1. Hello! New website is finally done... were you in waiting with placing of a new web for the new album? How are you now? CD´s out in stocks, lesser stress, etc... :)?

Protector: No for sure i did not wait to release the web page; this would make no sense. especially direct after the release we needed a web page very urgently, for all the people who baught the cd and then eagerly wanted to have news such as the lyrics etc. The reason for this delay was that we received so many interview (much more than ever before) and so much response for the new CD that there was no time at all left to reprogram the homepage. i received my offers from people to make a page for me but despite the lack of time i wanted to do it on my own. it is simply our way to do as much as possible on our own. The music, the instruments, the recording and mixing as well as the booklet-laout and the homepage. this way we can always be sure to keep our special style in all aspects.

2. Since the first release you give your music more and more epical faces. But Let Mortal Heroes Sing Your Fame and Oath Bound releases stopped just about one step before possible soundtrack to great fantasy movie ;). Are you satisfied with your possition now, or could you tell us more about different steps for the future?

Protector: Strange, as we mention in almost all interviews we thing that our newst albums are the most epic ones. The less epic CD we every release was for us without a doubt "Stronghold" not the last two albums. Stronghold was rather rock styled, with reduced orchestral polyphony and not very dominant drums. Actually silenius was and is still very unsatisfied about this ablum because it lacks this epic feeling, and LMHSYF can be seen as a reaction to this lack. Anyway we received so much total contrary reaction to all of our albums we have don in the history of summoning, that i can not easily get surprised about any comment anymore:-).

3. Next I´d like to ask you if you have any ambitions to get your music also to non-metal audience? When watching LOTR movie I wanted to hear there your music several times!

Silenius: when we start to compose new music we never think of to whome the result may be attractive or not. but in the end after an album is released we of course noticed and still notice that our fans come from very different directions. of course the majority of our fans is recrueted from the metal (specially the black metal) scene. but we also have fans from the gothic and dark wave territory, some fans normalyl listen to more progressive rock and metal from pink floyd to dream theater. there are of course a lot of fans from the fantasy role playing comunity who normally listen to all this medieval influenced music and since kreuzweg ost gets more popular even some people from the industrial and neo folk scen get interessted in what we do.


4. From your lyrics we can see that you are real fans of the MiddleEarth´s stories. What do you think about ideas, living behind Tolkien´s stories? Do you think we can see there lots of wisdom? The Orcs and their disrespect to the nature as the picture of his aversion against Industry revolution etc.?

Silenius. in this term we hold it the same as tolkien himself did with his creation. our lyrics concept has nothing to do with alegories to the modern world. there is no hidden message how to live and how to see the modern world out of this mythology. it simply is a translation of this mythology and its basics with not other aim for the listener than to fee from everyday live and drown to a very special archaic and heroical mindwold of the listener and to activate his own fantasy as much as possible.

5. Tolkien´s beautiful tales are really not “well without the bottom“, if you understand me...what would you do, when inspiration by him would be exhausted? Wouldyou finish SUMMONING´s activities, or will you choose another theme? Which for example could be acceptable?

Silenius: i know what you mean. as most of the lyrics we have used are directly taqken from tolkeins poems himself we sooner or later are running out of our lyrical background but on the opposite the legacy of tolkien is still big enough and on the other side we carefully combine lyrical inspriation from many other different authors from whome we think could fit in this special univers of middle earth.

6. What´s the reason to use automatic drummer? With living one there would be chance to play live... would you start to play live some time?

Protector: to use the keyboard drums instead of a real drummer was actually the main aspect of our new style for sure. keyboard drums with kettle drum and march drums sound simply spread much more epic fantasy feeling than any real drummer could ever achieve. Double bass and hi hats are something that definitely spreads no ancient feeling, and is not made for this. real drummers are fine for band that really want to rock and create a live stage feeling, but definitely not for summoning who want to create a fanasy world full of creatures like dwarfs, elves and orks, that have nothing to to this typical human modern drum-kits.


7. What are reactions for Oath Bound CD? How are you satisfied with the release? Is there anything you would like to change?

Protector: the reactions where really huge as i mentioned about. approximately we received 4 times more interviews than ever before. and the reviews where mainly very positive. Sure we are also satisfied with the release otherwise we would not have released it. as we produce everything on our own with our own equipment in our own studio, we have all time we want without any money pressure and can make sure that we will not release anything that we are not totally satisfied with.

8. Is there any SUMMONING´s album, which you prefer before others? On the other hand – which is less perfect on your opinion? What was the reason for you to turn on the different musical way, since the first black metal release?

Protector: for me always the last release is the one i prefer because this release is naturaly most close to the taste i have at that moment. but seein it generally surely "minas morugl" is the most important one because which this release we created our own style which we did not change very much since then. tunes.

As i mentioned about, the reason to change from raw chaotic black metal to slow epic fantasy metal after the debut was the switch from a real drummer to the keyboard drums and also the adding of the orchestral keyboard tunes.

9. What do you personally listen, as no MiddleEarth citizens? It seems there´s probably not only metal in your archives...

Protector: since many years already both of us listen not to metal music anymore. we still respect us, but our musical interests have moved to rather dark electronic music in different styles. i think this fact is somethign positive for us and our music because it prevents us from copying anything trendy in metal, as we don't even know what is trendy or not in this scene;-).

10. What do you read, when it´s your spare time? Do you enjoy also something different than fantasy ?

Silenius: yes of course. in the moment i am reading a book called "unholy alliances", a book dealing with the black metal underground and its combination with national socialism ideas. Beside that i am a passionate reader of news papers . i am very interested in everytdays politics may they be national or international and i am really interested what is going on in the world today.

11. Is one of you focused also in other curse than only to the music? Who takes those excellent photos, which are on your website?

Protector: I don't know which photos you mean specially. but normaly i take the photos of Silenius and he the ones of me, and after that it is mainly my job to manipulate them on the computer and give them some more mystic feeling. I think a band picture should be something that tells rather about the music that just showing a face. the face of the musician is not really something that helps anyone understand the music, but the way we make the pictures makes clear what a person can expect from our music just while watching the photos.


12. In your band there is pretty easy to see, how the image is changing during the years. Do you think there must be time by time any visual evolution in band, or do you think it is natural progress?

Protector: I just think that things like corpsepaint etc where fine, original and shocking in the beginning, but after a while it did not leave much space for something new or original. any kind of corpse painting already existst and computer manipulations offer much more variety, so we turned more and more to this style.

13. Could you tell us more about your side projects, which are you working on?

Silenius – for you – question of ABIGOR is really dead? Or not yet?

Protector: I am also making music for my classical inspired dark wave project "Die Verbannten Kinder Evas". this is slow melacholic music with orchestral keyboards but in contrary to summoning without guitars, or any rock drums, and with a clear voice done by me and a female singer. the new CD is already recorded and now just needs to be mixed.

The other project i have is "Ice Ages" it is very dark slow electronic music with harsh sounds for rythms and cold sounds for the tunes with my distorted voice. All basic tunes of the new album are already recored and just the rythm needs to be added.

Silenius: i have my industrial project "kreuzweg ost"; the frist release which i have done with martin of pungent stench was a very noise release dealing a lot with world war II. the second one edelrost was now released by the english label "cold spring" records. now we changed a littel bit our style to a more larger mixture between millitary industrial with neoclassical elements.

Silenius: i heard that the 2 founding members of this band are working on a recreation but in the moment i definnitely would not be integrated again because i have enough to do with my own bands.

14. What about you and the politics? Frequent theme in metal music for last years. Could you introduce your way of thinking? I am also interested in your opinion for present society, trends and developing hip hop “culture“?

Protector: i totaly don't agree with all those nazi movements in the black metal music, this has got nothing to do with metal music , and people who think that they transport true national aryan values by playing electronic guitars, and rock drums did not understand anything. metal derived from blues, and definitely has no origin in any german tribe or whatever.

Thanx for your time, I wish you the best in your life and also with Oath Bound!