Dear readers, it is with pleasure that we offer you in this article an interview with a new female-fronted German Progressive Metal band. We welcome Magic and Medicine.
Hi, it is a pleasure to have you among our pages, how are you?
“Thank you! Weāre fine, you too? We just had our release gigs, so weāre still on fireā¦“
The band was formed in 2021, how did the project and the choice of your name Magic and Medicine come about?
“The name was inspired by a book that Judy grabbed during an impro jam as we didnāt have lyrics yetā¦“
You play Progressive Rock/Metal with an Experimental touch, how did your passion for these sounds come about?
“Itās a mix of our different individual compositional approaches and influences combined with some creative spirit when we play together. We are all into Prog, but while Paul, our guitar player and Tobi, our drummer, rather come from the metal side, our keyboard player Bernhard and our singer Judy more have a classical music background. And we donāt fear to bring all that together with our versatile arrangement and sound ideas.“
What are your sources of inspiration in this regard?
“Mostly there is some emotional idea behind it ā a theme, a story, or just a personal feeling. As soon as we associate that initial emotion with a melody, something starts growingā¦“
The first self-titled release came out in January 2025, how would you describe this work?
“Itās our debut and we very proud of it. It contains the first music that we wrote together within our first one and a half years as a band. We developed it for another one and half years. So now we are quite happy as it represents what we are at this point.“
An interweaving of instrumental and vocal parts, what themes do your lyrics deal with?
“This is quite individual. There is the fantasy side where Judy just has an inspiration from which she develops a whole fictional world. On the other hand, some songs deal with real experiences.“
Mixtures of guitar and keyboards, solid and elaborate rhythm sections, how does the creative process of your music take place?
“We have different approaches that we combine. Sometimes one of us works something out and brings a written score and we further develop it from there. Mostly we come up with additional parts that arise from experimenting together with the material from the score. On the other hand, sometimes there is just a melody or a pattern to start from. Also, after our writing sessions, the music starts to develop further automatically in our heads :D.“
Many of your fans and our readers wonder if there will be a chance to hear your music live, do you have plans in this regard for the near future?
“We just played to release shows in our home town Oldenburg, Germany. That was awesome and we hope that we can play some shows during the summer, but there is nothing to be announced yet. So, German prog world, call us ;).“
Do you have any particular memories or anecdotes you would like to tell us about your live experiences?
“We had the honor to play at a nice open air festival ā we won a contest for that newcomer slot. It was raining so hard that day. So we thought noone would come and hear our ten to 15 minute songs. But hundreds of people that randomly came by, who never heard about prog before ā and they stayed for the whole show, standing in the pouring rain! Many of them are loyal fans today. That was one experience that showed us that our music can touch people, even if they donāt like prog :D.“
What difficulties, if any, does a band like yours face in establishing itself in a more sophisticated genre such as Progressive?
“Well, itās nothing that you get rich from^^. We experience that those people that listen to our music ā our record or a live show ā mostly really like it. But itās not that easy to reach a larger audience.“
Germany has always been one of the main exponents in the musical and artistic field, how do you see today’s scene as far as your sounds are concerned?
“There is quite a diverse prog scene in some regions of Germany. In the end there are so many great bands that struggle to reach a larger audience. One can always discover great new bands! But itās also hard to be heard.“
Despite the fact that your first work has just been released, are you already working on material for a full-length album?
“Yes, we have quite some new material. So we expect to start demoing for the next record later this year!“
Do you have any other activities or artistic passions outside of music?
“First, there a lots of other musical activities of our band members. From musical singers to choral conductors to death metal to acoustic party music ā we are all doing our best to fill our lives with music! Other than that we are āprogressiveā in a political sense — we are committed to fighting the extreme right and for more ambitious climate protection.“
I thank the band for the interview and wish them all the best in the promotion of their debut EP and the continuation of their artistic career.
“Thank you for having us!“
Purchase their debut album on Bandcamp: https://magic-and-medicine.bandcamp.com/album/magic-and-medicine
