The redaction of Hall of Metal is always full-time working. The number of new releases is terrific but although we can not interview all the bands we’d like, there are some of them that deserve special attention like S.I.N. We have contact with the band and they have accepted nicely to answer our questions about their new album “The 13th Apostle” and about their whole career. Here you can read the full questionary:

- HoM. Thanks you very much for letting us conduct this interview with you. How are you doing?

Alex: Well first off, we have to thank you for taking your time, and helping us promoting our new album. We are doing really good at the moment as we are very relaxed about how things are going for us now. The Album is out, we are very proud of the result, so what could be better than that??

- HoM. While I was working on this interview I have been taking a look to the web and I have realized you are getting very good reviews for “The 13th Apostle”. Did you expect those reactions?

Deddy: Well we hoped to get those reactions and reviews, because you finally record an album because you believe in the music you’ve written. But to be honest, we did not expect all reviews to be that good. When you finally finish a production, you have mix and master done, than it is time to give your baby out of your own hands. And this is always a hard thing, cause you took so much time giving all you can for the album, and then you have to wait and see what people think about it. Will they actually love it, like it, accept it, or hate it??

Alex: At the moment we went to the studio and heard the first takes I did recording my drums, we were sure that this album would be better than we ever hoped. It was kind of an intuition. We, for ourselves, are really proud of what we achieved, and we were somehow sure to get good reviews on the album, and now we are really happy with the way “The 13th Apostle” is accepted and reviewed. It is a great feeling when you can read so many nice words about the work you’ve done, so we are very thankful for all the good critics.

- HoM. Your previous releases achieved good ratings as well. Did it make you feel some kind of pressure upon you at the time of working on this new abum?

Deddy: No, not really. We are our strongest and hardest critiques ourselves. So there was no real pressure as we only recorded songs we were 100% sure of. And this was the same with “Equilibrium” and “Somewhere Into Nowhere”. It did not matter to us that there were reviews on our older records, as we wanted to create something new, and only if it suits our demands it was worth to be recorded.

- HoM. You were working with MTM, after that you signed to Metalheaven and now you have released this album with Artist Service/MBM. Which is the reason why you are releasing every single album with a different label?

Alex: Well I don’t think you can call it a motive. It just kind of happens. Right now for “The 13th Apostle” we felt that Artist Service/MBM was the best way for us to go as we are really convinced about the way they release. And as Seba Eder from Artist Service worked for MTM when we were signed by them, we knew him before. We are very happy to work with these guys now.

- HoM. The new album was released in Asia last September. Why did it take so much time to be released in Europe?

Deddy: Before we teamed up with Artist Service we also had contact with some bigger labels, and it was some hard work to convince a label to release the album as it was already out in Asia. So searching a label for Europe wasn’t that easy and took time, but right now with Artist Service/MBM we are really happy to have the right company on our side.

- HoM. People commonly think the third album of a band is one of their most important releases in their lives because it usually means a turning point for a band. Do you think “The 13th Apostle” can be some sort of milestone for SIN?

Deddy: If you believe in the reviews this might be possible. With all albums before we also had some negative reviews of people who did not like what we did. But up till now, we did not find any negative critic about “The 13th Apostle”, so we probably really created something special. We are sure that this is the best album we ever made (although this phrase sounds pretty old-fashioned), and we’ll see what happens afterwards. You never know where the road leads to.

- HOM. One of the most interesting issues related to this new album is that this time you have decide to make a conceptual album, a not very common thing for a melodic metal band like you. Where did this idea come from?

Alex: The idea came up from a dream Deddy’s brother had. In this dream he was with Jesus and the disciples and wanted to be one of them. We liked the idea and made up this story of Julian, the 13th Apostle.

- HoM. Although you are a young band, you have been through several line-up changes. Is it difficult for the musicians to work with you?

Deddy: Some might say we are strange, but one really important thing is, that a band has to be a team, kind of a company. All of the band have to pull on the same rope. And sadly this wasn’t always the case with S.I.N. Even when we were still with Jason, the “real band” somehow only consisted of Wolfgang, Alex and me.

Alex: Well, I wouldn’t say we are difficult to work with also. I am making music with Deddy and Wolfgang for around 10 years now, these two know each other for more than 15 years. And Jason, our former singer, was in the band for almost 5 years. When Jason left the band back in 2005, this was a hard moment for us. We did not know how and if to continue with S.I.N. But time told us this was more likely a lucky chance. With Patrick Simonsen as our new frontman, we finally got the voice we always wanted. Jason always put the brakes on getting harder, more into metal. With him it would not have been possible to record this album. But nevertheless, he was a brilliant singer, and we were really hit when he told us he would leave. And up to now, the reasons are not obvious to us.

- HoM. After releasing “Equilibrium” you went through those line-up problems and it took 3 years to you to find new musicians and release a new album. What have you been doing through these years? Have you been working on a side project or something like that?

Deddy: Ok, maths don’t seem to be your cup of tea, haha. We released “The 13th Apostle” in Asia in September 07, so we are talking about 2 years, not 3. It just took some more time for Europe, as mentioned before.

Alex: Well planning and recording this album took much time. It was the first time for us to take over such a big task. It was not only about recording some songs, but we had to finish the story line, get in contact with all those different guests, plan the recording-dates with our guests and so on. So we were not just sitting around in these years.
At first after releasing “Equilibrium” and after the shock of Jay’s departure, we took some weeks of to find out where we wanted to go. Then we checked out different singers who applied for the vacant job, and after teaming up with Patrick, we immediately stared to record “The 13th Apostle”.

- HoM. One of the most important roles in a band is the vocalist one. How did you know Patrick? Since he comes from the scandinavian aor/hard rock scene, has it be something difficult for him to adapt to the sound of the band?

Deddy: I know Patrick’s voice for several years now from some older Hush records, and I always loved his voice. When we were in need of a new singer, I just wrote him an email and he was interested. And we are happy to have him in the band. He is very professional, it is so easy to work with him, we had so much fun in the studio, and he was the right guy for this album.
It was not hard to adapt him to our sound, as we never wanted him to adapt. He should only sing the songs the way he thought a metal-song should be sung. And this is one thing why the album sounds the way it sounds, and why we really enjoy working with each other. Patrick Simonsen with S.I.N. is neither a copy of Jason Marks, nor a cope of Patrick Simonsen with HUSH.
One thing we were really surprised when he came over the first time, was how professional he really is. We were not used to work with a singer who stands in the studio for 8-10 hours, 10 days in a row. It was really awesome to work with him.

- HoM. The new album is more aggressive and powerful than your previous releases. Has it be done deliberately? The new songs are cachier than before and we can find progressive touches in your music. From my point of view your new album is quite better than your previous efforts.

Alex: We’ve grown up, haha. No, to be serious, with every production you learn more and more. Just by listening and understanding what works, what doesn’t, what can be done better and so on. And as musicians we also got better for sure. Every record should be an improvement of the one you did before, so we are happy that we managed to make the step.

- HoM. How was this album composed? How is a SIN album commonly developed?

Deddy: Most of the times it’s me and Wolfgang who come up with new ideas. When we jam at my house we just play the guitar and write some riffs. Normally we form the whole song in our heads. When we’re in our studio we then arrange with the whole band, we change out ideas, Alex brings in some drum grooves, and we incorporate all the different ideas and emotions. But the most songs are written by myself at home and then arranged in the studio.

- HoM. Let's talk about the special guests. I know you knew Carsten Schulz before starting with S.I.N. How did you manage to reach an agreement with the rest of the special guests that appear in the album?

Alex: Carsten was the singer of the band we had back in 1999 called FOREVER. He’s living in the same city as my little guitar-playing friend here. FOREVER split due to some reasons located in the business-affairs. But ever since this time we wanted to work together again. So with “The 13th Apostle” we finally had the opportunity to do so.

Deddy: And Conny Andreszka, the voice of Judas, is a friend of Carsten, who made up the contact to him. While we were still searching the vocalist for Junia, I found Renee Walker’s myspace-site. I dropped her some lines via email, and she finally agreed to join in for the task. We are really honoured to have these fabulous musicians on our album…. wait I almost forgot about Boban. He was the singer for WICKED SENSATION. We know these guys for ages, as they are located only about 30km away from us. He also did some cool backing-vocals.

- HoM. One of the things that I like most from this album is the vocal performances. Patrick’s job in this album is amazing, but when you listen to the choruses you are just blown away. Did all the members of the band worked on it?

Alex: Without doubt this cup has to go to Wolfgang and Deddy. When it comes to vocal-arrangements they have a real picture of the sound the choir should built. And with all these excellent vocalists it was easy to really create that picture. When we record the choirs and backings and I hear some single lines I always, and I mean always!! think that they can’t be serious about this. But when you put the pieces together it just blows me away. With every single song this was the same thing.

Deddy: Thanks mate, nice words.

- HoM. Do you have in mind to record some promotional video to support the album so far? Being a conceptual album it has to be something difficult to select a song that stands for the whole album.

Deddy: This would be difficult indeed. We won’t do a video for this album, as this would be far to expensive. But we would love to do some videos in future. So people, buy our records, we need money for videos, haha…

- HoM. How about performing live shows? Do you have in mind to go on tour to support "The 13th Apostle"?

Deddy: We’d love to tour, and we are really trying to work something out. But as with the video this is a quite expensive thing. We’ll see how the album goes and then we’ll check where we can probably go on stage.

- HoM. The number of bands that play melodic metal is increasing nowadays. I think we can define you as a melodic metal band. Do you mind to be labelled this way? Do you feel the melodic metal scene is in a good shape right now?

Alex: This is difficult to answer. There are two sides. On the one hand you can say it is a good thing to have so many bands around that perform this style and support this style, on the other hand this is the problem of the scene. If people have the money to buy 2 CDs per month, they can’t spend more money just because 25 albums they might like are released each month.

Deddy: The problem is that some years ago, labels really invested money in bands. If an album was released, it was really supported by the labels, cause the label only released a few albums a month. Today the labels just bring out more records, and make the same money out of 20 bands like they used to make out of 2 bands. So the bands earn much less money with the music they make. We’ll see what happens. I hope that the big labels see what’s going wrong and push the brakes before it is too late. This problem is one of the reasons why we finally teamed up with Artist Service/MBM.

- HoM. That’s all from our part. Do you want to add anything to your Spanish fans?

Alex: Well, thank you for this nice interview and your time. And to all our Spanish fans, we hope you enjoy “The 13th Apostle”, and hopefully we’ll see you on tour some day.

Deddy: And don’t forget to visit us on our homepage www.sin-band.com or our myspace-home www.myspace.com/somewhereintonowhere. pOwEr To ThE mUsIc

- HoM. Thank you very much. We hope to see you soon on tour.