Sometimes hell is just two steps away, and sometimes you have to make the journey on rubber boots. Thomas Bergersen and Nick Phoenix also trudged through the mud of the oversized “Wacken” festival, which was flooded this year, although they did not have to sink as deeply as thousands of visitors on the paved paths of the stars to the giant stage. Wacken was a wet hell this year, but for many it was still an epic mud party.
In any case, the star guests from the USA were more than impressed: “I had heard that the Germans celebrate the hardest,” said the Norwegian-born Bergersen after his performance, “now I am convinced that it is so.” For him and his partner Nick Phoenix, it was “an honor” to be there on the big stage at one of the most important heavy metal festivals in 2023.
Now says the name of your project Two Steps From Hell Maybe not for everyone, but their music has certainly reached everyone who can hear and has ever used a radio, a television, a computer, a video game or a ticket to the sports field. Bergersen and Phoenix are among the most successful musicians in the world with billions of clicks on internet music platforms; they have composed sounds and melodies for “Harry Potter”, “Star Wars”, “Star Trek”, “Avatar” and “Batman”. “-, “Indiana Jones” and Marvel films, for series like “Breaking Bad” and “Game of Thrones”, for preview trailers, TV shows, computer games like “Mass Effect 2” and sporting events – from the “Champions League” to the third German football league, a dozen teams march in to “Heart of Courage” (from the album “Invincible”). A piece that first shows the willingness to fight for good with strings, and then with drums at least the march of at least one Elven army announces.
Can do more than just program: Thomas Bergersen plays the violin and many other instruments.
(Photo: Dita Vollmond)
“Archangel”, “Protector of The Earth” and “Victory” – with such cinematic, passionate bombast from medieval choirs, Celtic sounds, film indulgence and Gniedel rock, Two Steps from Hell are considered the inventors of the “Epic Music” genre (although you should Don’t forget Vangelis); They themselves describe their concept as quite simple: “We create a strong melody that people can immediately remember,” so music becomes a brand ambassador.
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In fact, the Scottish-Serbian Phoenix also comes from the advertising industry; But he also invented virtual instruments, which are among the most successful in the producer’s toolbox. The Mozart, Mahler and Katy Perry fan Bergersen is one of the pioneers of the “Demoscene”, the nerds who early programmed music into animation art on 8-bit home computers. But it would be too small to dismiss both of them as computer tinkerers and Two Steps From Hell as a mere production company.
Like an Amazon warrior: the singer Inana Bold.
(Photo: Frank Embacher)
Both are multi-instrumentalists and – even with rubber boots – lead a large ensemble consisting of a rock band, orchestra and choir onto the big stages, like now on a European tour in the Olympiahalle; The musicians like the singers Merethe Soltvedt and Inana Bold are often dressed in leather and studs like Amazon warriors or Frank Frazetta’s fantasy characters. So in a big sound battle with massive use of pyrotechnics, the heavy metal fans in Wacken looked beyond the rain for an hour at the end and dreamed themselves away into heavenly spheres. Or, as Phoenix put it afterwards: “We were all on cloud nine.”
Two Steps From Hell, Sun., September 24th, 7 p.m., Munich, Olympiahalle