Two faceless monks brutally shove Powerwolf keyboardist Falk Maria Schlegel to the centre of the stage, and tie him to a wooden stake. He wails and struggles, but the band play on, watching impassively as another monk steps out with a burning torch and lights the pyre at Falk’s feet. Whoosh!
“I feel like I’m going to die every night – it’s very strange,” he tells Hammer later, perhaps a little singed, and certainly sweating buckets, of the Rammstein-like stunt. Hammer has flown to Stuttgart to catch Powerwolf’s Wolfsnächte Tour 2024. It sees the Germans playing to upwards of 10,000 fans a night in arenas around Europe following the release of their 10th album, Wake Up The Wicked, in July, which topped the national charts. With support from Swedish stalwarts Hammerfall and rising Italian ‘dwarf metallers’ Wind Rose, it’s the hottest – and we’ll whisper this, for reasons we’ll get to later – power metal ticket of the year.
Ever since war-obsessed Swedish power metallers Sabaton started rising to arena level in the late 00s, it’s been game on for any band with a love for trad metal and a flair for the theatrical. Throw a pin at a European festival line-up poster, and you’ll probably hit a name like Finland’s Battle Beast or Beast In Black, Sweden’s Brothers Of Metal, Germany/Austria/Switzerland’s Warkings, or Italy/ Germany’s All For Metal – whose guitarist Jasmin Pabst is hanging out backstage today. But it’s fellow veterans Powerwolf who are helping lead the new pack, their burned-at-the-stake ‘bit’ just one part of a show that has grown to include a flaming organ, fireworks, flamethrowers and an explosive front-of-house rig.
“We want to have even more of these theatrical elements,” Falk says, voice brimming with ambition. “We worked on the ideas for this tour for a whole year. I’m so happy that people have loved it.” He chuckles. “But then, I’m dying and people are clapping along. It’s like, ‘Oh...!’”
It’s 3pm, and already a group of fans are waiting outside the 15,500-capacity Schleyer-Halle in north-east Stuttgart. We recognise Conny, aka Wolfborn Demoness (see ‘Power To The People’ on p.66), who features in Powerwolf’s post- show video from their first date in Hamburg. She’s following the whole tour with her friend, Julia, and is carrying a gorgeous black book that looks like a Teutonic artefact from a long-lost crusade. They’ll fill it with messages from fans, and present it to the band after their last concert.
“I’ve dedicated my heart and soul to them!” she says. “They’re so interesting with the organs and fun lyrics.” Stuttgart is the perfect showcase of just how massive this music is right now. Without the hedonistic reputation of Berlin nor the quaint charm of Munich, Stuttgart is more representative of the ‘everyday’ face of Germany. Oktoberfest means the streets are lined with men and women in lederhosen and dirndls, but for every dozen or so stereotypical costumes we spot, there’s probably three or four metalheads proudly sporting Powerwolf shirts.
Before Hammer can interrogate more fans, we’re ushered away into the labyrinthine depths beneath the Schleyer-Halle, where tonight’s bands are preparing. We spot crew members wearing t-shirts that proudly proclaim, ‘I’m in the crew and I’m digging a hole’, pegging them as belonging to Wind Rose, the ‘dwarf metal’ pioneers. Wind Rose became a viral sensation in 2020, with a cover of the Minecraft song Diggy Diggy Hole by YouTubers The Yogscast. The track has 59 million views on YouTube, and has seen the Italians play sellout shows in Europe, the UK and US, while their subsequent albums Warfront (2022) and this year’s Trollslayer have allowed them to reach more than a million monthly listeners on Spotify.
“It’s a bit of a step down from our headline shows,” grins vocalist Francesco Cavalieri, referring to their status as first support band, as he welcomes us to their dressing room. “We only play for, like, 35 minutes – we don’t even break a sweat!”
Quick with quips, Francesco is a down-to-earth, self- professed nerd who knows how lucky they are to have this opportunity to tour alongside two revered bands. He’s also wearing a t-shirt bearing the slogan ‘I Am A Dwarf’.
Wind Rose started out as a prog metal covers band, pivoting to a more power metal sound when Francesco joined in 2009. The track The Breed Of Durin on 2015’s Wardens Of The West Wind offered a lightbulb moment, and the band created ‘dwarf metal’ – a mix of power metal and folk that Francesco describes as a combination of Symphony X, Turisas and Ensiferum. They’re standouts in a modern scene that offers tongue-in-cheek showmanship.
“If you’re talking power metal like Angra or Stratovarius, we’re not like those bands,” he says. “If you’re talking Sabaton and Powerwolf... yeah. It’s not the power metal we knew in the 90s and 2000s.”
Francesco lets us pick up the band’s ‘armour’. From padded, rubber-like shoulder pads with meticulous dwarven designs, to the heftier greaves and gloves that weigh as much as a small cat, the outfits represent a strong investment in the band’s future – the shoulder pads alone cost in excess of a thousand euros.
“I was talking about it with Pär [Sundström] from Sabaton – we’re both big Blind Guardian fans, but the thing is, when they’re onstage, they wear jeans and t-shirts,” Francesco says. “It’s very normal for bands of their era, but we want to leave less to the imagination and give a theatrical show.”
Even if it means splashing out, and having to strip down to their underwear as soon as they come offstage to avoid overheating – no tighty-whities, Hammer can thankfully confirm – it’s a small sacrifice for the enjoyment of their fans. In Germany in particular, Francesco feels there’s an acceptance the band haven’t received at home until recently.
“If Wind Rose were German, we would be Sabaton by this point!” he jokes. Some fans overseas have gone above and beyond, however. “Every night of our US tour, we would get a report about weapons being confiscated at the entrance – axes, hammers, swords... Real ones!” he exclaims. “Why would you bring something like that?!”
In a side room of the venue, we’re joined by Hammerfall frontman Joacim Cans and guitarist/founder Oscar Dronjak. If Wind Rose and Powerwolf represent dramatic excess, then Hammerfall are the genre at its purest. Formed in 1993, the Swedes have been steadfast defenders of the faith – which is also why they baulk at the idea of being tagged as a ‘power metal’ band.
“Being called a heavy metal band is a badge of honour,” Oscar asserts. “Back in those days, heavy metal as we’d known it from the 80s was just about the most outdated thing you could do – people would snicker at us behind our backs.”
Their efforts eventually paid off, as 2000’s Renegade topped the charts in their native Sweden. But there was pushback. On a night out in 2002, Joacim was glassed by a black metal fan and needed 25 stitches.
“It’s been 23 years since that happened. I won!” he says with a chuckle. Do Hammerfall find it strange, being sandwiched between two more comedic bands? “A little bit. It can be strange for the fans who have no idea what to expect from Hammerfall,” says Oscar. “We don’t do the theatrical stuff – our songs have more speed. People seem to get into it anyway!”
The pair talk with fondness about getting Powerwolf to support on a special one-off gig in Belgium in 2009, when original supports Sabaton weren’t available, and admit it’s great to see the favour returned 15 years later. They’ve even been subtly influenced by this newer generation of bands. “We’ve got ice hockey padding and chains for the first three songs,” Joacim points out. “Aged 54, I’ve finally decided to dress up!”
“There’s room for everyone,” Oscars agrees, adding a caveat that speaks to his investment in the genre. “I want people to mean what they do. If that’s singing about being dwarves, that’s fine. As long as it’s done with soul and conviction, you can make the world believe.”
Earlier today, Powerwolf soundchecked at Schleyer-Halle. Only, they weren’t really Powerwolf. Not without their facepaint and swishy black robes, printed with an orange, stained-glass window design. “It’s so important to be in character,” Falk explains of their live identity, as we chill backstage. “It’s not just a role – it’s something we inhabit. We do the pre-production rehearsals in our usual clothes, and I’ll do my acting and everything, but it all feels a little unreal.”
In full costume, Falk transforms like he’s a comic book character, constantly running, headbanging and acting as a counterpoint to the grounded presence of frontman Attila Dorn.
“My biggest influence has always been Bruce Dickinson, his onstage acting,” he says. “When I was a kid and my parents left the house, I’d turn up the Live After Death album and sing like Bruce in the mirror with a hairbrush!”
Powerwolf have played Stuttgart many times. In some ways, the city has been a barometer of their success; from the tiniest clubs in their earliest days, to the 1,500-capacity LKA Longhorn in 2005 when they headed out on their first ‘proper’ tour, to nearly 20 years later playing a room 10 times that size. Ask Falk when he knew things were really blowing up for Powerwolf, and he’ll reference 2011. They had just released their fourth album, Blood Of The Saints, and went on tour supporting Sabaton. It was the beginning of the modern power metal resurgence.
“At that point, it felt like people were just falling in love with this new style of heavy metal music that both bands were doing, everything just felt like it was getting bigger,” he smiles. “We’d turn up to places we’d played before and get twice as many people coming along.”
The Germans have been growing ever since, one quirky show at a time. Earlier on this run, in Amsterdam, Falk asked a fan why they liked his band so much. “They told me every day feels different, and in a way it definitely does,” he says. “One night Attila pushed me onto the fire organ, so I was screaming, ‘No! Please!’”
Two hours before showtime, Powerwolf will ask everyone to leave their dressing room. They’ll put on some music, grab a bottle of whisky, and apply the make-up that will transform them into five unstoppable weird preachers – a process that takes at least an hour. And what do they do before they take the stage? “We scream like wolves!” laughs Falk.
As the doors of Schleyer-Halle open, nuns, priests and dwarves flood in, alongside the standard ‘jeans and t-shirt’ metalheads and battle jacket warriors. As Wind Rose’s set begins, fans hold pickaxes aloft – inflatable, thankfully. The singalong for Diggy Diggy Hole is massive. There’s a rapturous joy in the room, and we spot fans of all ages, including metallers who can probably remember the first time Iron Maiden played venues like this. There are families headbanging together and having the time of their lives; it’s a vision of power metal paradise.
Hammerfall look like they’re trying out for Judas Priest in 1979: they crib more than a few notes from the Brummie book of metal, as they pull off synchronised guitar movements, thundering solos played atop rising platforms shaped like castle turrets, and even a cheeky motorcycle rumble that has us wondering if Rob Halford took a wrong turn at Albuquerque.
But Powerwolf are something else. Although Attila speaks in German, you don’t need a translator to understand Falk’s frantic motions to “Scream for me, Stuttgart!” as he initiates a massive call-and-response during Armata Strigoi. During Sanctified With Dynamite, Falk waves a flag with sparks blasting out the top. For closer Werewolves Of Armenia, fireworks are first shot over the crowd and back, then later triggered in time to a drum fill. It’s the kind of show that screams ‘festival headliner’ – a masterclass in heavy metal maximalism complete with its own larger-than-life characters in Attila and Falk.
The bands might be from three different countries and generations, but their performances transcend linguistic and cultural barriers. Modern power metal offers a sense of escapism and self-belief, that you can be anything you want to be, be it dwarf warrior, demonic nun or heavy metal hero – or anything else in the real world, for that matter.
“My sister came to see us in Luxembourg, and she was like, ‘You just gave us two hours where we didn’t think of anything else’,” recalls Falk. “We love that. Fans are just in the world of Powerwolf. I love the idea that someone can go back to their day-to-day life empowered, going to their boss, like, 'I want a raise!'"
Powerwolf's Wake Up The Wicked and Wind Rose's Trollslayer are out now via Napalm. Hammerfall's Avenge The Fallen is out now via Nuclear Blast
