RAGE guitarist Victor Smolski discusses the band's new album, 21, in a new interview with Metal Discovery. An excerpt is available below:

MD: Throughout the album, there’s a really good balance between all the different styles because you’ve got the heavy riffing, some rockier parts, a bit progressive as well in places, tons of cool melodies, a bit of thrash, a bit of power metal – did you have to spend a lot of time on the arrangements to make all those different elements fit together?

Smolski: "Yeah, for sure. I was really taking care of arrangements because we decided no orchestra, no keyboard, so you just make arrangements with drums, bass and guitar. And I spent a lot of time to find really interesting arrangements; I don’t want to make this boring so I tried to give every song a special atmosphere and special arrangement, and make it as tight as possible and, yeah, I was really working hard. We were in the rehearsal room and working old fashioned – we don’t do any demos. I don’t like all those kind of modern demos on computer and so on. I like old style, like pure rock ‘n’ roll, go to the rehearsal room and just playing, playing, playing until we like it and just try everything. And I always do a live arrangement, like when we can play this live and it sounds good then it’s good enough for the studio. But, yeah, it was really hard work. I tried a lot of stuff with drums and try to find the perfect balance between guitar and drums and all scales mixed together. Also in the studio it was very hard work for me to find the right sound because…for me, it was important to not just make a good hi-fi sound but to find the right sound for the songs, for the energy. And, yeah, we like it very much."

MD: Also, the album has a classic Rage sound but it has a very modern edge to it as well in certain parts. Is that something you were aiming for, to mix the old with the new?

Smolski: "Yeah, we always try to find something new and Rage, I think, is a very special band because when you look back to the long history, like twenty eight years already, you never find two CDs sound similar. It’s always we try to find something new; we make a lot of experiments. It’s very interesting and that’s almost the reason we all still have so much fun with the music because we just play what we like and just enjoy every songwriting process and every recording so it’s always a lot of fun for us. It gives a lot of energy, you know, it’s never boring; we don’t want to repeat. Some bands look back and are like – 'Oh, the last CD was very successful, let’s do the same.' We always do just what we want in this moment; what we like (laughs)."

Go to this location for the complete interview.

As previously reported, Rage have entered the charts in Europe with their new album, 21, out now via Nuclear Blast. The power trio entered the German charts at #27 and reached their highest positions ever in Switzerland (#52) and Austria (#62). In Japan, 21 hit the charts at #81.

The material for 21 was recorded with Charlie Bauerfeind (BLIND GUARDIAN, HALFORD, HAMMERFALL) at Twilight Hall studios in Grefrath. Rage recently shot a video for the track, 'Twenty One', at a casino in the Czech Republic. Check it out below:

Rage have announced dates on their Metal Firestorm 2012 tour which will feature special guests TÝR and COMMUNIC. Shows include:

March

23 - Speyer, Germany - Halle 101
24 - Andernach, Germany - JUZ
25 - Braunschweig, Germany - Meier Music Hall
27 - Hamburg, Germany - Markthalle
28 - Nürnberg, Germany - Hirsch
29 - Bochum, Germany - Zeche
30 - Aschaffenburg, Germany - Colos-Saal
31 - Mauerstetten, Germany - Sonnenhof

April

1 - Pratteln, Switzerland - Z7