Wenn Volbeat irgendwo spielen, dann rasten die Leute aus. Wenn wir sie interviewen dürfen, dann rasten wir auch aus. Unsere Redakteurin Pia hatte die Ehre mit Volbeat Bassisten Kaspar Boye Larsen beim Greenfield Festival zu quatschen und hat ihm da u.a. entlockt, was ihn am glücklichsten macht, wenn er ins Publikum guckt.
Frontstage Magazine: Because we’re in Switzerland I need to ask: Chocolate or Cheese what do you prefer?
Kaspar: I’m a cheese lover to be honest. I really love all kinds of cheese, especially locals around Europe.
Frontstage Magazine: You’re returning to Greenfield Festival for the seventh time today i think. Did you already get used to the spectacular view or is it more like playing at you living room?
Kaspar: I mean, I joined the band in 2016, so for me, I think it’s my third or is it maybe even fourth time? What stuns you every time you get here is the blue. It’s so beautiful and you just are like wow when you drive here. So no, it’s definitely not like my backyard because in Denmark it’s very flat.
Frontstage Magazine: The Swiss Alps provide a pretty spectacular backdrop for a festival. Are you able to take a little walk through places like Interlaken when you’re on tour, or is it mostly a blur of airports, buses and stages?
Kaspar: It’s mostly airport stages and buses, unfortunately. But I remember there was one time when we had a day off. I can’t remember if we were playing here, but it was definitely in the Alps. We had a day off in a hotel up in the mountains, not in a town and you could walk around. We had a whole day to walk around and it was really amazing. I would love more of that, to be honest.
Frontstage Magazine: So please tell me: What do you enjoy most about playing festivals compared to your own headline shows? What’s the main difference at all?
Kaspar: I mean, I really love both, but it’s very different. I mean, it can be a little bit challenging playing festivals because you have no sound check and everything. Every stage is very different from the other. So sometimes the sound can be a little bit challenging, but the audience is always great. I mean, they’re a little bit more drunk on festivals and that’s a good thing.
Frontstage Magazine: I talked to a lot of people during the last days, who totally wait for you to play here and they said, seeing Volbeat makes them happy. What special thing does make you happy when you look at the crowd during the gig? Maybe when parents bring their children, self made posters or just when people start to mosh?
Kaspar: I mean, I like when there’s a mosh pit and I like crowd surfing but mostly I just really enjoy standing up there and watch people singing along and smiling and just having a good time. They can stand a little bit still as well but I prefer when they’re dancing and singing along.
Frontstage Magazine: Okay and which song of yours makes you the most happy when it’s on your setlist? Which one is the most fun to play or the most emotional?
Kaspar: The Devil Rages on is always like a intense kind of song in the set. But I also enjoy playing, you know, For Evigt, looking at people that’s singing along and you know, some of them, you can see they’re getting a little bit emotional sometimes. I like that.
Frontstage Magazine: And in general: what gives you more thrill: playing a brand new song live on stage or an old banger like “Still counting” where the whole crowd can sing along every single word?
Kaspar: When everybody sings along, like Still Counting, that is always a great song to play because everybody knows and that’s a lot of sing along to that. So it’s Still Counting. And sometimes when you play a new song, I mean, for us, it’s very exciting, but you can see that people, they don’t really know it that much, so they just stand there and they just, you know, watch us and listen because they don’t know it. So I mean, we like to play new songs because that’s a little bit more exciting, maybe for us, because it’s the first time and we’ve got a new album out and you just want to play that. But at the time you feel like playing those old songs that everybody knows is also very nice because you can see them react.
Frontstage Magazine: If you could revisit one Volbeat show from the past and experience it again as a fan in the audience, which show would you choose and why?
Kaspar: The first show that I was with the band, as a band member, it was in Roxy in LA. I was there, but I can’t really remember it because there was, you know, there was so much going on. Fever Dream. I would love to see that, to stand in the audience because that was a very small club and you don’t get to see Volbeat in small clubs anymore.
Frontstage Magazine: When you come home after touring what is the non-material souvenir you take home with you from tour?
Kaspar: I went to this amazing coffee shop today called Coffee Addicts in Zurich. I got the maybe one of the top five cups of coffee I’ve ever had in my life. It was really amazing. And I stood there and talked to the owner of the shop and I bought a lot of coffee to take with me back home. That’s a nice souvenir!
Fotocredits: Johanna Lippke
