Being reported firmly as a "you couldn't make this up" story by the nation's press, but in fact a perfectly reasonable career choice as far as I can see (the old bugger's tried his hand at pretty much everything else during his 80-odd years), Christopher Lee lends his grouchy vocals to a heavy metal concept album due to be released three days ago (what do you mean this is supposed to be a news blog?).
The album is all about Charlemagne, who Lee claims to be related to (and who am I to doubt him? Look what he did to Edward Woodward, rest in peace).
Here's some quotes, courtesy of a New Zealand news website:
"It's very poetic, it can be, it's enormously powerful," says Lee of the genre, "and of course it's fantasy, a great deal of it, if you can understand the words and certainly in this album you will understand every word because we're very careful about things like that. It's a unique form of music and I suddenly found that in terms of 'symphonic metal' I could do it."
"We had this proposition, we're going to do this album with you as Charlemagne and all the other singers: the young Charlemagne as opposed to the old Charlemagne, and women and other people like the Pope and so on, my brother,"
"It's interesting because it starts really with me on my death bed and then in a way I'm in limbo looking back over my life. And he was a very remarkable man, I think he was 72 when he died and he was very tall like me and very strong, very firm ruler, and a tremendous believer in Christianity and he also, like any ruler in battle did some horrifying things - at the famous Battle of Verden he decapitated 4,500 of the Saxon chiefs, not personally, but it boggles the mind when you think about it."
"The Heraldic Colleges and the archaeologists say they have indubitable proof that my family goes back to the 1st Century on my mother's side which is Italian - which means Romans - and also that we are descended from Charlemagne. Well, a lot of people claim to be descended from Charlemagne, he must have been very busy. But that may or may not be true I don't know but I believe it probably is, because the Emperor Barbarossa who came afterwards, quite a bit afterwards, gave my family, the Carandini family, they probably had a slightly different name then in Latin, the right to bear the coat of arms of the Holy Roman Empire, and that's on this ring which belonged to my great-grandfather."
"The impact according to what I've been told is phenomenal, apparently number 1 in the metal charts in this country and number 5 in the world in the metal charts and they haven't even heard it. I was told that when the information first came out the first clips came out 17,000 newspapers and magazines and periodicals and things all over the world wanted more information - literally all over the world, China, Japan, everywhere. Also the other day there were 10 million hits from people. Well that's a figure I simply can't associate with, I don't imagine you can either. 10 million, heavens. On the other hand it's a bit difficult to believe that 4,500 men lost their heads as prisoners, I mean how long do you suppose that took? But it's there: 'I shed the blood of the Saxon men.'"You can buy the thing here:
Download it here:
And check out more of his musical genius here:
No comments:
Post a Comment