“One of the biggest treasures we have in music is that we can give to people, and they can take it, and it’s not getting less” – interview with Britta Görtz of Hiraes

After being a fans for so many years, the time has finally come for me to meet and have the extreme (pun intended) privilege of interviewing the fantastic Britta from Hiraes. We discussed about her history as a metal vocalist and more.

Hello Britta, how are you doing today?

Britta Görtz: I’m doing great. Thank you so much for sitting here with me and doing this interview. I’m very excited.

Do you remember the first time that you listened to some heavy metal?

Britta Görtz: I think it was way back in my early childhood, because I have a brother who is 10 years older than me. And he used to listen to Iron Maiden and AC/DC and all that stuff. And so there was a brief moment where we shared the same room before we moved into a house. I grew up with posters of Eddie hanging there. I really loved that, because I thought it’s so cool to have an older brother. Everything my brother would do, I would love. A

Do you remember the first time you listened to some harsh vocals instead?

Britta Görtz:  I think I do remember. I must have listened to it before, but then all of a sudden I realized that this was like different vocals. And I think it must have been Dimmu Borgir was the first band that I actively listened to with real harsh vocals. I was a huge Guns N’ Roses fan when I was a teenager. And you could tell that Axl had like harsh vocals in the stuff that he’s doing. But like where it’s like really growly, deathy, that was probably Dimmu Borgir.

Do you remember the first time that you joined the band?

Britta Görtz:  Yes, I do remember that. The very first time that I really played in a band and not just in a rehearsal room was, I played keyboards and did background vocals for a gothic band called Kramm. I don’t know if you know the band Das Ich, they are around for the longest time. And the one guy had a side project, a solo project that he called Kramm. I played keyboard and was in the background. The first time that I was in the front and doing metal was with my band Cripper in 2004. I started screaming when I was 26. It’s like really late compared to when people usually started how to scream.

When you were practicing and finding your voice, your vocal technique, do you remember which songs you covered to practice your vocals?

Britta Görtz:  I didn’t cover any songs. I mean, the time when I started to growl, there was no YouTube. I did not have any idea that covering would be a good thing. We formed our first band and I started singing my own lyrics right away. I mean, we played a couple of cover songs with every band. We had a song or two that we would play from a different band, but I did not practice other bands’ songs. It’s a naivety that people usually don’t have today because they get influenced by so much and I didn’t have that. Looking back, it just felt very playful. It’s good and bad at the same time. I did not have any idol when it came to that because Holy Moses was the band that I knew back then. I did not have any female idea of how to sound, and it didn’t matter to me. It occurred to me later that there are so few women back then. Now it’s different, but back then there were like five women doing that on stages. I was like, “This is all guys. Where is everyone?” We need equality.

Can you share with us how do you warm up your vocals before performing?

Britta Görtz: I do some breathing exercises to activate belly breathing. For many people it’s very difficult to let the belly loose because we are so trained to tuck our tummies in. So this is what I do first, I loosen up here. And then I do some exercises where I sing in my falsetto voice because it’s really important that the vocal cords stretch out and they thin out. Then I do lip trills, then I will go into vocal fry exercises. It’s all very quiet. And then I start some throat singing, so I slowly build up. It can take like half an hour maybe.

Are there any food or drinks that you avoid before performing?

Britta Görtz:  No, I don’t avoid any food or drinks. I avoid eating too much as in an amount of food because when I feel so full, I can’t perform. But I mean, the vocal cords are in the windpipe and no food will touch it. So unless you are allergic to something that is bad for your whole body, you can drink everything… Alcohol is probably something that I don’t do before a stage or maybe one beer. But no hard liquor because it makes you weird. I eat everything that I want to eat. It’s also a mental thing for many people that they avoid certain things.

Can you share with us your parents’ or your family’s reaction to listening to your vocals?

Britta Görtz: Yeah, I think at first they thought it was a phase. The phase is now 25 years long. It’s an era now. So I don’t think they really reacted to that. My mom always laughs at people in the reviews when people used to tell I sound like a man. And my mother said, “They are all stupid, I can hear it’s you”. They are happy for me and proud of me, but they are not really like music type, so they don’t listen to it much. 

Have you ever had either clean or harsh vocal lessons? And were those useful?

Britta Görtz: Yes, I had clean vocal lessons, especially when I started singing. But it was more or less just to get the basics down, like how to breathe, how to do some scales, and also maybe some songs. Then I thought it might be a good idea to sing in a choir to work on my voice, and then I got kicked out of the choir. It was okay, it was a pop choir anyway, but it was weird. They put me into an alto voice, and the lines that you are singing in alto are very boring and very weird, so I flipped into other voices, and that’s not what you do in a choir. They told me, “Maybe you are a solo singer and not a choir singer“. I said, “Yeah, maybe“. I also took lessons and take lessons regularly in throat singing and overtone singing because it helps a lot to talk to people who are really experts in that. I can do throat singing, I can do overtone singing, but obviously it’s not my field of deep expertise, so I get input on that. I’m also happy to do a tandem thing with other vocal coaches, so we teach each other and ask each other how we teach, and then you learn yourself. The voice is a beautiful instrument because you never stop learning and finding new things in your voice, and also the voice develops over time and changes, so it’s a very flexible system that you have, and you’ve got to take care of it, so a lesson is good. And also for inspiration. I think you can learn something from everyone, even from people who are not even singing, because they look at voice differently, and I think that’s a really good thing. 

Do you have any advice for someone that is just starting to want to become a metal singer or a vocalist?

Britta Görtz: Everyone will have an opinion of your voice, be it that they can sing or they can’t sing, but a voice is something that most people have, and so people feel entitled to criticize your abilities. If you start with guitar, no one expects you to be great. If you start singing, people will tell you from day one you sound like crap. You need to learn how to step aside and not take the criticism and let it go past, so that your mind is free from that. You will suck in the beginning, and then you get better. The sooner you suck, the sooner you will get better. Every voice is very unique. It’s cool to have an orientation, you want to go somewhere in the direction of. But the one unique voice that a person has is a true treasure, and if you try to sound like someone else too much, you will just give your treasure away. You will find that you sound awkward, and then you get used to it, and then have fun. Never stop having fun, that’s probably the best thing to do. You can only be yourself, and the more you are yourself, the more you will attract people. To be yourself on a stage can be a rebellious act. I don’t know how it is for you, but I look at a person like a piece of cake. It’s like 360 degrees, and in every environment that we are, we choose to show a slice of us. You can choose the slice that you want to show people, but the more genuine it is, the more it will attract people, and the more you will be able to speak honestly from the heart. I think that’s what music is all about, to have that kind of emotion to share with people you don’t know over distances. One of the biggest treasures we have in music is that we can give to people, and they can take it, and it’s not getting less. You can take the music that you love, and other people can take the music, and it’s still there. It has endless potential, and that is so beautiful. Be yourself, and be more yourself every day.

Do you think it’s harder for women to be in the metal industry?

Britta Görtz: I don’t know, I’ve never been a man in the metal industry, and I get that question a lot, so it’s hard to compare. I think when it comes to gender, it’s a different kind of struggle that you face, because if you ask men, and I asked men about that, what it’s like to be a man in the metal industry, and I heard different things like, that it’s so difficult to stand out, and it’s easier to stand out when you have something that is different from other people, and there are less women, so this is something that makes you stand out a little more. When I started many people complimented my gender and not my hard work, so like, “You look so good on stage“, and I’m like, “I busted my ass to do this“, sometimes the gender gets in the way of your work. You don’t get asked about your work, but you get asked about your outfit, and if you are, as a girl, able to sleep in a tent, and stuff like that, so that’s annoying. I try to not answer those questions anymore, also for my younger colleagues, just to clear the way, and just educate people, ask me about my hard work, and not about my outfit, it’s not of any interest. It’s a different struggle. I myself have never faced obstacles, as far as if I don’t belong into the scene, I always felt invited and embraced by everyone, I mean, there are always people who have a funny way with women, but I think, especially in the beginning, when I started, it might have been a slight advantage, because people were standing and staring, is she singing? Because it was something new for women to do, and so I think that gave me a slight advantage, but other than that, I don’t know. I think there’s equality, as when your band grows and you have a certain middle level, I think the advantages kind of equalize a little bit, because from a certain level, I think your band needs to be very good to climb higher, but I think maybe at first, when you start your social media, and you have… I think it’s good to have aliens in the band. I mean, if you have a diverse band, and everyone looks very different, and everyone has their uniqueness, I think that’s good to stand out. If you have five guys in a leather jacket, and a beard and long hair, this is probably 90% of how metal bands look, and to stand out, to have a woman in the band, or an all-female band, it will elevate you as far as promotion, but if you suck at your instrument, you don’t. So I think it’s both.

I wanted to play a little game with you, if that’s alright. Let’s say that after the interview, you get a phone call from a lawyer that says that you’ve inherited a pizza place in Rome. What do you do? That I what?

Britta Görtz: I mean, like, we’re playing Motocultor in France on Saturday, and after that I would go to Rome and check out my awesome pizza place, and then I stay there and just get fat. And make pizza all day. It’s awesome. I want a pizza place in Rome.

Thank you so much for taking the time to do this and for being such a good sport. Do you have anything else that you want to add to our readers?

Britta Görtz: What I always say is, like, support your local metal scene. The old heroes are dying. We need more bands. ASAP. We need bands that are better than AI music, because otherwise, AI music will dictate our lives in five years. That’s my prediction. When people ask me what I do for a living, as far as the band, I always tell them I am in the T-shirt business and I advertise my T-shirts with music, because the money is where the T-shirts is. I don’t make money with my music. I make money with T-shirts. And that won’t change, because AI can’t create T-shirts. That’s a good thing.