"Songs We DUG UP" is the name of the new album.  It's a covers album.  A tribute to classic rock radio hits from the '60s.  

 

Journalist Paul Fitzgerald spoke with Scorpio about the new album.

 

PF: For those who may not know, what is a "cover"? 

 

Scorpio: It's when an artist plays or records a song originally recorded by another artist.  In this case almost every song on the album is from the 1960s. 

 

PF: Why a covers album?

 

Scorpio: Almost from the start, we've included one or more cover songs in our live shows.  They've usually been tunes from the '60s that we liked.  Often we'd "Batlord-ize" them, which means changing a few chords to darken it up and changing the beat a bit. 

 

On our last album, Death By Woman, we had two covers, which people really liked.  One was a Beatles tune, "Run For Your Life", and "Pushing Too Hard" by The Seeds.  We did them both totally different from the original versions and fans who were familiar with those tunes seemed to be surprised by our versions.  They really loved them. 

 

PF: Was that your approach to recording the songs on this album?

 

Scorpio:  The way we approached the songs was to immediately detach from the original recordings.  The premise was that you're handed a lyric sheet and it's your job to write music around the lyric.  The original chords and melody are only a suggestion.  You don't have to follow that necessarily.  You have to create something new from it.  There's hardly a song on this album that is a direct copy of the original.  We think you're going to be surprised by some of the versions.

 

PF:  What are some of the artists you covered?

 

Scorpio: The Rolling Stones, Neil Diamond, The Supremes, The Yardbirds, Donovan, Iron Butterfly, Chris Isaak. 

 

PF:  The Supremes?? 

 

Scorpio: Sure.  It's interesting to listen closely to the lyric on many of the Motown hits.  The original song sounds upbeat, but the lyric is often about sorrow, loss or longing.  ...makes for good Batlord material.

 

PF:  Was it hard to cover these artists?

 

Scorpio: The challenge was to find our voice in someone else's composition.  When we sit down and play a cover for fun, it automatically gets transformed.  We change chords, beats.  It immediately gets a lot darker.  We amuse ourselves with that sometimes.  Sometimes these songs never make it to our live shows or onto recordings.  So we wanted to do a whole album of covers to share that with our fans. 

 

PF:  What can we look forward to next from Batlord?

 

Scorpio:  We're already writing and developing material for our next album.  It should be quite a contrast to Songs We Dug Up, which has a lot of '60s instrument sounds on it.  The next album will be darker and more aggressive.  It will sound much more "modern", but still have lots of '60s and '70s influences.

Check out a few clips from the album here.

Batlord is a four-piece band who plays Rock & Roll.  The influences come from the '60s and '70s...the best era in music.

The text uses death themes and black humor.  The subject matter is often about relationships, psychology or interpersonal politics.

Describing music is like trying to describe sex.  ...better to just do it.  So listen for yourself here.

Those who operate musical insruments in the band:

Scorpio: Lead Vocals, Guitar
Christoph Jansen: Organ, Vocals
Carlos Cachafeiro: Bass, Vocals
Nils Plum: Drums, Vocals

Batlord started as a recording project only.  Scorpio, the singer/guitarist wrote the album "Music To Be Buried To" and recorded it with guest drummers in his Los Angeles studio.  All the other instruments and harmony vocals were done by Scorpio and a few guests here and there.

A band was formed to play the music live: Buzi (Bass, Vocals), Dieter Weinzettl (Drums, Vocals) and Kevin Krohn (Organ, Vocals).  The first shows were in their Los Angeles hometown.  The band started getting radio play by LA Radio Station KLOS and other U.S. stations.  When organist Kevin Krohn moved to Las Vegas, Ryan Johnson joined the band.  Batlord shortly thereafter toured Europe.

A second album, "Death By Woman", was recorded and the band played stateside including a special Halloween event for the Mark & Brian show at KLOS FM in Los Angeles.

After Scorpio's move to Germany, there was a two year break. That break was recently broken in Oct 2011 when a new lineup performed for the first time in Stolberg, Germany.  The band is: Scorpio, Christoph Jansen (Organ, Vocals), Carlos Cachafeiro (Bass, Vocals) and Nils Plum (Drums, Vocals).

Note from Scorpio:
" There will always be a special place for Buzi, Dieter, Ryan and Kevin.  We've had a lot of great adventures together and these guys are not just band members, they're brothers.   Their contributions are far more valuable than the notes they played.  They put real personality into the music and the live show and real soul into the band as a family.  

 

 

"I was very lucky to find the guys that became the L.A. band, and I was equally lucky to find the guys that comprise the new band, some of which came by complete accident.  They are not replacements for the original guys.  They make the music their own individually and as an ensemble.  There is a great energy in the band right now, just as there was the first time around."

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