Running Wild: Uder Jolly Roger

 Note: this interview was done in 2017

In 1987 Running Wild released “Under Jolly Roger”, the album that changed everything not only for them but for the whole metal scene. It helped the band to find its own image and stand out against the crowd of groups who sang about Satan. Years later all sorts of folk, heavy, power, death and God knows what else bands adopted piratic image too. Anyway, Running Wild managed to record an outstanding album which sounds exciting and fresh three decades later. Majk Moti (guitar) and Stefan Boriss (bass) remember the making of this gem.

Can you recall anything about songwriting process for the album? Did you play any of those songs live before "Under Jolly Roger" was released to test the waters so to say? Did you rehearse a lot and went to the studio well prepared?

Stefan: I can`t really remember the songwriting for that album. Maybe because of the fact that all songs were written by Rolf, and Majk only added some parts of the lyrics. As far as I remember, we never played new songs until they were released. In that time we were already professional in terms of the time we spent for the music, but not the money we earned. So at that time we were rehearsing 5 days a week.
Majk: At the time Rolf did all the song writing and was heavily shielded by the manager so no, I didn’t have much insight into the songwriting, hence no recall of the actual writing, and songs I had ideas for would be rejected because they didn’t sound “Running Wild” enough. I was, however, involved in the lyrics writing. We didn’t play any songs live before the album was released (we did so with “Ready for Boarding” though).

"Under Jolly Roger" shows that the band grew up in terms of songwriting. What caused this change? Was it because of Majk or were there other reasons?

Stefan: I think it was the grown experience that developed the advance in songwriting.
Majk: I’m not sure that it had much to do with me, although I made suggestions. At the time, I was the only one in the band with actual knowledge about music theory (Rolf didn’t even know the names of the strings on the guitar), and tried to convey some of the concepts, mostly by discussing things, and sometime by adding some “flavour” to Rolf’s rather plain style. By this I mean e.g. he was using only pure power chords (base and fifth) and avoided 3rds like the plague, while I liked to work with suspended fourths and stuff like that.

You were known as big partiers. Can you recall anything funny about those parties which still makes you laugh? Didn't those parties affect your work in the studio?

Stefan: To be honest, we were not partying while we were in the studio. That was always a pretty serious time. Vice versa to the touring time!
Majk: If with “you” you mean the band, then yes, there was a lot of partying going on (although it was mostly drinking). I’ve never been a great drinker and was fonder of other things. These days I don’t drink any alcohol anymore. It didn’t have much effect on the recording, although I remember an event where I was too stoned to play metal and would rather play in a blues band — next day all was back to normal though.

Rolf's vocals also improved on the album. Did he take any singing lessons at that time or was it Dirk Steffens who made Rolf sing as best as he could?

Stefan: At that time Hasche and I tried hard to convince Rolf to work on the sound and the vocals. We wanted to get it a little more melodic without losing the power. But that`s the big problem with Rolf. He wasn`t (isn`t?) able to change his opinion in front of others. Means, he always insisted on his old singing, but changed it a bit.
Majk: The entire band was interested in more sophisticated singing, and Rolf agreed and took some lessons and practiced a lot more before we even started work on the new record. This didn’t come without its problems though — a voice can be a volatile thing and so Rolf was plagued with throat infections and such things until he had trained himself enough. Rolf had started the training long before we even met Dirk Steffens, so no, he had nothing to do with it.

What are your personal favorites from the album both from a musician's and a metalhead’s points of view? Would you say that this album became your finest hour as a musician?

Stefan: My favorites are “Raise Your Fist” and “Land Of Ice”. It was my last and the best of the three albums so far, so it is definitely my personal highlight. I don`t know all following albums of RW, but as far as I know them, the first one I really like is the last one.
Majk: I don’t have favorites as far as the songs are concerned. Maybe “Raise Your Fist”, but then I didn’t exactly appreciate the schoolboy approach that Rolf preferred. I wouldn’t say that this album was our finest hour as musicians (“Death Or Glory” — that’s an entirely different kettle of fish, that was my finest hour). I personally didn’t like the time in the studio, didn’t like the sound of the studio and unfortunately that carried on until “Death Or Glory”, where for the first time there was a competent sound engineer (Jan Nemec) who also understood the musicians and the genre and had the personality and the means to inspire us. All the other engineers before that only pissed me off, to be honest (except for the live LP, and guess who was the engineer on that one? Right: Jan Nemec).

This album also shows the new image of Running Wild. Did you feel like you outgrew that satanic image and lyrical concept which were there on the first two albums?

Stefan: The satanic image became more and more popular and was used by more and more bands, so we were thinking of something else.
Majk: I can only speak for myself, and when I joined the band, I didn’t care one bit about all that satanic stuff. I wasn’t worried either, but would have preferred a less narrow approach when it came to lyrics. We talked about it quite a bit and it turned out that no one in the band was married to the concept. Parts of it came from Preacher anyway, who was studying theology at the time and had a good grasp of the occult which the rest of the band didn’t have. Now that Preacher was gone, the theoretical underbelly of the whole thing was gone and it would have been quite shallow to carry on. Suited me just fine.

Who came up with the idea of this piratical image? Did you know from the beginning that it coul bring the band new fans and attention from press or was it just a crazy idea and everyone said, "Why not?"

Stefan:  As far as I remember Rolf came up with the idea after he saw “Pirates of the Caribbean" and we liked the idea. We just wanted to differ from other bands. Our lyrics never were satanic as the lyrics from other bands like for example Venom. Our lyrics always were political and or social engaged. We kept that also after the change of the image. The change was not caused by economical thoughts, but sure you always want to gain new fans.
Majk: Kind of the latter. Again, I speak for myself of course. Rolf came up with the idea and the rest of the band was really like: “Yeah, why not?” It conveys the inherent non-conformism of metal quite nicely.

By the way, did such bands like Kiss, The Sweet or Slade have any influence on your image?

Stefan: We were not influenced by Sweet and Slade in particular. Influencing bands were Kiss, Judas Priest, early Iron Maiden, W.A.S.P.
Majk: For Rolf it surely was Kiss, I know that first hand. I didn’t like Kiss at all (still don’t), but used to like The Sweet and Slade when I was a teen. I personally was more influenced by Deep Purple.

What was your idea with that sticker which warns listeners about loud sound effects. Wasn't it a bit naive in your opinion?

Stefan: The sticker was a joke. Making fun out of these “Parental Guidance” stickers. Though in these times speakers weren`t as good as today and the gun sounds were separated from stereo system test recording.
Majk: Absolutely; that was a marketing thing and I didn’t like that at all — came across as a bit preposterous for me. On the other hand, it was a bit tongue in cheek anyway. It wasn’t even true, but when is marketing ever concerned with truth?

Did you pay attention to the lyrical content of the songs? Did you experience something like in the song "Raise Your Fist"? Were your parents supportive about your musical career?

Stefan: We always took the writing of lyrics for serious. We always tried to express a little bit more then “I wanna rock you!” “Raise Your Fist” is like an early version “We weren`t born to follow” from an unknown US Band. Don`t follow stupid ideas, stand up for your thoughts, wishes and opinion. “Land of Ice” is a warning of nuclear arming and “Merciless Game” is absolutely up-to-date if you look to East Africa, claiming that the industrial states do not care about hunger! My parents supported my idea of being a musician or better, they didn`t really did anything against.
Majk: Well, I had my hands in the lyrics of “Raise Your Fist” — or let’s say I had the opportunity to prevent Rolf from going full schoolboy on that one and improve his English a bit along the way. The song certainly reflects Rolf’s experience; I would never have come up with a theme like that.
You must understand where we both were coming from: Rolf has been a metal fan all his life and that was his chosen way and he was kind of single minded about this. He didn’t have a lot of experience in the real world, whereas I became a police officer when I was 17 and worked as such for 6 years before I quit and turned to full time music. There is a world of difference in experience; add to that my being a couple of years older than the rest of the band and there’s a world of difference in perception as well. In my personal case, it was my real father who supported my playing guitar while my stepfather tried to make sure it never happened. Fortunately, he disappeared out of my life when I was fourteen, and once that had happened, I was the man in the house and did what I wanted — play guitar, and I didn’t care what my mother thought about that.

By the way, tell me please about the recoding of this famous intro "Ship ahoy!" Where did you take cannons samples?

Stefan: The intro was sampled out of music sound tracks and sound recordings.
Majk: At the time, one could buy all kinds of sound samples. I’m sure we’ve used one of those in the studio. The voiceover was done by Rolf.

How was it to work with Dirk Steffens? Did you feel that after the first two albums you need a proper producer? Was it Dirk who recommended you Accept's drummer tech who helped you to tune your drums in the studio?

Stefan: We took Dirk as a producer because we liked the work he did with Accept. About the drum technician I have no idea!
Majk: As I’ve mentioned before, I didn’t like the time in the studio, and frankly, I didn’t like Dirk Steffens much either. Don’t even know why, I just remember that I always felt rather uncomfortable around Dirk. Another point I didn’t like was that decisions were made by the manager and not discussed — which eventually gave way to firing the manager. Anyway, the drum technician was sorted out by management and I didn’t have a say in any of that and didn’t know the background. A fact I didn’t appreciate at all.

Rolf was described many times as a dictator. Would you agree with that? How would you describe the atmosphere in the band at that time?

Stefan: Rolf wasn’t dictator, he was more a silent ruler who was not really accepting other opinions or could not admit that they were acceptable. The mood was always good! We were different characters: Hasche and me were very extroverted, partying and chasing girls, Rolf was were introverted living with his parents, watching videos and playing guitar and Majk was in-between. So everybody was different but we were friends and a band, or at least that’s what Hasche and I thought!
Majk: I wouldn’t call it that. Rolf as a person is a rather decent man and I can’t say anything particularly bad about him. I’ve always quite liked him personally, and for a brief time, we were even friends (and I have a rather narrow view about being a friend — so it takes a lot to become my friend). We’ve usually shared a hotel room when money was scarce and used to talk a lot; so, I can say that for a time I was very close to Rolf. I believe that part of what people call “dictator” is based on insecurity and the desire to control his life. Add to that the fact that Running Wild is literally Rolf’s life, it is kind of understandable that he wants to have control about that, which may have gotten out of hand a little. How one goes about those things has a lot to do with social skills and frankly, Rolf didn’t have any, plain and simple.

Stefan, you were one of the founding members of Running Wild and quit the band just before the band became really popular. Did you feel bad about it?

Stefan: Hasche and I didn`t quit!!! We were fired. 50% fired 50%! While we were playing a show in Copenhagen the termination was laying in our postboxes. They didn`t have the balls to say it eye to eye. Hasche and I were absolutely shocked and couldn’t understand. I must admit I wasn`t the best bass player but had a good stage appearance. Hasche was a very good drummer. I think the reason was that Hasche and I tried to change the music a bit more melodic (this Rolf did on the following albums) and we were too extroverted and took too much starlight away from Rolf!

Majk, why did you and Rolf decide to fire Hasche and Stephan? Did you think they weren’t good enough as musicians?

Majk: At the time, I wasn’t asked about deciding. It was decided between Rolf and our manager (Thorsten Hanl), and only after the decision had been made, I was asked what I think about it. The reason was indeed a lack of musicality. For instance, Stephan was and probably still is a very decent person and had the good looks and could rip off a good show, his only problem was that he couldn’t play bass. Not really anyway. Hasche was a decent enough drummer but struggled a little with double bass, which is a bit of a problem when you play metal based on a lot of double bass drum. Rolf as a diehard metal fan, was also worried because in their private life they mostly heard nonmetal (as did I, by the way, but nobody knew). Personally, I regretted the split to an extent because I really liked both a lot personally. Musically it was the right decision though.

“Metal Hammer” gave the album very harsh review and ranked it only 2 of 5. Why was that in your opinion? Was the album received better in fanzines and by fans?

Stefan: The third album is always the most difficult: The first one was written during ages and the best of these ages, the second (after the good first one) is always treasured and does normally is not getting bad critics. The third album is most critical watched. Journalists think they know what a band has to do. Some said RW sounds too much the same, the others claimed RW changed too much. I`m sure it is a matter of expectation!!! And in general: there are no bad critics, as long as there are critics! The fans liked the album and they were better than bad critics.
Majk: Well, it seems people don’t like change too much. We had changed from the satanic metal underdog to a pirate metal band, a concept unheard of until then. I think they just didn’t know what to make of it and decided that they had rather do us another record of the same stuff we’d done before — that way we would easily fall into the dedicated category for underdog metal, but now they actually had to listen and to make up their mind. Although I believe it was in no small part down to the behavior of our manager, who must at one point have decided he needed to adopt American business practices and behave as though he were the manager of Kiss themselves. That didn’t go over very well with the press, and who could blame them? What would you say to a relative newcomer band which barely sells 30.000 records per album and their manager behaves as though they’re selling millions? I would have been miffed too, so I don’t blame them for using the only effective arrow they have in their quiver: Their reviews. Revenge is sweet at times. It was much worse with e.g. “Rock Hard”, who hated our guts until we fired our manager and I had a personal talk with them about what happened. That was an eye-opener, I can tell you. We didn’t have the faintest idea what was going on behind our backs.

Did you tour a lot in support of this album? How can you describe your live shows at that time? Were there any accidents when something went off its way?

Stefan: I only played 1 maybe 2 shows before the „divorce". So nothing I can say about that.
Majk: We did a regular tour as we did after every album. We did some promotional stuff in England and the band sent me to London to meet Metal Hammer London because of my fluent English and my love for the English culture, but that was very unpleasant and close to downright insulting, so I just left and never talked to those guys again. I remember vividly at least one incident with the “loud sound effects”. Contrary to the record, on stage it was actually really really loud.  Somehow we got our hands on so called “Maroons”, which could be compared to fireworks stuff used to greet the new year (or to shy away the demons lol), but much stronger. They were even illegal in Germany. However, we had a certified pyro technician who took care of these things. We manufactured four huge short tubes made of 5mm high density steel with a steel plate at the bottom and a mesh on top to prevent stuff from flying around and to keep the explosion contained. Pretty safe, and all 4 of them were positioned under the drum riser. The problem arose when a wiring error ignited all four of them at once. The drum riser fulfilled its promise and rose the drums, approximately 15 cm. Hasche almost fell off his seat, the drum set all but collapsed, while I couldn’t stop laughing and had tears running down my face, all that in the middle of the show. That was really funny, although Hasche didn’t agree entirely.

How do you view this album today? Is it something you are proud of and speak about with your friends, colleagues etc.? Do you consider this album as a milestone of heavy metal?

Majk: With my friends and colleagues, I don’t talk about this at all. I’m a senior software developer and dev team lead and only very rarely questions come up about my time as a professional musician. Keep in mind that I’m almost 60 years old now and those 5 years with Running Wild are just slightly more than 8 % of my life experience. An important and particularly intense part, for sure, but still just a fraction of what it means to be me. I have moved from Germany to England 7 years ago; my friends here don’t know much about my past anyway — at best they are aware that I’ve done that some 35 years ago but that doesn’t have any bearing on my current life anymore.
Stefan: I always was and am proud of all my recordings with RW. These three albums were authentic, raw and powerful. The mood of a band was recorded on these albums and I never heard that on following ones until „Rapid Foray" I was out of the music scene for more than 20 years (I was always a listening Rock and Heavy Metal but didn`t care about the music scene) About ten years ago I met Hasche again and we had a long night about old times and Hasche told me how important these first 3 albums were for the development of Heavy Metal in Germany and Europe. A few facts about me. My live was and is still Rock`n`Roll. I moved 19 times, maried and divorced 3 times, still support Heavy Metal, as I give chef lessons during the Wacken Fesival in favor to the Wacken Foundation and partying a lot!