Beyond The Black: Hope On The Horizon
A band who are climbing the metal ranks, German symphonic metallers BEYOND THE BLACK have gone from strength to strength in recent years. The band were only formed six years ago and have already performed at the likes of Wacken and Nova Rock festivals – a feat not many can boast about. In the meantime, BEYOND THE BLACK are releasing their fourth studio record Hørizøns, and founding vocalist Jennifer Haben admits she is very much looking forward to the album to become available.
“I’m super excited as always! We finished the album at the end of March with everything so we’re just waiting to be to be released. It was scheduled for June originally so thankfully it hasn’t been affected with everything going on at the minute, but because we want to release it internationally and we had a lot of troubles in the past we have to wait two weeks after the release before those who have bought it overseas get their albums. That’s why we finished everything at the end of March and then we’re sure that everyone can get it at the same time.”
While some bands have a certain target when it comes to producing new records about what they want to achieve, Jennifer reveals that BEYOND THE BLACK don’t have any specific aspirations for Hørizøns.
“There’s not really anything we’re particularly looking to achieve with the album – we just wanted to make some more music for the people! I think what we really can see in this period of time that we are in right now is that we did the right thing to choose lyrics that are so much more hopeful than what we had before. We always had a spark of hope somewhere in the lyrics but this changed a bit to more positive things. I think this is super important right now to have positive things in our minds and to not go crazy at home, and I think when this comes out there are a lot of songs that could help people – I hope that this will happen.”
As we have already touched on BEYOND THE BLACK have had some huge moments in the early stages of their career, and Jennifer reflects on how she and the band have grown since their formation. “I’m surprised of every step that we had, but not really like, ‘Oh, I never thought we could reach that’, because I know that we’re not a bad band. I think we are good and we do our own things, but you have to have luck and you have to have a good team around you. These are all things that it’s not normal to have them when you’re good; there are so many bands out there that are really good and don’t have enough luck and can’t come and get a lot of fans. I know every step is super, I’m super thankful of every step and it started successful as well when you think about the first show that we did at Wacken.”
“This is something that I know about, how it can become successful, because I had a great team before we became BEYOND THE BLACK. I created that team four years before I started BEYOND THE BLACK, I was in the music business before as I had another band and I got to know a lot of people. If you’re a small band and you don’t have anyone in the music business that could give you the power to start very, very high and big then this is super difficult. But we had the luck to have these people around us from the first time that believed in us so I think this is also one thing that is super important for our history of BEYOND THE BLACK and all of what came after was because of that first step.”
While Wacken has ultimately been a highlight for the band, they have performed alongside a number of big bands across the world and are scheduled to co-headline alongside AMARANTHE later this year – dependant on the global situation, but if the tour does go ahead Jennifer cannot contain her excitement for it.
“I think this will be amazing! I know that they are super big in other countries that we are not that big, and in Germany and Switzerland and Austria we can do a lot of big locations as well because last year I did this big German TV show so we have a lot of attention here. I think this will be really an amazing fit because AMARANTHE has a bit of a younger crowd, but not too young, and we have a bit of an older crowd, but not too old, so I think we could really get something out of it. We really like each other and have a good balance which is something that I’m really looking forward to and is super important for me as well. To see if we understood each other before we co-headlined together we did some shows with them in Finland – four shows. Elize is really funny, I really enjoyed working with her because she’s a bit chaotic and also super funny and I really love that!”
How do you feel the new album compares to your previous work?
Jennifer: It’s a bit different than what we did in the past; before, we did a lot of symphonic stuff and we changed a bit in the sound with less symphonic and a bit more electronic stuff. I think this is something that we really wanted to change – not that we wanted to not do symphonic anymore, but we knew that we wanted to have one special thing that we wanted to add to our songs and our music. We found out what we were listening to on tour and we wanted to have something that everyone is listening to.
What were the writing and recording processes like?
Jennifer: We started writing songs in summer last year, and we had like six months to just try things out, just write songs, just do whatever we wanted to do and this was super important for this album, because we knew we wanted to change something. We had a lot of time to do that and to try things out, so we recorded in the beginning of this year, and we were finished in March.
Is there anything in particular which has helped influence any of the tracks on the record?
Jennifer: It’s a match of changing personally and changing over what happened during the last years, and also what we’re listening to right now that is different to what we were listening to a few years. I think that things like being on tour with WITHIN TEMPTATION and stuff like that also influenced us a bit, and I think all of this you can hear on the album.
Are there any bands you try to take inspiration from when it comes to song writing and sound?
Jennifer: There are a lot of bands that we listen to but there’s no band that we say ‘okay we want to sound like them’ because this doesn’t make sense. We listened to bands like EVANESCENCE for the first albums a lot and also of course WITHIN TEMPTATION, but also other bands like FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH and BRING ME THE HORIZON. This is all stuff that we really love, so because we love it we’re inspired by them as well.
And as a vocalist who are the ones you get the most aspiration from?
Jennifer: When I was super young, I always liked super powerful women’s voices like Whitney Houston of course, and all the big women. Now I really love the voice of Hayley Williams from PARAMORE, and when it comes to male vocalist it’s Freddie Mercury of course. He’s my hero in male voices so I’m still working on some things that he does – but it’s far away from what he did!
How do you feel the symphonic metal genre has evolved over the years?
Jennifer: To be honest, I don’t really look a lot at how it is changing because I focus so much on what we are doing and how we want to change and how we can still be unique. I’m not sure what was before BEYOND THE BLACK in that genre because I came very late to that to that kind of music, to be honest. What I could see is that there are still these bands like NIGHTWISH, WITHIN TEMPTATIONJennifer: EPICA and a few others like AMARANTHE of course and DELAIN, but there’s not a lot of symphonic metal bands, especially with women in the front that are coming up and staying so this is something that hasn’t changed a lot. I think there are still a lot of small bands but they’re going very fast as well. This is something that I see but maybe we have to be honest with ourselves that everything is changing and that the time where people are buying a lot of CDs is changing, even in the metal community. Metal communities are still buying a lot of CDs but I think they are also finding out slowly that Spotify and other websites are really helpful to find new music and to find all the album’s that they want to hear. I think we have to focus a bit more on stuff like that to maybe create something new.
What does the future have in store for BEYOND THE BLACK?
Jennifer: Well it’s something I can’t really answer because I always try to see the next step not like five steps. When you see this situation right now, we couldn’t really expect that so if you make a five-year plan or something like that now all the five-year planners are over. You have to deal with what comes next. Of course, it makes sense to plan something but most of the time it’s super amazing for me when we don’t expect anything and there are a lot of amazing things coming up and you feel like the luckiest person on earth. This is something that I really enjoy and I hope this will happen more often as well!
Hørizøns is out now via Napalm Records.
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