Krieger are a fantastic band that have exploded into the Deutsche Musik scene in the last 12 months. They released their self titled debut album late 2007 and have never looked back. Heavy powerful guitars, Krieger are under the same management as Rammstein and Emigrate so you know ther're onto a good thing. We managed to collar the lead singer Thomas Baumgärtel for a quick chat.

You guys have had a very busy year with the release of your debut cd and many concerts, what has been the highlight so far?
The first highlight clearly was our first own club tour, when we realized things are going well for the first time. A much bigger highlight however was, that unimportant on which occasion, club or support, people knew our songs and started to sing with us all the way enthusiastically.

How has the touring been? Any concerts that will stick with you forever and is there any moments you'd rather forget about?
The concerts were quite different, it’s hardly possible to compare them. There’ve been 300 people in a club in Berlin that were shouting “Heimat Heimat mir ist kalt”, and on the other hand there was our support for Nightwish, who impressed us a lot with their music, too. And even odd concerts aren’t so bad when you look back, it’s more like a weird story to laugh about some days later.

Did your debut album do better than you expected or were you hoping for more?
Of course we hoped for more. Who doesn’t hope, doesn’t live. But we know for a band of our kind we already achieved a bunch of things, and we’re just very happy about every sold album as well as every concert visitor .

Who has been your favourite band to tour with so far?
Although it was in the very beginning, when we still were rookies, it was Life of Agony who made us feel proud to stay on stage with. Maybe there’ve been other bands with larger audiences, nevertheless LoA not only matched our personal taste best but also had our respect.

What's the best song to play live?
There is quite a few, who are fun to play live. “Heimat” is one of them for sure, because most people know it, but “mein Schloss” is also fantastic, when it creates the right atmosphere and people take part. And of course there’s “Krieger”, it’s great to play it. It’s usually the first song we play and it kicks us in. The first impressions always are the most important ones for the crowd.

Where has your best concert been?
Difficult to say. There have been fantastic club concerts with lots of people, that sing along every word and show a lot of enthusiasm, and there is good support shows, which are a bit harder to play, but it’s always a good feeling when everything was a success and 5000 people are right in front of you, so we leave the stage in only the best mood.

Do you have any current plans for a follow up album, if so, can we expect the same hard style or will you try a few new things?
There‘s no exact schedule so far, but of course we’re already writing new material, and it won’t sound like weak stuff. We’ll see what the combination of blues, metal, rock and punk will still make possible.

Is there any band you would like to do a collaboration with?
Not now. At the moment we want to do our own thing and therefor we’re not interested in what other bands do.

How did you guys come together?
Jonny (my brother) and me collected new ideas when our old band was buried. It should be like bottleneck stuff with blues and metal. But it was just fragments, and no complete band. Most important was a bass player, which we found totally by chance live on stage, and though, “wow, he’s the one for the band”. That’s how Rajko joined. Together we assembled early song material from the old ideas and realized, that we were in need of a second guitar. So we thought of someone we already knew, somewhere in the outland. Andre. And that’s the story.

Who were your major musical influences?
Everyone has totally different musical roots. From Led Zeppelin to surf and beat stuff, and most frantic punk song. But finally in the band room we melt together with the good ol’ ZZ Top and AC/DC.

How were you found by Pilgrim management?
That’s what i call "Twist of fate". One knows each other many years, there’s not really much to say, but things easily change and suddenly you’re working together in the same boat. We know many people for as much as 20 years (that’s when the DDR still existed) and most played Punk. So, when we did the song writing for our Krieger album, everything fit together.

Do you realise Krieger must be something special to be under the same management as Rammstein and Emigrate?
That’s what we come to hear rather often, when people tell us about that, but in the end our management is ale people who know what they’re doing, who expect a lot of creativity, but who enable us as musicians also to play the music we want. And finally it’s the people we trust, which is quite important in music business nowadays. Apart from that, we’re not really involved. They have their music, we play ours. When we meet, we have some drinks, talk about free time, girls, have a nice food, and that’s about it.

Your album coverart is a very interesting choice that has left many fans a little clueless to it's meaning, care to explain the story behind it?
An old house near Dresden is our basis. "Feldschloesschen“. When we moved there, a friend of ours, a painter from france, gave us a wooden cutting, a picture: a head without a face. When we discussed the album layout a lot of ideas were discussed, when finally someone said: what about that picture? And it fit so well. The warrior (Krieger) without face, eternal search, without face, like most people. No hero, no loser. Homeless but returning. The original picture still is in the house. It was quite hard to do the rest of the concept as design, so we’re quite proud of the result.

Your 'In Flammen' mix is doing very very well in the club scene in Germany at the moment, that must have been a complete shock for you guys?
Well, we four don’t really care for remixes. We like the originals. We don’t even like the remix too much, but ok, if people like it, why not. We’ll still give an even better live performance.

Has mp3 sharing made it harder for you guys to succeed or have you leanred to adapt?
It’s not easy to sell music, and of course we try to provide alternative ways of buying, but there is still the live shows. In the past concerts have been like commercials for cd sales, but now, cd’s are rather like the commercial for the concert. Every sold record is great, and it’s great to stay on stage and sing together: “we are like warriors…” (”wir sind wie zwei Krieger”)

In your opinion, how strong is German music scene at the moment?
I think we’ve a rather strong scene at the moment, that’s just changing a bit. It’s changing from cd to concert, which is not necessarily a bad thing for the bands, because that’s a main reason why we make music. To play live. And concerts are working well in the last years, for popular, but also for independent bands and club scenes.

It's great to hear real rock rather than a lot of this pop-rock going around at the moment. Have you always played this style of  music of have you personally ever experimented in other genre's?
We’ve all four been in different bands earlier, and we did of course different music than now, but it was always pretty straight-forward. There was Electro-Metal, Hardcore, Punk, Crossover, and plenty more side projects. We did a lot of experimental stuff, and now we are Krieger: Merged to Blues, Rock and Metal.

It's also great to see you singing in German as a lot of German bands these days sing in English, was this a simple choice for you guys?
First, i’ve grown up with German music, so there never was the question whether to sing in English. Second, i want to go on stage and tell a message, and that’s easiest in my native language. I want everyone to understand my words, and i even think the rest oft he world understands better my german words than English one. It’s more real, and even if people might not understand every single word, they will understand the feelings.

Any plans to branch Krieger out into other countries with tours or cd releases?
Not really. Unfortunately. That’s too hard for now, complicated and expensive. We’ll only be able to afford that after we had better success in Germany. But I’m sure, we will reach out for the first opportunity, because we’re indeed very much sold on that idea.

Any plans in the pipeline for a music video sometime?
As long as there’s only crappy shows and stupid series on MTV, it’s not worth doing a video. But who knows, maybe things will change again, or there’s an interesting offer, or an idea we cannot refuse.

Where do you see the band in 5 years time?
In 5 years we play out of Germany and standing on stage right in front of YOU…

Well that about wraps up this interview so any final words for you fans out there?
It’s great when people outside of Germany buy our record, even if it doesn’t look like we’ll play there anytime soon. I, as the singer of Krieger, am very happy about the interest in our lyrics, even if not everything is completely understood. And if there’s enough cd sold to your country, I’m sure there will be concerts, too, soon.

On behalf of all your fans and DeutscheMusik.net, we thank you very  much for answering all these questions. Good luck with your upcoming gigs and we look forward to hearing more from Krieger very soon!

Nick
DeutscheMusik.net


*Special thanks to Tobias Weigl and Nadja for translations