{"id":9236,"date":"2012-06-01T07:45:28","date_gmt":"2012-05-31T21:45:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/maytherockbewithyou.com\/mtrbwy\/?p=9236"},"modified":"2012-05-31T23:56:38","modified_gmt":"2012-05-31T13:56:38","slug":"nic-maeder-of-gotthard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maytherockbewithyou.com\/mtrbwy\/2012\/06\/nic-maeder-of-gotthard\/","title":{"rendered":"Nic Maeder of Gotthard"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n<\/a>\u201cI was just welcomed amazingly by the fans, you just do your best and put it out there and hope that people get it, hopefully things will happen like it did for the first song.\u00a0 That\u2019s all we can hope for you know.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sudden and unfortunate passing of original Gotthard vocalist Steve Lee in 2010 left a void in the hard rock community, but persistent to continue, the members of Gotthard started the process of finding a new singer to enable them to continue to make and share their music.\u00a0 Enter Nic Maeder.\u00a0 With a new album \u2018Firebirth\u2019 out today and a dedicated fan base awaiting its release, we know that Gotthard are back in a big way.<\/p>\n

We spoke to Nic Maeder who has taken on the vocal duties for Gotthard all about how he got the job, the new album and why he may need to buy a fake moustache when he wants to buy milk from the store\u2026<\/p>\n

Welcome to Gotthard Nic\u2026<\/p>\n

One of the last performances we personally witnessed of you in Australia, was going back to fronting the Bruce Kulick band and some would be familiar with you from Maeder, so for those reading this who aren’t fully aware of your background here in Australia, give us a quick little snapshot of Nic Maeder.<\/strong>
\nYeah, born in Switzerland, migrated with my parents to Australia when I was about two years old and grew up going back and forth between both countries and just sort of at thirteen started playing guitar and a couple of years later started singing and just, sort of like everyone else really had different bands and stuff and just never really stopped doing it.\u00a0 Last few years had in Australia had a band called \u2018Dry\u2019 before \u2018Maeder\u2019 which was a sort of Mushroom band and everything, then \u2018Maeder\u2019 and then really didn\u2019t do anything after \u2018Maeder\u2019 for a year and now I\u2019m doing the \u2018Gotthard\u2019 thing.<\/p>\n

Being of Swiss origin yourself, how familiar were you with Gotthard prior to putting your name forward to audition as the lead singer?<\/strong>
\nYeah actually, I mean if you\u2019ve lived in Switzerland, anyone that\u2019s lived in Switzerland would know Gotthard, but even back in \u201994 I was in Switzerland and the band I had at the time played at the same festival they did, we were opening the festival and they were headlining it, and that was going back to \u201994, so really aware of the band.<\/p>\n

Obviously given the passing of Steve, deciding to put your name forward to step into the position of lead singer in one of the greatest ever rock bands from Europe, couldn’t have been an easy decision – not to mention the high regard Steve is held by many for his vocal abilities. \u00a0So let’s walk through the process of you eventually becoming the new singer of Gotthard.\u00a0 Was there much hesitation initially in putting your hat in the ring?<\/strong>
\nNo I mean there\u2019s never hesitation to just give it a go and just say \u2018oh well, I\u2019ll just see what happens\u2019 sort of later on when you start to realise that it may actually happen that you start to go \u2018oh, let me have a really good think about this\u2019 ha ha ha.\u00a0 It was a really long process as well, it started at the start of last year, through a common friend that linked us up, really they just sent me three of their old songs to put my vocals to and sort of sent that back to them and eventually it wasn\u2019t before April last year that I came to Switzerland to meet the guys which I\u2019ve still got a lot of my family there so I thought, oh yeah, it might be time to come and visit the family I think ha ha.\u00a0 I just sort of told the guys I\u2019m coming over so if you want to have a go at the rehearsal room, we spent a couple of days together and really just came back and asked me to learn some more stuff and seeing as I was already in Switzerland, they said come back next week and have another go with them and then just come back to Australia you know.<\/p>\n

About a month later I came back again, they wanted to spend a couple of weeks together to do some song writing together, they wanted to see how it would sound and what the new Gotthard would sound like with me if I got the job and went back to Australia again and then finally got the call you know.\u00a0 So it was a really long process the whole thing and obviously all sorts f things go through your mind, but for me as soon as I met the guys it just clicked, everything was just easy, they such easy going guys and good fun to be around.\u00a0 Any pressure I thought I\u2019d feel was just gone straight away, and I think it wasn\u2019t until the second time that I\u2019d spent time with them again that I sort of said to them \u2018I\u2019d definitely be in to it\u2019 and let them know that for me it was all go for me 100%<\/p>\n

I am sure you and the guys have probably spoken about this one since you have joined the band – from their point of view, was there a defining moment where they knew you were the right person?<\/strong>
\nUm\u2026 there was a combination of a few things.\u00a0 As I said before, the second time I came back to have a play with them, they sent me off to learn a few songs, I\u2019d noticed hanging around at Leo\u2019s house, he has a grand piano and I play a little piano, I\u2019m not very good or anything, I can play chords and sing along and that sort of thing.\u00a0 I\u2019d sat down at this piano and just played a little bit and he said \u2018oh, you play piano, you reckon you could play in one of our songs, a bit of piano?\u2019 I said \u2018yeah maybe I don\u2019t know, yeah.\u2019\u00a0 So I sort of had that in mind and when I went away to learn some more songs I actually did a song called \u2018One Life One Soul\u2019 and I learnt that on the piano and I learnt that over and over again so I thought I\u2019ll sing that at rehearsal and I finally did it in front of them.\u00a0 That was a song that had a real meaning to them and was a really emotional moment there and that was something they say a lot that was a big turning point for them.\u00a0 Then later when we got together and spent the two weeks writing together, the first one we did was \u2018Remember It\u2019s Me\u2019 which was a song that I\u2019d brought to the table and we sort of finished writing together and ended up being the first song we came out with as the introduction to the new singer.\u00a0 Once we finished that song, it was the one. That was it.<\/p>\n

What was your first thought when they told you that you had the job?<\/strong>
\nI\u2019d been doing some cover gigs with my old drummer Cam McGlinchey, we were at the Doulton Bar in St Kilda just doing acoustics and singing with Cameron on the drums and I\u2019d been doing that for a year. I\u2019d just finished a gig and I was coming out of the pub at 3 or 4 in the morning, just packing my guitar away in the car and sat down and got the call, had the whole band on speaker phone and they sort of said to me \u2018what are you doing for the next few years?\u2019 It was just like \u2018Fuck\u2019, you know? There was a lot of screaming on the phone and it ended the night well, so yeah ha ha.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Let\u2019s talk about the album, which we\u2019ve heard and it\u2019s amazing, the title itself; \u2018Firebirth\u2019 is easily representative of the phoenix rising from the ashes and that kind of symbolism.\u00a0 What was the intention behind the name itself?<\/strong>
\nWell man, that was exactly it, you just said it.\u00a0 At one point we were tossing up, there were a lot of names that were thrown up on the table and the idea of the phoenix came out as well and the word fire was getting thrown a lot around for some reason, and we just made up a word really and yeah\u2026<\/p>\n

The song writing for the album, you mentioned bringing \u2018Remember It\u2019s Me\u2019 to them, but can you walk us through the song writing for the new album – was it a highly collaborative effort?<\/strong>
\nYeah absolutely.\u00a0 Usually Leo, Freddy and myself, we sit down and someone brings an idea in and then we just pick it to bits and get all the musical side done and melodies and all that sort of stuff. Once we\u2019ve done all that I go off and put lyrics to it, that\u2019s generally how things work.\u00a0 There were a few ideas that they already had, unfinished things they had as well and a lot of unfinished things I had too, and we just sort of pieced it together that way.\u00a0 It was done really, really quickly, we had so many ideas that at one point we had a deadline when we had to actually start recording the album and so we really just had to stop writing and there were so many ideas that we wanted to just keep going on but we just had to stop.\u00a0 There will be a lot of things already for the next one\u2026<\/p>\n

Are you in any way nervous in the way the album is going to be received?<\/strong>
\nFrom the beginning, even doing the first song and doing the video clip and sending it out and seeing the reaction and all that, which was September I think we sent everything out.\u00a0 The best way I thought was to just focus on every step you know and not think about that too much you know?\u00a0 You can get really caught up in thinking about that sort of stuff and stressing about that and I just consciously try not to think about it and just focus on every little phase that we\u2019re doing.\u00a0 Luckily the response from \u2018Remember It\u2019s Me\u2019 was absolutely amazing you know, I was just welcomed amazingly by the fans, you just do your best and put it out there and hope that people get it, hopefully things will happen like it did for the first song.\u00a0 That\u2019s all we can hope for you know.<\/p>\n

Gotthard albums have always offered some diversity and different flavours – for those out there who have heard \u2018Remember It\u2019s Me\u2019 and the first single ‘Starlight’ – how would you say it compares to the material on the album in general?\u00a0<\/strong>
\nI\u2019d say that they\u2019re all pretty different again, I mean there\u2019s just such a diversity of genres and that\u2019s one of the things that I was really attracted to, the fact that you can do a whole lot of different things and it\u2019s a band that\u2018s known for doing this.\u00a0 Particularly a song like \u2018Starlight\u2019 is very different to me, the only thing I would say in terms of the sounds, \u2018Starlight\u2019 has got that rock groove and you get a sense of the guitar sound and everything and that\u2019s one of the things that we really wanted to do and were really conscious of, to have a really raw sounding album and really going back to the basics, going back to the earlier days in a lot of ways, the early sort of Gotthard days, even the guitars, the amps, the Marshalls, it was the old stuff that was on the older albums, those actual things.<\/p>\n

What has been some of the greatest pieces of advice the other guys in the band have given you, as far as now being part of that Gotthard family and the potential expectations?<\/strong>
\nWell one thing I didn\u2019t actually expect, before it was publically known that I\u2019d joined, a lot of it was dealing with them saying to me \u2018you won\u2019t be able to walk down the street\u2019 and all this sort of stuff, this is the way it\u2019s going to happen.\u00a0 Just the whole fame side of it which I really didn\u2019t expect at all, I was like \u2018yeah, yeah, whatever, it won\u2019t be that much\u2019 and I suppose at that point I didn\u2019t realise how big the band was in Switzerland and when it was announced and we put out the video and they hey this is our new singer I sort of really woke up one morning and was in every newspaper and the next few weeks I had to go into TV and was doing interviews all the time.\u00a0 The media around this band is huge and has been really ever since.\u00a0 That\u2019s one thing I really wasn\u2019t prepared for and I got a lot of advice from them and still do.\u00a0 Trying to keep your private life private, just things I never thought of ha ha ha.<\/p>\n

Of the existing Gotthard songs, what have been some of your favourite songs to perform\/sing?<\/strong>
\n\u2018Anytime Anywhere\u2019 I love to sing that one, it just seems to work well and I feel really comfortable singing that and it was actually the first one that I put my voice to and thought this could work, so it\u2019s got a bit of a special meaning to me I suppose.<\/p>\n

You pretty much have 2012 filled up with touring commitments, including some of Europe’s biggest summer festivals – Sweden Rock, Bang Your Head, Grasspop – obviously these will be your first as a performer, but are these also your first experience at these festivals as even a punter?<\/strong>
\nAbsolutely that\u2019ll be the first time for me; I\u2019ve never done anything this big ever.\u00a0 I\u2019m really looking forward to it.
\nAnd are you going to come home and see us?<\/strong>
\nWe were talking about it actually, we really want to, we\u2019ve got Japan in September so the talk was \u2018we\u2019re pretty close, so what do you reckon?\u2019 so we need to talk to management a bit, so it\u2019s being talked about and everyone would love to do it, but at this point, the costs for a band that wouldn\u2019t really probably pull crowds, it may not be that big\u2026 I\u2019ve got a lot of contacts in Australia as well, and the guys would be really excited to come down to Australia as well as none of them have ever been to Australia, it\u2019s definitely talked about, it\u2019d be great to come home ha ha ha.<\/p>\n

Essential Information<\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n

From:<\/strong> Switzerland<\/p>\n

Band members: <\/strong>Nic Maeder – Vocals, Leo Leoni – Guitars, Marc Lynn – Bass, Hena Habegger – Drums, Freddy Scherer – Guitars<\/p>\n

Website:<\/strong> http:\/\/www.gotthard.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Latest release:<\/strong> Firebirth (June 1 \u2013 Nuclear Blast Records \/ Riot! Entertainment)<\/p>\n\n

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