RUNNING WILD Mainman Discusses Latest Album, Reissues And Side Project

Anthony Morgan of Metal Forces recently conducted an interview with vocalist/guitarist Rolf Kasparek of German metallers RUNNING WILD. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

On temporarily ending RUNNING WILD:

Rolf: "It was about 2006 where I said goodbye to RUNNING WILD for myself. I figured out that the last album was so heavy for me to write, and all the ideas didn't come out of me in the right way. There were a lot of things that I had to throw away because I figured they were not strong enough to go on the album. In around 2009 the guys from Wacken came over to me, and said, 'Why don't you do a show for the fans to say goodbye?' I said, 'Okay, let's try this', so we did it. At that time I was really sure that I would end RUNNING WILD and not do it anymore, because it didn't feel right anymore.

"When I was writing the TOXIC TASTE stuff, I figured out how it can feel when you write songs. Everything came out so easy and so natural, and when I was writing that, I figured that it was the right feeling again because it felt like the old days. When I was writing songs like 'Under Jolly Roger' or 'Riding The Storm' and songs like that, they were all written in a very short period of time. I said, 'Okay, let's try this out', but in 2009 my batteries were empty, so to speak. I really needed a break and really had to go away fully and not do it anymore, because it didn't feel right anymore. Today when I look back though, I see that I just needed a break to refill my batteries again."

On writing new album "Shadowmaker":

Rolf: "It was around 2010 that some record companies came to me, and said, 'What about re-recording old stuff from the first nine records?' They're no longer available because of Universal in England owning the rights to them, but not putting them out again. We were talking about that, and said, 'Let's do this, and re-record 20 songs or something like that.' They needed some bonus tracks for that, and when I tried to write the bonus tracks the songs for the album came out. The first track that I wrote was 'Piece Of The Action', which was way too strong to be wasted as a bonus track. The second one was 'Riding On The Tide'. The songs that I was writing were way too strong to be wasted as bonus tracks, and didn't make sense to me to be used as such. When I wrote these strong songs it made more sense to do a full album, because four songs were half an album. If I could've written half an album, I could've written a whole album no problem. They said, 'Wow, a great idea. Let's do a new record,' which became 'Shadowmaker'."

On new reissues of RUNNING WILD's earlier albums:

Rolf: "I think the first one that's coming out is 'Gates To Purgatory' (December 1984). We did some re-releases on Sanctuary, which included bonus tracks, so there are no more songs that I have to put on them. This is the problem. I just did an interview with Malcolm Dome though for the liner notes of 'Gates To Purgatory'; maybe he will be doing this for all of the records, but I don't know. I really hope that they put out all of the records, but at the moment they're just trying out the first one."

On side project GIANT X:

Rolf: "It will be different than RUNNING WILD, because it's pretty much more typical rock 'n' roll stuff I would say. PJ (Peter Jordan) plays all of the guitars and does all of the production. We wanted to get the opportunity to do a full demo with ten songs. but we had to cut it down when I started production for 'Shadowmaker'. I couldn't do two productions together because PJ was involved in the project, in the production for 'Shadowmaker'. GIANT X is a rock 'n' roll heavy metal project, but one song has a slide guitar and is very bluesy, and we got a ballad and everything. It's totally different than RUNNING WILD, but also heavy metal and hard rock. Some record companies — even SPV — are very interested in that project."

Read the entire interview from Metal Forces.