There used to be a time when German metal bands were innovators and not followers. That's no longer true. But that happened to the British scene heavy metal too. Once they were the leaders and NWOBHM was the thing everybody talked about. Today you'd be lucky to find one single domestic metal band that can match mainland Europe's successful metal bands. So when I came upon German black metal band Obsidian Gate and their music knocked me socks of it didn't matter that they weren't the most original band around. I immediately knew that I liked what I heard and that's enough for me. Lazily you could describe Obsidian Gates' music as Limbonic Art-ish but that's only half the truth. Sure, they use the keyboards lavishly and they have the programmed drums but there's also much more to their sound. Having heard the album it sparked my interest to find out more so I got in touch with Marco B (guitar, Bass, orchestra). 

The use of keyboard/synth in your music is more extensive than in most bands. How much time do you spend on arranging the keyboard parts in your songs and do any of you have classical training?
- We spend a lot of time with the keys, as they should imitate a symphonic orchestra it is a good piece of work until they sound like they should. As the orchestral arrangements come first in our song writing, we spend about one month or more intense work just on the keys, then come the guitars, which also need their time being written. Especially for the new songs, which will appear on our next work, we worked long and hard since one year now and still, it isn't finished. But we never had some education on our instruments,
we learned it all by ourselves. And as we play our instruments every day, we got well trained over the years, I think. Certainly, a classical education would have made us even more skilled, but it is boring theory and swallows a lot of money, which we could spend on beer or something else exciting stuff.

You also use some samples of flutes and stuff. Would you have preferred to have real instruments instead or are there any advantages to using artificial sounds in your music?
- It is a dream of us to have the symphonic parts being performed by a real orchestra, but this is by far too expensive for us and our label. Maybe in the future? The advantage of using sampled instruments is that we can reproduce the orchestra with just one instrument and we can choose each sound out of hundreds of others. But for sure there is nothing that can stand against the sound of an orchestra playing real instruments.

Do you want to say something specific with your lyrics or can they deal with anything?
- Mostly, my lyrics reproduce fragments of my own thoughts, my visions according to certain themes. They can be seen from many directions and everyone can figure out his own thoughts from them. I just give a glimpse from what is the meaning of its content or I just set and describe a vision of a story, taking place at a certain place. For example in the song "Colossal Christhunt", in which I travel back into the ancient Roman Empire and witness the Romans hunt down the Christians while spinning my own views into this scenario. But the true meaning lies below this lyrical surface and should been figured out by everybody's self.

Your sound is not the most common. Where did it come from?
- Well, it comes from our interest in both Black- /Death Metal and Classical Music or soundtracks. We always have been fascinated by orchestral stuff but it has increased throughout the years. In the beginning, we just played the straight, pure Black Metal stuff, but somewhere in ´95, Marco composed a soundtrack-like, symphonic track on his computer just for himself. Out of this the idea was born to fuse the Black Metal with
these classical influences to gain more darkness, dramatics and variety for our music.

Something I've been wondering is where the idea to use make-up in black metal comes from and why is it only black and white?
- Good question. I think the painting is taken out of some sort of satanic ritual and should imitate the living dead. White for the pale skin, black for the sunken eyes and the rotting mouth. But this is just a vague interpretation, I also could be wrong. Mostly it is used as an underlining, grim effect to the music or representing the darker half of the musicians, so in our case. By the way, nowadays the new-founded Black Metal bands often use the paint just because it belongs to the image. For the coming OBSIDIAN GATE albums, we won't use Corpsepaint any longer, because since a few years it misses the grim aura it had before and some kids even wear paint on their local Carnival.

You're only two members in the band. Do you see any limitations in just being two?
- In song writing and recording an album, the two-piece band is better, 'cause you have less compromises to make and when you are multi-instrumentalists such as Marco and me, you are better in union with the other. But for sure it is not easy to perform live-gigs and there are the disadvantages. You have to search for qualified session members who need to be better with their instruments than you self, because they need to learn the
material in a quick time. And as we want to do some shows or even a tour after the third album, we need to search for such guys. Not an easy quest, I can tell you.

Do you actively search for more members or are satisfied with being just two?
- Just for the live performance we'll search for more members. Albums will be written and recorded just by Marco and me. That's the best way, I think.

Reading some of your lyrics I can't help notice that there's an interest for the Roman Empire. What is it that is so fascinating about that era?
- It must be quite a weird scenery being thrown back in time into that culture. Even more fascinating is the contrast between a highly developed culture on the one hand, cause you have great architecture, streaming water and well structured battle tactics and a primitive culture on the other hand, proved by cruel gladiator-fights in the empire as a gory entertainment, for example. I have read a lot about that era but no one knows what really was going on. Somehow confusing, especially the emotional cruelness which surrounds
the Roman Empire (I refer just to the Christhunt or the numerous wars just to expand the empire) is such mesmerising that I needed to put some thoughts about this era to paper.

When you released your first album "The Nightspectral Voyage" what sort of expectations did you have and how did they match the reality?
- Well, it was all new for us. Before, we performed our music more just for ourselves and suddenly we had a deal and recorded an album in a professional studio. We didn't have that big expectations and never felt like stupid "rock stars", so when the album was out, we just laid back and watched what was happening. And the great response really surprised us and that was and is the reason to kick our own asses again and again. To
show ourselves and our fans that "The Nightspectral Voyage" was just the beginning, "Colossal Christhunt" the second step and something even greater is soon to come (about autumn 2002).

What do you think you'll accomplish with the release of your second album "Colossal Christhunt"?
- The responses for "Colossal" are even better than for "The Nightspectral..." I am very lucky with that and I hope to give a lot more of interviews for this work. Besides, we always actualise our website, www.obsidiangate.de, which still is just in German, but Marco already works on the English version. We'll see what happens then. But as I am always looking forward, now I mainly give attention to our coming material and when it's out, I think every fan of grim orchestral Metal will have heard about us and this is our
aim.

Is black metal more than just the music to you and if so, what else does it mean to you?
- It is not just music, it is a sort of lifestyle. By playing Black Metal, your inner demons burst out and you feel like revolting against all you hate, such as religion and human falseness in thought and behaviour. The music becomes a language against all you disagree with in an artful expression and it guides your through your everyday life. It is hard to express, you need to feel it.

Germany is best known for its power metal bands. Do you find it harder to attract fans playing the style of metal you do than had you been another power metal band?
- Maybe it's harder getting fans, but most of these Power Metal stuff is boring, except some originals like Blind Guardian or so. But we would never play any kind of music we find boring just to get some more fans. We don't kiss the asses of the mass, we do our own thing and we are lucky with every fan we can attract, but in an honest way and not by playing what the mass wants. Trends come and go, and nowadays maybe Power Metal is a big thing, but then we would have to change our music every year to become or stay big-sellers as those fucking trends also change. But this isn't our glass of beer. Not really. 

If you see to the best for the band, do you think it's good to start on a smaller label and work your way up than to sign with a much bigger label, with all it means in terms of distribution and promotion but maybe not being the highest priority?
- We prefer a smaller label to start with. The big labels just see a band as a source of profit, and when the sales are not that big like supposed, the band gets dropped like a hot potato. Well, we have chosen Skaldic Art and we will work together even for the next album, and we think Vratyas does a good job. We have all freedom as artists, the distribution runs well and expands all the time and we got our promotion. That's far
enough, and we are not a number in a big business-machine, another aspect of importance. Oh, and I forgot: A smaller label is great because it hasn't the capacity to produce these stupid bandlogo-coffeepots which make any Metal band look like the Backstreet Boys.