Fabula Rasa

The story of Fabula Rasa begins in the summer of 2016 when Dennis-Ray Steinmann
(ex-BlackJackStone, Daily Peace Project), Jan Even (ex-Ravian) and Gerrit Neumann
meet for the first time. Their vision: to reinterpret folk metal with a wide variety of
genre influences. The hot starting phase for the band was characterized by major
personnel fluctuations, which did not prevent the core of the band from shaping
their musical idea more and more. The different musical backgrounds of the band
members required a joint rethinking. Instead of letting themselves be pigeonholed,
the young Fabula Rasa formed a synthesis of different musical styles between
Ensiferum, Månegarm and Falconer.
When the band saw itself reduced to its core again after the departure of several
members, Fabula Rasa gained three new musicians in quick succession at the
beginning of 2018. They not only share the musical vision of their founders, but
also enrich it with their own musical influences: Lucia Bovender (ex-Crikey), Daniel
Neugebauer and Pedro Espinosa Menchen gave Fabula Rasa decisive new impulses
at an important point in the band's history. They added other influences such as
Blind Guardian, Korpiklaani or Megadeth to the band's musical foundation and
breathed new life into the project. The newly formed sextet, full of motivation,
quickly set a new goal: to storm the world's stages with their new type of folk metal.
Before it got that far, however, the band had to accept another setback when co-
founder Jan Even had to say goodbye to the band for personal reasons.
While the band continued to work enthusiastically on their songs, the search for a
new singer and frontman proved difficult. Each candidate was faced with the hard
task of giving the band's innovative concept both a face and a voice. Fabula Rasa
finally found what they were looking for in a place that no one could have expected
beforehand. Through a twist of fate, Achim Hopf (Stallion, Ferromanic) became
aware of the project and was interested in working together because of the
irrepressible motivation of the members and the new sound worlds they were
creating. With his overwhelming power metal voice, Achim was far beyond the
horizon of expectations that the band members had previously set for the vocals.
The experienced frontman was able to bury initial doubts in no time with his strong
presence, his tireless work ethic and last but not least his outstanding voice.
The latest addition moved Fabula Rasa in a different direction, because the newly
found singer’s voice now moved the music much closer to Power Metal. Since then,
Fabula Rasa have been calling their new style of music "Power Folk", which is characterized by precisely those contrasts between power voice and folk
atmosphere.
In this line-up, Fabula Rasa recorded the first four self-written songs in summer
2019 (»Gap in the World«, »Sanity«, »The Path« and »Arienne Firefly«) and released
the EP »Through the Molten Eye« in early 2020. At the same time, concerts would
finally start - the »Thorrablot« started in December 2019, followed by gigs with the
»Metal Piranhas« in Krefeld and with Aereum, Tales of Ratatösk and Baumbart in
Essen and Düsseldorf.
Unfortunately, the corona pandemic also left its mark on Fabula Rasa. After at least
a few concerts before the first lockdown, the band went on forced break from spring
2020. But there was all the more time for songwriting, leading to the single "Why
This War" being recorded in summer 2020 and released with a music video, and a
number of other unreleased songs were further refined.
Unfortunately, Pedro left the band at the end of 2020 for personal reasons, leaving
one of the guitar slots empty. The band found a worthy replacement in Luca Schulte-
Kellinghaus, who had to wait until September 2021 for his debut with the band.
Fabula Rasa played the first concert after the corona break with Dream Ocean in
Wuppertal, followed closely by the "Mead & Greed" festival in Oberhausen, which
the band had been eagerly waiting for since the originally planned date in March
2020. They were finally able to share the stage with genre champions like
Heidevolk, Obscurity and Finsterforst and - despite having the opener slot - were
able to create a great atmosphere at an early hour.
For Gerrit on guitar, the performance at »Mead & Greed« was the grand finale,
because he also left the band afterwards for personal reasons. His seat has been
vacant ever since, but that didn't stop the band from slightly rewriting the songs
and playing more concerts with just one guitar.
The 2022 summer season allowed Fabula Rasa to pick up some steam again -
kicking off with another gig at the »Mead & Greed« festival as a spontaneous
replacement for the opener in April, along with bands like Tyr and Dalriada. More
performances followed over the course of the year, allowing the band to share the
stage with the likes of Iron Saviour, Flotsam & Jetsam and Borknagar during an
extremely hot festival summer.