This german band has been fighting for a long time to release their music (since 1988) and it seems that this time they are going to make it. They are still unsigned but perhaps this year is time to get a label to release their new album, the follow up to "Listen". We interviewed Chris Staubach, singer of the band that revealed us their history and thoughts

How would you describe the music contained in "Listen"?
We tried to keep the power of the music of the 90´s and to have a lot of
melodies. we describe our stil as "power/thrash", cause our music has balls,
but not only evil, loud and noisy.

Are the atmospheric passages the main characteristic of Couragous?
Mmh, we try to bring the listener to different levels and athmospheric
passages, but the main characteristic of Couragous is the mixture of melody
and aggression.

How big is the influence of "old" thrash metal in your music?
We grown up with bands like Slayer, Testament, Kreator and so on. We love
them. but we also like melodies, slow-parts and a lot of melodic guitar
licks. So we tried to put all this kind of stuff together.

How important are melody and aggression in your music?
That's the important thing in our music. in our opinion the music of the
neo-thrash bands like Machine Head, Korn etc. is very powerfull but without
nice melodies, the sound of all the true-metal band like Hammerfall, Blind
Guardian, Gamma Ray etc. Have nice melodies but no balls and the "old"
thrash band are not very various. So we try to take all the advantages and
put it together in our music. So you get a mixture of Testament/Nevermore/Machine

Head. It sounds great. extreme power with a lot of melodies.

Is the term "melodic death metal" suitable to describe Couragous music?
No. We are playing no death metal. I'm singing very deep with some crowls, but i'm not a death metal singer. Our music has nothing to do with death metal.

Where do you get inspiration to compose the more melodic parts of your songs ?
We feel what is right for our song, so we try to find a melody or a lick or
something else. We listen to a lot of different kinds of music. We like
neo-thrash (Machine Head,Korn), thrash (Testament, Slayer), power
(Nevermore, Lefay), true (Blind Guardian, Gamma Ray), german (Rage) and rock
in all his variations (Creed, Anasthasia, Bon Jovi, Kiss, AC/DC). So you
see, it's not very difficult to find inspirations for our songs.

How is the process of composition in a band like Couragous?
There are different ways to compose a song. sometimes somebody came with a whole track. Sometimes we have just a riff or an idea. We put it together in our music room and work on it. olli (guitar) is the big arranger. He puts the single parts together for a whole track. When the song is finish, I begin to write my lyrics. That's it.

How is the new album like?
The new record will be released in march 2001, we hope so. it sounds a little bit modern like "Listen". We have thousands of melodic guitar and vocal parts on it. it's great. We have thrash-songs, melodic songs, groove-songs, heavy-songs and a lot of power. We are very proud about it.

It seems that the band was formed a long time ago. Can you tell us about
the beginnings of the band?
Yeah, we formed in december 1988 as a combo from school. we were three
friends without having experiances in making music. We just knew we wanted to sound like Metallica, wanted to have a stage-show like Kiss and a lot of groupies like Bon Jovi. We were very bad. in the following years we had a lot of changings in the band. at the end of 1995 we found Jan Mischon as our new drummer. At this point it changed all. We recorded two demos, got great reviews and played in the whole republic. In 1998 we decided to record our
first CD. we decided, we done. "Listen" released in november 1998 and selled 2000 copies. The metal-magazine "Rock Hard" titled the band as "one of the
best unsigned bands in 2000". That is what we wanna change this year.

in contact and have a great cooperation in the next years.

See ya and stay heavy.

One With The Pain - demo (1997)

Listen - CD (1998)

Gerd Lücking - guitars

Chris Staubach - vocals

Jürgen Wieland - bass

Oliver Lohmann - guitars