mpomusic: There once was a band
called Bloody Cross that was started in 1987 and released an album called Coming Again in
1990. Now I've heard that Sacrificium was once started by a former member of that band.
I'm not sure if this is true but since you are here I can ask the question that's been on
my mind for a while: Is it true and what is exactly the history of Sacrificium?
Oliver: The drummer of Bloody Cross did not start
Sacrificium! We met Markus Hauth at a concert as we where searching for a new drummer for
our band Hardway. After a while he played with us we decided to play some heavier music
and changed our name into Corpus Christi. Markus quit playing with Bloody Cross and
shortly after that we renamed Corpus Christi into Sacrificium (after the Randy Rose
Album). We also changed our music style again to go even heavier. After we wrote a few new
songs we recorded a demo tape. But please don't ask for it, we don't have any of them left
and it sucks pretty hard. Then Sebastian Wagner (vocals, bass) quit and was replaced by
Roman Wagner (vocals, keyboards) and Manuel Iwansky (bass). We also got Claudio Enzler
(guitar) into Sacrificium. Markus Hauth quit Sacrificium 'cause he moved to the USA for
one year and so Mario Henning got into Sacrificium. This line-up recorded our Demo CD 1996
which got pretty good reviews from Christian and non-Christian magazines. In summer 1998
Manuel Iwansky (bass) left Sacrificium. We played a couple of shows without a bassplayer
and also recorded our demo tape Mortal Fear in late 1998. A few weeks after the recording
we found Manuel Kerkow for the Bassplayer part. Mortal Fear got very high in to rankings
of many magazines around the world, by the way. The latest news is that Roman Wagner left
Sacrificium for personal reasons. That was in December 2000. A statement from him and some
additional information will be published on our website soon. Claudio now takes over all
the main vocal parts. On live shows I (Oliver, guitar) or Manuel will do a couple of vocal
parts too. Currently we are recording 12 songs to see how they work out or if we need to
change parts or melodies. We also work a lot on the vocals parts 'cause singing and
playing guitar at the same time is not that easy.
mpomusic: Why has Roman Wagner exactly left the
band? And are you going to replace him with another keyboardist?
Oliver: Roman left Sacrificium because he lost his
motivation and his vision he had
for the band. We went through weird times in the last two years and maybe all of us lost
our vision a bit. But we had a lot of talking after we played at the Depth of Winter
Festival, and all of us made a clear statement to Sacrificium and its vision, so that we
decided to focus more on that and to learn from our mistakes. Only Roman couldn't see his
place in Sacrificium, so he quit. But he's still a close friend to us. We don't think that
we'll need a permanent Keyboardplayer anymore. We still haven't figured out yet what we're
going to do with the keyboards regarding our live performance. But I guess with some
additional hardware we're going to solve this problem.
mpomusic: "Maybe all of us lost our vision a
bit". Can you tell what the current state of the band is? I wonder as I read on your
site: "Looks like Sacrificium has a record deal in the USA to record a full-length
CD." The 'looks like' sounds a bit unsure, vague, to me. So, where is Sacrificium
right now and where are you heading?
Oliver: You're right with the record deal. We talked
to a record company in the USA but as we got in the situation where we couldn't tell if
we're going to solve our problems and if Sacrificium would continue, we told the record
company to wait so that we had some time for us to find out what God wants us to do and
what his plan for Sacrificium is. The conclusion was that the rest of us definitely wanted
to continue Sacrificium and its ministry, 'cause we felt a very strong need for the Gospel
especially in the German metal scene. Right now we're recording 12 songs in our rehearsal
room. This recording will be just for ourselves to find out if the songs are good enough
for a CD. And also to give Claudio (guitar, vocals) the opportunity to train his voice and
to figure out how to sing on the songs. After finished that and if we're satisfied with
the results, we're gonna contact the record company again to see if they are still
interested in Sacrificium. We also try to play some shows with Mortification and to tour
with Extol this year. But those are just plans. I don't want to receive emails asking me
about dates or something. Those two are just opportunities we have in mind.
The vision for Sacrificium is to work inside the secular metal scene. We want to be part
of it, so we look for the change of doing shows with secular bands. Of course we play at
some Christian events too because it is lots of fun and we need the contact with other
Christians too.
daPHNe_K: I read in your newsletter #6 that Manuel
has/had some problems with his arm, being numb or something. How is his arm doing now?
Oliver: His arm is doing better now. The major
problem is that this happens from time to time. Manuel had a serious drug problem a long
time ago (before he joined Sacrificium). He's totally clean now, but his body has some
serious damage. And that's what causes sometimes a numb arm/hand. Stay away
from drugs!
daPHNe_K: I thought: Hey, lets write some stuff in
your guestbook. So I did. After that I checked out the other messages and to my
displeasure I saw there were some awful messages from so called Satanists. I know God
gives us the power to stand up against Satan, but how do you guys really feel about it?
Oliver: We don't take them very serious. 'Cause most
of them aren't brave enough to post their real email address. But honestly, what would it
mean if everyone would just post good and nice messages? We don't understand or, better,
we don't want Sacrificium to be a band for Christians. Sacrificium should be a band for
those who don't know Christ. Don't get me wrong here, we appreciate every email, word,
messages from our brothers and sister and mostly from those who listen our stuff . But if
we wouldn't raise any reactions from non-Christians we would have missed our purpose.
ToddPope: I just finished listening to the two songs
you have on your mp3.com page and am wondering....Why do you have Pauper's Grave as having
explicit lyrics? (okay, parental advisory). I mean, correct me if I am wrong but parental
advisory means vulgar in lyrical/photographic nature. And Sacrificium displays no
vulgarity whatsoever. So what's the deal here? Are the words to this song really that bad?
Oliver: Well, I don't know where you from, but we
had some troubles in the USA. The Intro the the song Pauper's Grave is a sample from the
movie Brain Dead", where a priest walks around a graveyard and sees a bunch of
zombies fighting. So he walks up to them and says: "what in Gods name is going on
here ... ... kick ass for the Lord!". Because of the little word "ass"
people from the USA started to email me and complaining about that. So I though it would
be better to add the "explicit lyrics" thing. So if you find the word
"ass" offensive or vulgar the description is right. We don't see the word
"ass" in this sample as vulgarity. 'Cause it means to beat someone up or do
something that's really cool (beating up demons is kind of cool). It also has the effect
that a lot of non-Christians are downloading our song in order to find something really
bad.
daPHNe_K: From your website, I quote: "It's not
only the music and the live performance...the main reason for us to play music is to serve
God and to tell others of what He has done for mankind...and especially what He did in our
life, how He changed it in a positive way". I am curious what kind of reactions
you get after those concerts, referring to the discussions. Any big things happened?
Oliver: The reactions go between nothing up to
people who tell us that if we come again we're gonna be dead. There have been a couple of
times where people liked to beat us up. But it's not extreme as it may sound like 'cause
most of the time a lot of people are drunk at the shows (not because we play so bad) and
they just like to promote themselves in front of their buddies. It's still can be a bit
dangerous but we don't care that much about it. The last time we got into some heavy
discussions after the show was when we played with Deuteronomium in Eastern Germany. But
as much as the people told us how they hat us (because of us being Christians) the longer
they talked with us. I guess in the end we have been discussing for about four hours of
with them. That's a lot of time when you hate someone. :) But most of the time people are
friendly and regularly a couple of people are coming to us and start talking to us after
the show.
Jarhead: There's one thing I have been wondering
about. Here in Holland where I come from all Christian metal bands somehow are supported
by Fear Dark, a label and distributor. As far as I know there's no such thing in Germany.
Am I right? Or when I'm not, how is the German scene organized?
Oliver: Your are right. There's no such thing as
Fear Dark here in Germany. And I also don't think that the Christian metal scene is
organized in any way (if there is a Christian metal scene at all). There are a couple of
zines and webzines who keep people updated. But that's all. God Rockz is turning out to be a little more than
that, but we have to wait and see. I just can speak for Sacrificium here now, but we like
to focus more on the secular scene and keep our contacts to secular bands and
distributors. Of course we know some Christian bands here too (Greetings to Noiz!!!).
mpomusic: Any last comment?
Our goal for this year is to record a CD
and to play lots of shows. Even if we have to pay for the CD ourselves and to play shows
without getting paid (just for gas). So everyone who wants Sacrificium for a show, contact
me. All we need is a place to sleep, food, drinks, backline (like drumkit, speakers, ...)
and getting the gas bill paid. |
