We sat down at the backstage area to have a little chat with Gloryhammer. Unfortunately, it was shortly after their show at Metal Days had to be cancelled because of the heavy rain and wind that was starting to wet the stage. Nevertheless, Thomas Winkler and Ben Turk were great hosts. And Fiona was there ☺
Thomas to Fiona: Your job is really boring?
Fiona: What??
Emira: Noooo, they have walkie talkies!!!
Thomas: We should have walkie-talkies on stage to ☺
Ben: IT would help me to talk to you. “Remember the words, Tom?”
Thomas: Yeah, “remember the words?”, or “don’t forget your microphone – paging Tom, don’t forget your microphone…again”!
We kind of wanted to start the interview with other stuff but now we just have to ask how was your show ☺ ? (everyone LOL’s)
Tom: Not so wet anymore ☺
Ben: It was wet.
Tom: Yeah, wet and different.
Ben: It was a lot more interesting than if the band before us got rained off and we had to play after that. At least it was dramatic.
And you can say that you’re the ones who actually arranged it. “It was all planned” ☺
Ben: Yeah, we destroyed everything ☺
We wanted to ask about your characters. How did they come to life? Did you guys just think of your own characters or was it a cooperation?
Ben: It’s a combination. Sometimes people thought of things, sometimes it got imposed on them. I think in generally that are not that different from our real life selves. Everyone seems to be pretty happy with their roles, Paul is quite the barbarian in real life also, Tom is probably the full heartiest person I know who can step up in his role and perform the way he does.
Tom: I always ask myself why I’m doing this! But I enjoy it a lot, especially at shows like this.
When it rains a lot?
Tom: Yes, something new.
Ben: Well, no one died, no one got electrocuted.
Tom: I’m still waiting for that ☺. I love playing in shows like this when something happens you don’t expect.
You always have a good guy and a bad guy on stage?
Ben: At least one bad guy.
Tom: We’re all bad guys but we play different roles ☺. No really, I’m actually quite a good guy. I’m the prince obviously; we have the evil wizard and the mysterious…
Ben: No one really knows why I’m there ☺. Even in the story, no one knows why I’m there, I guess I solve in plot holes. If something doesn’t work I just come in and change everything and that keeps the narrative flowing properly.
Tom: (talking to Fiona) Would you like to be the princess on stage for the next show?
Fiona: Of course ☺
But who’s going to win the princess? The good guy or the bad guy?
Tom: A good question. First, we had one where the good guy wins. Yaaay. Then on the next one everyone lost, even the bad guy.
There is a lot of sci-fi and fantasy references in your work. Are you guys sci-fi and fantasy fans?
Ben: I think we’re all fans. We’re all lots of different things stolen from different places. I mean the first album was almost like Lord of The Rings – beginners version.
Tom: Yeah. Lord of the Rings lite. The second one was obviously more spacy , more Star Wars like.
Ben: More confusing, definitely more confusing.
When are you going to do a Doctor Who version?
Tom: Funny you’ve mentioned it, we thought about it recently.
Ben: But everything we say could change tomorrow. Generally, the way it works is we think we know what’s going on but then someone gets an idea and everything changes.
Tom: Exactly, every time we meet things change. This is very confusing for me ☺
When you first started your band was very shortly called Glory Hole. Why did you change it?
Ben: Not for very long.
Tom: I wasn’t in the band then.
Ben: It was just one of Chris’s joke bands. We just thought that people might get the wrong impression. But Glory Hammer is more generic power metal. Out of the power metal lucky dip of expressions.
Tom: And the name was free online ☺
Ben: Amazing that no one ever thought of this completely obvious combination of words in power metal.
Have you guys ever been to Croatia?
Tom: I’ve been to Croatia, not with the band, but on vacation.
When can we expect Glory Hammer in Croatia?
Tom: Maybe on a festival or something like that. You never know.
PS. Fiona is our beloved PR that was organizing the interviews and helping us all the time. Thnx Fiona!
