About Musicians

Question: When listening to your vocal performances, I can detect a certain passion and also an ability of acting in different characters. It seems that you're identifying yourself with each song. What do you think is the quality of a good singer? And don't you think that many young bands of today's scene do not feel real passion for what they're doing?

Sid: Being a good singer requires the ability to re-live the situation of the song you're singing: song and singer have to melt into one, the song's story has to become part of the vocalist's emotional world. This is only possible if the lyrics do reflect your feelings and experiences — then singing a song can become something similar to playing the leading role in a drama: like every good actor you have to become another character, reveal other facets of the human soul. A good singer is always able to immerse into a world of its own when singing a song.

A musician (just like every proper artist) has to be a visionaire; if not, his art would be nothing more than mere craftsmanship. Many young bands seem to care more about meeting an audience's expectation or copying their idols instead of developing their own musical language — that's not vision, but a frame without a picture. All that matters is musical inspiration, the artist's vision, and not a certain image or crazy outfits.

Missa Depositum Custodi

Question: In summer 1995 the debut demo "Missa Depositum Custodi" was released: Seems it was a great success in the underground, but it seems that it was mainly sold in Germany. What do you think about the demo nowadays? Should you have worked longer on the material before recording it or is it exactly the way you wanted it to be?

Sid: There has been an edition of 500 copies of "Missa Depositum Custodi", and it has been sold-out within 6 months after its release, which is quite good for the first demo of a newcomer. You are right: most of the copies were sold in Germany, just a few in Greece and Italy. There hasn't been a 2nd. Edition because as the demo got Antichrisis a record contract, it had fulfilled its purpose and is now simply a collector's item.

I still like "Missa Depositum Custodi" because whereas the sound of the subsequently released album "Cantara Anachoreta" is much better with the songs being performed much straighter, the demo with its more "baroque" attitude and insufficient sound (that's homerecording for you!) nevertheless manages to create an own special atmosphere. Of course many things could have been done better, but I consider recordings as some kind of snapshot: The attraction lies in the spontaneity and not on some perfect technical standards — true feelings are always miles away from being immaculate, I guess.

"Missa Depositum Custodi" is simply the best I could come up with at the time I recorded it.

Our Last Show

Question: Your reference to classic characters like Romeo and Juliet in "Our Last Show" gives a theatrical aspect to the story: Would you consider yourself as a modern Romeo?

Sid : No, I don't think that I'm a modern Romeo: I may be a very romantic person and though I sometimes felt like one of those star-crossed lovers that William Shakespeare mentioned, I'm not a victim of misunderstandings and intrigues like Romeo was. I just think that we're nothing more but actors on life's badly illuminated stage, forced to take part in comedies or dramas without any chance of getting to know the script or to rehearse.

Planet Kyrah

Question: Where can I find Planet Kyrah that you sing about so beautifully? Does it have something in common with the novel "Little Prince" by Saint-Exupery?

Sid: Kyrah is a fictional planet of unconditional love that can only be stepped on by lovers. It's a symbol for true love's purity, chastity and innocence, hence I do like the comparison with the little prince's planet, as it shares the same bittersweet aura of transitoriness. Blissfulness and sadness are sometimes almost the same, and the older we get, the more we become aware that nothing, not even the most wonderful moments, do last forever!

Monicker

Question: I'd like to know the reasons about your choice of Antichrisis as monicker...

Sid: Antichrisis is a greek anagram meaning "Sacred Dances to honour Queen Isis", and it stands for the pagan-matriarchal tradition that Antichrisis was and still is connected with. There's absolutely no satanic or whatsoever background as quite a few people presumed who misspelled the bands name as "Antichrist".

Black Metal

Question: What comes to your mind when you think of Black Metal?

Sid: Just another fake teenage rebellion by predominantly male middle-class nitwits going through puberty, obviously taking pulp literature, b-movies and themselves much too seriously.

Sound

Question: The sound of "A Legacy of Love" seems more direct than the one of "Cantara Anachoreta"...

Sid: Thanks for that compliment, but I'll have to admit that we'd spent more time in the studio than we did when recording "Cantara Anachoreta", and we had better equipment, too.

Besides, theres also a mental difference between those 2 albums: The emphasis of "Cantara Anachoreta" was a more spiritual one, whereas "A Legacy of Love" is mainly determined by emotional values.

But maybe it's also a question of musical matters, because there are hardly any manipulated sounds to be found on "A Legacy of Love": About 80 % of the sounds we used were created by acoustic instruments, recorded almost without any special sound effects — that's why this album sounds as if you had a strange kind of folk-band in your living-room.

Forever I Ride

Question: What is the hidden message of the raven's cry on "Forever I Ride"?

Sid : In Northern-European mythology the raven is the bird of death and rebirth (just like the vulture in Egyptian or African myths) that calls forth the end — and so the raven in "Forever I Ride" is the harbinger of love's decline, forcing the fool to saddle up again.

Religion in general

Question: I do sense some anti-Christian undertones in some of your lyrics. Do you have an opinion on religion in general?

Sid : As I am a very religious person myself I can't see anything wrong in believing in higher powers, but organized religion like Christianity is always a dangerous thing: I mean, who needs to have his or her personal beliefs organised by an institution? It's utterly senseless! Go and think for your own (as Granny Weatherwax would say), believe whatever you want to believe, but never try to force your religious point of view on others!

The Goddesses and Gods are among us, they are in the wind, the trees, the fire, the earth and the sea and they'd also talk to us if we listened closely — but they most definitely don't write books and are not interested in anybody's sexual preferences (at least proper deities aren't!).