First, let me tell you that personally I consume other kind of music, but I respect and admire your work and it is a pleasure to talk with you.

Ok, thanks for telling me. It is good to have an unusual interview.

Our magazine is dedicated, for telling it in some way, to the Heavy Metal. So, I have to ask you, what does it mean Heavy Metal since your perspective?

Well, basically I define it as a movement of musicians with attitude that get rid off the Politic problems and dedicate to play. Beyond the hair, the style, basically a metal musician wants to play and play, more, better and harder. I honestly say… good for them!

Tell me about your musical education and influences.

I didn't have formal musical formation. Regarding my influences, they are more varied than people believe. I listened to a lot of music of the 70s, but I left on Pink Floyd, maybe the band I most like. After that, in the 80s on one hand, I listened to too much music of Bauhaus and Joy Division, and on the other hand, band of Metal, especially Metallica. Then, I started with Pop, the good Pop. And the classical music, that always was on my head.

Do you feel comfortable with the labels that usually are put to the music as Goth Rock, Progressive Metal, New Age, etc.?

Justly, I think that Lacrimosa cannot be labeled as a Gothic Metal, Heavy Metal or Pop music band. The manner in which I wear or the music I play is related with my person and not with the others, so that I am not interested in being labeled for other people.

Where do you feel more alive your essence of musician, on stage, or in the studio?

If someone asks me what part I prefer, well, in a studio I feel more comfortable because I can take my time to create something. But is on stage where I feel more alive, more connected with the music spirit. In a studio you can work for two months in a song, and it is what I love. But on stage, you play that song in five minutes and it is like if all that work and those emotions were centered in an impact, that you feel joined with the public.

What is your favorite part, composing or recording?

Composing, absolutely.

Then, I suppose that you are that kind of musicians who enjoy composing and then they take the recording process as a work. Are you the kind of person who is involved in all the details of the production?

Sure, because for Lacrimosa music is the key of everything that coincides with the spirit of the song, the vocal arrangements, the solo guitars, the harmonies chose.

Can we say that Lacrimosa's music is fragile, with regard to the composition step?

I think so, it is a good concept.

Tell me how is working your parallel project Snakeskin?

As you know, it is totally different to Lacrimosa. In fact, Snakeskin is like my vacation out of Lacrimosa. Collaborates different people, everything is more abstract and enter in the play another elements, as the electronic music.

I noticed that as in the cover arts and the lyrics of Snakeskin are present the woman, is she your main source of inspiration?

Yes, it is totally and as well for Lacrimosa.

Talking about inspiration, I wanted to ask you about your relationship with Anne Nurmi…

(He interrupts courteously)… I'm sorry but I don’t like to talk about my personal life…

No, please no. Do not misunderstand. My question was towards another place. I meant about your musical relationship with her. She began adding her to Lacrimosa as your inspiring muse, and then in your partner, sharing the protagonism. It is not very common.

Ha ha, of course. Anne is a wonderful musician. She dazzled to me, when I met her for the first time, I know she was the part I lacked of, and I had to share Lacrimosa with her, It happened naturally!

Talk a little about the fans. Every day there are thousands of people who listen to your music and they consider you an idol. Does this make you feel any responsibility?

It is an interesting question. Perhaps when I was a child I thought "each one knows what he is doing". But honestly, nowadays I think different. I do music and sometimes write about dark things. I consider I have to be careful if I want to tell in a song "I want to die, I want to commit suicide". It would be very easy to say "I am an artist and I express myself, people has to understand my art", but in inevitable that I have a responsibility.

If it arrives to that extreme cases, like when an adolescent approaches you and tells you: "Hey, Tilo!" I adopted the Goth look for you?

Well, that is only clothing and make-up, so it's neither good nor bad, if he is happy, it's ok for me.

And how is your feedback with older people, for example the orchestra musicians with whom you has recorded?

It is funny, but in general there is not too much contact because the musicians have the custom to direct them to the composer or producer through the orchestra director. They have always been very respectful; they've never watch me rare. For example, it was wonderful the experience recording with the London Symphony Orchestra. Once ended the recording, the director came to meet me in private to tell me a message from the musicians. It said that they were very happy and amazed, and they had enjoyed Lacrimosa's music a lot.

Although these are cases totally different, you and Marilyn Manson have in common the fact that you express your work with your music and also with your personal appearance. Many people – for instance, my mother – changed their opinion about him after listening to him speaking in the movie "Bowling for Columbine". Do you think that common people have a better impression of the Gothic people lately?

Of course they are changing, and it is truth what you say regarding the change in the popular concept about Marilyn Manson. I think everything is about learning, and learning means to lose the fear.

Tell me about your sense of humor, what kind of things does make you laugh?

Well, my everyday life has things funnier than people think. I like to laugh of myself, and I like people who laugh of themselves. Actually, I can laugh a lot of an embarrassing situation that happened to me, but what I can’t stand is the comedians and accounts of jokes.

To conclude the note about the laughter, I wanted to ask you about the Lacrimosa's harlequin. I think it is the best icon that a band has after the Eddie of Iron Maiden. How does he borne? Does he have a name?

Well, it flatters me the comparison with the famous Eddie, since it is my creation. Some time someone called him Oscar, but he does not have an official name (laughs). For me, he has a double sense: on one hand, I’ve always looked for carrying amusement for people. On the other hand, in a deeper sense, he is related to the art of showing tragedy, and enjoying that.

I understand. I wanted to finish the interview with something superficial and funny, but you couldn’t contain. It is your essence!

I suppose that yes… every one has an essence…

NEW ALBUM AND VISIT

The last Lacrimosa's studio recording album was "Lichtgestalt", it was released in 2005, are you preparing a new one?

Of course, I am working in the next album, I recently worked in the composing part, and we have not yet visit the recording studio because we have been occupied with the edition of "Lichtjahre", that is a DVD with shows recorded in Mexico and that was released two months ago.

Is there something that you can tell us about it?

I prefer not to go ahead. At the moment, we are only my acoustic guitar and I. I have the sensation that each album is a great ambition, in the good sense.

When you prepare a new album, do you feel pressure for surpassing the last one?

The only pressure that I feel is the mine own one, in any case I pressure myself so as to be able to enter in contact with the emotions I want to transmit. Anyway, that is not a moment in which I would like to compose grandiloquent music as I did in the last two years, and that we were searching for last albums.

Are you in a more minimalist stage?

I think so.

On October you are going to play for second time in Argentina. What memories and expectations do you have?

I remember a very particular situation: we were lodged in a hotel in front of the place in which we were to play that night, and from my room I could see all the people that were arriving. I didn't have idea of how the Argentineans were, and how they look like. That was a good way to know them, to see how they behaved, how they saluted, and how they talked. Then, the concert was very warm and they jump a lot. I hope the concert on October will be as good as the last one.