Vendetta: Back in black

According to Encyclopedia Metallium, there are more than 10 bands called Vendetta. But to a die-hard fan of Teutonic metal like me there is one and only Vendetta, the band that released iconic albums “Go and Live…” and “Brain Damage” back in the 80’s. Earlier this year the quintet released its new effort “Black as Coal” — solid piece of thrash metal — and I contacted singer Mario Vogel to talk about new songs, new members and all that. 

Hello Mario! Congrats with the new album! Let’s go back in 2017, when Vendetta released previous album “The 5th”. Back then you changed two members. First of all, why did Thomas Kraemer and Frank Heller quit? They were in the band for such a long time…

Speaking about Frank and Thomas, the main reason is that everybody in the band has a job and a family. There was no bad blood or something. They wanted to leave the band for personal reasons which they did. Thomas Kraemer is the uncle of Dominik, who was in the studio with us for many years, and Jan is his friend. They are now with us for 6 years, and we have great atmosphere within the band. 

I am a bit confused about Jan. On various sources his last name is Schubert, but on the album his last bane is Hüttinger. Is it the same person?

Yes, Jan Schubert and Jan Hüttinger is the same person. He married a while ago and changed his last name. It’s the same Jan like before (laughs). 

Did Dominik and Jan bring some riffs, ideas or arrangements to the new songs? 

Yes, of course. Like I said before, Domi was with us on the studios many times when we recorded previous albums. All songs were written by Klaus Ullrich and Achim “Daxx” Homerlein (Vendetta’s ex-guiarist/singer — editor). But everyone can bring his ideas, opinions or contribute to arrangements. That’s how we work. 

Mario, you and Klaus “Heiner” Ullrich are the two oldest members of the band. Would you call yourselves as leaders who have the last word in every aspect of the band? 

We are a band and we have democracy, so everyone can voice his own opinion. It’s not like me and Klaus decide everything.

Let’s talk about the making of “Black as Coal”. Was the recording process a bit different this time? 

Normally we rehearse in a practice room. This time it was different. The songs started to take their shapes before corona virus. To be honest, I don’t remember which one was written first. I think one of the first was “Stranglehold of Terror”. Daxx was hanging around with us, listening to the songs, and he could share his opinion with us. The recording was different this time. It took a few years to complete the album. Perhaps we could record the album faster, but then came corona. During that time only 2 or 3 of us were able to get in the same studio together. It took some time to mix and master the album as well, because the people we were working with were busy. We also wanted to put out CDs along with colored and regular black LPs, and it also delayed the release.  

Klaus is credited for recording rhythm guitar on the album. Did he record all rhythm parts? Or did he record only additional parts here and there? 

Klaus recorded rhythm parts on “The 5th” and this time he played only bass.  That must be a mistake or some kind of misinformation. Klaus writes songs on guitar, he know how to handle this instrument, but on this album he recorded only bass. 

I love guitar solos on the album. How did Michael "Opf" Opfermann and Jan Hüttinger work on them? Did they play equal amount of solos? 

I really don’t know exactly, but it was Jan who played most of the solos. We had one guest guitarist — check out the booklet for details. 

As far as I understand, the song “Black as Coal” was written way back in the 90’s. Why did you decide to use it only now? Did you rework it a bit? 

Yes, you are correct. I have loved this song for years. And yes, we changed it a bit. We changed the lyrics to avoid problems with the words. It’s not typical Vendetta song, but it’s really great.

Some other songs which were written in the late 90’s (“Rise for Revolution”, “Dead People are Cool”, “Hate”) were recorded in 2007. But what about “Powerheart”, “Rip Your Face”, “Framed” and “Human Waste”? Will you release them in any form? 

I don’t know. We have so many songs and riffs. Actually we have enough material for another album.  But I can’t tell you which old songs we will record next time. It works like this: you write a song and as the time goes by it sounds better. 

A lot of the songs on the album are about war, refuges and social injustice. Was it something that came out naturally, or was it done on purpose? 

Well, nearly every song of Vendetta is critical about society. It comes from every day’s life, from things that happen to everyone, about what is going on during the time when our albums come out. Our songs reflect our thoughts about current situation in the world. 

Now let’s talk in details about certain songs off the album. In “No Hands But A Gun” you use German lyrics, probably for the first time in the bands history. Why did you decide to give it a try? 

(Laughs) When I was recording my vocal parts in the studio, we realized that the song was a bit longer. We decided that I would sing some weird German words in the end, which I did. We all laughed, but Heiner listened to the song 2 or 3 times and said, “This is good! Let’s do it with proper lyrics which fit to the songs”. So it just happened, it wasn’t planned. 

“AK-47” is a true ode to this machine gun. Why did you pick up especially this weapon? And who in the band is into this stuff like weapons and other military things? 

No one of us is into weapons. This song was Daxx idea. He said it is the most common weapon in the world that has been used in many revolutions, by terrorists and all that. Everyone knows what AK-47 is. So that was an inspiration for Daxx to write these lyrics. We don’t promote this weapon, we just show things like they are.  

I love the lyrics of “Cheap Death” which is against consumer society. But what shall we do? Is there a way to solve this situation? 

I think we can’t change this situation. We just have so many people on the planet, and that’s all. We have no idea how to change it, we are not politicians or scientists, but the problem is there. When I was in school there were 4 billions of people on the planet. Right now it’s 8 billion, and within the next 30 years there will be probably 11 or 12 billion. And everyone want to eat, everyone want mobile phone, drive cars. So we have to change something, but nobody knows how to.  

Was there a real story or a real person which inspired you to write the lyrics for “Beast In Her Eyes”? 

I’d say it’s not about certain person. There are a lot of examples of women who can destroy man’s reputation with only one sentence. And sometimes there are no documents  or evidences which prove the guilt of this man, it’s just an article in a paper or a rumor, and this man is dead to society. So literally any woman can say, “Kosta touched me yesterday!” What’s then? You are in the same situation as we describe in this song. Some people blame others, “He told me this because I am black”, and that’s enough to get you in trouble, your reputation is fucked up, perhaps for nothing.  

So, the album is released. What’s next? Do you have some scheduled shows in support of “Black as Coal”? 

No, not really. To be honest, I am diagnosed with cancer and need to go through rehabilitation. Within next weeks we will see if that works. That’s why we cannot play live this year and had to postope all shows until next year. 

Get well soon, Mario! A lot of bands celebrate anniversaries of their classic albums by playing them in their entirety or playing special reunion shows. Have you ever discussed anything like that? 

We are not that band that brings an album every year. We are not in the mood to celebrate something. We will do this only when we will feel that it’s time to do something special. I wouldn’t say no to this opportunity, but right now there is nothing like that in the works. 

“Black as Coal” and “The 5th” are classic thrash metal albums, while “Hate” and “Feed the Extermination” had more modern approach to metal. How do you see those albums in hindsight? Some fans didn’t like them. Do you feel that those albums didn’t get the recognition they deserved? 

Of course, there are different opinions. I really love “Hate” but this album didn’t get a chance to be heard. Our label disappeared right after the album came out, and that was really tough situation for us. Yeah, “Hate” was more modern comparing to the old Vendetta records, but it’s my favorite album. You know, when you play more modern stuff, people complain that you are not old school anymore. And when you play old school stuff, they say you don’t move forward. So we can’t please every fan. To me “Hate” is a really cool album, but it wasn’t promoted like it should be.  

Back in the 90’s Klaus had a band Poke (Product of Kinetic Energy) with Daxx and Andreas Samonil, Vendetta’s original drummer. Any chances that the demo they recorded will be officially reissued as bonus tracks, for example? 

We don’t really know. Maybe in the future someone will release it, but this material wasn’t in Vendetta’s style. As I said before, we had so many songs and riffs. We have some material from 2011 which hasn’t been released. I know it’s a bit too late now to put it out, but it shows how prolific we are. So we have a lot of a new stuff and getting back to this old demo makes no sense, at least at this point. 

And finally what are your last words to round up the interview? 

We thank you for the interview! Greetings to our fans worldwide! We hope to see you on our concerts next year!  

Visit Vendetta's official Facebook page.

Thank you to Mona Miluski (All Noir) for making this interview possible.

Pictures by Uwe Kintopf.