Endstille and their knuckle message



Germany has been known as the birthplace of Sodom, Destruction and Kreator. The German metal scene has once again regaining its place in the sun with bands like Dark Fortress and Semen Datura making their mark. Another band that is making their mark is Endstille. When I think of Endstille the one thing that make them stick out from the rest of the pack is their fuck hell attitude which they wear on their knuckles. Cruor explains.

Guten tag my prussian brother how you doing so far?
Guten Tag!
Everything's fine sofar.

I knew Iblis left the band before the start of your European tour. Was there any reason he left Endstille? Was the split amicable?
He left the band one and a half week before the concert at the Wacken Open Air. So it had been some month before the European Tour started. So before the tour began we had already confirmed concerts at several open airs during the summertime. At all of the festivals our friend of the band Koldbrann helped us out of that shitty situation. He made all of the concerts possible for us.
The split with our former vocalist wasn't really friendly. But who cares, shit happens.
Also all the concerts after the split had been great and I'm totally satisfied with the situation now.

Your brother in arms Lugubrem filled in during the tour. Tell the readers how good of job he did on the tour.
We were really happy when Lugubrem told us that he can join us on that tour, because without him we would have been forced to cancel the whole tour, too. We knew him since our tour in Mexico in 2008, on which he had been the vocalist of our support band „Crimson Moon“. We knew that he was able to make a great job. So Lugubrem made his long way from Mexico to join us on the tour and he made a fantastic job. He's an amazing vocalist and it was great to share the stage with him. He interpreted some of our songs in a way I never heard that songs before. I'm really looking forward to the music he'll release in the future. By the way his regular band is called "Mordskog". You should check them out.

Was there any consideration towards him being the new singer of Endstille at one time?
Of course we were thinking about that option. But he lives in Mexico and has his business to do there. So it wouldn't have been so easy.

The band has settled on a new singer by the name of Zingultus. What's his background and what made the band settle on him?
We know Zingultus and are friends since several years now. He used to be the vocalist of great bands like "Nagelfar", "Graven" or "Graupel" before. So he already has a lot of experiences and he has a great Black Metal-voice. As he announced that he can imagine to be our new vocalist we were satisfied with that immediately.

What does he bring to the table as far as contributing to the band?
First of all his voice is really great. He sounds very aggressive. Also he has a big spectrum in his voice and he has many ideas how he can support the atmosphere of a song with his vocals.
Another good thing is that he already has a lot of experiences, so that we don't have to show or teach him anything. He knows how to make Black Metal and he knows what Endstille is about. He integrates himself perfectly in the band.
I'm looking really forward to our next CD. I promise you, his vocals on the new CD will be killer.

Last I read your the band added a second guitarist Maximum Overlord. What's the deal with him? He was only the touring guitarist not a permanent member?
We met Overlord also at the Mexico tour and became friends. After that tour he told us that it would be interesting and a honour to him to visit us in Germany and to play some concerts together with us. We also liked his style of playing the guitar, so we invited him. He joined us on the festivals during summertime and also on the European tour. But after 6 months he was forced to leave Europe and to travel back home to California, where he uses to live. So it wasn't possible to keep him as a permanent member in the band. But we had a great time and I think Overlord is now addicted to German beer!



Can you tell me what the response been to your latest release "Vehfuhrer"?
I think the people liked that album. We got a very good response by the press and by the fans. We promoted that CD on many festivals and the tour and when I think about the audience it always looked like if they liked it.

The band also did a video titled "Depessive/Abstract/Banished/Despised". What was the whole concept behind the video? It's pretty sick video.
The concept was just to create something really agressive, dirty and sick.
So after we found a fitting producer for the recordings of that video we were searching for the right location. So we found an old very big trainstation next to Leipzig, a city in East Germany. That trainstation lies in the middle of nowhere and is forsaken sice many many years. All the buildings there are totally decayed.
We had not really a something like a script for that video. We were just inspired by that building and started the recordings. I would say that it was the best way to record the video that way. I'm totally satisfied with the result.

You being a horror film afficano, what's your opinion on current European horror that's coming out these days? Some of my favorite are like Ichi The Killer by Takashi Mikke Semm like the asians like to makle sick films. That what I like about him he likes pushing the envelope.
At the moment I'm fascinated by movies from France. They're all produced very well and they like to switch the genres during the movie. In one minute you have the impression that you're watching a thriller then it changes to an horror movie and so on. That creates an interesting atmosphere. Also what I like about the French movies is that always something unexpected happens. So when you think you know what the movie is about everything changes again. Check out the movie "Martyrs", then you know what I mean.
And for sure I prefer the sick ones too. Asian movies are always good if you want to the something really strange.
Also I like Zombie-movies a lot. But I prefer the ones in which the Zombies cannot run or jump, because Zombies can't do something like that. If you ever read the book "The Zombie survival guide" you'll know what I mean ;-)

What German horror films you like? I seen Antibodies and Antonomy before I thought Antibodies was a good film.
I don't know so many German ones. Anatomy was a quite good movie, but I don't know that "Antibodies" one. When it comes to German films I like the ones about the world wars a lot. These are pretty autentic without any flying colors. "Der Untergang" and "Stalingrad" are pretty good ones. My favourite is "Das Boot".

You guys working on new material for the new album. How's that coming along so far?
We're making big progresses at the moment. We already wrote 7 new songs. Probably we'll write 2 or 3 more.
I think the next the CD will be influenced a lot by oldschool thrash metal. Of course it'll be a very grim Black Metal album and you'll recognize that it's an Endstille CD from the first tone, but we included some more thrashing riffs.
I guess it'll be our most varying album ever.
I'm really looking forward to that one.

Have the band decided what the title of the new album or you want to keep that under your hat for now?
We already have a title for it, but for now I have to keep the name to ourself.

Being from East Germany, you made it known about your anti nazi feelings. You still get a lot of shit from the skinheads?
First of all we're not from the east. We're living in the north of Germany.
We had a lot of problems with political groups (left and right) in the past. But we always said that we're not a political band and that we'll never give any political statements. For me Black Metal isn't a political genre and we're musicians, no politicians.
But nowadays it seems that most people realized that that Endstille isn't about politics, so we don't have so many problems with that anymore.

Did you ever check out the movie Valkerye? If you had, what's your opinion of the film?
I've never seen that movie and I think I will never watch that one. Tom Cruise as Stauffenberg? Come on... that's shit. I think that story is too heavy for him. You shouldn't make a glossy Hollywood-movie out of that part of German history.

I seen it, I felt that the movie should have featured German actors, at least it was historically accurate.
I think for such a movie you need German actors, that makes it more autentic. You know this is heavy stuff... and I don't think that this Scientology-guy is good enough for it.
Also I will never watch this "Inglorious Bastards" movie. If a guy like Brad Pitt is enough to hunt down all the big Nazis in WWII, why did the war took so long? The story of that movie is much too stupid, I think.

What bands you like now these days?
I still like a lot that oldschool bands like Sodom, Celtic Frost, Grave, Entombed, the old Gorgoroth CDs, Pest etc.
To me the new Dark Funeral CD sounded pretty good. Also I liked the last DHG album.
At all I can say that I like a lot of different bands but I prefer the raw and brutal ones.
Also I would recomment some very good German bands like "Verdunkeln", "Kilt", "Valgaldrar", "Totenmond" and "Graupel".

What the reason for you write 'fuck hell' on your knuckles? I'm asking out of curiousity.
We always wrote that phrase on the last side of the CDs booklet. This phrase got quite popular. The people started to link us to that phrase, you can say it became something like a trademark.
But it doesn't have a spiritual meaning or something like that.

What prompted the organizers of Wacken Open Air to add you to next years festive?
I don't know. Probably they liked our concert last year and also the reaction of the audience. I think that can be the only reason for that.

What was the crowd response when you played Wacken Open Air last time?
It was amazing. We played in the afternoon and there had been so many people in front of stage. It was unbelievable. At other festivals you play in front of thousands of people too, but at the wacken it had been totally unbelievable. People as far as you can see.
The reaction of the audience was also amazing. I've never seen people go as crazy on a black metal concert as on that one. It looked great.
So I'm really looking forward to this years Wacken Open Air.

How you guys get along with the other German BM bands like Dark Fortress. Semen Datura, for example?
I don't know all of the Dark Fortress guys. I just met some of them at some concerts. We don't know eachother so much but we get along well.
I never heard of the second band you mentioned.
But so far we're fine with many German bands, like the ones I told you about some questions before.

You feel that the German metal is getting enough recognition now?
I think German Metal was always recognized all over the world. When you think about all these bands from the late 80's, most of them had been German. So German Metal proofed quite often that it's very good.
Also I think that nowadays the German Black Metal scene is noticed all over the world well and for sure, there are good reasons for that.

When the planning to enter the studio to record the new album?
As I already said we're almost finished with the songwriting for the new album. So probably we'll enter the studio at the end of April or beginning of May.
So I guess the CD will be released at the end of summer or beginning of autumn, if there won't be any delay.

Thank you for taking the time to do the interview. Anything else you like to add?
As usual:
FUCK HELL!!!! und gute Nacht.
Interviewer: Paul Lewis
Mar 26, 2010

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