Maik plays drums since he is eight. During his musical training he played in several bands. First he liked SynthPoP and EBM but now he prefers dance music (melodic danceable style) that trends to Depeche Mode and Pet Shop Boys. Olaf had released an album under the name "Eye Q." before he was found by Maik. In December 1999 Maik and Olaf build their own little recording studio.

Nitefall try to make a new sort of Synth that they are going to define as Dance-Synth. That means Synth with more groove, power and proper singing. After all it has to be more varied and no "scene-music" - simply a mixture of Dance, Classic and Pop-Ballades. With this mixture they want to reach people between the age of 5 and 50 such as the Pet Shop Boys did in past.

I got the chance to interview Maik Lathan of Nitefall.

What are your jobs - only musicians?
Olaf works in the software sector in internet-technology. I work as music producer and deal with lots of other things.

Why is it that you call your band "NITEFALL"?
I owned a CD by another band and one song was called "Nightfall". Well, I liked this song and therefore we decided to call ourselves "NITEFALL".

Tell me something about the history of Nitefall.
How did you come to this composition?
I inserted a notice in the magazine "Keyboards" and Olaf answered. It was really lucky as he lived in Leuna, which is a mile away from me. As he has long-standing experiences with hard-disc recordings we came together very quickly. It also crystallized each person's responsibilities.

Why did you decide to make electronic music?
Quite simply because each person makes electronic music. *Laugh*
There are no differences between Dance, Trace or Techno - all is electronic. Electronic music always was our favourite, as it is very versatile and you are able to prove your creativity - or not!

Do your songs include some personal experiences or are the fictitious?
All lyrics are fictitious but include some parts that really happened. Our main subjects are love, life and free time.

Your songs exist of quiet melancholic singing combined with playful, poppy melodies.
What kind of target group do you try to reach?
The singing results in my gentle and smooth voice I have by nature. I think my voice is very versatile - best suited for PoP music, ballads and others.
Our target group is those between 10 and 60, who like melodic and sometimes unusual music but also people who love PoP-music. The spectrum is wide-ranging and should simply please. Our music should be unmistakable and unique and after all suitable for mainstream chart-music.

Who are your influences?
Olaf likes EINIGMA, aka Michael Cretu and my influences - hmmm a good question.
Well, Dave Gahan is musically also an influence like Dieter Bohlen (Modern Talking), who created legendary compositions. I like his variety, but I also respect and like other Chart-Breakers. At the moment I often listen to "Heaven" by DJ Sammy, which is a very good cover version of an 80s hit.

It was a long and hard way until you were able to release your first single, "Rainfall".
Are you going to release a real long-player in near future?
Well, "Rainfall" was a very difficult track, as we repeatedly fit out our studio with new digital equipment. We also had bad experiences -it was simply a flop- on a deal we closed with a well-known producer. These things cost money and therefore we had to take a little break. At the moment we are trying to freshen up our song "Everybody". We are going to release this song on vinyl in February and we will promote it via DMC in March of this year. I believe that we will enter the German Dance Charts and the Austrian DJ Top 40. We are promoting our first single "Rainfall" at www.popkomm.de and hopefully we will find a real label who likes to close a deal and help us on our way up.

What about live gigs?
We will have live gigs after we have finished producing our 6 songs. We also hope for Austrian gigs!

I have been told that German SynthPoP fans are the most loyal fans all over the world.
What do you think?
Well this may be possible, but I do not know as we have a fans of many different genres.

Thank you Maik for answering all my questions.

• Rainfall (golden child cut)

The copyright in these sound-files is owned by Nitefall, Germany, Merseburg. For all files I got the exclusive authorization of Nitefall. All sound-files are only for private use. Any commercial distribution and copy is prohibited.

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