It doesn’t get more metal than the marvelous Miss Marta Gabriel! Having spent the past 20+ plus years fronting Crystal Viper (although Gabriel herself says it’s closer to 17 years, give or take), Gabriel has cemented herself as the premiere voice of the euro power metal scene. In an age where bands of Crystal Viper’s nature are plagued by the infamous “female fronted” label, Gabriel stays focused on what she does best, and that’s dealing in pure power metal mania. Crystal Viper’s latest album, The Silver Key, is no exception. We sat down with Gabriel to discuss the impact of H.P. Lovecraft, attempting guttural vocals, and airport album release parties.
Greetings Marta and welcome to Defenders of the Faith! How are you doing today?
Marta Gabriel: I’m doing fine, thank you very much! I just got back from the barn. I was visiting my horses, so I’m loaded with lots of positive energy today *laughs*.
Rightfully so, as we are now a few days away from the release Crystal Viper’s latest album, The Silver Key. This album is a continuation of the Lovecraftian themes explored on the last album, The Cult. What sparked your interest in Lovecraft and were there any ideas on this album intended for The Cult?
MG: Well actually, when we finished working on The Cult and the album was released, I kept on composing music and so on. Actually, when we started working on The Silver Key, it was so obvious to me that the lyrics would be inspired again by Lovecraft. There was no doubt about that because I kept on composing music, kept on writing lyrics, and kept on reading his stories because he wrote lots of them. It is not possible to just sit down, spend one month, and you’re done with all of his stories. It’s not possible.
A couple of months ago, I learned that he was also writing poems. Right now, I’m reading his poems. I bought a fantastic book. On one page, there are poems in original English language. On the other side, they are translated to Polish. The English version of his lyrics are pretty difficult to me because I speak English just to communicate with people. This is this old style English with many words that I really don’t understand *laughs*. It’s much easier for me to read his poems and his novels in general in Polish.
How did I start with Lovecraft? I won’t lie to you, it’s not like I knew Lovecraft for all my life or I’ve been a fan for years. No, because it’s not true. It was shortly before I started working on The Cult. I’ve always loved reading books. I try to read in every free moment that I have. I love reading. I have lots of books and I consume every book that I’m interested in at the speed of light *laughs*! My husband (Bart) also loves to read books. He knows what I like when it comes to reading.
One day, he simply told me that I should give Lovecraft novels a try because he thought that I might like them. I was like, “Eh, not really. I know that there’s this monster from the sea, Cthulhu, and that’s it.” He was like, “No, it’s not only about this one. Give it a try.” He recommended for me to start with The Dreams in the Witch House as the very first novel. This was the first one I read from Lovecraft. After I finished it, it completely blew my mind. This is how my addiction to Lovecraft started.
I finished that one. Then, there was the next one and the next one and the next one! Then, I remembered there was a moment when I was so much into reading his stories and novels that when I was super busy and didn’t have time to physically read, I was continuing the stories with audiobooks with headphones in my ears *laughs*. I just couldn’t wait. I simply couldn’t wait to hear what would happen next. When I started one story that I didn’t have time to read, I had to know what would happen next.
This is also actually what is getting me that much into his writing. There are many surprises at the end of the stories. He keeps you in suspense. You’re reading his story and it’s going slowly. The action is going slowly, but there is the ending and you’re completely surprised. It’s like, “What just happened?!” *laughs* This is what I really like about his writing.
It’s wild how these tales that were written so long ago translate so well into metal. Even when metal began in the ’70s, it was that much past Lovecraft’s time, and yet his work inspired so much of the music we love today. How soon after The Cult did things start coming together for The Silver Key?
MG: After The Cult, when the pandemic ended, we were super happy because we were finally able to meet together to work together on songs, to meet in the recording studio, so it was completely different. With The Cult, all of us recorded our parts in our home studios and so on, and then we sent the tracks for mixing. This time, the entire recording session was packed with lots of positive energy. The atmosphere that surrounded us during the recording session was truly amazing.
We were sitting together in the recording studio, working on the album. This is how I really love to work on music, with my bandmates with me in the studio. Even though we know what we have to do, what we have to record, and so on, there’s always so many ideas coming during recording sessions that it’s absolutely fantastic. Also, with this album, I really liked working with (guitarist) Andy (Wave) on songs. We met in my home studio. We did two songs together, “Fever of the Gods” and “The Key Is Lost”.
The album is still hot. We have the release date on Friday, and actually, it will be a travel day for us because we are travelling to Hellfest. We play Hellfest on Saturday, so we will be celebrating on the plane *laughs*. Actually, at the airport. It’s not so far, right? Hellfest from Poland, to get to France, it should be easy, but we need to take two planes. After we land in Germany, we have to wait 4 or 5 hours for the next on *laughs*. So we will have some time to celebrate the released date *laughs*!
There have been some personnel changes since the release of The Cult. The Silver Key is the first album to feature Kuba Galwas on drums, but also the last to feature Eric Juris on guitars. How have these changes impacted the band musically?
MG: When there are lineup changes, they always impact the music, even though I am the only composer. Most of Crystal Viper’s material has been composed by me, but even if the musicians don’t participate in the composing process, their style of playing always impacted the sound. Every guitarist has his own style of playing and his own sound in his hands. For example, when I was playing guitar with Andy, we sounded different to Andy playing with Eric.
On the live show that we played two weeks ago with our new guitarist, Giuseppe (Taormina), we again sounded a little bit different because Giuseppe has a different style of playing to Eric. On the new album, you can hear Kuba Galwas on drums. He did an amazing job with drum playing. He’s also a professionally trained drummer and he comes from a family who are also musicians. His mother is a drummer as well *laughs*. Like mother like son *laughs*!
There are no shortage of high speed, high power moments on this album, so much so that I really think this might be Crystal Viper’s heaviest album to date. Did the band intend for this end result, or was it just a natural progression that arose during the writing and recording process?
MG: When it comes to what songs land on the album, it depends on the mood that was surrounding me during the composing process. The songs that you can hear on the album, indeed they are super heavy and super fast. It means that my life recently was also pretty intense *laughs* for the last couple of months. Of course, there were more songs that I composed for the album. When we choose songs for the forthcoming album, we always work with our producer who helps us to choose the best ones. Me, as a composer, it works like that. I compose songs that I like, and I compose songs that I want to listen to afterwards.
For me, it’s super hard to choose, for example, 8 out of 15 or 16 that I wrote because I love all of them *laughs*. Sometimes it is really helpful to be able to work with a person who will tell you, “OK, this one is not as good as you think.” *laughs* To answer your question, it is heavy and it is fast, but it wasn’t planned intentionally. These are just songs that we did, that we composed, and that’s it. We can call it a natural progression. I don’t know. That is just a reflection of our lives of the past few months.
Per usual, your vocals soar throughout this entire album, really adding character and force to the already impactful lyrics. Which songs on here were the most fun to record vocally and which songs were the most challenging?
MG: I would say, when it comes to “challenging”, none of them were a real challenge to me because before I enter the studio, I practice vocals. I’m always entering the recording studio well prepared, so I always make sure that I go there, I go to the recording room, and I know what I have to do and I’m prepared for that. On the album, there is one song that was super fun to record, and a very specific moment.
In “Fever of the Gods”, at the very end of the song, you can hear growls. It’s me! It wasn’t planned. We were sitting in the recording studio. I just finished recording the song and we were sitting together and listening to it. We had the ending of the song and I was like, “Guys, you know what? Don’t you think it would sound even more powerful and super cool if we had growls at this very specific moment?” They were like, “OK, go there and record this growl.” *laughs*
I cannot growl! I haven’t done that in my life ever before. I was trying, but I’ve always felt that I suck at that *laughs*. So I decided to not continue learning the growling style of singing, but I went back to this recording room and when the moment came, I stood up, stood strong, and *roars*. The growl you have on the album, it was the first one I’ve done *laughs*. I tried it out and we have it on the album. I’m kind of proud of that because to be honest, I didn’t really believe that I would succeed with this. After I left the recording studio, I had another problem. I started to think if I would be able to do that live. And even if I would be able to do that live, this year, “Fever of the Gods” is the first song in our setlist. So if I growl at the end and start feeling blood in my throat, I won’t be able to sing the next songs *laughs*!
But 2 weeks ago, I tried it out for the first time onstage and I did that. I think I just learned growling. *laughs* I don’t know how that happened, but I don’t have any plans to become a death metal or black metal vocalist *laughs*. It’s not my plan. I don’t wanna do that. I will stick to what I know that I can do, but I would love to play bass or guitar in a death or black metal band. That would be super fun, especially because I listen to those genres of metal as well. If you know someone who’s looking for a bass player or a death metal band, let them know!
I’ll let them know Marta’s up for the job!
MG: Yes! Exactly!
Can you see the Lovecraft lure fueling Crystal Viper to make a third album of this nature, or is it too early to tell?
MG: You know what? I think so! I keep on reading his things and his art is so nice to be used in music. It’s so inspirational. People who like Lovecraft, they know that. You can find a lot of inspirations in different genres of life. In videogames, movies, there are some other writers who always keep on saying that their biggest inspiration for their writing is Howard Phillips Lovecraft. We have lots of inspiration of his art in music, especially in metal. That’s totally awesome. So yeah, I think so. I think we will mix with his art on the next album as well.
Awesome! Think about it, you’ll have a trilogy then, and we all know how important trilogies are.
MG: Yeah! And then four and five *laughs*!
Last year marked the 20th anniversary of Crystal Viper’s formation. In the two decades since, what are the biggest lessons you’ve learned?
MG: To be honest, I learned that I don’t need to be a person who needs to be super…I don’t need to be a person who needs to make other people super good. I don’t know. I feel like I really…I wasn’t like that before, but I feel like a different person right now because I feel like I can do what I want and not what other people want me to do. I don’t need to listen to anyone. The exception is when I can take advice from more experienced musicians, wise people, and so on.
But in general, I’m for sure a much better musician than I was 20 years ago because I started playing guitar to be able to compose and arrange Crystal Viper songs. For example, I play guitar and bass guitar much better than I did 20 years ago. I’m a better composer and I’m older *laughs*! When I started Crystal Viper, I was 19. Right now, I’m 40, so it was a long time ago.
To be honest, I don’t really think that 2003 was the real beginning of the band. In that year, I started making this dream come true about having my own heavy metal band, so in the beginning, it was more like a project playing covers and trying to play my own songs with different people. To me, the real beginning of Crystal Viper is 2006 or 2007, when I met with the first official Crystal Viper lineup and after we released our first album. It was 2007. I believe we will be celebrating for real in ’27, about three years from now!
A few years ago, you released an excellent solo covers album entitled Metal Queens. Would you ever consider doing another volume of such, or perhaps even an original solo album?
MG: Actually, the very first idea with this album when I started to think about it and I made a list of songs I wanted to record for this album, on Metal Queens, you can find 1/3 of the songs that I wanted to record. Actually, there are songs for the next two Metal Queens albums *laughs* because there are so many female fronted metal songs that I really like to sing and listen to. Yes, this was my plan from the very beginning, to record a part 2 very soon after part 1.
Right now, I’m currently working on my second solo album, but with my own songs. I believe it will be released next year. It’s a work in progress. Keep your fingers crossed *laughs*! And it won’t be metal. It will be something a little bit different. It’s not gonna be very heavy. It’s not gonna be like Crystal Viper. It will be something different, but let it be a surprise and don’t spoil the surprise *laughs*. You will hear about it pretty quickly from now, I believe.
I’m sure we’ll be talking about it sooner than later. This next question might be the most unfair, but I have to ask it: Priest or Maiden and why?
MG: Well, I’m wearing this t-shirt today *points to Iron Maiden shirt*, so if I said Judas Priest, it would look weird, right? But, Priest or Maiden? Priest, because we have Glenn Tipton in Judas Priest, so that’s why *laughs*.
I love Maiden to death. I really do, but Priest is the ultimate in metal, always will be.
MG: Yeah, and I love watching old Judas Priest live shows from the ’80s, with Tipton and K.K. (Downing). Holy shit, they were so, so amazing. Until now, actually, Glenn Tipton is my guitar hero. Every guitarist, every musician has his own favorite guitar player. For me, it was always Glenn Tipton.
He’s one of the best, no doubt.
MG: I want to show you something! This is my phone, my mobile. I have something for luck inside *takes phone case off and shows Glenn Tipton trading card*. I don’t know if you can see it.
That’s awesome! That’s so cool!
MG: A Glenn Tipton card! My husband gave it to me, so Glenn is always with me.
See, now I have to show you my screensaver on my phone. This has been the wallpaper from the day I got it over 5 years ago.
MG: Halford! Now we’re talking *laughs*!
In closing, what does the rest of 2024 have in store for Crystal Viper?
MG: For this year, we have many live shows scheduled at the moment. On Saturday, we play Hellfest. We also play Wacken this year and some other festivals. In Autumn, we are going on our own European tour with special guests from the USA, Savage Master. They are so freaking awesome, so this tour will be super fun. I especially like (Savage Master guitarist) Adam (Neal) and (singer) Stacey (Savage). We’ve known each other for a few years now, so it will be super cool. Other plans? Working on my solo album and I just started working on some more projects, so you will probably hear about them pretty soon hopefully *laughs*.
The new Crystal Viper album, The Silver Key, is out now on Listenable Records. For more information on Crystal Viper, visit www.facebook.com/crystalviperofficial.