... Who's behind the Temple ? - part 3 with Ulla Roschat -

Last week I started to present you the staff of T.o.P. through its north-american part (Lucas from Canada and then Steve from the USA), here we go now for the old -continent part, with ULLA Roschat from Germany :


Hi, could you please present yourself in a few words/lines ?

Hi, I am Ulla Roschat. I do a podcast show called "The Wicked Lady Show" which is aired on  "Grip of Delusion Radio" every second Saturday . I write reviews for "Metal Bandcamp" and "Temple of Perdition”. I'm 54 years old and live in Germany.
 

 

 

When and how did you come to Metal and more especially to Doom and its subgenres ? When did you start to write on music ?  Has writing in general always been something you liked and were at ease with ?

Unlike most of the young(er) metalheads I had of course no parents, uncles, elder brothers etc. who listened to that kind of music. I had to search and find it all by myself. The impulse to do so was indeed some kind of crucial experience (I told the story about 666 times, but I will gladly do the 667th time). It was the experience to listen to Jimi Hendrix' music for the first time, accidentally and unfortunately in the context of TV news reporting about his recent passing away. That was 1970, I was 11 years old and amazed and fascinated by the sounds of "Hey Joe" and "All Along the Watchtower". I  never had heard something like that before and I immediately knew: "I want more!" and I set out to search for more and I found.... the blues, the rock, the punk, the metal..., psychedelic, spacey, progressive, experimental... . Those were exciting times (the times my parents weren't sure, if I possibly was in need of a psychotherapy haha).

There had been breaks in my intensive interest in music when there just wasn't the time for it and priorities shifted until I've had enough of just listening to 70s and 80s music alone or lamenting about the crap they played in the radio and again I set out to search and was happy to find there was still a whole lot of great music in this world. With the help of the internet it was even easier than ever to find it..., and I found inter alia the doom and its subgenres..., and I found the great web radio stations and the music blogs and zines and forums etc.

I always had been on the 'reading side', except for the "creative writing classes at university. I wasn't even bad at it, but I knew I would never write the novel I would want to read. So I concentrated on translating what others had written.

I started to write on music when Max from Metal Bandcamp asked me to do so. He thought that some of my comments I made on the blog entries were nearly reviews and so I became a reviewer... this was about a year ago


 

Do you remember from when did you start to follow regularly Temple of Perdition ? Any special interview(s) or review(s) that caught your attention ?

I really don't know when that was. I only remember that on my web searches ToP was one of the zines that popped up often and I sometimes found myself reading the things I hadn't even been looking for (especially Stéph's awesome interviews) and soon ToP was bookmarked in my brain and on my computer.

 You’ve got all other various activities related to Metal (own blog for Lucas + other contributions too - just like Andreas, Aleksey and Ulla who has also a podcast… I’m sure that Steve would do something else too, if he wasn’t studying too  beside working ! Do you manage to find enough time and the right balance between this and the usual daily life (work, family, etc…) ?

Hmm, no of course I don't always find the right balance. Ideas often come when I actually don't have the time to elaborate them. I am practically never without pen and paper. I wish I could do more writing, do it more consistently and en bloc. My family's view on what I do varies from "It's cool what she does" to "She's crazy".

 

Isn’t Steph a too tyrannic editor with you ?!!! How do you see the fact of contributing in english for a French blog with a cosmopolitan team ? ( just nothing special in this web era or pretty cool and enriching ?)

What a silly question! Of course he is a tyrannic monster. Whip in hand he's standing behind his serfs he calls contributors and drives them to work haha, His inspiring and infectious enthusiasm for the music makes it a joy to write for his blog.
The most exciting thing of the web in general for me is that I can be in contact with people from all around the world who share the same interests, whatever they may be. The possibilities the internet and social media offer to "meet" like-minded people with all their diversities and no matter where they happen to live are amazing, inspiring and a great source of information. As like I said above it has never been easier to find the music, it's never been easier to find the people connected to it as well, be it the bands, the fans, the radio stations, the writers, labels, distributors or concert/tour organizers etc. There are so many possibilities to support the music scene for everyone to find their own way to do it.
A webzine with contributors from all over the world is just as fascinating and inspiring and it’s great to be a part of this one!