BLIND GUARDIAN frontman Hansi Kürsch is featured in a new interview with Patrick Prince at Powerline. An excerpt is available below:

Q: Do you think the band would have found the same amount of success under the (original) name LUCIFER'S HERITAGE?

Kürsch: "A definite 'no.' It would have been impossible, I dare to say. The people, who might have been interested in our music, would most probably not have listened to it. And the '80s black metal fan, who might have been attracted by the name, would have found his or her newest discovery as extremely annoying."

Q: Lucifer Heritage demos were included in a deluxe version digipak of the Memories of a Time To Come album. Do you still have a fondness for those demos?

Kürsch: "I, at least, can understand, why we have considered ourselves talented back then. I can figure potentially good songs, inspired by other potentially good music. It has been another time and the demands of the media and the underground kid have been completely different. Nowadays young bands may perform stronger, but they sometimes lack that particular piece of individuality, which these demo songs have. For the time, those were highly professional recorded demos. Of course, not everything glittering turned out to be gold, but 'Majesty' still is a nice song, for example. For us these demos have been perfect openers, because we were able to improve."

Q: It was a special time in the ’80s, wasn’t it, when metalheads traded demos? Demos were almost as important as an official record release.

Kürsch: "Yes, that´s true. Even in North America, there was that movement. It has been great. We were proud when we got our first positive reviews in small American fanzines. The dedicated underground was very well connected. There were small record companies trying to get a piece of the cake and Europe was going nuts for metal. Still it was difficult for a German, or Italian band to establish its brand in a bigger way. The first years, mostly American and English band dominated. I would still say, it is more difficult for a German to become big in either of the two countries, than the other way around an English band becomes big in Germany."

Go to this location for the complete interview.