Molllust Interview

1. Can you tell us a little bit about the band for those that have never heard of you before?

Hi  ! Think of three young ladies and three young men. Three classical musicians (soprano, violin, cello, piano) and three metal guys (rock tenor, e-guitar, e-bass, drums). Leave them together in the rehearsal room and let them mix their styles. Add minor tonality and a bit dark sounding atmosphere – and voilà, the result is molllust. We started to play concerts in 2011. Currently, we prepare to conquer the festival stages. And in between, we made a Bach-Special called Bach con fuoco, won the BachSpiele with this program and release an EP with our winner songs.

2.How would you describe your musical sound?

We combine tender and soft nuances of classical music with aggression and power of metal. Dramatic and passion unite the genres and create our unique sound – sometimes sensual and sophisticated, sometimes rough and somehow dark.

3. What are some of the lyrical topics and subjects the band explores with the music?

The texts often reflect feelings and how people interact and deal with their emotions. Some are also based on real occasions. They helped to cope with bad situations. I chose German language because it is easier for me to use metaphors and second meanings in my mother tongue. But we are currently working on an English version of our website which will include a translation of the texts. Then non-German speaking people can have a closer look at the lyrics, too.

4. What is the meaning and inspiration behind the bands name?

To find an appropriate name for our band, we were searching for a word combination that describes our music and our attitude towards it. “moll” means “minor”, the mode in which we compose most auf our music. “Lust” means “pleasure”. It shows our love to make music in a bit dark sounding mood. “molllust” is also very similar to the german word “Wollust”, this means “voluptuousness” and stands for our passion in our music.

5. What are some of the best shows that the band has played so far and how would you describe your stage performance?

We had a very special show in the mainstation of Leipzig. We presented our Bach-program to the jurors of the BachSpiele. But in fact, we had a huge audience on three floors – children, senior citizens, people of all ages. When we started playing, people were really surprised. Many people were really excited about what we did, some got thoughtful, some didn’t care and continued shopping. For us, it was a very unusual audience – little children were dancing in front of the stage, old ladies listening and smiling delighted – people who would never come to a metal concert. It felt great to perform in such an unusual location and we really, really enjoyed it although we were a bit worried about the strong echo and the loudness at first. I had the impression my voice got wings and flew through the whole station without real effort – this was overwhelming, somehow magic. Obviously, this magic also hit our jurors – we won the competition. We are looking forward to release this program as an EP on March 17th. This will be a great concert, too: We invited background singers and additional strings. Therefore we’ll be about 20 musicians on stage. It already sounds great in the rehearsals! A great concert, of course, was our support show for Coppelius, too. The icing on the cake was that their singer joined us for a song and we performed together. The fans really got crazy.

6. Do you have any touring plans for the future?

We have plans for several concerts, for example on WGT, Bachfest and Comedy meets Metal Open Air, but not a real tour. But let’s see what we manage to organize in the future…

7. Currently you are unsigned, are you looking for a label and if so what kind of label do you feel that would be a perfect fit for the band?

We are not really searching for a label because we already found some strong partners. Markus Eck from Metalmessage is a really great promoter. He is full of enthusiasm, this gives us so much motivation. In addition, we started to work together with stage cat booking. As a result, we hope for many concerts in the future. But we wouldn’t hesitate to start working with a label if they offer us a good deal.

8. On a worldwide level how has the feedback been to your music by fans of opera and metal?

We got a very positive feedback. We were really surprised how international the reaction turned out to be although we have German lyrics. Of course there are always some people who are not interested in your music or who don’t find access to it. This makes me a bit sad, but I accept it. On the whole, we got more reactions from the metal than from the classical scene. At the same time, we occurred much more in the metal world, so I consider it as a result of our presence and not as a sign for more or less interest.

9. Are there any other musical projects besides this band or is this a full time line up?

molllust takes most of our time. And when we do not take care of molllust, we all have to earn money somehow – therefore there isn’t that much time left. But our drummer is still in close contact with his Italian band – although they can’t play together that often because of the distance. Time by time, I also have little engagements for classical singing.

10. What direction do you see your music heading into on future releases?

Our main project will stay our own compositions. We’ll continue to mix classic and metal and try out how we can improve it. It is also a great pleasure to work with additional musicians. Unfortunately, it is from a technical and financial point of few not always possible to play concerts with such a huge ensemble. As our second matter, we’ll continue to work with adaptations from great composers, mainly from classical époques - not only Johann Sebastian Bach, of course.

11. What are some bands or musical styles that have influenced your music and also waht are you listening to nowadays?

My first idols in music were classical composers due to my classical roots. I really enjoyed (and still enjoy) especially the composers of Romanticism, f. e. Rachmaninow, Brahms, Dvorak. Therion and Nightwish were the first bands that influenced me more than 10 years ago. But I always had my own vision of combining classical music with metal, because I always got the impression the classic wasn’t involved with all its strength. Therefore I never tried to copy, but to develop the fusion of the genres in an even closer way. Recently, I like to collect impressions from different composers and bands to widen my horizon. So I sing a Puccini aria, followed by a listening session of Disillusions Gloria, then f. e. an underground female fronted Ukrainian symphonic metal band follows. There isn’t this one CD I listen to over and over again.

12. Outside of music what are some of your interests?

Music is my life. It takes some time to work to make my living, too. There isn’t much left besides. I love to dance, especially ballroom or rock’n’roll, to meet friends and to go to concerts or the opera. But due to the music, everything else is reduced to a minimum. It is not only the music itself that takes much time, but also all the tasks beyond, like organizational stuff, promotion, taking care of our website and so on.

13. Any final words or thoughts before we wrap up this interview?

Thank you very much for your time and your interest in molllust. We are really cheerful about every single person we can touch with our music. We’d love to see you all at a concert one day!