There I was sitting on the hill of Sabaton Open Air Festival. When this amazing band walks up on me. Lagerstein had arrived! I am surprised that almost the whole band was there. Because we all know these guys know how to party! And I bet they had a heavy night. I interviewed: Captain Gregarrr (CG), The Majestic Beast (TMB) and Mother Junkst (MJ).

GRIMM: How was the trip to the Festival for you guys? 

TMB: Fairly easy. We just got stopped at the border to control our passport. But you know you got a van full with people so it is normal. Maybe the van is the problem. It is from the Czech Republic.  But it is just full of stuff. It is absolutely cramped to the brim with heaps of people. So they wonder like: What are you guys doing? 

GRIMM: So today is a big day? I saw something appear on Facebook. Could you tell me some more about it? 

MJ: Yeah, we released a new cover from Men at Work – ‘Down Under’. We recorded this back in April at studio FREDMAN in Sweden. With the rest of our album which gets released next week! I don’t know this song kind of came about.

TMB: Everyone was saying: You just should cover this song. Cover ‘Down Under’, cover ‘Down Under’… We always tried to add covers to our album.We had our first one ‘I’m On a Boat’. Then we had ‘Fliegerlied’. A German pie song and then this year we put it out to the crowd and asked: What do you want to hear? There was an overwhelming response for ‘Down Under’! Do you know the song and did you hear our cover? 

GRIMM: I know the song but unfortunately I was not able to listen to the song yet. 

TMB: It has been crazy. We love festival season and go and join campsite parties and meeting as much people as possible. Nine times out of ten people are like: Oh, you guys are from Australia do you know this song? And from there it was like: Ok, now we definitely have to do the song. So we expect it to be received pretty well. 

GRIMM: And can we expect something tonight? Maybe the new song? 

MJ: We won’t be playing it tonight, but definetely in our upcoming headlining tour. We have another 40 shows in Europe to play. And this is the last one with our old setlist. When our album drops next week we are going to play heaps of our new songs. 

GRIMM: It is not so long before the new album drops then. 

Seven days! Seven days. We are very excited for the release. 

GRIMM: So the countdown has really begun now? 

Yeah, very much so! 

GRIMM: How do you think the fans will react? Are you afraid it won’t be taken well? 

MJ: There are always nerves releasing music, but also for me personal I am very proud of what we did and excited for opinions. But in general, I am really confident that they will love it! I feel like this is the strongest material we ever have written. It is very us and it is very Lagerstein. I don’t think anyone will listen to this and wonder. What is going on here? But there are a lot of new elements in it. And there are a lot of elements in it which or band stands for. Fun, parties, pirates and silliness. That is the reason I think people come to our music in the first place.

TMB: I like to think that people will say that Lagerstein has taken the same classic Lagerstein sound but made it better. It sits well in the catalog area.

CG: Everybody is pretty positive right now. And I am excited to get it out in the world. 

For more about their show at Wacken and other goodies about playing live, go to the next page…