Ben Blutzukker feat. Liv Kristine
Queen of the Nite new song

We had a great pleasure and honor to interview Ben Blutzukker, a germany’s solo artist of dark and gothic metal.

His music is great for lovers of heavy metal and dark metal, with themes like vampires. In this interview we talked about his new music feating the singer Liv Kristine. Queen of the Nite is the song that they are presenting and it is song to pay attention. The music has its dark and horror feeling, and in additon to the music video you can get the whole idea of the theme of the song.

Read the interview below and give us your thoughts:

Playfonic: It’s a great pleasure to interview you on our Playfonic blog. As we from Playfonic are lovers of symphonic metal music, we would like to say that choosing Liv Kristine to sing this song was the best option made. The idea of singing together this song was yours or both of you?

Ben Blutzukker: It was my idea. I wrote the song many years ago, but never recorded the perfect version of it. And when I recorded this version more and more, I thought “it would be very cool if Liv would sing this”. So, I contacted her management and it took not much time until she said “Yes” to the project.

Playfonic: What is the main message of the lyrics of the song Queen of The Nite?

Ben: For me, music has to transport a good feeling. The lyrics are not that much important to me. So, it is about vampires, like 66,6% of all my song lyrics.

Playfonic: Is there any other song with this name that inspired you to make it? I know of the classic song “Queen of the night of Aria” that was composed by Mozart and sang by the opera german singer Diana Damrau. Is there any relation to your song?
I refer to this you can check in this link: https://www.classicfm.com/composers/mozart/guides/queen-of-the-night-translated/

Ben: I know that it exists, but I never listen to it. So, there is no connection.

Playfonic: The video clip is so well-done using Lego objects and filming them in the stop motion technique. It transmits an air like a horror movie and transmits perfectly the idea of the song, talking about the queen. What were your references and inspiration to produce the video and why use Lego objects?

Ben: I love Lego and I let produce Lego Videos for my music two times before. So there was a moment last year where I decided to go Lego for nearly every song. Most of the pictures of the “Queen of the Nite” video reflect the story of the lyrics. And some are references to movies and music-videos I like. Now you have to figure out which ones.

Playfonic: Liv Kristine is known for her powerful and beautiful voice. She really gives emotion to the song. Did you and Liv write the lyrics together? How was the creative process?

Ben: As I said before, I wrote the song many years ago. But I had the album “Velvet Darkness They Fear” from Liv’s Band “Theatre of Tragedy” in mind, when I decided to write a song with that style of singing. So, Liv was only involved in an indirect way.

Playfonic: What are the gothic influences to write and produce the song?

Ben: Beside the influence of “Theatre Of Tragedy” that song contains influences by Lacrimosa, Moonspell and Manowar. Today my biggest idols in music are Snowy Shaw and Abbath.

Playfonic: The collaboration with Liv Kristine is amazing. Her voice with your sound and your voice makes a great symphonic gothic vibe and an energetic duo. It reminds of the songs of the beginning of symphonic metal genre. Will you and Liv Kristine produce another music together? It would be good news.

Ben: You are not the first one who asks if we will do more songs like this. So, I guess we should. Currently there is one vague idea, but I think that “Queen of the Nite” should not be the last duet I did with Liv.

Playfonic: The arrangements of the song are well done. Instruments, symphonic elements, heavy metal guitars riffs, all so great in this music. Besides the original version there is the Orchestral Version of the song. This version is so great, beautiful and epic. How was it the process of creating the orchestral version? Was it played by an orchestra?

Ben: No, it is done with virtual instruments and orchestra libraries. In the beginning it was only planned as the background for the main version, but when I finished the work on that backings, I decided to put a shorter version of those backings as bonus to the single.

Playfonic: Please leave a message to your fans of brazil and the world.

Ben: I hope you enjoyed the song and have a listen to my upcoming stuff. The next single will come up in April! Greetings to Brazil! I hope I will travel there again.

Check out the song and music video of the song Queen of the Nite below (There is the original version and the Orchestral version):