Question: Antichrisis were a band always sort of veiled in mystery as to the people behind the monicker. Your debut was a creation of one Moonshadow, while on the second record there are completely different people. Can you throw some light on your line-up development and also what's the line-up now?

Sid: Well, It may come to you as a surprise, but Moonshadow and me are just the same person! Moonshadow was my pseudonyme on "Cantara Anachoreta", but because of some drastic personal experiences I decided not to use this name any longer and picked up my "normal" name again. I also wanted to make clear that the audience shouldn't focus on the people behind Antichrisis, but on the music of Antichrisis itself, and with letting Moonshadow "die" (on a metaphorical level) I tried to make clear that I do not want any idolization or anything like that - All that counts is the music itself!

So "Cantara Anachoreta", Antichrisis' first album, was done almost on my own, with support of former guest-singer Willowcat. That cooperation wasn't very satisfying on the long run, so I was searching for a new female singer who I found in Lisa. She did a very good job on Antichrisis' second album "A Legacy of Love", but as she had been just a guest-vocalist as well, the search for a permanent member went on and found it's end when I met Dragonfly, who turned out to be the female vocalist on “Perfume”.

Näx, the "Prince of Pipes", joined Antichrisis shortly after the release of "Cantara Anachoreta", and we got on together very well from the beginning, musically as well as personally. He is a great and gifted musician who has become a vital part of Antichrisis since then and who likes to do weird interviews.

While Dragonfly left the band in 2003, being replaced by Katja Bartsch in 2005, the other guys appearing on "Perfume" (Jens "Gnu" Bachmann on guitars, Tilo "Waran" Rockstroh on Keyboards and Kugator on drums) mneanwhile have become permanent members of Antichrisis, too, and appeared on "A Legacy of Love Mark II" along with classical singer Frank W. Hennig.

Question: Antichrisis has released 3 excellent albums so far, but hasn't achieved that much recognition. Do you have an explanation for that phenomenon?

Sid : Thanks for your compliment. I guess the point about Antichrisis being not that popular as it deserves to be (at least in my humble opinion) is that Antichrisis is not "trendy" enough! It's not easy for the audience to "consume" our music, because the music itself challenges a listener's open-mindedness! If you listen to a Cradle of Filth-album for example, you'll always know what the next song on the CD might probably sound like, because bands like CoF as well as many others are strictly limited to just one musical style... but if you listen to an Antichrisis-album for the very first time, it's simply impossible to predict what'll come next - or would you have expected a Pop-tune like "Nightswan" after the Intro ("How can I live on top of the mountain?") on our 2nd. album? And even if you think you might have got the idea behind Antichrisis, then the next album will be completely different from the last one...

Question: Your music style has little to do with metal now, wouldn't it be perhaps more fit to play with different kind of bands, at least SKYCLAD, SUBWAY TO SALLY, IN EXTREMO or even better CHIEFTAINS?

Näx: No, I only want to play with bands that are really famous.

Sid: Although all aformentioned bands are very good, I'd prefer to play with bands/artists like Magnetic Fields, Hidden Cameras or Bruce Springsteen (no kidding!) if I had the choice... Of course Antichrisis is not a metal band, and I have been explaining in interviews again and again that Antichrisis can never be limited to just one musical style. We do use some metal influences as well as influences from every other kind of music that we happen to like - be it Folk, Dark Wave, Classic, Dancefloor, Rock, Pop, TripHop a.s.o., so calling us a metal-band would be just as wrong as calling us a Folk-band, Grunge-band or any other kind-of-just-one-category-band. In my point of view, we're nothing else than just a slightly different Pop-band!

Question: Antichrisis have played one tour so far, as far as I know: what were your impressions from playing live?

Näx: I didn't play on the tour because I was studying wit in Brazil down by the river Amazonas. Very interesting.

Sid: I do love to play live, but the technical and organizational circumstances hadn't been too good on the aforementioned tour. Nevertheless, talking to the fans after the show always was a pleasant experience - it was very impressive to see how much our songs meant to them... and I guess it was kind of surprising to them to see that the people behind Antichrisis are not your average semi-depressed Gothic-geezers, but a bunch of quite easy to get along with people, even if some of us were temporarily absent, pretending to do some quite dubious wit-researches down in Brazil.

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".

Question: The band is located in Germany, however your names do not sound German at all - what's your / their origin?

Sid: We're definitely of german origin, although I don't care that much about nationalities....I used to live in England in my teenage days where I caught my nickname "Sid" (because of my predilection for the later-to-be-stone-dead Sex Pistols bass player Sid Vicious) - and somehow I got used to it.....

Näx' real name is Alexander, but he never revealed the mystery behind his nickname to me... I guess it has something to do with his sometimes very wicked sense of humour!

Näx: The origins of the name NÄX lie in the very old past. It was created by a shamane named RENREW, when he went into mystic trance (caused by wodka, I think). The myths around this name are some of the last unanswered questions of this word.

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!).