HARD NOISE: RAGE // Flipped Seasons In Terra Australis

Twenty-three albums. That’s about 20 more albums than most bands have in a lifetime. Germany’s power metal mainstays Rage have been churning them out since 1984, and Peter ‘Peavy’ Wagner has been there from the very beginning.

Forging ahead as the founding and executive member, bassist Wagner could be considered the most industrious metal band in Germany. That’s saying something, considering efficiency is the German national obsession. Leading the German power metal charge alongside bands like Accept, Blind Guardian, and Helloween who seem like slouches in comparison, is “taking a day off” in Peavy’s vocabulary? We spoke to the elder statesman ahead of the release of new album Seasons of the Black. A feeling that should be quite familiar by now…

Hysteria: 23 studio albums. I mean when you consider that time, how does that make you feel?

Peavy: I’m really proud. As a singer, Rage is the most productive metal band in the world. Maybe Frank Zappa… but he’s not the man to do that. And he’s dead now, maybe we can get a competition and go running. [Laughs] However, it took me 23 years to do 23 albums, so … Anyhow, it’s great to have a chance to do all this.

So 12 months since The Devil Strikes Again. What made you so eager to get back in the studio so quickly?

Basically we just didn’t stop working. We have our own studio and we can produce new songs whenever we just wrote them, so we just constantly … We got in stuff as soon as we had new ideas, which is why a having really great time at the moment. We’re constantly write new songs and we have already done four or five new songs already for a future album.

It’s a very productive way to work. So for me, I often see this album and The Devil album like twins. They were basically done in one roll, you know? So I see them as connected.

We might have the chance to appear for the first time live in Australia next year in March.

Why not do, say, The Devil Strikes Again part one, part two like a B side?

As a singer, Rage is the most productive metal band in the world.
[PEAVY]

Well you need to have a break to go touring.

Yeah we are constantly touring in between. That’s nice when you have your own studio and you can interrupt and do on and off time and just we’re constantly whenever we’re inspired whether we have something new and in between you can tour, which we are doing constantly. But yes the next time, we’ll wait a little bit more because we’re more planning a world tour, which will consume a bit more time and we won’t be home for a couple of months. This will be natural for the next time. It looks pretty good. We might have the chance to appear for the first time live in Australia next year in March. We found a pretty good promoter over there, a serious promoter, and we already negotiated all the details and we’re pretty close to announce the dates.

Oh wow. Excellent. March next year, my gosh.

It will be the first time in so many years.

You’ll be coming down with mates now as opposed to being in a band with people that you just consider doing business colleagues, so that must make it so much more fun.

Yeah coming with old buddies Marcos [Rodriguez, guitars] and Lucky [Maniatopoulos, drums] long time friends way longer than we worked together as a band so this is a completely different situation. I guess this is keeping the band really fresh. When you see us on stage and hear our output, it doesn’t sound a lot like a 33 year old band [laughs].

Do you find it easier or harder to give negative feedback or constructive criticism when you guys are working together on the tracks?

This is way easier because we understand each other blindly and we have pretty much the same face and the same idea about how this band should sound like. This band has established trademarks. It’s an established band and more of the people of all the members have the same vision of how it should be. I think that makes it all easier. We don’t have to discuss a lot of things or so. Everything just runs pretty natural.

Going back, you took the sound of rage back to what it was in the 90s with the last album, The Devil Strikes Again and this new album, Seasons of the Black. But what new influences have all of you brought to the band over the last few years?

Influences … I don’t know maybe musical wise, we really wanted and do bring it back to the trademarks like I said earlier. But still, I think the new stuff doesn’t sound like we just repeat old sounds. I think it sounds pretty fresh with these old trademarks. We didn’t really change that much musically or so. Maybe in the whole way the band works, organisation…because we have way more structure right now surrounding than we had all the years before.

Are there any new bands out there that are really inspiring you? I know thrash is supposed to be making a bit of a resurgence although to me, it never really died.

I don’t think in metal that there’s too much stuff that wouldn’t really make me change what I’m doing. Of course there’s always coming new bands, but you can’t reinvent music or so, you know? I think the last really reinvestment of metal music was Rammstein. I’m pretty happy that I don’t have to reinvent everything.

So talk to us about Seasons of the Black. Tell me about this album as if I’ve never heard of Rage before. What would you say to someone listening to it for the first time?

It’s pretty aggressive. There’s some thrashy elements. At the same time, it’s very melodic. It really great… You could say devilish vocal hits. A lot of big choruses, doing things that a lot of ear wants.

We call this ear wants. Stuff that just creeps in your ears, you know. It’s quite musical but not progressive or so. It’s not like prog where everybody is just making a show off, you know? But still, you hear these really good musicians at work. It’s very song-oriented, I would say, and the sound is made to get a kick. It’s an aggressive sound, but not like this this ‘rawr’ bands or so you know? It’s very musical. It’s individual that it doesn’t sound like everyone else.

You’re gonna head out on tour with this one very soon.

Yeah. It has also a very interesting bonus disc for the luxury version where we recorded … Yeah we really got a cover of stuff from the very beginning of this band from the very first album that was set out under a different band name. The band in the beginning was called Avenger. Our first album was Prayers of Steel in 1984. We recorded a couple of those songs and really mind blowing new versions, so I recommend if you get the chance to get hold of this luxury edition of the album. It’s worth it.

Yeah. It really sums up the last few decades of your work.

Exactly. We want to start back home.

Seasons of the Black is out now via Nuclear Blast Records. Order a digital copy here.