Page 49 - Sick Drummer Magazine Issue 29 - Hannes Grossmann

Hannes: BeforethisinterviewIwasawarethatyou might ask this question and I really wasn’t sure what to tell, because private stuff should remain private. But since many people have asked me about this and just won’t stop bothering me unless I say something substantial, here’s a more detailed, and probably very controversial answer.The main reason is that I just couldn’t work with Steffen Kummerer anymore. Many people don’t know that I wrote a big part of Obscura’s music; on ‘Omnivium’ let’s say between 60 or 70% of all riffs. I also created structures and arrangements for 8 out of 9 songs. I wrote about half of the previous album “Cosmogenesis” too. For making a song like “Oribital Elements” Steffen sent me like 8 bars of acoustic guitar, I sent back the finished song. That’s how most of our songs were created. Steffen hada big problem with me having so much input. As a founding member he wanted to have equal writing share. To me it’s not so important, the only thing I care about is the quality of the song, no matter who wrote it. And Steffen writing more means less work for me, so I was cool with that. When it finally came down to writing material, Steffen just didn’t deliver much. All he needed to do to be a main songwriter in Obscura was to actually write stuff. But he expected me to throw away entire songs because he wanted to have equal writing share without actually contributing much himself.At this point I realized that there is nothing that I can do to solve our issues. If it becomes a problem who writes the music, there is no point to go on, because you deal with merely ego driven decisions and not musical ones. But I must also admit thatI was ashamed by Steffens live performance too. Often he couldn’t get his own lyrics right, and sometimes he even forgot where to put vocals and which riff is next and he played very sloppy too. Maybe it’s because Steffen didn’t arrange any of the vocal lines on ‘Omnivium,’ they were done by our producer V. Santura. Steffen just came intothe studio with prose text, not having any rhyme, structure or rhythm. He had no idea how to phrase his lyrics to our songs. So V. Santura sent him homeand just wrote it out for him.You could consider me being unprofessional by telling all of that, and I normally would agree. Steffen presents himself in a weird way these days. He is giving the impression to others that he was and is “the brain” behind Obscura’s success, which is a huge disrespect to Chris an me since we were doing most of the musical work.Hannes: Well,apparentlyI’mnotintouchwith Steffen anymore, but the other two guys Linusand Chris play with me in ALKALOID now, so I’m in touch regularly. I also play on Christian Muenzner’s two solo albums, a new project of him is on the way. And I’m friends with Obscura’s new guitarist Fountainhead, who is a great musician. He plays on my solo album too. Obscura’s new drummer Sebastian Lanser is a good friend of mine with whom I did two drum clinics already. So nothing changed, just a few new band names on the album cover.Hannes: Never say never. Working with Necrophagist opened many doors for me and I’m grateful for that. However it is very unrealistic that I ever get to play with them again. If so, it would have to be on different terms than last time.SDM: WhatledtoyourdeparturefromObscura after the album 2011 Omnivium?SDM: Areyoustillontalkingtermswiththeband members, do you follow how they are doing, or their other projects?SDM: Wouldyoueverconsiderworkingwith Necrophagist again? Have you heard from them recently?49