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Riffs, Wrath, And Destiny With JURGEN BREFORTH From MAD MAX · HEAVY Music Interviews

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, hi folks, this is jergn from the band Mad
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Max from Germany, and I'm so happy to be here
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: that Chris Peter's from the Heavy Mac does have me
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: on the show today, and we'll guess we're talking a
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: little bit about our history that started nineteen eighty one,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: can you believe that? And about the new album Stories
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: of Destiny that's coming out September the fourth, and yeah, let's.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: Start, let's start. Thanks to join us. Statement, it's a
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: pleasure to have you.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Thank you for having me on the show.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: My friend, my pleasures you say, man makes release your
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: new album, Stories of Destiny on September the fourth, right,
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: not long, ma'm ever you feel about it?
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this album is originally I have to say it's
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: kind of an anniversary album, you know, because I founded
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: the band in nineteen eighty one and now forty five
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: years later, I'm celebrating forty five years with the band.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: But I didn't want to call it aniversary album. That's
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: too simple for me. And my drummer Axel Cruze, who's
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: with me for forty years now. He joined the band
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: in eighty five. He came up with the title Stories
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: of Destiny, and that pretty much nails the story of
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: the album, because each and every song on the album
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: stands for kind of a decade of the band. You know,
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: it starts. It starts in eighty one with the Piece
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: of Candy song, which is actually really honestly, the first
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: guitar riff I wrote back in the days for mad
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Max Wow yeow, And that guitar riff ended up in
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: this song and the Piece of Candy song. And what
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: was important for me when I collected all those songs
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: from all those decades, from the eighties, from the nineties,
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: from the two thousands, what was very important for me
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: is to leave all the songs in the original arrangement.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: I didn't change anything and I took I mean, of course,
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: all the songs were brand new recorded in the studio.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Because some of the songs back in the days I
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: didn't write for Mad Max. I wrote them for other artists,
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: for very famous rock stars. For example, the first single
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: Silver I wrote in the early two thousands for Gary Barden,
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: who is the singer for the Michael Schenker Group for many, many,
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: many many years, and he released his first solo album
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: two thousand and one, and I had the honor to
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: write this song for it, and yeah, on that day
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: in two thousand, the record from Gary Barden was released
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: on a very small label and the label fucked up
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: the whole release, and so I thought, now it's time
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: to give this song a proper second chance by recording
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: it with Mad Max. And Yeah, as many Mad Max
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: fans know, I'm really influenced by the British new wave
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: of heavy metal, if you want to call it that way.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: When I started in the early eighties, I was influenced
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: Low Saxon Priest Maiden, but the early versions, you know,
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: not the later versions or Deaf Lappert for example, long
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: before they got polished by producers and millions and millions
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: of records. But when I discovered Deaf Lappert, it was
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: like a garage band at that time, and that were
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: my role models. When I started. I wanted the pure
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: Marshall Gibson Les Paul guitar sound and really right, honest songs,
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: and that's what I'm still doing today after forty five years.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: And so I'm really happy that I can present on
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: the on this brand new Mad Max album, I can
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: present store songs from all the decades that I wrote.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: Some I wrote for mad Max, someone wrote for other
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: stars or together with other stars, and that's a more
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: or less the vision of the album.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: Then you mentioned that you've got songs all like the decades,
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: so obviously your musical tastes and your musical style of
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: writing would have changed over the years. So was it
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: difficult to assemble them together us so it was still
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: cohesive and still flying.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: I mean for this album, for this very album here,
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: for the Stories of Destiny album. It was very easy
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: for me because I was the one who picked all
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: the songs and who wrote all the songs together with
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: other celebrities. But back in the days, if you take
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: all the decades, the eighties, the nineties, the two thousands,
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, I had different singers and the main singer
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: Michael Foss some of you might know him for his
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: work with Michael Schenker in the last ten years. When
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: he left the band nineteen eighty seven, of course the
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: musical direction changed a little bit. Then I was searching
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: and working with different singers. And you know it, if
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: you have a new singer, the band changes somehow because
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: the sound of the band changes. And when I first
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: founded the band in the eighties, I was influenced by
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: the British rock music. But when Michael Foss joined the
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: band in eighty four, he was a young kid and
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: he was just a big fan of bands like Bond Jovi,
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: Darkin more influenced by the American bands that came up
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: at that time, and so the sound of the band
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: changed a little bit to this American style. Now, when
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: Michael Foss left the band, finally left the band, I
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: have to say, in twenty and eighteen, and then I
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: drove the car, the mad Max car, if we want
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: to put it that way, and from that time on,
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: I went back to my original sound. And that's the
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: reason why on this album, I left all the songs
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: in the original arrangement. I didn't change anything, even the
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty one song Piece of Candy. It's still the
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: original riff that I invented nineteen eighty one. And I
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: think that was exactly the right step. From all the
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: reviews I'm getting, from all the interviews I'm doing, especially
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: in those times right now, everybody's talking about bands writing
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: songs with AI, you know, and that brings me, I mean,
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: that was not planned, but that brings me right now
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: into a very good position because all the fans and
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: the music journalists, they know, Okay, those songs I picked
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: for the for the album for Stories of Destiny are
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: written like decades ago at times you know, there was
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: no mobile phones, there was no internet, no AI, nothing,
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: And that right now puts me in the good position
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: that I can prove I'm a good songwriter and I'm
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: writing songs since more than forty years working together with
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: real celebrities. That I am honored that they picked my songs.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: But the good position is everybody knows these songs are
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: definitely not written with AI. They are written by me,
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: and in these times, this is a good point for
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: the band. You know that people see, okay, here's a
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: band that started in the eighties and they are still
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: there and I'm the original member and founder, and those
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: are really human written songs, and I think that's a
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: good point for the band right now.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, DA's right, and that I say, it's no actual
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: song on their cold Stories of Destiny, So it's obviously
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: it's got got a bit bigger and big deeper.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: Meaning, yeah, I mean the meaning. Finally, my drama came
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: up with a title, and finally I thought, okay, this
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: is the perfect title because at least each and every
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: song on this album has a story, is telling a
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: story and is telling more or less my story about
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: forty five years. You know, each and every decade had
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: ups and downs, singers changing, band members changing, but I'm
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: still there and my drama Axel is also still there
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: with me since forty years. And there are not many
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: bands around anymore a history of forty five years and
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: still have at least some two original members in the band.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: That's that's a good point from Mad Max. And maybe
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: this is the reason why why all countries are so
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: interested in the new album, because there are not many
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: bands around. Maybe from Germany it's maybe only Dyscorpions, you know,
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: where you have Rudolph Shenka and Klaus Minor. But all
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: the other bands, if you look at except Halloween, there
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: are there are a lot of personal changes in those
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: bands and there are only a few original members left
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: in those bands. And so maybe this is a good
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: point for Mad Max as well. Right now.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this album also introduces your new vocalist, Alan Clark,
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: so tell us a bit more about him and what
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: he brings to the sound.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is really I'm so happy that we have
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: Allen in the band, and like I said, for the
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: very first time, I'm working with a native speaker. So
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: far I only had singers from Germany and this is
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: the first time I have a natives speaker from from
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: England and the band. And because for me, it's the
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: perfect choice, to be honest, because I'm influenced by British
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: bands that came up in the early eighties and my
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: kind of songwriting works the best with singers from the UK.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: If you take, for example, the song Silver I was
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: talking about, it was originally originally written for Gary Barden
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: and he's from the UK as well, you know, and
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: those songs have this like British, this British rock wipe
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: the When I was a young kid, I used to
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: listen to Deep, Purple, Uryah, Heap, all those bands that
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: came from the UK, and I'm not that much into
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: the American kind of hard rock and heavy metal, so
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: it was a perfect choice to have Ellen in the band.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: Of course, he has his own band as well, Dark Heart.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you have heard of them. It's
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: more kind of an A or R a hard rock
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: sounding band. But Allen has a great voice. This British
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: vibe in it. And he's also a great songwriter, and
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: we picked one of his songs for the Stories of
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: Destiny album as well. It's the song Bullet and if you,
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: if you, if you listen to the Bullet song. A
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: lot of people love this song because it's very melodic
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: and really great great vocal lines. And maybe this works
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: so great because it's written by the singer, you know,
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: and the singer is not so much focused on guitar riffs.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: I'm more the guy who who's first writing the guitar
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: riffs and the vocals come are coming later. But when
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: when Allen is writing a song like Bullet, he works
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: out the perfect vocal lines and maybe that's the reason
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: why the people love the song so much.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah say, And he did a very poignant moment, Jim mate,
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: you've got Alan performs a duet on the record on
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: Piece of Candy with the band's original singer, Andreas Basela.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: That must have been a pretty special moment made welcoming
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: back up to forty five years.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that that is so crazy. You have to know
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: Andreas lived for really a long long time in South
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: America in Cuba, and he's also married to worn from
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: Cuba and then he came back to Germany a couple
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: of years ago. We got in contact again, but there
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: was no album that really fitted to work together again.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: And he's working as a music professor right now here
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: in Germany. But on this Stories of Destiny album, for me,
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: it was perfect to ask Andreas if you wanted to
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: join the band again after forty five years, because Andreas
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: was my very first singer when I started eighty one,
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: and I thought this would be like a circle of life,
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: you know, a circle of forty five years having Andreas back,
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: and yeah, he joined, and he did this duet with
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: Allan on Piece of Candy, and he did a Spanish version,
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: the first Spanish version we ever had with Mad Max
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: of the song Piece of Candy. And because Andrea's lived
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: in South America for so long, he speaks Spanish fluently
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: and could write new lyrics to the song. And if
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: you look at the album artwork inside, if you have
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: a look at the booklet, you will see that there
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: are some bits and pieces from the Mad Max comic
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: in the artwork, in the final artwork and also in
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: the in the DIGGI pack CD artwork, and we and
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: I traveled to Colombia to play with the band three
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: years ago. We met with one of the biggest comic
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: companies in South America. They are called comic Busters, not ghostbusters,
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: they are called comic Busters, and they brought me together
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: with Arturo Said, which is a legend in itself, a
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: legendary comic draw in Mexico, and he made a comic
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: about my story from the day I founded the band
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: in eighty one until twenty twenty three when I played
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: the first shows with Mad max in Colombia. And right
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: now you can purchase the comic only in Spanish language
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: in South America and there it is a huge success.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: But next year we're working on bringing the comic to
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: the rest of the world in an English translation. But
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: for the fans, we definitely wanted to have some bits
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: and pieces of the original comic drawings in the artwork,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: and so if you buy the record or buy the CD,
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: you can find a lot of the comic artwork in
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: the booklet Very cool.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: Go back to the beginning matter, as you say, you
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: guys started in nineteen eighty one. So what was that
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: musical climate like that gave birth to Mad Maxine and
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: where did you fit in Initially?
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: I mean when I started nineteen eighty one, all the
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: bands in my hometown they started to sing in German.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: You know, that was early eighties. A lot of German
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: rock band switched from English language to German language. And
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: the other half of the bands in my hometown were
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: cover bands, you know, they covered music from the Stones,
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: from the Beatles, whatever, And I was like, really, I
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: was like a lonely ranger here in my hometown, one
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: of the of the few ones that wanted to write
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: my own songs. That was. I never played in cover
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: bands or stuff like that. I from just from day one,
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: I wanted to write my own songs and that was
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: a great thing thing that right away I met Andreas
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: back in nineteen eighty and yeah, he felt the same
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: way like me, and he was into writing lyrics, thank
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: god he was. And so just from day one when
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: I founded Mad Max, I started doing just my own songs,
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: no cover versions or stuff like that. And yeah, that
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: was the beginning of the band, and just right away
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: we sold a lot of records because at that time
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: we had a lot of live shows here in the
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: area and there was no other hard rock, heavy metal
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: band route around with original song material and that was
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: drawing a big crowd of fans. And yeah, thank god.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: Forty five years later and I'm still there writing my
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: own songs.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: Good on you, make good on you. Well, thanks very
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: much for your time, bro, it's been a pleasure speaking
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: with you. The album Story's Destiny is out September fourth,
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: and she's a cracker, all full on guitar driven album made.
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: I really enjoyed it, so best of luck.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: Thanks Chris, it was a pleasure talking to you.