Ex-BLIND GUARDIAN Drummer Talks About SAVAGE CIRCUS, COLDSEED And His Former Band

Norway's Metal Express Radio recently conducted an interview with former BLIND GUARDIAN and current SAVAGE CIRCUS/COLDSEED drummer Thomen Stauch. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

Metal Express Radio: Have you already started writing the new SAVAGE CIRCUS album?

Stauch: No, we didn't start it yet. (laughs) Maybe Piet has started to put down some ideas, but we are all very busy at the moment. I was working on the COLDSEED album, and Piet just finished writing for the new IRON SAVIOR CD. Also the PERSUADER guys were really busy with their part of the new PERSUADER album that is also going to be released soon. I think we'll start writing for the next SAVAGE CIRCUS album around November/December this year, when we finish with touring."

Metal Express Radio: How was the idea of COLDSEED born?

Stauch: "That basically happened when we were doing the 'A Night at the Opera' tour with BLIND GUARDIAN. During the USA leg of our tour when we had a long trip with our nightliner to Florida, Michael Schüren, the keyboardist, came to me and asked me if I ever played something totally different from BLIND GUARDIAN. And I didn't. I always played melodic power metal. Then he revealed about his plans of putting together a band where he wanted me to be the drummer. That's how the idea came up. We were talking about creating something totally different from BLIND GUARDIAN. That was the most important thing as we didn't want to do something that already exists. Later as we worked on the songs we noticed that it's not a project anymore, because everybody really put his heart and soul into this band. It's definitely not a one-album project. We really want to continue this and record as many albums as possible, and we also want to go on stage and show our fans that we are a real band."

Metal Express Radio: There aren't too many metal drummers composing songs, but you're one of them. Were you always able to do that?

Stauch: "Yeah, for me it's a really long time thing. When I compose, I do it together with my recording program and I also have a keyboard when I can try to find the melody, and at the same time I'm also riffing on the guitar to find some basic ideas. Working a long time on these songs makes me able to give the song later to one of the guitarists and get him to play the way a guitarist should play, because I'm not good at that. I only use that to get my ideas through to the other members. For me it is five times more work than for a guitar player who used to play his instrument each day."

Metal Express Radio: What are your thoughts on the new BLIND GUARDIAN single?

Stauch: "I've heard it and I thought it was a really good song. But this isn't something I would like to do anymore. With this song they went the way that I don't like so much anymore. But I think that's a professionally done song with great production. They are a professional band and they know exactly what they do and they go their way ... and that's what I love in that band. I wish them all the best and I wish them great success with this album. I think they will have success, because BLIND GUARDIAN is a big name. It's a name that stands by itself already. I mean they can even do a really bad album and the people will buy it, because it has BLIND GUARDIAN on it. But, I don't think they could do two or three bad albums without losing some of their fans. However, this won't happen, because they are a very professional band and they know what they do."

Read the entire interview at this location.