Hello everybody. We are here today with Yannick Lehmann from Paleface Swiss. How are you?
Yannick – Good, thanks. And you?

I'm great.
We're at the Motocultor Festival, and you're playing in a few hours. How do you feel?
Yannick – I'm pretty relaxed. We've been here since 10, and everything's super smooth. Everything is well organized: great food, good times, great stage. So I'm super happy to be here.

That's great. So there are many things to say and to ask about your band, including new releases. Can you tell us a little bit about your new album, Cursed?
Yannick – Our last album is called Cursed, and it came out in January. It's our most personal album to date, and the one where we experimented the most. For me, it's my absolute favorite album we've ever released in the history of Paleface Swiss. I'm super happy with the outcome and also very happy with the feedback from the fans.

Yeah, great.
And how do you want people to feel when listening to the album?
Yannick – They should just feel like themselves. Don't hide yourself—just be yourself. I guess that's basic, very basic. And that's basically it.

So I guess we're going to have the opportunity to hear some new songs on stage today?
Yannick – Oh yeah, of course! We will also play the I Am a Cursed One single.

Yeah, and I had a question because you recently released a collaboration with Unprocessed called Solara. How did that happen?
Yannick – It's mostly a vocalist collaboration. I didn't write anything for that song. I guess it just happened because we are good friends with Unprocessed, and our sound guy, Marco, who is also their sound guy, connected us. Yeah, that's basically it—super simple.

And how do you feel about that collaboration? Did it bring something to you that you want to use in your future creations?
Yannick – Of course. Zelli does a lot more clean vocals in that collaboration, so it's nice to hear him singing clean on other tracks. I think it's a very interesting collaboration because Unprocessed plays a very different genre than us. I love it when things come together that supposedly don't belong together, you know what I mean?

Absolutely.
And how do you adapt those songs from the studio to live? Are they written with live performance in mind?
Yannick – We try. When we write songs, we try to make them playable live. We don’t like a lot of production or any unnecessary stuff. So when we write a song, we make sure we can play it live.

Yeah.
Do you have inspirations from outside metal?
Yannick – Of course. We take a lot of inspiration from outside the metal world to make something different and more interesting. Of course, the basics are always the same. I’d say I’m a very basic metal listener and a basic guitarist, which is fine—nothing wrong with that. But bringing in influences from techno, rap, or pop makes it more interesting for me as a guitarist to integrate those ideas into our music.

And is there something you want to experiment with in the studio that you haven’t yet?
Yannick – Using more acoustic guitars, because I love them. We released an acoustic version of River of Sorrows from Cursed. Recording it felt fresh and interesting. So I’d love to explore more acoustic guitars in the studio and try mixing acoustic and distorted guitars.

Heavy music never left, but it seems to be coming back to the forefront recently, especially in Europe. How do you feel about that?
Yannick – I’m super happy. It gives bands like ours a bigger platform to present ourselves. It’s also great for new bands to present themselves.

And today, with social media, Spotify, and other platforms, many bands are emerging online. Do you feel technology is a good or bad thing?
Yannick – For us, it was great. During COVID, when everything shut down, we went to the studio, wrote songs, and filmed ourselves doing fun stuff. Everyone was online, so we kind of blew up. COVID and social media were our kickstart. So I think it’s great, but you have to use it correctly.

Let’s talk about your tour, which is almost completely sold out. You’ve had many sold-out dates recently. How does it feel for your band to blow up like this?
Yannick – I didn’t expect it when I started this with my friends. We still do everything DIY. We have no label and no big management. Of course, we have management, but it’s basically like a brother helping us. We’re always the same 10–15 people keeping this ship alive. I’m super happy to play for our fans. Without them, we wouldn’t be here, and we wouldn’t have sold-out shows. I’m very thankful.

That brings me to the last question: do you have a message for your fans?
Yannick – I don’t know if I said this earlier, but just try to be yourself. Don’t hide your personality. Be yourself and do whatever you want.