Hamburg, Germany-based Girls Under Glass (Volker Zacharias, Hauke Harms, and Axel Ermes) formed in 1986. Nineteen years after the bands inception, and 10 studio releases later, this threesome that infuses goth rock, melodic darkwave and electro-industrial are still leading representatives of modern alternative and dark romantic music. Girls Under Glass's songs are sung in both German and English languages, with each language reserved for two sets of differing emotions. Their latest effort Zyklus on Metropolis Records is a testament of Girls Under Glass' open-mindedness and quality ability to forge rock music with electronic programming and to run though a spectrum of metal to electro to pop without losing sight of any type of fluency. This band just keeps getting better. ReGen's Jez Porat completes the circle with Volker Zacharias...

This is your 10th studio album; quite a celebration. How do you feel? Looking back to where you started, and a 20-year history, do you feel you have lived up to your dreams and expectations?

Zacharias: Difficult question. Of course we are not successful comparing to other bands from this scene like Project Pitchfork, Das Ich, Deine Lakaien and others. We are still somehow an insider band, with a good crowd of fans, but sales-wise we were never able to live from the music. We never had the intention and will to become the next big thing' or being super successful. We were just doing what we liked to do and were more interested in musical expression.

With both English and German languages in your songs, what of the two do you feel better with? How do you decide what language you are going to write the song in? Is there any special meaning using your mother tongue in a track?

Zacharias: I prefer writing in English, because it's much easier to work with this more lyrical language. But for some songs I recognized that German lyrics fit better and give the song a stronger and more direct appeal. That's when I started using German more often. But, our very first song we wrote 1986, Humus, is also a German one. So it's nothing spectacular for Girls Under Glass. Imagine Rammstein singing English. I think they wouldn't be half as successful as they are. German sounds very strong and for some songs I like to use it.

''Zyklus'' means a cycle from beginning to end representing not only the completion of a cycle but also a new beginning. This title wasn't picked by chance and probably means and reflects a lot for you. Is the new album an end of an era or a new beginning?

Zacharias: Its both! Zyklus for us means that now we produced something that we would call ?the perfect album,' so it's the end and the highlight of our development. On the other hand, it's the starting point for everything that follows from now on, so we have to call it the point zero, which marks the end and the beginning at the same time. Zyklus also is our 10 th album and in the magic of numbers 10 also describes a Zyklus. So it's a perfect name for this album.

Do you feel goth rock has blended too much with current trends like electro, EBM and industrial probably because of heavy use of electronics and does not stand out from the other genres as it used to? I would also say there are many new bands who commercialize the style. What do you think of this phenomenon and where do you see the goth rock genre moving toward in the future?

Zacharias: To be honest, I would need some examples from you because I am not sure what you subsume under the name ?goth rock.? I personally would imagine something like Evanescence, HIM, Within Temptation and maybe even Paradise Lost. I like all of them and I think they are successful because they just do good music. But it's hard to imagine that this phenomenon will last for years. Especially in the commercial side of the music business the development of taste and fashion changes very quick and often. And in the moment it looks like that a huge crowd of people detect goth rock. But in my opinion there is nothing wrong with that. On the other hand, I think it's important to combine traditional elements like goth with other aspects to create something new and to make this music interesting to listen to in the 21 st century. Luckily Girls Under Glass is one of those bands who manage to combine their original sound with modern elements without losing the character and the line. We don't like to repeat and do things again and again.

You have managed to create an incredible piece; an album which is innovative, electronic yet metal and goth, far from sounding commercial, an album which is delightful, melancholy, dark, powerful and emotive. The songwriting is solid, the atmospheres are intense, and the vocals are outstanding. You have always managed to meld different elements in your music with a unique talent. Now after all these compliments, lets go back to the concept of this album, before you went into working and writing the album, what album were you planning to put out?

Zacharias: Oh thank you very much. I appreciate what you are saying. We started to write songs for Zyklus after a one year break. We just needed some space for ourselves and get out of our way to get new energy and new ideas. When we started working on new songs we recognized soon that this album could have a big potential, so we decided to give this album optimal conditions by choosing a studio and an external producer. JP Genkel was the person we met at the right time and he was 100 percent behind the songs. He kicked our ass to get the result and quality he wanted to have. It was such hard work and we spent more time in a studio than we ever did before. All our effort and power and the great production made this album a masterpiece. It's the kind of album we always wanted to have. Something very intense, dark, heavy and melodic.

Can you try and compare Zyklus to your past albums (nine European studio releases (1988-2001) Humus, Flowers, Positive, Darius, Christus, Crystals & Stones, Firewalker, Equilibrium and Minddiver )? Would you agree this album is the highlight of your career?

Zacharias: For us Zyklus is the highlight of our career although there are many albums I still like after all the years. Humus and Flowers were produced with our first singer, Tom Lücke. These albums were very dark. At that time most people compared us to Sisters Of Mercy, which I think is ridiculous, but anyway there were hardly any bands with this kind of sound at that time. So it was not easy to compare it to anything to give other people an idea about the band and the sound. From 1990 on I did the vocals and we produced two more electro-oriented albums, Positive and Darius , which contains two duets with Wolfsheim-singer Peter Heppner. After finishing Darius we found the side-project Trauma that gave us the chance to concentrate on a more guitar-orientated and rocky sound for Girls Under Glass while Trauma became a pure dark-elektro project. The same time the techno and drum ?n' bass scene took over and we started to combine these new influences with our typical GUG sound. It worked quite okay but with Crystals & Stones and Firewalker we were very far away from what GUG was standing for and many fans were totally confused about this development. With Firewalker, our biggest success in USA so far, we knew that other bands can do this kind of thing better. So we decided to concentrate on our strength again and we went back to our goth roots. Equilibrium was released in 1999 and it was the most typical GUG album for years. Our fans loved it. We loved it and we knew that we found our way. Minddiver and Zyklus are building on this idea. Minddiver was more electronic wave music with some harsh guitars on top, very danceable and with ?Frozen,? the Madonna cover; it contained a big club hit. With Zyklus we wanted to go a step deeper. We wanted to create a stronger atmosphere and present the more guitar-orientated side of Girls Under Glass.

Are you excited to play the Leipzig Wave Gotik Treffen 2005? Are you planning anything special for this show?

Zacharias: We played the Wave Gotik Treffen a couple of times already. It's always big fun and a good opportunity for us meeting fans from all over the world. This time we will play a set that contains lots of very old classics we hardly or never played live before as well as songs from our new record. I think it will kick ass!

Two of the three original founders of the band are here with us today. How is it to spend 20 years together? You must have very unique bond with one another. How does a band manage to survive together for such a long time? How do you describe your relations with one another?

Zacharias: As I mentioned earlier, the original band was Hauke Harms, Tom Lücke and me, playing guitar at the beginning. Axel joined the band 1989. When Tom Lücke left Girls Under Glass it was us three forming the new lineup that still exists today, but we were playing with many different guest musicians. We were always very open-minded for collaborations and other influences. Apart from the music we are friends of course but after hanging around in the studio, on stage, backstage, in the hotels etc., we usually need some time for ourselves, so there are also times where we don't see and hear each other for six months or so.

Would you agree if I'll say that Zyklus is an optimistic album? An album about love, about dreams and a better world, about living your life being happy. Is that your message to the world?

Zacharias: Hmm? Is it optimistic? I think everybody should get something out of album and the lyrics. Many people told me that they like the melancholy and dark atmosphere of Zyklus. I was not in an optimistic mood at all when I wrote the songs and the lyrics. But I am also not the kind of person who enjoys being depressive for a long time, so I usually try to see certain problems from different views and perspectives and this often gives me the power to get back some optimism. And let's see it realistically: Lots of songs on Zyklus are about love. Love is a very strong and powerful thing, and in general there is nothing wrong with it. It can cause you pain and suffering but even then it's very emotional and deep and gives you a lesson for your life. And I think that's what we are here for: Learning our lessons!

Will there be an extensive 2005 tour that will include the USA ?

Zacharias: There will be a tour and we have lots of requests from other countries, but in the first part of 2005 we will mainly concentrate on playing shows in Europe . Hopefully we will be able to play in USA as well, but it's not easy to manage and first of all we have to see how well Zyklus is doing over there.

© Jez Porat, ReGen Magazine, 26.02.2006
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