POTENTIA ANIMI interview by Damjan
The monks of Potentia Animi
monastery return with a new preaching contained on their second album, "Psalm
II". Although more rock oriented, they stay firm in their belief and loyalty to
our good Lord. Brother Schaft explained us the teachings of Potentia Animi...
After listening to “Psalm II” I was sure you’re some sort of a
dead-serious-gloomy-doomy band, but those who understand German (unlike me)
claim that your lyrics are quite humorous... Furthermore, your website is in
German only, so it seems to me that non-German population is doomed to think
wrong about you ;o) So, is there a chance for the rest of the world to witness
your allegedly wicked sense of humour in English anytime soon?
Brother, we would like to sing
and preach in every language existing on Earth, but HE created thousands of
them. I must confess (and I do it every day) that our homepage is monolingual,
but I will try to change that. Latin is the language of the Catholic church and
as we have enough problems with the pope (although he’s German or maybe because)
we won’t translate these words. The German lyrics should be translated, but that
is really difficult as they are from Schiller, Lenau etc… Whenever we will play
in a country with a not German speaking audience, we will mime the meaning. It
worked in Austria. Yeah, I can imagine my brothers playing the meaning of our
song “Domina” from the first album. Wow! I think I’ll need a break now to
scourge myself.
As you often dress like monks, one must ask - what is your teaching? What “soul
food” would you prescribe to average everyday men?
It is quite easy. Simply scourge yourself for twelve hours a day, the
rest is praying, working and a bit of sleep (half an hour per day maximum). If
you do this, you won’t have any bad thoughts or wishes for sexual intercourse.
How would you compare “Psalm II” to “Das Erste Gebet”? I haven’t had a chance to
hear “Das Erste Gebet”, but I did like quite a lot “Psalm II”...
If you haven’t heard the first album, it is hard to describe the
differences to you. I will try: Bruder Nachtfraß (Brother Eats-at-night) was
quite brilliant, when he wrote the first album. But this time he was close to
madness, filled with the spirit from the Holy Ghost and some other creatures I
don’t know or don’t want to mention. The result is that we have much more rock
in our music.
On “Psalm II” you monks got yourself a nun to sing some female vocals. Who is
she, and will she be a permanent member of your monastery in the future?
She is a brilliant singer called Anja, but she won’t be permanent on tour
with us, as she is a busy singing nun. But I think she’ll be a permanent member
of our monastery, as we try to found a mix monastery. So, to all the nuns out
there: Come to us! Come to the caressing arms of our brotherhood!
I’ve read somewhere that on “Psalm II” you didn’t use guitars, but distortion
bouzouki... Was that for serious? What the f&%# is a distortion bouzouki anyway?
We are always serious. For sure there are no guitars on this album. A
bouzouki is an Irish string instrument. Comparable to a lute or cister. And
anything in the hands of Bruder Nachtfraß gets a distortion sound.
The sound of “Psalm II” is very multilayered and rich... Any other weird
instruments on it apart from that bouzouki thing?
We have the most dangerous instrument of the world in our band: a
bagpipe. Or maybe our voices are more dangerous. Also we have a mad violin; no,
the violin is sensible, it’s the player who’s mad. And we have two of the
weirdest instruments with us: drum and bass. I’ll never understand people
playing these crazy instruments.
Going back to my lack of understanding of German language... what are the
lyrical topics on “Psalm II”?
Typical German: Death, pain, decay and a bit of love.
Medieval music is often very tightly related to metal scene (even when it
doesn’t really have any metal elements in it), and the same goes for Potentia
Animi. Do you like being a part of the metal scene and playing metal festivals?
It’s not about what we want, it’s about where the heavenly father sends
us to. We were on several festivals. Lord have mercy, because they don’t know
what they do. I thought our bells (the ones in our church) were loud, but what
we heard there was amazing. The only problem I had, was to understand the
lyrics.
Talking about medieval music, would you say Blackmore’s Night helped it to reach
for wider audiences (given that many Deep Purple/Rainbow fans bought Blackmore’s
Night CD’s just because of Blackmore’s name)? In your opinion, would Blackmore
be a good brother worthy of a Potentia Animi monastery?
Of course he would be a good worthy member of our monastery, if he
stopped wearing his kinky pantie-hose and changed into a proper dress like we
do. And the answer to the question before is “yes”.
On the forthcoming tour you’ll play mostly in Germany, plus a few dates in
Italy. Will there be any additional shows in the rest of Europe?
We want to play on his entire creation and as far as I know this includes
the rest of Europe. Although nobody really knows. Sometimes HE has a strange
kind of humour. Looking at our planet you really can see that.
To end with... How do the monks of Potentia Animi resist the temptations that
most certainly appear on the tour, such as alcohol and easy women?
That is really difficult, as we are not able to scourge ourselves the
whole time. When we are on stage and we look into the audience, sometimes it’s
terrible. Only half naked women, flesh everywhere and a sweet smell. It’s not
good for us to have all the dirty pictures in our heads. So we have to tell all
the women who come to us: Please dress in decent cloth! It’s not fair to treat
monks like that! About the alcohol: we only drink wine (which is allowed) and
beer (which is allowed also, for we invented it – praise us for that). So rest
in peace and thanks for the interview.