One of the coolest Thrash Metal bands is back on top with the (re) release of Open All Night – Reloaded, now in DVD. We caught up with extrovert singer Gerre who spoke about the release, the band’s current situation and, of course, the World Cup.

Open All Night- Reloaded was released again with a concert in Wacken in 2007, plus 3 videoclipes and outtakes as a bonus. Please tell us about the process of putting this material together.
The DVD contains the Open All Night – video released in ‘90 on VHS and our appearance at the Rock Hard Festival in 2007. The hardest work we had was watching the tons of outtakes and choosing the best outta them. The concert of east-Berlin in ‘90 is original, so we didn’t have to work on that, we wanted to keep it very authentic. The concert at the Rock Hard Festival of 2007 was produced by Mario Stahn, with whom we worked together for the last two video clips “The Beauty and the Beer” and “Stay Thirsty”.

How has the feedback to this DVD been so far?
The reactions were quite good but how many we sold I really cannot say! The DVD is out now for more than 6 months and we are still really satisfied with the results!

And what about the new CD you’re working on? What can you already tell us?
The title will be Volume 14 and we have 4 songs ready so far! We are really working hard at the moment because we go to the studio in September! For the very first time Michael Mainx will produce a full length Tankard album.

We’ve heard plenty of good reviews on Thirsty. Is the next album going to sound like the last one somehow?
As I told you we’ll be working with a different producer, so I think the sound will be different. Concerning the songs I really can’t say too much, but it will be Tankard of course, old school thrash metal with a modern sound!

There’s already one thing I can be sure about: the lyrics are certainly gonna be about beer, am I right (laughs)?
We always try to do a good mixture of fun stuff and serious topics. Tankard has this kind of beermetal image and we will never get rid of it (laughs). so sometimes we do a parody of this fact and don’t take ourselves too seriously!

You’ve been working together with the same line-up for a long time. Would you say that the current success of the band is somehow related to Andy and Olaf joining it?
This line up is together more than 12 years and I really can’t imagine that one member would leave the band. So we really are friends and have a good time working together and playing live! Andy and Olaf wrote a lot of songs the last couple of albums so they really took their part of responsibility for our success!  

Are you still in touch with the ex-members like Axel Katzmann and Andreas Bulgaropulos?
We don’t have any contact with Axel. But Andreas still helps us with the lyrics, so we have after all those years a very good contact to him! 

Thrash Metal lyrics are usually serious and harsh, carrying a lot of criticism on them. How can you guys create such good-humoured songs within this style of music?
I think this combination of thrash and humour really fits the band. We always had a lot of fun when playing this kind of music, so we started to write such kind of lyrics. But as I told you we always try to do a good mixture of funny stuff and serious topics. It would be boring just to write about funny things!

Would you say that this is the big difference between Tankard and the other bands?
I think it makes Tankard a bit outstanding in relation to other bands, but it is really the thing we love to do!

How did you guys come up with the Idea of recording a video for Forza SGE?
This is our second song for our favourite football club, Entracht Frankfurt. As they started to make a real film on the club, they asked us to do a video clip for that project and we really loved doing it. The song is part of a sampler with different songs about Entracht.

It’s World Cup time. Do you think Germany is gonna win this time, or you have a guess for other teams (don’t say Brazil is gonna be the winner! Be honest!)?
There are some favourites like Argentina, Brazil and Spain, but in the end Italy will do it again, and I say that not because I’m half Italian (laughs). (side note: the interview was conceived during the first week of the World Cup, so Gerre couldn’t be more wrong!)

I know you’re a soccer lover. Are Tankard gonna be touring during the competition, or you guys intend to be focused on watching the matches?
First of all the activities of the band have absolute priority, if there is time left we are gonna watch football!

Finally, The Meaning Of Life is reaching this year 20 years of existence. Have you considered the possibility of making any concerts playing it live in full or any other kind of celebration?
No there are no plans on that, but we’ll think over to do something special for the band’s 30th anniversary in 2012! Keep thrash!

Luciano Piantonni
photo: Denis Augusto