During Wacken there were many interesting bands playing there, but one of my favorites was the tribal death-groove metal Ashed Winter.

Benedetta

I’m here with the amazing Ashed Winter. How are you doing guys?

Ashed Winter

Fine, fine. Bit tired.

Benedetta

You’re playing Wacken in the anniversary edition. How does it feel?

Ashed Winter

Amazing. At first, we just played Wacken and it’s also the anniversary year, so it’s even more crazy.Yeah, that’s very cool. And yesterday, Thomas just invited us to eat. The boss just invited us to eat and yeah, it’s crazy. We were not the only ones, but everyone who was there, he was like, “Come and eat and drink“. He’s so nice, it’s a bit unreal just to be here.

Benedetta

Do you think that the life of an artist is a lonely life?

Ashed Winter

For the writing part, yes. But he’s in charge, Nico is in charge of this. But after all, we have to rehearse, we have to play the new songs together, so both, it’s a lonely and also together thing. That’s never a very lonely life. You have to play music with people, so…

Benedetta

Do you think that we will ever have some equality between men and women in the metal world?

Ashed Winter

I don’t know, because right now it’s a big subject, and we still don’t have the equality, and I think it’s a very men-dominated field. And I think that it’s not what I experienced. I think that some women are playing at home, like, “I want to have a band, I want to play on stage“, but they don’t… They are scared, I think. I think that a lot of women have that in mind. Like, I would like to, but I’m shy, there’s a lot of men, I’m afraid to be judged, things like that. I have two bands, so I play a lot. And my other band is a way more man-filled, even more than Ashed Winter. I’m generally the only woman when I play with that other band. So I don’t think that there will be any equality on that. But let’s hope. The public doesn’t see a man on stage and a woman on stage the same way. So that’s a problem. There are many men bands who want to have a girl with them, but it’s often not really for the good reasons. Because they think having a woman in the band, the band will have maybe more sex appeal, or things like this. People don’t look at musician women for their skills, but they often look at them as a token. So I think we’re very far from the equality. But it’s also quite important, I think, just like for example, I don’t know if it’s the case in every country, but in France, in politics, there is this parity. You have to have 50% of women, 50% of men in a political group. And I think it’s important that festivals or places where you can play, try to balance it and try to put a bit more girls. So the younger girls will be able to have girls idols. And probably they will more go into this, because I had men idols. And often you identify yourself to someone with the same gender. So if we want women to play more metal, we must have more female idols. So I think it’s important.

Benedetta

Guys, thank you so much for taking part in this. Is there anything else that you want to add to our viewers and readers?

Ashed Winter

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