|
|
  Michael Rensen (Rock Hard) translation by Dr. Jason Breitweg By far our most spontaneous record. The idea for this album was born when Virgin asked us for a kind of "Best of" album to back up the Mr. Sandman single & video, but we didn't like the idea of releasing a "normal" Best of thing at all, so we thought about options. We pretty fast agreed on rearranging some of the old Blind Guardian classics, turning them into accusticversion, using the chance to rerecord Lord of the rings and also adding some more covers of songs that we loved, something that we always liked doing. From the day when we had the idea to do this to the moment when we started recording it was only about 4 or 5 weeks, also the recordings and the mix were very fast, since all this happened in a break that we had during the Imaginations world tour. Of course we never really toured for Forgotten Tales, but we used some chances during the rest of the Imaginations tour to play a few accustic gigs, or at least adding some accustic blocks in in regular shows, in which we played those rearranged classics live in their accustic versions. Marcus Siepen Music and Lyrics: Pat Ballard Published by Edwin H. Morris & Co Recorded and mixed 1995 at Sweet Silence Studios / Danmark by Flemming Rasmussen Produced by Flemming Rasmussen Engineers: Piet Sielck and Flemming Rasmussen Assistant engineer: Henrik Vindeby Effects: Mathias Wiesner Up until nowadays I believe that this song has a very string potential in making people happy. It is an alltime classic and proves that there always has been and will be timeless good music. Though the good atmosphere of this tune is somehow distorted in our version it in the end still is a celebration of life and total fun at the very end. Music: Chuck Berry Lyrics: Brian Wilson Published by Good Tunes Music AG Recorded at Karo Studios and The Twilight Hall / Germany by Piet Sielck Mixed at Central Studio / Germany by Piet Sielck Produced by Piet Sielck and Blind Guardian Engineers: Piet Sielck Piano: Michael Schuren Back. voc: Piet Sielck What to say about such a song? We were young and needed the money and did not care about anyone else was saying about what is politically correct for a metal band to cover and what not. The Beach Boys were a kind of fun punk band of their days and we would have been it if in meanwhile fun punk would not exist, already. Music: Olbrich / Kursch Lyrics: Kursch Published by Warner / Chappel and Musik-Edition Discoton Recorded at Karo Studios and The Twilight Hall by Piet Sielck Mixed at Central Sound Studio / Hamburg by Piet Sielck in 1996 Produced by Piet Sielck and Blind Guardian Engineered by Piet Sielck and Henrik Vindeby Andre's fault for most of it, I would say. I was told to do vocals otherwise I would have been fired the other day. So all in all a money thing, again. Other than that it simply is a beautyful song and for both Andre and me it was a good chance to restructure the song a little in comparison to the rough (luckily) and not completely finished version of the "Imaginations..." album. Music: Kursch / Siepen Lyrics: Kursch Published by Warner / Chappel and Music-Edition Discoton Recorded at The Twilight Hall by Piet Sielck and Henrik Vindeby Mixed at Central Sound Studio / Hamburg by Piet Sielck in 1996 Produced by Piet Sielck and Blind Guardian Effects: Mathias Wiesner According to the fans' reaction live, I would say this version is as good or maybe even better than the original one, which usually is hard to accomplish with such an intimate one. The "I'll keep the ring" part always gives me and I asume everyone else in the band goose-bumps on stage every night we play it. Ken Hensley Published by EMI Publishing Recorded and mixed 1994 at Sweet Silence Studios / Danmark by Flemming Rasmussen Produced by Flemming Rasmussen Organ: Otto Sidenius Acoustic guit.: Jacob Moth Backing vocals: Billy King, Thomas Hackmann, Ronnie Atkins Engineers: Flemming Rasmussen Assistant engineer: Henrik Vindeby Marcus luckily shares my love for Uriah Heep and this song in particular. So we did that one and tried to get as close to the original as possible. Even nowadays I am proud of the result. We all rushed through this song during recording not to lose time for our original composing on "Imaginations...". John Deacon Published by Queen Music Ltd. / EMI Music Publishing Recorded and mixed 1992 at Karo Studios / Germany by Kalle Trapp Produced by Kalle Trapp Engineers: Piet Sielck and Kalle Trapp Piano: Stefan Will Bass: Mathias Wiesner Back. voc.: Rolf Kohler, Billy King Charlie Bauerfeind and I had an argument about coverversions some time ago. I was complaining about a coverversion he had done with one of my favourite Metal bands, who covered a tune of one of my alltime favourite vocalists. I won't say which. I said "you have spoiled the song, sorry to say so." Charlie looked at me "If I am allowed to say so, you have spoiled "Spread your Wings"". Of course, I was right and he wasn't. It just shows how small the line is one you do coverversions. Strange enough: Apart of Charlie noone ever complained abouth the fact we did a Queen cover tune, but we all know what happened when we called one of our albums "A Night at the Opera" ... Music: Olbrich / Kursch Lyrics: Kursch Published by Warner / Chappel and Musik-Edition Discoton Recorded at Sweet Silence Studios / Danmark and the Twilight Hall by Piet Sielck, Henrik Vindeby and Flemming Rasmussen Mixed at Central Sound Studio / Hamburg by Piet Sielck in 1996 Produced by Piet Sielck and Blind Guardian This song more or less has been predestined to be abused in such a way. An epic song with such sad lyrics. I do not want sound arrogant, but come on, that tune's pure beauty... Music and Lyrics: Kursch Published by Warner / Chappel and Musik-Edition Discoton Recorded at the Twilight Hall / Krefeld and Central Studio by Piet Sielck and Henrik Vindeby Mixed at Central Sound Studio / Hamburg by Piet Sielck in 1996 Produced by Piet Sielck and Blind Guardian Effects: Piet Sielck We did not have any idea what to do with the song when we started a real short term production. We decided to enter the studio for "The Forgotten Tales" in December and started the production early January to be finished early February as far as i remember. We did not have anything prepared at all but at least had some visions for some of the songs. But not for that one. It was spontaneous construction of Andre, me and Piet. Not bad at all I have to say, nowadays. Musik: Kursch / Olbrich Lyrics: Kursch Published by Warner / Chappel and Musik-Edition Discoton Recorded live at Philips Halle / Dusseldorf in Dec. 1995 with Gaga Mobile Studio Mixed at Central Studio / Hamburg by Piet Sielck in 1996 Produced by Piet Sielck and Blind Guardian Pure magic and as good as all the other live recordings we have released of this song, though this one has a kind of Christmas feeling to it :-) Dusseldorf is always something very special to us, because we barely ever get closer to our hometown and still can represent ourselves in one of the most beautyful and legendary venues you can find on this planet. Music and Lyrics: Fred Fasert Published by Capitol Records Inc. Recorded and mixed 1989 at Karo Studios / Germany by Kalle Trapp Produced by Kalle Trapp Engineers: Kalle Trapp Lead guit: Kalle Trapp Lead voc: Kalle Trapp (on Barbara Ann), Rolf Kohler (on Long Tall Sally) Back. voc: Thomas Hackmann, Rolf Kohler, Kalle Trapp, Aman Malek This can't be redone!!! The Beach Boys' greatest song combined with another all time classic. Even though I have to admit: I would rather love to hear back our 25 minute long (or even longer) versions of this one we have done during rehearsals in 1988. We also played a stoner/Reggae song during rehearsals, but I unfortunately cannot recall its title, but that somehow fits the subject... Music: Kursch / Olbrich Lyrics: Kursch Published by Warner / Chappel and Musik-Edition Discoton Recorded and mixed 1994 at Sweet Silence Studios / Denmark by Flemming Rasmussen Engineers: Flemming Rasmussen Assistant engineer: Henrik Vindeby Effects: Mathias Wiesner Acoustic guit.: Jacob Moth A nice tune, which never made it completely up to "The Bard's Song" or "The Lord of the Rings". Not that it is necessary, but it is just a strange phenomena, which you yourself as the composer have no influence on. This more or less is the reason why we never try to copy ourselves. It would be a needless attempt. All the music we are composing and recording is basen on an emotional status we are in at that special moment. Sometimes it gets closer to the heart of people, sometimes it's just simply good music. Music and lyrics: Mike Oldfield Published by EMI Virgin Music Ltd., London Recorded at Karo Studios and the Twilight Hall / Germany by Piet Sielck Mixed at Central Studio / Germany by Piet Sielck Produced by Piet Sielck and Blind Guardian Engineers: Piet Sielck, Henrik Vindeby Effects: Mathias Wiesner What a nice song, but how diffult to cover for me as a vocalist. One should not think, but women do sing in different octaves than men do. We were about to stumble about that surprising circumstance during the last days of the production. Luckily we have managed to transpose the stuff so it fitted finally. Due to the vocals this one got further away from the original than we intended to do. Thanks god, you do not want to hear me singing the song in a woman's range. Theatre Of Pain Music: Olbrich / Kursch / WiesnerLyrics: Kursch Published by Warner / Chappel and Musik-Edition Discoton Recorded at the Twilight Hall by Piet Sielck Mixed at Central Studio / Hamburg by Piet Sielck and Blind Guardian Effects: Mathias Wiesner Majestic: not only this instrumental version but also our original attempt. We have never written something compareable, which again, from my point of view is one of our best qualities. Cook, Roger Frederick - Music and Lyric Greenaway, roger john reginald - music and lyrics Published by Universal / Dick James Music Limited Think it is originally a "Fleetwood Mac" tune, but I do not know for sure now. That's how we are: we do things and barely ever look back and examine what we have done exactly. I am a big Deep Purple fan and that's why we did the number. All in all one of our weaker cover versions. As for many other cover tunes, we did not have proper lyric sheets when we did the song, so we were guessing here and there, but I am convinced we did not fail. Music and Lyrics: Binks/Halford Published by: EMI April Music Inc C/o Emi Music Publishing Thomen's and more or less Andre's favourite Metal band of all time: Judas Priest. Even though I admire Rob Halford as a vocalist and I think they doubtlessly have composed more than a bandful of all time Metal classics, I was not very fond of doing one of their songs. But we have been asked by Century Media to contribute on that classical tribute sampler and the other guys wanted to do it. Since I am a good dictator I finally gave me o.k. (the rest of the band still talks about my kindness back in these days). Luckily I have found a song I like a lot and the others were fine with it. Still I have to say Halford is difficult to cover if you do not want to copy him - which is impossible, anyways. Dio, Ronnie James - music Dio, Ronnie James - lyrics Published by Niji Music & Melodie Der Welt J Michel Ag Musikverlag Dio. What a vocalist. He certainly deserves to be called the king of kings. A great song I just hope we did justice to it. Our version is a little more aggressive but hopefully keeps up the quality. The song has been one of the most important ones during the whole 80's for me. Different to post other songs of this era this one really kept its intensity thoughout all the years. It is timeless. back to the albums: The Forgotten Tales remastered 
|