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A new album – Carpe Diem – something to talk about... I met Ronnie Atkins at a restaurant in Dortmund. It wasn't the first time we met and so soon we got into a conversation about the new album and other things...
When I looked at the cover at the first time, I was like "what the hell is this", but after a closer look it makes sense... "First I saw a draft in black and white. So I just saw our symbol, I haven't seen the band name. The finished version is great." The title Carpe Diem means cease the day. Is this a kind of band motto? "Yes, but it doesn't mean to over do it. Just live your life and use your chances..." Which is a good motto to live. And that's what Pretty Maids is doing now for almost 2 decades! A long time in which the Danish offered about a dozen albums... So you might wanna know how Carpe Diem sounds... It sounds like Pretty Maids! In my opinion the band developed their own sound in an early stage of their career. "A few weeks ago I was on a party and someone played stuff from our debut... After all this years and I long time where I haven't listen to our old material, I have recognized that even in that days there have been the Pretty Maids sound! Not as it is today, but..." On Carpe Diem the quartet offers a kind of classical mixture incl. rockers, fast melodic tracks and ballads, probably not the type of ballads you might expect... "There is no second Savage Heart on it, but with Wouldn't Miss You and Clay there are two slow melodic tracks. Lyrically both can be categorized as ballads, musically..." Actually both songs are really great, perhaps not as strong as other ballads of the Danish Dynamite... Somewhere in an interview for the current release I read that Until It Dies sounds like Savatage.... "Matthias Breusch said that, right?... Anyway, it's a songs which starts slowly and perhaps it has the typical elements which Savatage uses... Sirens was one of my favorite albums in that days... Until It Dies is maybe not a typical Pretty Maids track, even if it contains all the typical elements. Most of the songs could also be on one of our earlier releases." That's one of the reasons why the Danish are playing live successfully. There are just a few bands who can mix up old and new material during the set and stay on the same quality level. The songwriter duo Ronnie Atkins / Ken Hammer grown through the years. "Song writing became a natural process. We don't think about which direction we wanna go, it kinda happens." Perhaps that's part of the secret behind Pretty Maids... Another thing is that you believe Ronnie what he's singing / saying, it feels pretty real. He seems to live every track. "I'm not the best singer in the world, but I do what I love and if I would try to do something else people won't believe me." Ronnie is all heart and soul when he's singing, acting on stage. That makes the shows so powerful and intense. 'We will tour next year, starting in Denmark as usual and then touring Germany and other European countries.' Last year at the festivals the quartet offered a fantastic set even if it was raining cats and dogs in Wacken while they been on stage. Do they prefer playing clubs? Or is playing the big stages something special? "We love to play live! It's great to play on a big stage in front of thousands of fans, but playing the clubs is great, too." Talking about festivals... What does Ronnie thinks about what happened at the Roskilde open-air? "I always feared that something like that would happen some day. Whenever thousands of people are together there is a risk. Beside that I think that the organization of Roskilde open-air could have done a better job... Anyway, it's a tragedy!" In 1999 they released First Cuts... And Then Some. "Many fans were looking for the old stuff and we decided to re-release the stuff and add some tunes. Value for money..." The fans got what they requested and this is an advantage of the multimedia era, the fans from everywhere in the world can get in touch with the band... So these days a band website is really important... But the homepage of the Danish... "Oh.... There haven't been an up-date for ages, I know! In a week or two we'll be back with a new page! It'll be done by the guy who's doing our covers. Actually we wanted to be up-dated earlier, but it took a little longer as we expected." In these days the internet is the media to keep in touch and get latest news to the fans... "Right, we know that and we definitely will focus more on that." When you talk to fans and read the guest book you'll find again and again people looking for live footage on video... The band recorded a live album a couple of years ago, but there been no video. "This is something we are thinking about, but there is nothing decided yet!" Due to the release of the new album Pretty Maids has been on German TV! "In our days with Sony we been on TV in Germany frequently, but since that days it seems that nothing happened. In Denmark we are still on TV, there it ain't something special." Is there a change ahead of us? "The music scene is changing again. Rock music getting popular again and so there is media interest. We never cared about trends, always tried to stay the same – stick to your guns – is a common saying.... If the media is interested in us, fine... If not, we don't care." Pretty Maids are always been honest to their fans and to themselves. Otherwise they won't have survived all the changes in the scene since the early 80's! "A lot of things changed and a lot stayed the same. Cease the day and try to make the best out of everything...."
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