von Pete Devine vom 24. Januar 2024
Interview with Julius Albe, guitar player with Sanity and Pete Devine of Pete’s Rock News and Views (https://petesrocknewsandviews.com)
PD: How would you describe yourself or your band as an artist?
JA: What connects us as a band is our love for metal and our faith in Jesus. And both of that shows in our art: the heavy music drawing from many metal subgenres and the biblical lyrics. This bonds us beyond just the music: we are friends making music together and we are brothers in Christ serving our king – using the power of metal.
PD: Can you tell us briefly about your background – i.e. where you’re from, how you came to make music, etc.
JA: So, we are all from Germany; from Berlin and its vicinity. The older among us have still experienced a divided Germany and of course musical influences that reach further back. I myself grew up in a Brandenburgian village in a united Germany. I make music because I started learning classical guitar when I was 14 and naturally was interested in guitar driven music – and I grew to love the distorted guitar sounds of metal.. the heavy riffs, the blistering solos. That’s what I love most and that’s what I want to create when I play.
PD: Who and what inspires you to make music, both in terms of musical and other influences? What do you like to write about in your songs?
JA: Playing guitar was something I could identify with in my angsty teenage years. So, there is always something of that inspiring me to play, you know, that feeling of nailing a hard part, even making it look easy, that feeling of superiority is ecstatic to me. Musically, our influences are quite diverse. Florian and Philipp are deeply rooted in black and death metal, Silas in black and symphonic metal. I come from progressive and thrash metal, my biggest influences being Dream Theater and Megadeth. But being in Sanity made me fall in love with death metal, too, and I am very grateful for that.. Death is a personal favourite of Flo, Philipp and me.
I already mentioned that we have biblical lyrics, and our latest releases are all based around the apocalyptic messages of the Revelation by John. We love to write about those nasty passages because they are so fitting to the music we love.
PD: What are your aspirations as an artist?
JA: We want to write and produce great music, music that we are happy with, that sounds good and that is respected in the metal community. And we want to play live to people who enjoy or music. We are aspiring to enhance both of that: write more and better music and play more live to more people. We are hungry for more. If I had to pinpoint a certain aspiration, I would say playing in front of 1000 people as a small aspiration and playing a tour as a support act for a bigger band or even a tour of our own is a big dream of ours. Me personally I aspire to becoming a better guitarist and musician. I want to write good songs and I want my guitar to sound great.
PD: What is the proudest moment in your music career so far?
JA: That has to be the Nuremberg ‘Kirchentag’ (=day of Church) 2023 at which we played for hundreds of people and had a great time as Sanity and with the people at the two shows we played. This ties in with our aspirations.
PD: Promoting one’s music is such a challenge these days, especially with so many new artists emerging from bedrooms in the day of the home studio. How is that going?
JA: So far, so good. As we released new music last year, we started promoting that music. So far, we have spread our name in metal magazines and online radio. At the moment it feels like throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks … exciting but uncertain.
PD: And how do you book and promote your live shows and tours? Any performances coming up?
JA: On March the 2nd we will release our upcoming EP ‘The Beast’ and we will play a record release gig in Berlin, see our website https://www.sanity.berlin/en for details.
PD: What do you think about downloading music online? What about streaming sites like Spotify?
JA: The age of Internet music brings with itself possibilities and challenges. I think it’s great, that you can listen to any music you want within seconds and don’t have to spend fortunes on music. As with anything digital, this tends to make music more short lived, more of a quick consummation than a lasting enjoyment but still that’s in the hands (or ears) of the consumer. I myself enjoy my CDs, but the majority of the music I listen to is digital downloads. But I can still enjoy that, nonetheless. None of that beats going to a live show for me though, that’s a musical experience that no recorded medium has reached (yet? We’ll see what the future holds).
PD: What song do you wish you’d written and why?
JA: I wish I had written ‘Octavarium’ (Dream Theater). It’s their Magnum Opus (in my opinion) and is a song that overwhelmed me from the day I discovered it and still does. It keeps me on the edge for its entire 20+ minutes of runtime and it’s such a rewarding listen. Writing a song like that must be magical, writing the individual parts and tying them together in a meaningful manner so it’s a coherent song and not an amalgamation of different songs frankensteined into one long song.
PD: Is there anything you don’t like about the music industry, which you would change if you could?
JA: I have very little experience in the industry, so my take is a bit vague. To me it seems very hard to get a foothold in the industry as an upcoming band. I understand many of the reasons for that, but if I could change that I would. I bet there is a lot of people who would love our music but might never hear about us. Similarly, I would probably love a lot of bands, that I’ll just never get the chance of listening to. It’s tragic but what can you do?
PD: So, what are you working on at the moment?
JA: We are working on lots of stuff. Florian and Philipp are working on re-releasing old Sanity albums from the late 90ies. We all are working on learning the songs perfectly for our live gigs. And I personally love to work on new songs for the next albums and EPs we’ll release. I, actually, have two in the works right now and I’ll even give you the working title of one: its ‘Burial Refused’ and visitors of our live show on March 2ndmay or may not have the chance to hear it there for the first time.
PD: Where can we learn more about you and buy your music/merch online?
JA: The official music videos for “Seals” and “Throne” were just released. Check them out on YouTube.
And this is how you find us online:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sanity.berlin
Bandcamp: https://sanityberlin.bandcamp.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sanity.berlin
Streaming Site Links
Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/sanity/1546091708
