Interview With Germany's Heavy Metal Outfit "Voldt"

When both battle-vest donning traditionalists and sleek metal hipsters are weeping tears of joy, VOLDT may well be involved. On their latest full-length offering Vandalism the three German pacesetters gloriously careen between spectacle and a blow to the the neck. For about 42 minutes we’re being chased through the woods by a more or less likable lunatic with a whip. At a riff-gallop we’re tearing through the underbrush. A storm of drums hails down on us. Thunderous bass rattles the ground, while the bristly guitar hits us like gnarly branches. But behold! Behind all this rough terrain, the stormy weather is clearing and between dark clouds a ray of gold shines upon us and refracts a rainbow of sugary melody goodness. Donnerwetter – heavy metal has risen from the grave! And it’s more alive than ever.

Voldt is formed in Hamburg, Germany. On April 8, 2022 they released their debut full length album “Vandalism” through Blood Blast Distribution.

Check out the below interview with the band.

Greetings from Metalheads Forever Magazine, how are you today?

Hello from Hamburg. Our album has dropped on Friday and it’s going well, got some good reviews already so at the moment I’m a pretty happy guy.

Your debut Full-Length album “Vandalism” is scheduled to be out on 8th April 2022, can you tell me about the songwriting and production behind the album?

Yeah, the songwriting took place between summer 2017 and about 2020, so quite a long process and some of the songs start to feel old to us already. But for the folks out there it will be fresh none the less. After the pre-production was ready we hit the studio between end of 2020 and beginning of 2021. We worked with Fabian Großberg, as we did for our 2019 EP ‘Voken’ and we’re quite a good team. This time we decided to have only one track per instrument, so it’s just one single guitar track, a bass track and a drum-track which is quite
uncommon for a heavy metal record. But we wanted to try it out and it seemed to work so we went with that. The only overdubs we did are on the vocals. The result is a quite compact and in-your-face type of sound which fits this whole thing.

Is there a concept that was put behind this album?

It is not a concept album, but it revolves around the subjects of power, control mechanisms, the psyche, the praise of an absurd conspiracy theory and all aspects of the human abyss. Normal stuff.

A massive Heavy Metal album from Voldt, being the debut full-length how do you feel about the outcome?

We’re happy but also really ready to work on our next album. As a band putting out albums your music tends to feel outdated the moment you release it and you have to learn living with that awkward feeling and use it as a motivator to get something new done immediately after.

Can you tell how Voldt was formed and how you guys got together as a band?

Wanja (drums) and I have been playing together since 2008, forming kind of a band, changing this and that member, playing like two gigs and changing our musical style about every five months. It was a stressful and unproductive time and experiencing this made us choose not to stick to fix subgenres and learn to be productive and get things done. One of the most important lessons as an artist for me personally, to make decisions. Johannes (bass) came to join us in 2014. At that time we were called “Project Ni” and had a second guitar player. After he showed up late to a rehearsal we realized we were sounding a lot better being just the three of us so we had to kick him out (sorry dude, no hard feelings), change our name and start something new and exciting. That was and is VOLDT to this day.

The band was formed in 2017, how has the road been so far?

Haha, good timing to be asking this. The road was kind of empty in the past 2 years if you ask me, but fortunately things are changing bit by bit here in Germany. I’m booking gigs now and it’s not easy because there’s a ton of other artists past gigs that were cancelled and are taking place now, you just gotta do the job and write shitloads of emails.

Any touring plans post release of the album?

Only German gigs so far this year, but there’s plans to go on tour in 2023, we got some booking action going on for that in the background already.

How is the reception for the band in Germany and around the world?

Uhm, diverse I guess? We’re quite an odd heavy metal trio so we don’t expect to be everybody’s darling. We got quite enthusiastic fans everywhere, I guess our biggest one hailing from Arizona, USA – writing us and asking how our work is going. I think that’s amazing to have people who care so much about your music.

Would you like to share some big moments for the band?

No big moments, big feelings are more reliable.

What would be the songwriting be focused on in the future?

I guess I got some country flavours in my riffs quite recently, also some more heavy rock spices in some way… the blast beats will stay of course. You see, it’s not getting less weird.

Finally what would be the message to the fans?

Give our new album ‘Vandalism’ a good listen and let it sink in. Then play it again. And again. And again.
And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And
again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And
again. And again. And again. And again. Keep going.