On the rack: Ferdy Doernberg  from Rough Silk 

 

 

Hi, first off all I just want to congratulate you with ‘A new Beginning’. Are you Satisfied with it?

 

I’m really happy with the new album. But what else do you expect me to say?

No, seriously: Yes, of course I love the album!!!

It’s a new band but still typical Rough Silk. Rough Silk have definitely created an own style. The name says it all: „Rough“stands for the real heavy ( sometimes even trash-  and hardcore ) metal influences and „Silk“ for the unusual singer-songwriter-elements and piano-parts. The plan was to record a metal-based-album, where the "rough" side of the band was "rough" again which means to get back to the trash-metal and hardcore-based riffing that was always a major part of  the band’s style. We always had influences from Trash - Hardcore- and Death-Metal-bands in our music. That was what made the band special - we didn’t use the typical hairband-Riffs of the 80ies. The riffs were always different than the typical hardrock and powermetal- riffs. They were way heavier with a lot of halfsteps. And then we combined them with Billy Joel-influenced piano parts. But Rough Silk was always a metal-band. That was the main reason why the old members left. They were not into metal anymore and I didn’t want to make pop music as Rough Silk. That’s the good thing about the new line-up:  Because Mike and André come from the trash- and death metal-scene their way of playing is very aggressive and up to date and makes the old songs sound fresh and new when we play live. Alex’s pounding drum style that includes many technical skills, brings an exciting contrast to their playing. I think that this album is way more Rough Silk than the last album with the old members. And it’s definitely a metal-album again! Rough Silk had many line-up-changes through the years anyway and I’m the only remaining guy but actually it was always more about the band’s style- the name already says it  : “Rough” for – thrash-metal-influenced riffing – and “silk” for piano-parts and singer/songwriter-influences - than about who was I the band even though of course everyone had his input !!!

We had a very unique style which I still love. That’s the reason why I founded a new version of Rough Silk. Mike, André and Alex are young and hungry - and I’m the metal-grandpa, ha ha!!!!

They are great guys and very good musicians.

So the title is definitely fitting: We’re ready for a new beginning and I’m very proud of the album.

 

Who or what has the greatest influence on you?

 

I’m very open-minded if it comes to music. My biggest influences on the metal side are all the old trash-bands like Slayer, Metallica, Testament, Overkill, and Anthrax. Anthrax was also the ones that brought me to hardcore. I love many of the New York City-hardcore bands like Agnostic Front, Sick Of It All and the Cro-Mags. I’m also into death metal-bands like Morbid Angel, Deicide, Atheist, Absu, Six Feet Under and of course Cannibal Corpse. There are a lot of great players in these bands. But of course I grew up with all the classical bands from the 70´s and 80´s like Maiden, Kiss, ZZ Top, Rainbow, Dio, AC/DC, Rose Tattoo, Journey, Night Ranger, Deep Purple, Ratt, Black Sabbath, Thin Lizzy, Motörhead and many others. When I started I was a huge fan of the Ramones. So my first band when I was 13 was a punk rock band.

But I also was always a huge Billy Joel- and Bruce Springsteen-fan.

I like many artists that are not metal as well : Randy Newman, Bob Dylan, The Eagles, Steve Earle, Bryan Adams, Huey Lewis & The News, Waylon Jennings, Social Distortion, Allman-Brothers, Bob Wills, Vince Gill, Todd Snider, Tom T. Hall,  Jean-Jacques Goldman, Herb Alpert, Jackson Browne, Stefan Waggershausen, The Band, Jason & The Scorchers, Townes van Zandt, The Hooters, John Wesley Harding, Stan Bush, Lee Roy Parnell, Jack Wagner and Hank Williams ( sr + jr  )

My biggest influences as a piano- and organ-player were Billy Joel, Dr.John and Jon Lord - as a slide-guitar-player Lee Roy Parnell, Jerry Douglas, Duane Allman, Rick Vito, Bonnie Raitt, Bob Brozman, David Gilmour, Pete Wells, David Lindley and Sonny Landreth - as a trumpet player Herb Alpert and Miles Davis and my favorite singers are Bryan Adams, Steve Earle, Bruce Springsteen, Don Henley, Waylon Jennings, Roger Miret, John Wesley Harding, Jackson Browne, Billy Joel, James Hetfield, Todd Snider and Stan Bush.

 

How do you feel about the co-operation with your label, Dockyard 1?

 

Very well. I know the Dockyard1-people for years and they were the only ones we asked.

 

What's currently located in your CD-player?

 

My favorite records at the moment are:

 

Cannibal Corpse: "Evisceration plague",

Bruce Springsteen: "Working on a dream",

Agnostic Front: "Warrior",

Absu: "Absu",

Deicide: “Till death do us part”,

Randy Newman: "Harps & angels",

Slayer: “Christ illusion”,

Bryan Adams: “11”,

Bloodclot! : "Burn Babylon burn!”

Matt Roer: “Uhad2bthere”,

Steve Earle: “Washington square serenade”

Tony Spinner: "Rollin´ & tumblin´",

Dickey Betts: “2006 north American tour – the official bootleg”,

Lääz Rockit: “Left for dead",

Metallica: "Death magnetic",

Chris Isaak: "Mr. lucky",

Dr.John: “City that care forgot”,

Jesse James Dupree & Dixie Inc.: "Rev it up and go-go",

Bon Jovi: “Lost highway”,

Alan Vega: “Station”,

Joey Vera : “A chinese firedrill – circles”,

Sick Of It All: “death to tyrants”,

Vinnie Stigma: "New York blood",

Brad Paisley: "Play",

Cynic: "Traced in air",

ZZTop: "Live from Texas",

Kip Winger: “From the moon to the sun”,

Soulfly: "Conquer",

Dierks Bentley: "Feel that fire"

 

It’s a lot of different stuff but I told you that I’m an open-minded person!!!

 

What tasks presently lie ahead for ROUGH SILK?

 

Yesterday we did a video-shooting for the song "reborn to wait" - it went very well - but was also very cold - I’m still freezing, ha ha!!!

We’ll try to play live as much as possible - but the music business is going down fast at the moment.

So it’s impossible to know how the album will sell - we’ll see.
Of course it would be cool to do a support tour with some bigger band - but that’s always a money-thing.

But we’re an old school band - so we play a lot of shows on our own on the weekends - just like the old bands: 4 guys in a van!!!! Wherever there’s power to plug in: We play!!!!

We just signed a new booking contract and don’t have problems with setting up our stuff ourselves to play and afterwards tear down again and drive on to the next show.

Many bands don’t do that anymore!!

It will not be easy I’m pretty sure - but we didn’t make this album for money – we made it because we love this music. That’s one of the reasons why I wanted to have a band with young and idealistic musicians and not some old mercenaries who play for money only.

 

I thank you very much for participating in this short interview. Anything you’d like to add to

Our readers?

 

I’d like to say a few words about the last song, "A song for Hilmer", if you don’t mind:

I wrote and performed it right away in L.A. the day I got the news that our original guitar player, Hilmer Staacke, had died the day before. I was in L.A. playing with Uli Jon Roth and Robbie Krieger (The Doors).

Hilmer and I went to school and had founded Rough Silk together, and after he had left the band we still were getting along very well, even though we didn’t have so much contact anymore, which is something I regret a lot now.

Musically Hilmer was an underrated guitar player, who had a great tone and was more into melodies than the "shredding"-thing.

Besides Jeff Beck one of his favorite guitar players was Warren de Martini from Ratt.

As I was now playing with Warren in L.A. I thought of Hilmer and told Warren, that I had a friend who was a big fan of his playing. The next day Warren brought a poster to the show that he had signed for Hilmer. I wanted to give it to him on his birthday on the 5th of June. But 10 minutes later my cell phone rang and Ralf (the original bass player of Rough Silk) told me that Hilmer had died.

Of course I was totally shocked.

Hilmer and me grew up together and shared so many things.

For Rough Silk he was very important and he definitely left his mark on the songs of the first albums. In the first years we rehearsed 6 times a week for 8 hours and all songs got worked out together in the rehearsal room. The basic ideas were always by Hilmer, Jan and me.

Hilmer´s songs (like for example. "Don’t leave me now" und "Ups and downs”) had a very strong seventies-touch (way before the Seventies-revival) and were very different from the typical riff-orientated song writing-style of the end of the eighties.

His always present disease was one reason for him to leave the band in 1995 but also he was very shy person who didn’t like to be in the spotlight and also hated the business-part of being a professional musician a lot.

On the very long European tour with Helloween (3 months) he already had problems with asthma and allergies.

Hilmer was a very sensitive and intelligent person and after he had left the band the "innocence" was gone. Even though all the people that played in Rough Silk later were great or at least good musicians this special "us against the world"-feeling of the original line-up was gone. (I don’t mean the new line-up - I’m talking about the line-ups in between!!!!)

After leaving the band he worked as a session player (for a local radio station, for example) and gave guitar lessons.

He married and got a now 8 years old daughter who became the main focus of the last years of his life. Hilmer only got 38 years old but his music will survive him.

May he rest in peace!

 

 

 

 

  This Inquisition Symphony was conducted by the Power of Metal in April in the year of our Lord 2009.