As Word Divine is a new four-piece alternative / post hardcore band based based in Nuremberg/Germany. The band was founded in 2010 by the remaining members of the band wisecrash. Lets talk with them about their recent released EP Endings Fade, their favorite food and drink, what they do before a show, Christmas Rocknight 2011 and much more
TMR: Hey guys how are things going there in Germany?
Hey TMR, nice to meet you. Everything’s great here.
TMR: Will you Introduce yourself and the the band members please ? (name and instrument)
Sure. As Words Divine are four people at the moment: Debbie, our singer, Jerry, playing the guitar, Flo, who plays the base guitar, and Joe, our drummer.
TMR: Can you tell us something about the origin of ‘As Words Divine’ please?
Jerry and Debbie were making music together since they were children. At some point in time this developed into a band. After the base player of their last band decided to leave, Joe, Jerry and Debbie knew that they wanted to keep playing together, but they were dreaming of something new, something different than the band they played in before. This was the birth of As Words Divine.
TMR: Are you guys full time musicians ? If not what kind of job or school do you do beside the band ?
No, unfortunately no one of us is a full time musician. Jerry and Flo go to college, while Debbie works at an airport and Joe for the public safety.
TMR: Is this your first band ? [for everyone personal]
Debbie: Just like the three guys, I’ve been part of another band before I became singer of AWD.
Jerry: I’ve played in two bands before and to be honest, AWD isn’t the only band I’m playing in.
Flo: It’s my seventh. Including a brass band and a trombone choir (trompet).
Joe: It’s my second band.
TMR: Why the name ‘As Words Divine’? Is there a story behind it ?
Actually, we wanted it to sound cool and we wanted it to make sense in a special way. AWD in the end has it’s special meaning for everyone of us, even though it’s different to everybody. Originally, it was supposed to be synonymous for „as words predict“, which means this band is about to bring divine words into reality, which were spoken about it.
TMR: Who writes the music/lyrics in ‘As Words Divine’? .. how do you get in the mood for writing music? And which bands/situations have influences you for writing music and lyrics ?
Debbie: Jerry writes all the music for AWD, I usually write the lyrics. Everything that touches my heart is an influence for the lyrics I write, just like everything I learn about certain people, God’s love or life in general.
Jerry: I’m pretty much influenced by bands like Attack Attack!, Asking Alexandria, We Came As Romans, blessthefall and so on. However it isn’t possible to play exactly this kind of music with AWD due to different reasons although I wished we could. So I have to use a lot of pop music elements but since the most of us love the post hardcore genre I’ll try to go for that style in our newer – still unreleased – songs as much as it’s possible.
TMR: How do you describe the music of ‘As Words Divine’ the best ?
Since we have different influences in it, we use to call it Popcore, or – which is even funnier – Posthardpop.
TMR: How does ‘As Words Divine’ stands in life till events in the world, religion and politics and in which proportion stands that till your music and lyrics ?
There are so many things influencing you in your life, and events, religion and politics are part of these. But there is one thing that influences our life the most: Love. So this is the one thing that influences our music the most and this is why all other influences are not considered that much in our music.
TMR: For a lot of bands the lyrics are just a accidental circumstance, but for some bands they use them to communicate ! ..can you tell us how that is for ‘As Words Divine’?
Lyrics are very important to us. However, it’s not so much that we communicate with our lyrics, but rather tell stories or describe situations. We prefer communicating with the people around us between two songs on stage, or before and after a show.
TMR: Is there a message you want to bring with ‘As Words Divine’?
There is a message that we bring, but a different one at every show. It depends a lot on what people need to hear at the gig. But all in all the messages we bring have it’s foundation in this one: We found that there is somebody who created you and his love for you is greater than you can imagine.
TMR: Is there already a highlight you will always remember, since the beginning of ‘As Words Divine’ in 2010? [for everyone personal]
Debbie: My highlight I definiely will always remember was the MAKE SOME NOISE TOUR that we did in January with TRIPLET from Portugal. Our two bands became close as brothers and sisters, and we had a great time and learned a lot from them.
Jerry: It’s the same for me. MAKE SOME NOISE was definitely the best time I had with the band so far and I won’t ever forget my Portuguese family!
Flo: They still let my play the bass.
Joe: There were a lot of highlights for me… one special time was the tour in January 11 with the band Triplet. It was a really blessed time and I got a lot of new friends. But I enjoy every day with the guys and every concert and the conversations after the shows with the crowd
TMR: And the worst thing were, if there is one ? [for everyone personal]
Debbie: For me the worst moments are when I know I need to say something important, but for some reason I don’t say it. This can be either on stage or when talking to people afterwards.
Jerry: I can’t remember the ONE worst thing right now, there are a lot ups and downs while being on the road.
Flo: Our show in Ladenburg
Joe: Once we had a really bad show…it was stressful in the beginning and each of us played pretty badly. After the show we all were angry and down. I don’t want to relive this.
TMR: Name some of your favorite bands to play with live [past and future] and tell us why ?
Debbie Past: True Destination and TRIPLET, the only two bands we ever really toured with. Because we love them all. Future: Attack Attack!, blessthefall, underoath, because we would like to meet them.
Jerry: I totally agree with Debbie and just could add some other bands like Helia, We Came As Romans. We’re going to play with All Faces Down in November I guess this will be awesome, too!
Flo: Past: Spoken – 8 days tour 2008 – my first favorite rock band. Future: Blindside and Emery – all time favorites (future)
Joe: For me there is no special band I want to play with. I’d like to meet a lot of different bands in different styles of music.
TMR: What is your favorite food and drink? for everyone personal [no idea why people always want to know that]
Debbie: Hot choclate, mango-passion-fruit-juice, milk shakes and nectarines. Real food would be Pizza and Pasta.
Jerry: Hm real American Burgers and Pizza! The drinks would be Relentless Energy and Long Island Iced Tea.
Flo: Watch swedish meal time on youtube. Apart from that there is still pizza!
Joe: Leberkäs mit Spiegelei und Bratkartoffeln – I’ve absolutely no idea how it is called in English.
TMR: First record you bought? [for everyone personal]
Debbie: The first record I bought was PETRAFIED – the best of petra, because I loved the band and especially the cover of the CD. However, I did not buy it for me but gave it to Jerry as a present.
Jerry: It definitely was a Petra release but I can’t remember which one…
Flo: Running Wild – black hand inn. Old german metal band.
Joe: Band LAMBRETTA – I think they released only one record.
TMR: What makes you laugh? [for everyone personal]
Debbie: Good movies and my funny friends.
Jerry: Same here. I guess it’s pretty obvious that Debbie’s my sister…
Flo: Swedish meal time
Joe: Funny mistakes and accidents of other persons.
TMR: How do you prepare for a show? [for everyone personal]
Debbie: I do some weird warming-up for my voice and hope nobody hears me, I pray and I stretch. Sometimes I listen to our records on the way to a show, which really helps.
Jerry: I don’t do anything special just try not to focus on the show or anything else just to get my head free.
Flo: Arrival – food – wasting time – sound check – panic(wasted too much time) – styling and outfit – show!
Joe: I need some time for me alone and some time with the band to pray for the show. After that I’m ready to rock.
TMR: Favorite movie(s)? [for everyone personal]
Debbie: The Lord of the Rings always rocks the house. I also love the Cronicals of Narnia and Pirates of the Caribbian, all kind of old-school Disney Movies, and V for Vendetta.
Jerry: There are so many movies I like but if I had to name some I’d name the X-Men and Resident Evil movies, The Hangover, Zombieland, Dude where’s my car and the Transformers trilogy.
Flo: Bourne series (action); LOTR (fantasy); Forest Gump (drama); once upon a time in the west (western); and Fight Club. Oh and I love girly movies of course.
Joe: Classic action movie: THE ROCK or the new comedy KISS AND KILL
TMR: What is the dumbest question you have ever been asked? [for everyone personal]
Debbie: „How did you do your eye make-up? It looks like your eyes were green with some brown in it!“ … My eyes ARE green with some brown in it!!!
Flo: Have a guess!
Joe: Maybe this question
TMR: Do you have a life philosophy? [for everyone personal]
Debbie: The LORD is my strength, I will trust in him and never despair.
Jerry: Walk by faith and never back down
Flo: The older I get the more often I think I should quickly get one 😀
Joe: Not really. I try to live how god wants me to live.
TMR: Are you visiting many gigs, and what do you listen to these days? [for everyone personal]
Debbie: I visit some gigs, but not too many. I’ve had times when I visited more gigs. At the moment I love listening to bands from very different genres, like metal, posthardcore, softrock/pop and worship.
Jerry: It depends on the bands that are playing. I mostly listen to post hardcore and metal core as you can guess by reading my earlier statements.
Flo: I’d love to go to more. I love Emery, Blindside, We came as Romans, Johnny Cash, Fun.
Joe: A lot of different kinds of shows. Good acoustic rock to hard metal shows. I like the life feeling in different styles.
TMR: Tell us about the hardrock/metal scene in your area please?
There’s a little but nice local scene in Nuremberg. Unfortunately we have to travel to Munich anyways to see better-known artists. However – if you’re interested to see some talented newcomer acts I guess Nuremberg isn’t the worst choice.
TMR: How do you think about downloading music from the Internet?
Jerry: On the one hand I don’t like downloading music that much for me, since I prefer to own a physical copy but on the other hand it has it good sides, too. You can’t get any CD that simple so it’s perfect for buying releases from bands that can’t sell their stuff by the conventional distribution channel.
Flo: As long as it’s free offered by artists and music companies it’s ok. All other kinds are sooner or later killing music or at least its quality. Come on guys, go back to buying music! It the best way to purchase your favorite artists and making music is expensive!
TMR: Can you tell us anything about your debut EP ‘Endings Fade’ [Such as the songs/recording proces/label]? It was produced by Marcus Gumball (co producer ‘Guano Apes’) how did you get in contact with him ?
Marcus and his studio colleagues have a talent development program, for which they invited us. So we did not get in contact with him in the first place, but his staff got in contact with us. They invited us to their studios, where we first met him and his wife, Nadine. After our first meeting we decided to work together for our record, so we participated in their talent development program. Recording was done at their studios, as well as pre-production. Then we sent our songs to Universal in the US for Mastering and released the EP in December 2010.
TMR: You are playing at this years edition of ‘Christmas Rocknight Festival’ coming December, what are your expectations about that ?
Debbie: We are very happy to play at CRN, since we had to cancel our show there last year because I was sick. We hope to meet some cool bands and musicians, and to reach more people with our music
Flo: We’re hoping for new contacts, good food, meeting and hanging out with fans and friends and a lot of good shows!
TMR: And what about the [near] future, any plans ? [Full lenght maybe]
We are working on new songs, since we figured that in our hearts we want to go in a slightly different direction than what we did with our EP. However, there is no date for any new recordings yet. And for the very near future we are planning some kind of „Mini Tour“ with Dirty Wink from Austria in November.
TMR: Guys thanks for your time and the interview, we wish ‘As Words Divine’ all the best ……Is there anything you wanna say at last? [any final statement ?]
Thank you, too. Keep on rocking TMR, God bless you all.
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