Reverend Hound are a quintet founded in Munich in 2008 and THE institution when it comes to old
school heavy metal from the Bavarian capital. After the two albums “Beyond Savagery” (2009) and
“Release The Hounds” (2015) as well as the EP “Enter My Nightmare” (2018), “Deal In Steel” is
the metallic five-piece’s newest LP.

The band consists of guitarists Thomas Meyns and Sebastian Weinstock, bassist Markus Brendel
and singer Wolfgang Gräbner, one of the most powerful metal voices in southern Germany. The two
guitarists are the founding members of Reverend Hound and already played together in their
previous band Savage. The formation from which Reverend Hound would emerge was founded by
Thomas Meyns and bassist Nicolas Freund. Markus Brendel joined Reverend Hound in 2011 and
Wolfgang Gräbner took over vocal duties in 2015. After having worked with a number of drummers
the band now found the right man for the job with the newest addition to the line-up, drum power
house Andreas Lorenz.

Now it’s time to get back on stage because that’s where Reverend Hound feel most comfortable.
Live shows with Night Demon, Myrath, Brainstorm, Hitten or Jaded Heart prove this just as
impressively as festival gigs at Metal Days in Tolmin, Bavarian Battle Open Air, Metalheadz Open
Air or Metal im Woid. The audience is treated to thrilling stage action, fat choruses, killer riffs, twin
guitars and virtuoso guitar solos.

Fans of U.S. Metal acts such as Riot, Vicious Rumors, Sanctuary or Fifth Angel get their money’s
worth, as do those of Iron Maiden and Judas Priest and German genre stalwarts like Accept, Gamma
Ray or Blind Guardian. There’s even something for thrashers who enjoy the likes of Testament,
Megadeth and Metallica.

All of these influences can be found on “Deal in Steel,” Reverend Hound’s third full-length album.
The songs were mixed an mastered by the band’s longtime friend Dan Baune (Devil’s Train, Lost
Sanctuary) who helmed the production at Noise Foundry Production. The striking artwork was
designed by Joel Sánchez Rosales.

TheNwothm: Greetings and a happy new year! Can you start by telling us the name of the band, where you are from and who is in the band?

R.H: Thank you for this interview and a belated happy new year to you and your readers too! We’re Reverend Hound, an old school heavy metal band from Munich, Germany. We’re Wolfgang n Vocals, Andy on drums, Markus on bass guitar and Sebastian and myself on guitar. 

TheNwothm: And can you tell us about how you formed?

R.H: Reverend Hound were born in 2008 from the remains of my previous band, Savage. Me and the bass player, Nicki, who is no longer part of the band, came from Savage and we found the rest of the guys through online ads in forums (this was before Facebook and Instagram were the be all end all of online communication). But the band has gone through many changes since.  Markus took over bass duties in 2011, Wolfgang, whom we knew from a local cover band, joined in 2015 and Andy, our drummer, came into the fold in 2023. 

TheNwothm: Classic question! Who were your influences growing up? And for the band now?

R.H: My first ever rock / metal band was AC/DC. I discovered  them when I was 15 and it seemed to me that this was the best music in the world 🙂 Before that I discovered The Beatles, Cream, Pink Floyd and The Rolling Stones through my dad. Once I had discovered AC/DC I started to listen to Deep Purple and then came Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Dio etc. It’s really not so different from most other metalheads, haha!

TheNwothm: What can you tell us about the place you guys formed in! Think both culturally and musically? 

R.H: Reverend Hound formed in Munich. At the time that we started playing together, traditional metal was not big at all in Germany – especially in the south. Since I was in my teens I listened to bands such as Iron Maiden, Metallica, Judas Priest, W.A.S.P., Running Wild etc. so I wanted to play in a band that makes music inspired by this era and these bands. There are still only a few other traditional metal bands in Munich, but back in 2007 there were absolutely none. Which is why Reverend Hound came to be.

TheNwothm: And are you all trained musicians or self taught?

R.H: We’re not professional musicians if that’s what you’re asking. But all of us took lessons for our respective instruments. 

TheNwothm: So thinking back you put our your demo “Beyond Savagery” in 2009. How did your first songs come together and did you have an idea for your sound around that time?

R.H: As I said earlier both Iron Maiden and Metallica were huge inspirations for us. It seemed to me that most of my friends didn’t like both bands but either one or the other. But I loved both the melodies of Maiden and the powerful Riffs of Metallica. So I wanted to combine both these elements in our songs – heavy metal songs that have Maiden-style twin guitars and powerful, thrashy riffs. I think even our first record, “Beyond Savagery”, reflects that quite well. You have catchy songs such as “War Of The Wolves” and “Death At The Doorstep”, but also thrashy tunes like “Way Of The Gun”. 

TheNwothm: There was a bit of gap before you put out your debut album “Release the Hounds” in 2015? Do you have a particular way you approach writing an album and in particular was this a labour of love?

R.H: “Labour of love” pretty much hits the nail on the head. Reverend Hound generally take a bit longer to do stuff (haha), probably because we all have day jobs … So yeah, “Release The Hounds” took a very long time to make but the way we write songs has always remained the same. I want to write and record music that I myself like to listen to and whenever I write a song I try to accomplish this goal in the best way that I can. 

TheNwothm: And what can tell us about your debut album? What does it mean to you?

R.H: “Release The Hounds” was the best we could do at the time of it’s release to achieve the aforementioned goal: Write songs that we like to listen to. And I think it’s the logical successor to “Beyond Savagery”, it’s just that the elements we love the most, catchy melodies and heavy riffs, are more pronounced on “Release The Hounds”. The best examples are probably “Runaway Train” with its twin guitar part and “Among The Pigs”, a thrash metal song that has a very Maiden-inspired lead part. What does it mean to me? It shows exactly who we were at the time. Did we get better as time went on? Definitely. Am I still proud of it? You bet!

TheNwothm: So you guys are from Germany! Out of the places you have played as band would you say you have the biggest fanbase in your country? Or got better reception else where?

R.H: That’s an easy one to answer – we haven’t played so many other countries with the exception of “Metal Days” in Slovenia and one gig  at “Viper Room” in Vienna, Austria. So yeah, I guess aur “biggest fanbase” is in Germany, most likely in the area of our hometown Munich. Unless, of course, we are secretly stars in Japan and just don’t know about it …

TheNwothm: And do you have any particular favourite places to play?

R.H: Any place that will have us is our favourite place to play!

TheNwothm: Outside of music what do you guys like to do in your spare time? 

R.H:  All of us have regular jobs and most of us have families so there’s not that much time for other free time activities besides music. I also do freelance work as an audio engineer and writing reviews  as an editor for an online magazine and personally I am glad that music satisfies  me on so many different levels because I wouldn’t have time for another hobby.

TheNwothm: So between 2018 and last year you released a number of singles and an EP. Were they essentially a reflection where you were in life or as band?

R.H: I’ve touched on this before when talking about our previous releases and of course you’re 100% correct. Anything we release is a reflection of who we are (as a band) at that particular point in time. And that’s why every musician anywhere always claims that the current release is the best they’ve ever done – because it’s true. Anything we released is the best we had in us at that time. And the next release is even better, because why would you write new music if you don’t think it’s better than your previous stuff? Haha! That’s why I love to take our releases and listen to different songs from different albums: Because you can hear how we changed as a band. It’s a journey that never ends and it shouldn’t because the journey itself is the reward.

TheNwothm: And do you have any favourite tracks from those released?

R.H: I am incredibly proud of “Night Stalker”. Not just because it came so naturally to me that it practically “wrote itself” but also because I handled the entire recording and mixing process myself.

TheNwothm: Right now what bands are you listening to/ have on your radar? 

R.H: I really love the new Grave Digger record and I’ve also been spinning the new Helloween live album a lot. Our other guitar player Sebastian was a lot into stuff that’s a bit more on the progressive side so he’s been listening to the latest Witherfall a lot. 

TheNwothm: So last year you put out your second album “Deal In Steel!” Can you tell us about the writing and recording process for that record and what themes you explored?

R.H: The writing process was exactly the same as it was with our previous records. We just traded ideas back and forth and tried to come up with songs that we like to hear. But it wasn’t like we decided to write an album and then sat down and got to it. These songs accumulated over a long time, which is why some of them are actually as old as “Release The Hounds”, haha!

TheNwothm: And a brief overview behind some of the songs?

R.H: We usually write about fictional stuff from movies, books and video games that we like. “The Night” is about vampires, “Days Of Wrath” deals with the ways of the ancient Samurai and “Hounds Of The Sea” is a pirate-themed song. But we also have tracks such as “Seeds Of Faith”. It’s one of the rare songs that I also wrote the lyrics for. I watched a “Last Week Today” episode about those horrible televangelists from the US that claim to help people but really just steal their money under the pretext of religion. That made me so angry that I wrote a song about it. Anger is a very good motivator to be creative but it’s certainly not the only one. 

TheNwothm: Who did the awesome artwork?

R.H: The artwork was done by Joel Sánchez Rosales, an artist from Mexico. We were introduced to him by Metalmessage, the agency we were working with at that time and I gotta say that working with Joel was great. He immediately understood what we had envisioned for the artwork and it took no more that just a few tweaks until we had exactly what we were looking for.

TheNwothm: Looking ahead what are your new years resolutions for 2025?

R.H: We try not to make resolutions because you only end up disappointed in most cases. But we really want to play as much as possible, on festivals and basically anywhere 🙂

TheNwothm: What touring plans do you have for 2025?

R.H: We have a few gigs booked for the first third of 2025. The fist one will be in Bremen on January 24, then at the “Timo’s Steel Time” festival on January 25, Munich on February 1 and at “Mammut Festival” on April 4. We plan on adding as many more dates as we can so be sure to check our website and social media channels regularly!

TheNwothm: And what is next when it comes to music?

R.H: We are already hard at work on new material but it’s still too early to say when we can announce another album. All I can say is that we definitely want to make another record and that working on new songs feels incredibly good. 

TheNwothm: Where can fans buy your music and merch?

R.H: You can either buy our releases on our bandcamp page or send us a message on social media, (i. e. facebook or instagram).

TheNwothm: Anything else you would like to mention?

Thank you so much for taking the time to get to know our music and for this interview! There`s so much great music out there so it`s far from guaranteed that people will pick Reverend Hound over any other band to listen to. So thanks, from the bottom of our hearts! We sincerely hope to meet every single one of the people who check out our music at a concert some day! Take care!

Links
Website: http://www.reverendhound.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ReverendHound/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@reverendhoundofficial
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reverend_hound_metal/
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/intl-de/artist/3bXfXkXYeLuQh9E9MbYn2L

Band:
Wolfgang Gräbner – Vocals
Thomas Meyns – Guitar
Sebastian Weinstock – Guitar
Markus Brendel – Bass
Andreas Lorenz – Drums