Interview to ANDREAS MARSCHALL by Metal Music Clan (English version).

Today at Metal Music Clan we have the great honor of interviewing a first-rate artist such as Andreas Marschall, a great illustrator, writer and horror film director. 
Born in Germany in 1961, Andreas Marschall is a strong name in the world of Metal. Creator of hundreds of  covers for legendary bands like Blind Guardian, Running Wild, Grave Digger, Obituary, Dimmu Borgir, Sodom, Kreator and a long etc. Regarding his film career, Andreas Marschall is a film editor and director of Terror films such as "Tears of Kali", award-winning film at several film festivals.

We leave you with the words of Andreas Marschall ..

Andreas Marschall and Obituary, Berlin.

1.Could you tell us a little about your beginnings as an illustrator.When, where and why does your adventure begin?

My parents both were teachers of art and part-time painters. I started my career as a comic book artist, painting graphic Horror and Thriller stories for european editions of Heavy Metal and others. But my style was  photo-realistic which was an extremely time-consuming process. It took me more than a week to finish one single page.  It was just impossible to  tell long stories, graphic novels, not only shorts, with this technique. I began to work as an illustrator at the end of the seventies, doing book covers and illustrations for editions of Edgar Allen Poe and others. When I went to Berlin in the "roaring eighties"  I came in touch with Karl Walterbach from Noise records who offered me to do some metal artwork. My agency Becker/Derouet  put me in contact with bands like RAGE, KREATOR , SODOM, RUNNING WILD, BLIND GUARDIAN and OBITUARY. Soon I was part of the scene, went to concerts and even started directing music videos for the same bands, sometimes bringing elements of my artworks to life (like in the clips for the Kreator Album „Coma of Souls“ were the story of the „stiched eyes“ is told) My talent was always divided between drawing and directing.

2.When your interest in the world of Metal music begins?

When I heard the double live album RAINBOW ON STAGE . This was Ritchie Blackmore´s project at it´s best, featuring great talents like Ronnie James Dio and Cozy Powell. I was totally blown away and started to listen to more classic Metal bands like Judas Priest.

And for the world of fantasy, epic, medieval and terror?

As a child I loved CONAN comics, EC-Horror comics and Monster films like „King Kong“ and „Tarantula“.  I am sure that it has something to do that my parents went with me an my sister to New York as teachers for one year in the early 60ies. I got in touch with comics, movies and many TV-channels - the whole American pop culture -when in Germany many people not even had refrigerators. In early school I got in trouble because I read comic books and painted monsters. Some teachers regarded me as a strange child.

3.Many of us have grown up in the Metal Music world in love with your covers and designs, on our t-shirts, records and posters. Please, could you name the bands and records that carry your illustrations, please?

I don´t have a list, but I here is a section of bands: Kreator, Sodom, Rage, Thunderhead, King Diamond, Obituary, Halloween, Blind Guardian, Orden Ogan, Immolation, Hammercult, Coveant, Dimmu Borgir,

4.As a film and television editor, as well as a director, you have done more than 60 video clips and short films.And in 2004 you debuted with the horror movie "Tears of Kali".
Could you talk a little about your career as a film director and give us a presentation of that film?

I always was a film-fanatic!  Music videos were my chance to do something on my own. The music video industry was a very important thing in the early nineties with the existence of MTV and VIVA Tv and bands got decent budgets for their videos. I shot some nice classics for bands like Sodom, Thunderhead and Kreator, which were shown on headbanger´s ball and other programs,
I switched over to feature films by editing the independent gangster movie „TRACK“, directed by Sammy Balkas. I continued editing major films like the 15 million prisoners of war-drama "As Far As My Feet Will Carry Me" and a Tv Series. Today my main job is directing , screenwriting and editing. Last year I did another editing job on the first slasher movie shot on Kuba: „Havana Darkness“. It will be released in 2019.

My directing debut was "Tears of Kali", which resulted out of my work in a Berlin drama school, REDUTA BERLIN .

When I started working with actors I came in touch with method acting classes and all this extreme self-experience techniques. They are very good if you are shy and need to train your voice and expression and become a free person. But since the twenties all these psychological methods were also used for manipulation and cruel psychiatrist experiments. There were extemist groups amongst the hippie and student movement who turned this stuff into pure manipulative madness, specially  some successors of Willhelm Reich in the USA of the seventies and eighties and certain fractions of the "Osho"community in Poona. Where people have the hybris to design the "new and better human", the doors are open for horror. And this theme was rarely used in the genre. It sort of became my trademark and is the background of the screenplay for my feature film debut Tears of Kali. It tells three different cruel psychological stories that happen to members of a fictitious group called TAYLOR ERICSSON GROUP. This film won many awards on film festivals. It has some of the most disturbing scenes I ever filmed. Not for everybody.

5.With the band Kreator you created the musical horror movie called "Hallucinative Comas".Please, tell us a bit about this work.

Mille Petrozza wanted to shoot something different from the usual band-performance videos that were done these days. He contacted Jörg Buttgereit, director of cult classsics like NECROMANTIK. The record company did not agree with Jörgs ideas, so he quit the project. But recently I had done the artworks for his films and did the set design of an early semi-short called HOT LOVE. So he recommended me to Mille. We both were much into Horror movies like HELLRAISER. I had painted the artwork for the new album COMA OF SOULS and we came up with the idea to tell the story of this poor guy with the eyes stitched together. This turned into the bloody clip TERRORZONE which was the flagship of a collection of clips that formed Halluzinative comas. Mille didn´t want the interview parts. He wasn´t happy with them interrupting the music- and story parts, but the record company insisted on them. PEOPLE OF THE LIE was pretty successful on MTV, but TERRORZONE was shown only once on MTV and then it was banned for it´s violence.

6.You have done also comics and book covers.What can you tell us about this?

My comic stories were published in magazines like METAL HURLING  (france) and EL VIBORA (spain). They were like painted films, but much too time consuming. I had to quit this direction of my career before it consumed all of my time. It was painful decision because I love comic books. I did also some book covers and book illustration in a very classic black and white style - amongst others, for an anthology of Edgar Allen Poe stories called DER RABE.

7.What is your favorite theme and inspirations when doing a job?

It always comes from the band. It may be their music or the band image or the album title. I combine this with my own inspirations taken from painters like Caspar David Friedrich, Arnold Böcklin and, of course Hieronymus Bosch.

8.Please, give us a opinnion about the next things:

J.R.R Tolkien:
A very powerful storyteller. I love his mythology and was drawn into it by Hansi from Blind Guardian. I never read the whole books, but I loved the films,not only the Peter Jackson Stuff but also the earlier animation version by Ralph Bakshi from 1978. Tolkien was huge inspiration for my fantasy paintings.

Mithology:
Mythology is very important for modern world to make people stay in touch with their spiritual roots. In our consumer society people get very self-centered and materialistic. The narratives of mythology and religion tell us that this is foolish.  The modern consumer will look miserable when death knocks on his door.

Nature:Wonderful. I love to ride through the woods on my bicycle.

Best classic Terror  films:
Suspiria (Dario Argento), Shining (Stanley Kubrick), Black Sunday (Mario Bava) , Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock), Seven (David Fincher)


9.Future plans?

Looks like I will direct more episodes in two new horror anthology movies. I am working on a classic horror screenplay which will be the remake of a famous Italien film of the sixties (but it´s not financed yet, so let´s cross fingers). I am working on three new artworks at the moment and plan to shoot more music videos.


10.Something to add to readers and editors of Metal Music Clan ?

•Always keep the faith in Metall!