NOVA SKELLIS

Michael Haifl14. April 2023

~ Interview mit Falcon Eddie ~

Falcon Eddie, gutbürgerlich Edward Green, steht wieder am Mikrofon und bläst mit seinen Mitstreitern auf ´Life Amongst The Damned´ frischen und klassischen Heavy Metal in den Äther. Ein Interview musste her. Hier im englischen Originalwortlaut nachzulesen:

Hello Eddie, very very nice that you are making music again, and above all that we can hear your voice again.

Hello, Michael. Thank you. It’s good to talk with you today. I am happy to still be around to be heard!

Why didn’t the reunion of your legendary band PHANTOM a few years ago last long?

That was a conscious decision on our part. When we returned from Legions in Chicago we were all pretty well pumped to do something again. Charley and I had gotten together a few times and wrote a couple songs that we were excited about. We even had a few offers for some gigs. One was to open for Doro, but she cancelled and the show never happened. That happened a couple times and I think it just took the edge off our enthusiasm to jump back into a barely existent scene.

It reminded us all of how many times the rug had been pulled out from under us over the years. Continuing to smash our heads against the wall in order to prove a nonexistent point just didn’t make sense.

Some things are ephemeral and our reunion proved to be just that. We decided to leave the stage on a high note rather than sour the memory with continuing on with the soul killing circus that plagued us our entire existence.

Now you are at the start with NOVA SKELLIS.

Yes. That’s my newest foray back into heavy metal.

Did you just write a few songs and look for some new fellow musicians? Or are you trying to build a new formation in the long run?

NOVA SKELLIS was an idea without any definitive form for me. I was writing songs simply because I still had musical ideas I wanted to express. For all intents and purposes I thought what I wrote was just going to remain data on a recording program.

It began without my realizing it was beginning. My good friend, Dirk Determann sent me a recording of a track from a band Jörg Quaquil was working with that had been floating around for some time in search of vocals.

Dirk had asked if I would be interested in possibly writing something to help them turn the music track into a song with lyrics and a melody. I listened to the track and immediately set to putting together some ideas. It was a fairly simple task as it was a really good piece of music. From that, ´Wicked Child´ was born.

The guys Jörg worked with were unimpressed, but he loved what I had written. That track lay around doing nothing for a while. When that band broke up Jörg approached me about doing something together.

How did you meet Alex Spalvieri?

As I said, Jörg and I came together by chance. From there a search for a guitarist began. Alex was pretty well known having played with RAW and Hellblazer in Germany. Once he came aboard we started looking for a bass player. We had someone for about five minutes, but he didn’t want to work the way we were working, so I decided to stop looking and take on the bass duties myself.

I didn’t want to waste time or settle for a Tommy Tonic who only followed the guitar riffs throughout the songs. There’s a time for that approach, but there also needs to be some movement in the lower register.

Music should always be a composition in which the different instruments interweave to create different textures much like classical music, except doing it in a direct, in your face manner without the frills that dilute the heaviness and aggression.

Do the guys with their musical background match yours?

I think I would best answer that by saying that we each have diverse musical backgrounds with the common denominator being hard rock and heavy metal. Since that is where the rubber meets the road all the other influences add color and nuance hopefully setting NOVA SKELLIS in its own right as a band. But that’s what every band thinks of themselves and that’s just fine! A sprinkle of cockiness is the way it should be in rock and roll. Hahaha….

What did you want to achieve with the album? Let real heavy metal rock?

All I was ever hoping to achieve was to create a collection of great songs that I could be proud to have written and stand as a fitting legacy should I not have the opportunity to do more. I know that sounds terribly dismal, but let’s be honest; I’m not 25 anymore. Hahaha…

On a lighter note – I think I’ve left a mark on the 21st Century.

In all seriousness…. I’ve always loved making music I want to listen to. I am blessed that a few others like it as well. And with my fellow musicians Alex and Jörg we seem to have achieved exactly that.

However, the album has become very diverse in its style, although everything is real Heavy Metal!!

Well, yes. We three had a lot of different musical backgrounds and influences so it shows in our songwriting.

It is also important to note that these songs were not written as a monolithic slab following a predetermined trajectory. We didn’t sit thinking: “Okay. We have a super fast tempo now we need a slower song, then a doom sound, then a thrash one.”

We just came up with ideas. They were all worth pursuing to see where they ended up. We were writing songs that have different textures and feel instead of every song sounding like the one prior.

As I knew they would, they all strung together very nicely into the record you’re now listening to. Heavy should never equal dull.

How – and over what period of time – were the songs composed?

The songs were mostly composed just before and then over the course of the pandemic.

Did your fellow musicians also contribute ideas?

This was by no means a solo effort. Although there are three songs bearing only my name as writer this was a band project from the start.

Were you able to record them classically together in a studio?

Ahh… now comes the “What the fuck” moment where I reveal that the three of us have never been physically in a room together… ever. The entire CD was recorded by us via the internet over the course of the plague. It’s amazing what determined musicians can accomplish. Hahaha.

We harnessed the possibilities of technology and used it to our creative benefit. I believe that had we done this in the traditional way it would not have turned out as good. For the first time in my long career I was not rushing to get vocals done at the tail end of the recording session. I had time to compose and think about what I wanted to do because I was in my own space.

It doesn’t mean I spent endless hours figuring things out. I simply had the time to record everything I heard in my head for the first time ever. I was in control of my creative process and I am extremely proud of the result.

What are you planning to do with the album? Introduce to the whole world? world tour? world domination?

I learned the very hard way to not put too much store in planning. There are too many delicate moving parts involved in trying to line up all the necessary planets. Hahaha….

So much of this had evolved organically. But world domination does have a rather nice ring to it.

Have your old PHANTOM buddies heard the album and showed any reactions?

I have not as yet put it out there, but we do have a very long tradition of supporting one another in our various projects.

Will we still hear Falcon Eddie sing live this year? If yes, where?

I appear nightly right here at home!

Hargh! Are you already writing the next album?

For possibly the first time ever I am simply enjoying this moment instead of thinking ahead to the next step. It took me decades to learn that here and now are what matter, so I am being mindful of this moment because it’s all we have. I know… Spoken like a real old timer. Hahahaa…

Cheers, Michael. It was a pleasure.