Arkadius "Akki" Antonik - Vocals,
                            Guitar, Keyboards
Marcus Riewaldt - Bass
Lars Wehner - Drums,
                           Backing Vocals

Live session member:
Sebastian "Seeb" Levermann -
                         Guitar & Clean Vocals

Düsseldorf, Germany
Label: Wacken Records/SPV
Genre: Celtic Mythology, Fantasy

CURRENT LINE-UP:

SuidAkrA's Arkadius Antonik

April 22, 2009

Interviewer: Peter

DISCOGRAPHY:

Lupine Essence (1997)
Auld Lang Syne (1998)
Lays From Afar (1999)
The Arcanum (2000)
Emprise to Avalon (2002)
Signs for the Fallen (2003)
Command to Charge (2005)
Caledonia (2006)
Crógacht (2009)

SuidAkrA has been around for almost 15 years, yet has remained relatively unknown to many people in the United States. That changed last year when the band made an appearance on Chicago Powerfest, as well as a few dates on the inaugural Pagan Fest tour following Powerfest.  This year the band finds themselves in the United States again, this time as part of the recently completed Pagan Knights tour that also featured Alestorm and Týr. Not surprisingly, SuidAkrA also released a new album in Crógacht during the tour. SuidAkrA guitarist and vocalist Arkadius Antonik took some time during the Pagan Knights tour to talk about all things SuidAkrA.

Peter: Give us an update on the Pagan Knights so far.

Arkadius: It’s pretty cool so far. I mean, every venue is very packed on days like Monday, which is really incredible and especially for us, this is the first real tour in the United States, so every single show has been a highlight. People are so much into it, so we enjoy every day and every minute of this tour. 

Peter: This is actually the band’s second tour of the United States, given that you played at last year’s Chicago Powerfest, as well as a few dates on the inaugural Pagan Fest tour. How does this year compare to last year?

Arkadius: I think last year was really helpful for us to be on this tour. I think the big difference is that on this tour, there are a lot more people that heard SuidAkrA because of our appearance last year. So we just notice that there are a lot of fans over here and I think that it was a good start to play first as special guests on Chicago Powerfest and Pagan Fest. This had a very positive effect on our Pagan Knights tour and our appearance on the tour. 

Peter: One of the reasons for being included on the tour is the band’s new album Crógacht. Would you give some details about the band’s production and anything else that comes to mind?

Arkadius: This album was released a few days ago. It was released during this tour and we recorded the new album in November of last year. We wrote the album in the year and a half prior and for us. It’s the most balanced album we’ve ever mad. Strong production values and aggressive, yet very bombastic and folky, so it’s a real good opportunity for us to present this album on the tour. I mean, the timing is very good; the album was released, we’re on tour right now, and we’re going to play some shows in Europe. For me, it’s the best album ever made.

Peter: Why the name Crógacht and how does it fit with the album as a whole?

Arkadius: You know, the first thing that I have to tell you is that the album is a concept. It tells the story of the hero Cuchulain from Irish mythology, and bravery is a very, very main aspect in this story. We were looking for a name that fits the whole concept, not just one or two songs on the album. We came up with the idea of valor, but valor didn’t sound good, so we came up with the Irish word for that, and the Irish word for valor and bravery is “crógacht.” We thought that it would fit very well because it’s an Irish mythology with an Irish album title. Hence, the album title.

Peter: The artwork for the album was done by Kris Verwimp, who as of late, has been getting a lot of recognition. How did you decide on him and what did he bring to the table?

Arkadius: Kris has been a good friend of ours and he’s done a lot of artwork for SuidAkrA on maybe six or seven albums in the whole discography. We had this idea to involve him into the whole lyrical songwriting years before, but unfortunately, we just usually finished the songs and then we just started to write the lyrics and by that time, it was time to head to the studio. So there wasn’t much time to involve any other person and after releasing our previous album Caledonia, we just asked Kris if he would be interested in doing some lyrics for the next album and he said yes. So from that time on, we just changed the whole songwriting process. We told Kris that there would be nine songs, so we divided the story into nine chapters. So when we were writing the songs for the new album, we knew which song deals with which part of the story, so it was mainly like for me, the songs were like writing a movie soundtrack. It was very helpful to create different moods and it really fits with the story.  He came up with this idea of Irish mythology and we totally gave him some free space because we knew he’s very good at it and he is very knowledgeable with the mythology stuff from the ancient times. 

Peter: Going back to last year and the release of the band’s compilation album, 13 Years of Celtic Wartunes, how did you decide on the tracks and how do you feel it helps those who are just now getting into SuidAkrA?

Arkadius: The main idea behind this whole package was, first of all, to present on the DVD the two sides of SuidAkrA. On one hand, you have SuidAkrA live at Wacken, which is nearly like today’s show with distortional guitars and stuff like that. On the other hand, we have some acoustic stuff on every album, so we had this acoustic concert in Germany and we wanted to add this to the DVD. We thought that when people buy this, they should get as much as we can give, so we decided to come out with a best-of album. The main idea behind it was that our first few albums were mostly distributed in Germany and parts of Europe, so a lot of people in Europe and the United States didn’t have the chance to get these albums. To bring them SuidAkrA, we decided to put together this compilation and we just decided to put up a poll on the internet so people could say which songs they would like on this best-of album. We looked at the results and we chose those songs.

Peter: Are there any shows planned after the Pagan Knights tour?

Arkadius: We’re going back to Europe and we’re going to play a lot of single shows there.  We’re also confirmed for a lot of summer festivals like Metal Camp (in Slovenia) and Rock Harz. After that, we plan to tour Europe in the fall in order to promote the new CD, so there are going to be a lot of SuidAkrA shows this year.

Peter: Are there any words of wisdom you would like to leave for anyone who would be reading this at some point?

Arkadius: I would like to say thanks to everybody who supports SuidAkrA. Just take a listen to the new SuidAkrA album, Crógacht, and you can, by the way, watch two new video clips on the band’s MySpace. I hope to meet as many people as we can on the road, and my final words are, “Metal rules.”

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