Chad Bowar: You’ve had a lineup change since the last album. What led to guitarist Marcel’s departure, and how did you choose Tim Siebrecht as his replacement?
Arkadius Antonik: When we begun to start writing new songs for Caledonia, Marcel told us that this is going to be his last record. He always felt stressed being on tour and in the studio because of his regular job. At the end of 2007 the time had come for him to concentrate 100 percent on his job. It was really a big gap to fill because I wrote 80 percent of the material on Caledonia. Tim was our live guitar player for the last year because we knew we could play that many shows contingent on the songwriting. He is also unable to play a lot of tours with the band because of his job, so Sebastian Hinz who also did some backing vocals on Crógacht is now our fourth band member.
How has the band’s sound evolved from Caledonia to Crógacht?
For me Caledonia sounds calmer than the new record. Crógacht is faster and heavier, but at the same time more bombastic and folk orientated. We also wanted to have a rough sound on the new record because Caledonia had this well-behaved touch.
Was your songwriting process any different for this album compared to previous releases?
Usually we finished writing the songs in the past before we started to write the lyrics. But this time our cover artist Kris Verwimp created the story so we wrote the music to the lyrics. It was kind of like writing a movie theme. We also introduced a lot of guest musicians and new instruments, like the banjo, tin-whistles and a real choir. It was a special experience to deal with all this in the studio.
What’s the concept behind the new album, and what drew you to that story?
It is an Irish legend about the hero Cuchulain and his adventures. It starts with the first song and ends with his son’s death at the last song. It would be too much to go deeper into the whole story so anybody who’s interested, you can read the whole concept on our official site. As I mentioned before Kris came up with the idea to use this legend and we loved it! He had full free space to create the story he wanted it to be.
What has the early European response been to the album?
The response is phenomenal. We got very good reviews in the press, good marks and high positions in the magazine playlists. Also the SuidAkrA fans love the new album. It’s such a great feeling to read all the amazing response.
What are your U.S. expectations?
We’ve read a lot of comments on MySpace that the fans are really looking forward to seeing us on this tour so we hope to have a great time, and I’m sure we will. Our aim is to meet as many fans as we can and to have great shows.
How is the Pagan Knights U.S. tour going so far?
We’ve already played three shows here and it was a blast. The fans made it a really great party. We met a lot of friends and gained many new ones. Playing in the U.S. is always special to us. The fans are really into our music and we love to talk to them after the show.
Was last summer’s Chicago Powerfest the first time Suidakra played live in the U.S.? How was that experience?
We didn’t really know what to expect because it was our first U.S. appearance ever. But this trip was so awesome. The shows were nearly sold out and the crowd was screaming even before we’ve entered the stage. We knew we have to come back as soon as possible for more shows!
What are the largest and smallest crowds you've ever played in front of?
The smallest was a show in Stuttgart Germany a couple of years ago. This show was really badly promoted so nobody knew about it. We played in front of 10 people or something. One of the largest was of course our Wacken 2007 appearance, which we also released on our DVD/Best Of package. It’s such a great feeling playing in front of 10 000 people. I nearly (crapped) in my pants!
What was the first concert you attended as a fan?
Oh it was a Crematory show on the “…just dreaming” German tour in 1994 I guess. I did some crowd surfing and after coming home I felt really addicted to it.
Any tour horror stories?
For me personally he most horrible thing was that I became really sick during our Russian/Ukraine tour and we had to spend the whole tour in a small bus without any beds. This made it horrible for me, because it took so long to recover and there were two shows where I couldn’t sing. So our second guitar player sang the songs, which didn’t really sound that good!
