by Alexandra Mrozowska
— Senior Columnist —
All nostalgia aside, there’s something about the humankind that makes us look forward – way beyond the predictable lifespan of one’s own generation. That certainly explains the popularity of Science Fiction as a genre, even though most predictions about what’s going to happen are rather grim. Futuristic concepts aren’t nothing new also in the world of Rock and Metal. And yet, when you take a look at an album entitled Final Days, you may feel a bit uneasy for a split second… But don’t worry, it’s not the end of the world coming. Or is it…?
Final Days is the sixth full-length by the German ensemble Orden Ogan and although much has been said about the Dark Sci-Fi theme the album has been built around, the band’s mastermind Sebastian “Seeb” Levermann argues there’s more to the new songs than just speculative visions of the future. “What I also really like to do is taking a specific field of words – a semantic field – that belongs to the scenery and to the topic, and then work with metaphors of these words,” he says, giving Hardrock Haven readers a sneak peek into his songwriting process. But this one was just one of many topics we’ve discussed alongside Sci-Fi, technological expansion and joys and challenges of music production – and Sebastian’s recommended way of coping with the lockdown blues…
Hardrock Haven: Orden Ogan’s new album Final Days was originally due to be out in November last year, but was rescheduled. The general reasons for postponement of many albums are the same and obvious now, but were there any specific reasons for that in your case?
Sebastian “Seeb” Levermann: Yes, actually in our case this COVID-19 thing was just the cherry on top, because we had terrible problems in the production process for this record in basically every area. I don’t know – I don’t believe in stuff like that, but you could almost say there was somebody who didn’t want us to get this finished. Some evil forces maybe… I don’t know (laughs). I mean, literally whatever you can imagine, it went wrong. We had terrible problems with the drum recordings, with guitar recordings… everything. And then, when COVID hit, we were almost already pretty cynical – mainly saying something like, “Ahh yes, okay. A global pandemic… what else?” (laughs) So it was terrible, but it’s good that we’re done now with everything.
Hardrock Haven: You’re quoted as saying that you didn’t want to compromise when it comes to the quality of the album and the production aspects you’ve just mentioned, so would you say you consider yourself a perfectionist when it comes to your music?
Sebastian “Seeb” Levermann: Yes, I’m a perfectionist and the one thing that I really have to say is I personally never saw Orden Ogan as a commercial product. I mean, I’m making my whole income out of that, apart from the studio work that I do… Both things are running well and I can do my studio [work] or Orden Ogan or the other way around, whatever… Both work really good and it’s a great situation for me. And obviously, AFM Records really wanted to release that record, but the main reason why I’m doing these records is that I want to do that for myself. I’ve never felt pushed by anyone to do that, so it really has to be at a point where I say, “Okay, now I’m really, really happy with it.” It has to be like this and I think this is the part of the Orden Ogan identity. When you look back at all the other records, it’s the same with everything [on them]. I mean, obviously they sound a little bit dated today, but they still aged pretty well because even back in the day we always did the best that we could at the time. I really intend to keep it that way, in this case too. It was really worth all the work, because I think also from the production standpoint it’s the best record that I’ve done for Orden Ogan and maybe also the best record that I’ve ever mixed in my studio.
Hardrock Haven: Speaking about the studio work, Final Days is obviously not the first self-produced Orden Ogan. What do you think are the advantages of choosing this method rather than working with an outside producer?
Sebastian “Seeb” Levermann: I don’t think it would work to work with an outside producer in our case, because I personally am what you would really call a producer. I have a really strong and clear vision of what I want to achieve and in the last years I really worked hard on my skills to be able to get there. So, that wouldn’t work at all. I mean, I could imagine giving the tracks away to a talented guy who can just mix the record, ‘cause that’s one thing. But in terms of writing the music and arranging it and really producing it, I don’t think that anybody else could have the same vision that I do. So that would be out of the question. The thing is, I get hired in the studio to do exactly that… I mean, when I work with bands like Rhapsody Of Fire, obviously not, because Alex [Staropoli] is a perfectionist himself and he knows how Rhapsody Of Fire should sound… so I can’t give them any advice, I just have to mix the record. But when I work with a band like Brainstorm for example, they explicitly want somebody who really focuses on the songwriting itself and maybe [suggest] if we should remove the bridge or repeat the chorus or do something else with it, or add another vocal line… So I consider production skills to be my biggest strength of all. If you ask me if I’m a singer, a guitar player or whatever – I think my main spot in this world is being a music producer.
Hardrock Haven: Sometimes the musicians who produce their own albums complain on having difficulties with distancing themselves from what they’ve written and recorded and the lack of perspective. In spite of what you’ve just said, have you ever found it challenging as well?
Sebastian “Seeb” Levermann: No, totally not. In my case, that’s the exact opposite. Like I said, I have a pretty clear vision in my head of what I want to achieve. Sometimes you have a vision that differs from reality (laughs), and then you will just have to understand that the stuff that you just did does not sound the way you imagined it, and then you have to find another way… Sometimes it’s even better. Sometimes you’re just working on stuff and you don’t even think that this is going to be great, and then all of a sudden it turns out to be amazing. That can also happen. The only thing that really is a problem when it comes to distancing yourself is when I work with a band like Brainstorm and I know that some backing vocals, for example, might just be like eighty percent great… I can understand better that they are not relevant in the full picture, if you know what I mean. So sometimes eighty percent is good enough for stuff like backing vocals or whatever. But the problem when you’re producing and recording the stuff yourself, like in my case, is that when I sang something where I really know I didn’t nail it one hundred percent, I will always know it. It doesn’t matter if you hear it or not in the end result, because you know that this isn’t one hundred percent. And this is just one of the reasons why it can take a little bit longer sometimes.
Hardrock Haven: You’ve mentioned that working with the different bands you name-dropped requires different approach and different skills, so do you think these experiences have any impact on what you do with your own band, both as a musician and a producer?
Sebastian “Seeb” Levermann: Yes, it always has. I mean, everything is an influence. When you get up in the morning and go to the car and drive somewhere, and there’s a song on the radio – that is also an influence. And if you work with other musicians, obviously you get to learn stuff that they do differently than you would normally. In the case of Rhapsody Of Fire, I have to say not so much really, because like I said before, Alex really, really knows how the band should sound and I get basically perfect tracks from him. And he’s just like, “Okay, just mix it and do your magic with it and make it sound the best way it can. But still then you would say, “Okay, we need the flutes a little bit louder or the violins a little bit louder…” or stuff like this, so we work together on that. But totally yes when it comes to things like the mixing sound – just the pure sound of the record – obviously that’s just experience, you know. I think the first record that I really mixed completely for Orden Ogan was Easton Hope back in 2010, and then I just sat down and said to myself, “Okay, where do you wanna go? Do you wanna be a producer that is working just with the small bands, the next-door-kind of basically, or do you wanna work with the great bands of the genre and the scene and have fun, because then you can work with amazing musicians?” For me, the answer was crystal clear. So I really had to sit down on my ass and really work and practice a lot, because you don’t get good overnight. You really have to practice – it’s just mixing, mixing, mixing… doing, doing, doing the stuff… and then, eventually, you will get better. It’s not that it comes overnight and it’s not that you need to buy super expensive equipment if you really just know what to listen for and how things work.
Hardrock Haven: Absolutely. Focusing on the album, much has been said about “Inferno” being the most unusual song on the album in terms of style, and yet it was chosen as a single. Is this choice more about the band’s artistic development, or perhaps expanding your fanbase as well?
Sebastian “Seeb” Levermann: I wouldn’t necessarily say that this was on purpose. And I would also not really say that this song is that different. I mean, the term that popped up a couple of times was that it sounds pretty “poppy,” you know? Like it was more of a Pop song than a real Heavy Metal song. But actually, if people say, “Now they’re starting to sell out” – and there will always be people who’d say, “Arghh, the band is selling out, they’re so commercial now…” – those people don’t know the band. Because if you listen to the older records, like our debut one Vale [2008], there’s also songs [on it] like “This Is!” or “Farewell” that basically have the same vibe, like a four-on-the-floor groove and very poppy structure… So we always did stuff like that. And I personally don’t think in these boundaries. A great song is a great song for me personally. I listen to a lot of different genres and it doesn’t really matter. In the case of “Inferno”, I personally thought that the song’s chorus is super hooky and it will work amazingly in a live context with the shouts from the audience. So this is why we picked it actually, because I really thought the song is the best track and I don’t really think in terms of genres… I knew – obviously, it was crystal clear for me – that people would say, “Oh, this song’s more commercial than the other stuff than they did before.” Yes, it is! But that was the main reason why we put out “In The Dawn Of The AI” as the first single. You’ll always find the people who complain [about something], so with this one, there were also people complaining, “How can they put out a six-minute-long Progressive track like “In The Dawn Of The AI” as the first single?” And we’re like, “Yes, because that’s also Orden Ogan. Why shouldn’t we put out a six-minute-long single?” It’s all art. We don’t follow the rules, it’s just about our music and our art. It’s not that we’re trying to be the most commercially effective machine on the planet. We’re just making music and people can enjoy it or not. I mean, if you don’t like it, you don’t have to listen to it. But I have to say that overall, reactions to the tracks have been amazing actually.
Hardrock Haven: …and well-deserved. And speaking of the singles, also the band’s videos – “Inferno” included – seem to be quite important parts of the entire story. Do you pay much attention to the visual representation of your music, especially in the era of the lyric videos and simplified visuals?
Sebastian “Seeb” Levermann: Like I said before, I do Orden Ogan mainly for myself. And when this COVID-19 thing hit, in the very beginning our drummer [Dirk Meyer-Berhorn] said, “Oh, look! There are a lot of bands that are doing livestreams and they have a camera in their rehearsal space and then they’re releasing these videos and we should do that as well.” And I said, “Dirk, Orden Ogan has always been a quality product. We’ve always tried to make everything the best way we can, so we won’t certainly put just one camera in our rehearsal space and record us playing and stream that live, because that’s not my artistic vision of this thing.” So to answer the question itself – yes, of course. The thing is that it’s the part of the whole art, if you want to put it that way… So obviously, the videos are super important for us. It was a little bit of a bummer as we actually planned a lot more for the videos, but due to the COVID situation it wasn’t possible to shoot a lot of the stuff that we wanted to do. And also the “Inferno” video actually was planned in a little different way – it turned out to be a little funny eventually. And this is because we thought that the situation is already bad enough for everyone, so everyone could really use a smile and cheer up a little bit. That’s why we thought about bringing in the fans and the fan videos that we used in the video.
Hardrock Haven: There are two guests on Final Days – Ylva Eriksson of Brothers of Metal and Gus G. How did you hook up with them and what’s prompted their participation in the album?
Sebastian “Seeb” Levermann: I could just repeat myself – it’s always about the art. And especially when it comes to guest musicians, it has never been that we wanted to do big name-droppings and stuff. It really has to fit, so the people really have to fit to the tracks. And when we wrote “Alone In The Dark”, we knew that there had to be a female part. There were a lot of names thrown around – a lot of very known singers as well… I mean, Ylva is not so known yet. But she was suggested by AFM Records and I listened to her voice – I thought it was beautiful and I really tried to picture how it would sound if she did like this really calm, fragile, melancholic tune. I thought it would turn out amazing and I really think she nailed it, totally. It’s a beautiful vocal performance and I don’t think any other female singer could’ve done that in a better way – maybe differently, but not better. So I’m super happy with that.
And when it comes to Gus – we had some problems with our former guitar player Toby [Kersting]. And even back in 2018 we really knew that’s very likely that he will take some time off from the band and we’ll have to go with another guitar player. So we were actually joking around, like, “Okay, then we’ll have just to bring in some guests to play the solos” and Gus was the first guy who came to mind. And we knew him, because Niels [Löffler], our other guitar player, was on tour with him once. So I think between the first e-mail to Gus and a final solo it was just a couple of days. And it’s of course a big honor for us to have a former Ozzy Osbourne guitar player on the record, and we love his guitar playing… He’s a great guy as well, and I also really knew what to expect [from him]. I knew what he would be sending back and as soon as I put the fader up, I just had to laugh because it was exactly what I pictured in my head. So that was great as well.
Hardrock Haven: There’s been many guests on the previous Orden Ogan albums too, from Liv Kristine to Joacim Cans of HammerFall. What do you think all these contributions bring to your music?
Sebastian “Seeb” Levermann: In the case of Joacim, this was also a situation when we were on tour with him and HammerFall in 2015, so we thought that would be nice to bring this together on the record as well. But like I said before, it has to fit artistically. And when we had the idea to bring Joacim in for the vocals, I knew exactly where the spot would be. So that was the perfect path for him and it turned out like that. And if you listen to the track, it really sounds like it belongs there. With Liv, it was pretty much the same. We know her because Niels sometimes helps out on bass for Leaves’ Eyes and we’re all friends basically. And back then, when she still was with Leaves’ Eyes and we knew that there has to be a female voice [in our song], we thought that would be a perfect spot for her. And it was. It worked pretty well. So like I said before, it’s always about what the musician brings to the table and not that it’s the biggest name.
Hardrock Haven: What inspires the storylines for Orden Ogan albums? How does your songwriting process usually look like?
Sebastian “Seeb” Levermann: When it comes to songwriting, during the last years I’ve been writing most of the material myself. And also with this record [Final Days], I think the very, very big chunk of it is by me. And [when it comes to] coming up with the ideas, it can totally vary. You can be walking down the street and humming a melody, and then all of a sudden it’s like, “Oh, this melody sounds great. We should do it in the song.” You can be sitting on a couch playing guitar and think, “Okay, this is a great riff. We should do something with it.” It happened that I woke up in the middle of the night ‘cause I have dreamt a song (laughs) and just went to the computer and recorded my ideas. That happens. I really have to say that I’ve been working a lot with our drummer Dirk during the last years too, not only on the drum performance but also on the songs themselves. It turned out to be a pretty great combination because he’s also very creative and really understands the band.
And the storylines… I mean, the records all have one shared setting for the record, but it’s not that they’re like complete concept albums. So it’s not that all tracks are connected together, it’s just a very loose concept. And in the case of Final Days, there are these tracks that are about a downfall of mankind, like “In The Dawn Of The AI”, that is about the Artificial Intelligence taking over, or “It Is Over” that is about the last asteroid impact on Earth and stuff like that. But what I also really like to do is taking a specific field of words – a semantic field – that belongs to the scenery and to the topic and then work with metaphors of these words. So for example, there’s this track called “Black Hole” on the album, which obviously is semantically connected to Science Fiction, but actually is not about a real black hole but depression and the feeling that the weight of your own depression is dragging you down. Or the track “Heart Of The Android” which was just released – it’s not about an actual android, it’s about the person who feels that they just have to function and people don’t really care anymore about how they feel and what they do… they just have to be the one that always functions, like a robot. And I really love to do that, because some people think that these lyrics are about one thing and they’re actually not at all. And it happens that people that really like the music and get into the lyrics start to understand them all of a sudden, after they’ve listened to the album a thousand times… and they start writing to us on the Orden Ogan page, saying, “Oh, I’ve just understood what this song is about! This is so great!” (laughs) And it’s always big fun.
Hardrock Haven: Absolutely, and also must be a very rewarding feeling for a songwriter. So with this Dark Sci-Fi theme for Final Days, are you personally a fan of this particular literary genre?
Sebastian “Seeb” Levermann: Yes, I would say that. I’m a big Horror fan and also a big Sci-Fi fan. I’m also a big Star Trek fan. I love especially all the older stuff, but there are also great combinations of the two genres, like Alien for example. So I would totally consider myself a fan.
Hardrock Haven: And as you’ve mentioned two of the songs off the new album that talk about the end of humankind, do you think “In The Dawn Of The AI” and the final “It Is Over” are just pure works of fiction, or more of a probable future fate?
Sebastian “Seeb” Levermann: Statistically, there’s a pretty good chance that we will get hit by a little bigger asteroid in the close future, so we should really start thinking about what we can do to prevent that (laughs). So that might happen. As far as the Artificial Intelligence is concerned, I’ve read a lot of stuff about that topic and I watched some videos of experts on that field because I think it’s super interesting. And what we have right now, at the moment, is just basically self-learning programs and this is not a real AI. So a real Artificial Intelligence is not yet there on this planet. But as soon as that is there and you have an intelligence that has got some sort of a self-consciousness and knows about itself and starts to developing itself because it develops its own motivation to do it, it can pretty likely be very dangerous for mankind. It could be that it’s not that at all, because the AI would not just be interested in us, but it could also be that it turns out to be very, very dangerous. I don’t think it will go down like Terminator and send rockets onto us, like nukes or whatever… but if the AI has some other plans with this planet and we’re in the way, it might not care. Because in the end, I think, if you’ve got an Artificial Intelligence that is self-developing, it will develop itself in a way that is so fast that we won’t be able to communicate with it anymore in a matter of days. It will be just so intelligent that for the AI it would be like talking to a tree when it’s talking to humans. So let’s see – I think the threat is real. Even [Elon] Musk is warning about it all the time… He says we really need regulations and rules all over the globe for companies and people that are working on real AI, and I think he’s totally right. It’s one of the biggest risks that humankind is facing right now, and people just don’t get it because they don’t understand the concept of it.
Hardrock Haven: Definitely. But on the other hand, musicians depend on technology more than ever now, especially these days with the COVID-19 situation. Do you think this technological expansion is more of a blessing or a curse?
Sebastian “Seeb” Levermann: It’s totally more of a blessing. I mean, there will always be these people that are somehow locked in the past, and say, “Ahh, it was all better in the past and now the music studios are going down…” You know, the thing is that when I think back a couple of years – like the 1990s… If I had had to produce an Orden Ogan album in the 1990s, that would have cost like ten thousands of Euros, because with all the stuff that we do – all these orchestral elements and choirs and stuff like that – if you had done that on tape, you would’ve needed a real choir and a real orchestra. And that would’ve been like super expensive, so we wouldn’t have been able to record something like that. So that is great and also it’s great for me as a producer, [in terms of] working in the studio. The plug-ins are getting better and better and you just need a computer nowadays and interface so that you could record your stuff on your own at home. And I personally think it’s great. Like a lot of these bands can sit at home and record their stuff and work on that and that’s just amazing. The people that are complaining that they don’t go to the recording studio or that the studios are going down – these are the guys that are running the big studios or have been running the big studios. Of course, the big studios died, but I think this is just how it all goes. So I think it’s a blessing.
Hardrock Haven: Absolutely, especially now. Recently I talked with Mark Jansen of Epica, who suggested it’s possible for the virtual reality to replace real music experience – like concerts – entirely in the future just for the sake of comfort. What do you think about such a concept?
Sebastian “Seeb” Levermann: To have the same experience, you will have to be a lot further in the future… It will always be different to be in the same room with the big PA and loud music and a lot of other people than to experience a concert at home. You’ll have to be a lot further in the future, so that you have the body experience of it. So I think that will be possible but not in the next ten years or something. And I really have to say I watched a lot of these streaming concerts last year and actually, personally I was feeling even more sad after I watched that, because there’s nothing that is more sad than the band that is in a completely empty venue, playing in front of no audience (laughs). I mean, I did that for a couple of years in the beginning of our career and even before… (laughs) So this is really not what you want to do. And if we were to do a streaming concert, we’d do it vastly different. I don’t think we’d be in a club on the big stage, playing in front of no audience. I think we’d do it more like a concert movie or like a very, very long performance clip or something like that. But it would definitely look a lot different.
Hardrock Haven: Orden Ogan is usually classified as Power Metal and you’d probably agree there’s many misconceptions and stereotypes surrounding this particular genre. Do you think it’s easy or challenging to avoid clichés in this genre?
Sebastian “Seeb” Levermann: I don’t think about stuff like that because – like I told you before – I’m just doing that because I do what I love and what I want to do to express myself. Again, like I said before, I think Orden Ogan is a quality product (laughs), if you wanna put it like that. A lot of thought and effort goes into the lyrics and the music, so I don’t think we qualify for a band that is overly about, like you’ve said, a lot of stereotypical things. At least it doesn’t feel like that for me, but everyone has to decide that for themselves. And of course, I would label Orden Ogan a Power Metal band as well, because journalists need labels for music to talk to people about it. Otherwise the readers don’t know at all what they’re talking about. But I’ve heard it a thousand times, from journalists now as well, that people think we’re not exactly a Power Metal band. If it’s something – a particular genre – it is Power Metal, but it transcends the borders of Power Metal. There’s so many modern elements in it, there’s so many hard, modern riffs and parts that could be like Metalcore or stuff like that, if you put away the clean vocals and the choirs and the orchestra and stuff. So, maybe it is Power Metal, but it is not only Power Metal.
Hardrock Haven: Agree. But where do you think this diversity of influences come from?
Sebastian “Seeb” Levermann: Also, that’s nothing that I would really think about. It’s just what comes out of me when I’m sitting down, trying to write music. And like I said before, we’re all pretty open-minded in the band and for example, I studied popular music at the university as well… I listen to a lot of stuff too. In the studio, I’m working mainly with Metal bands, but not only. There’s all kinds of genres. So it’s like the more words you have, the bigger your vocabulary is – and the better you can form your sentences. And it transfers to music. And I think the most important thing when writing music and being a producer is also to understand when something doesn’t work. You can try out everything, but you would have to know if you do something that really doesn’t fit. And this might be the hardest part actually.
Hardrock Haven: Right. So, usually the album release would have been followed by a tour, but these days nothing’s certain obviously, so what’s the current situation with Orden Ogan like? When do you plan to resume playing live?
Sebastian “Seeb” Levermann: Yeah, actually there are plans. When we wanted to release the record last year, there was a headlining tour planned for September with special guests Grave Digger and Rage, which would have been an amazing German Metal package… Maybe we can do that in the future again, let’s see… So, we had to postpone it – first to April this year, and now again to February 2022. We changed the supports to Brothers Of Metal and Wind Rose, which is also great, because they are the young, fresh bands in the genre. And this is also one thing that I really like about Orden Ogan – that we can tour with the seasoned veterans in the genre, like Grave Digger and Rage, and that works, and we can also tour with very young, modern bands because our audience is like that as well. We have the old guys and the very young guys, and that’s amazing. And I think in February next year it might be possible then. I’m not sure if there are any concerts this year, but February 2022 could work.
Hardrock Haven: Fingers crossed for that. You’ve just mentioned a couple of renowned German bands and obviously, Germany is one of the most important countries on the Metal map. What do you think is the reason for that?
Sebastian “Seeb” Levermann: I have thought about that and I have no opinion on that (laughs). But it is like you say, and that’s interesting. There are a lot of successful bands coming from Germany – a lot of successful Heavy Metal bands – but I don’t know why. Maybe it is because our live scene works pretty well… or worked pretty well, at least, in the last twenty, thirty or forty years. And maybe it’s easier for the bands to grow to the spot that they’re interesting for the international market as well… I have no idea. But it seems to be like that there’s a lot of successful bands from Germany and a lot from Scandinavia. You’re right, but I have no idea why.
Hardrock Haven: Alright, so before we wrap it up – is there anything you’d like to add in the end?
Sebastian “Seeb” Levermann: Yes, talking to fans I’d like to add – people, please stay healthy and take care of yourselves and all the other people around. This might not be the worst virus ever, but it’s still bad enough and you don’t really wanna get this virus. And I really understand that a lot of people are really getting depressed right now and feel really bad, because a lot of them are also losing their jobs and stuff like that, but what I’d really like to tell people is that it is not the end of the world. Even if you lose your job, don’t jump out of the window – it’s not worth it. It will all get better at a certain point. And especially it will all get better if you go and buy our new CD (laughs) and listen to that (laughs). This will make life more worth it (laughs).
