The Art of Prog

NOTE: Greg Hasbrouck interviewed Brainstorm vocalist Andy B. Franck, in June of this year.

Greg: Thanks a bunch for taking time out of your schedule to talk to me. I’m a big fan and I really appreciate it.

Andy: Thank you very much, thank you very much.

Greg: So, let’s start off with something simple. For those people, who in this scene, have been living under a rock, how would you describe BRAINSTORM’s music?

Andy: Boring like hell? (mutual laughter)

Andy: No. I don’t think that’s 100% right. No, actually I think that BRAINSTORM is this particular type of Heavy Metal, in the traditional way, you know? This is how I discovered Heavy Metal in the ‘80s. I think the kind do of music we play is exactly what Heavy Metal is all about, you know. It’s rough, it’s loud, it features some melody and so on. It’s a typical kind of Heavy Metal. It’s not a trendy style, a trendy thing. It’s pure fucking Metal. It’s nothing to do with Speed, Thrash or whatever. This is Heavy Metal. If one kid comes up to me and says Andy, “What is Heavy Metal about?” I would say listen to BRAINSTORM. This is it.

Greg: Excellent. A lot of people may not realize this, but BRAINSTORM has actually been around for something like 20 years. You’ve been with them for about 10 years ago. Can you talk a little bit about how you came to join the band?

Andy: I started making music when I was 14 years old. A few years later I recorded my first album with a band called IVANHOE. But when I left IVANHOE I formed my own band, SYMPHORCE, I also met Torsten (Ihlenfeld) the guitarist for BRAINSTORM, when I went to a show near my home town of Stuttgart. We talked about the possibility of, sooner or later, someday, we want to record an album together. The funny thing is that a few weeks after, he just asked me if I could also sing in BRAINSTORM? I said, “Yeah… OK, I can do that. But I do not want to give up SYMPHORCE.” So they said, “No, it’s no big deal Andy. So if you want to continue with SYMPHORCE, no problem, you can do that. But we want you as our brand new singer.” And I personally think, it’s the fact that the music and my voice just fits together perfectly. Sometimes I do buy myself albums from other bands and I think, “Wow. Great music, great musicians, but the singer sucks”, you know. (mutual laughter) And on the other hand, it’s the same around; great vocalist but the music doesn’t fit, you know. The best example is the time when Ripper Owens was part of JUDAS PRIEST. He’s an amazing singer, but the songs were shit.

Greg: Yeah… agreed.

Andy: I don’t know why they started writing good songs again after Rob Halford came in. But at that time when they recorded Demolition or Jugulator the songs were shit, but the vocalist was good. You were really able to hear, OK, the vocals are really good. So it’s something really special, you know, if you have a band and the singer and everything fits together really in some kind of harmony. I think that’s a very important thing. I think Torsten and me, we were able to feel that there’s something special going on between us and that’s good… and they pay for all my Ferraris. (mutual laughter)

Greg: Agreed… your voice does seem to fit perfectly with the band’s music. So let me ask you about your voice. Sometimes when a singer goes balls out, it can mask an underlying, classical training. Were you trained classically or do you just sing by feel?

Andy: I would say it’s 90% sing by feel, you know. I grew up with, especially IRON MAIDEN and JUDAS PRIEST. When I lived at home, with my parents, I was always in my room just listening to IRON MAIDEN songs and singing those songs up and down, and up and down, you know; Flight of Icarus, The Trooper and whatever. I think probably I did it a bit more often than other guys do. So I learned a lot from Bruce Dickinson, so probably he was my teacher. (mutual laughter) I should pay him for that. (mutual laughter)

Greg: You mentioned started singing in a band when you were 14. At what age did you think “Hey… this is something I could do for a living”?

Andy: I always had that dream, you know? I always had that dream to go on tour once, to play outside of Germany. In the first place when I was 14 and we played our very first show… very small clubs in my hometown, we played in front of like 50 people. The biggest dream for me then was to play in the NEXT bigger town in front of maybe about 100. In the first place, I did not think about playing outside Germany, somewhere. But from time to time, especially when I recorded the first BRAINSTORM album, I started to realize there’s something special going on and I can play not just outside Germany, I can play outside Europe. But I’m not focused on playing as many shows as possible, of course. I just want to play as many good shows as possible.

Greg: You guys have now been together, you and Torsten, Milan (Loncaric) and Dieter (Bernert) for 10 years. That’s somewhat unusual in this genre of music. What do you credit the band’s stability to?

Andy: Friendship. I thinks that one word is very important. Of course we do have our ups and downs, and of course we do have our fights. And sometimes I do hate those guys and sometimes they do hate me of course. (mutual laughter) They live more on the countryside and I’m living more in the city, so you can imagine sometimes it’s not so easy for us. Really we have a different point of view, in some cases, you know. In the end, it’s all up to our friendship, you know, that we’re talking about everything, we’re not hiding everything. We’re honest and we grew up with the same kind of music and we want to play the same kind of music now. We do not want to try anything out. We are BRAINSTORM… we know what the fans want to hear and we know what we want to record, what we want to do for ourselves, you know. Friendship is the most important word in that.

Greg: You mentioned that you’re all separated geographically. I assume they get together, they compose a lot of the music. Do they send it to you for you to write lyrics and melodies or do you guys get together to write an album?

Andy: A few years ago… I just joined BRAINSTORM now more than ten years ago, none of us had a computer at home, so we had this certain kind of tape trading. They recorded on a simple tape and I have it here on my cassette recorder, you know, and I just listen to that and I’d call them somewhere in the evening, when I was sure they were at home. Today, it’s much easier. Today you know, I do receive e-mails and I have songs as MP3 files, and if I got any questions I call them on their mobile phones. It’s all up to the technology, now. But at the end, you know, you can have as much technology as you want, but nothing is better than the real feeling, to hang out in a practicing room practicing the songs. Really this is more fun than anything else.

Greg: So when you guys are about to do a tour, do you head down to the countryside to practice a bit or do you guys even practice separately?

Andy: Yeah… they always practice. They practice every week, two, three or four times, but just not with me. It’s a little bit too far for me, but I practice by myself. I have my own little room where I can do it. I have all the songs without any vocals recorded on it. I have all on my headphones, and I do sing it. I do train myself a lot. But yeah, it’s a special sort of chemistry, being on stage together. Sometimes we play shows for the very first time, we play together live in front of about 20,000 people, which is a bit “whoo”, it kicks up your adrenaline. It works really good, because I know that they are practicing so many times and they play the songs exactly 100%, and they know that I’m practicing the song at home as well. So we can trust each other.

Greg: You mentioned playing in front of big crowds; you guys have played Wacken, you’ve played all the big Euro festivals. However, as I understand it, you guys also have day jobs, normal jobs. So one day you’re in front of 40,000 screaming fans and the next you have to show up at eight o’clock in the morning at a day job? Is that a weird life… to move between those two worlds?

Andy: I think the cool thing about that really, is we can focus on the music we want to write, and we want to play. We do not have to follow any trends, styles or hypes. We can say no… fuck. If there is Grunge coming back or Thrash Metal, or what we had over the last couple of years with Metalcore, we can say no, no, no… we’re BRAINSTORM, we will do what we want, as our bills are paid at the end of the month. Of course we love to record albums, of course we love to go on tour and everything else, but we do not want to be focused only on the sales, you know. We’re selling a lot and every album sells better than the last one, which is a really good thing, but you never really know. We have these crises all over the world, going on right now, so nobody really knows what the next BRAINSTORM album will be about. Will we sell what we sold last time, more or less, who knows? As long as our bills are paid at the end of the month, because of the day jobs that we have, it’s a really good, a really cool situation. It also helps us to calm down a little bit. To know not everything is normal. Maybe this is also the reason why we enjoy every single day when we’re on tour or do festivals or whatever. We enjoy that maybe a little bit more than some other bands do sometimes. We know that this is worth it. Sometimes, yeah it’s strange, you know, you’re there in your office working really hard and you’re leaving your office at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, get in your car, drive three hours and arrive on stage you know sometimes it weird. Now, we’re all in our mid-thirties and it’s cool, it’s great but never really know if you’ll make until you’re 60? So we enjoy it, and we enjoy every single fuckin’ minute. That’s probably because of our day jobs.

Greg: You mentioned SYMPHORCE earlier. And I know you’ve been asked many times about the differences between the two bands. You’ve typically stated that SYMPHORCE includes a lot more modern elements. What I’m curious about is, when you come up with a melody, is it always clear from the outset who that melody best fits or do you not write melodies until you are given some music to write them to?

Andy: The funny thing is really… I ask myself this many times, the same. It’s really true… when an idea comes to my head, I know right from the very first second, “this is for SYMPHORCE or this is for BRAINSTORM”. For me, it’s quite clear, you know. When I’m having an idea in my head I actually know, wow… this is a typical trademark song for BRAINSTORM. This is what the fans want to hear. This is a typical chorus that fits exactly on the new album. Or I have something in my head, which is really strange, really freaky and I say wow this could be a new song for SYMPHORCE, this sounds really interesting. SYMPHORCE is my playground. I love to try out many other things. In BRAINSTORM I know exactly what the people want to hear. They want to have the power… they want to have the energy; the traditional trademarks of BRAINSTORM. They want to hear that. For me, it’s really easy. I know from the very first note on, this BRAINSTORM, this is SYMPHORCE.

Greg: To my ears, it seems that after Metus Mortis you guys started to develop a more melodic approach to the songwriting. Assuming you agree, was that change a natural evolution or did you make a decision to move in a more melodic direction?

Andy: No… we never did that. We never talked about that. Of course, this was absolutely a natural thing that happened to us. For Soul Temptation we wrote the songs in the studio, for Liquid Monster we wrote most of the songs while we were on tour. For Downburst we just spent weeks and months just only in the practicing room, so more or less the other guys (laughter), writing new song and being far away… no telephone, no nothing, from one day to another. Then I received some e-mail with some songs on it. We’re always arranging the songs together, but in the first place they write the songs and they send me e-mails with files.

Greg: I noticed on the credits on the last album you brought back Sascha (Paeth) and Miro. You handled the last few albums mostly by yourselves. What drove the decision to bring those guys back in?

Andy: I think it was really important. I personally have this feeling when I listen to Liquid Monster album… that it was a really cool BRAINSTORM album, but I thought we are a little step closer to a point where we start copying ourselves. I was not really certain what this next album would be about; would it be like a Soul Temptation Part II or a Liquid Monster Part II? What will it be? I was not really sure about that, so we talked about it in the band you know and everybody said probably we need some new ideas from other people, you know, and probably we need a change of pace. We wanted to record the album somewhere that was different, not again near your home town. All the other albums we recorded near our home town. So that means in the day time we went to the studio, recorded our shit and in the evening we went back home to our families, brought down the trash, you know, and chased our children around and everything else. In the morning the next day we went back to the studio recording. So on Downburst, we changed everything; we said no family, no jobs, no nothing… just the music. So we went over to Wolfsburg to record the album with Sascha and Miro. Personally, I think we needed that… to have something new, you know, new ideas, and to recover and re-define yourself.

Greg: I noticed an interesting difference when reading the lyrics for both Liquid Monster and Downburst. Liquid Monster seemed to have a darker, more personal sense about the lyrics.

Andy: Oh me… you know when you’re writing lyrics you don’t really think about that. It’s all up to the people. In the first place it’s all up to the producers, up to the band. You know the first time they listened to the lyrics, they turned around they looked at me and said, “Wow, Andy… you’re in a bad mood.” I said. “Why?” And they said, “Man… they’re so evil, they’re down. Are you close to suicide, or what?” So I said, “No.” They said. “Hey this is what the whole album is all about”. “No, no, no.” (mutual laughter) I’m writing the lyrics right now for the new album. It’s all up to so many problems we have out there in the world. It depends always on what you read and what you feel and what you see and what you’re talking about and so on. And I read a lot of books and I’ve seen a lot of documentaries on TV about what people, what we humans do to nature and to animals and everything else. So the next album will feature some more critical lyrics, you know… is everything right ? Should we ask ourselves is this right, is this wrong? But when I wrote the lyrics for Liquid Monster, maybe I was in a bad mood. But I never thought about it that way (laughter).

Greg: I was looking through your website and I saw that last year, on election night, you wrote, “After a long and exciting night in front of my TV, I now know, that the Americans have learned from their mistakes in the past! So let’s hope for a better future for one of my favorite countries in the world!” So let me ask you, are you a political person or were you just sort of captivated by this election?

Andy: Maybe, you know. We’re getting older. When I started making music I didn’t care about everything… just beers and the girls. I said “OK… fuck it… come on!” Talkin’ about the devil, talking about whatever. But when you’re getting older you start to see things differently. So I really thought wow – the Americans, they’ve made a lot of mistakes. When I was 12, 13, 14 years old it was always, my biggest dream was to go to the United States once in my lifetime. So I was really shocked, when I saw what’s happened over the last couple of years, what’s happened in this country. I was really happy. So far, nothing really big has changed, but the first step is to have a positive energy in yourself and I think this one man just gave it to you. This is the most important thing I’ve seen since maybe 10 or 20 years, over the whole planet. That one man is able to… how can I say it… to give hope, a future. I’ve received so many e-mails on MySpace from fans all around the world. They all said yeah, wow, man it’s cool [Obama’s election]. America is maybe the favorite country of mine, and I was really shocked over the last couple of years. When you’re getting older to take care about a lot of different things.

Greg: So let’s talk a little bit about coming to the US. You’re playing Prog Power in September. It’s the second time for the band, it’s your third time. If you would, talk a little bit about that first experience.

This ends Part One of Greg’s interview with Brainstorm vocalist Andy B. Franck. The complete interview can only be found in the official (printed) ProgPower USA program given to all attendees. If you want to read the entire interview, you have to come to the show!

Final Note: All photos/images used to illustrate this interview are used in compliance with the principles of Fair Use. They illustrate reviews, opinions, and interviews with the band members who created the albums and on whose official web sites, MySpace, and Facebook pages some of these images reside. The photo of Andy is borrowed from the band’s Wiki entry. Photo of Andy B. Franck / Brainstorm at Bang Your Head 2007 uploaded by SavaMom2002. No copyright violations are intended.