We had the pleasure of speaking with Germany’s Kärbholz, their new album “Kapitel 11: Barrikaden” is out, you can check out a couple videos from the album below. Check out our review for it here. We can tell you that album rocks, it’s a hybrid of Punk/Metal/Hardcore and just some killer cuts. Enjoy the interview!
RYR: Can you guys let us know a little about yourselves? You’re well-known in Germany of course, but for those who don’t know about Kärbholz can you give us a little background?
So, Kärbholz is a bunch of friends, 4 to be exact, for the most part knowing each other since childhood, growing up in the same area, sharing wild stories and parties in those turbulent coming of age times also taking the first musical steps together. You could say we grew into that band, sharing a passion for music and party. Following that our music is plain Kickass Rock’n’Roll, mixing up Punkrock with Metal, bringing Country into the game and finish the Cocktail with a portion of fun and absolute hunger for Life and the lust to kick ass in every single show. Stir it together put a German lyrics cherry on top and you get Kärbholz.
RYR: So, I typed in “German Punk Bands” on Google and realized this is actually a much bigger scene than I realized! Can you talk a bit about the scene over in Germany for Hardcore/Punk?
– The UK, birth land of Punkrock, is not far away from Germany, so that new wild music travelled fast until it reached German ground in the late 70’s early 80’s. In a time of political changes, short before the fall of the Berlin Wall in ´89, the youth in east and west Germany had a lot to be angry about and to be rebellious. So this new, aggressive music coming around with a fuck it all attitude was the perfect way to dissociate oneself from the elder, obeying generation. It fell on fertile ground here and became popular very fast not only as a way of life but also as a counterpoint to the musical industry which was reigned by empty, characterless, made up music brought to you by the big business players behind the faces on the high gloss front of magazines and LP covers. It grew and became a very big thing, and still is, here in Germany uniting generations, gender, ethnicity and so on and so forth. It was not just music, it was and is a way of life with which people can identify, still today.
RYR: I noticed right away, at least on “Kapitel 11: Barrikaden” that there’s more of a “Metal” feel to the music compared to the American Bands? To me your new album is more “Metal” than “Punk” is that a fair assessment?
Thank you very much, challenge accomplished. It is an absolute fair assessment, but to be honest, it was not the main goal to become more metal with the new album that we pursued during the writing process.
When we started writing the new songs we talked about the sound, the direction we want to take with them. It became clear very quickly, that we want to take our musical abilities that we gained over the last decade and take it back in time, to our humble beginnings. Bring back the Punkrock attitude and put it in a sound garment of todays abilities. Our wonderful producers Eike and Alex (heaven Shall burn) did their fair share, of course, putting the metal into our songs. Each album we record is a temporal snapshot so to say and after two years of silence in the way of staying at home and not touring we needed and wanted a big bang to get back on stage and to send out as a life sign after the compulsory break.
RYR: What are some of the subject matters you guys are talking about on the new album, Lord knows there’s plenty of crap going on in the world right now!
Talking about the fun and passion we share as friends and fellow musicians we never wanted to be a political band and never were. So the main topics we are talking about most likely come from our own lives, our experiences, ups and downs and things that we have to deal and struggle with in our every day live. Well aged as we are now *cough, cough* the things we are dealing with are different than when we started the band 18 years ago. Love, music and party was and always will be a part of our live and songs such as the new song „Zu dir oder zu mir“ but also the struggle of getting captured in a daily routine with family and job and the urge to break out of this vicious circle and free your inner „Raubtier“(predator). Old Friends that are not longer on our side because ways parted (Gar nichts) but overall barricades that we all face that need to be torn down (Barrikaden).
RYR: The past few years have been tough on live performing bands, first the Pandemic, now Ukraine/Russia, how has this affected the band as far as touring and writing new material?
Vom Regen in die Traufe, as we say here. Out of the frying pan into the fire. Just when one crisis was about to end, shit hits the fan again.
The pandemic affected us not only on a personal but a professional level as well. We were not able to tour, to promote our 2021 album „Kontra.“ and couldn’t do anything musicians love to do, being on tour, bring the songs to the stage and so on. But on the other hand, being on the street and together as a band for such a long time, a well needed break was in the foreseeable future anyway. So we took the opportunity to find ourselves again, as a band and as friends, and to refill our creative tanks. We took a step back, used the break, as it is an essential part of the music itself, and came back with new energy, new creativity and new songs. And now we can’t wait to hit the road again.
The war in Ukraine on the other hand has more of a personal and creative impact than a professional. But it is a big time shit show for sure. Our thoughts are with the people fighting an unfair battle.
RYR: Back to the music, this is more of an observation than a question. The lyrics are in German, but after a few songs I didn’t even really notice, there’s some great hooks in the songs, in my opinion you don’t even need to know German to appreciate it. Have you considered English versions of your songs or is that just not going to work for this style?
Thank you very much. Funny you’d say that the music gets you even though you can’t understand the lyrics, couple of years back we had a review from an American podcast couple saying basically the same thing. Feeling the energy, getting the vibe without understanding the lyrics. That is pretty cool for us.
We had the great opportunity to record a Motörhead cover song for a tribute sampler when Lemmy died, Killed by death, our only English song so far, apart from some single lines in other songs. German is our native language so it is the best language we can express ourselves in, that is why we sing in German. But we thought about some English songs to be honest. Maybe not new songs but a best of in english for example.
RYR: So what do your touring and festival plans look like for the year?
Get out there again, promote the new record, having a good time. We release the album on the 24th of march and start the record release tour of the same name on the 31st. After returning home we will start in June into the summer festival season with our own 3 day festival in our ‚Hinterwald‘ (backcountry) base. During the summer we have some festivals to play, Wacken mainstage for the first time as one of the highlights. And we plan on some specials during the rest of the year. We are knee deep in rehearsal right now and looking forward to play live again.
RYR: Guys, congrats on “Kapitel 11: Barrikaden”, I wish you the best success on this killer album. Is there anything you’d like to add that we might have missed and how can we follow the band?
Thank you very much. We are sitting on hot coals, as we say in Germany, for the people to finally hear what we’ve been working on for the last 2 years.
Yes, we would love to play some shows in the US sometime in the, hopefully not to distant, future. So all you lovely people out there in America welcome Kärbholz to your Spotify playlist and your heats, and maybe one day we’ll have a cold beer together and party hard on and off stage.
Follow us on Instagram (@kaerbholz), TikTok (@kaerbholzofficial), Facebook (Kärbholz), Spotify or check our YouTube channel with all the kick ass videos of ours.
Thank you for having us. Well whenever you are back give us a visit at one our shows. All the best Die Hölzer
MORE INFO:
www.kaerbholz.de
www.facebook.com/kaerbholzoffiziel
www.metalville.de
www.facebook.com/metalville
