Greece's Rock Overdose (http://www.rockoverdose.gr) conducted a 21-minute audio interview with the new singer of the band of GOTTHARD, Nic Maeder, who talks about the auditions, provides more information about their new album Firebirth and the future plans for the band.

Check out the chat at this location.

Yesterday (April 20th) Gotthard released the first single from Firebirth. The single, 'Starlight', will appear in two versions, a rock and an acoustic variation.

'Starlight' is the virtual shooting star of album song writing: the song was one of the first that the band wrote together with Nic Maeder, the new member at the microphone.

“The chemistry between us worked immediately”, says guitarist Leo Leoni. “It is really unusual to be able to sit down together and straightway write a song which is later the single.”
“Right from the first, we had a really laid-back atmosphere between us,” agrees Nic Maeder. “It was therefore not hard to come up with good ideas. It was really good fun from the start!”

'Starlight' will be available on iTunes from April 20th. Check out a preview below:

The cover artwork and tracklisting were recently revealed for Firebirth , due out June 1st by Nuclear Blast/Warner Music (in Switzerland Musikvertrieb). A total of 13 songs will be on the CD, among them one with the title 'Where Are You', which is dedicated to their late singer Steve Lee.

The album – earthy, rocking and played with a great deal of enjoyment – goes back to the old strengths of the band. “We have remembered our roots and deliberately given the album the pure straightforward Gotthard sound. Our goal was to concentrate on the most important thing – the songs,” explained Leo Leoni, who produced the album together with Paul Lani.

As well as in the regular CD, Firebirth will feature in a specially presented limited edition. The album cover depicts the firebird Phoenix, which symbolically rises “from the ashes to the sky” – this line expresses what each Gotthard fan feels and underlines the turbulent time that Gotthard has gone through in the past months.

It will be in Latin America that Gotthard experiences their baptism of fire – the world tour starts there in May, before the band headlines several important European festivals. The band starts the German live premiere as co-headliner at the Bang Your Head festival in Balingen. An important headline tour round the halls of Europe is already planned for autumn.

Firebirth tracklist:

'Starlight'

'Give Me Real'

'Remember It’S Me'

'Fight'

'Yippie Aye Yay'

'Tell Me'

'Shine'

'The Story Is Over'

'Right On'

'S.O.S.'

'Take It All Back'

'I Can'

'Where Are You'