Earlier this week, we did something out of the ordinary for Moshville Times and we had the chance to fly to Germany to interview Julian Larre (vocals), Oliver Schmid (guitar), Ilker Ersin (bass), and towards the end, Dominik Scholz (drums) of Lacrimas Profundere for a lengthy but enjoyable chat.
So I’d say it has been a pretty successful year after How To Shroud Yourself With Night (2022), and the tour has been going really well. How do you guys think the reception has been and how do you guys see yourself doing over the next year?
Oliver Schmid: From tour to tour and festival to festival, we reach more people, especially here. We played here in the same club exactly a year ago and I think we have half the amount of people last year than we have today. So it goes up and up. Slow, but the direction is the right way.
Yeah, Hannover is sold out!
Ilker Ersin: My old hometown!
Oliver: Yes, it’s a really, really cool feeling if, on the tour, you have one sold out show and many others are nearly there.
Some people in the UK might not know much about the history of the band. This tour is the 30-year anniversary (Thirty Years of Deepest Tears Tour), so let’s go through the history of the band and all of the changes over the years.
Ilker: I think it’s the third decade, right?
Oliver: It started out of a stupid idea with my brother. We have a rehearsal room in my parents’ house and we found some other guys in the bar next to our home. It was like every band started: rehearse, rehearse, rehearse, and no concerts, and saying “Please let us play!” – “No, you have to rehearse six months longer”, and then we had our first concert in a youth club in the next bigger city.
Ilker: Which year was that?
Oliver: I think 1993 or 1994 and then we decided to record a demo and release it but only to give it to the record labels to get a deal for the next one. But this album – a producer here in Germany said he wanted to release it to this publishing company, and I said, “Let’s do it!”, and this was our first original Lacrimas demo. So then we got a record contract and the rest is history. We went to thirty-three countries from Dubai to Tokyo, Shanghai – nearly everywhere.
Ilker: They played in China!
Oliver: And you have to know, I started as a tennis player. But I was not good, so I think guitar fits better and you can do it longer because at my age, I’m sure I wouldn’t be a tennis player anymore.
Ilker: Look at Iggy Pop, he’s 120 years old, or The Rolling Stones.
So, let’s talk a about the new single, “Breathing Souls”, because Jules was just telling me that he wasn’t so involved when it was written, but Chris Harms (Lord Of The Lost) was involved.
Oliver: When I met Julian for the first time, the songs for the album… “Breathing Souls” was already written, the main parts. He had his freedom in the studio and he did a great job, fantastic job. And this song was also in my mind during the recording of Bleeding The Stars (2018). We recorded about twelve or thirteen songs for this album and put only ten on it, but I always had this song “Breathing Souls” in my mind because in my opinion, I wanted to put it on the record but my brother, our former singer and still a very important part for me in the band, Christopher, said he wanted another song instead of this one. Jules said, “You can do it but I was not so much involved with this song, so do whatever you want to”. Then I decided to do it on the B-side. But it’s still stuck in my head, so I think for the thirty-year anniversary, it was time to release it for all the people and the reactions are overwhelming. The thing was, I had the music written but I couldn’t find the right lyrics so I went to some of my friends. One guy was Tobias Schönemann from a band called The Vision Bleak, he did the vocals and the words came from Chris Harms from Lord Of The Lost and then we put it together. Jules did a great part, wrote it in the C part and whatever.
You guys met on YouTube or Facebook, right? Because you saw his videos when he had just moved to Germany from Mexico.
Oliver: I found out about him on YouTube because of his great cover versions and then I tried to contact him via Facebook. And on Facebook, he was listed as living in Germany and that’s the reason I contacted him. If it was saying he was living in Helsinki, I don’t think I would have wanted to contact him because I don’t like all the organising stuff with flying in and flying out and whatever. Then he said to me, “Yeah, I can join if you want to – but I am not in Germany anymore, I live in Helsinki now”. What the fuck? But I wanted to listen to him in real time because I couldn’t believe this guy had this range on YouTube. So I didn’t give a shit – pay the flights, book the hotel, meet in Munich, rent a club to rehearse and let’s check this motherfucker out!
Julian Larre: It was this close – it was super close that this wouldn’t happen because if in my profile it would have said that I was living in Helsinki, he wouldn’t have gone for seeing what was there. But he thought that I was living in Germany so he went for it, he listened to the stuff and then I remember, because he sent me “Ave End”, you know, and these kinds of songs, when I recorded it, at some part of the songs he was like, “What the hell?” Because he had been listening to all these people and that is one of those things that captures you, and that is what lead to the next step. And then we have very good chemistry when we rehearse. I remember the very first thing that we were rehearsing – it didn’t feel kind of unfamiliar, you know? It was not at any point like I was too nervous, we didn’t feel uncomfortable. So I think that was kind of what lead to us having such great chemistry. At any point, I have never felt uncomfortable with him. Never. Not since the very first time I met him.
Oliver: From the very first time to now.
Julian: Exactly. From the very first time that they picked me up from the hotel, I felt absolutely great.
I didn’t know that you were listening to Lacrimas when you were a teenager as well until you said it on stage in Munich (at the Free & Easy Festival July 2023).
Julian: In the very first concert I ever played in my life, I played “Ave End”. So of course, when I was at the rehearsal with him and playing “Ave End”, it was like one of those crazy freaking moments like, dude what the hell is going on? Even one of my best friends, when he met him, he was excited because we’ve been watching Oliver since…when we grew up and stuff so that’s amazing. That’s one of those romantic love stories from careers. For me, it’s amazing to be playing with him.
Lacrimas Profundere are doing M’era Luna next year as well. Have you got any plans for visiting any other countries, maybe the UK?
Ilker: We’re working on it. We found a new booking agency.
Julian: Yeah we have some cool festivals booked for next year. We always want to come and play at so many things but a lot of things, with logistics, need to make sense. Everything needs to be together and we are already kind of working on some new songs over some months as well so we are focusing quite a lot on that.
Yeah because I know everyone always asks for you to come to the U.S. and I can just feel you going, “I’m fucking trying!”
Julian: I mean, for example, Lacrimas is very big in Mexico and Latin America. But yeah, we need all of these things logistically and stuff, especially nowadays. It is really way more of a challenge than people think and to be honest as well, Oliver is doing so many things for the band already so it’s really challenging to make new songs and deal with logistics and it’s a lot of stuff to deal with.
Oliver: We’ve just come back from Greece (Rethymno Rocks) over the weekend. We played in Crete and it was just amazing. All the stuff around that is so much work, though it’s so much easier to jump into our van and go to a festival here in Germany instead of checking in, bringing all the instruments…you can’t bring all the luggage you want to the show. In Germany, it’s always easier.
Julian: But yeah, of course, as soon as possible we would like to. The last time we were in the UK was 2019. That was a while ago that we were in the UK. I really wanna go to France, I wanna go to Latin America, I wanna go to the US etc. But yeah, to be fair, there’s so much going into it and you guys have no idea how much Oliver is already doing to make all of this work.
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What do you think is the proudest achievement that you’ve had over the years, individually?
Julian: That’s a good one! What do you think is the best achievement that you have had during this period? …That’s a savage one…that’s a curious one, honestly. Well I think that from the beginning for the Lacrimas shows, like today for example, since back in the day when I started playing in the band, you can notice how there’s more people joining and being on our Twitch and stuff like that. That helps quite a lot. That’s really good. I mean, emotionally, because you kinda see the results. You see that things are working. So that’s really freaking great. I would say, in my own case, the answer would be the people and the fact that musically, we have gotten to be right where we wanted. Ilker, what do you think?
Ilker: To survive the Corona pandemic period, for example.
Julian: Well, that’s a good one.
Ilker: Many, many bands split at that time and we forced ourselves together. We did the recordings. We did the album at this time. We were not lazy. We prepared the tour, for example, because the achievement for the band and all over the world, all the success we have right now is the result of the steadiness and working on records like Bleeding The Stars.
Julian: There has been a lot of challenges. That is pretty true because we did Bleeding The Stars and everything was going so good. We did the tour in 2019, everything was doing amazing – and then fucking COVID comes, you know? So we have tours booked, etc, so going through that of course, that’s a big one. But honestly, I think that the results are just there.
Oliver: What he said with Corona – you know exactly what I’m talking about. The new album would not sound the same if there were no Corona. We changed so much stuff. Also, in the studio where we were together, we recorded some new stuff and changed so many other things…
Ilker: But the main thing was that you had so much input, so many ideas, at least played so many songs in the studio and you had the time with the Corona stuff to separate and make the plan, to be able to go into details, for example, with different things.
Julian: It gave us time. But as well, that’s the reason that he tells me that I know exactly what we’re talking about because I actually went to the studio to start recording some songs but it just didn’t feel quite good, you know, and it was actually thanks to the Corona process that we got the time to review those things.
Ilker: Time was working for us, you know? All the world stands still, but we worked, and we did the work on the details for the last songs that we wrote.
Julian: There have been many challenges, honestly. I mean just the fact that I live in Finland, that’s already a challenge that the band is constantly somehow overcoming. We have had more challenges. We played a show in London and then we drove to Göttingen during the night.
Oliver: And the bus broke!
Julian: And the bus broke. All of that was during the night, and still we got to the show in Göttingen and we freaking kicked ass in there. So I guess like, what we have is this super strong force against challenges.
I remember finding out that you lived in Finland but the rest of the guys live in Germany, I was wondering how the hell does that work?
Ilker: Against all odds.
Julian: Right. Against a lot of things, but we managed to go through that and again, the results are there. Spotify listeners and coming more, there’s more people around, there’s better reviews so everything is working and yeah there’s been a lot of challenges but we somehow gone through everything and still just really made it on stage because the production that we have on stage is really not that much compared to the production that some other bands have. But what we have is just like raw fucking energy, and that has led us to really stand out so much. There are many times where I’m really curious when I am seeing a band that has a super huge production and stuff like that I’m always wondering what would the show be like without this. Just because, legitimately, I’m curious. Who are they behind tons or pyro and tons of lights and dancers or whatever, so what would happen? What would I watch?
Oliver: Pirate ships! Or Vikings.
Ilker: The band is able to play every stage, that’s the difference. That’s a huge difference compared to other bands.
Julian: Yeah that’s true. I feel so good with thee guys that literally, we could play right here in LOGO or right now we could jump into the biggest festival ever and I still would feel backed up from every one of them and I would feel sure about what we’re gonna do. At any point I don’t feel any doubt about anything and that is just such a blessing in a band.
What is something that you wished people asked more, or just weird questions that you’ve been asked?
Julian: That people will ask? I don’t really think about something that people will ask me. What I would love is that people maybe would realise, what is it actually like? Because I think everybody has a certain image what it is like to play in a band and to do this or to do that. Even with criticism and stuff like that, how there’s so many people that just don’t have a clue about what you’re doing or anything but they still feel they have the right to be criticizing all of your life or your job or whatever. So I really would like to see people getting to know, for example, what (Oliver) does already for the band or what a song, how everything goes in the bag… I think it would be a nice optic for people to get to know that more, and bands, behind the marketing and bands behind all of this super political industry kind of layer. It’s interesting the perspective people might have on something and what sometimes actually is. So, that’s the thing.
Best and worst live show you’ve ever given?
Julian: Best and worst live? Aw, I don’t wanna say it. Best live? The best concert I can think about…Greece, for me was very awesome because the location was a dream come true. You had the full moon over there, you had these buildings, you had the sea, even the air looking freaking cool. Everything was playing so good. So for me I think that Greece was the show that I have enjoyed probably the most so far. Uh, the worst one ever? I’m not even gonna mention it.
Ilker: It’s not worth mentioning but, for me, if something’s going bad like in Greece I didn’t feel comfortable with the new equipment and I felt that from the wind, the keyboards were going out of tune. This makes it totally crazy but the moon was cool, the show was cool, the ambience, the very nice fortress, the sea behind you…
Julian: And all the people in there were very nice.
Ilker: Very kind, very kind. I really can only recommend this island.
Julian: So the best show?
Ilker: One of the best was Greece, of course, but for me – unforgettable? Rock Hearts. Because it was my second or third appearance with the band and with my older band you had to wait twenty years to come into the position to play such a big festival, and I jumped into the band and the second gig was Rock Hearts in from of maybe, how many people do you think we had in Rock Hearts? 50,000?
Oliver: I really like Castle Rock.
Ilker: I have a second one!
Julian: Which one?
Ilker: Plage Noir.
Oliver: Plage Noir, last year, we got to play two times. But the second one…but I really like Castle Rock though.
Download would be cool one day.
Oliver: If Download would be calling, I would go with my own boat!
Julian: That one would be awesome.
Ilker: And a lot of cool festivals will be coming in the next year.
Wacken though…
Oliver: We’ll work on it.
Ilker: Nah, Wacken is too small for us. The other festivals are selected but we are only playing the big ones.
“Don’t call us, we’ll call you.”
Oliver: That would be a cool headline – Wacken: Don’t call us, we’ll call you!
Julian: That’s a good one as well because I’ve never listened to you say that.
Do you have any advice for musicians who are dealing with imposter syndrome – feeling like they’re not a real musician and like they’re not good enough, especially if they are younger?
Julian: For not feeling…I don’t know how it’s been for them but for me it was a process. The first songs that I wrote, I felt that they were not real songs. And it took me years and years to kind of feel like I was writing a real song – which, in this parameter for me, to write a real song, would sound like something close to something that I knew. Some of your favourite bands or stuff like that. So I think the best thing I could say for that is just like, keep on going. Never fucking stop because it’s through that resistance that you actually are all of a sudden like, “Hey, I can actually fucking do this!”
Oliver: Have confidence.
Julian: And of course, like, learn every time. Look for ways to be learning new stuff and of course getting better but…that’s what I would say. For example, I wouldn’t be in Lacrimas if I had given up like six years ago, seven years ago, so it’s because I kept on going that I am. I have so many friends that gave up before that and that’s the reason they didn’t get through it. Like these guys, Lacrimas have through generations been pushing, pushing, pushing, and now is one of the moments that we are having another wave. It’s through that I see that something else is gonna come. It’s gonna get better. That’s the best thing. And of course, just get better at your instrument, don’t try to make up excuses and stuff like that. And if you’re happy with what you’re writing, that’s the most important thing. Fuck the rest. If you’re happy with what you’re writing, that’s everything that has to matter from the beginning. The industry and all the rest, that’s another thing. That’s what I would say. I don’t know about you, dude.
Oliver: Exactly the same.
Ilker: What I always told my students is: don’t try to be a professional because it’s a long way. If you only want to do it as a hobby, do it as a hobby. But if you want to be a professional and somehow play an instrument, it’s a different lifestyle. You are on the road, you are close together with the bandmates, you don’t have your separate room. We are always together in the van or the tour bus.
Julian: You need to commit to it, for sure.
Ilker: Exactly, and my students, they saw me performing on stage at festivals like, “Ah I wanna do that!” Yeah do you wanna be 20 days together on the road in one stinky bus? Nope. You want clean clothes? No, okay.
Julian: You need to go through trauma but many people don’t know what it actually is. They think, “Oh, you’re a fucking rockstar over there!” But there’s Oliver booking flights and organising things and dealing with a shitload of stress to do all of these things so that’s what sometimes people just don’t have a clue about.
Ilker: And I have to rent the whole weekend a Ferrari because people think I’m a rockstar!
Julian: I am kind of very optimistic in that kind of sense, you know. From my own experience I am just like, keep on going, For real, think about it – if I had quit six or seven years ago, none of this would have happened which, for me, all of these years are some of the best years of my life because of the experiences, because of how much you enjoy playing the shows, how much you laugh and that enriches my life. So, that’s what I always think. If you really want something, go for it but get ready for war. It’s not gonna be easy. It’s gonna be a lot of stress. You need to be very smart and stuff. But you need to keep on going. That’s the only way to do it. You don’t have another., you need to keep on going.
Ilker: Well in the studio, you make your recordings, but what after that? When the recording is done you have to play live. That’s the thing.
Julian: That’s another good one, eh? There are some bands that suck live. They might sound awesome on the record but live they suck so…and I think that Corey Taylor said that as well, make sure you are able to fucking do it live. Make sure that you’re fucking awesome live.
Ilker: Do you know what the biggest mistake is? Comparing it to the studio recordings. Most of the bands try to copy their recordings. If I’m playing my part, I go with the flow, with the people. If I feel that in this part, I have to play something different…
Julian: Yeah, I think with you and me, that’s one of the ways that we have gotten to connection so well because we understand what is a show. I’m not going there for just playing music. I’m not going there for singing perfectly and stuff like that. If I need to risk a little bit of my vocal quality for being able to make people feel something and have a moment, like if I jump in front of you and that kind of scares you or gets you to feel something, you’re gonna remember that and I prefer that. It’s a lot about the show. These guys as well, the way that they play the songs – they’re not exactly the same than on the record. He’s doing some other different stuff.
Ilker: And this makes every show unique to the next one. Every show is unique.
Julian: And that is why we have a crazy bunch of guys in Greece coming here. All of the guys who were in Greece are here tonight.
Oliver: No way.
Julian: Yes. These guys – the patrons who came to Greece – they are here tonight, dude.
There’s patrons from America as well!
Ilker: Really?!
Julian: Yes there’s two patrons from America. Two from the UK, man. That means that you’re doing a good job, especially on stage. They see you once and they’re like, “Okay this is good. This is worth it.”
Oliver: It’s a huge difference compared with other bands, definitely.
Julian: No, it’s super funny because the more that we are making an impact with our shows, the more that I see that a bunch of bands start paying attention to that and they notice what we are doing. They start thinking, “This is cool, this kinda works”.
Ilker: You know, I heard one rumour. I don’t want to name an agency but they told me they said, “Can we get Lacrimas Profundere?” And the promoter said, “No they are too strong!”
Julian: We are very powerful.
Ilker: In this case it was very important with the shows with The 69 Eyes, for example.
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Zombie apocalypse strategy?
Julian: Zombie apocalypse strategy? Oh, my God, we would be so fucked, though, because if you would see us in the van, we are very chaotic. So, strategy…get Oliver safe because he’s probably gonna be in danger. Because I really like Oliver, I will try to lock him in a room and I would give him food from time to time. I would bring him food so that he’s not at risk from running from zombies and stuff like that.
Oliver: Let’s start it tomorrow.
Julian: Probably me and Ilker – no, probably me and Dominik, we would go searching for food.
[Dominik arrives]
Julian: Zombie apocalypse. I would go with him to get food.
Dominik: I got a chainsaw!
Julian: He’s very strong so I think we would look for groceries. Oliver would stay in a room. And (Ilker) would do logistics and stuff.
Oliver: In the room I can compose new songs.
If you guys have unlimited funds, who do you book for M’era Luna if you have complete control?
Oliver: Us.
Julian: I would put Lacrimas Profundere three times during the day and just like, two bands in between or something.
Maybe LDMV in there somewhere.
Julian: That would be for headlining the second day.
Oliver: We keep the money in the family!
Julian: No I would choose, for M’era Luna…Slipknot.
Oliver: I would go with Motionless In White…Lacuna Coil…
Julian: You can choose whichever bands for M’era Luna. Which bands would you choose if you would be organising it? Whatever you want.
Oliver: Ah, it’s M’era Luna, not Metal Luna.
Dominik: Maybe Katatonia, Opeth…Paradise Lost, Deftones, Tool, Immortal…
Julian: Motionless In White is a good one. That’s a good fit.
Is there anything you want to say to the people in the UK?
Oliver: I played there about seven or eight times and it was always fun and I would love to be back, for sure.
Julian: I really would say that, the last time we played there was in 2019. It’s been too long. I would love to come back as soon as possible. Of course, every time it depends on the noise that people make and the demand of the people, so hopefully sooner or later we’re gonna get to see us there. I really, really hope that there would be an opportunity somehow next year and that we keep on growing and stuff. I mean, from my side, I am very involved in social media. I keep bringing people from every-fucking-where to the fucking shows. So tonight we have people from the United States and the UK and stuff so I hope that we keep building over there and we see us there as soon as possible. I’m already learning your accent to be able to communicate!
