New Zealand and maybe even Japan.

And of course i’d like to always come back to Russia because the people are so passionate and intense. I love it ! and of course Germany, which is a second home.

Kaizer Von Loopy: I have to admit, I wouldn't mind more gigs in the South of France!!! how's the metal scene in Tahiti?? Bali??

MetalKings: Do you have any talismans that you never leave at home?

Vas Kallas: I use to carry a Citrine crystal with me to calm me down from any fears or anxiety and to help in prosperity and success! But I became too dependent on it and I stopped using it. Now i lost it. I think i need to get another one.

Kaizer Von Loopy: I'm famous for losing everything on tour so i would never bring an object whose sole purpose was to bring me luck!! i have a hard enough time not losing my helmet and shoes!!

MetalKings: Which song, in your opinion, is the "visiting card" of the group?

VAS : I believe that will always be SS DEATHSTAR and THIRD REICH FROM THE SUN. No matter what we do and what new music we write, the fans will always want to hear these songs. But as artists we have moved on with our music and it's so hard sometimes to always

play these songs.

Kaizer Von Loopy: FUKKEN UBER DEATH PARTY !!

MetalKings: And finally, a question about the upcoming tour. What do you expect from it? Will there be any surprises for your fans?

Vas Kallas: Life is always a surprise! We plan to do some new songs before anyone can get the “Black Forest Metal” CD. We hope you like them!

Kaizer Von Loopy: We've supercharged the UBER with heavy doses of EVIL!!! shit's about to get UBER EVIL!!!

MetalKings: Thank you very much for the interview! Good luck! See you in Russia!

Vas Kallas: Spasiba Olga! We will see you soon!

Kaizer Von Loopy: "PROST-ROVIA" !!!! \m/

FOR MORE INFO ON HANZEL UND GRETYL:

http://www.hanzelundgretyl.com/

https://www.facebook.com/hanzelundgretyl

Olga Gulyaeva & Irina Potapova