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Sonisphere 2010 - Turisas’ Warlord: ‘I Love This Life!’

A quiet chat with a man who dresses like a viking for a living. Let's be honest, we all would if we could get away with it.

One day, some dude called Matthias decided he wanted to paint his face and call himself Warlord. Now, years later, his band Turisas play festival shows that feel like the advance scouting parties of an invading army and he has to answer questions from journalists about his life choices. We reckon if you’re going to dress up like some kind of marauding demon you don’t have to explain yourself to anyone, but nevertheless he was most accommodating after their impressive Sonisphere set.

Is it gruelling having to do so much press on top of an already-theatrical stage show?
“I’m getting used to it – it’s part of it all. I like talking to people... sometimes you can have a tight press schedule even though you’re there to play the best show you can, and if you’re running around before the show doing interviews then you’re not focused on what’s important.

Did you enjoy your Sonisphere set?
“It was a bit tough for us onstage because technically everything didn’t go that well, but every time we come back to the UK the crowd – especially festival crowds – never stop impressing us with how enthusiastic they are. We had fun onstage even though we knew we could have played a little better, but I usually don’t see what the band is doing because my job is to be there with the crowd.”

So how do you connect with people on an individual level when there’s so many people here?
“Usually you can see the front row and use them to judge what’s going on, but at some point after a few thousand people it gets the same whether it’s 10,000 or 20,000 people. It’s so much easier to grab a crowd in a club environment because you can see from the back to the front whether people are into it, but you forget about that and focus on the people who are enjoying it. But I guess festival season is the spice of everything – you get a break from doing conventional shows, and then when you get tired of the hassle around festivals it’s great to come back to club shows. It’s like winter and summer.”

Do you enjoy having to do so much travelling in order to play summer festivals?
“This summer has been easy because we only did three shows as we’re working on the new album, but sometimes it can be four shows in a week in different countries. There’s all these people at festivals and they’re relaxing and drinking beer, but you have an hour to sleep in the van, and then get there, do press, go onstage, offstage, shower, go. It would be great to be able to sit down and have a beer but by the time you get the chance to do that you’re too tired. But when you can have a relaxed schedule it’s great to come and meet everyone. I love this life, and being able to cope with it without going insane is the positive sign that you like what you do.”

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For those of you who not at Knebworth, you can keep up with all of the action at Rocksound.tv/festivals and our Facebook page. We'll be providing the best photos both onstage and backstage, the quickest and sharpest reviews and news from the festival and the funniest videos. Stick with us and it'll be like you're right there, y'hear?