rozhovor_2015-01-31_Orden_Ogan_en - HELLMAGAZINE

Orden Ogan, German power metallers, has just released a brand new record called Ravenhead. We had a great chance to talk to singer of the band, Seeb.

Hello Orden Ogan. Greetings from Slovakia. The new year has just started. What´s in front of you in 2015?

We are on the HammerFall tour now, will play some festivals in Summer (Bang your Head, Rock Harz, Rockstad Falun (Sabaton Open Air), Romanian Rock Meeting with Blind Guardian and so on ) and will be on another European Tour with Powerwolf in autumn. Very likely we will go on a headline tour in early 2016, maybe along with a live DVD release.

Since we´re talking about the new year. Do you have any new year´s resolutions?

No, everything ran fine in the end of 2014. (laugh)

Your newest record – Ravenhead – is out. Can you describe and compare it to your previous records? Have you brought any important changes to your music?

I think the most important change is that we got rid of unneccessary weight and composed the songs even straighter than on „To The End“. Also we started composing all the Chorusses first, instead of going from the first riff like we did in the past. The outcome is the strongest record so far concerning the chorusses, which are the hearts of the songs. We are very happy with that.

How long have you been working on it?

We were in the studio for 6 months. Along with preproduction and songwriting that makes 9-12 months...

What´s your main inspiration while writing and composing songs?

Ah, well I am a guy who is constantly writing songs. From my early days on playing the guitar and making music was some sort of a hideout for me. So that´s just me. I don't need inspiration for that. Most of the time, when you come up with like the concept story of „the lake“ or „ravenhead“ it is like a fire that fuels itself and the idea that you like leads you to other ideas and so on.

This time, you have also a surprise for your fans. There´s also a DVD, live footage rerorded during your performance at Summer Breeze festival in 2013, releasing together with the new album. Didn´t you want to release it separately, I mean as a live album?

No, it's just a 45-Minutes Festival show gig. That would be too less for a live DVD release, but nevertheless it was a great show and we wanted to have some nice bonus for the fans. We are currently planning to do a full live DVD in 2016 though.

For those who don´t know, can you comment on the origin and meaning of your band´s name?

ORDEN is the German word for a religious order, OGAN is old celtic for fear. So its basically the order of fear.

I´ve noticed that you´re about to launch your new website. With this fact, an interesting question came to my mind. What do you think about the „facebook obsession“ ? People share and like everything on social networks. Do bands still need to have their official websites? I´ve actually noticed that some of them have already stopped contributing on it.

Facebook is the quickest and easiest way to access your fanbase whereever they are and whenever you want to. So I understand why a lot of bands focus on that. In our case we just have some technical problems but the website will be online soon.

Mayn things have happened in the last few days. What do you think about religious fanaticism and fanaticism in general?

Tolerance is one of the highest values. I think people should be able to be as fanatic as they want to be and as long as that does not affect others it should not be anyones others concern. That does not mean that you have to understand that. But here the line is clearly crossed. But I won't talk more about that.

Sure, I got it. If I´m correct, you´ve never played in Slovakia? If I´ m not, you can correct me. Anyways, can we expect your gig in our country this year?

You're right. All the tours we did have no stop in Slovakia. But this is beyond our influence. We'd totally love playing for the Slovakian fans but at the moment nothing is planned. We'd be open for everything – just demand it from your festivals, haha!

Would you like to tell something to our readers and your Slovakian fans?

Thanks a lot for buying our records and merchandise. You keep our music alive. We hope to be able to play in your country for you guys soon! Hope it will work out!

Thank you so much for your time and this interview. I wish you all the best!

Added: Dominika Nováková
Added: 31.01.2015
Photo: Orden Ogan FB