Hail Heelers! Welcome to the Metal Catacombs 4#, let’s start at the beginning, you’ve been forging the steel together for nearly 17 years, could you introduce the Heeling Crew, and how, when did you got together?
ANDEE: Hi! Well, as you say, we’re together as High Heeler already for a very long time, our current line-up as a 4-piece persists since 2003! The idea of High Heeler exists even longer though, in fact it was born in the dark 90ies and also in a dark place: the catacombs of CC Stiletto’s parents! We’re friends since the middle of the 90ies, and used to sit together in the cellar of the Stiletto Manor, just to reharse on the guitar and bang to good old 80ies Metal – which at this time was rather depreciated – and of course there was also a lot of booze! I guess, that’s when we came up with the
idea of High Heeler. Shortly after, Poison Poser, at the time a classmate of CC and a huge Manowar Maniac, stepped in as a bass player. For us there was only one direction to go: back to the 80ies, but the times were harsh, we didn’t have a rehearsal room for a long time and we also went through some line-up changes, but since 2003 High Heeler features Poison Poser in command of the vocals and the bass, me and CC Stiletto wielding the axes and last but not least Dynamike delivering the blazing guns from the back!
How did you get into traditional metal in those dark dead-end 90ies and what inspired you to form a classic Heavy Metal band? How was the metal-scene in Vienna back then? Best live act memories from the 90ies?
ANDEE: In my early high school days, at the beginnning of the 90ies, i got in touch with the harder metal scene, which was at this time all about Death Metal! It seemed as if everything was about Death Metal, so everyone was in a death metal band and of course listening to it! However, piece by piece, i got to know the older stuff too, mainly because there were some older guys around in the scene who told me to listen to this and that band from the 80ies. It was the pre-youtube times, and so it was kind of hard to get to the older stuff, you would have to ask someone to make a copy on tape, or you would have to buy the expensive Cd, because all the vinyl was already gone in the bigger stores! In fact, the cheapest way to get to the music was to buy 2nd hand vinyl records, because nearly everybody believed in the new „technology” and gave away the vinyl, so at record fairs you could buy tons of vinyl for really cheap money! So, i quickly turned away from the rather boring Death Metal and discovered more and more of the great 80ies treasures! CC Stiletto already had an impressive vinyl collection at the time we met, so I got a lot of inspiration from his side too! So, listening to the 80ies stuff was pretty uncool at the time, but just not for me! However, as the 90ies went on, it got worse for Classic Heavy Metal and even more worse at the turning of the century! I guess, that we kind of found each other in dark times, and we wanted to do our favourite kind of Metal and so there was no other option for us, than to form a classic Heavy Metal Band, even if nobody would be interested in it!
Basically, the scene for Heavy Metal in Vienna got smaller and smaller in the 90ies. Some bands changed their musical direction, some disbanded, very few survived. However, there were still many concerts in the 90ies. I remember for example Riot and Virgin Steele at a free May Day Party in Vienna in 1995 or 96, when I met a sick Mark Reale and said „Stay heavy!” and he would answer „Yeah, definitely!”, or Judas Priest in 1996, who just released Jugulator - one of the biggest disappointments of my metal life - but still a great show and the first time for me to see them, and Flotsam&Jetsam, Exciter and Anvil in 1997 who played a hell of a show for about only 30 people, i was happy to be one of them!
PP: I had a czech classmate and when we were on skiing-holiday, he played Manowar's "Triumph of Steel" day-in day-out on the tapedeck. Half of the room-mates made fun of it, while the other half somehow liked it. A year afterwards most of the non-believers were converted and Manowar was the law. I explored the metal from this starting point, also lots of Death- and Black Metal. A lot of great shows to remember. Death on their Symbolic Tour, Dissection with Dismember, I even used to stagedive there. But it was Manowar who left the most lasting impression on their "Agony and Ecstasy" tour 1994 . They played the complete opening track of "Triumph of Steel", Joey was having a 30 min speech, Dave Shankle was shredding and posing like a maniac and the bass-drum was vibrating in my stomach that i thought i'd get sick. It was my first ever metal-show and it was nothing but over the top.
You firstly came out with the legendary ’PLUG IN THE AXE’ demo tape in 2005, what we should know about this release? How many copies were made?
PP: Well, in fact it's a live album and we released it parallel to the "Power to the Chord" Demo. I don't remember how many copies we made, but not too many, they were all home-dubbed and mostly given to friends. The show took place at a small pub and we played almost all songs we had at this point, only 2 missing. High Heeler didn't care a lot about perfect execution back then, it was more about the attitude - you can definetly hear that on this release!
The time has finally come in 2011, High Heeler’s first appearance on the mighty vinyl! Only and exclusively on VINYL. You weren’t even planning to releasing CD as well? What reaction has the EP got?
ANDEE: Hehe, yeah we were kind of late, but the times were still rather bad in 2011, so we did it mainly for our own pleasure, and, as you know, only the vinyl brings real pleasure! However, the vinyl wasn’t really back as it is nowadays, and of course many people thought, that we’re crazy, but again, it was the only possible way! We wanted to put our EP in the shelf, next to the other great records, and one should not see the difference between old and new! All in all, we’ve got some nice response, in a limited way of course, because even most of the critics didn’t own a turntable anymore!
High Heeler also featured with two songs on the ’Austrian Heavy Metal Alliance’ compilation, which were the ’Kalaschnikov’ and ’Midnight Angel’. Could you talk about this cooperation, what is the concept of the AHMA? How did you choose the songs? Actually, ’Kalaschnikov’ is one of my fav song from you, deadly automatic power!
ANDEE: At a certain time around 2010, we couldn’t help but notice, that there were new Heavy Metal bands around, international and also national. We just had the idea to unite our forces to get more attention this way! So, the Austrian Heavy Metal Alliance was born! We set up the facebook-site for announcements in 2014 and organised some gigs, it culminated in the idea of the compilation where all bands would be featured, we imagined it to be just like the legendary „Metal Massacre” or „US Metal” series and the many vinyl compilations of the 80ies! So, it went rather quickly, Ute from the Doc’s Dungeons Label agreed to release it, Poison Poser did the Artwork and the other bands like Wildhunt, Roadwolf, Diamond Falcon and Liquid Steel were happy to be featured for the first time on vinyl! At the time the compilation came out, we were still recording our first album with High Heeler, so we took a raw cut from Midnight Angel and decided to chose a rather old song „Kalashnikov” too, just because we didn’t plan to put it on the album. It was never released before in a proper form, and we liked it too much to get lost in the archives. We’re glad you like it!
PP: Kalaschnikov has been with us for a long time, it was written in 2002 and played live a lot - it's also featured on the live-tape. On the occasion of recording it properly, I overworked the lyrics a bit, and that is when the "force and finesse" line came to my mind. We liked it so much that we used it as the album title.
The long-awaited full-length called ’FORCE AND FINESSE’ came out last year with an other magnificent cover painted by Poison Poser singer/bassist. What is the conception of the covers?
Where do you get inspiration from?
PP: Of course the inspiration comes from my record-collection! The EP cover shows Medea (as described in the song of the same name) as she flees from the temple of Hera. She slayed her children inside the temple to take crazy revenge on her husband, so it's their blood running down the stairs. Also the blood serves as a red carpet for Medea, the evil sorceress who is the star of the record! As it's a holy temple, she had to leave her heels outside as she entered, you see them standing on the stairs. And by the way: the Heels are Dior, just google them. If you get hold of 'em, you get free tickets to every HIGH HEELER show for life!
If you don't have enough yet, i'll also share some thoughts on the "Force and Finesse" cover with you. I wanted to do an oil-painting this time, just because i felt it would be more epic. The basic idea was to find real iconic and simple imagery, but in a way that hasn't been done before - which is extremely difficult in Heavy Metal.
Inspired by album-track "Axe in Hand" I chose to focus on the Flying-V - maybe the most iconic Heavy Metal symbol ever - which is also played by Andee. I mixed that up with the most iconic symbol of western civilization - the cross.
So the basic concept of the painting is an allegory of the way of the cross. As we're always interested in stong female characters, i exchanged Jesus with our high-heeled cover-queen (of course we needed heels on the cover), and the cross became the guitar. The nightsky shows the sign of the heel, a twist on the morning star, and there is an olive tree - just like on the calvary. Taking the heavy burden up to the top of the rock, the axe-bearer is escorted by a long Heavy Metal procession, struggling hard to succeed. Her expression is a mix of pain and pleasure, the whole scene mixes up religion with Heavy Metal, as there are quite a lot of similarities! Also I liked the idea that the picture is only a snapshot of what is happening. With all the people and equipment carried up the mountain, you could guess that there will be a live-show as they reach the top, also they must have a real good reason to take this heavy burden. In my imagination they finally reach the Heeling Castle high upon the mountain - you can see it on the LP label of the B-Side.
’FORCE AND FINESSE’ also appeared on CD by Swords And Chains Records, near the self-released vinyl version. Were there many CD requirement for the EP, or why you decided to release it on other format too? Were you considering tape version as well?
PP: Some kids don't even own a CD player anymore and it's a dying format, so we thought now its oldschool enough to do a CD. Also Mike of Swords and Chains Records is a great guy and he wanted to do it, so we did - thanks Mike! No plans for a tape, but I like the idea - if there's anyone who wants to do it, just contact us.
Can not be ignored the fact, that the vocals are much more greater on the full-length than on the EP was. How could you manage it?
PP: Thank you. There have been 4 years between the recordings, so i had some time to improve.
Could you describe some of the songs what are those about?
PP: I like it when the lyrics are ambiguous and could be read one or another way. So basically when you read them, that's everything you need to know.
A lot of the songs are dealing with life and relationships. But we also have some movie-songs - just like Iron Maiden.
"Axe in Hand" is linked to the eventful life story of Hundra. Hundra is an italian/spanish warrior-queen-b-movie from the 80s. Hundra's Amazon-Tribe gets annihilated by barbarians, she is the sole survivor and fights her way through the wild, in search of a fitting man to produce children and save her heritage. A wonderful story - watch it!
"Enigma" is based on the movie "Black Swan", the story of a dancer striving for perfection - i especially like this one. She doesn't reach her goal unless she totally opens up, lets herself go and gets one with her art for a moment. A metaphor reflecting many of life's challenges.
ANDEE: We also like to dig into history or mytholgy, there are just so many fascinating female figures dealing with a cruel destiny, for example "Medea", the noble sorceress who was considered as a savage in Greece and who took so desperate measures! Expect more of this, we're working right at the moment on a new track called "Ophelia".
You did several supporting act for such legends like Lizzy Borden or Heathen, which was your favourite live experience?
ANDEE: We've played some nice support gigs for sure - the dearest memory for me maybe was opening up for german legends Grave Digger in 2005 - however I like best our self-organised little concerts, where we've shared the stage with bands we really like and appreciate! About one year ago, we celebrated our album release in Vienna together with Wildhunt, Liquid Steel and Ravenous, it was a really great night!
PP: I loved to play Budapest, as the hungarian crowd is so much more enthusiastic compared to the Austrians. Also Hungarians seem to have better musical taste. It's just great when the crowd sings your lyrics! And yeah - it's great to play with all these bands you know from your record collection and never dreamed about getting anywhere near them - crazy!
What are your future plans?
PP: We've just recorded 2 new tracks, they're currently getting mixed and it would be nice to do a 7" or maybe another album - we'll see. As usual, we're not in a hurry.
As I know, both of you are crazy Heavy Metal vinyl hunter, please share with us your first vinyl experiences! Why do you prefer vinyls?
PP: My first metal-vinyl was Maiden's Seventh Son, which i got from my uncle as a teen. I wasn't sure about vinyl for quite some time, as i grew up in the CD-age. But then I started buying it 'cause i thought it would be cheaper than to get all this stuff on CD. I always loved to explore the bands I didn't know, and I wanted it cheap - so vinyl was the way back then, as Andee explained before. Soon I was obsessed by the black magic spell...
ANDEE: I’ll have to confess, that I’m a late follower too, it wasn’t before the middle of the 90ies, that I got a hifi with turntable! However, in my opinion, the supremacy of the Cd was one of the biggest marketing gags of all time! I mean sure, the times were different, during all the 80ies and the 90ies the minds of the people were oriented to the future, i think today it’s quite the opposite, we’re desperately stuck in the past! So, given such prerequisites, maybe this development was quite natural back then, it was just the new digital shit and everybody thought it was necessary. In my opinion though, the vinyl is superior in every possible way! In the 90ies, for example the leading argument was naturally about the allegedly „better” sound of the digital media! Sure, you’ll need a quite decent hifi to really mess with the cd, but isn’t upgrading your rig, just like collecting records itself, a lifetime project? So no point there, and the list of advantages goes on and on: longevity, the size of the cover, I mean who would set up a CD wall at home? Last but not least the price, even the new vinyl was cheaper in the 90ies, so among the first records I bought on vinyl, just when they were released: Fates Warning – Inside Out or Manowar – Louder than Hell, they were about 30% cheaper than the CD version! And it seems, as if time has proven, that I’m not completely wrong, just look where we are today: goodbye CD and welcome back Vinyl!!!
Which do you think was your best bargains?
PP: This is an excellent question and i will happily answer it in full detail. Lots of my stuff would be considered a bargain nowadays, as all the 5€ records from 15 years ago go for 20+ now, but I would consider these my most spectacular victories:
Poser's Top 10 vinyl bargains:
Barnabas - Feel the Fire / 10 Cent
Happl - Signed / 5 Schilling (which is approximately 36 cent)
Pokolgep - A Sátán / A Maszk 7" / 1€
Atlain - Living in the dark / 1,45€
Black Diamond - Faces / 1,45€
Sacred Oath - A crystal vision / 2€
Palass - Queen of the world / 3€ (TWICE!)
Blaspheme - Blaspheme / 4€
Ezy Meat - Rock your Brains / 5,90
Liege Lord - Freedom's Rise (Azra) / 15€
ANDEE: I guess, there are are many records which I found really cheap, but also others I really wanted and for which I had to pay the iron price. Honestly, i didn’t keep track of it! Highlights which come to my mind are maybe: Traitor’s Gate – EP for about 10 Cent and Stormtrooper – Armies of the Night for about 10€!
Which five records would you take to an uninhabited island with you?
PP: Tough one 'cause i can't limit this to metal - I apologize. So it would be:
Iron Maiden - Iron Maiden
Queensryche - The Warning
Manowar - Sign of the Hammer
Sisters of Mercy - First and last and always
Depeche Mode - Violator
ANDEE: I imagine the really iconic albums as stars who are constantly circulating high above in the sky of my Heavy Metal world, I wouldn’t know to identify them all, because there are so many! There would be a Judas Priest star, one for Jag Panzer maybe and one for Savatage, a Shok Paris satellite, maybe a Pink Floyd planet in the distance, but so many others too. However, sometimes parts of the sky would be cloudy and you wouldn’t see through, and when you can’t see one part of the Heavy Metal sky, you would try to search elsewhere for other stars – so, to cut a long story short: I wouldn’t make it to the island, because there are so many great records, that I just couldn’t decide which I would take with me!
Thanks a lot for your time, say something to the Hungarian fans! HEAVY METAL!
ANDEE: Cheers, we really enjoyed playing for you in Hungary! So, stay heavy – I’m sure you will! We’re looking very much forward to our next time in the east, but beware, we’re gonna hit you hard!
PP: Thanks a lot for your support, we really appreciate it! Egészségedre!
The interview supposed to published at Metal Catacombs fanzine, but remained unrelased 'till TOTMB #6
Inerview by Tamás Kutasi
