Interviews - Progarchives.com

Vielikan

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 12:59:15 EST

Interview made by Conor Fynes — Vielikan is a progressive death metal band from a country one would not usually expect to be the home of a death metal band: Tunisia. Speaking with frontman Fedor Souissi, he gave his insights into the band's music, art, and the state of Tunisia. How are you and the band doing? We are very fine Conor! Our album is finally available world wide, yetonly digital, somehow I feel that Vielikan is now an "existing" band.I feel that Vielikan isn't more only for Tunisia, and I am so glad tosee people order it, knowing that we got fans beyond our littlecountry is even more rewarding, especially for an unsigned band. Where does the name 'Vielikan' come from? "Vielikan" means "Giant" in Russian. You would also like to ask me whyI've named my band in russian, well lets say its because I'm halftunisian, half russian, and I'm strongly linked with my russian roots.For its meaning, the choice is yours, either our music is giant,either we are four giants :-) The question I ask every artist; how would you describe Vielikan's sound? My goal is to make the listener surrounded by dark feelings, make himmodelise what he's hearing in his mind's eye. Our music is a gateway,to reach oppressive and deep thoughts. Music is a nice tool to sharean emotion. Each songs contains many moods, as anger, sorrow,nostalgia. The whole thing surrounded by darkness. Death metal is a style that is plagued by thousands of bands acrossthe globe that often sadly sound too much alike. What do you thinksets Vielikan apart from the rest? We all know that the Man can't create, as for the real meaning ofcreation is : to make something with nothing, and that would be God.We only produces. I tell you this, because an artist dont create, heproduce... He make an intelligent combination of what he knows, whathe might have seen. "Create" music, is a combination of what songs you might like, whatsounds inspires you. This is why many bands sound much alike, theydont make the right combination (others would say "the rightcreation"), if I bring you a band whos members are huge fans ofNecrophagist, you will hear from them the same very style. Vielikan is apart from the rest because we do the right mixture, webring the right inspiration, from brutal death, to extrem doom, togroovy, to traditional russian music, most of all gitan folklore, andwhen you're listen to Vielikan, you'll might be refered to some otherbands (as any band you listen to), but the combination we're doingmake our music unique. I am not divine to create something new withoutbringing a mixture, but I am intelligent enought to being unique inblending what I know. Every band, every music you know, is a blendfrom other musics. The right question is : is this band doing anintelligent combination? If yes, this will make an unique band. Theother question is : is this band corectly promoted and hugelyfinanced? If yes you will get an "Opeth fame" :-) The most difficult part when you're working in a band, especially in ametal band, is the promotion and finances. Making music, is the mosteasy part. Some people would say that music is only "abstract" and "inspiration"as if the guy composing a song casted a spell from nowhere. This istotal bullsh*t, music is based on logic and even rules. In my musical travels as a metalhead, the only other Tunisian metalband I have heard is Myrath. What is the state of the Tunisian metalscene? Are there any bands (besides yourselves!) from Tunisia that youwould recommend to metalheads abroad? As I said, a band need to know how to blend its knowledge to compose asong, then being corectly promoted and financed. This is Myrath. Herein Tunisia we've got many bands, with unique sound, and hard work, butthey are not promoted as they should be, and they are not financed asMyrath are. Vomit The Hate (technical death), Dead Moon (Heavythrash), Anas Abid (now in France working with his new death metalband : Bringer of the 7th Plague), Flagellation (Black metal), Apostol(Melodic death), 13 Days Later (Deathcore), are bands working anddoing powerful and devastating metal, but as Vielikan, they will notget the right fame if they are not promoted. Metal shows here inTunisia are not frequent (one concert every 2 months if we are lucky,in the whole country), but there's enought metal heads and fans tomake you feel you're a band, working for people loving your music.Bands here in Tunisia have many difficulties to spread their talents,this is because we are above the underground scene. No promoters, noconcerts, no studios. This remind me of what Elyes from Myrath said in a recent frenchinterview, "in Tunisia there's no real bands, and even if there's aconcert, 99% of Tunisian metal heads come to see only Myrath", sadlymy buddy is a little wrong, maybe because he forgot what Tunsian metalscene is, and what bands we got here. Even if they're not financed orpromoted as they are, our extrem metal scene is strong, few bands yes,but all unique. There is certainly a proggy element to Vielikan's sound. How are songswritten; how do they go from an idea, to a finished composition? Onthat thought, how do you get ideas in the first place; what inspiresyou? The most important fact for me when I write a song is the lyrics. Ialready know what's the theme, but how to write it down? And how tomake an harmony within words, and verses? Step by step I finally getthe result I want. I didn't had the choice, i was forced to writeproggy ang long songs, because I follow my lyrics, I dont put thatriff or that melody just because its "cool", no, this will not makecoherence between words and the music. And as I told you, I am not aspellcaster (I would like to!) I pretty much believe that art is basedon logic. Taking a look at the lyrics from your debut full-length 'A Trapped WayFor Wisdom', the themes that Vielikan deal with are quitesophisticated for death metal; revolving around an often graphicdepiction of mental strain, as well as ambiguous religious themes.What can you say about the lyrical content of Vielikan; is there aconcept here? I do not want to reveal what messages are behind every songs, but,everyone will get its own understanding about each song. Obviously "ATrapped Way For Wisdom" is a concept album, the main subject is howemotions interfers with our reason, and the trapped way for wisdom isto reject all emotions. Lyrics are based on the struggle between"Faith" and "Logic" and how the Man make his choices. You could laugh,but some songs talk even about Love. What prog and metal bands have you been listening to lately? Well... to be honest I didnt listened metal for some months :-( Butthe last band I became adicted to was Ataraxie (Extreme doom fromfrance) Lastly; what advice would you give to other musicians out there whoare trying to get their music out in the world for listeners? I think I've already said the most important part when working in aband. The right songwriting, logical combinations, real promotion,save money, and most of all : patience... Also, it's vital for theband to have audio and visual professional quality. Of course all these steps should be followed but I forgot to say; amusician, in a band, is nothing if he dont practice EVERY DAY, anddont jam AT LEAST one time a week. Any last words? I would just like to thank you for this interesting interview, andthank all our fans for their supports, if anyone is reading thisinterview and dont know Vielikan, just come across our MySpace page,it'll be cool.Conor Fynes2012-01-25 13:01:20

Steve Unruh

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 08:13:52 EST

Interview made by toroddfuglesteg — Steve Unruh has been producing some of the deepest, most organic true-to-life music around for nearly a decade in both his solo outputs and as a member of Resistor. I got in touch with him for his story. ################################################################################## Your biography has been covered in your ProgArchives profile so let's bypass the biography details. But why did you take up music and which bands/artists were you influenced by ? I think I've been destined to be a musician for my whole life. There's something deep inside my psyche, which feels like a restlessness in my chest that's only satisfied by music. I want to partake in music as a two-way conversation - listening to others' music, and making my own music for them to hear. Ideally, we all influence each other. I've been influenced by a pretty wide variety of musicians. When I was a baby, my parents found that my colic could be soothed by playing music - particularly jazz and blues, so my brain was learning jazz before I learned to speak. At age 6, the local violin teacher gave a presentation at my school. She passed a little violin around, and everyone tried it. When it was my turn, all I could extract from the instrument was a horrible screech. The other kids laughed. I held the violin close and whispered, "I'll get you for this." It took me a year to convince my parents that I was serious about violin lessons, but starting at age 7, they shuttled me to lessons every week and helped in any way they could. I started drums at age 10 as a joke, teasing my dad that buying a pair of drumsticks at a book fair would inevitably lead to me becoming a "long-haired rock-and-roll guy". (Little did we know!) So, as a child I was absorbing classical violin studies, and going through phases of listening to pop, hip hop, and "big hair" metal. Suddenly, at age 12, the coolest thing I'd ever seen showed up on TV: A Rush video. Odd time signatures, social commentary on nuclear proliferation, a giant hybrid acoustic/electronic drum set. I was like a moth drawn to a flame, and I knew: "I want to do THAT." So, I eventually bought the entire Rush collection and a big drum set. In college, my friend Laura got me into the Indigo Girls who had just come onto the scene (they were so cool; hence my acoustic folk tendencies). I discovered Yes and developed an obsession for their music which continues to this day. I also loved Eric Johnson's "Ah Via Musicom", and still consider that to be one of the greatest guitar albums of all time, because technique always takes a back seat to melody and style. I studied Spanish classical guitar in college, and I think that influence shows up a lot in my music. As I've gotten older, I've gone through a major John Coltrane phase. My wife is Bengali, so I've listened to a lot of music from the Indian sub-continent. I guess my influences form a sort of international stew that sloshes around in my head. But for certain, progressive music is a predominant flavor in that stew, and something which I feel particularly close to, as "MY music". How was the music scene in your area when you started up ? I grew up in a small town in a rural area, so there wasn't a music "scene". I think the lack of a live music scene is one of the reasons I've always been drawn to recorded music. From my birth, great music in sparkling hi-fi was available on our record player, and later CD players, and despite me being in the middle of rural Kansas, it felt like I was right next to the musicians. That's the power of a great recording - to transport the listener and the musician through space and time, into the same performance aura. As to my musical development, my school band director had connections with the pro jazz world, and shared those connections with me. So, during the summers I got to take drum lessons with Butch Miles (of the Basie band) and hang out with some really amazing musicians. I then went to a small college - also essentially without a local music scene - but the school was full of great musicians and teachers, and it was an inspiring time. I was the drummer for our college jazz band, and played violin in our orchestra. It was there I met Laura Cossey (with whom I formed Sign of Saturn) and met the guys with whom we formed Deadwood Dyck. (Yes, we knew that was a silly name when we chose it!) We tried to make our own scene. playing small bars in the nearest city (Wichita, Kansas), playing gigs at peoples' houses. as a joke we once played a guerilla-style gig in the college library lounge. Deadwood Dyck got hired as the house band for the local bar. We played a graduation party for some football players in a wheat field with 300 people and 13 kegs of beer which was nuts. I got a headache, fell asleep in my car, and woke up alone in an empty dark field - turns out a huge fight had broken out, and the cops sent everybody home. There were a lot of awful gigs, too. Sometimes no one would show up. Sometimes the car would break down. Sign of Saturn once had to make an early exit from a trucker bar. it was frighteningly like the chicken-wire bar scene in "The Blues Brothers" movie. After college, Deadwood Dyck disbanded, and I wanted to devote all my attention to Sign of Saturn. Unfortunately, that didn't work out. I had also allowed my personal life to become a mess. So, after being surrounded with friends, being simultaneously in two bands, a school and community orchestra, and a jazz ensemble, I suddenly found myself completely alone. That was 1997, when I made my first solo album. This is an archive based interview also intended for the fans you get well after both you and I have passed away so let's go straight to your albums. Please give us your long or brief views on your albums, starting with....... [SU] - That's an ambitious thought, isn't it? I'd probably need a much higher level of popularity and sales to ensure that people find my music when I'm no longer here to promote it. Nonetheless, a goal I've always had is to make recorded music of lasting value. I probably fail most of the time, but occasionally the stars are aligned and I create something special. You never know - it has happened before, when a composer's works are relatively unknown until years after they're gone. Anything's possible. Believe ? from 1997 My first solo album. In retrospect, Believe sounds a little rough-edged and na�ve. But it shows the development of my musical style. In 1996, I was a mediocre folk singer and a pretty decent rock drummer. Somehow, just one year later in 1997, I made this ambitious concept album. For me, it's like looking through a scrapbook. My life was a mess at the time I made Believe, and I was trying to spin something beautiful out of the nothingness by making the album. I'm not sure how it reads from the listener's perspective. it's probably interesting if you've heard my other albums and you're curious about the development of my style, but not the first place to start listening. The Beginning Of A New Day from 1998 I was still alone, disillusioned and irritable when I wrote BoND. So this album was fueled by the dysfunction and unfairness I experienced and saw around me, realizing that part of it was my fault and part of it was society's fault. The lyrics reflect this, and although they often lack nuance, there's a burning desire for something more evolved and meaningful, which resonates with me to this day. I'm suspect this album is easy to be mistaken for egotism. ("Who does this guy think he is, making these statements about how I need to change my ways to see the true meaning of things, etc?") In truth, I was pondering these things to myself, not trying to preach at the listener. Although at the time, it probably didn't matter - nobody was listening to my CDs or showing up at my gigs anyway. Two Little Awakenings from 2001 At the time, I thought I was crafting the final installment of a trilogy of acoustic-progressive albums. TLA took 3 years to create, because life had gotten much busier in the meantime with marriage and a full-time career, plus I was teaching myself how to do semi-pro home recording. (TLA was the first album I recorded myself at home.) I was in transition at the time of release; having ended a 3-year career as a music teacher for a public school system and beginning studies for electrical engineering (which remains my career to this day). I was back in college, in artistic Lawrence, Kansas, so I think the album feels ambitious, engaged, and more emotionally positive than Believe or BoND. (Unfortunately, with the exception of one fantastic gig at a friend's barn, the local music scene was apathetic to my attempts to perform the material live.) The original album was a 2-disc set, which wandered too much. In 2005, I re-vamped the album by stripping out the less-punchy stuff (which is now available for free on my website as the EP "Songs From the Flowered Chair"). I remixed/remastered the best stuff, and it's now a "single" album. albeit nearly 80 minutes long. Invisible Symphony from 2002 Having a cocktail party with mixed company, or sipping some fine spirits on a relaxed evening? This is the album for such occasions. I'm not going to pummel your brain with high art or social commentary; I'll just play some nice instrumental music. (Actually, Invisible Symphony contains some of my favorite musical moments, and I'll probably make a follow-up in this style someday.) Sound quality is surprisingly good, considering I recorded it in a walk-in closet! Out Of The Ashes from 2004 .and then the Iraq war happened. I watched the American public get riled up and sold to war by the military-industrial complex. So, I made Invisible Symphony because I enjoy the process of making art. But I made Out of the Ashes because I had something to say and I couldn't hold my tongue. So we're back to "fiery art concept" here; definitely not the album to play around the wife, as the prog adage goes. I've always thought the sound quality is a little "harsh" on this one, and despite my best efforts, I can't seem to improve it. But the album is full of attitude, and then some. Song To The Sky from 2005 Hope returns, along with a desire to connect with The Divine. Gone are the gritty electric guitars and angst. It sounds like I read a bunch of Thich Nhat Hanh between Out of the Ashes and Song to the Sky. And in fact, I had read a bunch of Thich Nhat Hanh between Out of the Ashes and Song to the Sky. There's some really good stuff on SttS, and I consider it one of my top solo albums, right behind the next two. The Great Divide from 2007 This is perhaps my most challenging album to absorb as a listener, and in my opinion, it's my highest artistic achievement so far. This is the album which I most hope gains a following, somehow, someday. If people spend their time with one Steve Unruh solo album, I hope this is the one. (And then I hope they like it so much they check out Challenging Gravity, my other top favorite!) Challenging Gravity from 2010 An easier listen than The Great Divide, but still alternatingly beautiful and jarring. I think this is my most mature album, and it has the best sound quality. Life, in its infinite complexity, had run me through triumph and tragedy during the years between 2007 and 2010, with tragedy ultimately leaving the deepest scars. If, in casual conversation, people ask me what kind of music I do, I'm quick to point out the artistic ambition of The Great Divide. But as time goes by, I'm starting to view Challenging Gravity as the true measure of my heart and mind. And finally; the five samplers albums. These are just little introduction/promotion pieces, I don't view them as part of my "body of work". It is my understanding you are a musical chamelon who change style on a frequent basis. But what is your musical philosophy ? Music, to me, is that wonderful collection of sounds which expresses my humanity so effectively that my humanity itself is deepened and expanded by having made it. Music helps define, and then allows me to experience, my life. Feeling this, what else can I do but avidly follow its path, wherever it seems to lead? You are also involved in Resistor. How do you balance your solo career and song writing with the demands of Resistor ? Which material/songs goes where ? I don't balance them very well; they all fight for my attention. And nowadays, I'm also involved with The Samurai of Prog, so my music-making time and energy are really overbooked. I once heard that a lifelong musician is someone who can't NOT play. I'm like that; I'll lose my mind if I don't spend an hour or two writing or playing music every day. Music doesn't put food on my table or mow the grass or help my relationship with my family. But without a daily effort dedicated to music, I quickly become a very cranky, inferior version of myself. To most effectively keep that restlessness at bay, I try to stay open to the muse; following it wherever and whenever it appears. Sometimes, it's a new solo song, sometimes, it's a new Resistor song, sometimes, it's a Samurai song, sometimes it's an evening of unrecorded improvs never to be heard again, sometimes it's customizing a guitar, and sometimes it's doing something totally non-musical to maintain balance. I keep chipping away at composing and playing, until I gradually I accumulate enough material that the character of a new album emerges. (I think in terms of albums, not singles.) At that point, I become more focused to fill in the blanks between the finished material, to more clearly see what's yet needed to make a well-composed album-as-a-whole. Resistor is probably the most fun I can have with music. I don't have to compose the details of a song; I can just bring those guys a basic outline and they'll make it great. Or, we can just improvise, spending an evening exploring melodies and rhythms for the sheer joy of it. For most of my solo musical career, I didn't also have a band. Now that I have such a great band, my solo music has gotten scaled back. I still care deeply for my solo acoustic-y stuff, and I'm sure I'll make another solo album someday. (Perhaps several!) I still write solo songs; just less frequently for the time being. For now, I'm living in the moment with Resistor and The Samurai of Prog. You have had your fair share of experiences with the music industry and various gigs promoters. What is your experiences with the music industry and the whole gigs scene and what do you believe the future will bring for the whole music and entertainment business ? I have absolutely no idea! Because I make my living as an engineer, I stay blissfully unaware of the business side of the music business. All I care about is making great music and playing fun shows. What is your plans for this year and beyond ? For 2012: New Resistor album. New Samurai of Prog album. Resistor has a new tune on the Colossus Project "Decamerone", just released. 15-minute Samurai of Prog original tune for the forthcoming Colossus Project based on H.P. Lovecraft's works. Beyond: I want to write and record an acoustic flamenco/jazz/rock album with Kimmo P�rsti and Jan-Olof Strandberg Who knows what else! Other things I'm interested in are writing string chamber music (I've got full support from my wife on that one!), more solo albums, perhaps collaborations with certain other musicians I secretly have in mind, getting better at saxophone. we'll see what unfolds. Is there anything you want to add to this interview ? Thanks for your interest, and thanks for your patience - I knew it took a while for me to respond. And thanks to my listeners. without your support in recent years, I probably would have stopped publishing my music. Now I feel like I'm in the middle of my musical journey, and we have a long and interesting road yet ahead! Thank you to Steve Unruh for this interview His PA profile is here and his homepage is here toroddfuglesteg2012-01-24 08:24:52

Low Budget Orchestra

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 05:51:32 EST

Interview made by toroddfuglesteg — LOW BUDGET ORCHESTRA is the project of Mikko Muranen, from Finland, who writes, performs, produces and arranges everything on its three releases. His idea behind the project is to create high-quality music on a budget. I got in touch with him and here is his story.################################################################################ When, where and by whom was your band born ? Did any of you, past and present members, play in any other bands before joining up in your band ? Which bands were you influenced by ? I started to make some progressive rock/metal in the fall of 2004 and came up with the name LOW BUDGET ORCHESTRA for this project. Eventually this music turned into the debut album "extraordinary" and continues from there. I have had several musical projects in the past, some of which include Dogmeat, Dab.ay.ah and Man Bites God. I still create orchestral ambient noise as Mutantum. Like LOW BUDGET ORCHESTRA, most of these past projects have been 'one man bands' (I hesitate to use the term myself as some people seem have genuine hostility toward it for some reason or another). I have also played in 'real' bands, but not in a long while. This comes more out of a necessity, as with bands you have to deal with a lot of impracticalities such as time constraints, issues of involvement and general lack of motivation from other members. In past bands I've always ended up making and creating most if not all of the music, designing artwork, organizing rehearsals and gigs. There's not much reward for such work that simply has to be done, so at one point I decided to say 'screw it' and started these projects. At least this way I'm able to take all of the blame, be it good or bad. Bands definitely have positive points, loads and loads of them, but at least for the time being this suits me the best. As for the influences I'd say that the most important is Frank Zappa. I simply love his music and he is also my favorite guitar player. He has such a monumental catalogue so it's a literal cornucopia of magnificent stuff. It's hard to get bored with his music as there's so much of it. The second most important influence is Devin Townsend. I think his influence is something you hear in my music more clearly, as production-wise I have an undeniable strive for that HUGE wall of sound like Devin. I'm not claiming my sound is as great as Devin's, but I think his influence is pretty obvious. I have a lot of favorite musicians and bands. In case you're interested, there's a list on my site www.lowbudgetmusic.com (click: info -> My top-40). For the past year, some artists that have been on my playlist most often are Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Freak Kitchen and Mars Volta. I have no idea how much influences you are actually able to hear in my music, but I would say that good music is always an influence in itself. As for guitar players (also judging by the quality of the music they make), other than Frank Zappa my favorites are Buckethead, John Sykes, Steve Stevens, Paul Gilbert and Steve Vai. Movies also influence my music a lot. I'm a film freak and a particularly good movie can easily inspire a song or a piece of music. This is most obvious on "the second best" -album, which has these movie samples between the tracks. Some of my favorite moviemakers are Alfred Hitchcock, Terrence Malick, Alejandro Jodorowsky, David Lynch, Stanley Kubrick, Werner Herzog, Jean-Luc Godard, Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes Anderson, Aki Kaurism�ki, Billy Wilder, Jim Jarmusch, B�la Tarr, Ingmar Bergman and Roy Andersson. Your name is chosen because you wanted to release albums on a low budget. But the sound on the three albums is really great and lush. Please tell us more about this name and your philosophy. Is your albums really low budget? First of all thanks for the compliment. This is a very good question as there seems to be a lot of assumptions around. I'll try to come up with a good answer. The name LOW BUDGET ORCHESTRA was always meant as irony. The aim for this project was and still is to make high quality progressive rock/metal with good production and high production values. I chose the name sort of as a contrast to that - and the orchestra is of course on the very lowest budget as it's one man really. Concentrating on the budget aspect of it is quite boring, because with today's soundstations and software everyone is able to come up with pretty amazing stuff with literally no budget at all. It's not a question of WANTING to be low budget, it's more a necessity and a choice. Also, the budget is a relative term, as some of the equipment I use is definitely from the higher scale. And I probably end up paying a lot less money in making these records 'cause I mostly do this at home, but on the other hand I end up spending a lot more time on it. Probably the irony has gotten somewhat lost as perhaps the sound/production has not always been as high quality as I've meant it to be. So there is something I aim to be better at. One reviewer wrote that "the second best" -album is of demo quality and simply an insult to potential buyers. So obviously all my precious little aspirations didn't get through to him at all. Others have disagreed with that motherf**ker and have been enjoying the sound as well as music. You definitely cannot please everyone and irony is often easily misunderstood and difficult to get across, especially to someone with no sense of humor. And humor does belong in music indeed. My music definitely cannot be labeled as joke-y, but also not to be taken too seriously either. The inspiration for the name LOW BUDGET ORCHESTRA is also pretty obvious after you've read about Frank Zappa's influence on my music. Frank has this amazing song called "Revised Music for Guitar & Low-Budget Orchestra". Originally it was this longer composition called "Music for Electric Violin and Low-Budget Orchestra" for Jean-Luc Ponty's album "King Kong", but Zappa's own shorter 8-minute version is way better. Can be found on albums "Studio Tan" and "L�ther". Please tell us more about your two promo albums Promo 2006 & Promo 2008. They were simply cdr's to promote the first two albums. Only a very few were ever burned and sent away. I decided to make some kind of cover art for them as well and ended up putting the pictures on my page. These promos included the 'sample' songs I then had as mp3's on my site. From "extraordinary" it was "ordinary", "less beautiful" and "mew dawn"; from "the second best" they were "Emperor's New Clothes" and "Nothing Will Be The Same". The promos are not 'real' releases, so I've since decided to take the pics and info off my site. Over to your three albums. Please tell us more about the Extraordinary album from 2006 "Extraordinary" is a 10-track album of instrumental progressive rock with a slight leaning to metal. It pretty much has the elements of LOW BUDGET ORCHESTRA in there, guitar driven compositions with plenty of keyboards and a lush orchestrated background. So I would say that the 'style' was well established with this debut release. As an overall album, "extraordinary" is more a collection of songs, there's not a concept or theme like on the later cd's. The album is pretty good, I think the songs are quite strong. Production and sounds are fine, some could be better, but it's a good start. The flow of the album holds pretty well, but I think now I'd probably change or remove one or two songs off it. But I was pretty satisfied with the songs when I made it, so it's all right. The critical response to "extraordinary" was pretty ok, nothing spectacular but couraging nonetheless. My favorite songs on the "extraordinary"-album are "less beautiful", "the mark has been made", "mew dawn" and "jones made". I've written a long text about the album on my site in case you're interested in checking out my views on it from 2006/2007. Check it out on www.lowbudgetmusic.com and look for it on the text-page. And the The Second Best album from 2008 "The second best" is an 8-song theme album. The concept is held together mainly by the movie samples which glue the tracks together, but the sequence of the album is also very carefully structured. The samples hold the key to the theme, which I find to be pretty explicit. One of the reviewers summed it up as being about 'Life, The Universe and Everything' and I think that's a pretty good 'short but sweet' description. Some have interpreted the theme as religious, but I think they have missed the mark quite a bit. I'd describe the overall tone as philosophical or spiritual at most. Of course it is fine by me if a listener draws his own conclusions. One should be able to figure out what "the second best" is after listening through the whole thing, I am not spoiling it by giving it away! By "the second best" I never meant that the music is inferior to "extraordinary", the title of the album is a very important part of the theme itself. Of course the title suits as this is the second album. The realization period was somehow the hardest of my three albums. I like "the second best", but it's been kind of hard to listen to this album and not concentrate on the faults of it. I like most of the stuff, but I feel a lot of it could have been better. The album got good reviews in general. The overall tone seemed to be 'sort of ok', but there was also quite a bit of variance. Some didn't like it at all on the border of genuine hostility, but some liked it tremendously. It's fine by me and I actually prefer some of these extremities to a lukewarm 'sort of ok' response. My favorite streak on the album is tracks 2 to 5: "Settle For The Second", "Emperor's New Clothes", "Nothing Will Be The Same" and "Stalemate". And your new album Innerstellar from earlier this year. "iNNERSTELLAR" is also a concept album with eight tracks, but the conceptual theme is not as strong as on "the second best". I've described it as being 'an interstellar trip deep into the innerspace'. The theme is more musical than conceptual anyway, so it's open to broader interpretations. I really like "iNNERSTELLAR" and regard it the best I've made so far. It certainly has the strongest songs and I like the flow of the album. I don't think there's a song in there that I don't like. The album is not perfect, there are quite a lot of things regarding sound and production I would do differently right now. There's always the next release. The response to "iNNERSTELLAR" so far has been along the lines of "the second best". The critical opinion could be summed up as 'nothing spectacular' but there are those who have appreciated it a whole lotta more. My favorites on the album are "Dance Of The Pleiades", "Stellar Override", "Black Hole Of Your Soul", "Turn Away Into The Sun" and "I Saw The Flames Of Orion". For those of us unknown with your music; how would you describe you music and which bands would you compare yourself with ? Well, my description is 'instrumental progressive rock with a slight leaning to metal'. I know it's pretty vague but honestly I've always found it difficult to describe or sum up my music. In reviews the music has been widely categorized as neoprog, which I guess is a good basic description if in need of labels. I would encourage anyone interested enough to check out the mp3's from my site www.lowbudgetmusic.com and let the music do the talking. The first answer tells something about my influences, but I don't really like to compare my music to others that much. In reviews there have been lots of comparisons to artists that I've hardly heard, let alone listened to. Some of these come as a surprise, but I have no problems with it. I'm more than willing to let others do the comparing. What have you been up to since the release of the Innerstellar album, what is your current status and what are your plans for this year and beyond ? I have been writing loads of new music after the release of "iNNERSTELLAR". I usually require some sort of higher plan or theme for the album to really get on a roll to write music and I came up with a great concept to the album in the late summer of 2011. This has been very helpful in making the actual music and in shaping the future release. But as I tend to spend a lot of time making these records it's too early to tell anything concrete about the next one really. Other than it is definitely shaping up and coming up. To wrap up this interview, is there anything you want to add to this interview ? Check out the music on my site www.lowbudgetmusic.com. And if you like it, please say hello, my email is mikko@lowbudgetmusic.com. Other than that, thanks so much for this interview! Thank you to Mikko for this interview The PA profile is here and the homepage is here toroddfuglesteg2012-01-16 05:57:09

Tulitera

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 05:30:20 EST

Interview made by toroddfuglesteg — TULITER� is an instrumental Progressive Metal band from Helsinki, Finland. The band was formed in 2006 by Vesa PARTTI and Hannu WILLMAN. Starting from improvisational live jams, the band gradually changed the focus to a more songwriting-based approach, offering a mix of groovy instrumental Progressive Metal with 70's Space-Rock. The band released two singles/EPs so far, "Alpha" in 2008 and "Clarity" in 2010. I got in touch with the band and Vesa Partti answered my questions.###################################################################################### When and by whom was your band born ? Did any of you, past and present members, play in any other bands before joining up in your band ? Why did you choose that name and which bands were you influenced by ? I'd say Tuliter� was formed in summer of 2006. That's when we wrote and performed our first songs that you can still hear in our live-sets such as Jagat, New Clarity or The Cosmic Cavalcade. Before that I [Vesa Partti - guitars & synths] was busy with my ambient project Sadkarma, in which Tommi Nissinen [drums] also played, and we only occasionally had jams with our band trio, which included Tommi Tolonen [bass]. I guess we had that trio going on since 2003 or 2004, but it was more of a 'friends-get-together' than actual band. Hannu Willman [guitar], with whom I had an another music project going on, joined us 2008 and that's when we also started to call our band Tuliter�. The name 'Tuliter�' was originally given to my and Willman's ambient rock whatever project. Since we didn't continue it, but really liked the name, we gave it to the band. It's Finnish and a play on words. It means 'a brand new' but literally it translates as 'fireblade'. When we came up with the name, we had a good laugh and though it to sound 'metal clich�y' enough to be memorable thus brilliant name for a band. I don't see us being directly influenced by any band or artist. I'd like to think that everything that is good in music influences. It's also very important for me to have music to reflect wanted moods. Let's just say that I tend to favor space rock, kraut rock, all sorts of ambience, movie soundtracks, Klaus Schulze, Tangerine Dream, Devin Townsend, Fredrik Thordendal solo, Pink Floyd etc etc. Finland has traditionally had a strong music scene. How is life and the music scene in Finland now ? Maybe nowadays here's too much small bands like us in a small Helsinki competing of live audience and with our instrumental music sailing between ambience and metal riffs it's really hard to fit in. And mostly it seems that 'sludge' is the biggest thing going on anyways. Over to your two albums. Your debut album was the Alpha album from 2008. Please tell us more about this album. I started recording Alpha EP with Willman at april 2008 at my homestudio. At this point Willman had joined Tuliter� but as a band we were having a long break because we didn't have a practice place at that moment. So I saw it a good opportunity to try to arrange our jams into a more tighter songs and try to compose new ones. Alpha EP was finally released at december and got great reviews. Both small prints were sold out in a couple of months. No new prints are coming 'cause all songs will be featured on our first long play. The follow up album Clarity was released last year. Please tell us more about this album. I was sure which of our songs will end up to the album [we have lots of songs!] and which will be left out so I thought why not to release the recorded "b-sides" already at this point. Clarity features 3 "b-sides" and 1 album track. It was a small print which sold out really fast and we haven't made another. We've received lots of queries will there be a 2nd print, but I can't overcome the thought that why would we promote ourselves with a b-side collection? Maybe when the album is released and I've finished the 4th "b-side" there could be some sort of EP or something. By the way, New Clarity is officially the first written Tuliter� song. For those of us unfamiliar with your music; how would you describe you music ? Tuliter� is about 7-string guitars, 5-string basses, vintage synths, modern synths, guitar synths, groovy riffs and drum patterns, ambient soundtracks, laser guns, speed of light, Cthulhu and Aliens! or to put it simple: We play Space Rock Metal with a little touch of ambience. What have you been up to since the release of that album and what is your plans for the immediate future ? Since Clarity EP, we've been playing some gigs at Helsinki and working on our long play. Right now we are re-recording rhythm guitars, bass and drums at City Lights Studio. We have finished four tracks and will record the rest five this coming spring. Then begins the infernal mixing period. Hopefully the album comes out next winter via some channel. To wrap up this interview, is there anything you want to add to this interview ? Please check out Tuliter�'s Soundcloud page for a good quality stream of both of our EP's. http://soundcloud.com/tulitera and join our facebook group for lates news, videos and new music. Thank you to Vesa for this interview Their PA profile is here and their homepage is here toroddfuglesteg2012-01-16 05:32:12

Osanna

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 02:35:06 EST

Interview made by toroddfuglesteg — OSANNA is classic seventies Italian prog. The basis of their sound is original heavy guitar rock often in combination with amazing flute solos. Additionally, more spacey, Pink Floydian parts and quiet interludes with acoustic guitar and flute can be heard as well. There are plenty of mood changes and surprises that make this music very dynamic and interesting. I got in touch with Lino Vairetti through Fabrizio di Vicino of Psych Up Melodies and here is the Osanna story. ################################# When was Osanna born, were any of you involved in any other bands before you joined up in Osanna, which bands were you influenced by and why did you choose that name ? The name of my first band in the '60s was "I Volti di Pietra", soon after with Danilo Rustici, Massimo Guarino, Gianni Leone and Lello Brandi, we became "Citt� Frontale" ( first formed in 1969 ). Regarding Osanna, It all started by the end of 1970 when in a small underground club, the Quick, located in the area of Vomero, took place the fatal meeting between Elio D'Anna (flute and saxophone player who had shortly came out from the Showmen band ), and the band Citt� Frontale, whose singer was Lino Vairetti, together with Danilo Rustici (guitar), Massimo Guarino (drums), Lello Brandi (bass guitar), Gianni Leone (keyboards). Elio was there together with Tony Esposito and Sas� Petrone, with whom was looking for new members to set up a new band, he was there lo listen to their concert and was litteraly stroke by their sound and peculiarity of their songs (wrote exclusively by Lino and Danilo). The band needed a new member staff to replace Gianni Leone, who transferred his music aspirations into the band Balletto di Bronzo, so they did a proposal for becoming a new member of the band to Elio, who after some disconcert an wavering for a while towards the members he should have left, by the end thanks to their energy and progressive repertoire succeeded to capture him and he finally decided to accept. Soon after the new line up had been set up they started to rehearsal, their sound was very crude, dynamic and explosive, it became so captivating that in few months, they had as much stuff to produce at least 3 L.P. A new name was chosen: Osanna, the only name who found everybody's agreement. The first concert was on February 71' in Naples in a club in called Spry Pan. On all the posters there was written: Elio D'anna + Citt� Fr.. Osanna. Afterwards they performed as supporter band to Arthur Brown concert, where several plaudits and positive feedback were obtained, all this confirmed that it was the right time for a jump in quality and face the discography world. Tough Naples, city full of talents and artists, was and still represents, the total denial for producing quality music. Let's go straight to your debut album. Please tell us more about L'uomo from 1971 The very few existing discography labels were attentive only to Neapolitan music and very often was the result of a cheap subculture. Elio by the way succeeded in persuading the ABC Record owner: Mr Bideri, (Neapolitan music editor and discography publisher well known at that time) he believed in their production, and that's how their recording in Naples studio's was achieved, giving as a result the first LP of the Osanna. Unfortunately, time run by and Bideri was not making a breakthrough for letting the L.P. sorting out, he was too much concerned it would have been a dead stock. Some extraordinary job was stucked and let rottening. Nevertheless the band was determined and longing to burst, so did not give up, they secretly took some first recording done and went to Milano were various record companies heard their work, at last somebody was carefully and sensitively listening to their works. Consensus were good, while waiting for their reactions at the same time new glimmers arrived through the acquaintance of Pino Tuccimei and Renzo Arbore who listened to their concerts in different pop contests (among which the famous Terme di Caracalla in Rome, who acted as a real springboard for the band), they were addressed to the 1st Viareggio New Trends and Progressive Music Festival, were their success was established as winners, together with the band Premiata Forneria Marconi and the singer Mia Martini, they did a great music and spectacular performance. The record companies who attended the show, were stroke both by their music and by their impressing theatrical aspect, everybody was taking on the challenge to get in touch with them, after a ping-pong game with the CGD, the Fonit Cetra got the better, offering them, thanks to Massimo Bernardi, their first producer, a very advantageous contract. In June 71' in Fonit Cetra studio's in Milano, was accomplished completely ex novo the LP L'Uomo that after few months confirmed how successful was the band, assigning them the Italian Record Company Critic Prize Please tell us more about your second album Milano Calibro 9 from 1972 "Preludio, Tema, Variazioni e Canzona" is surely an original work although bounded to the film "Milano Calibro 9" . The film and the album were indeed two parallels yet independt paths. Not the whole album is comprised in the film soundtrack, nonetheless, in the original soundtrack there are only "Preludio" and "Tema", plus other lesser fragments that are not comprised in the album. Osanna with Luis Bacalov (great argentinian composer and orchestra director) did play at Rome the film soundtrack alone. In 1972 when in Milan, we begun another session of recordings, more arrangements and inedits as the seven "Variazioni" and "There will be time", the result was "Preludio, Variazioni e Canzona", our second LP. Please tell us more about your third and classic album Palepoli from 1972 In 73' it was the time for Palepoli, milestone of the Osanna production, from which the homonym musical, with mimes, dancers and actors, the musical had been touring in the main theatres all around Italy, it was the first and unique rock opera. Please tell us more about your fourth album Landscape Of Life from 1974 Landscape of Life in 74' was the last production achieved for this extraordinary and legendary band. During those four years of activity, thousands of concerts, television interventions, theatre tours, the band stood out as one of the major International Progressive Rock band. Experienced press, books and encyclopaedia are nowadays still careful to the repertory they proposed in the past. The Osanna resolved in 75'. Please tell us more about your fifth album Suddance from 1978 After few disco graphic experiences lived with the Fonit Cetra with different lining up among which: Citt� Frontale - El Tor with Lino and Massimo, Uno and Nova with Danilo and Elio, in 1978 the band was coming up together again with a different lining-up: Lino, Danilo and Massimo and two new members: Fabrizio d'Angelo (keyboards) and Enzo Petrone (bass guitar), who was replacing Elio d'Anna and Lello Brandi. With this new lining-up a new L.P. was published, Suddance, recorded, mixed in Naples in Splash, Peppino di Capri recording studio's. Once again the Osanna had assigned the Italian Record Company Critic Prize, further to the Best rock band prize for the Annuario Discografico in 1987. The band will not last longer due to some new organizational and economic challenges. The Osanna could not find the right space to experience good quality music in Italy, waiting for a new international event that was not about to come, by the end of 1979 they stopped again. And then there was a twenty years long break. What happened ? Danilo moved to Boston, were he stayed steadily, while Lino conceived a new music - theatre- dance organization, producing different musicals among them, El-Tor and several music events thus far. In the last few years Lino and Danilo, among other productions at the same time have nourished their artistic union communicating by writing letters and after by data transmission. Always moved by the will to carry on the interrupted discussion, in 1999, 20 years after Suddance, at the threshold of a new millennium, they accomplished the new project: Osanna 2000. Some kind of anthology tribute with a new music production in tune with current technologies and sounds. Please tell us more about your comeback album Taka Boom from 2001 After several line up changes, the only one in beliveing in the new project have been the promoter themselves Lino, Danilo and Enzo that together with Gennaro Barba, Vito Ranucci, Gigi Borgogno and Luca Urciuolo recorded the CD Taka Boom dropped out in 2001, 30 years later their birth. The live tribute of the Osanna has been offered by other talented musician who did the story of Italian Prog, such as: Vittorio de Scalzi of the New Trolls, Francesco Di Giacomo and Rodolfo Maltese of the Banco, Jenny Sorrenti, Patrizio Fariselli of the Area with Antonio Onorato, Gianni Leone of the Balletto di Bronzo, Enzo Avitabile, Aldo Tagliapietra and Michi de Rossi of the Orme and Peter Hammill. Also contributed to their CD: Carlo Avitabile, Gino Evangelista, Andrea Palazzo, Ciccio Merolla, Elio Eco, and special guest Enzo Avitabile, who offered some mind-blowing performance for his artistic and vocal sensibility. CDs and DVDs have been produced by Afrak� for RAI TRADE, distributed by BTF, is the first and unique collection with the most significant tracks recorded by the Osanna in the 70', as Historic Anthology Tribute. Tracklist for this album is: " L'uomo" "Ce vulesse ce vulesse (Ce vulesse/Canta cchi� forte)" "Medley acustico (Oro caldo/My mind flies/L'amore vincer� di nuovo)" "Taka boom" "In un vecchio cieco/Vado verso una meta" "There will be time" "Medley train (Mirror train/Treno senza stagione)" "'A zingara" "Oro caldo (Fuje 'a chistu paese)" "Everybody's gonna see you die" "Colpi di tosse (Tropp/Ho scritto una canzone)" "L'uomo" Please tell us more about your most recent album Osanna & David Jackson - Prog Family from last year. This was the following new and final 2011 line-up "Prog Family Tour": Lino Vairetti (Voice & Acoustic Guitar), Gennaro Barba (Drums), Nello D'Anna (Bass), Pasquale Capobianco (Electric Guitar), Sas� Priore (Piano & Keyboards), Irvin Luca Vairetti (Back Vocals & Programming). Special guest: David Jackson (sax and flute) Gianni Leone (Hammond organ) This is the ultimate and permanent Osanna Line up which fully seize the spirit of the historical band, but this time with a renewed dynamic and passionate enthusiasm. David Jackson integrated himself perfectly, and since ever he has been feeling as being part of the band and not as a simple guest. This new work, lived with the same passion, is both for me and for the band an ultimate homage to the old Line Up, a kind of a bridge to get to new musical paths. In fact all songs have been rearranged as they were new ones since they result as sounding very current, recovering nevertheless, the vintage sound of the 12 strings guitar, in the use of the sinth, but mainly in David Jackson's flute and sax sound, that once belonged to Elio d'Anna. The new band, besides me and David as historical members of the '70 prog/rock scene, is made up by great young musicians, who have given back to the Osanna sound it's previous strenght and energy. A band who express itself strongly on stage Just to give those who are unknown with your music a bit of a reference point or two: How would you describe your music ? I believe that Italian music had always been relevant and well know in the whole wordl and what has been created within the progressive rock movement in seventies retained its greatness and spirit. The italian prog is a blend of hard rock with classical melodies and folkloristic heritages of the several countries of Italy. We tried to give new life to the traditional neapolitan music (which is our roots and our history), while maturing at the same time a precise and strong identity that would allow us to be spotted amongst thousand of progressive formations from other parts of the world. There is also a new generation of excellent bands in Italy who sites Osanna as one of their main inspirations. Which one of the new bands do you like best and what is your view on the new Rock Progressivo Italiano scene ? I have started "Afrak�", my distinctive brand as producer of musical events and label activities...i have spotted so far many young talents, and managed to organize a large number of concerts so far. Osanna is an Afrak� production currently, but please visit us to spot other talents which i have met in my artistic endeavours. What is your plans for next year ? My musical future is bounded probably to what i have done before and i am still doing, but i am willing to give more voice to the traditional neapolitan culture. I hope to record soon a new album within a Musical, which merge progressive rock with neapolitan "tarantelle" and "tammuriate". A new kind of "neapolitan progressive rock"! To wrap up this interview, is there anything you want to add to this interview ? I would like to thank Fabrizio di Vicino of Psych Up Melodies and Torodd of Progarchives for this exhaustive interview, and above all, the followers of Osanna around the world, please check also the activities of Afrak� frequently !! Cheers!! Thank you to Lino for this interview & thank you to Fabrizio for helping me out The PA profile is here and the homepage is here toroddfuglesteg2012-01-14 09:18:09

Vialka

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 11:13:11 EST

Interview made by toroddfuglesteg — Vialka is a French avant-progressive band in the Rock in Opposition vein. Their music is a great mixture of genres and influences such as folk, rock, punk (in their musical "attitude", mostly) and Balkan music, notably. Formed in 2002, Vialka consists of Marylise Frecheville and �ric Boros. I got in touch with them and Eric answered my questions. ################################################################################ When, where and by whom was your band born? Did any of you, past and present members, play in any other bands before joining up in your band? Why did you choose that name? Marylise Frecheville and I, Eric Boros, started playing as a duo in 2002 (Jacopo Andreini played saxophone and trumpet at our first shows and on our first recording). Prior to that we played in a trio called NNY. We chose the name Vialka because it is short, doesn't have any obvious meaning, and because it will always remind us of a very extreme experience. What is the Vialka musical ethos and philosophy? To express ourselves in the most honest way possible, to play to the best of our abilities, and to use our music as a tool for communication, interaction, and travel. Over to your five albums. Your debut album Tonight I Show You f**k was released in 2002. Please tell us more about this album. We recorded this album in Koper, Slovenia, with Jacopo - who also played sax and trumpet on it. The cover art comes from a drawing found in a squat we used to live in. This was our first experiment with the bass guitar and drums duo base, and was still relatively basic. When we played these songs live, there was a sort of naive theatre/dialogue that went on in between them. Your second album Curiosities of Popular Customs was released in 2004. Please tell us more about this album. 2005 actually, and we had previously released a mini-CD (packaged as a passport) called "The Repuplic Of The Bored & Boring" in 2003. "Curiosities Of Popular Customs" was our first recording with Bob Drake, and our first on which I play the baritone guitar. Nikolai Kopeikin did the cover art, and the recording took place in between tours in Eastern Europe and Portugal/Spain. We released a DVD called "Everywhere And Nowhere" documenting our first five years together around the same time. Your third album Vialka / Kruzenshtern I Parohod was released in 2005. Please tell us more about this album. 2006 actually, we recorded this one in Israel with Udi Koomran, at the end of a three-month tour across Asia and Australia. Igor Krutogolov did the cover art. We met Kruzenshtern i Parohod in Vilnius (on my birthday) in 2004 and have remained close friends with them. We are currently working on a collaboration, and have recorded five songs together in Tel Aviv last September. Your fourth album Plus vite que la musique was released in 2007. Please tell us more about this album. This was our second recording with Bob Drake, and I think we had a better understanding of working together with him. We wrote and recorded these songs during Marylise's pregnancy. Coleen Kinsella of Big Blood and Cerberus Shoal did the cover art. Your fifth and most recent album Succ�s plan�taire international was released in 2009. Please tell us more about this album. Again, recorded by Bob Drake, this album features guest performances by friends of ours: Crank Sturgeon, Xiao He, Andrew Dymond, Fran�ois Marcziniak and Cyrielle Faure. DualPlover helped us release it in Australia, and Rachel Lowther did the cover art. This is not actually our most recent release, as we put out a new studio album called "La Poursuite de l'Excellence", and a lo-fi acoustic album called "Science & Superstition" in the last year. How would you describe your musical development from your debut album to your most recent album? I think that our individual techniques have improved, and we have explored influences discovered during our travels. We've also learned a lot about studio recording from our experience with Bob. The most important development in my opinion however, has been learning how to grow, experiment, compose, and continue to find inspiration playing together as a duo after all these years. Your music has been described as RIO. But how would you describe you music and which bands would you compare yourself with? To be honest, I totally disassociate myself from musical genres and styles. This one aspect of our group philosophy, and I think that it has helped us to play for and be listened to by many totally different audiences. It is an honour to be taken into consideration by the RIO audience, as they definitely have high standards. You are also touring a lot. How is Vialka live? Our approach to playing live is different from recording. Energy, humour, movement and unpredictability are all elements of a good Vialka performance. Imperfection as well! We've put much effort into making our studio recordings interesting to listen to, but they are by no means intended to be a replication of a live performance. A Vialka live performance is something that can only be understood and enjoyed in person at that precise moment, which to me reveals another part of our philosophy - we must live life to the fullest and enjoy every moment! Somehow, the plethora of poor-quality YouTube videos of our concerts online only seems to further prove this inaccessibility to reproduction and demonstrate the necessity of just being there. What is your latest update, what is your plans for this year and beyond ? 2011 was a busy year for us: we released two albums, recorded with Kruzenshtern i Parohod, and still managed to play 129 concerts in 22 countries! In 2012 we will be following up on these projects with another recording and concerts with Kruzenshtern i Vialka, a tour in India with the SolarSoundSystem, and Vialka tours in Britain, China, Siberia, and who knows where else! To wrap up this interview, is there anything you want to add to this interview ? We would like to extend our most extreme gratitude to everyone who has supported us over the years. Thank you for the interview. Thank you to Eric for this interview The PA profile is here and the homepage is here toroddfuglesteg2012-01-13 11:20:02

Trettioariga Kriget

Sat, 7 Jan 2012 12:50:53 EST

Interview made by toroddfuglesteg — Legendary Swedish heavy-progressive who released 6 albums between 1974 and 1992 (plus a retrospective in 1996) and who plan to release a new album in fall 2003. However, the only addition to the normal guitar, bass and drums instrumentation is some mellotron here and there. It�s musical excellence with plenty of extended gratuitous guitar jams and very intricate lyrics. I�d like to recommend this band to everyone but since the lyrics are in swedish and such a big part of the music perhaps some might not understand it. In several ways, TRETTIOARIGA KRIGET ("The 30-year War" in English) can be compare to ANGLAGARD and LANDBERK to sense their influence. I got in touch with Stefan and here is their story.###################################################################################Your biography has been covered in your ProgArchives profile so let's bypass the biography details. But which bands were you influenced by and why did you choose that name and which war does your band name refers to ? Founder guitarist, Pocke �hrstr�m, and I were in the same class in high school. After a history lesson covering Trettio�riga kriget(Thirty Years War) we both found that this name was perfect for the band. The reason was that it sounded both powerful and Swedish. Which is how we wanted the band to sound. It took some time to convince the other members but in the end they agreed. Trettio�riga kriget was big war in Europe in the 17th century when Sweden was at it�s height of European power having a large portion of Europe under it�s control. Of course that war meant that Sweden lost lot of it�s control but that�s another story. From the start I would say that we were heavily influenced by the obscure American proto-prog band "Touch" and King Crimson�s first album. But also by Deep Purple, Pink Floyd and to some extent some American west coast bands like the "Grateful Dead" and "Mothers of Invention". Both of those bands had two drummers which we used in our first lineup. When you appeared onto the scene, the music scene in Sweden was sharply divided into the progg movement around MNW/Hoola Bandoola Band and the commercial folkpark and the ABBA scene. Where did you fit into this picture ? The Swedish progg movement should not be mixed up with the international prog movement with one g!! The Swedish progg movement was heavy politicized and didn�t have so much to do with with expanding and developing music though it started in the late sixties with more musical bands like "Hansson & Karlsson", "Mecki Mark Men" "Tr�d, Gr�s och Stenar". In the 70s though it got very dogmatic criticizing bands like us and Kaipa for putting too much emphasis on the music and having too poetic lyrics!! It�s almost unbelievable now how it could be like this! We were in a way in the middle of these two movements. Or maybe didn�t belong to any of them. We were of course recording on a big multinational record label (Sony) but on the other hand shared some of the values of the progg movement. We played gigs both in the more commercial Folkparks and discos but also on the more non-commercial progg venues often called "Musikforum". Though some of these venues banned us for not being political enough in our lyrics!!! This is an archive based interview also intended for the fans you get well after both you and I have passed away so let's go straight to your albums. Please tell us more about..... Trettio�riga Kriget from 1974 As with many debutalbums the songs had been played and tested live before the recording many times except for the second track "R�ster fr�n minus till plus" which I and Olle wroite just before the recording sessions because we didn�t have enough material. We had signed with CBS (now Sony) and they provided us with a producer who we all felt was not necessary but more in the way. The first and last time we used a producer. The album was very well received and gave us the opportunity to start touring in Scandinavia. I think it has stood the test time of time very well and I still like it except for maybe the bad sound and production. Some critics has named it the first Swedish hard rock or progmetal album!! Krigss�ng from 1976 By many regarded as our "masterpiece". It contains what I regard as mine and TKs best song "Krigss�ng". Covered by among others the Swedish prog band "�nglag�rd". A few months before the recording was due to start only half of of the album was written. I remember getting the idea of the long suite "Krigss�ng II" and working very hard with writing it in the months before the recording was due to start.. The recording went very smoothly. We recorded in the summer and it was very hot in Stockholm I remember. The album holds up very very well today and still sounds incredibly good which has to be credited to our engineer, Peter In de Betou". This was the first album that reached beyond Sweden and was released in England where it got a super review in Melody Maker, the number one music paper in the 70s. Later I also learned that it was played on American college radio to some extent. Something we knew nothing about in the 70s!! Hej P� Er from 1978 End of 1976 we were back home from a highly successful English tour only to find we we got the boot from CBS. So suddenly we were with out record deal In the end we signed with a small Swedish indie label, "Mistlur". Recording took place in the summer of 1978 in our rehearsal room in Saltsj�baden using a mobile recording equipment/bus. The songs on this album were shorter since I felt I could not go any further with long songs after "Krigss�ng II". It contains many live favorites like "En kv�ll hos X", "Hej p� er", "Dagspress" and the two instrumentals "Moln p� marken" and "Andra sidan" which recently has been sampled by American hip hop artist "DJ Shadow" with our permission,. The titletrack also almost made it into the Swedish Top Ten which felt unreal at the time. Also our best selling album in the 70s. Mot Alla Odds from 1979 In my view almost a complete failure. Some fractions inside the band wanted a more "new wave" approach which I and Chris strongly opposed. I was also opposed to the "democratic" idea that all of the others should get one song each on the album no matter the quality. I have to admit though that also many of my songs are not up to standard. The album does not sound good either. Badly produced. Hardly any overdubs on it. I remember we used one week only to get the drum sound right..I think the album sounds dated and the songwriting is below standard.. In my view the worst album from TK and one which I deeply regret. Even the cover is awful since Johan (TK artwork) was having a depression and could�t do it. To our defense it could be added that the record label after the success with "Hej p� er" was pushing us very much for a quick follow up. To which we obviously were not ready only a year after "Hej p� er" was recorded. It contains a few good tracks though like "Hur st�r det till" and the title track. Kriget from 1981 After the "Mot alla odds" tour spirit int the band was low. The tour saw audiences getting smaller and the album was poorly received. During a band meeting Robert decided he wanted to leave. This meant I had to take over all the vocals for the forthcoming album "Kriget". By no means a perfect album but still a kind of back to form album.. Contains some very strong songs like "Europa" and "Som f�rut" which we have been playing live even recently. Though by some strange reason two of the best songs "Om Kriget kommer" and "H�ghus" were left out of the album. Though later released on the compilation "War memories". Then you took a very long break. Why this long break and what were the band members up to during this break ? In 1981 after the "Kriget" album tour we actually split. Dag didn�t wanna continue and the rest of us felt we couldn�t continue without him being a founder member. The last tour didn�t feel so good either and I think basically we had run out of steam after a very intense 7 years with extensive touring and five albums. During the break I released a solo album and some singles under the name "Fredin Comp". Dag worked a lot in his studio both as an engineer and producer for many Swedish artists. Chris recorded a single with a group called "George T. Rolin Band" and also toured with them. Then of course he stopped playing for some years devoting his time to computers, Robert made an album with Roine Stolt from Kaipa called "Fantasia". Then formed his own cover band.. Mats formed a duo with founder TK guitarist Pocke �hrst�m called "Tredje Mannen". They released 3 albums and toured Sweden during the 80s. I cannot give the reason for the long break really. There were discussions during the years obviously. One big reason for not reforming earlier of course was that Chris had stopped playing for some years. You returned again around the new millenium. Why did you reform again and how was it to get together again ? It was a gradual process. In 1992 to coincide with the release of "Krigss�ng" on CD, I, Dag and Robert did and acoustic gig in Stockholm. Chris had not started playing again then so Reine Fiske (Landberk, Dungen) was sitting in for him. In 1996 we did 2 reunion shows in Sweden but did not follow them up. In 2001 I, Dag and Chris started to rehearse again trying our new material thinking we we could could use one or two new songs on a forthcoming compilation album. Then of course finding out that we actually were working on a new TK album. In the studio we of course called Robert and Mats in again. Over to the new albums again. Please tell us more about... Elden Av �r from 2004 Originally we were only intending to record two songs for a compilation album but in the studio found out that we actually were working on a new album. Especially since we found a few unfinished songs from the 70s which we completed and recorded again (the "Elden av �r suite). The main songs like "L�ng historiia, "Ljuset" and Gnistor were written during the recording of the album though. I think I have to mention Johan Gullbergs fantasic cover too which really reflects the mood of the music and time. Glorious War from 2004 Recorded in 1970- 71 by the original line up of TK but not released until 2004. We actually didn�t do any editing or change in the original master, except for the usual mastering of course. Despite it�s flaws I think the album has a strong atmosphere all the way through. I also have to credit Stefan Dimle on Mellotronen for convincing us to release the album. We were very sceptic in the beginning feeling the album was not up to standard. I mean.. we were only between 16- 18 years old when we did the album on a 2-track Revox recorder. Now I feel of course that we took the right decision to release it. I B�rjan Och Slutet from 2007 I wanted to do a concept album with shorter tracks/songs linked together by common atmosphere both in music and lyric. Olle agreed on the idea since we had never tried this format before. We worked a lot really on the songwriting and getting the flow and atmosphere right. I personally think it�s a very strong TK album including 2 of our best songs ever; "Benke" and the title track"I b�rjan och slutet". And your new album Efter Efter The third and last album in the trilogy starting with "Elden av �r" and "I b�rjan och slutet" Not a concept album like "I b�rjan och slutet" but more 8 different songs forming an unity. It�s also nice that both Dag and Chris for the first time since the 70s each contributed a new song. I think it contains some strong tracks like "Barnet" and the instrumental "The Dance", though maybe the album still is too new to have the right perspective on it. How would you describe your music and which bands would you compare yourself with ? Difficult..of course it is progressive rock.maybe with a heavy edge. Sometimes you could say it�s prog- metal. The bands that influenced us in the beginning were bands like King Crimson, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Yes but also for me earlier American psychedelic bands like Jefferson Airplane, Love, Grateful Dead, Spirit, Moby Grape , Touch, Doors, Frank Zappa etc. Your vocals are in Swedish. It seems to be a bias towards English and US bands in the scene now. Do you feel that the Swedish lyrics and your nationality been a problem for your career or has it been an advantage for you ? How difficult is it for a non English/US band to break into the scene ? Being a Swedish or a non English/ US band is clearly a disadvantage in terms of reaching an audience, Singing in Swedish is of of course also a minus factor though I personally prefer bands singing in their mother tongue than in some bad English, Being progressive rock of course also means that a lot of the music is instrumental anyway. We also have English translations of the lyrics in the covers of our albums. But it�s also that the English and US bands have all this music business infrastructure built up during decades. If you make it big in US/ UK you make it big all over the world. This is not the case if you make it in Sweden or Romania or whatever..this is not fair of course.It also means that a lot of great music gets lost to a wider audience. In the progressive world right now I think many European bands are much more interesting than their English counterparts. Bands like "Lazuli" (France), "After Crying" (Hungary) and "Kotebel" (Spain) decerves much bigger attention I think. For us having toured UK in the 70s and having especially the "Krigss�ng" album being played on US college radio in the 70s it has not been so much of a problem. We have played several times in the US in the last 6 years and have many fans both in the UK and especially US. [TUBE]4Lh0a_q3y0U[/TUBE] How is the creative processes in your band from coming up with an idea to it's being recorded ? Being the main songwriter I usually present a song or an idea to Olle (lyricist). If he gets off on the idea and the melody he takes it home to work on the lyric. It can happen that I get the lyric first but most often I present the music first. I then take the song to the band who comes up with suggestions for arrangements. When we rehearse new material it�s only myself, Dag and Chris present (guitar, bass and drums). Robert and Mats comes in at later stage when we have done the basic arranging/ recording. What is your current status and what is your plans for this year and beyond ? 2011 has been very intense with both a new album and doing shows in different parts of the world. At the moment (January 2012) we are having a break. In the pipeline for 2012 is probably some shows in the fall which yet has to be confirmed. We are also planning a DVD though it will not be released until 2013/14. 2014 is the 40th anniversary of our selftitled debutalbum so we hope to do some special things during that year. And who knows..maybe a new album further down the line.. I am also planning a soloalbum for release sometime 2012/13. To wrap up this interview, is there anything you want to add to this interview ? I wanna thank all our fans and friends around the world for the fantastic support through the years!! This has meant everything to us!!! When we started recording "Elden av �r" in 2003 we honestly didn�t know if anyone would be interested . But this trip through the years with TK has been really amazing and especially this last part after the reunion. Thanks so much all of you! [TUBE]5ra-9RH5Rz0[/TUBE] Thank you to Stefan for this interview Their PA profile is here and their homepage is here toroddfuglesteg2012-01-07 12:54:10

Third Eye

Wed, 4 Jan 2012 04:50:05 EST

Interview made by toroddfuglesteg — THIRD EYE are a progressive metal act from Odense, Denmark. They were formed in 2003 by a group of students at a local music school. One of their teachers joined the band. Their style is a heavy progressive metal along the lines of SYMPHONY X and ANUBIS GATE, but with less focus on power metal and more on groove and thrash elements. They released a demo in 2005 and started working on their debut album in 2008, but it was not released until May 2010. I got in touch with Michael for the story.#############################################################################When and by whom was your band born ? Did any of you, past and present members, play in any other bands before joining up in your band ? Why did you choose that name and which bands were you influenced by ?The band was formed in 2003. I was teaching Music at a school and I had a bunch of really talented pupils. One day I asked Martin Damgaard (drums), Thomas Kuhlmann (guitar) and Andreas Schumann (bass), if they would try out some songs I made, and the songs has never sounded better. The band was a reality. In 2007 Per Johansson (vocals) joined the band and last Simon Krogh (keys) entered in 2009. We all had bands before, and some still have. Simon plays in a Deep Purple cover band called Highway Star, Martin and I played Black Sabbath/Ozzy cover in Sweet Leaf, Thomas had a cover band with pop and rock music and Andreas played in some crazy sailor band. Per was a vocalist for Fate in many years and a lot of other bands as well and also have a band called Ureas with his wife. For my own part, I have played in several bands through the eighties and nineties, among others Prophets of Doom and Northern Empire.Third Eye was a name I came up with almost immediately after the band started. I took some time thinking it over, but in the end we all agreed that the name matched the music. We all have different musical influences, but we have a center in prog. Metal. We all like prog bands such as Symphony X, Dream Theater (the older stuff), Scar Symmetry and Opeth to mention a few. But we also like Pantera, Iron Maiden, Dio, Black Sabbath and a lot of other great Metal bands. Many of us like other genres too, from rock to fusion and acoustic music.How is the metal scene in Denmark now?The scene is groving very fast, and I must admit that I don�t know half of the bands around, but there is a lot of talent and the scene have never been stronger than it is today.Volbeat is off course a great eye opener for the rest of the world to Danish metal bands, but also Hatesphere, Mercenary and Mnemic has placed Denmark on the map. What we don�t have a lot of is progressive metal bands. A couple worth mentioning though: Anubis Gate, Beyond Twilight and Pyramaze. Your debut album Recipe for Disaster was released last year. Please tell us more about this album.It is an album that has been on its way for many years. Some of the songs are more than 10 years old, but most of the songs were made up to the recording of the album. We worked for a long time with every song till we all were satisfied. It was a strange way we approached the recordings cause we had only heard 5 songs with cue vocals from Per, so when he came and played the songs with vocals we all were blown away. The man just created a wonder! In the eleventh hour we had to let our former keyboard player Rasmus Kostending go. We didn't know what to do, until Per suggested that we could ask Finn Zierler (Beyond Twilight), who was an old friend of the band, if he wouldlike to play some keys on the album. Finn luckily said yes, and he did some amazing stuff on three songs.The rest of the keyboard was played and composed by Tommy Hansen (Jailhouse Studios) who also had a great feeling for our music, and he also mixed the album. - With great Success!For those of us unfamiliar with your music; how would you describe you music ?We try making music that has a story. It is like a journey through darkness, light, evil, joy, sadness and anger and propably much more. We want the music to evolve in the direction that the different parts take us. It is like a painting that we work on until we all are happy with it. If you ask me who we sound like, I would say we are a split between Dream Theater, Symphony X, Psychotic Waltz, Mercyful Fate and Megadeth. But there are a lot of other influences too and if you asked someone else they might give you a whole other description.You are currently working on your new album. What can we expect from this album?The 10 songs on Recipe for Disaster are very diverse, and that you will experience on the next album too. I believe it will be a little heavier, maybe a little more odd time feelings. Some songs will be complex and others more straight ahead, but never boring, that we can promise. We try for every song we make to make it its own.Besides of working on the new album, what is your plans for the immediate future ?We just had a job with Pretty Maids, then we have some live gigs through the winter supporting Danish act Artillery and then we will see what turns up. We have some folks helping us getting some jobs, and it seems like it�s going in the right direction.To wrap up this interview, is there anything you want to add to this interview? We would like to thank all of you people who bought our debut album and all the people who supported us through the years. Thank you for the interest in Third Eye - we wish you all a happy new year!Thank you to Michael for this interview Their PA profile is here and their homepage is here

Edison's Children

Mon, 2 Jan 2012 12:01:40 EST

Interview made by lazland — Edison's Children is a major new project by Eric Blackwood & Pete Trewavas. Their debut album, In The Last Waking Moments, is now available as both download and CD format. Having been part of the team evaluating the project for inclusion on Prog Archives, I got in touch with them, and they very kindly agreed to do this extended interview with me for the site. Eric's responses are in red type and Pete's in blue: Hello guys. First of all, thanks very much for agreeing to an interview on our site. To kick off, can you give us an idea of how the reaction to the project has been? EB: So far the buzz has been simply fantastic, and the CD was only released on the 19th! We expected a bit of a backlash because we did a few things against the normal "prog" grain and figured there would be some unkind words from some super proggies, but they have been very few and far between. I don't think we anticipated this kind of immediate positive reaction across the board. PT: I'm very pleased and very relieved that the people "get it" and what's great is that the people who get it... really get it. I think it's a little bit away from what I have done in the past in terms of alternative projects, and it is perhaps more harder rock at times than my other projects, but I've really been wanting to do something a bit more rocky. Eric comes from more of a harder rock background than I do and it's worked out really, really well. I haven't had any negatives at all, only positives. The album was released only a few days ago... on 12/19, we shipped out all the pre-orders, but the downloads have been available for the past month on edisonschildren.com, racket records (Marillion's website), Amazon and itunes.com. I should mention that edisonschildren.com has turned into a great site thanks to Eric who has been working on it, with lots of little bits on it and more pictures of me, which is always a good thing (laughs).. I was on tour in Europe with Marillion, and I even had some people at the shows wearing the 11.11.11. t-shirt. . The plan had been to release the album on 11.11.11 but it simply couldn't be done on time. We've had some great guest appearances from the other members of my band Marillion, and I think getting that accomplished took priority over the release date which we really wanted to do because it was such a cool thing, but obviously it was more important to finish the album properly. But... Mike Hunter had finished mixing "Dusk" at the time (who had also mixed most of the album) so we put out a special limited edition version of Dusk... a little teaser to let people be aware that it was coming out. Along with your "Trance Remix" of Dusk called "Dusk (The Rising) which was really rather good but wound up not making it to the final cut of the album.. which Eric mastered for us. Thank you Eric! See. it's teamwork!. There's also been a lot of new fan clubs on Facebook started by people like Andy Wright and Annick Gauthier that have drawn tremendous attention to the project as well... where people can go in and talk about us and get their friends to join in. We have some very loyal and passionate fans already on the forums out there... and if they keep on like this... well anything could happen with Edison's Children really. The project started as an idea in 2006, but has taken five years to reach the release stage. Why such a long gap? If you've been listening to us talk then you understand!... The problem is, my partner is the busiest man in Show Business! I really think he's superman working full time with Marillion and Transatlantic and Kino and Robin Boult's wonderful new project. He is Superman... right down to the red undies (and cape). (PT: I'm wearing the red undies now actually... my lucky pair)... very nice! And a good cape. It's important to have a good cape (especially for keyboard players).. And Eric's been more behind the scenes in the movies in New York doing Special FX and Props and all that. He gets to blow up New York every now and again and gets to meet and hang out with some really cool people. Yeah I've been done quite a few of the bigger movies that have come out in recent years... finding time to mesh schedules isn't always easy but we do find the time some how... in and around Pete's touring schedule to get together and write and record. Also the problem is once we start to record something, Eric will tune up a guitar and then start writing something based on something he heard while tuning... or I will be working out an arrangement on his Martin guitar and suddenly write something that Eric will turn around and say... wow that was good, lets record that... and then we're going down another path that we were never supposed to, and we never get around to working on what we were supposed to for that day. We had written nearly an entire album's worth of material in fact, going into the Quebec recording sessions, including a 25 minute song called Silhouette. Eric began to play me something he was working on (which would become Fracture) and I started messing with it a bit and we never wound up working on Silhouette. By the time we came back around to that song... we had written so many songs that fit nicely on the album , that the 25 minute long Silhouette's didn't fit anymore so it wound up on the shelf. That seems to keep happening when we write and there are times that I really want to try and remain focused but we start getting all creative, and writing all over each other, that it is very hard to get a song completed. Eric, however, despite how frustrating that can be, never wants to stop being creative because he always says that the best music writing always comes out of those kind of things ... and he's right in a way. I tend to try and stay on the path and Eric will be noodling with something and the next thing you know ... we've written something else and gone off on another tangent. Like, for instance, we were trying to write Fallout of the 4th Kind and Pete had thought that maybe we should do an acoustic version of the song that keeps appearing in different forms throughout the album. So he began arranging a quiet acoustic piece and there was supposed to be an acoustic guitar lead in the middle and I began playing this little lead guitar lick. Pete thought it would be great for that little bit in Fallout 4, but I kept saying it wanted to be something else, so Pete grabbed a guitar and started playing chords arrangements behind it. We recorded it and he arranged it a bit more and by the end of the day, that little guitar lick turned into A Million Miles Away. It was just trying to find a lick which worked, and five hours later, we had a completely written new song that didn't even exist as an idea during breakfast. And... we never did get Fallout 4 completed in Quebec and it would be months before we finally did accomplish that in Ocean City. The acoustic lead into Fallout 4 meanwhile never happened... by time we got to Ocean City, we had now gone in a completely different direction. Thus to sum it up... this is why it takes us 5 years to write an album (laughs)... We've also spent a lot of time, especially Eric, on making the whole concept come together... not just with the lyrics and things but also with the artwork. Wendy Farrell-Pastore did some great artwork for us and finding the exact photographs to match the moods of the different songs ... (those are actual photographs on the album ... not paintings), that tell the story took a lot of time. Also ... the songs when you do it all yourself take a lot of "librarian work". There were so many versions of songs, from the beginning to the end that it took hours and hours just to keep up with what version of what song had the vocal part that we wanted to use and which had the keys the way we liked them. There are probably 30-40 versions of each one of these songs that get recorded from the beginning of the process to the end, so you can imagine it was quite a bit of tedious work to keep it all tied together. Pete's progressive music background hardly needs any explanation as a member of one of the most influential bands of the past 20-odd years, but I understand that Eric initially started off in metal projects, before "progressing", as it were. Could Eric please give us a resume of his career in music? I do come from a bit of a metal background, as I was one of the founding members of a band that got a bit of press years ago called Crimson Steele. We were under the Twisted Sister umbrella a bit as A.J. Pero's prot�g� was the drummer for the band (not that we ever toured with them), but we did quite a few high profile gigs. I also spent eight years in a three piece band prior to this project called Sunblister with Mike Marchetta and Nick Anson, which was often scouted by A&M and Atlantic. We toured heavily throughout the United States and our music was along the lines of the Deftones, Chevelle, Tool, and Alice in Chains. I actually, a few years into that band, switched to bass guitar as we paired down from a five piece band to a three piece. We played The China Club and Webster Hall and our fan base was a very loyal one. I remember one of NYC's worst blizzards. We tried the cancel a show because of the snow and the promoter refused to do so and insisted we show up... so we went expecting to play in front of the bartender and bus boy, and the place was completely sold out and it was one of the best shows I ever did. I really enjoyed the intensity of it all... there's a great release to playing "in your face" kind of music every night and while it is not what makes me who I am as a musician, you do see it come out quite a bit on things on this record. I really have an appreciation for bands like "A Perfect Circle" that can play a song like The Noose and follow it up with Pet or Three Libras, and then The Hollow... and I think you hear a lot of that side of me coming up with things like Spiraling... followed by something like Lifeline. Despite my harder influences, however... my first album ever I had gotten for Christmas by my heavily Rolling Stones inspired brother Garry, who made the odd choice for me... by getting me Pink Floyd's Animals album instead of the new Rolling Stones record. I was nine years old, and I put Dogs on... and heard Gilmour playing that lead and it really blew my mind. He also bought me Styx' the Grand Illusion which had Tommy Shaw's Man In The Wilderness on it... and the Beatles "White Album"... and music just took on with these three records... a whole new meaning for me. When I was old enough to work and make some money, I spent every penny on buying new music and immediately bought everything Pink Floyd ever made and I began to seek out new things. I found in those new things... Marillion. I had heard Kayleigh playing on U-68's video channel and had seen their album cover for Fugazi, which peaked my interest a few days earlier. After hearing that song I went to the store to buy it and spent quite some time figuring out which album should I buy first with my meagre budget.... and bought both and didn't eat much lunch at work for a week but loved every second of it... and I of course went out and got the rest of the catalogue before long. So while I have been in a lot of "harder" bands most of my life, I was a Pink Floyd/ Marillion/Genesis/Yes fan at heart always... and even got my metal band Crimson Steele to start playing Queensyrche whenever possible. Blinded and The Warning, even No Sanctuary. A lot of Dio... When I finally went solo, I met Anthony Foti, He was listening to Billy Joel and I was listening to Genesis' Entangled. Not exactly from the same mould, but we found some really good common ground and I wrote some good pop tunes with him which got tremendous radio play and versions of it are still getting Grammy pre-nominations to this day. (The actual Grammy Nomination list before they narrow it down to the seven for TV). Our producers Dave Greenberg and Al Greenwood (Foreigner) also got one of my heroes on board at the time, to do the album with us... Al Pitrelli, who had replaced Steve Howe in Asia and played for years with Alice Cooper, Megadeth, and Joe Lynn Turner of Rainbow, and is the founder of Trans-Siberian Orchestra. He is one of those guys who also started in Heavy Metal but did a lot of cross-over into Progressive Rock so I really identified with him. Pitrelli did some amazing lead guitar work on the Haunted Memories album. Aaron Joy, a Heavy Metal columnist for many years that has followed Pitrelli's career, says to this day, that some of Pitrelli's best leads ever came from Blackwood & Foti. It was there... that I finally got a chance to write a few progressive like rock tunes... like Haunted Memories and The Old Man. Haunted Memories was the first song to use the broken Am chording I would again use in things like Dusk and the "Slow Burn" section of the Awakening. There is actually a very hard version of Dusk on "Big Pussy" Vinny Pastore's (The Soprano's) soundtrack LP, Growing Down in Brooklyn, along with a somewhat progressive 70's vamp which was the theme song to that movie which I did the score to. So, yes, I have a history in the louder side of Rock and Roll (.. but nothing draws me in more than haunting music... those creepy 12 string guitar moments by Genesis... "Six saintly shrouded men", that passage before The Guaranteed Eternal Sanctuary Man, and those dark moments of Cinema Show. Going Under by Marillion, Bells for Her by Tori Amos, Long Long Long by the Beatles, the Halloween inspired Empty Cages by Dan Fogelberg, the Dreaming Tree by DMB...I mean... really... that's what draws me in. Listen to Entangled by Genesis during Halloween and you will understand who I am... The project has clearly moved on a great deal from an initial two person collaboration. From listening to the album, I get the impression that this was required in order to bring ideas to their natural sound and conclusion. Is that correct? I'm not so sure that this is correct. The entire album was written, played upon (except for special guests), engineered and produced by just the two of us. There are some really great guest appearances on this record, but those came after the album was already "completed". Once we were ready for mixdown, Mark and H and Rothers and some fantastic Drum work by Ian... that all happened once our ideas had been fully completed and the album was at pre-mixdown stage. There is an entire drum track, for instance, that Pete had written for The Awakening that is all there and is really quite terrific. The thing was that if you can get Ian Mosley to play drums on a track... well, then you certainly take that opportunity. But there was something special about the fact that we got to have the album, turn out exactly as it was in our heads, because we wrote every guitar, keyboard and drum line ourselves (except for the Special Guest sections). Pete Trewavas is a really quite a good arranger, I have to say. He does quite a bit of the arranging for Marillion, in fact, and he is responsible for many of Marillion's songs coming out in the final wash as they do. My father had an old piano that I used to love playing... and one of the things that I used to do was to play a set of chords a certain way... and then play those same chords in a completely different way, and make it sound brighter, and then sadder, then "scary", maybe... My father was a jazz player and I grew up listening to all kinds of great music, like Duke Ellington and it was great to hear growing up all these influences. So I loved to try different arrangements of the same song. I think you have to realize too, that there are parts of this album where you may wonder why did they use a synthetic drum instead of an actual drummer?... and why didn't they get an actual engineer, but you have to realize that Pete has been in bands his entire life. I mean, yes, he's been in many projects outside of Marillion, such as Kino, Transatlantic, and even The Wishing Tree, but realize that it's always a "band scenario". For the first time, Pete got to play the guitar himself when he was inspired by something or the keyboards... not that he doesn't play the guitar in Marillion sometimes, but here it was full creative control to do everything the way we wanted it to be, without having to show it to four other people and then have then approve it or improve it or disprove it. It was a chance to just create and make the drums exactly what we wanted and the keys exactly what we wanted. and even have the spaces between the songs exactly as long as we wanted and the guitars as loud or quiet and the entire process... was what we came up with. And then.... we had some guest appearances to take yet someplace else, but the album was basically complete by then, except for the fact that for Spiraling I had to write a whole new section just for Steve Rothery's part (which came out awesome by the way). It was just very cool to just do it and be creative and whatever came to mind is what you hear. Onto the album. It is a Marillion question first. I think this is the first time that the band have all been involved in a non-band project. How did you persuade them all, and were they "willing" participants? Well they are all good mates really, and after 30 years of working with them and appearing on a lot of their albums like Steve Rothery's "The Wishing Tree" and in the live version of the H Band for awhile, I got to play with some really great players... well they all said yes, so I guess that was all good (plus he was holding a rather large firearm at the time!). A lot of it was Eric's idea, really. Eric has been a part of helping the band in many ways in North America for a lot of years, driving the band back and forth to the gigs, and getting them all safely to their beds at night, and back to the gigs every morning, and I think he has a pretty good relationship with all of them and didn't want any of them to feel "left out"... like it was suddenly all about "me" and not about any of them, who he felt close to as well. I have been responsible as part of a team evaluating the band for inclusion on our site. In our discussions, I described "In The Last Waking Moments" as constituting a smorgasbord of classic prog music, with heavy, and eclectic elements, but, overall, being an album that marks an important evolution in the neo-prog sound and movement. A fair comment? If it's a cheese smorgasbord... featuring various cheddars and stilton's and goudas. Pete loves a good cheese buffet. Yes... plenty of cheese...! Well I think we tried to do lots of different types of music on here, but I think the album sort of led us to do different things in different places. Like sometimes it just felt that things needed to be heavier in certain places and at times more straight forwards, and at times more proggy. In the end it wound up being a combination of Eric and my own styles meshing together and a few things that I think inspired me musically that hopefully people will come back and visit... like bands such as PFM, which was an inspiration to me that maybe after listening to this record, people will go back and want to hear more of, and Caravan "In The Land of the Grey and Pink", and Chris Squire. Eric meanwhile brings a heavier influence at times. He likes to get loud, play loud... as the neighbours and the people who live down the block and the lady walking her dog around the corner and the police will testify. If what you're saying means that there is an evolution to the fact that prog music shouldn't just be tied in to specific "un-yielding" sets of rules than I agree with that statement. The problem that I have with "prog" sometimes, and its label, is that it can get too pretentious about how things have to fit in a specific line and can't deviate... that being a "a crazy sort of line" with syncopation and bizarre keys and tunings but it "HAS" to be that. I'm not much of a conformist and I don't believe in trying to write just to be clever, because that can sometimes lead to some very droll music. I would rather write to what feels natural at the time, and just have it sound good. If we have done one thing that I am proud of on this record, it is bringing many different influences to the table in one album, so that it can expand one's thoughts about music... maybe get someone who is too neo-prog set in his ways to appreciate something like "The Other Other Dimension", and maybe a true progger who came to hear that song to think well... I like how Spiraling just sort of floats along and doesn't have to have any "purpose" other than setting a tone or a state of being in your head. It doesn't have to have a thousand chords and key changes... but it has to sound "good"... that it is perfectly fine being what it is. If you can "get" that, and not over complicate it, "See the Forest before the Trees" as it were, then I think there's a lot of really "juicy" stuff to find in here. There are some wonderfully heavy riffs on the album, in addition to some beautiful, moving passages. Please provide our readers with a synopsis of the writing process that created these sounds. Eric does come from a much harder background than I do, and I love listening to those great old rock tunes like Sabbath. I love loud Rock and Roll... I really do, but I'm not very good at writing them. Eric however can rip a really good riff and make it sound really good where I ... well it sounds more like a proggy guy trying to be "loud". It is truly difficult to write a good hard rock song and make it sound "cool", and Eric did some great heavy riffs on this record that I wish I had the ability to write. Yeah, but as is the case with these things (and you and I sharing ideas and influences), you were the one that wrote Outerspaced .That's your riff, not mine. I had felt that we could use another heavy "Pete Trewavas" bass driven track that was like The "Other" Other Dimension, but perhaps more accessible that could even be a radio track. You took all that in and wrote an awesome heavy bass riff there... that undoubtedly woke the neighbours and set off car alarms, and even inspired an earthquake, because as I remember right in the middle of you singing "Outerspaced", a 6.0 earthquake came in and made the entire house roll!... causing a potted plant to fall over... and a guitar stand... and me... It is sort of the way we write together. I come up with ideas but you'll use some of those ideas and make them your own and run in a completely different direction with them, and I will be inspired by something you do and it will cause me to write something I normally wouldn't. We sort of feed off each other in a very parasitic sort of way (laughs) The Awakening can only be described as an epic track, and I understand it was amongst the last to be created on the album. Was it a deliberate choice to include a fifteen minute plus epic, or just a natural process in creating the album? I woke up and I came downstairs and Pete was messing about on my Martin Guitar. I really love writing on Eric's Martin... it is just such a beautiful instrument to play and quite inspiring really... and Pete was just jangling away on those chords and he said, hey what do you think of this? I have to be honest with you, I wasn't sure that you could take what we had at that point which was basically two chords... and make it become something more than about six minutes long, but as we began to produce it and add the strings and everything to it, it just kept growing and growing. I had always felt that this song could have been something that would have fit somewhere on Trick of the Tail by Genesis, so to be completely honest... we originally named the Awakening, "Squonkie"... and Squonkie just seemed like he wanted to be really big. He kept growing and growing, and, at first, you wouldn't expect these few chords to become something as big as it was, but when Eric began putting the lyrics in, it started to get bigger and then the lead guitars were placed, it again got bigger. Squonkie just seemed like he wanted to be the centre of attention and soon he was! Then we began to discuss putting strings on, and Eric came up with... why don't we put in a sort of a ba-da-ba-da-bamp bump bahhh (singing), into it, and that seemed to want to be heard for a bit as well, Then I came up with this "town choir" idea at the end, where we had a whole bunch of people singing "This is it, the Awakening Hour", and then Eric thought about putting the original lyrics back in on top of people singing that, and suddenly it was even bigger. Eric had said in the beginning when I first started playing it... that there was the possibility that this could be one of "those songs", but I don't know if I ever thought it would come in at close to sixteen minutes. Still it seemed like the album was going someplace and needed to have a sort of conclusion. I think that The Awakening does actually take us there in its natural progression to a "finale" so to speak... and I think that "Squonkie" sort of told us what to do. He knew what he wanted. He wanted to be huge and get plenty of attention and that's exactly what happened. The Awakening finished up at nearly 180 tracks if I'm not mistaken, and Mike Hunter actually had to reboot the computers at the Racket Club quite a few times. Keep in mind that these are the same computers that produced things like the Invisible Man, Ocean Cloud, and The Awakening was the song that nearly brought it down. I think that's rather funny considering we're a "duet act". 180 tracks from a duo. Though, to be honest, we did bring quite a bit of wonderful players to help us with this track after we had finished writing and recording it, including Ian Mosley, who did some really signature Ian style drums on this, and really drove the track beautifully, and Steve Hogarth joined up with Mark Kelly and Andy Ditchfield to do the big "town choir" ending. The song did change quite a bit, however, from where it started. We originally had a different song in the middle called "The Longing", that was there until the very end of the recording process. We pulled that song out and put "Slow Burn" which is an old song of Eric's that he sort of re-created in Ocean City Maryland to match where this song was heading. We put it in and it was like it had always just belonged there. The fact is, however, that this song didn't come at the end of the writing process, but closer to the beginning, because we had already finished writing it before we went to the gig in Montreal (the Marillion Montreal convention). We had rented a lovely chalet up in Mont Saint Sauveur, Quebec, and I had come quite a bit ahead of time to spend ten days writing and recording this album before the convention. Yeah, I believe you had come up with the majority of the chord progression for The Awakening on the fourth day of our stay at "Le Chateau de Mont Saint Sauveur" (laughs)... Right, and you had actually written the lead part at the Olympia Theatre after a gig the night of Mark Kelly's 50th Birthday Party...the second night of the Convention. I had taken all the boys back to their hotels, and once they were all snugly in their beds, I didn't want to drive all the back to Mont Saint Sauveur. Too many of Rothery's Blue Drinks! So I stayed backstage on the couch with Wendy at the theatre. I got up in the middle of the night, and roamed about and went on stage and saw H's pick on his mic stand that he had used from that night's performance. I swiped it... went backstage and finally finished off the final lead guitar of "The Awakening". Right, because... you had been messing about with that that guitar part for nearly a week now, unsuccessfully, and was... Now Now! No need to mention any of that! So there it was... It all came together as I summoned the intensity of the Steve "h" Guitar Pick. He's not getting any points because of that, either! I think our readers would really love to have a "behind the lyrics" explanation of the concept of the "Other" Other Dimension. Where on earth, for example, did the idea of the doctors performing the surgeries come from? Well I have to say that I probably needed to be a bit "coaxed" into it a bit. I was like hmm... I'm nor really sure about this Eric... If I tell you how many times I heard ... "Are You Sure?" (said with very Cockney British accent), coming out of his mouth as he read back the doctors concept. See he wants to blame me for all of it... but he really wanted to do it. He is just so proper "British" that he wanted the American to take the fall for all the insanity that was about to begin. No, really I loved the way it came out, I mean... I think we needed to do something a little out there, and it certainly did that. We had done so much heavier Alternative Rock and Pink Floyd'y influences up until now, and I think the "Other" Other Dimension pays homage a bit more to Gentle Giant perhaps. Yeah, I was thinking that this was sort of close to a Pete Trewavas "solo" album with just the two of us ... and there needed to be something a little more "Pete Trewavas" about it. There needed to be a truly syncopated bass driven song that people would want from a Pete Trewavas album, which up until this point wasn't quite there yet. Pete immediately came up with the main motif (as it were...) on the bass and the different changes came pretty quickly after that. The lyrics were sort of inspired by the rather insane bass line and keyboards that Pete had been laying down, so it is all your fault actually. There is actually a very good reason for "The Doctors" and why it is there... it is really all part of the story, and where it had progressed to by this point, but I think we would like it if our listeners could tell us what it means. Why it is there... and why does it suddenly break into Spiraling... and then back again. Sometimes it's really great to hear the listeners and the fans tell you their ideas of why something is the way it is. I mean, a lot of it was messing about and having some fun, but I think there are some very deliberate things on this album... why things are the way they are, and why the album flows as it does, and why certain things are produced the way they are, and others seem far less produced... like "Lifeline", Across The Plains (A true homage paid to PFM if I am to be honest). I think this song, however, really pays homage to Gentle Giant's "In A Glass House" Album which... well a lot of you probably know about already, but if you don't you should check it out as it is a fantastic record. I really would love to tell you what is going on here, and in time we will... but I think it is something I would rather you figure why Eric and I wrote it the way we did... what Eric's lyrics actually mean, and why we are at this stage in the album. I will say, however, we had a hell of a lot fun writing this... For obvious reasons, I think the album will deeply appeal to many loyal Marillion fans the world over, especially those, like me, who adore the Hogarth era of the band. However, I do not think that this is the end of its appeal, and many fans of what I call classic rock (the likes of Rainbow, Deep Purple & etc.) and some of the spacier and eclectic sides of prog will find much to appreciate here. Again, is this a fair summation? I think we tried very hard not to write an album that is easy to "classify". I love all kinds of music, from jazz to great old classic rock, and Eric brought in all sorts of other influences as well. I hope we were able to do something different and exciting, but give people a chance to just enjoy music. Not necessarily prog but definitely prog, and not necessarily Hard Rock, but it is certainly there and that it could appeal to a wide array of people. As I said before, you would be surprised how much I like some of the great hard rock bands of the 70's like Sabbath, and we had just got off a really good tour with Deep Purple last year. Ahh, Rainbow... see, now you're hitting a nerve here...... Dio screaming out Stargazer... wow... does it get any more intense than that? But again... you see Long Live Rock and Roll and a song like Rainbow Eyes on the same record. That's the kind of thing we are trying to bring back... that music needs to be hit on all levels to create the perfect album ... and all those levels need to really be sound musically... being that you want to hear them. We really tried to do that... consciously... though this album really did sort of lead us around in different directions by itself... but I think because of this, people who love that classic Rock sound from the 70's, may find some of this quite appealing. Are there any plans to take this project onto the road? Well, the problems are that taking something on the road means getting a band together, paying that band, and making it happen. Just because an album does well doesn't mean that it will draw enough of a fan base to make it viable as a live thing. Even Transatlantic's first concerts weren't very well attended at all. It took a bit of time to get that to the point it has reached. That said, Eric and I didn't begin picking up guitars and keyboards and basses to play to ourselves. We did it to play live in front of actual people. I think we would love to do this live, but we would need to see a level of commitment by fans that they would actually come to a gig for us to actually do it. We would need a really good band as well where Eric and I could do our "thing" and not have to play every instrument ourselves on stage with a drum machine, as I think that would be rather a sad thing to watch! Actually, I would like a band to play all the music and we could sit there in balcony, and just watch them and eat popcorn. Right, and if we don't like them... we could just throw the popcorn at them... and pick off the Children of Edison one by one. Maybe even keep pumpkins with us for the ones we really don't like... we're gonna need a lot of children so we can keep plucking them off. No, really, um... I think the thing is.... if the fans really show a level of loyalty to the point that a live show of this album becomes a viable thing... than really what I'm saying is... it's really all up to you. If you want it to happen strongly enough, then it will happen. If there is that much of a buzz about us that we can't ignore it anymore, and a tour would be strong enough that we could actually do it, then... we will do it. But it is entirely up to you, the listeners... show us that it is truly something you want. Tell the world... make it exciting... if Edison's Children grows and grows then we certainly would consider touring and making this a regular thing. Commercially, it is really important that projects such as this do not suffer from illegal downloading and other forms of piracy. What message do you have for people tempted to indulge in such forms of obtaining your work? I think people would be shocked how much this record actually cost to make. Mixing, mastering, finding nice inspiring places to write this and make it come out like it did, getting the artwork sorted, getting the record done. I mean... the actual real honest tax receipts alone are in the tens of thousands. It costs an absolute fortune to make an album... and the amount of money spent on all sorts of things that you don't budget for because you wouldn't expect it, are just endless. In the end, I would tell people who illegally download this album and love what we've done... well you may have just stopped this kind of thing from ever happening again. We are career musicians, which means we make our money on making records and the public buying them. If you stop that from happening then we simply can't afford to do it again. It will take years to actually make any money off this record and those who illegally download ... well, we're not Lady Gaga or Metallica and we're not some big corporation. You're not hurting Wal-mart here. You're hurting those little bands that count on your support to continue on. A small group of people whom you actually want to continue to see make new records! Who are trying to make a living doing this for you, and dependent on your fairness and morality. If you break that chain by getting your music for free or posting it for others to get for free, there is a very, very good chance that this may never happen again because we simply can't afford to do it anymore Lets face it, you can buy this record from Racket Records or iTunes as a download for $9.99 (even cheaper for those outside of Europe). You probably have spent more on eating a cheeseburger this week... or more money on a pack of cigarettes. It's not a lot of money to ask for something that will last a lot longer than that cheeseburger or pack of cigarettes. Meanwhile that $10 and another person's $10 adds up... and may become enough to allow a tour and / or a new album to happen again. Like I said, we're a small band here, you're $9.99 for a band this small, really does make a huge bit of difference. (And let's face it, you'll still afford to buy that cheeseburger) What does the future hold for Edison's Children? Again, I think it is all up to the fans. If they show a loyalty and excitement that makes us say... well that was truly successful, it will be natural for it to happen again and again... I have to say that everyone's response thus far has been fantastic. So honestly... keep pushing for the radio stations to play it often and loud! Keep talking about it on the forums, and on your Facebook pages, just the way you have been so far. Spread the word. People have to know that it exists first... in order for them to want to hear it. We are the musicians... but it is you that creates the buzz that can take this to the next level... and if you buzz loud enough then we will certainly do this again. To close, thank you both very much again. Is there anything else you wish to add for our readers? Thank you for taking the time to read what we've got to say. Thanks for everyone who has been coming up to me at all the Marillion concerts to say good things about us, for wearing your Edison's Children T-Shirts proudly, and all of you who have been writing about us in the various forums. Eric does keep me alerted as to what is being said (he is the computer savvy nerd of the group, so he is aware of what is being said on the net) and he sends me all of your comments that he finds, so we do both know what you all are saying about us to everyone. Thank you very much If you're interested please check us out, download the album, and help us to keep the thing going for a long time to come. Edison's Children website is at: http://www.edisonschildren.com Their Facebook page is at: http://www.facebook.com/edisonschildren You can buy the album from Racket records, at: http://www.marillion.com/music/solo/waking.htm Their PA page is at: http://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=6967 My grateful thanks to Eric & Pete for their considerable time in providing such a detailed and extensive interview for the site.

Flaming Bess

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 13:40:35 EST

Interview made by toroddfuglesteg — Flaming Bess is not your typical band. The oringinal band was formed in 1969, in D�sseldorf. There was the usual club gigs, and personnel changes, before finally recording an album. It just took them ten years. This was 1979's "Tanz Der G�tter." A highly regarded album, and very much influenced by other symphonic music of it's time. I got in touch with Achim Wierschem for the rest of their story and what they are up to now.######################################################################################Why did you choose that name and which bands were you influenced by ? Well when the band was founded in 1969 it was the big time of progressive rock bands like Pink Floyd, Gentle Giant, Genesis, ELP, Yes or King Crimson - .....so I would say that we where somewhat influenced by those bands but we always intended to create our own style. We did influence us as well was fantasy stories like "Tolkiens - Lord of the Rings" and other fantasy books which we did consume a lot at this point in time. Flaming Bess as a name ? Flaming Bess is the name of a fantasy character invented by the band. Flaming Bess is "the godess of Light" and the music is an illustration of her adventures, with wizards, demons, dragons, magicians, evil creatures, etc.etc. so very typical for the genre of fantasy as it is know today. By the way - the name Flaming Bess was also stolen by the producer of the first record in the early 80s to create a serious of sience fiction books which are out on the market since than. It is important to know that the band existed already 13 years before these books have been released so it is clear that our name was abused. Your band was established in 1969, but it took you ten years to release your first album. Why did it take you that long and how was those ten years ? Well, we have been the typical schoolband, and bloody beginners in 1969 when the band started. So we needed some years to develope our skills through countless practesing sessions, live gigs etc.etc. We started mainly with cover music in 1969 and it took quite a while before we came up with our first own songs, or I should say we did reach a level of quality with our own songs which was good enough to satisfy ourselves and which was nicely received by our early fans. Than in 1979 we did produce some demo tapes with the local radio station WDR2 for a program called "rock studio" - and this demo's did lead to the biggest reaction of the listeners the WDR did receive. Everybody asked where a record of us could be bought, but acutally we had nothing in our hands at that point in time so... we took these demo tapes and all the money we could afford and created Tanz Der G�tter from 1979 recorded at the Rudas studios in Duesseldorf. The record contained instrumental progressive rock music and a spoken fantasy story about the first adventure of "The Godess Of Light" and her fellowship and climbed up to postion number 8 in the yearly radio charts at the WDR - number 7 was Pink Floyd's - Another Brick In The Wall". We did everything by ourself, and we sold more than 40.000 records of Tanz der G�tter within 1979 by bringing our record into all local record stores and making them available to the public. Verlorene Welt from 1980 Verlorene Welt was the follow up album, with a huge production budget and a big record company called Polydor in our back. It was produced in the Dierks studios in Cologne ( Dieter Dierks was at that time the producer of the one of the most successful bands of Germany - The Scorpions). It extended the concept of "Tanz der G�tter" but also contained two traditional songs with vocals. A young arranger did actually work on one of the tracks for this record together with us, and some of our ideas we developed together with him to create a certain choir sound on "Verlorene Welt" inspired him to create his own project. The name of this young musician was Michael Cretu, and his well known project which was actually influenced by our work is know to the world as "Enigma" and sold over 50 million records. The story of "Verlorene Welt" describes "Flaming Bess's" adventure to find a long lost planet, a planet called Earth. Despite the fact that the record was a similar success to the debut in terms of sales, the record company asked the band to produce something more comercial. lt was the high time of music know as "Neue Deutsche Welle" -a very easy listening and charts oriented music format , with funny but mostly meaningless lyrics" - as such very far away from what Flaming Bess musical trademarks acutally represented. The band was forced to change the name into "Key" and we produced a record which was named "Verschluesselt", apart from one song - all with vocals and designed for a bigger mass of listeners". Nobody know exactly why - if it was the fact that our lyrics have still been to serious", or whatever - finally it turned out that the record company did not keep any single promise and as result the band was frustrated and without a record deal since 1984. We lost trust in the complete industry but that's certainly not what we should discuss at lenght in this interview. There have been quite some activities within the 80s and early 90s but most of these tapes have never been released - so far. Fata Morgana from 1996 After all the frustration with the record industry, and based on the requests of many of our fans, the band decided to use some of the unreleased material of the late 80s and early 90s to end up on a record which we called "Fata Morgana" - well maybe this title still reflects our thoughts about the giant record industry - Now being in 2011 it is funny to see all the current fuzz this industry is creating about illegal downloads on the internet - most of this "former giants" are meanwhile gone.Fata Mrogana is the only Flaming Bess record without a fantasy story and looking back to it now it was a turning point for the band and a new sign of life for the fans We decided to simly take the complete production process of any records back into our own hands,to be the masters of our own destiny, maybe we would sell less copies than with a big record company in our back, but with a much better relation to our fans, not forced to go into any commercial format music anymore. We took the decision to only produce the music we and our listeners love, without any compromise and at the end at a much better margin than before. Finstere Sonne / Black Sun from 2005 Again 2005 seems to be a long period of time, but the band used this time to integrate two new young band member and to actually create a completely new progressive rock sound adding much more electronics and up to date modern beats as an additional foundation to complete the Flaming Bess universe of sound. As such this is the most electronic sounding album of Flaming Bess. The Godess and her companions are on their next adventure, fighting against the evil creatures of the Black Sun. This album is a real sound journey and should best be listened to using good headphones, some time to sink into the fantasy story and the related sound universe and is best suited by a good glas of wine. W�chter Des Lichts from 2008 W�chter des Lichts was the second album with this new band line up, but in addition we had many moreand worldwide guest musicians than ever before. It is so far the most sophisticated Flaming Bess record and another true progressive rock highlight in the actual sense of the word. The fantasy story was co-written and narrated by a young author. His name is Markus Wierschem. In addition to the narrated parts we used different speakers for all characters and wwe did produce the spoken parts like a real filmscoretrack - a thing the band did not do before. What is the availabilities of your releases ? All records are available at the Flaming Bess homepage or in any major download portal such as itunes, amazon or napster How would you describe your music and which bands would you compare yourself with ? I would say this is modern progressive rock music, with a strong fantasy and filmmusic influence, epic, emotional and cinematic. As such I would name bands like Pink Floyd, Camel or Alan Parsons Project if someone needs a lable for this kind of music. However I personally think these kind of lables are misleading as Flaming Bess is unique. [TUBE]qaUCj4x8QgA[/TUBE] How is the creative processes from coming up with an idea to it's being recorded ? Nower days we returned to a very natural process, we are jamming at our practesing session playing together as a band. If we create something which all of us think should be further developed, we start the production process and create the final layouts. W�chter Des Lichts is your so far last album. What have you been up to since the release of W�chter Des Lichts ? What is your current status and what is your plans for this year and beyond ? In 2009 and 2010 we have been concentrating on live gigs (40st band anniversary) and we did welcome back a long missed family member. Hans Schweiss our drummer of the "Verlorene Welt" release - joined the band again. We will release a new record in 2012 and have used 2011 to compose about 12 tracks which will be the foundation of this new record. To wrap up this interview, is there anything you want to add to this interview ? As Flaming Bess is working independently from any record industry, it is very important for us that we acutally can reach potential listeners, fans and music maniacs, this means we need airplay and pages like yours to spread the message about "Flaming Bess". So first of all many thanks for giving us the chance for this interview. In case someone get's curious reading this and wants to listen to some of the Flaming Bess records - he can do this on the internet using the following link [TUBE]xlgN5V7bmvU[/TUBE][TUBE]woQQuJ_vzWQ[/TUBE] Thank you to Achim for this interview Their PA profile is here and their homepage is here