Melodic death metal may have risen to global acclaim because of the Scandinavian scene in the 90s, but there were other quality bands from that movement beyond those countries. German act Night In Gales as a prime example continues strong currently through their ninth studio album Shadowreaper. Aggressive riffing, solid songwriting, plus the added catchy, melodic nuances that keep the material fresh and sharp, it seems like there’s no stopping the quintet in their aim for high quality releases. We got the chance to speak to guitarist Jens Basten about their burst of output as of late, the great relationship with Apostasy Records, what it’s like having an older brother to influence his tastes in metal as well as a fellow guitarist in the group, highlights of their career, what’s going with Gloryful and SubOrbital his other bands, as well as family life and future plans.
Dead Rhetoric: In a previous talk with the site promoting the Dawnlight Garden album, you mention that Night In Gales was in a good place with a good label and a good reputation in the scene. Does this positive chemistry/outlook help contribute to the quicker productivity of the group when it comes to studio records – as your latest album Shadowreaper is the third new record over the past five years?
Jens Basten: Yes, and it’s already the fourth when you include The Last Sunsets from 2018. That is a lot of albums in a relatively short period of time. It’s the label, it’s a friendly relationship, and it’s a small label. It’s just the owner that totally supports this style of music. There isn’t a lot of money in it, so it’s totally from the heart that he is doing this. He’s earning money with other business stuff in the metal scene, but not at the label. His wife supports things from the marketing side, and packaging all the mail order stuff.
If it wasn’t for this label, I do not know if the band would still be going today. The bigger labels would not be interested in us, because we are not a touring band. Twenty years ago, we were a touring band, but now our lives it’s a different situation. We have jobs, we have families, you can no longer tour your ass off anymore. We have very good luck; we met him in 2017. Since then, it’s fun again, and fun to do album after album. We have heard good things from the press and from the fans. Without that, I wouldn’t be here. Everybody needs some love from somewhere.
Dead Rhetoric: What was it like for you to reconnect with Christian Müller, the original vocalist of Night in Gales – had you always kept in touch, and was he excited to rejoin the band?
Jens Basten: Yes, that’s a great story indeed. Christian and I met in school, we were the only death metal followers back then in 1991. We formed a two-man band called Tombstone, (in the) early death metal style. Then it was Intestinal Ulcer, after that we played some early doom/death metal. We formed Night in Gales with the new lineup, Christian came in again. One and a half years later, Nuclear Blast signed us after the demo, but then he quit – because he had a career after school in mind. School, university, and then a career in management – and he made it. We made rock and roll for twenty years, we had our jobs, degrees. We lost the eye of each other, but we met occasionally at concerts, even though we weren’t close anymore.
As Björn left, we had the idea of looking for Christian. Tobias, our bassist, had more contact with him at the time, and within one week it was clear in 2017 that he accepted coming back into the band. I then set out to write the comeback album The Last Sunsets, because I knew how it should sound. If you know who is going to sing on the record, you can start writing. He just had one agreement with us – he couldn’t play as much live anymore. That’s the same with some of the other members as well. It was clear we will play maybe five or ten gigs a year, and that was going to be clear to the label that signed us. Now he is asking for the next record, he’s hot for the next one (laughs).
Dead Rhetoric: Where do you see Shadowreaper sitting in the catalog of Night In Gales discography? What aspects did you want to emphasize this time around in terms of the songwriting, production, tones, or performances?
Basten: The last three records before this were with the same lineup, the same cover artist Costin Chioreanu, and with the same producer to mix and master Dan Swanö. And I had the thought to change something – we wanted to change the artist and the mix/mastering duties. We want to keep things interesting for us, and for the followers. Let’s see what happens. That was experimental. I wanted things to be a little more unconventional, and away from the standard songwriting. Turn back to 2018 with The Last Sunsets – where we tried back then to sound like 1995 as people who were in their teenage years. To keep this fresh thing going again, and we’ve lost a little bit of that step with the last three albums. Things were sounding more perfect, clearer, and transparent. We want to get back to more harsh, aggressive, and a more surprising album. Let the people not get tired of us, and we are not ourselves.
I can say now, we got the word that we are Album of the Month in Rock Hard magazine, one of the biggest German metal magazines. We have never reached that position in our thirty years as a band. It’s a big thing for us. So, I think we did something right.
Dead Rhetoric: Obviously with the way that modern recording technology has changed things for musicians to record things easier on your own, is it much harder to balance when to say when as far as the songwriting and performances being complete compared to the old days being on the clock in bigger studios?
Basten: Yes, of course, those times were totally different. One thing is the time. We would spend two to three weeks in a studio 600 kilometers from here, or even in a forest to do a record that didn’t turn out good, or was expensive. Now we have a smaller budget, but all the time we want, do the recordings in the basement of my home studio. We only have to record the drums somewhere in a professional studio. We can send all the stuff to the mixing guy, and three or four days later you can get the first mix back of the first song. He’s doing that on his own. Fredrik Nordström in the past, he never would ask us how we should sound – he just started, and it was good. There was no communication. Back in the day in the big studios, you know the stories.
About the songwriting, there is something I miss. I remember sitting down with a tape recorder and recording the first rhythm guitar with a metronome. Maybe a simple mechanic metronome, recording the first idea. Then I would play it and try to put down a lead guitar part. Maybe the same second steps I do with Cubase now. Now a song can be ready in one hour if I am inspired, if it’s a good hour. Back then, it was more magical. You had to be more creative, there weren’t as many systems. A lot of the music today, you don’t have as many time changes unless you are a progressive or technical death metal band.
Back in the day, the song “Razor” from Towards the Twilight, we recorded in 1996 on the Razor EP, that had many breaks and so many riffs and tempo changes. That’s totally gone. It’s hard to imitate if you are sitting in front of a desktop computer. It’s not always bad. I like the records that we produce. Maybe one day if I am bored with it, we will step back and try things again the old way. It’s possible.
Dead Rhetoric: How would you assess the workload between yourself and your brother Frank when it comes to guitar parts, lead breaks, etc. within the band? Where do you see the strengths and differences between your abilities at this instrument?
Basten: Nowadays I write all of the parts myself, especially since the last couple of albums. Frank was more involved in the Nuclear Blast albums, especially Thunderbeast and Nailwork. On last year’s record The Black Stream Frank helped with two of the songs, he had some chord progressions and some chorus lines. I am very thankful for that and that he was able to contribute in this way. I find that I make most of the parts – it’s just what works for us.
The thing with my brother is back in the day, it was a typical brother thing. You love each other but you can hate each other. There were some situations we had in the rehearsal room with fighting, arguments. It was not nice, and all the other (members) had to listen to it. It’s normal if you have a brother who is in the same band. I am so proud of it – we are brothers who have been together in the band for almost thirty years. We have kept the same lineup, starting as friends, and we never let the business rip us apart.
Dead Rhetoric: Italian artist Paolo Girardi did the cover for Shadowreaper – he’s worked with Manilla Road, Power Trip, Revocation, and numerous others in the metal realm. What was the process like working with him – and do you still see cover art as being important in gaining insight into what listeners can expect from an album in today’s scene compared to its importance during the pre-internet era of the 70s, 80s, and 90s?
Basten: It was very great to work with him. It wasn’t the same process as working with Costa, he didn’t need as many guidelines before starting the process. He would only ask for the song, lyrics, a rough mix. He wants to be inspired and then he lets out what he was seeing. Very interesting for me, when he came up with the Dawnlight Garden cover, which I like very much. Paolo was different – he asked for a mock up that I would make from hand on paper. I made it in five minutes, what I had in mind, the basic idea. The Shadowreaper, the towers of towards the twilight, and a river of souls into the black stream. He was fine, and I told him about the color scheme that I wanted to happen. I got the blue sky, the black and white scheme, and he drew things exactly the way that I wanted it. I love his work.
When 80% of the people are listening to things on Spotify, the single cover that you get from streaming is the first thing you see. So even that is important now. The graphic guy asks if he should do single pieces from the main cover artwork. Album covers as a result are more important – it still helps sell albums. Not everyone is thinking about this so much. Bands don’t want to spend as much money on good artists anymore. If you do, you have an advantage to stand out from the masses. I believe in it. I’m an old school heavy metal guy. I like my vinyl; I love a big cover art piece. And I think there are many people out there who still think the same way.
Dead Rhetoric: What do you consider some of the career highlights with Night In Gales – specific albums, tours, festival appearances, or other activities where you knew you were making an impact on the scene with your work?
Basten: Milestones in our career. In retrospect, I’m proud of it. We are one of the first bands not coming out of Scandinavia with this sound. We signed with Nuclear Blast very early right after that first demo. Now we are one of the old bands (laughs). We are one of the originals doing things the way it used to be. Back in the day, it was totally different – we were told we were a copy of all those Swedish bands. It was hard to do the marketing for it. Now it’s totally the opposite. There has been a change.
The EP we pushed out in 1995 called Sylphlike. It was done on CD, and we included some video footage live from the studio. We ended up selling and trading 7,000 copies of this. I’m proud of this. We discovered the whole underground scene back then – the internet was close on the door. The debut album from 1997 Towards the Twilight for Nuclear Blast, it was such a big move for us. We had a lot of records in our collections from that record label, we were invited to the big parties, tours and festivals. We saw a lot of things, met all of our idols. Shared the stage with the big ones. Such a good time in our career.
Dead Rhetoric: What has been going on with Gloryful and SubOrbital as of late? How do you separate your time/energy between all these acts?
Basten: Gloryful is actually not going right now. Johnny Bomba, the singer, and a good friend of mine, left the band. It started with him during the corona years that he left, something changed in his mind to do this anymore. I have a lot to do now with Night in Gales, so that’s okay. Maybe we will continue with another singer, time will tell. It was a good thing for me to do something different than melodic death metal. It was a very strong live band; it was fun to reach fans directly who may not have known us. It was rocking every night, we did two tours and had good memories. It was fifteen years. It started as a two-man side project.
SubOrbital did one record on War Anthem Records, we did a few shows. We are writing the next album already. I just talked with the guys an hour ago – let’s arrange things to get this recorded early next year and push it out. That’s just a side project. I don’t want to spend as much time on this as I do on Night in Gales. I don’t want things to be more time-consuming than it is. Efficient by means of going to the basement, I take my guitar, and I write one to three songs directly. The next week three again, and within three weeks you have a record done. Then one-week lyrics, one-week arranging, then tell the drummer to start exercising, in three months we are recording the album. That’s the way I like it. When the day comes where it’s not running like this, then I will think about stopping it.
Dead Rhetoric: Looking back at your life as a musician, what is a pivotal or critical moment that helped shape your musical career?
Basten: In the early years when I was very young in school – my brother was three years older than me. He was giving me all these classic 80s heavy metal records. He had input, so I was raised with heavy metal directly from the beginning. It was very important. There was no other music before – maybe some hard rock on the radio. The most important albums from 1987 I remember were Guns N’ Roses – Appetite for Destruction, to start playing guitar. On the real heavy metal side, Iron Maiden – The Number of the Beast was the first heavy metal record my brother bought. Battle Hymns – Manowar, and the other records followed very close to these albums. Kings of Metal and Fighting the World by Manowar, Somewhere in Time by Iron Maiden, Running Wild, Kreator, Slayer. This whole heavy metal movement of the 1980s is the reason why I make music today. It stays with you. I would start playing guitar, and then when you start writing songs you start realizing you can do this, it’s like riding a bike. You never forget how it works.
It’s not for the money. It’s something you have to do, and you like to do. Like in the beginning.
Dead Rhetoric: What’s left on your bucket list to accomplish – either personally or professionally? How would you assess your level of satisfaction or happiness currently?
Basten: It would be enough for me if (things) would stay for me like it is now. Especially with Night in Gales, we’ve reached the official German album charts two times in a row, and hopefully we will with this new album again. We want to progress in steps here and there. The new things that come from album of the month in Rock Hard – I never expected in thirty years that I would reach that status in my career. Now it’s just there. Maybe we’ve done some little changes. These are surprises that keep us going and keep things worthwhile. The whole band is happy. Five happy guys, that’s why we do this. We are so grateful with Apostasy Records – we have the same connection. It’s like a family where good things happen.
Dead Rhetoric: How have you handled the changes in life as a father? What do you want to teach your child about life that may differ or be similar to how you grew up in childhood?
Basten: I am very happy to be a father for four years. My little daughter has been four since August. I am very lucky with that situation. I try not to teach so much. I can teach her some music. We play the 80s metal channel from last.fm in the kitchen during breakfast. She’s listening to Dio, 80s metal, the classics. We listen to country and alternative – she knows I make music, and the guys in the band. I want to teach her if she wants to play an instrument one day. We don’t force her to play. I’m sure one day she’ll just start playing – I see that she has some talent already to play the drums, she has a good voice. It would make me happy if one day she came up to me and said, ‘Papa – let’s go to the studio and record a song’.
Dead Rhetoric: What’s on the horizon for Night In Gales over the next twelve months as far as activities, or any other musical events in other acts you are involved in that we can look forward to?
Basten: In Night In Gales, we will continue writing music for the next album. Hopefully that may come out next year, but who knows? New projects – I get invitations of course; I don’t have much time anymore between family and my other bands. My wife’s parents and my parents, they are getting older, there is more stuff to do and there will be more in the next years. If I look at my discography, there is quite a lot out there right now. I focus on good releases and not on many releases now over the next years. Try to achieve more with these two bands, especially with Night in Gales. I will make my label boss happy with that.