Long Live (And Living Up To) Black Sabbath

It's less often these days that a band will be truly reminiscent of classic bands such as Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath. For German rock band Kadavar it's a connection they earned upon releasing their self-titled debut in 2012. Now, three records in, Kadavar are gearing up for another Australian run.

Drummer Christoph Bartelt — also known as 'Tiger' — is excited for the warm weather and the opportunity to perform in front of Australian audiences. With Sabbath rounding up their final Australian tour just prior to Kadavar hitting our shores, Bartelt speaks out on whether a heavy band will ever be able to reach the same heights. His answer is conclusive: "In the case of metal, Black Sabbath was the most influential and the most important, probably — in history it will always be the most important. Will they be the biggest band forever? I don't know. There's always new people coming that use some of their own twist and maybe they have something interesting within the metal genre that we haven't heard before, but Black Sabbath will probably be one of the most important bands forever."

"Black Sabbath will probably be one of the most important bands forever."

Sabbath of course, have a vast catalogue. Bartelt weighs in on whether Kadavar could also put down close to 15 records in their career. "That's a very big question," begins Tiger, "I wouldn't answer with a certain year, say ten years from now or something. I think we can continue doing it as long as it's interesting and inspiring to do records. As long as we want to do it and we have a new idea and a drive as to why we want to do another record. If this is the case — and I think if you are interesting as a band and stay fresh by contributing new things with each record — but… we've toured for two years now and to do another record 'just because', that would be a boring way to do stuff."

Despite the wear and tear of touring, creative down time and reflection on 2015's Berlin has allowed Tiger to hint that we can expect a much grittier follow up album. "My situation right now is, upon coming home from the last tour, I really needed a break and I wasn't so creative. I think there are some things in my mind of how to start with the new songs but to be honest it hasn't distilled into a certain idea yet of what the next record is going to be like. In general it might become a little more dirty again. I think the plan with Berlin was — I don't necessarily mean the plan, but the feeling when compared to the last records — there's a lot of feeling in there. Some really hefty songs, but also more positive vibes. I think that goes for the whole record because we felt like that when we were writing it and it's important that we did that. I think one record like that is good, but I think the next record needs to be different again."