A metal mecca for mainland Europe, Germany has maintained a strong presence in a variety of subgenres to keep the movement alive and thriving. Especially in terms of traditional, power metal-oriented outfits – of which we have here for Turbokill. Their sophomore album Champion elevates their abilities in all directions – stronger vocal harmonies, great guitar hooks / lead breaks, steady bass/drum support, and this overall dynamic atmosphere of what’s possible when you pour your heart and soul into your craft. We got the chance to speak to guitarist Daniel Kanzler about the thought process and work behind the new record, the input Freedom Call bassist Lars Rettkowitz had into shaping the record in his studio, the special narrative sequences in their video for “Go Your Way”, favorite records / concert memories, the importance of live performances to the growth of the band, and what’s in store over the next year or so.
Dead Rhetoric: Champion is the second studio album for Turbokill, released almost five years after your debut Vice World. How do you feel the songwriting and recording sessions went for this set of material? Where do you see the differences between the two records?
Daniel Kanzler: That’s a good question. Five years is a long time. We had a good run after the release of Vice World. We had great shows, and we were scheduled to go on tour with our mates from Freedom Call, but then in the beginning of 2020 the COVID-19 pandemic hit like a truck, and every ability to play live was postponed being rescheduled far, far ahead in the future. That was quite a shock for every one of us. We had some amazing gigs, and we wanted to go out and play Vice World for the people. We were so inspired and had so much fire, and all of a sudden things came to a standstill. That was really depressing for us.
We weren’t allowed to meet. We weren’t allowed to rehearse. When we write our songs, they are created in the rehearsal room. We need to be together to make this magic happen. You have a riff; someone clicks in, and you advance things. All of that was missing. That was a hard time for us. Ronny (Schuster) and me, we are the main songwriters, so we wrote music at home, but it didn’t feel quite the same. You haven’t got the possibility to play it for the guys. You can’t play it together. For the songwriting process, it was not the best time. We gathered a lot of ideas during that time. In the middle of 2021, the restrictions were taken down, we were able to meet once again and play. We took that opportunity and made the best out of it. We wrote more songs, went on tour with our masks on, it was a crazy time. We were awoken from our slumber.
We went on tour, got a new drummer, and in 2022 we had the chance to work with a guy Karl-Ulrich Walterbach, our manager. He’s the former manager of Helloween, Running Wild, the boss of Noise Records. He was in charge of all the stuff with Stephan our singer’s first band, Alpha Tiger. They were a big underground heavy metal band. Working with him fueled our fire once again. He told us we had been out in the scene for three or four years, write an album as fast as possible. Show the world you are still there. That positive pressure made us write songs like in a week. We rehearsed almost every week, and we are from five different cities in Germany. Everyone has to drive about one to two hours to get to the rehearsal space. For you Americans, that’s nothing (laughs). A wide area, but for us it’s a lot. We didn’t care, we wrote songs, we rehearsed, we played.
We’ve evolved a lot. We have our sound that we established with our first album. We asked ourselves: where we can go from there? What else is within us that we can show the world? So, that was our approach to the songwriting this time. We have all the top trademarks on Champion. Fast, headbangers like the first song “A Million Ways” or “Wings of the Thunder Hawk”, we have the mid-tempo, heavy metal cliché songs like “Sons of the Storm” and “Power Punch”, we even entered the realm of power ballads with “Shine On”. We just wanted to make the music that we feel. We didn’t have something in mind like writing a record that Helloween would do, or Judas Priest would do. We write what comes to our minds. Let’s not think of any role model. There are a big variety of songs on this album, and I’m really glad about the outcome. I think we have developed stylistically a lot with these songs.
Dead Rhetoric: What was it like working with Lars Rettkowitz of Freedom Call in Emperial Sound Studio – were there any specific aspects or elements that he helped shape up in the studio that were key to achieving what you wanted sonically or through the performances?
Kanzler: Oh yes. Lars was a big help. We did all the vocal recordings at his studio, and he was a guide for Stephan. When you record it for yourselves you think it’s great – you record things, then pass it on to the mixer. If you have a coach or supervisor who says maybe that part was great, but maybe that could be sung a little different here – let’s try it out. Lars thought it was great to bring in a choir with a lot of people singing in the background. We did it all ourselves on the first album, but this time we had really trained singers, and they did an amazing job on the background choir stuff. It sounds really amazing to my ears. That was his biggest influence. He said the songs were great – maybe add a little synthesizer here, like in the intro of the title track “Champion”. It gave our sound the final shape.
He did a great job also when it came to the mixing process. It was clear for us we wanted the heavy, hard sounding guitars but also to sound modern. It’s 2024, you can’t sound like Venom, 1984, you know? I still love that (sound), but times they are changing.
Dead Rhetoric: Does this mean there will be more work behind the scenes with other band members to recreate a lot of these background vocal parts live from the record?
Kanzler: We have to rehearse this a lot. Our drummer Kevin (Käferstein) is a trained singer as well – can sing almost as high as Stephan. He’s doing the doubling in the higher voices, and Ronny and me are doing the deep, almost Accept-like background vocal stuff. This takes a lot of rehearsal time to get it all together. We want to perform this on stage as best as possible. We don’t want to take no prisoners – give the audience the best experience they can have. I agree it will be a huge part of our rehearsal process.
Dead Rhetoric: Outside of the normal performance video clips you’ve made for the singles on this record, you have a special narrative theme going across “Go Your Way”. What can you tell me about the video treatment for this song – is it autobiographical in nature with the lyrical theme, and how did you decide on the location and extra elements for this special video?
Kanzler: Yes, the whole album deals a lot with positivity. We started writing the album during the COVID-19 times, and there was always bad news, everywhere you looked around. Wars, pandemic, economic crisis. We thought we had to change that. We don’t want to sing about war, the deep state or something that thousands of other bands do. Let’s go in the other direction. Let’s talk about being yourself in this cruel world and making the best out of yourself. The song “Go Your Way” was created in one week. It was a very fast songwriting process; Stephan wrote the lyrics. It’s not about himself or anyone he knows. It’s about someone who wants to break from the golden cage that has ordered his life. You have your nine to five job, and you don’t follow your dreams because you have no time after work to do something for yourself, and not for a boss you work for. That was our call to arms for freedom – get out there, go your way, do what you want.
Let’s do a video for this – what could it contain. What’s a symbol for freedom? An open highway, a great landscape. An amazing car that we rented, this 1960’s Ford Mustang. Drove it in the landscape of Saxony. What was really cool was the child at the end of the video, it’s Stephan’s son. You can see it, how they interact, and it was such a lovely scene. We shot a lot of scenes, and then we had to decide what we were going to include in the video. That was so cute and wholesome, to put it in – we are a metal band, a power metal band, we just did it. We felt this was right, the symbol for freedom, being yourself, going on your own way. No matter the obstacles in your way – just go your way. Be your own champion, that was our message behind that.
Dead Rhetoric: I felt it was a great video. A lot of metal bands go in one direction, without showcasing their personalities. I enjoy this personal side – you are serious about your craft, but it is acceptable to show other sides of who you are as people…
Kanzler: I totally agree. I thank you. The response from the video has been amazing. We get messages about it all the time, and it shows us that we made the right choices.
Dead Rhetoric: How did your tour with Sintage and Fireborn go earlier this year? How would you describe what the band’s live performances and outlook is like compared to what they experience through the recordings?
Kanzler: The tour was simply amazing. It was in January; it was freezing cold in Germany. We did a lot of rehearsals for that tour. It was our first headline tour, let’s show the world what we are capable for. We had a lot of live gigs in the past, but on a tour it’s different. You have to rely on everybody – not only people on the stage, but off stage too. That was the thing that impressed me the most. We were on point and accurate on everything, with the planning, we drove through all of Germany, from the north to the south, east to the west. And that takes a lot of planning and organization. I’m proud of that. The other bands as well – Sintage and Fireborn are now friends, they were very professional. A lot of people were at every show – even on a Sunday afternoon, will there be 10 or 20 people? We had over 70 people for a Sunday, Germans are couch potatoes too when it comes to their Sundays (laughs). The people are coming to see us, and we are about to announce a great package on the next tour as well. It will be in winter as well for December 2024- January 2025, ten to fifteen shows. We are preparing the stage set for it.
There will be new elements. The stage design, a new banner and in the background, the colors of Champion – a deep purple style. We will have new side scrims, a new stage wardrobe, of course a new setlist. We can finally be able to go out and play new songs. We like to do a cover song in the set – in the past we’ve done “Painkiller” by Judas Priest, or “The Sentinel” from Judas Priest. We did “I Want Out” by Helloween, our latest one is “Black Wind, Fire and Steel” by Manowar. It makes the people go crazy at every show.
Dead Rhetoric: What would you consider three of the most important metal albums that shaped your outlook and love for the genre the most? And what’s your most memorable concert memory, attending a show as a fan in the audience – and what made this such a standout moment for you?
Kanzler: The albums for me personally that shaped me, gave me the will to grab a guitar and go out there to play. In third place, it would be Deep Purple – Perfect Strangers. Ritchie Blackmore is my big guitar hero. I saw him when I was 17 years old on DVD, Come Hell or High Water. What’s that guy doing there, with his fingers flying across the guitar, it looks so easy. His whole ability made me grab the guitar, I was 16, twenty years ago now. From that day forward I was obsessed, I played sometimes ten hours a day practicing in my room. In the number two (position), I think I must say it’s Accept – Balls to the Wall. That’s one of my other great guitar heroes from the old days, Wolf Hoffmann. I know him personally as well, he’s such a nice gentleman. I was in contact with him when Accept reunited in 2010, and what was so great for me is he sent me an email and said, ‘look Daniel, it’s been so many years since the last reunion shows – what do you think could be a song that a diehard Accept fan would like to hear on a reunion tour?’. I said, there’s only one answer to that – “Aiming High” from Russian Roulette. And guess what, they played it the whole tour, it was so amazing. My number one all-time favorite is Defenders of the Faith – Judas Priest. It’s my most beloved album, it only has hits on it. “Rock Hard, Ride Free”, “Jawbreaker”, “The Sentinel”, “Night Comes Down”, the title track.
The most memorable concert I attended as a fan was my first Judas Priest gig. It was in 2005. I have the poster behind me, the 11th of March in 2005. It was their reunion tour, and I was 17. I skipped school that day, Priest was more important for me. I went there with friends and my dad; it was an awesome time for this. I stood there front row, KK Downing and Glenn Tipton walk to the middle of the stage and played the intro for “Victim of Changes”, and that was it. I had to be a musician, I have to get better, I want a band. That was such a great moment that I will cherish forever.
Dead Rhetoric: Where would you like to see the following of Turbokill over the next three to five years as a band? What factors are most important in your view to elevate your following?
Kanzler: I think the most important thing to develop to grow your audience as a band is to play live. There are so many bands out there nowadays, you must stand out from the whole bunch with your live shows. You have to make the people think that you are amazing – let’s go to the next show of theirs, let’s listen to their music. Going out there, playing for the fans, being nice to them. They are the people who pay you, we have a booking agency that came with the management, and they are about to schedule a festival tour for the next summer. It’s so important to have a good partner in that area. As a band, you can write to the festivals and say you are amazing, but if you have a booking agency that says something, that’s a big difference. That will be the main thing for us to grow.
We have already started writing songs again for the next album. It won’t be a five-year span to the next album, we promise. To have material ready, and maybe then choose from a pool of songs for a new album and not only write twelve songs and take them. That’s our goal for the next one to three years.
Dead Rhetoric: What would surprise people to learn about Daniel the person away from what you do and have achieved as a musician?
Kanzler: Well, because I’m looking in my kitchen right now, I’ll have friends over tonight – I love to cook. I love to play music, but I also like to cook – I’ll be making a special Greek recipe. My friends really like to come over here and taste my food. That would be the most surprising thing about me – when you see me wearing leather and all my guitars, you would think I’m a guitar nerd. I live in the middle of Germany with a great landscape, a lot of forests and lakes so I like to hike here. I love being outside, it’s a great contrast to sitting in your room and playing the guitar.
Dead Rhetoric: What’s on the agenda for anything related to Turbokill over the next twelve months as far as promotion, shows, and other activities?
Kanzler: We want to play a lot of shows in the next year. We are in contact with a lot of festivals for the next year. Festival season usually starts in Europe in May. We didn’t play live a lot this year, we wanted to take the time to write these songs and make them ready to record the album, shoot the videos. If you have live gigs on the weekends, the time isn’t enough. Next year we will play hopefully at least 25 shows, play Champion to the world. We want to play abroad as well. Our booking agent said he wants us to play outside of Germany, to get more attention and some new fans. To promote Champion all over Europe, and hopefully come to the United States and play for you guys. We would gather a lot of fans there – they like the European power metal style as well.