Heaven Shall Burn have revealed thier new album “veto” will be release on Aoril 30 through Century Media. The band’s guitarist Maik Weichert has recently spoken about the album, which will feature a number of currently undisclosed guest appearances. Here’s what he had to say about the song “Antagonized” in particular:
“Just while finalizing the very last bits and pieces for ‘Veto‘ we received the sad news that Walter Schilling passed away in Saalfeld on January 29th. Walter Schilling was a Protestant pastor and civil rights activist in the GDR (former East Germany). We have a new song called ‘Antagonized‘ that is about him, his life and his work in Thuringia.
It might seem odd that a band called Heaven Shall Burn is dedicating a song to a man of the church. Still, Schilling was never into clerical dogmas. Instead he encouraged and helped teenagers to pursue new and alternative cultural ideas under the protective shield of his church and youth centre in Braunsdorf near Saalfeld.
Without Walter Schilling a huge part of the youth culture and music in Thuringia wouldn’t have happened – this probably goes for the GDR in general. No matter if you liked Blues, played Punk or Metal, every single person was welcome in Braunsdorf, Saalfeld, Rudolstadt or Jena.
Schilling helped establishing what enabled HSB to play music, because most of the clubs and musicians that supported us in our very early days were directly or indirectly involved with Schilling’s work. You will not find many theologians of Walter’s kind.”
