interviews_cruachan_2

Music Interview: CRUACHAN 2

CRUACHAN

English Version:

FOR OUR CULTURES

- Exclusive interview with CRUACHAN

by Demogorgon

Done in August 2004

Published on the 20st issue of Extreme Music Magazine

 Hello Keith and all Cruachan crew!

It's me again! Congratulations on your latest offer - Pagan. I suppose it is a gift for all races invaded by Christian, am I right? :) Why do you chose "Pagan" as the title of the latest release by Cruachan? Could you give me further explaination besides the liner notes in the booklet?

Keith: On all the songs? Are you mad? :o) That would take hours of typing I think. Besides the songs are pretty much well explained in the booklet. We chose it because it works as a mirror to the album FolkLore. Bothwords perfectly describe what Cruachan are and what we represent.

From "Blood Sunday" on Folk-Lore to "Michael Collins" on Pagan, does it mean political oriented more and more?

Keith: No not at all, we will always have mythology as our main theme but apart from that, we are not afraid to have a couple of songs that are off topic. Other off topic songs that we do that are not political would be our Lord of the Rings songs.

Where is the value of writing politic topics in songs?

Keith: If that's the way you are thinking then what is the value of writing any song at all? Of course there is value in writing political songs, it is a chance to tell the world of an injustice that people may not know about. Take what happened in Nanking in the 1930's, I never heard anything about such a disgraceful massacre by the Japanese until I heard an Irish folk band write a song about it. Needless to say it inspired me to research the subject and read up about it. There was certainly value in the lyrics of that song.

I find the cover artwork of Pagan by John Howe is wonderful! It has closer relation to The Middle Kingdom than other Cruachan release in my opinion. How about the critic until now?

Keith: Yes a lot of people share your opinion, we are delighted at how the cover turned out and are really proud to see it on shelves in the shops.

I know John Howe and Alan Lee are both illustrator and the conceptual artists of Lord of the Rings-films. Can you tell me why you chose him instead of John O' Fathaigh to do the artwork?

Keith: John Howe heard our music and he really loved it, he's also a big Shane McGowan fan and was excited about Folk-Lore which Shane co-produced and sang on. The unreleased painting is called 'Celtic Myth'. John O'Fathaigh, my brother, done all the artwork for Cruachan as he's talented in his own right and was due to do the artwork for Pagan, but the deadline was nearing and he was only halfway through the painting with no end in sight (he had a lot on his plate at that time) so as far as I can remember, he suggested asking John Howe as he vaguely knew him and that was how we got into contact with John. The painting my brother was doing for the cover of Pagan is going to be a Cruachan poster which will be on sale at gigs. My brother's taking care of all that.

I have seen some new promo pictures of Cruachan and surprised by your make up. If I am not totally wrong, you didn't do this on the last album-era. Then why this time?

Keith: Although on Folklore we did not have our battledress on in the promo photos, we still wore it on stage, it has always been a part of the band. For the Pagan photos we just wanted to do something different to our usual dress in black appearance so we put on a bit of battle dress and got our swords out and had a great day up in the mountains of Wicklow (were Braveheart was filmed).

Does it mean other aspects had become more important in your eyes besides music?

Keith: No, Our music is still the number one priority.

I've got Press Release from Cuachan on August 12, 2002, it said that John O' Fathaigh is no longer a part of Cruachan. And around August 2003 I was informed that he left Cruachan for "personal" reason again after three months he rejoined the band. Obviously it caused tense relationship between him and the band. How did you solve that problem lately? I see he appears on Pagan as a guest.

Keith: Well as it stands now he is not in the band. It was a silly time really and looking back, we should not have taken him back into the band at all. There is no bad feeling between us or anything at all like that, he simply has too much to contend with in his life without wasting a lot of personal time in a band that pays no money and expects a lot of commitment.

"The Fall of Gondolin" is one story taken from the Silmarillion, and it originally released on Tuatha na Gael. Why did you decide record and publish it again?

Keith: Every album that we do we try to re-record one track from Tuatha na GAel as a bonus track. We decided to do this a long time ago because we felt the production on Tuatha was so bad.

Please say something about your viewpoint of the Lord of the Rings films trilogy!

Keith: They have become my favourite films of all time. For years Star Wars were my favourite films but not any more. I think Peter Jackson done a wonderful job on the films, for fans of the book it was amazing. I know there were some changes made but in reality, it was either make the changes or simply do not make the film.

Thank you for your time! See you later

All the best wishes to Cruachan.

Jun

Thank you.

Chinese  Version:

为了我们的文化

——CRUACHAN独家专访

Demogorgon

爱尔兰异教金属乐团CRUACHAN成立于1992年，虽然乐团开始于黑暗金属（Black Metal），但是现在他们走的更是重金属的路线。《异教》和此前的唱片，尤其是上张专辑《民俗》（Folk-Lore）相比，歌曲稍微轻松了一些。显然，相对松散的线条更适合于女主唱Karen Gilligan的发挥。所以我要说《异教》（Pagan）是一张转折性专辑，尽管其中沉重的吉它，民歌化的编排/乐器，女声和些许黑暗金属的影响依然让人一下子就能听出是他们。

“迈克尔·柯林斯（Michael Collins）”讲述着他为爱尔兰进行的不懈奋斗；“异教（Pagan）”反对基督教的文化入侵；歌颂祖先的“盖尔人（The Gael）”延续着《民俗》里的“一名盖尔人的死亡（Death of a Gael）”； “Ard ri na heireann”和“杀死维京人的人（Viking Slayer）” 记述盖尔人反抗维京人的侵略；“朝向Cluain Tairbh的行军（March to Cluain Tairbh）”、“公元前1014年（1014 AD）”、“献给野鹅的哀歌（Lament for the Wild Geese）”、“Sidhe的召唤（Summoning of the Sidhe）”是作为间隔的精彩器乐曲； “有人说恶魔已经死去（Some Say the Devil is Dead）” 改编自民歌；回溯爱尔兰过往千年间辛酸历史的“一千年（1000 Years）”则有着十分入耳的副歌——“你可以饿死我的孩子们/你能够杀死我们的战士/夺走我们自由的权利/而当我转过身去你还会再次杀戮/你能够烧掉我的房子/夺走我所知道一切/但是种子已经播下”；“Erinsong”以神的口吻讲述着神话：“如果不是我，还有谁能展示给你太阳落下的地方？”……从民族到神话，这是一张复杂而有着核心概念的唱片。为了提供给大家更为详实的资料，我采访到了乐团的核心Keith Fay。

Keith你好！首先祝贺你们的新专辑《异教》的发行。能和我说说为专辑选取这个标题的原因吗？在我看来，这是一张献给所有曾经受到基督教侵略的民族的礼物，你的看法呢？

Keith：我们用它作为（上张专辑）《民俗》的镜像——两张专辑都极好地形容了CRUACHAN的涵义和我们试图表现的事物。

《民俗》里有“滴血的星期天（Bloody Sunday）”，《异教》里有“迈克尔·柯林斯（Michael Collins）”，这是否意味着乐团会朝社会方向改变呢？

Keith：不，根本不是，我们一直都把神话作为我们的主旨，但是除此之外，我们也不害怕写几首不在这一主旨下的歌曲。社会之外，还有我们的《魔戒》歌曲也能归于此类。

社会歌曲的价值是什么？

Keith：假如你这么想，那么创作歌曲的价值又在哪里？创作社会歌曲当然有着价值，这是一个机会，向世界告知人们或许不曾知晓的不公。例如十九世纪三十年代发生在南京的事件，在听到一支爱尔兰民歌乐队写的相关歌曲之前，我从来没有听到过关于日本人进行那么一场可耻的大屠杀的任何消息。毋庸置疑，这引导我去研究这一题材，阅读更多的材料。那首歌的歌词有着明确的价值。

和《民俗》一样，唱片内页的歌词后面附有对于歌曲主题和创作背景的介绍。显然，对于它们的阅读是对我们理解歌曲的极好说明，但是对于不怎么了解爱尔兰神话的我们来说，读过之后还有一种意犹未尽的感觉。于是有了这个稍微“过分”的问题：除了这些令人心驰神往的文字之外还有更多的解释吗？

Keith：全部歌曲？在这里说？那太疯狂了，我想那要花好几个小时来打字呢。

我能想到Keith看到上面这个问题时惊讶的神情，但是我更能肯定的是首先吸引到我们的乐迷与读者的是《异教》的精彩封套——看上去和乐团的第二张专辑《中央帝国》（The Middle Kingdom）有着几分神似。

Keith：是的，很多人和你看法一样。对于封套，我们很高兴看到它是这个样子在商店的唱片架上。

乐团前三张专辑的封套设计者都是John O' Fathaigh，而这次创造封面的是当代杰出魔幻画家约翰·霍维（John Howe），他和阿兰·李（Alan Lee）正是电影《魔戒》剧组里的美工。以凯尔特神话为基础的《魔戒》与CRUACHAN的凯尔特音乐相得益彰，在一个更深的层面上令唱片赏心、悦目。

Keith：John Howe听过我们的音乐，他很喜欢，而且他是Shane McGowan的歌迷，对于《民俗》有Shane参与制作和演唱，他很兴奋。没有发表的（封套）画名为《凯尔特神话》（Celtic Myth）。我哥哥John O'Fathaigh以前凭借他自己的天才创作了CRUACHAN的全部封套设计，因此本来计划由他来完成《异教》的设计，我记得的是截止日期就要到时他只画了一半，而且还不知道什么时候能完成（那时他忙得马不停蹄），他建议问一下John Howe，因为他们有过一面之缘，这就是我们怎么联系到John Howe的。我哥哥为《异教》封面创作的作品将被用作一张CRUACHAN的海报，在演唱会上出售。我哥哥对此全权负责。

我在2002年8月12日接到新闻说John O' Fathaigh退出CRUACHAN。而大概在2003年8月，我得知他在重新加入乐团三个月后再次因为“个人”原因离开。很明显，这在他和乐团其他成员之间造成了某种程度的紧张关系。我看到他作为临时乐手被邀请参与《异教》，你们最后是如何解决那个问题的呢？

Keith：好的，就像事实，他现在不是乐团成员。转回头看，那个时候我们很愚蠢，根本不该把他拉回乐团里。在我们之间，并没有什么不好的感觉或者诸如此类的东西，他只是在他的生活里有太多东西要去争取，从而不能为一支没有任何收入和大量赞助的乐团浪费大量个人时间。

《异教》最后一曲“冈多林的陷落（The Fall of Gondolin）”是改编自真正意义上的《魔戒》（Lord of the Rings）前传《西奥麦里昂》（Silmarillion）的一个故事，最早发表在你们的首张专辑《盖尔人之子》（Tuatha na Gael）里。这次出于什么原因把它重新录制发表呢？

Keith：在每张专辑里，我们都尝试着重新录制一首《盖尔人之子》里的歌曲作为附送曲目。很久以前我们就开始这么决定了，原因在于我们觉得《盖尔人之子》的录音实在很糟糕。

通过以前的采访，我对《魔戒》和爱尔兰神话之间的联系有了一定了解，而且我知道你是一位影迷，能说说对《魔戒》电影三部曲的看法吗？

Keith：它们已经是我钟爱的影片了。好多年以来，《星球大战》（Star Wars）上午最喜欢的，但是现在不是了。我认为彼得·杰克逊（Peter Jackson）用影片完成了一项令人惊讶的工作，对于原作的书迷而言，影片非常迷人。我知道有很多改动，但是实际上，要么就做一些改动，要么就根本没办法拍摄这部影片。

还有CRUACHAN的新宣传照——在那上面，你们的装束很让人吃惊呢。假如我没猜错的话，发表上张专辑时你们的穿着还没有那么强的民族感觉。

Keith：尽管在《民俗》那时候我们没有穿着民族战斗装束出现在宣传照上，我们在舞台上已经这么穿着了，它一直是乐团的一部分。关于《异教》的照片，我们想做些和以往的黑色装束有所区别的事，所以我们穿上几件战斗时的服装，拿上我们的剑，在拍摄《勇敢的心》（Braveheart）的威克洛（Wicklow）山上度过了愉快的一天。

在你看来，其它方面的重要性是否已经超越了音乐？

Keith：没有，我们的音乐仍然是首要的。

在现代社会讲述过往的事件，让音乐成为一种肩负绝对价值的媒介——不遗忘过去，不背叛自己。古老的凯尔特神话和光荣的祖先历史，爱尔兰一直承受着来自各个方面的苦难，盖尔人不屈的奋斗精神必将被代代相传！谢谢你接受我的采访，为了你我的文化，祝CRUACHAN一切顺利！

Keith：谢谢。 

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