SINNER / THE NEW BLACK guitarist Christof Leim recently spoke with BW&BK; scribe Carl Begai on a number of subjects including Sinner's latest album, Crash & Burn, frontman Mat Sinner's little band PRIMAL FEAR, and the experience of The New Black doing a one-off supporting BLACK LABEL SOCIETY. An excerpt from the discussion appears below.

On Sinner: “In hindsight the response to (latest album) Crash & Burn has been awesome, but the name of the band was almost forgotten because of that long break after There Will Be Execution (2004). The Mask Of Sanity album (2007) was a disjointed record, and what came after it with Tom Naumann (guitars) being out of the band and having a new line-up on tour, the label going bankrupt, that left us with a lot of work to do. It’s quite obvious that Primal Fear is Mat’s (Sinner) main priority, but I guess there will be a new Sinner album next year. That says something about the vibe in the band, which Mat has been elaborating on in every interview he does, and with good reason. If the album had bombed AFM would have given us the finger, but they didn’t (laughs).”

On Primal Fear: “I’ve always been under the impression that Primal Fear is Mat’s main baby, but Sinner is his firstborn so to speak, so it’s always going to be important to him. The deal with supporting Primal Fear on tour, we couldn’t do that for three months because Mat would die, but it worked for South America because everyone knows each other, it’s the same booking, same management, everything. That made it easy.”

“Actually, after all these years I’ve turned into a bit of a Primal Fear fan. I didn’t like the first couple albums because they were a bit too Priest-y for my taste, but the stuff that all the true metal fans hate – like the last album, New Religion – I love it. Henny (Wolter / guitars) shreds on that album and on the new one.”

On feedback to The New Black's debut: “At the end of the day it’s the numbers that count, and I don’t have those yet. But, the overall response has been great. We were actually waiting for someone to really rip into the album when the feedback started coming in, and it came of course because we’re not the Pope, we make mistakes, but mostly it’s been pretty awesome. We must be doing something right on the music side of things, and the gigs have been great even though we don’t rehearse. We’re always hoping to get more shows.”

On supporting Black Label Society: “Well, you know what people say about opening for AC/DC, SLAYER or MOTÖRHEAD? How you really shouldn’t because the crowd will kill you? It’s kind of similar opening for Zakk Wylde, but I’d open for all three of those bands in a row if they’d let me. The Black Label Society show had a lot of burly guys standing there with their arms crossed, just watching us, but nobody turned their backs or threw buckets of piss at us. It was pretty stressful because it was a big American tour entourage; they needed a longer soundcheck, they took a longer soundcheck. That’s their job, people are paying money to see a good show, so when they have technical difficulties – which they did – they have to sort them out. We had to set up an hour later, but we were like ‘Okay, bring it on.’”

Watch for the complete interview, coming soon.