WARRANT PT. 2.

- When and how did Warrant get together? Was the band established by you on bass/vocals, Lothar Wieners on the drums and Thomas Klein on guitars or did you go for any line-up changes? - Yes, the band was founded by Thomas, Lothar and me. We were basically a school band and friends. Thomas, me and Lothar came from the same district. However, at first, I was also the guitarist and we had no bass. At that time, we didn't know that a band needs a bass. When we realised it and someone had to take over the job, I did. Next, we needed a singer. In the beginning we had a different singer, followed by another singer, but it never worked out. We once had a previous band called "Poison", with Thomas, Lothar, me and a singer, and from that band "Warrant" emerged. But it didn't work out with the singer and so I got into playing bass and singing. This has worked best since then. - What can you tell us about your early rehearsals? - I can only say that things were very chaotic at the beginning. Initially we rehearsed at my home, at my parents' house, and we drove them totally crazy because we couldn't play much yet, but we thought it was already mega cool and we asked ourselves: "What's their problem?". In fact, it was cruel. We drove them crazy about the noise and the stuff we always played, especially my sister's boyfriend. He was 10 years older and always wanted to tell us that something was wrong, but we didn't believe him. In retrospect I know that he was right. But it was always extremely funny and was always accompanied by something to drink. Later we moved to Ronsdorfer Strasse. There is the bunker where many famous bands rehearsed: "Warlock", "Stormwind", "Deathrow", "Assassin". And so, did we. It was always making-merry. We sat together upstairs (not in the basement) and had a beer. We had so much fun; it was great. Sometimes we drank more than we rehearsed. When it came to the songs, of course, we accelerated our efforts, but otherwise there was always a certain party mood during rehearsals. - Did you start writing originals or were you mostly jamming on covers? - We started writing our own songs quite early. That was extremely important to me, but of course we also had 1-2 cover songs. At that time, we were into "Demon" and "Night of the Demon" was one of our most favourite songs. We covered that one. However, we didn't have a bass at that time. We had two guitars, I sang a bit and we had a drum kit with us - that was scary nice. Unfortunately, there is no recording of it. "Demon" was our first cover song. There was another one, but then we started to write our own songs. Many bands from that time, such as "Maiden", "Priest" and "AC/DC", inspired me a lot and so I started to write my own songs; Thomas as well. That was very important to us. - Do you still remember how you were signed by Noise Records? Where there any other labels interested in the band? - Yes, other labels were also interested and made offers, including Mausoleum Records, RoadRunner and also Noise Records. Noise Records or Walterbach, the then and long-time boss of Noise Records, was economically very active and he was the fastest to strike. We were still quite young, 17 years old. We didn't know what we were getting into at the outset. We were simply extremely happy when we got the offer from Noise Records - at that time the biggest record company in Europe in the heavy metal sector. That was absolutely amazing. He came straight from Berlin, took us to a pizzeria downtown, buttered us up a bit, told us how great we looked and what cool songs we had, and that we were the band of the hour. Thus, we immediately signed a record deal that was less favourable for us, but probably better for him. - Your first material was the First Strike EP. Scavenger's Daughter appeared on the label's compilation Metal Attack Vol. 1. How much did they help the band? Did you manage to draw the fans' attention to the band with these materials? - As you say, Scavenger's Daughter was released simultaneously on the Metal Attack vol. 1 compilation and First Strike was our first output. The record company supported us - let's say - within their possibilities, but not with regard to live stuff. The record was featured. Since Noise Records was the biggest record company at that time, we got a lot of press attention and it was mostly positive. The rest was up to us. That's where our problem started, because we didn't really have a good management and we didn't know how to promote ourselves. We probably would have had to go on tour much earlier, play shows. We still went to school, were only at the end of our schooling and it was all a bit difficult, and there was no one who would have "kicked our butts" to move things forward. The material we wrote was super-good; the fans thought it was really cool, and it was really well received, but we would have had to work much more live on stage. That was actually our problem. - At which point did second guitarist Oliver May join the band? What about his musical past? - Oliver joined us after we had written the songs for "The Enforcer". During song writing we had noticed that we needed a second guitar - for the sound and for solo guitar duels and things like that as well as for a better broader live sound. Therefore, we looked for someone, placed an ad. Oliver was based in Düsseldorf, contacted us and so it went pretty fast. He was also still a pupil, just like us, so it fit perfectly. We had a lot of fun together. But he joined the band when the material for "The Enforcer" had already been written. Therefore, he only recorded it with us in the studio. - When did you start writing the material for your debut record The Enforcer? How did the song writing process go compared to the EP? - When did we start doing this? Almost immediately after the release of the "First Strike" EP a lot of new ideas came into my head. Thomas also had some ideas, although I was already the main songwriter (and singer of course). Thus, it went pretty fast and the two releases came out very close to each other. Song writing was no problem at all. The ideas just gushed out of me. That's the way it went. - You entered the C.A.E.T. studios Berlin. What do you recall of the recording sessions? Were you prepared to record the album? - Yes, I have to say that we were quite prepared to record the album; actually, just like with First Strike. Maybe I don't have to mention it at this point: Lothar Wieners did not play the drums. He had a bad tendinitis at that time and couldn't bring in the song. That might have been of some benefit to us, because it helped us to recruit Thomas Franke - a drummer and friend of us who already worked professionally as a drummer. Thomas Franke was also the first “UDO” drummer. And he recorded our two records including The Enforcer. We were very fortunate. I recorded bass and drums with him in one take. Then came the guitar; that was not quite so easy. Of course, we were still relatively young and inexperienced, as you could see; we did everything ourselves - that's how it sounds. Rough. The record had mega-good songs, but they had been recorded just like that; without much preparation. You can hear that in both productions - in my opinion even more so in First Strike than in The Enforcer. The latter was already a bit more professional. That's the way it was for us at that time. - To what extent, do you think, was the EP great? Warrant took basically everything they had and made it even better. - Looking back, I can say that the EP was truly great. It was made simply without thinking much about it. The focus was on the songs. Whether it "pinched" here and there - no idea. It did and you can hear it today. It didn't always fit that well, but the atmosphere was great and the songs, like "Scavenger's Daughter" (still the favourite song of Kai Hansen from "Helloween"), were just right. But of course, we wanted to develop ourselves further. With "The Enforcer" we wanted to become better, more professional, and the spirit of the first compositions was 100% preserved, but we played better. And you can hear that. "The Enforcer" is already a bit more mature. We also had a second guitarist with us; that was great for the solo element. Oli really took us a major step forward. It had been a great time. - All of you were great and skilled musicians… - Ha! Ha! Excellent, no, we were not, God knows. But we were already good songwriters back then and knew exactly how a song can work. The basic idea for songs like "The Rack" or "The Enforcer" was quickly found and then you tried to get something out of the last 10-20%. We couldn't implement it all technically yet. We were mentally more advanced with the songs than we were technically able to do. We weren't "mega skilled musicians" yet, but we worked on it and got better and better in a relatively short period of time. And when I think of today, the song as such is still the most important thing to me. - Would you say that, with the addition of Oliver May, you pumped up the sound, and do the songs that are both rapid (such as The Rack) as well as tough and cruising (like Ordeal of Death) make this a dated record but cool to listen to? - Surely you can see that our sound definitely got broader with the addition of guitarist Oliver May, because we were able to produce something completely different with two guitars. If you know right from the start that you have two guitars, you will have much more possibilities with solos and rhythm guitar. Besides, Oliver was already a very good guitarist back then, who contributed many awesome solos. As already said: The songs had already been written, but of course he brought in his solo components. Of course, we were already able to do this, as was already shown on First Strike with Ready to Command as a smooth song. Next to it were the speed hits, like Scavenger's Daughter. The same applies to the songs on "The Enforcer". Not much has changed in this respect. The Rack fully corresponded to the rapid claim and Ordeal of Death was more the cruiser. We had both on the start, on both releases, but with Oliver as the second guitarist we were able to feature it more. - Did speed metal and a very recognizable amount of power metal build the foundation? - I would definitely say yes. But even here I have to add that - as a songwriter - I have always listened to a lot of music from many genres; not always everything from the speed metal or metal genre (although speed metal in that sense did not exist yet). I just always liked to listen to fast songs, like Exciter by Judas Priest. And I noticed that they "incite" me; they spur me on and that there is something about them, and that combined with a great, simple song writing à la AC/DC. That was our thing. This mixture may sound strange at first, but it worked. I still say today: "Warrant" is a band, AC/DC is style, "Meets" is speed metal". In the beginning, we also listened to Metallica; the first Kil 'em All. At that time, we had actually already come to speed metal ourselves, because we ourselves became faster and faster without much influence as from Metallica. I didn't even know Slayer back then. We were led there by just a few songs, like Accept, Shark or Exciter by Judas Priest... That was already enough to realise: That's it; you want to carry on with that, you want to have more of those songs. And you process it with songs from AC/DC, Kiss, things that circulated at that time and that we listened to.