Interview by Kris Peters
Twentieth-anniversary milestones are generally accepted as being more a celebration of the past leading into a future of unknowns than a stepping stone on the path to greater success.
The old adage that you have paid your dues after two decades, coupled with the sense of personal achievement in staving off Father Time - albeit temporarily - can be enough to subconsciously force an artist into premature retirement, content with past achievements and notoriety gained.
But not so German metal leaders Powerwolf who have plunged into their twentieth year with one thought on their mind.
Continued worldwide domination.
That drops soon in the form of the band's latest album Wake Up The Wicked (July 26), the highly anticipated successor to the extremely successful previous studio album, Call Of The Wild (2021). Not content to rest on their laurels, Powerwolf have looked to elevate their music to yet another plane, showcasing a different facet of their deft musical and technical skills on album number ten.
HEAVY had the honour of spending some time with guitarist Matthew Greywolf to find out more.
"Absolutely," he affirmed without hesitation when we asked if he was excited about the impending release. "This is an album we wrote when we came back from the US tour, and we tried to deliver this atmosphere, this energy, this power to the album. When we started with the songwriting, the first song we wrote was Bless 'em With the Blade, and for us, it was a little bit like what are we doing here? Do we creating a monster or something like that (laughs). We had this feeling of this is an album full of madness, and this existed for the whole songwriting process and into the recording process. I dunno… I never had that feeling before. I mean, we had this pandemic situation where we wrote Call Of The Wild, and this situation was more feeling like now or never. We can only write new songs because we weren't able to play live. In this case, we had the power from the live appearances."
In the full interview, Greywolf discusses the music side of Wake Up The Wicked, how it showcases different facets of Powerwolf's sound, how it differs musically from Call Of The Wild, the temptation to rehash an albums winning formula for the next release, the single 1589 and its amazing music video, using Joost Van Den Brock as producer and what he brings to the band's sound, if fresh sounding music gets easier or harder to come up with the more you write, their upcoming tour and more.