ATMA – STEFFEN WEIGAND
Art: Sebastian Jerke
There is no specific ritual. We go with the flow. We jam a bit and then work on the parts which feel good while playing. Then we add some parts from other jams and develop the songs step by step. The only criteria we have is: The song needs to feel good while playing. We talk and drink beers while rehearsing.
I call music a spiritual way of life. We deeply believe in positive thinking and that everything is connected with everything. Whatever happens has a more profound sense, even if it seems negative, and you cannot see it when it happens.
Heavy Metal is simply the music we grew up with. We all loved Bands like Iron Maiden, Accept, Slayer, Metallica, Anthrax etc., in the late 80s and 90s. We love the energy this music could have. Of course, over the years, some of us checked various styles like crunch, death or nu-metal. But bands like Tool were always there and loved by every one of us. If you ask for favourite albums – there could be mentioned a lot. Here is a list of the ten most influential albums for us. But the list could go on and on Iron Maiden’s ‘Live after death’, Slayer ‘South of Heaven’, Primus ‘Suck on this’, Dream Theater ‘Images and Words’, Faith no more ‘Angeldust’, Alice in Chains ‘Dirt’, U2 ‘Achtung Baby’, Police ‘Greatest hits 92’, Soundgarden ‘Superunknown’, Tool ‘Aenima.’
There are many extraordinarily creative and inspiring people in the music business – like Benny Greb on the drums or Estas Tonne on the guitar. But even though these guys are extremely inspiring, it is way more important to find his style than emulate others.
To us, music is way more than just entertainment. Music does unite people – no matter what country, colour, or beliefs the people are. Music is a universal language. Our little band could contribute a small piece to unite humanity.
Sometimes I like to hear deep house music, especially to relax. There is a good radio station called ‘Ibiza global radio’, which I often hear. When it comes to prog metal, I always need to consider the band Oceansize. This band made a fantastic debut album called ‘Effloresce’. We saw them live in our hometown, I thought back in 2007. That was amazing. Sadly the following albums were not that good, and the band split up in 2011.
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