Suidakra was until recently, for me an unknown German metal band. But they have released four albums so far. Their new album "The Arcanum" is a true gem and should not be missed. It is a blend of commercial Black Metal and Celtic Rock.
I caught up with Arkadius for an update on this band.


1. 1.When and where was Suidakra spawned ? By whom ??

The birth of our Band is a very strange story: Stefan and I visited the same school in 1993, we meet each other and in 1994 we got the idea to found a band. Unfortunately Möller had this idea during a school lesson so that he preteded to be ill and left the class room and pleased me out of his chemistry lesson. So the band was founded with the price to copy the school regulations. Our first name was "Gloryfication" with, except Möller and I, completly diferent members. Under this name we recorded our first demo called "XIII", but at that time the music was very rough and tanded more to the stile of Death - Thrash Metal. In ´95 we recorded our second album "Dawn " , but now under the name "Suidakra". The music of the "Dawn" demo already showed the upcoming direction. At that time Marcel joined in and shortly after Dani and Christoph. So you can say Suidakra was spawned by Möller and me in 1994...

2. Please tell us more about the chosen band-name. What does it stand for ?

In 1995 our members changed and our music style was not the same like the days we started, because it was the first time we integrated keyboards, and the music became more melodic. So we decided to look for an new band name, it was like a rebirth for us. The name "Suidakra was invented while we sat together with some bear and somebody started read his name backwards. So the others did the same and "Suidakra" is the product of my (Arkadius) name backwards.

3. What is your political and religious beliefs ?

We don`t give a fuck about politics and any religious. We hate both ! We`re all no religious or spiritual persons. Only Daniela and I are interested a little in occultism, but we aren`t Satanists o.s.. Every member has his own thoughts and Möller says everything is fate (I think he`s rather too lazy to change things). But all in all we have one in common: we worship the God of Metal !

4. I only have a copy of the "The Arcanum" album. If I am not mistaken, this is your fourth album. Please tell us more about the other three albums.

After we Dani, Marcel and Christopf joined the band we wrote new songs with some folk elements and tried to connect power and aggression with melodiosness and harmony. We were so convinced about our songmaterial that we decided to put it on CD. And after some hard work to finance it we entered the studio and recorded "Lupine Essence" in 1997. Than we tried our luck by sending it to fanzines, mailorders and labels. The reaction was for us unbelievable: we sold 2000 copies in a few months and had four offered label - deals. We signed by "Last Episode" and recorded our second CD "Auld lang syne" a half year later in the beginning of 1998. We earned some good feedbacks on this album. After the release we started to write new songs for a new album again and in january `99 we entered the Stage - One - Studio to produce the "Lays from afar" album. It was the most developed album at that time we ever wrote, and the reaction were great ! It was the frist time we recorded an album at the stage-one-studio and we werse such satisfied that we knew we will enter it again. In Oktober we had the chance to promote this album on a big german tour through germany.

5. Please give us a presentation of "The Arcanum" album. The recording, lyrics, the concept...the full story !!!!

"The Arcanum" is our best album we ever did. The songstructure, the sound and the lyrics are better and sound more developed. We recorded this album at the stage-one-studio again because as I said, we were very happy with Andy Classen`s work on "Lays from afar". This time we used Pro Tools (Hard Disk Recording) and tuned our guitars on "D" for the first time. So I would say these are the main reasons for that good sound, of course Andy`s great work, too.
This time there is no lyrical concept like on "Lays from afar", every song has ist own theme, there is only one theme that all songs have in common: the celtic, like "Rise of Taliesin for example. Marcel connect in his lyrics celtic mythology with his own history. This is also the first time we made a cover song, Skyclad`s "The one piece puzzle". We just wanted to record a cover song since the days we started with the band, but we didn`t have enought time to do that, because we finished the song writing procees a few days before we entered thw studio. This time we integrated that sond as it was our own Suidakra song, and it worked. The Idea for that song was born on the tour in`99, when we played in austria and Nils and Marcel (both great Skyclad fans!) sat together in the backstage room and played that song, and I came in and ask them: "what is that?" They said Skyclad and I said: "sounds great let`s cover it!"

6. You are, according to the press-sheet from Last Episode, into Celtic legends. As a scottish Celtic legend myself (well, at least in the undertaker business.); what does a German like you find fascinating in the Celtic culture ?

Marcel. Who writes the lyrics, has the interest into celtic legends before he joined the band, so he brings that interest into the band. Beside Marcel Nils (our Bass player on Lays from afar) was also a big celtic fan, but he was also interested in the german mythology. The Cetlic mythology has a specail atmosphere for us and that atmosphere fits to our music. It is our aim to tell stories, and not to pray to the people what they have to do or not. There are other bands who do that.

7. Your brand of Black Metal is very melodic and commercial. If we compare your music to that of the albums from for example the bands on No Color Music/Records and other "back to basic" Black Metal record labels; what do we call your brand of metal ? Where does this contrast leave the term "Black Metal" as a genre ?

First of all we don`t see our music as black metal. We just play metal with some influences. Of course Black Metal is one of this influences, but not more than the others, so it`s wrong to say Suidakra is a black metal band. We didn`t see ourself at any time as a black metal band. We are metals and listen to metal music and metal is more than black metal, like heavy, death, s.o, so these are exactly the music influences we try to connect in our sound.
So in cause of this it is also wrong to connect us with other black metal bands. For us metal is metal !!!

8. What is the concept of your music ?? Which bands has influenced Suidakra most ?

Our main concept behind Suidakra is to play the Metal music we wanna play, and to connect different metal influences. Every member of Suidakra listen to a different metal music black, death heavy etc. and brings this influence into our sound. For us a Suidakra song is finished when every member is 100% satisfied with that result. So as you can see it is hard to say which band influences Suidakra, because there is no specail band that we could say this is th main influence. There are a lot of bands like Dissection, Maiden, Death, In Flames and AC DC (mostly in the guitar solo parts!).

9. After the release of "The Arcanum; have you done any tours, festivals, gigs etc. etc. ?
This summer we played a lot of festivals here in germany which were really great for us. A tour was already booked with Thyrfing, Nagelfar and Apokalyptischen Reitern, but the tour was canceld `cause Thyrfing (as the headliner band) couldn`t play the whole tour, so Last Episode couldn`t find another band to replace them so the tou was canceld. But Last Episode promised to book us on a tour insted this one and we will maybe play a tour here in germany in Autumn. We can hardly wait to play a new tour to kick ass !

10. What is your view on today's Black Metal scene ?

There are a lot of black metal bands here in germany (It`s hard to say it for me for the foreign countries!), and some of them are good other not so good but we think that the big black metal boom, like it was the years before is over. Bands like Satyricon, Mayhem etc. do not play the style of black metal like the do before. Of course they are still black metal bands like Emperor or Darkthrone, but the whole black metal scene split a little bit in the last years. For us it`s not so important because as I already said we think that METAL is METAL.

11. For a person like myself who live on the fringes of Europe (Scotland); German metal = Nuclear Blast. They seems to have quite a dominating role in the German metal scene. Or am I wrong ?

No, you are right. Nuclear Blast is the biggest label in germany and they sign all bands which were on labels like Roadrunner, def American, Massacre rec. s.o. in the past. In my opinion it is a bad development because it is hard for a newcomer band who belong to Blast to get a good support from the label, cause they concentrate themsel on the bigger bands, so Blast is not the best label for new bands.
But there are still just a few good smaller labels. But you are right to say that Blast plays a dominating role in our scene.

12. What is your future plans ?

Our next big aim is to write the new CD and our plan is to enter the studio in September next year to record that album. We will se what the future brings to Suidakra...

13. Where can Suidakra be reached ? Any mail order list ?

First of all we started at the same time as the new album release our homepage. On this homepage there is my e-mail address and Dani`s

14. Is there anything you want to add to this interview ?

Yes, I want to thank you for that interview and your support, and of course to all the metal fans who supported us in the past, also those who do not know us, but like good metal music. METAL RULES !!!