“There was a lot of music and alcohol involved,” he says about his faint, earliest memories of them. Kai first met the couple in the early 2000s, as all of them were active in Viking reenactment markets across Scandinavia. When I did, his eyes started to sparkle and he basically locked me in the recording room until I’d let everything out that was somehow usable,” he remembers with a giggle.Ĭhristopher’s partner, Maria Franz, felt so inspired that she spontaneously joined as a singer as well – and Heilung was born. “Christopher is an absolute musical genius and quickly was quite bored with just recording me talking, so we started adding background noises, then he asked me if I could sing a bit. It wasn’t until 2014, when he recorded some poems with producer and now-bandmate Christopher Juul, that the seed for Heilung was planted. When he joined the scene in the 90s, it was very small and secretive, as spiritual practices were a lot less mainstream than they are today, and many people in Germany were wary of people trying to revive Germanic traditions and spiritualism. “The country itself is a great teacher and source of strength and wisdom,” he says.Īlthough Kai was aware of the power of music and singing thanks to his shamanic experiences, he never planned on performing in public. But it was only when he moved to Denmark and had close contact with the Scandinavian languages that he started working intensely with the Gothic, Old Norse and Old High German source material we can hear in many of Heilung’s songs. In the beginning, Kai only wrote in German, and after improving his language skills through travelling, he added English. The track Keltentrauer, about a clash between the Celts and the Romans, on new Heilung album Drif, is one of his earliest poems and is about 20 years old. From these factual accounts, he quickly moved on to poems and short stories. He had started writing when he got into shamanism, to document the fleeting images and impressions he experienced in the state of trance. Living in Northern Europe, and being able to visit the historic sites he’d only ever read about, deepened Kai’s interest in Nordic history and mythology. I immediately packed my bags and was on my way.” It’s like being some random guitarist and getting asked to join Slayer. “When I got the offer to move to Denmark and work there, I just couldn’t believe it. “I used to dream of getting tattooed in the studio I now own,” he says, eyes sparkling. That guest spot turned into full-time employment and, in 2015, he became the owner. He was taken under the wing of German tattoo artist and book illustrator Astrid Köpfler, who not only taught him a lot artistically, but managed to get him a guest spot at Kunsten på Kroppen, the world’s oldest Nordic tattoo studio, in Copenhagen. In his early 20s, Kai quit his construction job, got a higher education and started tattooing professionally. It drastically changed my worldview and sparked an interest that I have to this day.” I was shocked that these humming, drumming weirdos were capable of such a thing. It didn’t make sense, I couldn’t explain it, but it happened right before my eyes. I could see my body healing during this time. “I went to one of their sessions and was provided with a recipe for a 21-day cure. “But I had an illness that no medical practitioner could help me with, so I thought I might as well give shamanism a try. Back then, I was all about black metal, Satan and darkness, and thought that these guys with their drums and incense sticks were totally crazy,” he recalls with amusement. “I used to have a girlfriend that was totally into shamanism, healing stones and runes. At this point, he wasn’t just distant from the shamanic scene – he thought it was outright nuts. After finishing school, he started working in construction, which was considered a safe industry after German reunification, when new building projects were popping up left, right and centre. This interest in ancient history and its art would eventually lead Kai to becoming one of the top artists in the field of traditional Nordic tattooing, but his path wasn’t always clear. I was fascinated by that and the art of the Iron Age for as long as I can remember, and started drawing such things myself very early.” Those people were tattooed, consumed cannabis and were brave warriors. “It’s about the last unsolved mysteries of our world, including the Scythian mummies. “There was one book I studied before I even knew what letters were and that I still own,” he says.
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