Fresh ActInterviews

Geisterwald – Fresh Act November 2018

Geisterwald prove that you don’t need more than two people to form a band. Hailing from Geneva, Switzerland one would guess they sing in French but Harald and Gaëlle enjoy to be unusual. They create dark, mysterious sounds with crazy lyrics. Give a hail to Geisterwald.

Hello Gaëlle, hello Harald, how are you doing? Thank you for your time. First of all, please introduce the band.

Thanks to you for the interview. Geisterwald is an industrial metal (duo) band from Geneva in Switzerland. Harald is the singer but he also composes the songs at the guitar, bass and synth. Gaelle is the (female) drummer.

How did you get to know each other and when did you decide to start a band together?

We met in the music world 10 years ago and have always been very close because of this common passion. We were playing in separate bands but we did some gigs together, we have been friends during years and finally decided to form a band together 2 years ago.

How would you describe the music that you are playing?

I think that is difficult to classify and in a sense it’s a bit boring to have to qualify our music in a specific style as we are doing our own style. “Industrial Metal” seemed to be the style that comes closest to what we do even if we can hear some neo/death influences.

What message do you want to deliver to the people with your songs?

Geisterwald is not a group that tends to inculcate a way of thinking or passing messages to its listeners. We don’t want to put forward political ideas or current thinking. It’s just music in the pure artistic way.

Why did you choose the name Geisterwald? How did you get the idea for the name?

We wanted to choose a name that would describe us. We appreciate long walk in the forest and are also fans of horror stories, Geisterwald was a good compromise and describes ourselves perfectly.

There are only the two of you if I understood that right, so how do you manage live gigs like that? Do you have additional musicians just for that case or how do you handle it?

We are still two on stage, singer and drummer! We first tried to add the guitar but Harald is so active that the guitar reduced his possibilities for the show. We use a laptop to diffuse our guitars and synth part.

You are from the French speaking part of Switzerland, how come that your songs are in German then?

We have to admit that at first we thought about doing French lyrics, of course that’s easier to compose in your own language but we like challenges and speaking German it’s kind of a big challenge. To be honest, German is not a language that is so foreign to Harald, in fact, his grandmother is German. Unfortunately he didn’t have the chance to learn it fluently so he tries to improve his skills by creating crazy songs for example.

You’ve got couple of songs ready which can be listened to on your Bandcamp account geisterwald.bandcamp.com/releases – are you currently working on other songs and do you have plans to release an EP or CD?
We already have other songs and we will probably record them for an album but that’s not in our project for the moment. We just released our first EP on April 2018 which is available on bandcamp, bigcartel, Spotify and many other websites and we would like to promote it before thinking of doing an album.

Your project Geisterwald is quite new, you started it in 2017 but you’ve mentioned that you’ve been part of other bands before, can you tell us a bit about you and how you both became musicians and where yo have been playing before?

Gaelle : I began playing the drums at 12 years old with a female rock band, 4 years later we stopped. I met Harald at this period, we were working together for a compilation with other bands of the city. Then I found some other rock and punk band at drums and I also learned guitar. I’ve never played in a metal band before Geisterwald even if I used to listen to Metal.

Harald : I was a percussionist in a brass ensemble when I was 9 years old. Then I learned guitar and I played in some metal band at 13 years old. I also sang/scream in some metal band when I was older. Stage has always been an outlet for me.

If you could do a video clip now for one of your songs, which song would you choose and how would it look like?

In fact we are preparing our next video clip for 2019/20 so we keep the secret for the moment. 😉

What do you think is the internet a positive development for music business or a negative one?

Internet gives the opportunity to discover a lot of band so that’s interesting in that way but at the same time there are so many bands that it could be difficult to be noticed as a band.

What do you want to reach with your band?

We don’t have particular objectives, most important for the moment is having fun.

Where and when can people check you out live and in action?

For the moment we have been doing a lot of concerts in Switzerland and France, now we are looking for concerts in Germany and are waiting for some feedback. All our gigs are visible in our facebook page.

Thank you very much for your time and all the best for the future

More information about Geisterwald can be found here:

https://www.facebook.com/geisterwaldband/

https://geisterwald.bandcamp.com

 

Sandy Mahrer

Fresh Act editor, reports, reviews, photos - - - Favorite genres? - Hard Rock, Heavy Metal and Pop-Rock etc. Less Death, Black, Grind Core