Today we have a very special interview. We talked with the German singer Oliver Hartmann (ex-AT VANCE) about the new album he did with his band HARTMANN, as well as some other things that the singer kindly answered. Pay attention to his words, what you're about to read is really interesting.

 

HoM. Hi Oliver, it’s a real pleasure to have this interview with you. We hope we can make you a bit more known to Spanish audience. What’s the media and fans response of your new album so far? It was quite high rated in our zine.

Yeah, great so far, thanks. For sure there are – as always - a few critics here and there who wished the album to be more melodic rock with the typical 80s arrangements but most people see that we went one step ahead to 2010 and absolutely love the combination. So everything is perfect for us and it gives us a certain kind of satisfaction since this was our main goal in the production process of “3”.

HoM. The cover artwork is simple, just a red ‘3’ and the name of your band, while your previous albums had a picture of you and a room full of objects, respectively. Are you trying to say anything in special with this idea?

No, not really. Regarding the graphics we wanted to have a very simple but catchy cover, that’s all. Regarding the name of the album there are different reasons. On one hand it was the third studio album – not counting the live DVD “Handmade” – which is well known and feared as normally being the most important one of a band’s career. So when you had 2 quite successful releases everybody is very concentrated on what’s to come next and this is mostly including very high expectations, the “make it or break it” thing. On the other hand we have a German saying called “All good things are 3” so founding our own new record label SONIC 11 for this album was one of a few right decisions for HARTMANN so I’m pretty sure that we’re gonna make it now haha ;)

HoM. It’s probably the album with the most varied rhythms you’ve created in your solo career. We believe you just hit the target, because it will surely attract a wide audience that wants heavier tracks as well as ballads.

Some people might think that with “3” we did an “Everybody’s darling”-record – what a nice word ;) – but we just did what we wanted to do and without any bad tasting compromises. For sure we all have our musical roots in the rock, hard rock and metal of the 70s and 80s and that’s plain to see and hear but there are many other artists and styles from pop to soul music that especially influenced me as the musician I am today and as the main songwriter of HARTMANN. The world always was and still is full of great music and we just love to combine it as good as possible in a natural way. That’s maybe what describes HARTMANN best.

HoM. What are your lyrics based on? Please tell us a bit about each track and which one is the most important for you personally.

Ok. “I won’t get fooled again” is a song about once being betrayed, fooled or hurt but in the end coming up stronger than before. Since you normally always learn from your mistakes this will help to show the world “Ok, you tried it one time with success, but don’t ever try it again”. “From outta space” is a simple groovy rock song that describes the feelings you have when a woman has wrapped you around her finger so everything this “gorgeous” or “divine” creature is doing feels some kind of unreal … but nice ;)

“Suddenly” is a story about what happened to a friend of mine – but for sure not only him in this world – who didn’t recognize that the one he loves and is perfectly fitting to was always around since many years – and vice versa. And then there is this short moment in life – some kind of window opening up - where you start to see and understand what is right before your eyes. All the time but somehow hidden in your heart and mind.“All I can say” is about the situation when you’re on the way to lose the one you love maybe due to not showing or telling her for a long time how much she really means to you. That sometimes happens in life and you have to take care of that before it’s maybe too late. The lyrics of “Right here right now” are telling about the same kind of situation, but the other way round when not getting thru to somebody. The theme of “Broken down” is very close again to the opening track. Some people just don’t check or care when they’ve been hurting you and starting to tell lies to put themselves into the right spot. At a certain point you just can’t get rid of the idea to tell everybody how things really are and what all this caused – even if it doesn’t matter for you anymore.
“Don’t give up your dream” is a song for everybody who has doubts in his own skills or maybe lost his way due to his own bad history. But you should never lose what maybe was your biggest dream in life since this is the driving power that is feeding you. Sounds pathetic but it’s the damn truth – at least my truth. Life’s not always fair but still good! “Don’t tell me it’s over” is about an ending relationship and the feelings you have when you don’t want to or just can’t let go. “Lost in Havana” is a true story that happened to me and my girlfriend during a stay in Cuba. You shouldn’t trust everybody even if the offer sounds cool cause in the end the party might end with a gun at your head what is making you open your wallet for drinks you never got and never wanted to pay, haha ;)
“Brothers” was written while I was making up my mind about war and the wrong ideals that are being sold to the people and also to soldiers. War never caused something good and never will. Just look at the entire world’s history. It only causes damage, destruction and incurable pain to families and children. And that’s what these two brothers have to learn in a painful and nearly deadly process. Even if Tobi is well known as the funny German (Ed-)guy I couldn’t imagine to have had a better duet partner than him for this song. He was simply perfect fitting for the role of the younger brother and I’m happy to have him on this album. And it was the revenge for 4 Avantasia productions and countless choirs or Edguy….just joking ;)
“Forgotten innocence” is a song about what you often lose when growing up. As a child you are normally open to everything, you are creative, peaceful and free…and innocent. Due to life’s experiences and all the always growing package you have to carry on your shoulders many people unlearn and forget this kind of inner freedom. But you can also reactivate it when you somehow let loose of your controlled thoughts. Sometimes you just have to open up this inner door or window to see again what maybe has been so far away for years. Again pathetic!

HoM. What are the influences you can’t hide in this 3?

Like I said in the beginning it’s simply the typical songwriting that HARTMANN is known for with all its various influences but somehow renewed. You can maybe compare it with a solid and stable house that has always had a dry roof but needed to be
renovated with a bit of new paint here and there. And it looks great now even if we and everybody can see that it’s still the same house!

HoM. I consider 3 has the best of your two previous albums, it’s pretty much better than ‘Home’ and a different level when compared to “Out in the cold”. Are you trying to create your own musical identity or do you consider you’ve already achieved that?

No, I still didn’t fully achieve my goals, yet - not all. Otherwise I would maybe stop doing albums or writing songs and just lean back in a comfortable chair on the sunny hills of music island, left of paradise, haha ;) I think to find your musical identity is the most important thing in a musicians life. It’s a lifetime process that never stops even if you sometimes think that you already reached what you were looking for. There’s always something new to find and learn and that’s what makes music interesting.

“Out in the cold” was a perfect first solo album and “Home” was one step further by involving the whole band more into the overall sound. Less polished than the first one but with more sound identity. “3” is like you already said maybe the perfect mixture of both previous albums and again one step ahead. And we’re already and still moving and looking forward again.

HoM. Miro, Sascha Paeth, Sammet and you clearly are good friends, since they produce and master your album and Tobi sings with you a song called precisely “Brothers”. You also have played an important role in Avantasia. What are your thoughts on this relationship?

I know all these guys since many years now and you can really call it a big friendship.
It’s kind of a musical family connection you can rely on, regarding both the personal and musical side. Besides the production of many albums for HARTMANN, EDGUY, AVANTASIA and other projects during the last 10 years we’ve been together on a long tour with Avantasia in 2008, where you are close together for weeks and months and start to share more and more real private and personal things. So all I can say is that I’m really happy and proud to be a part of that crazy Rock’n’Roll family!


HoM. Since “Home”, your band keeps the same line-up. How does it work internally at creating new music and in studio?

I normally write, arrange and preproduce most of the songs in my studio at home. When there are enough finished songs we meet in a practice room from time to time and start to work over the arrangements cause every band has it’s own sound and it’s a different feeling to play them in a real live situation. From this moment on everybody in the band is free to add his thoughts and ideas so it sometimes happens that we still change parts or arrangements. For example our bass player Armin Donderer rearranged some parts of “Right here right now” since we weren’t satisfied with the overall sound of the song and it was the right decision since it helped the song a lot to have a more unique and modern touch. During the mixing process Sascha Paeth often comes along with some ideas here and there. I’m really happy about that since he always knows how I want to make a song sound like but still finds something that could be a little better. When you have been writing/arranging/producing songs for more than a year you sometimes get blind for little but also important things cause you get used to the sound you create. For this reason it’s always a big advance to have someone involved who sees and listens to it all in a more objective way than you. Even if I also arrange the major part of keys and strings they are normally overworked by Miro, Sascha’s studio partner, who is a real amazing string arranger. He was always a big help for all Hartmann productions during the last 5 years and he did a great job again on some songs of the new album.

HoM. You toured with Tobias Sammett and Avantasia, what was it like?

It was simply an amazing tour where we all had loads of fun! Even if we are all professional musicians for a long time and did our tours with many bands everybody including the crew was feeling like being on a big school trip, haha

The whole situation was totally relaxed – even for Tobi who for sure felt that it was a big challenge to bring this project on stage for the first time. But I think he always felt safe by having this great and funny band at his side tat he always could rely on. And we are all really looking forward to do it all again a.s.a.p.!

HoM. Your voice is always in great shape, what do you do to take care of it? What vocal studies do you have?

I graduated in high school with music as the main topic but I didn’t study singing or playing guitar. So I’m mostly self educated but also with the help of lots vocal and physical theory during the last 20 years. And I’m still working on it. Your vocal chords are an organ and part of your body that can be seriously or irreparable damaged by forcing it too much or singing the wrong way. During my first bands I had the luck to work with really good singers that helped me to develop my skills as a vocalist. Since a few years I’m working again with one these guys and his name is Goetz Mohr who was the singer of my first semi-professional band named Merlin and now is singing for the Belgian metal band Iron mask. Since I produced his vocals and recorded the choirs for this project we often meet and it’s a real funny situation that he’s now somehow listening to my instructions ;)
To keep my own voice in shape I now just try to not overstress it too much cause hard rock and metal singing is the most physical challenge when looking at different styles. Everything is always at a level and pitch of 120% and it’s sometimes hard to keep that level while touring and playing long live shows. Especially when you sing the way I do by bending the chest voice up to it limits you have to take care to not exhaust yourself. But for god’s sake everything is still fine.

HoM. How are going the concerts of presentation of your new album? Do you plan to visit Spain?

Everything was fine so far,. We just did some shows as special guest of Uriah Heep and besides some festivals in summer we are now looking forward to do support for a few Y&T shows. I hope that we still get a few more confirmed for other European countries during the next weeks. Hopefully some in Spain too!

HoM. Other important singers are for example Roy Khan and Jorn Lande, who also appeared in Avantasia and are in the top of their careers. What’s your opinion about them?

They are both amazing singers and Jorn is close to a monster – one of the best hard rock singers during the last 15 years. And he’s a funny guy who will talk yourself to death ;)

HoM. I always wondered why you left At Vance, given you recorded with them no less than five studio albums and you were a co-founder together with Olaf.

Well, it’s along story that has often been told by both sides because it’s still asked in every interview and still often by fans. The only thing I can say is that it’s really sad how things ended but due to many and mainly personal reasons I decided to leave the band. Olaf is a very problematic person to work with – and I’m not the only one who says that. We did 4 records together – not counting “The evil in you” where main parts have already been preproduced with my vocals on it - and although I was a founding member and singer of the band there was nearly no influence from my side on the songwriting and not even on the lyrics. I sometimes hear and read that he’s thinking of me as being a loosy composer for metal – having success with many other projects and bands like Hartmann I can really say: I don’t mind at all and I really don’t care about his opinion on that. It’s maybe just his way to put things in the right spot for him, I don’t know. Just 2 songs that I wrote for At Vance have been released on 4 records but they have been loved by the fans the same as others or were the ones released on samplers.
2 other tracks that I wrote for “Only human” have been used by AFM records for the limited edition of “The evil in you” – more songs on one album than ever before – funny somehow! I could go on with many stories about childish games and him playing bad tricks one me that ended up at the court and other stuff but we want to talk about now and not about the past. And that’s good. Full stop.

HoM. Talking with some colleagues of the zine, we came to the conclusion that you’ve never been too successful in music commercial-wise, even though your vocal quality should be among the greatest in metal/rock, in Europe at least. What do you think the reason might be?

I’m not sure. After leaving At Vance I definitely I could have had more success by pulling on the right commercial strings but I always wanted to do what I really want without selling myself to something that I don’t want to be. Anyway music business is one of the hardest businesses in the world – although it always looks great from the outside – and the chance of being successful or famous nowadays is really small.
But when looking at Hartmann, especially Avantasia, Genius and other projects I’m really happy an thankful for what I’ve reached so far - and the story still goes on.
Hopefully ;)

HoM. MAGIC KINGDOM, EMPTY TREMOR, FREEDOM CALL, EDGUY, RHAPSODY, LUNATICA... you should have been given a gold medal for doing so many guest appearances. Is it enough to earn a living or do you have any other job away from music?

The guest appearance gold medal, thanks, haha ;)
Like I said: to make your living just from music is getting harder every year but or god’s sake I have the ability to do many different things as singer, guitarist and also teaching both, songwriter, member of a well known German Pink Floyd Tribute band
and many other things…so I can’t say that I got nothing to do …sometimes it’s already
too much at one time. But it’s definitely better this way than the other way round.

HoM. Do you have any other future project besides HARTMANN? Many of your fans would like to hear you again as a protagonist in a power metal album, like in the old times.

There are always ideas here and there for maybe other projects, too but I always try to concentrate a 100% or at least as much as possible on Hartmann. Especially since we have our new album out now what takes a lot of time regarding the promotion, the live booking and everything else. But let’s see what the future brings … I’m open to every interesting thing that crosses my way.

HoM. Thanks a lot for the interview, we wish you the best of luck in your career. We hope to see you more in Spain and in record shops.

Yeah, thanks for your interesting questions too. We really hope to get more live shows confirmed during the next 2 months, definitely better distribution ways for our new album and we’re all really looking forward to have some in Spain, too. The last time I was supposed to play on Metalway/Spain during summer 2008 the festival unfortunately was cancelled due to heavy ice rain what was really sad. But we found out that you have real cool Spanish bars that were perfect for having a great party. Don’t ask me how we got home, haha