BURNING WITCHES // Raising The Stakes

Swiss hellions Burning Witches have just unleashed their third statement of pure heavy metal, Dance With the Devil.

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As the first album to feature Dutch vocalist Lauren Guldemond, the album has a different dynamic to previous releases as the band gave their new singer plenty of leeway to put her own stamp on the recording, a task she took to with relish.

Hysteria: Now that you’ve had plenty of time to listen to the album yourself and process it, what are your personal thoughts on Dance With the Devil?

Burning Witches: I really like it. What I really love about it is that every song is a bit different, so it doesn’t get boring. I really like that. I like a lot of melodic styles in metal, so this still sounds like Burning Witches, but there’s a lot of diversity on the album, and I personally really love that.

You joined Burning Witches when the writing process for Dance With the Devil had already started. What approach did you take when it came to writing your contributions to the songs?

Because I was new, I asked around and asked them what they expected me to write, and everyone said basically, “Something witchy!” So there are a lot of songs on there about witches. For example, Threefold Return is about a witch who is being brought to the stake, but she didn’t do anything wrong, and when someone wants to do something bad to you, or curse you, and there’s no ground for that, then there’s this law that witches have that person who is doing that will get it back on themselves three times worse. So there are quite a lot of songs about that, and about metal! Because I did understand what they were looking for, so they gave me an open commission to just do it.

At the beginning, for the first five gigs or so it was scary, but what was most scary for me was that all the songs are new. So I had to concentrate my focus so much.
[ Lauren Guldemond ]

It must have made you feel extremely confident, for the rest of the band to give you the go ahead like that so quickly.

They understood after the first song I did with them, Wings of Steel, that I would be able to give them what they wanted. So they trusted me to be able to do it. With Wings of Steel, they asked me to write something about the band, and that they were still going strong, and with the record I was able to just fill it in with whatever I wanted. I think, of course, that I kept into consideration what they wanted, and I recorded the songs at home and sent it to them for some feedback. Most of the time it was all right. There was just a few songs that were a little bit difficult and had to be sent over and over, but mostly it was easy. It was almost always the first time. I would send it out and then they would say, Ok, next! The details we did in the studio, to see what would work. Even the harmonies, I had some ideas for those.

Do you prefer to work on your songs alone and then send them through to the band like that, or would you much prefer to all work together in a studio?

I don’t prefer working in a studio because they take all your money! Actually this year we are planning on a holiday in Croatia. Romana (Kalkuhl) has family there, and her mum will cook for us, and we can stay there and go into the woods and we can write songs together there. That way you can work together on the songs a bit more. This time, I wrote my parts, but the songs I got were fairly well written and thought out already, so it was pretty easy and we just had to think about which parts to make shorter or which part to make longer. But it’s fun to work on songs together and get feedback on every part that you write together. We didn’t get the chance to do that yet, but we want to try it this year in Croatia.

How are you feeling about doing some more live work and playing these new songs to the fans?

I’m really curious to find out how people will react, and I’m really looking forward to finding that out!

Are you nervous in any way about stepping out in front of a crowd as the new singer for Burning Witches?

No, I’m not nervous now that I’ve done the album. At the beginning, for the first five gigs or so it was scary, but what was most scary for me was that all the songs are new. So I had to concentrate my focus so much. Now that the songs aren’t so new anymore, so I can just relax and have fun on stage. I had to be so focused so I could remember all the lyrics. That is the hardest part of being the singer! I was kind of prepared for the worst, because they might think that I have a different voice and they don’t like it. That will be some people, of course, but I think 95% of the fans will be happy, so I’m happy.