"Wake Up The Wicked"

Powerwolf let “Monster off the chain” for their album

Dark metal theater to entertain in difficult times: Powerwolf enter a new album round.

(Bild: Krone KREATIV/VD Pictures, Napalm Records)

They celebrate heavy metal "like a kind of mass" and have topped the charts in their home country several times with their albums: in Austria, Powerwolf from Saarbrücken recently reached fifth place, and the new studio production "Wake Up The Wicked" is already at the start. The title says it all: "We're letting the monster off the chain and creating a whole new world again," says organist Falk Maria Schlegel.

The power wolves around singer Attila Dorn are a phenomenon, their shows sell out early (including the concert on October 23rd in the Vienna Gasometer) and their albums are bestsellers. In August, they will embark on a major US tour with a final detour to Canada, where they have been booked into a large ice hockey arena. "That's another level," says Schlegel in an interview with APA. "Sometimes everything seems like a rush."

Theater with a good mood
How do you explain Powerwolf's success to outsiders? "We were lucky enough to have created a unique sound - with a church organ, Attila's voice and orchestration," Schlegel explains. "We combine this live with a kind of theater piece." The musician doesn't want to leave unmentioned that "you can also laugh at our shows". People should have "a good time" at the concerts: During the pandemic, you realize "how crass it is when you can't switch off from everyday life".

Loved by fans, ridiculed by some: Powerwolf's music has sometimes been dismissed as "Schunkelmetal". "We often hear: it's just a great melody," Schlegel takes it in his stride. "As if it were that easy to write a great melody. That is great art. Not only high culture is good art, but also strong songs in metal. And when we use clichés, quite deliberately, and when we create a good, strong catchy tune because we feel like it, I take such comments as a compliment."

Relying on live energy
Work on "Wake Up The Wicked" began with the song "Bless 'em With The Blade", the opener on the record. "It goes brutally forward. We already had the feeling that this would be a bit of a direction for the album," says Schlegel. The "live experience that we recite there" was incorporated into the songwriting process, which was not the case with the predecessor "Call Of The Wild", which was composed in lockdown.

Historical themes often form the basis for Powerwolf's lyrics. "We've developed into a bit of nerds over the years," Schlegel smiles. Not least because of their own interests, they have "made it our mission to find stories, to search for and research religious history, myths and legends - anything that takes place in this context is a real find for us." The current songs deal with Jean d'Arc and Peter Stump, for example.

On the trail of werewolves
The latter was a defendant in the most famous werewolf trial of the 16th century in the German-speaking world, and his end was gruesome. Powerwolf made the song "1589" about him and released an elaborate video. "In Bedburg, where the trial took place, you can go on werewolf hikes," says Schlegel. "That shows me that even tourism has discovered the werewolf legend for itself. The topic still fascinates people today."

The "Wolf Nights Tour" will also take Powerwolf to Vienna in the fall. The band is already working on the stage production, reports Schlegel. "It will be the biggest yet, not only in terms of manpower, but also in terms of material. We are trying to focus even more on the cinematic and theatrical approach. We want the fans to immerse themselves in the Powerwolf world with us, for the concert hall, band, stage and audience to merge into the Powerwolf cosmos, so that the classic concert setting no longer exists."

APA/Wolfgang Hauptmann