Matt watches Herzblut by dARTAGNAN for the FIRST TIME!!! 

If you translate "Herzblut" in english you can say "blood of the heart", or "heart-blood", the meaning is like "passion" or "commitment". Wish I could meat you in germany, but when I remember right, you are in the southern part of germany(?) - and thats unfortunately not where I live, so I can't tell you in person how to pronounce "d’Artagnan". Thanks for the reaction, it's great like always. 😎👍

d’Artagnan is named after a French noble soldier from the time of Louis XIV. He became famous because he inspired Alexandre Dumas to write his novel The Three Musketeers. The name is therefore pronounced French. The band describes their music as musketeer rock, but unlike Feuerschwanz they are more influenced by folk. d’Artagnan are said to be very good live. It's funny to hear Melissa Bonny sing in German. The title "Herzblut" is made up of the words Herz (Heart) and Blut (Blood) and means something like "lifeblood", "heart and soul" in English. Personally, I like "Ruf Der Freiheit" and the video consisting of recordings of their live show. Another collaboration that might interest you is: dArtagnan, Zora Cock - My Love's in Germany (Official Video) ft. Blackbriar. They were very successful with their Avicii tribute of "Hey Brother". Also worth mentioning is the collaboration with Candice Night, the wife of Ritchie Blackmore, the former Deep Purple guitarist, who also has a cameo appearance in the video. I have a culinary tip for your upcoming trip. Strasbourg is a good place to eat "Flammkuchen".

The Dark Side Of The Moon are going to be guests on most shows of dArtagnan's 2025 tour, so obviously Melissa will be joining them on this song. dArtagnan is less humorous than Feuerschwanz (still mostly light hearted though) and more on the folk/ folk rock side, with Feuerschwanz now being full folk metal. Founded in 2015 by vocalist & multi-instrumentalist Ben Metzner, Felix Fischer (bassist of Feuerschwanz from 2014 to end of 2017/ beginning of 2018) on electric guitar, bass guitar, different accoustic guitars & backing vocals and Tim Bernard on electric guitar, accoustic guitar & backing vocals. Fischer left by the end of 2017, Gustavo Strauss (violin & backing vocals) joined by the beginning of 2018. They have some regular live & studio musicians: guitarist Hans Platz (Feuerschwanz, TDSOTM) from 2016 to 2017, bassist Sebastian Baumann live since 2016 studio since 2017, drummer Matthias Böhm live 2016 studio 2017 (on the 2016 debut album the drums were played by Jan Mischon, member of Saltatio Mortis since 2009) and guitarist Haiko Heinz live & studio since 2017. Since 2021, Baumann, Böhm & Heinz are credited as full-fledged band members. The costumes are designed by Svenja Metzner aka Momo Indigo (Ben Metzner's wife). They have a song with Patty Gurdy (who was with Alestorm on "Voyage of the Dead Marauder"): Farewell.

Refrain: Ben Metzner & Melissa Bonny My heart wants to bleed And never rest My heart wants to beat In time with the waves and the flood My heart wants to burn As hot as embers My heart's blood flows Verse 1: Ben Metzner What am I so afraid of every hour? Life is short, the day is long And the heart is always longing I don't really know whether heavenwards Verse 2: Melissa Bonny, Ben Metzner & Melissa Bonny But it wants to go back and forth And would like to flee from itself And it flies to the breast it loves There it rests unconsciously in heaven Refrain: Ben Metzner & Melissa Bonny My heart wants to bleed And never rest My heart wants to beat In time with the waves and the tide My heart wants to burn As hot as Embers My heart's blood flows Heart's blood, heart's blood My heart's blood Heart's blood, heart's blood Bridge: Ben Metzner & Melissa Bonny The life whirlpool tears it up away And it always hangs in one place What it wanted, what it lost In the end it remains its own goal Chorus: Ben Metzner & Melissa Bonny My heart wants to bleed And never rest My heart wants to beat In time with the waves and the tide My heart wants to burn As hot as embers Flows from my heart Blood Heart's blood, heart's blood My heart's blood Heart's blood, heart's blood My heart's blood flows Chorus: Ben Metzner & Melissa Bonny My heart wants to bleed And never rest My heart wants to beat In time with the waves and the tide My heart wants to burn As hot as embers My heart wants to bleed And never rest 'n My heart wants to beat To the rhythm of the waves and the tide My heart wants to burn As hot as embers My heart's blood flows Heart's blood, heart's blood So hot as embers heart's blood my heart's blood flows

Definitely brush up on the German, even a free Duolingo account can teach you a bunch of helpful things. People will probably be speaking English to some degree, but finding places, public transport, shopping etc is going to be much easier. Melissa's German pronunciation is so very cute. You don't expect anyone with that soft accent to be a vampire, I suppose it's part of the cover.

Ah yes, the much beloved but irritatingly spelled dArtagnan (the band spells it without the accent following the "d"...). It's a French name and the pronunciation is (very) roughly "dartanon". That's Charles de Batz-Castelmore d'Artagnan - CO of the Royal Musketeers. Technically I suppose it's "folk rock" but of course there's the "Schlager Accusation" but to be perfectly honest "Schlager" (that would be the German equivalent of crappy saccharine corrupt country music without the cultural connection to the Old West besides kitsch that you suffer from in the US) itself is a corruption of traditional Central European folk music ground through the pointless-pop-mill, so if d'Artagnan (the "Band spelling" makes Alexandre Dumas - who by the way was a black(-ish) man and son of a (black) General of the Revolution, interesting factlet - turn in his grave so I'll stop it😆) offers some redemption to the patterns of traditional music through their more rock and sometimes "metal-proximate" interpretation I'm happy for it^^. Melissa in German is interesting to be sure because I think she's from the Francophone part of Switzerland so it's her, I suppose, second language not native. Since they are mostly Germanophone I'd suggest checking out they aforementioned by others Avicii tribute in their *beautiful* rendering of "Hey Brother" as well as their collaboration with "Blackbriar" on the adaption of the rather old (1794 though misplaced in the 30-Years War [1618-1648], but then, when was there *not* a war in the German Lands that anglophone people got involved in?😆) poem by Scotsman Hector Macneill on the 7-Years War (yeah, we Europeans started to name our wars for length because they where just too many to think of creative names at some point...🤣). Or go with the only partially (and full blown "Schlager" accused but it's oh-so-beautiful...^^) "Farewell" with Patty Gurdy. As for German needed... well actually you *don't technically need any* because there *will* be someone who speaks at least rudimentary English (and if it's anyone under the age of 60 they *will* claim their English is *totally insufficient* and then go with, sometimes even lacking accent, decent too excellent English while excusing their lack of excellence... I feel my former colleagues, former English Teacher here, have done pretty decent work😆). If you want to start out a conversation (and be aware we Germans are not all that small-talk-attuned as "you US folks", people may seem cold, they are not, they are just .. well.. not hearsty folksy people^^) just open with a nice "Guten Tag!", then excuse your German with "Entschuldigung bitte, mein Deutsch ist schwach, sprechen Sie English?" ("Please excuse my weak German, do you speak English?") and then you're off to the fairly-decent-but-perceived-bad English conversation^^. Depending on where you are you might encounter a dialect so exceedingly heavy that even German Native speakers might be inclined to switch to English anyway (cough, cough, Allemanic dialect(s) in Swabia, cough, cough, Plattdeutsch in the North, though that's a language arguably pretty close to being a "modern Anglo-Saxon without the Norman French"). 🤣 Strasbourg may be an excellent excursion from Germany (it's in Alsace in the Bas-Rhin department but that's an area that has changed possession between France and Germany so many times over the last 400 years that it's profoundly culturally mixed, heck, *I* once crossed the border from German Saarland into France in Darkness and Fog and didn't realize it until a bloke told me I was in France when asked fro the way.... in the same dialect mixture of French and German they all speak there...) also for a *magnificent* Christmas Market and architectural beauty. Also, if you're arriving in Frankfurt (pretty likely) give the Old Imperial City, Crowning site of the Holy Roman Emperors, a chance - it's not just banking towers and it's pretty compact.^^ Yeah, I'm partial, I was born there... go to Old Sachsenhausen on the Far Side of the River and drink an Applewine in a local tavern... it's a pretty (understatement...) sour cider, drink with 50% sparkling water as a "Sauergespritzter" - "sour sprinkled one" - they also have warm spiced one in winter. Best regards Raoul G. Kunz