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In-person interview with Chrisgel Glanzmann of Eluveitie

November 21st 2009, Ultra Violet Social Club, Los Angeles CA

Andrew: Enjoying your stay in North America?
Chrisgel: Yeah, so far it's been good.

Andrew: Your new album is coming out in February. How has the recording process been and what do you expect from it?
Chrisgel: We are really happy. Actually just this morning I received the last mixes of the album. So its done and its being mastered in a couple of days I think. So yeah its more or less finished. We are really happy with how it has turned out and personally I think its probably the best album that we did so far. It will be a metal album again. Its not Evocation Part 2. We'll do that later. This is a regular metal album again and I think all in all its probably the harshest and darkest album we have done so far. There are danceable tracks like Inis Mona and stuff like that on it, but overall its quite dark in a way. The recording has been really good. We've been recording with Tommy Vetterli in Switzerland. He's really an amazing engineer. It was great to work with him. For the mixing we were working together with Colin Richardson actually for the first time, and hopefully not the last time because that guy is amazing as well. He managed to, for the first time I think, to create a really transparent mix. I mean, it is difficult mixing a band like ours because in some songs we have 19 tracks. That's hell of a lot and its hard to bring out all the instruments actually. He managed to do that.

Andrew: So when will part 2 of Evocation come out?
Chrisgel: No idea. I mean, when I started writing the concept for Evocation it soon turned out to become a two-pieced concept and early this year we just released the first part of it and we could take our time for the second part. May be it will be the next album after this metal album again, may be we will wait a lot longer. We don't really know yet.

Andrew: I think the concept of Evocation is quite interesting and something very different.
Chrisgel: Yeah its almost like us without metal, you know. Doing something totally acoustic was actually an idea we had for years and it was just something that kind of challenged us and we wanted to try it out one day and well, now we did. Not all of the fans liked it. There were many people who got really pissed off because of this album and they just wanted metal. We knew that before and it was kind of a risk to release an album like that. In the end, you have to follow your own invention. It was just something we wanted to do and we did it.

Andrew: You said in an earlier interview that the upcoming album is the most metal album you've ever done.
Chrisgel: Absolutely. I mean, not in that sense that there is less folk in it. There is actually may be more folk in it, but the way the songs are structured and the way the riffing works and everything, its really metal.

Andrew: How do you summarize 2009 as a touring year?
Chrisgel: We did not do as much touring as last year. We had quite a huge tour at the beginning of the year. It was almost three months or something on the road. We were all over in Europe, almost in every European country. That was a good tour. It was kind of rough as well. It was a long time of touring without any breaks. Then we actually had kind of a break. I mean, we did a couple of summer festivals but not too much because we had to concentrate on the new album. Well now that the new album is done, we are on tour again here in the States. This tour has been pretty nice so far.

Andrew: How are your newest members Brem and Kistler mixing with the older members in the studio and on the stage?
Chrisgel: Actually really, really good. We are so happy with them. We are much happier than we have been before. They are like perfect members in a way and today it feels as if they have always been in the band. Its great to work with them.

Andrew: Can you tell a little bit about your upcoming tour commitments?
Chrisgel: When we get home from this tour we have a one or two-month break and then we will start touring Europe again, quite a lot actually. May be until April and the plan so far is we will come back to the States with the new album right after that, probably in May or something but its not confirmed yet. That's the plan at least.

Andrew: You guys play in festivals in Europe. How do you compare the response here in America, playing these small clubs?
Chrisgel: The response is probably similar I think. The difference is that the clubs here are really, really small, may be like 200-300 people or 500 if it's a big show. In Europe we easily play in front of 30,000 people. One thing we like about the small shows is we are really close to the people, which is a cool thing.

Andrew: What is your impresson of the other bands on this tour?
Chrisgel: I think this line up is a bit strange in a way, because its really mixed. We as a band actually appreciate that. We prefer to tour with different kinds of bands. Its cool, I mean, I don't like everything. All the bands are really nice people. I kind of became a Belphegor fan on this tour and I didn't exactly know them before. Now after seeing them live, I think they are a cool band.

Andrew: Chrisgel, thanks for your time and have a good show tonight!
Chrisgel: Thank you! We will.