What Caliban Says

The buzz on you guys is really growing. Congrats. How does it feel to have your audience expanding? We...

The buzz on you guys is really growing. Congrats. How does it feel to have your audience expanding?
We are very appreciative for all the support, especially because we are from a foreign country, and don’t tour all the time in the states, but we will definitely come more often from now on!

Tell me about Hellfest and your favorite memories of it.
It was just awesome to see that the kids knew our songs!!! There is no special favourite memory; the whole fest is a great memory!!!

Are there times in a show where it either seems to slow up for you or speed up? (like a how a pro ball player has "the game slow down for him," seeing stuff that could be missed at high speed?? Describe your thought processes during chaotic onstage times...
Yeah, shows are always passing by very fast… Sometimes after eight songs when the set is over, it feels like you played maybe 15 minutes or something. We’ve had a lot of luck that it’s never happened where it felt like 5 hours… just in the very first beginning, with our first drummer… he played for two minutes another song then we did, hahaha.

What are your favorite bands to tour with thus far? Why?
In Flames, Killswitch Engage, Shadows Fall, Evergreen Terrace, Scars of Tomorrow… They are all very nice guys and we had so much fun with them. Hope we will tour with these bands again!!

What do you think about God -- and Jesus Christ, specifically?
Our music is not religious oriented, but every band member does have their own opinion about it. I even don’t know who believes in it and who does not….

What do you think about His claims to be, "the Way, the Truth and the Life, no one comes to the Father but by Me?"
I only speak for me now and not the band. I think everybody is responsible for his or her own destiny, but I also don’t want to judge anything about someone who chooses to believe. This is my own personal opinion and I have never really been too concerned with this topic.

Who in the band reads Shakespeare? And what kind of thought goes into Caliban lyrics?
That was our old guitar player; we thought that the story of “Caliban” fit in well with the music. But the lyics are about Andy’s personal life, like a diary in a morbid way…

At the end of the day, what do you hope your music can help accomplish with the people that are listening?
That’s a hard question, I hope that they can maybe forget for a little time their day to day problems or stresses they have… We don’t have any political lyrics, they are all very personal, maybe someone can see his or her own story in the lyrics.

If you're comfortable doing so, please tell me about any conversations you may have had with relatives about Germany's political past and the Nazi party. What sort of stigma or feelings linger, if any, from that past (in the German people's collective consciousness)?
My grandfather and grandmother were against it and had a lot of trouble because of that! It’s still very, very sad what happened, but it’s 50 or 60 years ago now… we still have some racists but that’s like everywhere in the world, not more than in any other country I think. Like USA and the rednecks there, haha…

Tell me about The Opposite From Within. How did the recording go? What are your favorite songs, and why?
First we did some pre-productions in a small studio in our hometown, after that we went to Sweden for four weeks. We tried to record everything as good as possible, so that everything is perfectly played. That took a lot of time because Anders is very “picky” with this. Then we sent Andy Sneap the hard drives and he did a roughmix, he sent an mp3 sample to listen to. For the final mix I went to his studio in England and we mixed everything. My favourite songs are “Goodbye,” “One Of These Days” and “Salvation.” Don’t know why, I just like them the most…

Any other thoughts on the album or the band that you'd like to share?
Not really, we just hope that the kids like it because we never put sooo much work into this record… Maybe more then in all others combined…

Thanks a lot for the willingness to do an interview via email. It's kind of weird sometimes to write down your thoughts rather than speak them. It often takes me longer to respond this way; and for this I thank you. I hope to see you guys in or around Austin TX sometime soon...
Yeah, I hope so too! We were supposed to play in Austin but moved up to Amarillo because the tour routing… And thank you for the interview!!!

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