??? (CHL)
printed zine

1) Could you present us to the others band members?

Hagen: Allright. I will introduce them in alphabetical order: First there is Christoph, who plays one of the two guitars. He is the only one without any hair, which is a great disadvantage when you want to bang your head. Then we have Felix, who is the bassplayer at Logar's Diary. I have also worked together with him in former projects. Next is Micha, the blondest of us all. So he's got to play the keyboard. Stefan is our new drummer. He is a member since about half a year, and we are very glad to have found a guy like him after a long time of searching... Steven plays the other guitar. He also creates the stories that is the music made of. So, my name is Hagen, and I'm the singer.

Christoph: Just wanted to mention, that I just donīt have any hair on my head. So itīs not true that I donīt have ANY hair ;-) In fact, headbanging is a bit difficult, so I try assbanging, breastbanging and legbanging instead (all parts where I have some hairs left...)

2)HOW YOU COULD TO DEFINE THE LOGARS DIARYīS MUSIC?

Hagen: Maybe we are not the right persons to define our own style, because once you're involved in a band like we are, you somehow lose objectivity. But many people wrote that they heard Fantasy Power Metal by talking about our music. And we get along with this definition very well, because it fits our preferences and intentions.

Christoph: If I had to open a drawer for us, I would put us into the Power Metal drawer. Indeed we have some speedy, dramatic, epic, medieval and classical parts in our music, but most important is that we play Metal!

3)WHAT YOU COULD TELL TO ALL PEOPLE THAT SAYS: "THE ACTUAL POWER OR MELODIC HEAVY METAL IS JUST A COPY OF HELLOWEEN AND ISNīT ORIGINAL"?

Christoph: I hate these arguments, cause they miss the point! You canīt judge a band for the style they are playing! Mostly the musicinas are young people playing their favourite kind of music and thatīs good. If a young band listened their whole life to Helloween, Manowar and Blind Guardian itīs logical that they sound similar. If they would play blues or alternative or such stuff, it would be dishonest. So they have the only choice to play their Power Metal, which they love so much. And itīs not fair to blame these bands for this. The media and they fans should give these bands more time to develope. And the fans should be happy that so many bands love this style. We also play what we like and if the result sounds unique, thatīs good. But if we would sound like many other bands, it would be also okay, as long as we do what we want for the sake of loving it!

Hagen: You can always compare bands to other bands that have been there before. But I would ask a person telling me that, what he means by Helloween. What I mean is that even this single band has changed quite a lot (for example by the changing of band members). If you compare Helloween now to what it was at its beginning, you'll notice many differences (now they sound very progressive sometimes). And not only Helloween has changed. So has the whole scene. It has become wider, although there are still bands that want to sound very traditional.

4)WHAT CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT YOUR NEXT ALBUM?WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO OPEN NEW WAYS IN THE EUROPEAN METALIAN SCENE?

Hagen: Of course we do our best! But nobody knows what will happen next. Perhaps we're going to be buried in the underground. I believe that's more likely than thinking of becoming famous or something. There are so many good groups, and the scene changes its musical preferences quickly. On the other hand we donīt do this, because we want to get famous. We just enjoy what we do. That's the main thing. If people like us and listen to us, it's a positive side-effect!

Christoph: The plans for our next album look like this: At the moment Steven is finishing the story and we are collecting many song ideas. Then weīll do the songwriting within the next months and start the recordings. Hopefully the CD will be released by the end of this year. And as we have signed a record deal now we have some special plans concerning the package of the CD, but itīs too early to tell something detailed. Musically I can promise that we wonīt change too much, we will keep our style: Fantasy Power Metal!

5)ABOUT THE SINGS:WICH IS THE MESSAGE THAT YOU PRETEND TO TANSMIT WITH THEM?

Hagen: First of all I think it would be exaggerated to say that we want to convey a deep message. We want to entertain at first respect. People shall enjoy the stories themselves. But of course, there are certain ideals that can be isolated out of our lyrics. That may be justice, deep friendship, reliability; and by dealing with these subjects and pointing them out, we also reveal our general opinions about what we consider important in life.

Christoph: I always liked the thought of entertaining people. I love to put a CD into my player, listen to the songs and reading the lyrics telling a tale. So I can forget about the daily trouble. Itīs better than reading books, cause itīs not just a visual thing but also an acoustic thing. So I hope that we can make some days of some fans brighter with our tales.

6)HAVE YOU RECEIVED OFFERS FROM SOME LABEL OR YOUīRE WORKING IN THAT?

Hagen: Yes we have got some offers from record companies, and it was a hard work to decide between them. But now we definitely cooperate with a Brasilian label called Megahard Records, that deliver our current CD and with a Swedish company that will release our next album likely in a year from now.

Christoph: The contract with Megahard Records is just a distribution contract concerning the territory of South America; and itīs only for our Book 1. The contract with MFE (Metal Fortress Entertainment) is a contract for our forthcoming CDs. It includes a worldwide distribution.

7)WICH HAS BEEN THE PEOPLEīS ANSWER TO LOGARS DIARY FOR YOUR ALBUM AND IN YOUR CONCERTS?

Hagen: Unfortunately we never had any concerts with Logar's Diary up to now. That was, because we had no drummer to play with. But in about two months this will be different, because we have gigs planned beginning from March.

So we only got any feedback due to our record. Mainly we were very surprised how nice people would consider our CD, for it is only a demo and has certain lacks (especially concerning my part, if you ask me). Generally, we are very motivated to work on with LD, and that's also an effect of those positive criticisms! Thanks to all who supported us in that way (like you do!!).

8)WHATīS MEAN THE NAME OF THE GROUP?

Christoph: Logar is the roleplaying game character by Steven, who has played Logar for many years in Earthdawn. He writes down every adventure he experiences and we are the bards telling of his adventures...

Hagen: Logar is the very protagonist of every piece of lyrics we write and every musical theme. He is something like a human traveller through a fantastic world. His adventures are written down in a diary, and every song is a small excerpt out of this diary. So the name is connected to the band itself as much as possible, and that's also very motivating for us to move on in songwriting!

9)WICH IS THE BANDīS HISTORY?

Christoph: To get detailed information, go and visit our website:

To get it shortly: The band started when Steven and I met dsuring our civilian service in a hospital. We recruited the others and started to pay tribute to our favourite musical style by playing Fantasy Metal. So Logarīs Diary was founded. The only problem was to find the drummer, but after the release of our CD Stefan called us and joined our clan! Then we got many positive responses for our work, we pressed about 2000 CDs and signed a contract with a label. Now we prepare to enter the stages soon and try to get bigger with our second CD by the end of the year.

10)WHAT HAS BEEEN THE BEST AND THE WORSE AFTER OF YOUR BIRTH LIKE BAND?

Christoph: Letīs start with the best. There were so many great moments. To name a few: Listening the first time to the pressed CD, listening the first time to a new recorded song, hearing the full choir after recording it vocal by vocal, signing the contract with our label, reading the raving reviews we got, playing our songs live in our rehearsal room, Jag Panzer writing us how much they liked our songs and so on...

The hard experiences are the enormous amount of time we have to spend for the band, the hard work with so many sleepless nights and the problems we have among ourselves, which is natural when some people work together so close.

11)HOW HAS BEEN THE SUPPORT THROUGH RADIO, TV, INTERNET, ETC?

Hagen: Internet is a nice topic! We have many visitors on our homepage, and many online magazines supported us by writing reviews and so on. I have never heard LD in the radio, but people told us we would have been played at radio stations in for example Australia and Brasil.

Christoph: Indeed the support from the Metal scene is amazing so far. There are so many fans spending their time to push some unknown bands forward. And the loyalty between the bands themselves is also amazing. Iīm very proud to be part of this scene!

12)SOME MESSAGE FOR OUR AUDIENCE?HOW IS THE LOCAL SCENE OF HEAVY METAL IN YOUR COUNTRY AND WICH IS THE POSITION OF LOGAR INSIDE HER?

Hagen: First of all: Thanks for having read these lines, for showing interest in underground bands like us with this!! Keep doing this, because this is the best way of dealing with music - looking and searching by oneself. So many listeners only listen to certain stuff, because other people (major TV stations etc.) tell them to. And so many really good bands never get chance to present themselves. You rule! Thanks!

Christoph: The German Metal scene is very strong and big. There are very good bands and many of them have the opportunity to record professionell demo-CDs. Logarīs Diary is one of these, not more and not less, but considering the fact that we got 7 contract offers after our first demo, Iīm sure Logarīs story isnīt ended so far…

I hope we will be part of the scene for a long time and make some fans happy with our music. Keep an eye and an ear open for Logarīs adventures in the future!

Metallic greetings from Berlin! Hail!

Interview by ???

BACK