Hi Tor, I’m glad to have you on Grande Rock webzine. This show tonight is part of your UK Tour to promote your upcoming album “Satanic Age”, right?
Tor: No, that’s not actually true. We are still promoting our last album, “The Devil’s Breath”, because it came out in 2020 when Corona hit, and we couldn’t tour the album at all until this year. This is the last leg of the tour basically. The new album is coming out in April and that‘s when we start touring it.
How do you feel being on the road again after all this time?
T: It has been great. You know, after Corona everyone was sick of sitting around and just wanted to play. Also, we took the opportunity to do something during this time, which was to write the new album, “Satanic Age”. So, we didn’t just sit there doing nothing. Being on the road this year was amazing. We played in Spain, the Czech Republic, Germany obviously, Holland and now the UK. It has been really good so far.
Give us a hint about the new album “Satanic Age” that will be out in April 2023. What can we expect from it?
T: I think it’s definitely a few steps forward. I mean, we are still happy with ”The Devil’s Breath“, it came out really really well, but it was written and recorded over many years in three different studio sessions. Many different musicians played on it too.
But for ”Satanic Age“ everything is new and recorded in one go. Mick and me have written all the songs during the pandemic. We recorded demos first and really worked on every small detail and we had a vision of the sound on the album as well.
The songwriting is way better now than in the past. Everything on the new album is super catchy and makes you want to either sing along to it or break stuff!
Where did the recordings take place and who is responsible for the production, the mixing and the mastering? What has changed in the way you record and what do you think of the final outcome on the whole?
T: Roman Riemann recorded it. It’s the same guy who recorded “The Devil’s Breath”. He has got a studio in Luneburg in Germany. It’s about an hour away from Hamburg. And like I said we had the songs and the demos, so we knew what we wanted, so it was all really quick. Mick and me produced the album as we already had a vision and Roman recorded, mixed and mastered it. He is very good in getting the best performances out of everyone.
The only problem that we had at the time, is that our drummer left the band a few weeks before we were supposed to hit the studio. So we had to hire another drummer to record the album for us. We were lucky that our friend Benjamin from the band Hardbone found the time to do it. He already played on 3/4 of “The Devil’s Breath” album as well.
However, once the recording was done we thankfully got a hold of Tom (Captain Fettsau) who fits perfectly in the band.
What did you change in the way you approach the songwriting this time?
T: A part of ”The Devil‘s Breath“ was written in the rehearsal room but after a few line up changes this wasn’t possible anymore, as we lived too far away from each other, which made frequent rehearsals difficult.
Back then I started to write songs with Mick via email and WhatsApp. It was a very good way to work on the songs in a detailed manner. So we kept it this way on ” Satanic Age“ as well. We set out to write a very versatile album. We wanted strong sing along choruses and rememberable melodies and it all had to be very powerful.
Recently you released a new single “I Wanted Everything”. What’s the message behind this track?
T: What we say is that you should live every day like it would be your last. The song is basically about growing old, thinking about all the plans, hopes and dreams you had when you were young but were afraid to follow up on.
By the way, what does the album title “Satanic Age” declare?
T: Well, we are quite into Atheistic Satanism, which is basically to believe in yourself and I think the way that the world turns right now people should start believing in themselves. What Satanism preaches is “do whatever you want but don’t hurt anybody” and that’s a good philosophy in my book. Satanic Age declares a new chapter, where the majority of people believe in science and not religion.
Which are the main differences between your upcoming album and your previous one?
T: It’s better songwriting and everything is better thought out. I think the production is better and it has a lot of variety on it. There are some songs like “I Wanted Everything”, that are quite poppy, but also a lot of songs that are straight in your face punk rock with guitars solos and stuff, cause we are heavily influenced by Scandinavian bands. There is also a duet on it with a girl. Kit is the singer of the London band Seven Days And Doesn’t Die. Another song boasts guest vocals by Demented Are Go singer Sparky. We did a video for the song with Sparky today and it will be our next single coming out in January, called ”Psychic Vampires”.
What are your expectations from the new album and what do you wish to achieve with LSM over the next years?
T: I hope the album might put us in a position where we always wanted to be, where we can play bigger festivals, play bigger shows and more people take note of us. I think from a commercial point of view, a lot more people may find access to our new material than to our previous stuff.
How did you come up with the name Lucifer Star Machine initially?
T: That was a long time ago, I mean I founded the band about 20 years ago and I wanted something occult sounding. Lucifer Star Machine is the gospel of Lucifer, the morning star, hammered into your brain with the force of a supersonic machine.
What are those things that you do not like in the music industry nowadays?
T: The thing is that there is a lot of talk in the music industry, and they don’t put the money where their mouth is. It happened a lot of times in the past where we had a lot of empty promises from record labels. One label wanted to sign us for our third album, “Rock‘n’Roll Martyrs”, and they promised that they would send us the contract and they kept telling us that for three months. After three months they were like “sorry it’s not gonna happen because…”, well …apparently miscalculated finances, whatever. And this is not the only thing that happened to us. There was always some bullshit going on, like a lot of talk but nothing came across. Labels or booking agencies – you just gotta be careful.
However, finally we are happy with the label we are signed to. It’s not a huge label but they are very supportive and they’ve got good bands on their roster. They are from Sweden (The Sign Records).
They do put the money where their mouth is, because they know how to do things, they promote their bands, they help with the financial aspect of the videos, so far they have been good to us. And they believe in the album as well because they have pressed quite big numbers for a band like us, as they believe in a success. Time will tell!
Do you think that the whole pandemic thing played a major role in bands not promoting their albums properly and how can you overcome that now?
T: Yes, it was hard for bands to promote their albums properly. So basically, we released our last album and could have potentially reachers lot more people if the pandemic would have not happened. Because it came out, the pandemic happened and we could not go on tour to promote the album. And then the postal service was screwed. The record should have come out at the same time in every part of the world but it was delayed due to the postal issues. It was put in the shops oversees around three months later. So, that was a big bad thing and then obviously people were afraid to spend money, cause they didn’t know what was happening.
Right now, we still have a problem like that, with all the expenses rising, like electricity and the cost of everything. It’s everywhere the same. So people cut down on nonessential things.
What do you think about this coronavirus thing? How much has it affected the music business and people’s lives so far?
T: I think we‘re pretty much though with it.
