Interview to Andreas "Gerre" Geremias of Tankard

Interview by Luis Landeo

Hails Gerre is really a great pleasure interview you because you are singer of Tankard, a band is part of The Big Teutonic 4, but for start this interview is how born the idea of release with the guys of: Sodom, Kreator and Destruction and split album of cover songs? And have you and the other bands play in a concert together? 
That was the idea or our record label Nuclear Blast after it was confirmed that all big 4 Germans Thrash bands will play together for the very first time! Of course we played together with all the other bands, especially very often with Sodom in the last years, but this time it is really the very first time, that all 4 bands play together on the same stage! So I am really looking forward for this event!

In 2012 you released an album titled: "A Girl Called Cerveza", the name of this album is really cool because the word: Cerveza is a Spanish word for: "beer", but do you have in mind write an album in Spanish? 
That was a joke of our bass player frank when we played the very first time in south America, we kept this nonsense in our head and thought that would be a cool album title that really fits to Tankard! As nobody of us speaks Spanish there will be no album in Spanish the next time, so we are very sorry for that!

By the way, the lyrics and cover arts of Tankard are always focus in the good party with beer, but can you tell some of your great experiences with this great drink? And of the many kind of beers is your favourite beer and inspired your best lyrics? And of course when was your best drink experience? 
First of all tankard is a band which brings Thrash and Fun together, although we always have a lot of serious lyrics. We always try to do a good mixture of serious and funny stuff that really fits to us as persons. We called our second demo tape “Alcoholic Metal” in 1985 just as a joke, later we did everything for that kind of beer image with albums like Chemical Invasion and The Morning After! Later on we really wanted to get rid of this image with albums like “Two-Faced” but this really failed! Nowadays we really make jokes of our own image and don’t take us too seriously. Our best drink experience? We never had one (laughs).

Gerre you are a great thrash metal singer and your vocals never suffered the problem of alcohol, like other singer had problems of alcohol reduced the power of their voices, and in 2012 I interviewed the singer of Negator and ex singer of Dark Funeral: Nachtgarm, he recommended Don’t drink for have power with the voice, and I bet many guys will want to know it, what is your secret to keep this power you have in your vocals? 
I had some problems 13 years ago when they put out my tonsils in the hospital. But after a while everything was ok again. When we play 7 or 8 shows in a row I don’t drink alcohol for the first 7 or 8 days, just at the last show. That’s all what I do to save my voice!

Tankard had this famous pet: The drunk green alien, but this pet is reference of the green fairly of the Absinthe drink? And why the covers of tankard have fat people? And have you heard about this Colombian artist and sculptor named: Fernando Botero (you know he is famous for paint pictures of fat people)? 
The Alien was a great cover of Sebastian Krüger, it has nothing to do with the absinthe drink that was not our intention. We choose a picture of a good friend of mien for the kings of beer cover, later we used his face and body as paintings, so it was hazard that he is a little bit fat! But I think these covers really fit to the humour of Tankard. I will check out the works of Fernando Botero the next days, thanks for the advice!

I know you will tour South America again, and I checked in the website of Tankard, you will play in Peru, what is your opinion of South American metal scene? By the way if you come to play in Peru, I recommend you try Pisco (our traditional drink in Peru) 
We really enjoyed our shows in Brazil and Argentina and we really would love to come back to South America within the next 2 years! So if there is a chance to come to Peru we gonna do that and try Pisco of course! The fans of South America are really crazy and enthusiastic, there are a lot of thrash metal maniacs and we really joined the shows, I will never forget this!

In 2012 Tankard was signed to Nuclear Blast, how were you invited to sign with this important label? How was work with them? And of course how was work with: Michael Mainx like producer? 
Our old record contract with AFM records was over and Nuclear Blast did us a great offer. We are really glad to join the biggest metal label; they did a lot of promotion for us and have a lot of power. We joined the official German charts with “A girl called Carves” on place 32, the biggest success we ever had with an album! We worked together with Michael Mainx for the second time, he is really a great guy and kicked us in our asses, especially we had a lot of work with the vocals, but definetly we are very satisfied with the result of the album, especially with sound. On the one hand everything is very transparent and you can hear out every instrument very clear, on the other hand the guitars are very heavy! We are really looking forward to work together with Michael again!

In this album: "A girl called Cerveza" you had a special guest artist: Doro Pesch, how was sing with the queen of Heavy Metal? 
As I am a big Doro fan since many years visited a concert of her in December 2011! She saw me in the audience I had to go on stage to sing “All we are” together with her. Later on we met in the backstage room and the idea came into my head that Doro could join us on our new album. I said to her that we gonna have a love song on the new, I sent her the demo version and she liked the song very much! So finally she did it in a studio near to her living place and I think it really fits! The idea of “The Metal lady Boy” was born when we played the very first time in Thailand last year and stood there for some days for vacation! There were a lot of nice girls, but you never know it’s a man or woman, very strange. So I can’t tell honestly it happened to one of us to wake up in a false bed (laughs), but sorry I can’t tell you which member it was! Anyway this is still my favourite song of the album!

Why was cancelled the show with: Sodom and Exumer in Colombia? 
Exumer cancelled the show, because they had no flight tickets, Sodom cancelled the show because the fee was not right on time. We really wanted to play because we were in South America anyway, but the organizer cancelled the whole show. So we arrived from Brazil in Bogota at the day the festival should take place and had a free day. Some fans found out the name of the hotel we stayed, the found us and we had some great hours with them!

I want ask about a retrospective of Tankard, what differences and evolutions you find in Tankard in all this years? 
It was great to be a part of the beginnings when everything started with the metal thing and it’s really a great feeling to be still a part of the metal scene nowadays. We still have the same fun as in the early days; I could not imagine a life without Tankard. And of course we are a little bit proud never to give up and kept on going for more than 31 years!

Well Gerre, was nice to meet you, do you have a last message to Latin fans and arsenal del Metalero readers? 
Thanks a lot for all your support all over the years, without the fans Tankard would be nothing. We will come back to South America for sure and say cheers to the next 31 years!

To know more of Tankard:
http://www.facebook.com/tankardofficial