Chad Bowar: Downburst was just released. What has the early response been like?
Andy B. Franck: We are all very surprised about everything. We tried to change a lot of things and weren’t sure if people would recognize it. But they do, and it’s really cool.
You just got a new bass player, Antonio Ieva. Where did you find him?
When we started writing the songs for the new album, we knew Andreas (Mailander) would sooner or later leave us. To be very honest, we’ve known for months or years that sooner or later the point would come and he would leave us because of his job, his family and everything else. We had to cancel some shows because of some personal problems he had. We decided to talk to him in the spring of 2007, and then we both decided it was better that he left the band. So he wasn’t part of the writing process. He left before we went into the studio.
We wrote all the songs and recorded everything. Torsten (Ihlenfeld) and Milan (Loncaric, the band’s guitarists) recorded the bass guitar. Then we started the search for a bass player. After about 60 or 70 auditions we decided on Antonio, who is the former bassist for a band called the Farmer Boys, who were really popular here in Germany. He’s an amazing bass player and an amazing guy and comes from our area. He speaks our language and dialect, which is very important. He’s a full member of the band, not just a hired gun. I’m sure together we will have a lot of fun.
How does Brainstorm’s writing and recording process work?
Over the last years I started writing the vocal and lyric lines in our rehearsal room. Nothing important usually changed from there to the recording studio. This time things were completely different. I had the demos and started writing the lyrics like I always did, but we changed many things in the studio. So all my vocals were worthless. I had to change all the songs, all the lyrics several times. That was hard work. For each song I wrote at least three or four different versions.
This was a whole different recording approach for the band.
Yes, absolutely. Normally we wrote the songs and recorded demos in our rehearsal room. Then each member of the band went to the studio, which wasn’t far away from our hometown. People were on their own schedules. In my case I was sometimes surprised at what had been recorded. But this time we spent one and a half months in Wolfsburg. It’s the most boring town in Germany, so we had nothing else to do but writing, rehearsing, arranging, rearranging and recording. It was good. We were all at the studio together with our producers Sascha and Miro. There were six people around, talking about the music. We would stay at the studio until two in the morning and then come back at 9 or 10, or we slept in the studio. It was a very cool thing. We wanted to change a lot of things and take more care with the music.
In the future do you think you’ll keep recording with all the members together instead of separately?
I think we will do it this way in the future as well. Everybody in the band says this should be the way for the future, staying in the studio and concentrating only on the music.
Where did the title Downburst come from?
In the studio we listened to some of the songs we recorded. Milan, our guitarist, said the new album should overcome the people like a hurricane or a tornado. We wanted to express that in our album title, but we didn’t want to call it hurricane or tornado. We looked for another name. We found that a downburst is part of a blizzard. It stays for 45 to 60 minutes, which is the length of our albums. We thought that was quite cool, and liked the sound of the word.
You’re doing a European tour in March. What else is on the agenda?
We have a lot of promotion to do, then we will start rehearsing for the tour. It kicks off March 3rd. The first leg of the tour covers Germany and part of Europe. We have an offer to play an 8 date East Coast tour in the U.S. That will happen in April or May. Then we have to come back and play several festivals in Europe. Then the second leg of the European tour kicks off in late August. That will cover countries like Italy, France, Spain, England and Scandinavia. Then at the end of the year we will go to Brazil and Japan for the first time ever. We want to bring Downburst all over.
Brainstorm recently released a DVD in Europe. Are there any plans for a North American release?
Metal Blade U.S. has told us they will release the DVD in the U.S. sooner or later. It’s not up to us. We want to release it worldwide. It’s really important that people in the U.S. can see it. We have a history part of the DVD that covers everything about us in 30 minutes. We also have the Atlanta festival on there.
You’ve said Brainstorm is more popular and successful than Symphorce in Europe. Do you think that’s also the case in the U.S.?
I don’t know. In general Brainstorm is the way bigger band. There are some countries like Holland and Italy where Symphorce is bigger than Brainstorm. To be honest, when I formed Symphorce I did not expect anything. We’ve now recorded six albums, been on several European tours and a U.S. tour, and all those things are amazing and more than I expected to reach with the band. Symphorce is really diverse, so if you’re not really open minded you might have a problem with the band. For example the last album started with a death metal track, then a power metal track followed by a gothic song. There’s a little bit of everything.
