It's pretty similar for all members of the band. We started playing our instruments at the ages of 6, 7 or 8 and got classical lessons. The first time our drummer Dieter and I met was back in 1987. We played in another band called Twilight. We met Milan, the other guitar player, in 1989 and changed the name of the band to Brainstorm. We've been together for 14 years now. Andreas (Mailander), the bass player, joined us in 1991. The last lineup change we had was in 1999 with Andy (Franck) joining us on lead vocals.
How have you managed to stay together for so long?
One of the main reasons is that we had a chance to grow without the pressure of all the business stuff. We released four demo tapes between 1990 and 1996 and played a lot of live shows in every club around 250 kilometers. We became friends, not just musicians making music together. We've been together for nearly half of our lives now.
Brainstorm has an unusual situation where your lead singer is in two different bands. How do you work out the scheduling between the two groups?
It works out very well. We talked about it a lot before Andy joined the band. We knew Andy a long time before he joined Brainstorm and often talked about doing something together in the future. When we had the singer change after the second album, it was one of the first ideas we had. We knew Andy's qualities. He's a great singer and has an amazing stage appearance. We knew him as a person, which was very important. Every new member has to fit not only musically, but personally.
The main songwriting process starts without Andy. It's mainly Milan and me that brings the riffs and songs into rehearsal. We then arrange it with our drummer and bass player and when the basic song is ready we give it to Andy and he works on the lyrics. It's not that time intensive for him compared to if he were involved from the beginning.
How is the metal scene in Germany?
It's still very big. We are in a very lucky situation here. We have a lot of festivals and a lot of people showing up at concerts, which is very cool. People over here are very much into metal music. They are in the U.S., but here it's much more in the public eye.
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