Interview: Wacht
Tell us about your latest release: the main concept; what fans should expect; what were/are your goals with it:
“La mort” is, as the name suggests, a concept album about death. The song are sung in the Romansh language and undermine the atmosphere I connect to the place I grew up, the mountains, nature and of course death. Wacht is not a goal-oriented band, neither do we care what “fans” are expecting. Inspiration led us to a Piano/Vocals only album, and this is what we have recorded. Who are we to stand in the way of our visions? We think that this album – even without any Black Metal instruments – contains the very same essence as all our work in the past.
Did you have a specific sound in mind when you formed the band, or did that grow and evolve as you played together?
Well if you take five minutes to listen through our discography this question seems rather silly. Of course we have a specific sound in mind before we record a release. And of course this has evolved very much over the years. I am very bored of all those bands that record the same album over and over again. There is only a handful of artists that can pull this off. All the others are just lacking inspiration.
How does your writing process normally work out?
We take our instruments and record songs. We take our pens and write lyrics. We fail a hundred times to succeed six and half times. How else can it work?
What are your ambitions and how far do you want to push your band?
My main ambition is to create art. It may sound like a cliché but I really don’t care about promotion, distribution and all the other effects a band can have. To be honest I am struggling with it as we speak, hence giving an interview about promotion.
Regarding the musical style and lyrical direction, however we want to evolve the band constantly. A Piano/Vocals only album is not a strange thing for me. It fits into our Black Metal-oriented discography. Who knows what the future will bring. As a person that is bored very quickly, I am open to any sort of change. As long as it keeps the authenticity of what we truly are, as humans.
What are your influences/musical references and the impact those same influences had in your sound?
I won’t name any bands at this point as I am opposed to the nowadays “dick sucking” social media mentality. The ones that inspired us can be heard in our music. But music is not the only inspiration there is. My interests cover many different topics like religion, art and psychology. At the moment my fascination brought me to horology, let’s see what there is tomorrow.
What’s next for you?
Wacht is currently recording a new Black Metal EP. We have been working on this since a few years but things got complicated. I hope to finish this project in 2020. After that, I want to record a new album, but I don’t know how and what it will turn out to be.