The Stoner psychedelic rockers Kadavar set out with "For The Dead Travel Fast" to teach their fans fear. So they went especially to Romania to have themselves photographed for the album cover in front of the "Dracula Castle" and used old scary films as sources of inspiration for music and lyrics. eclipsed spoke with drummer Christoph "Tiger" Bartelt about the latest developments in the group.
For the second time Kadavar, to which Christoph "Lupus" Lindemann and Simon "Dragon" Bouteloup belong alongside Bartelt, recorded in their studio in Neukölln. With "For The Dead Travel Fast" the Berliners from Westphalia, Thuringia and France have expanded their musical spectrum and produced an album full of twists, turns and double bottoms. They surprise with sounds that have not necessarily been associated with them before, such as spooky synth sounds or sounds reminiscent of Hawkwind and the early Pink Floyd. Nevertheless, they haven't forgotten how to unpack the retrorock leg and thus ground themselves again and again.
eclipsed: Lupus recently explained that he was finally completely satisfied with a Kadavar album. Like you?
Christoph "Tiger" Bartelt: The phrase that it's the best album we've ever made is not taken away by anyone anyway. On the other hand, you don't want to deliver an album you don't stand for. You often don't notice until some time later whether you have achieved something great or not. And of course I still struggle afterwards with the too smooth sound of "Berlin" or the maybe too unfinished sound of "Rough Times". However, when we had recorded and mixed the albums, I could make friends with them well, they liked exactly the way they were, really well.
eclipsed: But something special is "For The Dead Travel Fast" already?
Bartelt: I hope so. We've been tinkering with this album for a long time. Only when we had made the photo shooting in Romania, the breakthrough came. We borrowed the title from a poem by Gottfried August Bürger and were inspired by old horror soundtracks and Werner Herzog's Dracula film "Nosferatu".
eclipsed: That's why all those scary sounds?
Bartelt: That's right, I did. That's part of creating atmosphere, but Lupus' singing sometimes sounds so scary that you think it's singing from a crypt. It was really fun to deal with it and to dive into it.
