With over a decade behind them, Germany’s Rising Insane are on the cusp of releasing their fourth album, Wildfires. An album that sees them incorporating more influences and diversity into their metalcore base. We spoke with guitarist Sven Polizuk to discuss the band’s evolution, categorizing the band’s sound, stable line-up, and what they have gained from touring, amid some other topics.
Dead Rhetoric: Wildfires is your fourth album. How do you feel that you have changed as a band over these four releases?
Sven Polizuk: We as a band or as individuals, I would say that we changed quite a lot over the years, especially since the last album since with the albums before we had a focus on trying to be really heavy and have these brutal breakdowns in the metalcore way…it’s not that brutal if you compare them to say, death metal. We matured a little bit when we were writing the new record, and we asked ourselves what we could do to improve the music or see what we would like to do with the music.
When I started writing the new album, I got to a point where I had a problem that I didn’t like the music that I was writing some years before. So I tried to move it into a different direction and have a more uplifting aspect to the music. We tried to make some easier songs and made it more uplifting. If you are going to a concert, you can jump to it. It’s not that fast anymore.
Dead Rhetoric: So do you feel that this change was something that occurred naturally with age? Like you are getting older with your interests and want to go to different places?
Polizuk:I don’t know if its based on age, but I think it’s based on the passage that you go on when you are writing music by yourself. At a different point, you are always looking for something special. You don’t want to be that band that is copying another band. So I am always trying and aiming for things that are more special and new. It’s always a small path that you have to walk on, since you have this fanbase that expects certain things from you, then you need to put something extra on it, then you are getting afraid because of the situation. I wouldn’t say that it’s an age thing, but it’s more of a trial and error thing.
You have to develop and if you aren’t going to develop, then you are going to be a band…and there’s no offense in it, but like Metallica. They have been doing it for quite a long while now, and that gets more difficult as the years pass. Everything is changing so fast, I would say it’s a little bit of how society is changing, since everything changes so fast. It also has to do with what you are listening to at that point, which bands…is it the kind of music that you were listening to when you were 20 or is it now more or less something like more rock than metal. That’s part of the path as well.
Dead Rhetoric: I get that. I know my musical preferences have changed over the years. I used to listen to a lot of straight-up death metal. Now I’m more interested in other types of music. You just can’t keep playing the same thing over and over too.
Polizuk: No, and if you are going to write something and be inspired by something, if you are always listening to, for example, In Flames or Dark Tranquillity or Soilwork, then you are going to be that Swedish death metal guy. But that isn’t the way it works. I’d love to, because I love their music, but that’s now how it works. You have to be open-minded and listen to a lot of different works and bands. That’s the point of development.
Dead Rhetoric: How do you all describe the music you make? It doesn’t seem to fit into a nice, simple little category in listening to Wildfires.
Polizuk: Wildfires, for us, is a record that we took all the weight down from our shoulders and really tried to do something new that we always wanted to do. It’s more of that uplifting character. We were always really focused on lyrics that were about mental health, and when we started writing the lyrics, we found ourselves struggling a bit because everything that we wrote for new music was not good enough. It took a while until we got to the point where we decided to not go for the typical metal lyrics and tried different things. We would try a synthesizer or different chord progressions.
Also, on the vocal lines, and the lyrics…everything is quite new but it’s still Rising Insane. There are also some things that we just tested. Like “Monster,” which was just released today. It’s a song that we had big discussions about whether we would release it or not. Now it has a single because we felt good about it.
Dead Rhetoric: How much weight do you put on the emotion of each song, in comparison to say, the musical composition?
Polizuk: I think we always put 100% in anything we do. Whether it’s the music or the lyrics or anything else. There won’t be a release where we aren’t 100% satisfied about the results and message in it. Even if the message changed a bit from taking care of the mental health bit, it’s still aiming for it in a different way because it’s more or less about not thinking so much what people think and just to do it. It’s about not thinking too much about what can or will happen, and just do it. I would say that is the main message on the record.
Dead Rhetoric: The band has been around for over 10 years at this point, without much in the realm of line-up changes that I could find. Is that correct?
Polizuk: In the very beginning we had a different guitar player, but yeah, then it was me [laughs]! I think it was in 2012 or 2013 and that was the only change. Then we were quite stable. Obviously we are also five best friends. We also take care of ourselves privately, outside of the band. We aren’t the type of friends that just get together to make music and rehearse. We hang out, outside of the music. I think that’s what it is about with Rising Insane.
Dead Rhetoric: Nice, because I was going to ask since you don’t see that quite so much nowadays for that period of time. Is that an important piece that it is the five of you?
Polizuk: Yeah, absolutely. We have spoken about it both at shows or when we are just hanging out at a barbeque. About what would happen if one of us was to say that they couldn’t do the band anymore. We have often said that it would be it then. We don’t want to be that band that would continue with a different vocalist, then another one, even though there are a lot of famous bands where this works, but for us, because of the friendship that’s the most important.
Dead Rhetoric: What sort of challenges have you encountered in trying to get Rising Insane off the ground?
Polizuk: I would say that the biggest problem for bands nowadays is that it’s not so much about the music anymore, it’s about social media. It’s about creating content on TikTok or Instagram. Facebook is not the thing anymore, but we are kind of struggling with all of that to be honest. When we started to make music it was just about picking up a guitar, making a riff, having a good time and maybe drinking a beer. That’s the romantic thing that you are loving as a teenager when you see those old documentations about bands like Led Zeppelin or AC/DC or Black Sabbath. It’s about the rock and roll, but it’s not actually.
This is something that we are really struggling with. We do our best to do it the best we can, but sometimes it’s really difficult to be that guy – that TikTok style, I’m not into those things and it makes it hard. It’s easy for us to play shows and to make videos and make great pictures of it, and to make that content, but I think people nowadays expect to be entertained. They want to see something and have a great feeling about it, and it’s difficult, really.
Dead Rhetoric: I was talking to another band recently that in addition to their band, they were also a YouTuber as well. That was something that they had felt too, that it’s not really just about playing the music anymore. You almost have to sell yourself as a product.
Polizuk: Exactly! These are all of the discussions that we have had when we are talking to the label. It’s okay, and I understand that on the product side, it makes sense to me. But on the other hand, we started to make music and that’s what we love. That’s what we will continue to do in the future. But the content is difficult. You have to get into a role that you probably don’t like. We are going to meet each other someday and are going to try to make new content for TikTok and all these things and we are a band that has to do particular meetings for it just to get our asses up to make that, it’s really hard, honestly [laughs].
Dead Rhetoric: You re-signed with Long Branch Records. What’s your working relationship like with them? Obviously it must be going pretty well to get you to do that.
Polizuk: Manuel is a really great guy, he’s our artist relations manager and the CEO of Long Branch. First of all, he’s a really nice guy. It’s more or less kind of a friendship. We had the feeling in the past when we were changing the label that at the end everything was fine. We just thought that our relationship with Long Branch in the past has been more of a friendship thing and we really started to recognize that we wanted to get them back. So we asked if we could get back to them and here we are. It’s really a friendship thing, honestly. If we have some discussions about the product, or that sort of thing, it’s always about us feeling good about it and getting into the alignment about it.
Dead Rhetoric: You’ve been doing a lot of touring, what do you feel you have gained from it?
Polizuk: Touring is always getting new experiences and getting better at everything. To get better, or I don’t know about getting better, but it’s about living these kind of days with people that you don’t know so much and you have to deal with them and be open-minded about it. It’s quite a curious thing. Even playing in front of more and more people, you are going to recognize more things, like what they really like or what was the show like and could it be any better. You are growing with each show and tour that you are on and going to play. I would say that each tour is going to make you better, especially in a good situation where you are growing.
In the last two years, when we compare those shows to before COVID to now, everything is bigger and better and the shows are. On the last tour we played there was a lot of sold out shows, and the tour that we are going to play at the end of the year in connection to the new record, the sales have been good, so it’s all about growing. I would definitely say that is something you can take with you. You can also speak with the fans too, it’s quite fun for us.
Dead Rhetoric: What are your thoughts on the current German metalcore/modern metal scene?
Polizuk: For me, I really like it. I like bands like Annisokay. We are good friends with them. We have toured with them in the past. For me, the bands on the level that we are playing with are quite stable, but in Germany it got quite difficult for newer bands doing what we did 10 years ago, in making music and writing and just playing shows, it has gotten more difficult in the past few years since COVID. Honestly, we have quite a lot of good core bands in Germany. It’s a good and stable scene.
Dead Rhetoric: In terms of yourself or the band, do you have any major goals or bucket list type things you’d like to accomplish?
Polizuk: Yeah, you aren’t making this type of music if you don’t have any aim for it. The aim is to play bigger festivals like Wacken or Summer Breeze. These are the festivals that every band wants to play on their bucket list. We would like to have a big headlining tour with the capacity of about 1,000 people would be great. Those are the aims we have. But at the end of the day, it’s just about the music.
To get to that point where we are growing and people are enjoying what you are doing – I remember ten years ago it was fine to play one show, then it turned into more. It kept growing because we continued to do what we are doing. So you should have aims, like bigger shows or festivals, but also look back at what you have done in the past and see your aims in the beginning and to then align those goals. To keep your feet on the ground, that’s important.
Dead Rhetoric: What’s next for Rising Insane for the rest of this year and next?
Polizuk: We have a release tour in the fall, which is a bit later than the planned release, but it has to do with that in Germany you don’t have bigger tours in September, it’s getting into the colder season and you have to get back into the venues again. It makes more sense for us. That’s what we are planning. We might plan for some more music at the end of this year or early next year. These days, it’s quite important to have the release of music because of Spotify and those things. If you don’t release anything, you are going to disappear. It’s difficult but you have to do it.
Dead Rhetoric: So is the September lull related to the end of the summer festivals?
Polizuk: Yeah, I think that the last festivals are the beginning of September, but then there is some kind of a vacation, if you can really call it that, for the bands, but we have about 25 degrees [Celcius] in Germany so the typical touring begins in October/November/December. I think a lot of people are on vacation at the end of September since it’s the end of summer, but yeah that’s just it.