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ON ATLAS’ SHOULDERS is a German band defined as Epic Heavy Metal, with a lot of influences together. They also shot a clip at Schloss Burg, a castle in Solingen, Germany. This week we had that cool chat with Marius and Ben about the band and how to build a project based on trust.
On Atlas’ Shoulders is a very fucking amazing band, guys. And I would like to start our conversation asking you to talk about your beginning in the music and telling about the band’s story for our readers.
Marius: Thanks very much for having us! Happy to be here. I started out listening to the general stuff that was popular among the masses. When I entered grammar school, I actually got more into rap music, for example Eminem. Further down the road, I discovered Green Day and Nirvana and that’s when the ball got rolling and I entered the Rock area, which eventually led me to Metal.
Ben: As for me, I also had multiple phases listening to various genres of music. I had a strong classical music upbringing, with both my parents being classical musicians and me playing the piano for about ten years before switching to bass guitar and eventually electric guitar. My first rock influences were bands such as Blink 182 and Linkin Park growing up, then while playing in my first band legends such as Guns n’ Roses and Led Zeppelin became very important, and eventually heavier stuff starting out with – surprise – Metallica before going down the never-ending rabbit hole of metal in all its variations, from trad to power to prog to death metal and everything in between haha.
Marius: Regarding On Atlas’ Shoulders, it’s actually a nice story about how this band started: I was looking for a new band project back in November 2018. After long years of not doing music at all, I felt it was time again. So, I registered on a musician’s matching platform online and originally planned on joining an existing band as a singer. As fate would have it, Benjamin here, who was new in town, saw my ad, called me up and asked if I had interest in forming something new. We set up a jam session and it just clicked, so I decided to kickstart this whole thing with him.
Ben: Yeah, I took a chance by calling Marius but fortunately, it all worked out. Soon after Marius and I met, Björn joined us as a second guitarist. Also a funny situation because we were actually looking for drums and a bassist, not another guitarist. Björn, just like me, also took a chance and applied for a second guitar position. Luckily he did because he became our sound-mix and tech guy, and playing harmonized guitar parts has become an important element of our music! After some other members joining and leaving, we finally found our drummer Leo, who does an awesome job at playing our music. It was quite difficult to find someone who is able to play our music.
I need to ask you: is the band name inspired in the Atlas’ myth? Why have you choose this name for the band?
Marius: Partly. “On Atlas’ Shoulders” is derived from the scientific and philosophical leitmotif “Standing on the shoulders of giants”. It means that progress is being made on previous discoveries, which were achieved by our predecessors, the so-called “giants”. By standing on their shoulders, we continue to build on top of their legacy.
Ben: And since we wanted a specific figure that could embody our music, we thought of Atlas, who is a titan from Greek mythology. Our music is supposed to convey strength, might and epicness that encourages the listener to not give up on their goals. In our eyes, there is hardly anyone better suited as a mascot than Atlas, who carries the sky.
I’ve seen the new album “Hyperion”(to be released in June) is themed in Dark Souls’ games. How important are games for you? Why do you decided inspiring this recording in this specific game?(and a good game, for sure)
Marius: I guess that’s my fault, haha. I am a huge fan of the Souls series and the story as well as the atmosphere of Dark Souls just fits in our music. The idea of “Age of Fire” – the song that is Dark Souls themed, the rest of the album isn’t – just struck me one day and I liked it a lot, so we went on and wrote a song about it. I used to play a lot of video games in my teens. Now, not so much anymore, due to limited time. But I still enjoy playing them from time to time.
Ben: I am not as heavily into the Souls series as Marius, but I love the games’ atmosphere. And it absolutely fits metal, especially power metal, so it was a welcome source of lyrical inspiration for “Age of Fire”.
What are your favorite games? (not necessarily electronic)
Marius: Definitely Dark Souls 3.
Ben: I can’t really pick a favourite, but games I enjoyed in the last few years were The Witcher and The Last Of Us. I’ve also increasingly been playing physical board games.
In 5 Billion Years, the lyrics (and the videoclip) bring some important social issues, as climate change, poverty and other. Heavy metal, today, is not a genre that is “accepting” so fair this kind of message, because some douchebags says that you had not put music and social discussions. Why did you decide to talk about it in this song and video? How important is the bands to take some positions about these problems?
Marius: Music becomes authentic and powerful by being the product of your own life experiences. Since we as individuals have values and are shaped by our life experiences, they inevitably end up in the music you produce. If you value something, you will express it. For us, it was important to convey the message, that you define your own destiny in life because we, ourselves, have encountered multiple situations where we were not in control of our life. Those were dark times. With this song, we want to help others, who are struggling with the same thing, to overcome that.
About the video, I liked the idea of a cartoon instead the band playing in the background, with an energy that reminds me Metalocalypse. Tell us about the conception and the story behind it.
Ben: We wanted something more unique than the generic music video where the band is just being filmed playing the song. We wanted to capture a bit of black humor in the video to align with the chorus line “Obsession is in vain”, which basically says that you should not take everything too seriously. By picking a cartoon theme, we wanted to move away from said seriousness and polished perfection a bit, haha.
I love the Epic classification for some genres, because it says so much and says nothing about a band. Your work is classified as an Epic Heavy Metal, but, for me, it sounds something in the middle of the traditional heavy metal, good German power metal and some modern metal music. Explain us how you find your musicality and your main influences.
Marius: Yeah, we were quite surprised when we found out that a reviewer defined us as Epic Heavy Metal. We like it very much, though, haha. Basically, we just compose everything that comes natural to us. We all have different role models and musical influences. On Atlas’ Shoulders is the resulting melting pot of all of that.
Ben: Right. Our common denominator is basically to keep vocals rather clean and compose metal that we like and is fun to play. We never set out to write something in a specific sub-genre. Instead, our songs are always a snapshot of our inspirations, thoughts and creativity at that given point in time. I agree that our overall sound is quite traditional, but our overarching lyrical themes are supposed to convey a certain epic sense of strength, not letting anything get you down, fighting for what you believe is right etc. – so in that sense we like the epic classification.
What do you think about the future for the bands and the music industry? I ask this because the pandemic around the world is not decreasing as expected and countries like mine (Brazil) are far in the vaccination programs, so I see that is very difficult for bands make money without concerts.
Ben: Indeed, everyone who is an artist or performer of some sort is struggling immensely right now and we hope that everyone can get back on their feet again, soon. However, this situation has also given us a lot of time to focus on songwriting and compose new material. We were able to write, record and produce our second album HYPERION during the lockdown and are even starting to collect ideas for our third album now. It’s important to make the most out of this time and be creative. Stand strong guys, better times are coming!
In recent times, because of the pandemics, some artists are claiming about more fair royalties for the streaming platforms, because they don’t pay enough to the artists (and myself, as a noise musician, see much less money than a good band as you). What do you think about streaming royalties? Are they fair enough?
Marius: Ever since the age of digitalization started and everyone can upload their music online, freely available to everyone, musicians and artists have had an increasingly difficult time making money off of their stuff because no one buys it physically anymore. Everyone just listens to it online. On the one hand, streaming platforms don’t pay well but on the other hand, they help you show your music to the world. It’s a difficult trade-off. In the end, it forces you to go out there and do live shows, sell merch and so on, because that’s the only way you still make money as a band. Since that is our goal as a band anyway, I guess we can make due with the situation.
Thank you for this interview guys. So this is your space to let a message to our readers. Let’s go.
Ben: Thank you so much for having us, your interest in our music really means a lot to us! I’ll use the opportunity to shamelessly plug our upcoming album HYPERION, which we will be releasing in June, with four singles including music videos already available now. We really hope you enjoy the record and hope to see everyone in the road again soon!
Related Links
https://www.instagram.com/onatlasshoulders/