MOUTHY ISSUE TWO
May 2003
THE ANCIENT GALLERY
interview by Ian C Stewart

German darkwave act The Ancient Gallery was formed by childhood friends in 1992, emboldened by their sonic forefathers Einstürzende Neubauten and Nine Inch Nails. Lyricist, vocalist and overseer Robin Weinhold breaks it down like this. "Dirk Mehnert plays keyboards, and together with our bass player Mario Friedrich, is responsible for programming. My brother Andy Weinhold plays guitar, and sometimes also sings a few songs. I work out the show and write the lyrics." Additionally, The Ancient Gallery has remixed a track by Das Ich, "Der Schrei," for that band's Best Of album.

The origin of the name The Ancient Gallery "is an old story. It's from The Doors song "The End." We chose it when we started the band. But times have changed and our music now has nothing to do with typical Doors stuff. Our music is really modern now and we use samples and loops and we have a drum machine. So actually, the name should realistically be The Future Gallery."

They played an odd gig in 2002: "We were invited to perform the official show-opening at the Wave-Gotik-Treffen in Leipzig. We presented a song from the CD,"Jemand geht," which translates to "Somebody is leaving" - which was pretty cynical for a festival opener - and performed with three professional actors. Its was a strange expierence in front of 3000 people, without our usual instruments, but our music was playing."


www.theancientgallery.com


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