... Who's behind the Temple ? Part 4 : Andreas Schiffmann

4th member of T.o.P. to answer my questions is now Andreas Schiffmann from Germany again...

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

I am an incorrigible music fanatic, but consider myself not at all estranged from the rest of the world, let alone stuck in any specific genre. Apart from this, I have worked as a professional translator of literature, lived in Québec for a while and found a spot at a German record label for the time being. Active music is being made with the group Maladie, where I handle bass duties after playing the same instrument on the second album by Spirit Descent.

- 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 ?

Doom and related styles came into play naturally as I always look for new things, but also because I got disillusioned with allegedly progressive Rock and Metal for some time, both genres which I still consider to be my home turf. I started to write about music in the late 1990s since like to express myself and often disagree with the general consensus. However, you might argue that writing about music is symptomatic for people who fail at being artists themselves, but what do I know ...?

- 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…) ?

At the moment, I handle it really well; it's all about organisation and setting priorities.

- 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 ?)

Steph is a nice and polite guy as well as passionate about what he does, so all power to him. I would love to contribute in French but can sadly neither speak nor write well enough in that language to live up to the standards natives would expect. At any rate though, you reach a wider audience with English, of course.