The Metal Crypt - Majesty Interview

Interviews

Interview with guitarist/vocalist Tarek
Interview conducted by Michel Renaud

Date online: July 1, 2001

Germany's Majesty is a rare sighting nowadays. This band plays straightforward heavy metal without all the added effects that have started being added to many genres. Inspired mostly by 80's heavy metal bands, they play some damn good headbanging metal. Majesty, as a young band, shows that there is still life in the basic roots of heavy metal and that it is indeed here to stay as a timeless music. Band founder/vocalist/guitarist Tarek answered a few questions...

To start, could you please introduce yourself and the band members, and give a brief historic of the band?

OK, my name is Tarek and I am the vocalist and guitar player of MAJESTY. The Band exists since 1997 and it was always our goal to play loud and wild Heavy Metal. Soon after the first lineup of the band was completed, we recorded our first demo tape right in our rehearsal room and that is how it sounded like. We started playing live gigs and we soon realized that magic feeling you get when you play Live on stage. At the beginning of 1999 we recorded our second demo, which had the same rehearsal room sound than the first one had. At the beginning of the year 2000 I realized, that the band would need a professional production and so I clubbed together all my money and we went into a studio where we recorded our first professional CD "Keep It True". I think today it is nearly impossible for a new band to reach anything without a professional production in their background. In my opinion the times where a band just sent in a low quality demo tape to get signed by a record company to pay the recordings are over.

The current Lineup of MAJESTY is Michael Graeter on the drums, Amdy Moll on the Keyboards, Martin Hehn on bass, Udo Keppner on Guitars and myself.

I was agreably surprised when I first heard your CD to see a young band play some basic heavy metal rather than jumping into the "trends" of the last few years like power metal. Germany being known for its proliferation of power metal bands, did you ever consider playing that genre rather than heavy metal? What do you think about the enormous number of power metal bands? Do you think that scene is overcrowded?

Good question. I wouldn't say the scene is overcrowded. Of course there are so many new CD s every month and it's pretty hard for the fans to go into a record store and make the decision which CD he should buy. But I really do believe that time will show which bands will survive and which will not. Everybody can listen to the CDs before he buys them and I think that it s quiet obvious if a band plays Metal because it comes from their heart or if they just play it to make a lot of money. Metal can only be played from real Metalheads and only if you keep your music true, you will be remembered. That's the topic of the title track of our CD by the way.

MAJESTY will never jump on any trend because we play the music we love, and that is loud and wild Heavy Metal.

Your songs are pretty much all hymns to metal, a subject pioneered by Manowar. I don't know how many times I've seen comments by metal fans or reviewers say things like "What are band X thinking? Don't they know Manowar is the only band that can get away with this!?" What are your thoughts on that? Have you ever been faced with that criticism?

No, not really. Actually most of the MANOWAR Fans I know, like the songs of MAJESTY too. We, in the band are all very big MANOWAR Fans and we grew up with their music and of course that strongly influenced us.

MANOWAR will always be the Kings of Metal and for us it is really a big compliment if you compare our music with them. The songs I write come from my heart and Heavy Metal was and will always be the most important thing in my life and of course that is reflected in our songs. I would rather die than play any other kind of music. I believe that Heavy Metal is my destiny and it makes me proud to stand together with my brothers and sisters and fight for the glory of our way to live.

While on this topic, what are the members' and the band's main musical influences?

As I said, MANOWAR of course and also MAIDEN, JUDAS PRIEST, VIRGIN STEELE or ACCEPT, to name just a few.

So tell me, how did you get that "Metal Son" nickname?

Well, I wrote the song "Son of Metal" and after we played that song live for a few times the people started calling me "Metal Son". Sometimes people ask me, what does that mean, Son of Metal.

It means that I feel that the band and I are part of the second generation of Metal musicians. Bands like MANOWAR, BLACK SABBATH or JUDAS PRIEST really invented the music and made it perfect. That s why I feel like a Son of Metal because we don't try to reinvent the music. You can't make something, which is already perfect, better.

How has the public and "media" response been so far concerning "Keep It True"? Have labels shown any interest?

Very good, all of the reviews we got were very positive. We are getting more and more Fans every time we play. Some Labels have already shown interest in the band and I think that we will find a good Label which hopefully supports the band with a lot of energy, soon.

Are future songs going to deal with the same topics or you plan on dealing with other stuff in your lyrics? Personally, for a change I like the fact that this is just good head banging metal, without having to figure out some "deep message" that the band wants to convey. Are you currently at work on new material?

Yes we are. We already played some new songs live and the reaction of the audience have been very good. I think that for a lot of people Metal is an escape from reality. I don't want a Metal song to have political message or something like that. For me Metal is singing about glorious battles, swords made of steel or just about the magic and the power of our music and our way to live. Of course we all have an opinion to certain political or social themes, and if we got asked we will talk about it, but that will never play any role in a MAJESTY Song.

I saw on your web site a comment to the effect that you put on a great live show. Could you describe what the spectators can expect from a Majesty show?

Pure Heavy Metal! For us every gig is magic. That feeling you get when you enter the stage and see all your Brothers in front of you is unbelievable. You feel that might in every bone of your body and that makes a good gig. When the band and the audience are a union and all feel that might, that's Heavy Metal. I am a sound engineer too, and I really like the work in the studio, but playing live on stage is nearly the greatest thing on earth.

Have you guys done mainly local gigs or have you opened for well-known bands before? Are there any interesting stories or funny situations that you'd like to share?

Until now we mainly played in our area but in the last time we got to play bigger venues out of our area too. On the 28th of June for example, we will play the Warm Up show for the BANG YOUR HEAD Festival in Germany together with PARADOX and VICIOUS RUMORS.

The status of the band grows every day and that makes us very proud.

Any big plans for the band in the foreseeable future?

We want to get a good record deal with a company who distributes our CD on a professional level and than we already have enough songs to record our second album. We will try to play Live as often as possible and hopefully we get the opportunity to jump on a tour because we really want to reach lots of people with our music everywhere.

From your music, I guess you guys are all fans of 80's metal. What bands to you listen to? Do you have any favorites among "younger" bands that appeared in the last 10 years or so?

There are so many great Metal bands that we listen to and that include our heroes like MANOWAR, IRON MAIDEN, JUDADS PRIEST, VIRGIN STEELE and many more. I also really love the music of MANILLA ROAD and of course OMEN. I could name you thousands of great bands. Among the "younger" bands there are lots of great bands too. In Germany for example you have bands like SACRED STEEL or WIZARD who are all real defenders of Heavy Metal.

What's your opinion on the current state of the metal scene as a whole? It seems to me that heavy metal is in the shadow of other genres such as power, death and black metal. How do you feel about that? Note that I did not include mallcore ("nu-metal"), as it is not metal (and anyone who says otherwise is a fucking moron.)

I think that Heavy Metal is timeless and will survive every trend. As long as there are people who want to listen to quality music, there will be Heavy Metal. When you go to a concert, you always see a lot of 1 4 or 15 year old kids who feel that magic for the first time, and that s great. Go to a Festival like WACKEN or BANG YOUR HEAD and you will always be together with tens of thousands of other Metal heads who feel the same way as you do.

And as you said you can't get that power and might from a so-called Nu Metal Band, which does not deserve the name Metal, because it stands for completely different things.

That's about all I got. Thanks for taking the time to answer this interview! Would you like to add anything else, plug some merchandise, etc.?

Plug some merchandise? That's a very good idea. In the next weeks, we will bring out a 7" EP for all the Vinyl Fans out there. We are also working on some T-Shirts and some patches at the moment. If you re interested in these things just check out our page at www.truemetal.org/majesty regularly.

Thanks to everyone who supported the band and the music we play. Metal To The Metalheads!!!!!

Are the songs on the 7" going to be new material or material from Keep it True? And is it a self-release like the CD?

It will have three songs from the "Keep It True" CD on it and it will be released by a Vinyl Mail-order in cooperation with the band.

Other information about Majesty on this site

Review: Keep It True

Review: Sword And Sorcery

Review: Reign in Glory

Review: Hellforces

Review: Back to Attack