Crematory: Guitarist Rob Munkes Celebrates A Decade with the Dark Metal Legends and the New Destination Album
Photo Credit: Ingo Spörl
Crematory: Guitarist Rob Munkes Celebrates A Decade with the Dark Metal Legends and the New Destination Album
Crematory has been haunting the dark/gothic metal world since 1991 – and now with the unveiling of their latest masterwork entitled Destination, Crematory present another thrilling expedition of brilliant auditory artistry. Guitarist Rolf Munkes is now celebrating 10 glorious years in Crematory, supplying his absolutely imagination axe work into the proceedings. Rolf is best known for his other project Empire, working with lead vocalists such as Tony Martin of Black Sabbath and Doogie White of Michael Schenker Group. He has also spent time within the ranks of Majesty and Razorback. Highwire Daze recently had the honor to interview with the amazing Rolf Munkes to discuss his decade with the legendary Crematory, the brand-new Destination manifesto, as well as his many other intriguing projects from past, present and future. Read on…
We’re here with Rolf Munkes from Crematory and first of all, let’s talk about the new album. Is there any overall story or concept behind the Destination title?
After the last record where we had to see how the vocals go because we were only left with one singer like we did in the beginning. The clean singer was not anymore in the band, so we had to change our thinking. And the last album Inglorious Darkness was a little bit of finding the path with one singer and that was pretty good. So, we ended up with Felix doing all the vocals and it’s a kind of Destination because we just landed safe and Inglorious Darkness gave us the idea where we can go. And so, this album is the result of the last album. So that Felix can do all the vocals and we’re pretty good with that.
The Future is a Lonely Place. What does that title mean to you?
I mean it’s really tough because I’m not the lyric writer. That is only Felix. What I can say about the lyrics is that Felix had, I don’t want to say a difficult time, but he was going through changes in his life. And if you read in Destination and on The Future is a Lonely Place, he didn’t know where he’s going and everything was changing. So, there’s a lot of private things going into those lyrics.
I’m not going to ask about any more lyrics, but I am going to ask about the My Girlfriend’s Girlfriend / Type O Negative cover. What made you guys decide to do that cover, first of all?
Wow, good question. I think it was the idea of Markus the drummer, who is the man behind the band. He’s the band leader since the beginning of the band. And we had a lot of ideas what cover to do, and we thought covers always did well with Crematory because we can put it into a Crematory style and that is different to most of other band’s styles. There is a kind of unique style in Crematory and we had those low vocals in the mind when we were choosing this song and we thought just we were listening to a lot of stuff, and this was really working well. So, we were trying it, and it sounded pretty good to us.
And then you have Michelle Darkness from End of Green on the song. How did that come about?
On the last record we were trying with pitching Felix vocals and with some other singer lying underneath Felix vocals. And that turned out pretty good. And so, we came up with a guy who can really do some low vocals. So, we ended up with him for the really low vocal parts. And it sounded really good.
Has Crematory ever played here in, in the States? Or is that something you think the band would like to do in the future?
As far as I think they never played in America, but I’m not 100 percent sure. The thing is our drummer is not so happy flying. So, he got some problems. We went to Russia I think six, seven years ago, and he was really sick. And so, he’s not best friends with airplanes.
You are now celebrating your 10-year anniversary with Crematory. How did you wind up being a member of Crematory a decade ago?
You know I’ve been a musician all my life, and from time-to-time things are changing and 10 years ago I was working full time in the studio. I didn’t have a band. I did not have side jobs as a guitar player. And a couple of months before, actually it was New Year’s Eve where you make all the decision for the new year. I said to myself, it would be nice to play a little bit guitar again. And then a friend of mine visited me and we had a coffee. We had conversations about Apple computers and music production and stuff like that. And he said to me, “Did you hear that Crematory is looking for a new guitar player?” And I said, “No, no.” I was not into Crematory that much. So he went and then I went home. And then this sentence got back in my head, and I thought, what did the guy say? He said, “They’re looking for a guitar player.” That’s what I wanted to do. Playing guitars again. So, I checked a friend of mine who is friends with Crematory because I didn’t know any of the guys and he made a connection. And I had a call with Markus and half an hour later he visited me in the studio. He said, “Wow, you live living really close to me. It’s just like 20 minutes. So have you time for coffee?” And he came here, and we had a talk for a couple of hours and that was it.
Looking back on that first album you did with Crematory – Monument, that was almost 10 years ago. What do you think of it now in retrospect?
We have gone through a couple of changes with like two singers, changing producers – and that was produced by another guy that time it was recorded by another guy. So, I just played a couple of guitars there. We had tossed the lead. The clean singer that time he played the second guitar also. And we have gone through a couple of changes. Also to go back to your first question, if I remember that correctly, it was like it was the end. The question why it called it a Destination? You know, there is a point in life where you think now that’s good what we do. We have found something that works really good. And it’s not so much possible that anybody leaves now in the band. And we have to go through a lot of changes because we don’t have a clean singer anymore. We have Felix in the band. He’s the band member since 35 years. And so, it’s all good. So we’re settled. Everything works right now. So Destination is a really good album. Monument was also good, but I think this one’s much better. But always the new baby is the best baby.
I’m going to go through some of your anniversary albums and see what your take are on on them. Razorback, you have a 20-year anniversary with Criminal Justice. When you look back on that Criminal Justice album and the fact that it’s been 20 years, what do you think of it now in retrospect?
Wow, you have some good information. Yes, I remember that album and unfortunately that was the album. We had one album out before which was called Animal Anger, which was the debut album and the sales that time weren’t so good as we expected, so we changed the style. So Criminal Justice was an album where we had to find ourselves. And there were some two, three good songs on, but it was not the strongest album in retrospect. This was the second album. The first and the third album were much better. But we did a tour also with the third album, and it was a good band. I liked it. Yeah, it was good. Two, three good songs on Criminal Justice, we wanted to sound a little bit like Rammstein. We shouldn’t have done it exactly like that. But getting older, getting wiser.
We’re going to go back almost 20 years to Hellforce’s Majesty. When you look back on that album and your time spent with Majesty, what do you think of it now in retrospect? And that was 2006, almost 20 years.
I have good memories with Majesty because the band was very promising. And shame that there was a lot of band member changing in the band and the constellation. When I was in the band with the bass player – that time with Marcus Bielenberg, that was really good band. It sounded pretty good. So, shame that it didn’t go on for several reasons, but it was really promising. And I look back to a lot of good tours, and the album was really good. I liked it. I played guitar. I still like the stuff I played and still like the songs. And it turned out pretty good. And we toured it pretty much. 99% good memories.
You were busy in 2006, 19 years ago, because you also had an album called The Raven Ride – your Empire project with Tony Martin of Black Sabbath. When you look back on that particular album, the fact that it’s almost 20 years, what do you think of that particular album in retrospect?
Very proud on that album and very proud to have had a chance to work with a singer like that. We had a good time. I did two albums with him and the song Raven Ride and the song Breathe on that album. I later joined Tony Martin’s live band for, I think, three years, and we always played those two songs in his live set, so those two songs were really, really great. I’m still happy with those songs.
What keeps you from doing a fifth Empire album?
Good question. I received that questions really, really often and I’ve gone through it a lot of times. I did the fourth album with Doogie White. I’ve met with him a lot of times when he was in Germany and we always discussed (doing another Empire album), and I always did like half of the first step to do it, but then I felt it’s not time to do it right now. I’m still thinking from maybe once every two months or three months, I’m thinking, why did you not do a Empire fifth album? Most of it it was like economic reasons. There was just no money outcome for me. It was just nothing, received nothing. I mean, it was nice working with the guys, but we never had a chance to play live like in Razorback. And it just didn’t fulfill my expectations, not music wise, just economic wise.
Are you currently involved with any other bands or projects outside of Crematory?
Yeah, pretty much one year exactly a year ago, I met a singer who was doing like a metal opera project and the guitar player joined a different band. So, he was asking me if I can help out and I recorded the album. They signed a record deal, and we play Wacken this year – so yeah, I’m kind of member in this Metal opera project. We have a guest singer, Ralf Scheepers of Primal Fear is taking part – and we did the video session two three weeks ago with that band. It’s called Mystopera. Like mystery and opera. It’s really good. And the album will come out exactly on the day we play in Wacken, I think, like beginning of August.
Crematory has a new album coming out. What’s up next for you guys?
The album will be out in exactly one week. And we are going on a tour. Mostly it’s weekends because playing Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday in Germany right now for a really, really big band, that makes sense but for a band like us which doesn’t play stadiums or the large venues, it doesn’t make sense. So, it’s almost all weekends, but we have like 12 dates in Germany in one month and it starts on Thursday. The day before release day. And I’m looking forward to it. We have a good, wonderful support band called Hel’s Throne. They have been with us the last tour – also so we’re good friends with them and they’re really great. It’s a female fronted band and it fits good together
Photo Credit: Ingo Spörl
I want to ask about the new Crematory bass player, Oliver Revilo, who’s also in Boiling Blood. How did Oliver become involved with the band?
He’s actually a guitar player and we were looking for a new bass player. Markus wanted asked the bass player of Boiling Blood, which is another guy. But the bass player said, “No, I’m not interested, I have no time, I have family, can’t do that.” And so Oliver heard that, that we asked their bass player and said, “Wow, I would like to do that.” So he got in touch with Markus and said, “Okay, I would love to be. If there’s no guitar position, I grab the bass and play bass.” So, he bought two bass guitars, learned bass, but he’s a great guitar player too, so it wasn’t big problem for him. He learned bass overnight so to say. And that’s it. He’s really tight and he’s doing a good job. He’s motivated and fantastic.
Do you have any messages for us Crematory fans who are reading this now?
Of course. As most of the musicians say, as I said before, I’m really, really happy with the new album and I hope you guys there in America love the album as much as we do. And please on everywhere, on social media, let us know how you like the album, which song is your favorite? I’m really happy to get all the information how people like it. I’m really looking forward to that.
Destination by Crematory is out now via ROAR!!!
CREMATORY are:
Felix Stass – Vocals
Rolf Munkes – Guitar
Oliver Revilo – Bass
Katrin Jüllich – Keyboards, Samples
Markus Jüllich – Drums, Programming
(Interview by Ken Morton)
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