Please, introduce us MEPHISTOPHELES and tell anything you feel is important to hear, regarding the band’s history… Furthermore, I’ve heard that you had few lineup changes after “Landscape Symphonies” was unleashed…

- The band were formed between 1993 – 1994, but they had a different name at the beginning, it´s not really important to mention. Later they rename the band in MEPHISTOPHELES. As they recorded the “Landscape Symphonies” demo, Adipocere Records wanted to sign them. So it happened that they released this demo as the MEPHISTOPHELES debut. After this opus was released, the band had to manage many line–up changes and after a desperate search they found new members, who wanted to join the band. These members called Garvin Bösch and me, Jury Kowalczyk. After that, Nordischer Künstler had to leave MEPHISTOPHELES. In spring we recorded our new album, which now finally is released on Last Episode Records. To fill the lack that Nordischer Künstler had left, we recruit Eike C. Kröger from my old band AGARES for the vocal–stuff.

Why have you left Adipocere and moved to Last Episode? What were the  principal reasons for acting this way?

- Because in the fact that Adipocere Records hasn´t pay the royalties. Those suckers completely rip MEPHISTOPHELES off!!! I think it is a understandable reason for changing the company …and Last Episode offered us the best deal.

“MOLDAVIAN Fires” and “KURGAN Supremacy”… Hmm, sounds quite weird to my ears. I mean, ‘weird’ is to see the band of German origin using originally Russian words…

- That happened without a special aim. This are only two words in the whole lyrics and they must not be over-interpreted. Steffen alias “Nordischer Künstler” wrote the lyrics, which is a “concept-like” story about human beings and creatures who wants to achieve pure might and the essence of darkest power. Maybe his consciousness was influenced by a specific aura of this words in combination with some legends he heard…

The promo sheet coming with your latest album’s promo copy claims that… someone from BLIND GUARDIAN appeared as back vocalist on “Songs Of The Desolate Ones”… Uh, now that is really strange! An underground black metal band with worldwide famous kings of power metal on backing vocals! How did you contrive to invite them and, moreover, get a positive answer?!

- This information is a fault from our record company. So let me make clear: There are no vocals that were sung from the original BLIND GUARDIAN guys on our album!!! We´re really pissed off about this fault from our company and it was NOT planed to be a cheap promo lie to get attention from the BLIND GUARDIAN fans or somebody else …it was a misunderstanding between Karsten from Last Episode and us. We told him to record some choir–stuff with two of the musicians, who sung the choirs on studio-albums from bands like BLIND GUARDIAN, GRAVE DIGGER or LACRIMOSA, and he thought it would be the original guys and wrote it on the Meph-promoletter. This artists (Rolf Köhler and Olaf Senkbeil) are professional studio-musicians and we paid for their voices. Our producer knows them, so it was not too expensive for us to get them.

Why don’t you use that charming female voice anymore? It fitted your  sound really well, to say the least!

- We thought this “girlie-la-la-la-singing” had become a very boring thing and we had a vision about this majestic male voices in our songs, so we decide to let the female voice go… and of course, our aim was to show a more brutal and also epic face from MEPHISTOPHELES, and that bad girlie-voice was an obstacle for our advancement.

Ok, let’s move to a bit less musical subjects… Like censorship and Internet. I mean, few years ago most of us thought that we have finally an independent channel to express our thoughts, get any info we need and so on and so forth. However, the situation seems to change with time. For example, at the moment we already have limitation on using World Wide Web in few Eastern countries, like China, for example. Would you like to express any thoughts of yours on this topic?

- I think we have a big forum to express our individualistic thoughts, not only with the help of modern technology. Internet has become a medium with a big influence, but on the other hand it is clear that it is often a bit chaotic to find good sites in the net. There is to many shit around with average quality and often you get false information about music or philosophy. But what do you mean with “limitation”? I´m not sure if I interpret you question in the right way… but I think the world-wide progress will help to get more possibility for an easier communication. But I think it is impossible to be completely independent on this planet. If you don´t have the same meaning like the society, they find a way to kill your freedom of speech… maybe with censorship! But never let them win this fight, keep your mind clear!!!

Proceeding with the subject I broached in the previous question. Nazism and black metal seem to be connected somehow, especially nowadays, however any kind of nationalistic attitude is what censors attack in the first turn… Any comments?

- It is not okay to say black / death metal is totaly connected with nazism, because it is not!!! The problem is, that there are many people around, who don´t understand the real essence from this kind of music. I mean, everybody can think what he want, but they spread a untrue image about this scene, nazism is not the right forum for black metal… our feelings created a negative and nihilistic lifestyle, it is sad that these feelings are not the important think for stupid pseudo members of this “so called” circle. But I don´t judge about people because of their point of view, for me it is necessary to know individualistic souls. Also for me it is sometimes hard to keep a clear, objective point of view if I must see the characteristic from SOME foreigners, but it is pretty dull to judge about a whole race and become xenophobic.

Lots and lots of individuals discuss the possibility of erasing all the frontiers between the States of Europe, although if you ask me, I’d say that I really doubt if it will be for good… more likely, we’ll have even more problems than we have at the moment!

- It is another step in the destroying progress which will kill all European cultures (and not only them). I want to have my culture, and all other countries have the same right. For me it is not the goal to have a European society. In a few hundred years you only read about history in some book. The world will become one big country… maybe I´m old-fashioned, but I don´t like this kind of evolution. And for sure, I deal with your statement.

Do you know anything regarding Russia? What is your attitude to the country of mine as well as it’s people? Any Russian bands you’ve heard lately?

- I´m sorry, but I don´t know many Russian people, so it is impossible to give a statement. Also I don´t know any death / black metal bands from your country… but I hope to hear interesting music from Russia in the near future!!!

Last words of yours…

- Special thanx to you for making this interview possible. A hail goes out to all people who give the music from MEPHISTOPHELES a chance. For contact use this E-Mail adress : Meph.@gmx.de. Cheers to Russia!!! "God only exists in weak minds!!! Be your own god!!!"