Are Edguy a power metal band or glam rock, hard rock or traditional metal? SHANE PINNEGAR investigates.
Singer Tobias Sammet says that on their latest album, Space Police – Defenders Of The Crown, Edguy are just… Edguy.
“We do not really ask that question ourselves,” Sammet, who also fronts power metal supergroup, Avantasia, laughs. “It’s funny, people do not even know how to market us. What are we? What is the stamp they can put to sell us to a certain ‘target audience’? It does not work like that for Edguy.
“We have always been right between two chairs – that is what we say in Germany. It is really hard but we are just doing the music that feels natural to us. We have always played this kind of music. To me, when I grew up listening to music it was never really the question whether you were doing power metal or hard rock.
“To me, every band was great that played great guitar, great music. Be it AC/DC or Dio or Iron Maiden or Helloween – anything from Slayer to Bon Jovi was the kind of music that we were listening to.
“That is why I never really asked that question,” he continues passionately. “It is a very colourful album. It is very powerful. It is very guitar and fast drum rhythm, but it is just an Edguy album and it is a great one, I think.”
Heavy metal has always had an elitist faction insisting on imposing rules on its flock. The ‘thou must not make fun of metal’ crowd have cried foul at more extreme examples such as Steel Panther and The Darkness, and Edguy have been subjected to the same ridiculous derision for their occasional tongue in cheek lyric.
“It is just a very loud minority,” muses Sammet sanguinely, “because when we go on stage and play festivals to 80,000 people and they all sing along to the lyrics, I think most of them are pretty metal people and they obviously do not mind. They just want to have a good time and listen to great music.
“Not everything we do is goofy. We hardly do goofy stuff, we do tongue and cheek stuff at times, but we do serious stuff as well. They go along together pretty well, I think.
“Some people just want to have everything tailored to their own taste. In earlier days heavy metal music was music for outlaws,” he continues. “People were doing what they wanted to do. They were breaking the rules of the music industry and they were not minding the do’s and don’ts of the music. They were shocking people and they did exactly what they felt they needed to do. It was a very honest and heartfelt music.
“That became commercialised more and more. Nowadays there are some people who really think they have to define the way the bands – their favourite outlaws – have to behave. So, there is even a book of rules for being an outlaw!
“That is exactly what the Space Police lyric is about: if you want to be an outlaw in space you can be, but the Space Police is going to make sure you are doing the right things in order to be called a ‘good outlaw’.
“I don’t really think a lot of people have a problem with what we do, especially not the fans – they know and the rest of the world. It is heavy metal, so the rest of the world can kiss our asses! (laughs).”
