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How and when did the band Summoning start?

Silenius: The band started about 10 years ago as a pure black metal band.
At the time the scene in Austria was very small and we had a very close connection with the few other bands around like “Abigor” and “Pazuzu”.
We helped each other in every possible way: music wise, with the different ways of promoting ourselves and of course with the finding of the right labels for the bands.
Later on most of the bands went their own way and Summoning changed their style from primitive black metal to slow-motion epic and orchestral metal, which is deeply connected to the realms of Tolkien.

Who are the members and what do they do?

Silenius (Michael Gregor) and Protector (Richard Lederer)
Protector: Summoning consists of Silenius and me.
Silenius composes the basis of each Summoning song, whereas I play the additional (horn) tunes, the drums and the guitars for Summoning.
Silenius contributes the musical ideas whereas my job is to increase the power of the songs and to enrich them with suitable new tunes.
Besides this, Silenius sings about 50% of all the songs and I sing the rest.
Because Silenius is too lazy to play the bass (he did so till "Nightshade Forest") I now play the high and the deep guitar (as a replacement for the bass).
I am also the "technician" of Summoning so I also deal with the keyboard programming and the mixing and the recording of the songs.

How would you define your music?

Silenius: The music of Summoning activates the inner mind spheres of the listener which enables him or her, as it were, to travel through time to the ancient realms of Tolkien’s creation called Middle Earth.
The floating melodies activate a kind of wanderlust feeling to travel through the mystic regions of a fantasy world full of adventures.

Why don't you perform live?

Silenius: We don't play live because we simply think that a live concert would not suit the music of Summoning.
The music is meant to be heard at home where you can create your fantasies to our music best, and is not meant to be performed on stage in front of a lot of drunk, head banging and shouting metal fans.
Apart from this, we prefer creating new songs instead of practising old ones for a Summoning gig.
Once we have recorded a song we never play the guitar riffs again, and so we simply forget about them. Performing live would really take a lot of time, time we could use for new songs instead.

Which music can we find in your personal CD player?

Protector: Since my girlfriend left me, I am now again allowed to listen to my favourite music (and don't have to listen to her music the whole time:-)
So I rediscovered my passion for dark, electronic music.
The last CD I listened to very often was "Infact" but I also listened to "Suicide Commando" a lot.
Right now I am waiting for the CD of "Interlace" which I ordered some days ago.

Silenius: I really like to listen to any kind of music especially from the following labels: “Loki Foundation”, “Tesco Organisation” or “Cold Spring”.
So you see I don’t listen to metal music in my private life at all.

What do you do when you don't make music with the band, do you have jobs?

Protector: We both have full time jobs. I am a programmer and I don't see my job as a real job; it is a kind of hobby for me.
But apart from the music and the job there is not much time left for anything else.

Silenius: I have a full time job at Virgin Megastore in Vienna.
So my live is fully dedicated to music.
However, this job is not very easy all the time because selling “Bravo-Hits” and “Club Nation” all the time is not too funny.

Anything else you would like to tell us?

Silenius: Thank you for the interview and good luck with your shop.

Thanks a lot (also for the link)

Greetings