Interview:	WARKINGS
Title:	Messenger of the gods

The unswerving warriors announce themselves with the fourth album „Morgana“ back in the big power metal arena.

For the first time a woman has joined them in the fight against everything half-hearted and unmusical - the also reincarnated half-sister of King Arthur from the world-famous saga! And the witchy Morgana le Fay makes a vocal contribution that is truly out of this world.

As guitarist ‚The Crusader‘ confides to the dialogue, he was sent by God himself to answer the new questions of mortals.

Asked at the outset about the prevailing media response to the previous album „Revolution“, he jerks up his eyelids:

„We don‘t care so much about the terrestrial media but we do care about two things: what happens in the realms of god and how do our warriors think about our new stuff. The reactions in Gods empire was unbelievable! We‘ve got a lot of great responses from ancient heroes like Hannibal, Caesar, Hercules, Odysseus, King Arthur, Siegfried and many more! On the other hand, we were not able to fight some battles with the new weapons. This damn virus took over this world and we were forced to stay away. But our warriors still sung our hymns wherever they‘ve been. They seem to love it and wherever we gathered for a battle this year, they all know lyrics and how to chant the hymns over the battlefields. Let‘s face it: There is nothing to criticise!“

2021 with „Revolution“ at number 13 in the official German album charts - how and how long did you celebrate that?

„We never stopped …“

The fourth album, and also such a good one - would you have thought in the beginning 2018 that your struggle would be so good and so victorious?

„You wouldn‘t wage a fight when you don‘t believe in its victory! The order to success came straight from God, the almighty master. We all came here to win or to die and as you see, we‘re still alive. We believe in what we can, what we learned and what we‘re born for. I admit, my guitar still feels strange compared to holding my sword! Times and rites change so I won‘t complain. And I feel that both are weapons, full of magic, power and might.“

What is the most important fact for you guys on „Morgana“?

„It‘s s still us. It‘s Warkings from the beginning to the end. We may evolve, we may have made some new experiences like meeting other bands or fought some exotic battles and this let us do the next steps. But we‘re still Warkings, immortal messengers of God.“

Now with female reinforcement - sounds even more impressive. How did it happen that you let Morgana join you?

„That just happened. We always know a lot of fighters from the old days who wanna join the Warkings, but this time we had some help from a witch. We all had this suggestion that there was some weird spirit searching us. There was a light guiding us and be part of Morgana’s resurrection. I guess she needed us to find a portal to earth. When we met the first time, she didn‘t even know that we formed a band. Well… you can see all that on our new video called ‚Monsters‘ on one of your terrestrial video portals. There is a well known side who restricted this video so you need to search it. By the way: I‘ll have a talk to God!! They will burn in hell for that bullshit decision!“

Morgana sounds very angry and biting, does she also have loving sides that she showed you?

„Morgana is her own army and I don‘t know what happens if somebody tries to feel her ‚loving sides’. She might be like a spider and eat him for dinner. With one difference: before the act. Well, perhaps we should let an enemy try and watch… from a distance!“

Your new material sounds even fresher than ever and highly virtuosic - did you want to impress Morgana one more than the other with your respective skills and impress her witchy mind?

„We did … what? Impress … who? Well, let‘s clarify something: we‘re not still alive cause we like to impress anybody. We‘re here cause we‘re the Warkings, strong and full of determination. We may have died at the ancient battlefields, but we kept on living in Gods empire and we came back to your world cause we are the mightiest and strongest of all! No need to impress anybody! The Warkings don‘t need to have support besides the support of our Warking Warriors. It needs special situations to be part of us. Even if it was Morgana herself who guided us to meet her, we didn‘t fall under her spell! We came cause we were curious and her part on this album was a decision of all of us. It just happened. We didn‘t change anything on purpose. All the hymns were written to tell about the old times, to praise our exploits and to describe what we still experience. Perhaps we had some more influences from our celebrations with other bands and we spend more time with writing than partying. Let me think about the last sentence… no, that couldn‘t be a reason.“

Who wrote the lion’s share of the songs this time and how long was the work in total for all the material?

„We cannot say anything about time. Time is so different in the realms of God and we don‘t care about time-limits as we don‘t care about limits at all. We write, whenever somebody‘s got an idea and whenever we‘re together.“

What have been the hardest or most difficult passages of the songwriting-process?

„There are several huge problems: The Viking is mostly drunk, the Tribune is mostly out for making love with a shieldmaid… or two… or… the Spartan exercises for the next slaughter and it‘s me to be in church and praise the Lord, begging that this bunch of berzerkers will be together soon to write new hymns. Finally, when we‘re all together, sing, bawl and chant, we complain a lot about how to make metal out of this parts. There were many moments when I unsheathe my sword for better arguing. By the way… this damn axe is a real dangerous weapon, the Spartan as well! I guess, there is no band like the Warkings who try to involve their ideas with swords, axes and lances. But there is no other band like the Warkings anyway.“

„Hellfire“ chronicles Morgana’s love-hate relationship with King Arthur - does she love him or end up hating him more?

„Like I said before King Arthur is well known. He showed up months before we met Morgana for compliment on ‚Revolution‘. By the way, he also was one of the chosen ones from God cause he was allowed to bring some of his best wines from all of his five castles. That leaded into the next binge since we all joined his secret wine storage which never dries out. When we worked on ‚Hellfire‘ Morgana just showed up and was excited about the music and we told her about Heavy Metal and what we do. She started to growl somewhere between our lines. It supported the hymns so much that we asked her to stay and just record some lines. Just for capturing some ideas but we were not able to delete or replace them anymore. So we told her to write the lyrics and if you ask me: They came from the bottom of her black and ice cold heart. Even if we couldn‘t find out which kind of relationship they had, there was a deep connection between her and King Arthur. Was it about love, power or hate? But we sure know that King Arthur was not the biggest disappointment in her life …“

„Monsters“ heralds the dark side in each of us - what exactly is your darkest side?

„Besides to have killed thousands of people during the crusades? Besides our lives in the ancient years where blood, diseases, gores and blood was all over the streets and places? We all fought for our lives and our kingdoms back in the days with all our skills, knowledge and power. Our lives where dictated by the attitude: kill or get killed. That was the darkest time which made us what we are today. All in all: we can‘t change our ancient lifes. There is no dark side or bright side. We‘re the Warkings. We‘re the result of what we saw, did and what we‘ve been through.“

„To The King“ - which of the great battles in history impresses and fascinates you the most and why?

„That depends who of us gets asked. We all fought in different wars and everybody had his own life. If it‘s up to me, one of the greatest battles was the so called ‚Summerbreeze Open Air’. We called for a surprise attack really early in the morning, but all the warriors where awake and conquered Dinkelsbühl. That was a huge and fascinating battle which ended into a triumphal procession.“

The Powerwolf cover „Armata Strigoi“ - what led to it and why exactly this song? What do you appreciate most about your version?

„If you ask me: it‘s the beginning. We heard this melody and startet to sing it immediately. It sounded a bit like the melody the horns played during the crusades when we arrived at the towns we were about to conquer. I saw the army around me in my inner eye. We started to integrate some of our hymns into ‚Armata Strigoi‘ and it fit so great that we decided to pay respect to Powerwolf and record it.“

Anything you would like to add ? „I’d like to invite all warriors all over the world. We’ll be on earth for the upcoming tours and festivals. There will be a town to conquer close to where you live! Join our battles! Come to our battlefields, let’s celebrate and fight together! The Warking Warriors will praise the Metal!“

© Markus Eck, 21.10.2022

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