Wacken Open Air is not only a festival for established bands, but also for newcomers alike. We interviewd Expellow, the winners of the 2025 Wacken Metal Battle!

Benedetta

I’m here with the reigning champions of Wacken metal battle, Expellow! How are you doing, guys?

Expellow

We just had dinner, so we’re doing great. We just played the Headbangers stage, the very stage we played last year and actually won. It was really nice to come back and play this show and welcome all these people again, and have these very cool vibes, and yeah, with wildly different weather than last time. We were sweating, and it was exhausting, but we had fun. It was just mirrored, actually. Yeah, but fortunately we can profit of nice weather now.

Benedetta

How did it feel to win last year and then play on an anniversary edition like that?

Expellow

Well, it’s not only the Wacken anniversary edition, it’s actually also the Expellow anniversary edition. Because it’s 20 years of Expellow this year. Yeah, it’s kind of surreal to return to the same place where last year we had this competition going on and everything was like, “We have to perform the best we can ever do” and everything was so tight on time and we had to be there and then there. And then we thought, “All right, now it’s going to be different because we have more time”. Yeah, but it’s still the same. So everything is like, “Oh, it’s here”, and we’re like, “Oh, we play now? Okay, we play for an hour, not for 20 minutes”, so that’s the biggest difference. Last year we had a lot more pressure. Because this year it was like, just a show. I mean, it’s not just a show, obviously, but it’s not a competition situation. It’s quite different if you’re in a competition. Not only a competition, but you’re at Wacken, you’re being judged by 45 people from all over the world and at the same time you’re representing all your friends and your entire scene at home. So you don’t want to fuck it up. But at the same time there was a lot of excitement and a lot of joy and a lot of gratitude that we were actually able to play. It’s such an honor to be chosen for this and to represent, but also to have this experience. And on the other hand, now, this year, it was so cool to just play a show without thinking about, “Oh, the clock is running and it has to be perfect”. I mean, you still hope that everything works fine. Now we just don’t give a shit. This is the vibe that we’re working with. It was like our second competition, like, ever, the Wacken Metal Battle last year. And it was like, all the competitions we’ve ever played were in 2025. The first was at the beginning of the year, it was the Blood Battle where we were playing for a slot at the Baden in Blut Festival. That was horrible. It went so bad. I mean, we came in second, but it still went very bad.

Benedetta

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

Expellow

No, the opposite. I think you play so many shows, and when you are part of the scene, so many friends that I have are from music. There are so many connections you make there. It can be lonely like in isolated parts of it where you’re on your own with stuff. But I think as I have grown and learned, I do talk more about things where I usually used to feel lonely. But now I can open up about it and share it with my bandmates, for example. And then they will carry that stuff with me, which is nice. And I feel like, yes, there are certain things that you are on your own with that you have to go through on your own because nobody can really carry it for you. If making music for you is lonely, I think you’re kind of not doing it well. Because there are just so many connections and so many community things I don’t always have the capacity for it. But in and of itself, it’s like such a togetherness in music. I also think the way we do music, we’re not fully professional musicians, only touring, only traveling around and so on. It’s barely impossible to feel lonely because we still have our other obligations. We work, we have families, we have friends outside. I wouldn’t say that this makes us lonely. Not at all. I don’t feel that way. For our size, it’s fine. It could become a problem when you are on road for 30 days and you’re not seeing anyone and you’re just hanging in the tourbus and at airports and at shows in the backstage. Yeah, I assume it could get lonely. Luckily, we’re not suffering from success. From any aspect of it. I mean, there’s tough times and everything, but it’s a fun little tour we made. We made it here, we had fun on the way. We had some fun here, we had some fun there. We were swimming. We were eating cheese. We had a good time. But I feel like we do invest in our friendships and it’s not just like professional relationships only. I feel like it’s, as in every relationship, the moment you stop investing and stop putting the work in, it’s gonna fall apart. I think that’s a huge part of why we are where we are.

Benedetta

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

Expellow

Certainly not today. It’s gonna take much time. 20, 30, 40 years? Who knows? I can’t put my finger on it, but I know for sure that it’s not today. Because people still are complaining about her having too much muscles for a woman on stage. I mean, that’s just an argument from my side. I mean, why would I have muscles? We’ve been working every day to bring it a little bit closer to an acceptance for everyone. When I started, I had, like, really no role models. Like, there was no one that I could look up to, women who were doing gutturals and harsh vocals. And then I think, like, one of the first bands that I listened to with a female vocalist who did both was iwrestledabearonce with Kristin Cameron on the front. It was even before Courtney LaPlante, she’s now with Spiritbox. For me, it took one song that I listened to; she didn’t look like all the other women who were, like, usually pretty styled. They looked gorgeous, like, drop-dead gorgeous, every single one of them. She was a bit more alternative. And then she did these crazy vocals and everything. And it took one song, one video clip, actually. And I was, like, “Oh, I can do that, too. All right, I’ll just do it“. I’ve noticed that last year in the Wacken Metal Battle, we were with 30 bands. There were six female individual musicians in total over all the 30 bands. Half of them were in the top five. That alone was a sign that the quality is there. The visibility, the chances, even the level playing field is not. This year, I’ve noticed a lot more. I would not go so far as to claim that we’ve influenced this. But maybe, like, a tiny little bit. Because I know for a fact that I’m, like, not conventionally attractive and everything. And that we do a bit rough and raw stuff that is not so wildly produced. But really authentic and really raw. Maybe for others, it just was a sign to try as well. Or to just give their shot or choose for the country a band with female musicians too. Because all I’ve heard so far was really cool stuff. Even the bands which played before us, 50% of the musicians were female. There were a lot of women performing on the stages and I think that’s beautiful. But at the same time, I mean, I don’t read the livestream comments, but from what I’ve heard, there were a lot of trolls in there, I would call them trolls, complaining about, like, he had a rainbow guitar strap and the painted nails. So, obviously, that’s like a no-go. I have muscles because I do sports. We are now gay metal for some reason. I wouldn’t take a YouTube comment section for a valid representative group of the metal scene, but it’s just a very loud and visible group. I would wish myself that Wacken would moderate these comment sections in the livestream, because it’s ridiculous. If you watch from afar and you just read those comments, you are getting so discouraged. So, maybe don’t do that. And it’s just nonsense hate. It’s not even critique or anything. It’s just stupid. So, in conclusion, I would say, yes, we are on the right track, but not today. We still have a lot of work to do. There’s been a lot of things that have improved in the last 20 years.

Benedetta

Guys, thank you so much for taking the time to do this interview with me. Is there anything else that you want to add to our readers and viewers?

Expellow

Yeah. Go to live shows. Buy tickets in advance. Make it easy for the little bands and the promoters to plan ahead. We are working for the scene as well. And tell your friends you love them. And be nice to everyone. Don’t hurt a human soul. And never forget why you started to make music, because that’s really what it’s all about.