The Rise of Vagrant – Epic Melodic Death Metal from Germany

The Rise of Vagrant – Epic Melodic Death Metal from Germany

The almighty Vagrant was founded in 2016, exploring the depths of human volatility and despair withn the realm of their superbly imaginative compositions.  On the melodic death metal side of the spectrum, band mastermind Stanley Robertson and his auditory co-conspirators has unleashed The Rise Of Norn via Black Lion Records, and it’s sure to exhilarate the senses of metal fanatics all around the world.  Highwire Daze recently caught up with Stan of Vagrant to discuss The Rise Of Norn, members departures, the music scene of their homebase of Hameln and a whole lot more!  Read on…

Introduce yourself, tell me what you do in Vagrant, and how long the band has been together.
Hey, I am Stan, the guitarist, founder and composer of VAGRANT. I write all the music and concepts for our stories. VAGRANT is existing since 2016.

Where is the band based out of and what is your local music scene like there?
We are based in my hometown Hameln. We have a small scene, mostly based on Metalcore and Hard Rock. Since we do a bit of “exotic” music compared to our local scene, we have not to do much with the people music wise. But we still have some good friends there.

Is there any overall story or concept behind The Rise Of Norn title?
Yes, the title depicts our main concept, which the album is about. Norn is a metaphor for fate in general. And the whole album is about fate and the question, if fate is existing and how to read life to maybe find out about fate.

Select two songs from The Rise Of Norn and what inspired the lyrics.
This makes not much sense since it is one story on the album and all songs work together to tell one story. The story of the young unsecure man, who is unsure about his fate and role in life and who tries to find it, but fails at the end, because he made wrong decisions and did not listen to his heart.

How did you wind up signing with Black Lion Records?
We teamed up with “Titan Forged Production” to make some lyric video for our album. He recommended us to Oliver of Black Lion, who sent us an email afterwards. So that’s how the conection was made.

Who did the cover art for The Rise Of Norn and how much input did you have on it?
The artwork was done by Pierre Allain D. Well. I had an overall idea in my mind, Pierre showed me his already existing sketches for srtworks he was working on. There was one inside, that was really close. Just told him about the main things, that needs to be shown like the woman, who is the metaphor for fate, the open ocean, which should be a little hint for the travel the young warrior will do and the dying warrior in the corner. The rest was done by him, like coloring and all.

What could one expect from a live Vagrant show?
That’s hard to say because we are not a live band and I don’t know if that will change in the near future tbh.

If Vagrant could open for any band either now or from the past, who would it be and why?
Probably some of our favorites like Wintersun, Der Weg Einer Freiheit, Ne Obliviscaris, Devin Townsend or Moonsorrow. Because these are the bands that inspired us the most after all.

Stan, are you still performing live with Asenblut and what has that experience been like?
Yes, I still do. It’s not always easy traveling by yourself through the whole country for shows and takes lot of time and energy, but also gave me lots of opportunies like opening for my favorite band Wintersun for example or for bands like Varg. Looking forward to the shows this year like Rockharz and similar stuff, will be an experience.

Recently you had a few member departures. How discouraging has that been and who are some of the new members of Vagrant?
Well, it was needed since we had different ambitions inside the band, so we needed to make that change. I am doing this project together now with my friend Alex. He would play bass live and is doing visual concepts and is doing all planning and scripts for the upcoming videos and photos.

Are you involved with any other bands of projects outside of Vagrant and Asenblut?
Not as a fulltime member, doing session work as well and there are some bands I work with I can’t announce yet.

What’s up next for Vagrant?
Our 2nd album is recorded already, just vocals are missing and we plan a release and some more big changes for the band, which will be all announced in the first half of the year.

Any final words of wisdom?
Thank you all for supporting us, all fans, friends, and people we worked with and all people for reading this interview. We appreciate all your support.

(Interview by Ken Morton)

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