HARAKIRI FOR THE SKY are currently touring throughout the United States with the bands SWALLOW THE SUN and GHOST BATH. The next dates in Texas are March 2nd in Houston and March 3rd in Austin, so make arrangements. The Scorched Earth album is just out on AOP records and will surely be available at the merchandise booth on this tour. But let's let vocalist J.J. tell us about the new recording, the tour and many other details.

Welcome to our pages! After the first three singles from the upcoming album, I am pretty sure that Scorched Earth will be an album that will bring interesting reviews. Will you think the same? “…Thanks mate. Yeah, so far the resonance was really great. Seems the people and the press like it. I knew that we didn’t make a bad album, but it’s always fine to hear from others…”

Is HARAKIRI FOR THE SKY a reference act in your hometown or is your trajectory more renowned outside? “… HFTS is more or less a reference in Austria I think, at least when it comes to post-black metal. However, there are also a lot of other promising acts here and in Bavaria such as ELLENDE, FIRTAN, GROZA, ANOMALIE or my second band KARG (not to sound arrogant, hopefully). The genre grew a lot during the last years which is a good thing. The funny thing is, most of the mentioned bands are more famous in Germany…”

Scorched Earth will be the 6th album, it will be released in January and AOP Records will continue to license it. “… We worked with a different producer called Kristian Kohle in Kohlekeller Studio (next to Frankfurt) this time. He did a lot of great albums in the past and also did an excellent job with Scorched Earth. And yeah, working with AOP is always a pleasure for us, as we grew a big family within the last ten years. All the bands I mentioned before are licensed by AOP and Sven is a very good friend of us. He keeps all this running and growing and puts a lot of effort in our releases…”

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I have not listened to the whole album yet but could be the cover of “Street Spirit (Fade Out)” a warm hint of what the band would like to sound like in the future. “… Not really, we are still doing our own thing and will do so in the future. Don’t know where all this will lead to. But when it comes to the RADIOHEAD cover, it’s part of a bigger concept. When we released our first album AOP asked us for a bonus track for the lim Edition of the vinyl version. Matthias listened to a lot of K’S CHOICE back then, which is like the Belgian version of THE CRANBERRIES, and so we covered their song “Shadowman”. We then talked about the pros and contras of cover versions in generally and came to the point that black metal covers of black metal songs are pretty useless. This is when we decided to just do covers of songs out of our own genre, like indie, grunge etc. That’s it. Last time it was PLACEBO, this time RADIOHEAD. Covering bands out of the genre makes it way more interesting and you can give the song your own personal note…”

After 13 years, many tours, and live musicians you still remain as a two-piece band. Will we never see more members in the HARAKIRI FOR THE SKY future promotional pictures? “… It’s this “Never change a running system thing”. It always worked out the way we are doing this and still does. Matthias writes the music, and I do the lyrics and vocals. But we have had a steady live line-up for a couple of years now, and I’m pretty sure we will keep it, because everybody seems kind of happy to play in this band and has the chance to play in so many different cities and countries with his best friends…”

Are you guys ready to embark on the US tour with SWALLOW THE SUN next February? Could you disclose anything regarding the set list and merch? “… Haha, I hope so. We did a small release tour recently and played a couple of songs from Scorched Earth live for the first time. I would say that worked out pretty well. Not sure if we will change the set list for the US, but I do not think so. I think we will at least play 3-4 songs of the new album and a few older songs. Looking forward to this tour. I have been to the USA already five times before and really like the country and the people…”

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Congrats to your official videos’ mastermind! I really enjoy that a band takes the time to actually shoot a video with a story behind it nowadays. “… Yeah, it’s always a cool thing to work out the cinematic aspects of this band. Every video was shot by a different director. The concept came partly from us and partly from them. I really like videos or movies that have a strong storyline. Great you can cherish that too…”

What would Earth and its inhabitants' fate look like 30 years from now? Will it be so scorched by then? “… Not sure about that, but at the moment I don’t have a very promising and positive feeling about how the world is turning. It is pretty difficult to imagine what will happen the next five years, so 30 is nearly impossible. I’ll definitely move back to the mountains where I grew up in the next 3-5 years. I hope the world will still be alright there, also in a couple more than 5 years. Fingers crossed…”

What are some more plans for the upcoming year and state some words for those who will go to your shows during your imminent US tour in 2025? “… I think there will be a South America Tour in autumn, but we still have no specific date. We will do a lot of bigger festivals like Summer Breeze or Resurrection Fest during the summer. And yeah, come over and watch us and this special package with SWALLOW THE SUN and GHOST BATH in one of your cities. Who knows when we will be over again. See you on the road! …”