German Guitar Ace Tom ‘Fountainhead’ Geldschläger on His Debut India Tour and His Next Album ‘Changeling’

Banter is Tom ‘Fountainhead’ Geldschläger’s forte and more so because he’s easing audiences (and himself) into the fact that he’s the only performer on stage. It’s just him, his guitars (including a fretless) and a laptop blasting out backing tracks from his various projects and his upcoming solo album Changeling.

At his Bengaluru stop on the seven-city India tour (that concludes this week in Chennai), Geldschläger poses a joke about Netflix & Chill and a question, “How do you feel about fretless technical death metal?” Among the songs in his set is “Sermon of the Seven Suns,” taken from tech-death metallers Obscura’s 2016 album Akroasis. It’s a phones-out moment, because everyone does love mind-bending riffs and searing guitar solos.

While there were a few technical snags and less-than-ideal venue sound, Geldschläger made the most of it. His laptop got ahead of him at times, leading him to go rush to press pause on the tracks. “This is what happens when you tour solo for the first time,” he says sheepishly. It’s not just a lone show for Geldschläger, because he invites guitarist Nikhil N.R. (from thrash metallers Chaos) to join him on stage for “The Devil’s Wife,” a song by German metal band Thunder and Lightning. Some of the other material performed is part of his upcoming album Changeling, which is being prepped for release via athat Geldschläger is still deciding upon.

“It’s not a quiet moment,” the guitarist, producer and composer says over the phone after his Bengaluru set. He’s also quick to wave away any notion that he’s “adapting” to being in India. “It’s just something that I really enjoy and cherish and take it all in. For me the adapting part comes in everything else – the stage setup, the way that I’m traveling with a laptop instead of amps, the new set and most of all, just being alone on stage. Just trying to adjust to the idea of me being a headliner, is still something I’m trying to wrap my head around,” he says.

It helps that gig promoters in each city – and his tour promoter Infinity Pro Audio and Aggressive Tendencies, led by Hyderabad’s Abbas Razvi – put forward death metallers Gutslit as the other main draw on each lineup. He says, “I really could not have imagined a better touring combination for this intense thing […] The Gutslit guys have been super chill. Last night [in Bengaluru] was a personal highlight for me, because I could invite Nikhil to trade solos with me and it was easily the most fun I’ve had on stage in I don’t know how long.”

While Geldschläger has visited the country before – for workshops with multi-instrumentalist Vishal J. Singh in 2018 – this is his first time as a performer. There is a workshop this time as well, at Swarnabhoomi Academy of Music, which will involve four different blocks of teaching across two days. Geldschläger will cover everything from guitar technique to songwriting to mental health and more. “That has been the focus of my research and my coaching and teaching in the last couple of years,” he adds.

The tour gave the guitarist a chance to test a few songs off Changeling, which is a “huge project” comprising 50 musicians and over an hour’s worth of music. Geldschläger says, “There’s everything from four-minute catchy single songs to almost 20-minute epics on it, and it’s easily the largest scale thing I’ve ever done.” Where before he was fine to self-release albums, this time he’s seeking out a label to distribute and market it. “Even though the album is ready, I still have to wait and sit around and negotiate this deal and then adhere to the label’s release schedule. I still hope it can be out this year,” he adds. Changeling features, among other musicians, Netherlands-based vocalist-lyricist Morean aka Florian Magnus Maier from prog death metal band Alkaloid. Geldschläger adds, “I went to his place in the Netherlands and we work closely for two weeks to record everything and develop the lyrics, the [song] structures and performance.”

It’s a busy time for Geldschläger in the midst of negotiating the release terms of Changeling, having a spatial audio mix for the album. “I want to establish myself in the metal world as a go-to mixing and mastering engineer also for spatial audio,” he adds. Admittedly, though, the guitarist says he’s in a “peculiar place” with his career, having toured with metal bands across the board but never finding it fulfilling. He says, “I was finding myself in front of this unbelievable amount of people and still not having a good time. I made the decision to focus on bringing my own music on tour by continuing as a solo artist with this album. Whatever happens next, this needs to be a priority now in my life, before I get too old or too busy again with some of the band offers that might come in, and I really want to take this opportunity and I’d like to see where it leads.”

Fountainhead, Gutslit and Incendarius perform at Brutal Carnage VIII on June 30th at Gears & Garage, Chennai. Get tickets here.