Warwick Interview: Christoph Termühlen of Unheilig

Licky, how did you join Unheilig?

I started with Unheilig in 2002. The bands management is situated in my hometown of Ochtrup. I used to work with another band who were signed up with the same management company as Unheilig, so when Unheilig were looking for a new guitarist, they contacted me. The company  sent me some tapes and I really liked the music and that was the day I decided to become a member of Unheilig. 

When and why did you start playing guitar?

When I was young, my uncle gave me a guitar as a present. If I remember correctly, it was a Framus Hollywood. Nowadays it is hanging on my wall, but sometimes I still take it down and strum some chords on it. I learned the obvious E, A and D chords but I wanted to play guitar properly  after hearing Mark Knopfler and the Dire Straits for the first time with Sultans of Swing.

Watching Unheilig material, people can see, that you are not using a guitar pick at all. How come?

Because Mark Knopfler also didn´t use a pick at that time. I then tried to create my own way of playing around without a pick. I only use a guitar pick for example when I strum some chords on an acoustic guitar. Not using a pick helps me a lot with Unheilig, as I sometimes have to switch very fast from hardcore guitar to picking sounds. Everybody says my style looks funny, but I really love it this way.
  

Unheilig have been on the music scene for ten years now. Why is the success just coming to fruition this year?

A couple of years ago, we only played to gothic audiences, people dressed as bats with smokey eyes and so on [laughs]. One of the main reasons for our success is our label move to Universal Music. They really did everything to support us starting with  tv ads and so on.

Why are your songs so special?

Our songs are made to be sing-alongs. Music like “Geboren um zu leben” is a tune that a lot of people can identify with and that matches todays times with all of its catastrophes. Our singer “Der Graf” knows how to write amazing lyrics.

How does songwriting with Unheilig look like?

It all starts with “Der Graf” sitting at home at his small home-studio. He works on lyrics and works on first melodic ideas with samples and synthesizers.  The material is then sent to our keyboard player Henning, who is also our producer. At Hennings place, the songs get their real workout, where I also join and add my guitar parts.

Besides Unheilig, do you have time to work on other projects?

Nowadays every musician has his own small recording studio at home, the only thing you need is a laptop, a soundcard  and some good microphones. Honestly this year I didn’t have the chance to work on some other projects as I was really busy with Unheilig and I also still have a job in my real life.

What is the future bringing for Unheilig?

As you can see, Henning has set-up a small recording studio here, too.  We are constantly working on ideas. First off all, the tour goes on till February 2011, then we have three month off. After that, we do a small summer tour with sixteen concerts. After that we will call it a day until 2012.

What gear do you use on the road?

Currently I have my two Framus Diablos with me on the road, one of them is used for down-tunings. While my custom model is used for standard tuning. I nearly don´t use any effects, I just put in some chorus here and there to make the sound bigger. I also always use two amps at the same time. One amp to the left, the other one to the right to get  this panoramic sound.