The Pagan Manifesto

We sat down with Aydan from Elvenking to talk about the band, their latest release “The Pagan Manifesto” and much more.

Being one of the more prominent, bigger bands coming from Italy, What can you tell us about the local scene?

Thank you very much! Well to be sincere exactly in this period we have decided to not play in Italy for a while and concentrate ourselves in playing outside our borders as much as possible. The reaction of the people outside Italy seems much more enthusiastic about us. Italian crowd always tend to not consider its local bands at the same level of the big German or Finnish band, even if sometimes the quality is there and it is the same in my opinion.
So we just decided to go where people appreciate us the most.

Please tell us about the band members.

As basically in all the band of the World we went through different line-up changes throughout the years. Especially for a medium level band it is always difficult to maintain the same members, since thought the years the amount of commitments grows and grows as well as the number of travels and days away from your family. On the other side maybe you do not have an equal return, so I think it is pretty normal. The ones who complete faith and passion in the music and in the band remains ‘till the end. Our nowadays line-up, with our bassist Jakob and drummer Symohn in the band for almost 5 years now is basically perfect, on the technical side, but most of all from a human pint of view that is the main and most important things for us.

Let’s discuss your latest release, “The Pagan Manifesto”. What will we find inside this album?

We consider it as the ultimate ELVENKING album. The album that includes all our music, all our lyrical ideas and concept, our visual way to approach music. Everything that has been ek since the beginning of the band. It’s kind of scary on one way, because it leaves basically no way to do something more. But we felt it was the time to return to our origin and make it through all the experience we have had during all these years.

What is your most iconic moment as a band?

I think that the moment when you sign your first contract as a young kid with tons of dreams and fantasies still remain the best moment I remember, especially back in the years when we were contacted by the record labels: those were really different times from nowadays where basically all bands can reach a sort of contract somehow.

You’ve played all around the world. Can you give us an example of a gig that was a brave new world to you?

Well for example our experiences in Israel were absolutely amazing. Not a real “Brave New World” but as you know the culture and the people met there are pretty different from our usual European audience. We have a lot of differences but the crowd has always been absolutely and incredibly great and hot with us. Israel has some of the best fans a band could ever imagine. That’s for sure!

What is your future plans? Are you going to release a new Album? Maybe go on a tour?

In December our first LIVE ALBUM/DVD will be released. We have recorded live and filmed our whole concert in Pordenone, Italy. We have just finished the video editing and the audio mix and he resalut is brilliant in my opnion since it gives a real and sincere view of ELVENKING live on stage. Cannot wait it to be relaeased, I think it will be a great gift for the fans and a great way for those who do not know us yet to be introduced to the band.

Please recommend some music for the readers.

I recommend ELVENKING of course. I would recommend especially our last album “THE PAGAN MANIFESTO” , which in our opinion is a great summary of our musical journey and conceptual view .
Songs like “Elvenlegions” or “Moonbeam Stone Cirlce” could a good way to start but for the bravest one there is a small song called “King of the Elves” to check out!

Any last words for the fans?

Thank you very much for the last show in Tel-Aviv . The crowd have been absolutely incredible and the people so kind to us! It was just simply amazing!

Thank you for your time, Aydan!

Metal On Loud!