Primal Fear: From Infinity To Beyond

As the saying goes ‘when life gives you lemons, simply make lemonade’, and lead singer Ralf Scheepers did just that in the mid-90s after unsuccessfully auditioning for the recently vacated slot as a singer in JUDAS PRIEST, he decided to put together a band all of his own, namely the power metal band PRIMAL FEAR. A band nearing their 25th anniversary, having been put together in 1997 and celebrating the release of their thirteenth album Metal Commando, we sit down with Scheepers to dig deep into the band’s back story, how the band is coping in the ‘new normal’ of COVID-19 and what the rest of the year looks like for a consistently creative band.

With everything going on in the world in 2020, it’s always interesting to hear from artists and to see how they are coping with the outside world. After all, artists, whether actors or musicians are sometimes put on a pedestal as if nothing will affect them and they are invulnerable. In reality, when a country, the world even, gets locked down it affects everyone. “It’s a bummer, but we are positive people, and the release is about three weeks away at this point. That’s our focus at the moment, doing the press interviews takes our mind off the outside world as well. PRIMAL FEAR is very much a live band though and we live for live music. We miss the festivals and touring in general, lets hope for a more positive 2021. Hopefully, our positivity transfers to our fans!”

With Metal Commando coming out soon we chat with Ralf about the feeling of releasing art out into the world and what emotions that illicit. “Nervous in a good positive way. Even this far into our career we still get nervous over the comments. First of all, we as a band have to be pleased with the material as we live with it so much. We live with the material for weeks and months. Once it’s done we step away from the material and come back into it with a fresher look. It’s incredibly important not to overthink things.”

Creative cycles and recording processes are consistent within PRIMAL FEAR, releasing a new album every two years. “It seems to work in the band. We have five writing members so there is always a creative wellspring of music ready to start. We always seem to have something being written and developed. We are a democratic band, Matt is our producer and he has a final say. The recording of this one was similar to the others, drums were recorded in a big room, all our band members are very experienced at what they do. I record my vocals at home, where I am most comfortable doing that.”

Having started out on famed Nuclear Blast Records back in the 90s and now returning to the famed label for Metal Commando we talk about the working relationship with the label and music labels in general. “We just felt we needed a change of team again. The same thing happens in politics or football. It’s almost the same people as well from way back then, we have nothing against our previous label, Frontiers, but Nuclear Blast are close by here and we can get to them easy.”

Success can mean a lot of things to many people. For some artists, the chart position is important, other sales figures or ticket sales. We talk to Ralph about how he measures success and what it means for him. “Yeah we look at the chart positions in various countries and it’s really interesting to us how each country thinks about PRIMAL FEAR and our music. Success can be something like standing on stage at Wacken and there is nearly 100,000 people in front of you. Yes, they are not just there to see PRIMAL FEAR but it incredible addictive, the adrenaline rush is very special and something to look forward to once we can get back on stage in 2021.”

I Am Alive is the first single off the new record to have a video and we talk about its creation, “we get storyboards from the director and look into that from the director, with the I Am Alive video that was very simple and performance-based. Nothing overly complicated really for that one.”

Finally, we conclude our chat this evening by talking about what the rest of 2020 looks like for the band. “PRIMAL FEAR isn’t really into the live-streamed gigs or the drive-in gigs. We thrive on the interaction between our fans and us on stage, it’s not very metal in our opinion but you never know, never say never!”

Metal Commando is out now via Nuclear Blast Records.

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