(June 26, 2008) PCM's Sean had the opportunity to talk to keyboardist Harry Oellers of the German metal band Axxis. The band recently released its twelfth and newest album, Doom of Destiny. Axxis sprung onto the scene in 1989 with its debut album, Kingdom of the Night. Since then, the band has been a German metal icon and will be touring this year with Helloween and Gamma Ray.

Sean: I noticed one thing about you. On your website you have that you are looking for a drummer and a female singer.

Yeah, that's right.

Sean: And I just found it interesting that you're using your website to audition that. How many responses do you get for that?

We get a lot of responses. In Europe it is a sort of thing that is usual. If you are looking for someone who is new and fresh on the scene, it is a very good idea to do it with a website or a MySpace. We also have a MySpace account to look for some new musicians.

Sean: I really liked Lankonia on Doom of Destiny. What made you part ways with her?

Lankonia is still existing. We are producing her solo project, but she is doing her education beside her musical side. She studies some things so there is not enough time to do both projects in the time. Because of lots of time practicing and Axxis is a band that is playing much live concerts over the years. If you want to do a solo project, a very serious one, then there's not enough time. We want a woman fixed in the band. Between the studio job as well as the live performances, it makes it much easier.

Sean: I was going over your discography, and I noticed you released a Best of album in 2006.

Yes, best of ballads and acoustic.

Sean: You guys are still recording new material. Does the best of make you feel old?

The idea was from our old record company EMI records. What we think of in a best of record is what could do it on its own. So we decided to do something special and really master it. To do some new recordings in addition [to the old], so you can get something special - a time item. If you want to get them interested in your new product you need a tool that makes them interested in it. So we decided to record some new acoustic stuff that we had already played live, and it was very fun to do that.

Sean: So it's like drinking fine wine: it has to be aged to get better?

Yeah.

Sean: What was the inspiration behind "Doom of Destiny"?

After the album Paradise in Flames, Axxis decided to put some more power metal emphasis into the music. In the 90s we played more rock and roll music. We produced two albums in the States - one in Philadelphia and one record in Los Angeles, and this was more the time of rock and roll and a little style of the 80s. We decided to put more elements of powermetal into the music of today, and after the big success of Paradise in Flames here in Europe we decided to go one step further and put more metal based songs, and more female voices, because we can get a good connection between the modern gothic style and part of the power metal elements together with the 80s style. And this was the inspiration to make the songs a little more orchestral, a little bit bigger.

Sean: Is that where the sound of Axxis is going in the future?

We just finished the song writing of the next record. There's not much time left of the year to do that. We've got a big tour with Helloween and Gamma Ray in Europe. After that we had two months break, and we used that break doing the song writing for the next record. And it will be very similar to the last two albums, maybe a little more song oriented but this depends on the musicians working on it at the studio because they have to put the musical elements into it. If you have very creative musicians then there will be a lot of ideas coming into the music. I'm very excited for going into production. We're going to start it, if everything is going well, in July. Its really similar to the last album musician wise and that is why we are looking for a female singer. We need to find someone who fits well to Bernie's voice, the singer, and to the new style of Axxis sound.

Sean: You guys are pretty busy touring. I see you're going to Spain in September.

This year is a very different year, because Axxis was in the past, in the first ten years of its career only famous in Germany. In here we're really big, but not outside. And now it starts to become a little more famous in the other countries in Europe. For example the complete Eastern block: Romania, Croatia, Russia, and everything because it's more open minded governments are working there now that make it possible. And we are gonna play in August the biggest festival here in Germany - Wacken Open Air. I don't know if you've heard of that. So this year they expect 100,000 people in the audience. It's really big. There are three big stages where bands play, and there are about 100 bands in four days. It's quite amazing. It's the biggest festival in Europe. And then in on the 25th of September, we're going on tour in Spain. Spain is coming up as a second home country for Axxis music. We have lots of fans there. A promoter invited us out there. We had a lot of big success during the Helloween tour, and now we're for a headliner tour through Spain.

Sean: With new freedom with your new label has Axxis thought of doing a United States tour?

We are thinking about that. Helloween in September will be in the States, in New York. When we just finished our concerts in the Spain tour they gave us a call and said "don't you want to come with us when we play in the United States?" It was a little late then, we had just signed a contract and now we're going to Spain.

There would have been the possibility, but we have to play Spain now because of our contract, but I think it will work next time. It truly depends on the success of the album Doom of Destiny in the States. You need a fan base, so promoters are interested in the band to book them. But all the old records: Kingdom of the Night, Axxis II, Axxis All Areas are or have been release in the United States, so are records are out there. If we find some success then we will have the possibility to come over.

Sean: What else in the mix for the future? Besides the new album, and Axxis coming over to the United States, where is Axxis going right now?

What we are going for right now is what I told you before. We are not well known in foreign countries. We need to go out and play lots of festivals. Besides working on the new record, we want to make Axxis more well known in countries where they didn't even know the band existed. For example we started in Spain and now it works there. The country where we were successful was France and now the eastern countries. This is very interesting because the boarders are open now, and any country that wants to join the European community can now. Everyone wants to come into this community, so you have the possibility of going there. This is very interesting because lots of people are coming to concerts there, and are buying cds there.

What we want to get a good base for our music in Europe, and we are looking at a video project. At the moment we are looking to material of our past on video, and we are looking to do a DVD maybe next year. It will be the 20 year anniversary year and we want to do a DVD. We just recorded a whole show in Barcelona where we supported Helloween. I think there were roughly 2,000 people. So we have 35 minutes of material that we can put as additional stuff on this DVD. We are going to record a whole concert of Axxis, and we'll do some things of the past so you'll kind of get a Axxis history. This is the next thing we're going for next year.