Interviews: AETERNITAS

On this new occasion, we have had the opportunity to interview the Symphonic Metal band AETERNITAS, from Germany. Check out the interview and follow the band on their FACEBOOK PAGE.

1. Where did you get the idea for the band name, you planned it or came out just like that?

The idea of our band name is very closely related to our debut album "requiem", after we’ve finished some songs from it using the original Medieval Latin death mess lyrics. Herein the word "aeternitas", the Latin word for eternity plays an important role, which was the reason why we chose it as a band name. At that time the name was meant to link the band's name to our first album.

2. Why did you want to play this genre?

I think it is the same with 90% of all bands: you play the music which you like the most. There may be exceptions to this rule, especially for professional studio musicians, but we like the style of music and have a lot of fun writing such songs and play them live.

3. Did you know each other before the band was formed?

I knew the co-founder of AETERNITAS, my wife Anja, who wasn’t my wife these days. But together we played in another band and decided to build up a new music project because we saw that it had the same musical interests. So we started as a studio project. After the release of our debut album “requiem” we decided to find musicians for live performances. Most of these musicians we didn’t know personally, we searched and cast them from standard music networks.

4. Each band member favorite band?

This is not a topic we are dealing with, talking about favorite bands or artists.

5. Who or what inspires you to write songs?

For the lyrics, we were inspired right from the band started by literature. In our early years, these were medieval texts such the requiem mass texts or the Dance of Death, for the last albums we found inspiration in gothic short stories and poems, especially from the American authors Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne.

6. Where was your last gig?

In February and March 2020 we toured a few days with LORDI on their European tour through France and Spain. Our last gig was in Nantes where we left the tour. One week later the tour had to stop due to the Corona pandemic. 

7. Where would you like to act?

In the last two years, we’ve played in some western and south European countries, where we would like to return soon. But there are countries on our lists, where we haven’t been before, such as Italy, Greece, Eastern European countries and even middle or south American countries were we’d love to go to one day.

8. Whom would you like to feature with?

In our upcoming album, we made a song with our long time friend Henning Basse (Ex-Firewind, Ex- Metalium) and we are very happy that it worked finally. Such a collaboration is always very inspiring and I think we will go on with it in the future without dopping names here.

9. Whom not?

I cannot imagine working with people or bands who have a very negative attitude and I am not talking about any kind of official image here. Artists who play with a bad guy image can we very nice and smart and vice versa. But with rude or unfriendly people I don’t want to waste my time.

10. Any of you has ever suffered from stage fright? Any tip for beginners on how to beat that?

I know that some of us suffer in different depth from stage fright. Personally, I don’t have too much trouble with it. I taught myself to turn the nervousness into joy – a joy to play our songs for people out there. In the best case, they’ll like what we do, but even if not, we’ll give our best and have fun on stage. So my mantra is: I’ll do my very best to celebrate the music on stage and there is no need to fear the response of the audience. But I know you need a lot of self-confidence to act like this.

11. What bands have inspired you the most?

Musically the inspiration came from different sources, classical or movie works and also different bands. Great bands of that genre like Nightwish, Within Temptation or Epica, have paved the way of course, but these influences to our music changed over time, so there is no overall inspiration. Personally Paradise Lost was an important inspiration to start making music in my beginning, although they have no more influence on my current productions.

12. What's the weirdest thing a fan has ever asked you for?

I cannot remember really weird things we were asked for. The requests from the fans are quite usual and mostly of taking a picture from or with the band and autographs of course.

13. What do you think of your fans?

Fans are the only reason why we make music. Music needs fans or - more generally spoken - people who listen to it, otherwise the music will become a body without a soul. Of course, there are also hardcore fans, who not only listen to the music but also follow each step of the band and take part in the band member's life, these days, especially via social networks. We are honored to be such an important part of their lives and we hope we help enlighten their days.

14. What do you think of our site?

I think your site covers a wide variety of metal genres and features lots of good bands, especially beyond the big names, which you read of a hundred times in other mags.

15. Something add?

Enjoy our music and enjoy all the good music and give the music the value it deserves.