METAL-ZEN

What can one say about Spheric Universe Experience (S.U.E.) that hasn’t already been said in dozens, if not hundreds, of reviews around the world? For a relatively new band (they released just two albums – Mental Torments, 2005, and Anima, 2007), they’ve quickly become a fan-favorite, known far and wide for composing powerful, intricate, yet melodic music.

My interview with keyboard player Fred Colombo took place on April 11, 2008. Between then and now, according to the band’s web site, SUE experienced the loss of long-time drummer Ranko Muller who left after four years to dedicate himself fulltime to extreme metal with his bands Artefact and Otargos. The new drummer for SUE is Christophe Briand, a drum teacher at the national musical academy of Cannes.

Special thanks to Fred for supplying the photos.

On with our interview!

FC: Hello?

BM: Hello, is this Fred?

FC: I am Fred.

BM: Hi, Fred. This is Bill Murphy.

FC: Hello Bill.

BM: How are you today?

FC: I’m fine, I’m fine.

BM: Good.

FC: How about you?

BM: Doing well. Doing well. What’s the weather like there today?

FC: Um, it’s pretty hot, because I’m, let’s see, I’m at the level of perhaps Florida, so it’s quite warm.

BM: Really? [laughs]

FC: Yes.

BM: Wow. We’ve got about 50 degrees and overcast, and kind of rainy here. But oh well.

FC: Ok.

BM: [laughs] Well, it’s a pleasure to talk to you today. Thank you very much for your time.

FC: Thanks a lot.

BM: As you know, I’m doing interviews for ProgPower USA. What can you tell me about how you got the gig? Did Glenn call you? Or was it Claus [Jensen]?

FC: Well, actually, obviously, we were big fans of the ProgPower festivals, not only the American version but also European and British ProgPower. And we knew this festival, because before being progressive music musicians, we are progressive music fans. And we knew this festival back in 2001, 2002, so that’s an old story. Indeed, we got this gig thanks to IntroMental management, and Claus Jensen, who introduced us to Mr. Ken Golden, the A&R of Sensory. And Ken signed us back in 2006. Actually, he released our second album, and then he started working for us. So he booked that gig, which was a big honor for us, because as I’ve said, we knew that festival. It was, you know, like an amazing show for any prog musician, and now we’re there. And that’s, I mean, I can’t even believe that. [laughs]

BM: [laughs] Well, everybody’s looking forward to seeing you. You’re a great band, with two really good albums, and it’s going to be great to see you guys.

FC: Thanks a lot. And this is what is most, I mean, outstanding, because we’re in a country, we’re in France, and in this country, heavy metal music is not that famous. And there are not many bands, especially in progressive metal, which is a bit specific and has less fans than traditional heavy metal. So when we play here, we have small audiences, and that’s sad. And I can read in the ProgPower USA forum that we have several people expecting SUE, and talking about the band, and that’s [laughs] we’re not used to this.

BM: [laughs]

FC: And this is pretty exciting to come and know that people are expecting you and talking about you since several months. And I mean, that’s great.

BM: Well, the audiences at these ProgPower USA festivals are just so passionate. They go nuts. I mean, you’re going to be amazed at a room of 900-1000 people just screaming their hearts out for you guys.

FC: Yeah, it will be something just new for us. And I can see that we’re in April, and almost all tickets have been sold, and that’s amazing. I mean, we’re at several months before the show, and the tickets are almost sold out, and that’s great.

BM: Well, what can audiences expect from an SUE show? The people who aren’t familiar with you perhaps, when you hit the stage, what can they expect to see?

FC: They will see, I mean, we will not lie. They will see what they hear on the disc. They will see a heavy metal band, a melodic metal band, playing with energy their music, but also with a passion. And they will see a band that enjoys playing live. That’s it.

BM: Oh, that’s great. [laughs] Do you guys like to play cover songs? If so, do you have a favorite cover tune you like to play?

FC: We love to play cover songs. Unfortunately, I am afraid we cannot play cover songs in such a big festival like ProgPower, because we have only a short set of 45 minutes, and we need to convince the audiences. And our manager advised us to play only our own compositions when we’re playing in such an important festival. When we’ve been playing in ProgPower Scandinavia back in November, we wanted to do a Deep Purple cover, but he said, “Ok, you guys have only 45 minutes, you need to convince the audience, so just play your material and that will be great.” So we were frustrated because we always include a small, funny cover in our set. We do not used to cover what people expect a heavy metal band to cover, like Dream Theatre songs and Symphony X songs.

BM: Yeah.

FC: We do not do that. We always do special covers like old songs or sometimes stupid songs, just to have fun, to do something different, show the audience that we can play sometimes funny music.

BM: [laughs] What Deep Purple song would you have played had you been able to do it then?

FC: Oh, we wanted to play “Highway Star.”

BM: Oh yeah, what a great song.

FC: Yeah, it’s rock and roll, it requires a bit of musicianship as well, but without being too pretentious. That’s why we believe it’s funny. But anyway, we will play it one day, perhaps in the United States. [laughs]

BM: [laughs] For people who aren’t that familiar with you, where did the name of the band come from? Why did you call it Spheric Universe Experience?

FC: Well, in the very beginning, we wanted to have a band name that sounded progressive. Like complex stuff, like progressive metal, we wanted something like this. But we came up with different names that were too, too weird. And we, you know, we decided to call it Spheric Universe Experience because we started talking about the special concept of Spheric Universe, which can be considered from two standpoints. You can be outside the sphere, like being on a planet, and you have the whole universe surrounding you, or you can be inside the sphere, which means that you’re in a closed universe, and this is something completely different. And it’s also whole world different. So we love this special ambivalent approach of a spheric universe, and we added this little third word afterwards. It’s, I mean, it’s special. We believe it sounds progressive, and it has a concept that people can have their own vision of. So that’s why we stopped that search. Perhaps if we had, perhaps thought a little longer about that band name, we could have had something, perhaps better. I don’t know, but that’s our name.

BM: [laughs]

FC: We’re called SUE, and that’s fine with us.

BM: [laughs] Let me ask you—

FC: Is it clear to you now?

BM: Oh yeah, definitely. Very clear. Crystal clear. Let me ask you something else about ProgPower. Are there other bands playing with you guys at the festival that you’re looking forward to seeing?

FC: Yes, I’m looking forward to see what Serenity can do.

BM: Serenity had to cancel, unfortunately.

FC: Really?

BM: Yeah, a band called Saint Deamon is in for them.

FC: Oh, I didn’t know that.

BM: Yep, it was a little while ago. They had to cancel because of some European tour or something they were going to do. I don’t remember exactly, but a very cool band, Saint Deamon, I don’t know of you’re familiar with them, they were formed out of Dionysus and Highland Glory.

FC: Ok. Well, I didn’t know that. I’m disappointed.

BM: Yeah.

FC: Anyway, I do want to see what Iced Earth can do on stage, of course.

BM: Oh yeah. [laughs]

FC: And we’re happy to play with Andromeda for the second time. We’ve been playing with them at ProgPower Scandinavia in November. And it was one of our influences before we started releasing albums. So we were fans of Andromeda, and now we’re playing with them, and that’s very special, you know, when you’re playing with a band that you were listening to when you were a teenager. It’s so special. So yeah, we’re excited about that. Everything about ProgPower USA is exciting when we think about it.

BM: Do you like to walk around and talk to fans? Are you the type of band that likes to stand around and sign autographs and shake hands?

FC: Of course, we will, we will. We’re not rock stars.

BM: [laughs]

FC: [laughs] Not yet. And you know, even when, if we manage to become rock stars—let’s dream a little bit—we will remain friends with our fans, because they are us. I mean, we exist through them, so of course we will keep talking with them and stay close with them.

BM: Well, you’ve probably toured before; in fact, you mentioned the Scandinavia ProgPower and whatnot. Do you have a favorite road story? Like, what is the strangest thing, or the funniest thing, that ever happened to you on the road?

FC: Well, I did not expect that question. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

FC: There are so many memories of touring and I can’t remember specific moments. Perhaps the best moment was when we, when, you know, it was when we did the sound check. The best moment was the sound check before our show with the Scorpions, you know, that rock legend.

BM: Oh yeah, yeah.

FC: And we had the great opportunity to open for Scorpions, in 2005, and when we did the sound check, people were, we were doing the last sound check, it was a few minutes before the gate opening, and the people started entering the venue, and we were still playing some notes of drums, and then guitar, and then bass. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

FC: And we saw people entering, but there was so many people, there was 10,000 people.

BM: Oh wow.

FC: And it was, I mean, we were so young, I was 21, and I mean, that was so, so bizarre to see so much people coming in. They were so excited, they were screaming, even if it was not the actual show.

BM: [laughs]

FC: [laughs] It hadn’t even started, but they were so excited. And we were, I mean, this was the most successful sound check we have ever made. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

FC: And that was good. I was playing free, I mean, I was not playing the songs, I was playing notes and my sound engineer can do the sound check with the keyboards, and I was playing free, and people were shouting. I mean, that was amazing.

BM: [laughs]

FC: [laughs] We said, “Ok, the show will be even greater than this.” I mean, it’s perfect. Perhaps, yeah, this has been the best memory. And the worst, I don’t know. I mean, I don’t want to remember the worst moment.

BM: [laughs]

FC: Touring and playing music with your friends is always so beautiful, I mean even the worst memories, it’s still something that is part of a good memory.

BM: Oh yeah. Definitely. Speaking of memories, one of the things I like to ask all the musicians I talk to is, take me back to each of your albums. Like if I mention the first one, Mental Torments, what do you remember most about recording that album? What stands out in your mind the most?

FC: Well, you picked the best album to talk about recording memories, because before recording the actual album, we recorded it as a demo CD in 2003. So it was exactly the same songs on the album. So there have been actually two recordings of Mental Torments, the demo and the actual CD, professional CD. And well, the memory that we were young. [laughs]

BM: [laughs] Yeah.

FC: I mean, we started composing this album when I was 17.

BM: Wow.

FC: So perhaps it’s a bit young to do music at the professional level, I don’t know.

BM: Well, that just means you’re really good at it. [laughs]

FC: Oh thanks. But, that was, let’s say it was the beginning. And we were a bit uncertain when we were composing or recording. There was not self-confidence, it was pure uncertainty with nowhere we were going. We were recording what we had composed. We didn’t know if it was going to be successful and have good response from the label we wanted to send it. It was a time of uncertainty. But we did our job. It pleased our manager who decided to sign us, and then started the story. But I mean, I don’t have particular memories of that recording, it was the beginning. And I enjoy what I’m doing right now much better than what I did when I was not at a level like today.

BM: Well, you wrote most of the first album. You did a lot of the music, most of the music, as a matter of fact. Did you feel a lot of responsibility to come up with all that material? Or did you, how did you get so good at it so young?

FC: Well, actually, I composed a lot of course. But as soon as I teach the songs to the guys, they may get their own music. So, we never say, “Ok, track one is a Vincent [Benaim, guitarist] track, and track two is Fred’s track.” We never see songs like this. I mean, as soon as they are recorded and burned in the CD, they are the songs of Spheric Universe Experience. So I mean, I was not releasing an album saying, “Five songs out of eight are my compositions.” I mean, I almost forgot which songs I wrote on that album. [laughs] To be honest.

BM: [laughs]

FC: So no, there was not special responsibility regarding this. The responsibility was collective. It was felt by the whole band. It was shared, there was not a member that had more responsibility. Absolutely not.

BM: How about the way the songs came together? Is there a particular song from that album that just gave you a lot of trouble to get to record just right, or did they all come fairly easily?

FC: Um, which, the version that you have, do you have the US version of Nightmare Records?

BM: Yes.

FC: With a bonus track?

BM: “Echoes of the Stars,” yeah.

FC: Not with a bonus track, it’s “Revolution”?

BM: Yep, yep. “Sidereal Revolution.”

FC: You get it. Alright. Well, this is the song that was most complicated to build and compose, because there are so many different themes and riffs. And we all came up with a different ideas and we sort of combined so different colors and moods, that it was difficult to get the whole stuff together. But we ended up with something that’s quite homogenous, so I believe that it was, I mean, this was something we will not do anymore, coming up with different riffs and themes and trying to put it all together, because the song needs to be one, and “Revolution” is a big melting pot of music. [laughs]

BM: [laughs] Well, when you finally had the whole CD in your hand, did you guys say, “Wow, this is really good.”? I mean, what did you think when you had the first SUE CD in your hand?

FC: Well, to be honest, that’s one of the best memories of my entire life so far. It was March 29, 2005.

BM: You know the exact date. [laughs]

FC: And it was, yeah, it was the official French release that was prior to the rest of the world release. And I will never forget that day, we knew it was the release date, and we all went to the CD store and in our hometown, Nice. And we saw the album. I mean, that was, it’s just 10 or 15 years of work that finally get concrete, real. That was so, so special moment. I still have the picture and I sometimes look at them with a strange feeling. [laughs] No, that was really the achievement of hard work. We were proud of ourselves but not in a negative sense. We were just happy to have made it and to have the result of all that money and energy that we had involved in this project. So even if it would not be successful and everything would get wrong, we had managed to get an album released and have the CD in our hands. And that was, I mean, we were satisfied. I’m not saying that we were not ambitious, and we didn’t want to have more, but it was such an achievement, that it was almost enough for us. [laughs]

BM: [laughs] Yeah. Is that, do you still listen to the first album? Do you still like to hear what you did?

FC: Mmmm, not that much. Actually, when you do an album, it’s one or two years composing, rehearsing, recording. I mean, you are listening to the songs almost 200 times in a row.

BM: [laughs]

FC: Yeah, but that’s very complicated, because you almost hate your own songs after several listens in a row.

BM: [laughs]

FC: And that’s so complicated.

BM: Yeah.

FC: Because you’re supposed to love them and to be convinced, you know, to offer them to the audience with the same conviction, and it’s sometimes not really the case. No, I do not listen to my albums when they’re released, because I know them by heart. I’m playing them in rehearsal with the band, I’m playing them live, I mean, there’s no point playing the CD once again. [laughs]

BM: [laughs] Yeah.

FC: I mean, I have so many other CDs to listen to. [laughs]

BM: [laughs] Well, bring me up to Anima now, 2007 release on a different label, Sensory, with Ken Golden. Tell me about this one. Is this a concept album of sorts because of the title of it being about the inner being and the archetypal Jungian philosophy kind of stuff? Is this a concept album?

FC: In, uh, from a musical standpoint, it is not a concept album. All the songs are not linked, except perhaps two or three songs that have a shared outro and intro.

BM: Yeah.

FC: But from a musical standpoint, all songs are separated.

BM: Yeah.

FC: But, it’s true that when you read the lyrics, we have written about one topic, which is human feelings, and human doubts and questions and psychological feelings that a human being can have in his life. So yes, there is a common topic in every song. So you can believe that it’s a concept album from that standpoint.

BM: What do you remember most about creating Anima, then? What stands out in your mind the most about that album?

FC: What I remember from the creation?

BM: Yes.

FC: Hard work.

BM: Hard work. [laughs]

FC: Yeah.

BM: Harder than the first one?

FC: Mmm, different, because yeah, we had a sort of pressure because we wanted to do an album that sold more than the first one, and it was completely different. As I said, when we composed the first one, we didn’t know what was going to happen, so we were sort of free. And with Anima, we knew that, for example, all those very complex stuff in the first album didn’t really bring success to the band, because it was very complicated progressive metal, and we had to focus on the catchy chorus and the catchy riffs. So we knew what we didn’t have to put in the album, so we had that pressure that is had to sell, it had to be better than the first one, so that was that pressure. But I’m not saying that we didn’t enjoy composing that album. It was pure pleasure. But indeed, the approach was different, and it couldn’t be the same. No. When you’re composing with a label that is requiring a deadline and specific music, it’s always different. So we’d been working very hard. It was 65 minutes of music, and very, I mean, there are many riffs, many things. The songs are long, so it was really difficult work.

BM: A lot of fans have noticed that it sounds different from the first album. It’s far heavier, more guitar-oriented, and I see the guitarist seems to have written at least as many songs as you did for this album. Did you guys go into the studio for this album thinking, “We need a more guitar on this one”?

FC: Yeah, we definitely wanted an album that was, we wanted to actually to put the concept of progressive metal even further. We wanted an album that was more progressive and more metal. So this is why it sounds heavier. We have included more heavy riffs, and that was absolutely intentional. So Yens got involved in the composition a bit more, and I mean, I did not regret that. It sounded like it would have had to sound in the first album, and Mental Torments was conceived as a very heavy progressive album, but we didn’t have the production to show it. So here in Anima we had this heavy approach that we wanted from the very beginning of the SUE project.

BM: Oh I see. Yeah. Oh that’s interesting. So if you could remix the first album, would you bring up the guitars more and make it more like you had in mind? [laughs]

FC: [laughs] Yes, yes. We would.

BM: [laughs] Well, that’s cool. Tell me about a couple of the songs on there. If I mention a song title to you, could you tell me what the song, where it came from. Like “The Inner Quest,” where did that song come from? What was its inspiration, in other words?

FC: Are you talking about lyrics or music?

BM: Um, well, lyrically, I guess that would probably be a better place to start with. Let’s say lyrically.

FC: Well, you’re lucky, because I wrote the lyrics, so I can talk about them. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

FC: I, well, it’s something that we all think about every day, but we do not talk about it with words. It’s the concept of looking for oneself, the concept of trying to find who we are. And this is something that not only me, but everybody does every day, everywhere. And it’s not only my lyrics, and it’s not only Fred Colombo talking about his life and his feelings, it’s a topic that can be familiar with, I mean, that many people can be familiar with. We all sometimes ask ourselves, “Who am I?” And this is what I wanted to try and explain in those lyrics. I wrote “The Inner Quest” without only thinking about myself. I wanted to do a song that many people can recognize their life in, so I hope I did right.

BM: Oh yeah. You did the same thing kind of with “Questions.” Did you, do you actually have all those questions? Do you sit around and philosophize like that, or were you writing more like in “The Inner Quest,” universally speaking?

FC: It’s the same concept. Actually, I had those questions for many, many, many years. These are questions that came to my mind across the years, and not only a few months before releasing Anima. It’s a long story, actually. [laughs] I was very young when I started to ask myself many, many questions. And I always wrote the questions down on paper. And when it came to write a slow song for Anima, I said to myself, “Ok, what about the lyrics? I have so many questions in the papers and so many years. Why couldn’t I use them?” And I used that paper. I read the questions, there were something like 60, 70 questions.

BM: [laughs]

FC: I picked the most relevant ones, and I tried to put them in the pretty good order, and that’s the way the song were born.

BM: Oh yeah. Do your, where do your ideas generally come from? Like, when you write a song for SUE, is it personal experience, or headlines out of the news, or what inspires you most to create lyrics?

FC: We try to think about life itself. I mean, it’s the most complicated thing that we have. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

FC: And the most inspiring thing. So we just look at life outside of us and inside of us. And there we find so many things to say. I mean, we just think about feelings and state of mind.

BM: What is your favorite SUE song to play live, out of both your albums? Is there one that just gets you really going or gets the audience really going?

FC: Well, we have our sort of hit song. [laughs]

BM: Yeah. [laughs]

FC: It’s the song that is a hit only for SUE [laughs] but that’s a hit. It’s “So Cold.” It’s our first album, track one.

BM: That’s a great song.

FC: Yeah. It’s ‘80s like. It always pleases the audience each time we play it. It has success, I don’t know why, because it’s not the richest song that we have, but people like a catchy chorus and simple structures, and “So Cold” has it.

BM: Yeah.

FC: So that is the most successful live song that we have. And “Neptune’s Revenge” [from Anima] is also very powerful on stage, with its heavy riffs and high tempo, it’s very funny to play for both the band and the audience.

BM: In your bio you list a lot of people, some of them obvious, like Kevin Moore, Herbie Hancock, Michael Pinnella. But you also list guitarists, John Petrucci, Michael Romeo, Tom S. Englund. What influences you, as a keyboard player, about their musicianship or their style of playing?

FC: Well, as a keyboard player, I’m not looking at their musicianship as guitarists. Of course, I love to hear and to see a solo by John Petrucci, for example.

BM: Oh yeah. [laughs]

FC: But this is not what I’m looking for. When I talk about guitarists influencing me, I’m talking about their composing style. The guitarists I mention are excellent composers. I regret that too many people only see them for their musicianship. I mean, too many people go to Dream Theater gigs only to see John Petrucci’s solos or technical riffs.

BM: [laughs]

FC: I mean, it’s too bad because to me, his first skill is to compose music. I mean, that’s what made Images and Words a great album, for example, back in 1992. It was composed perfectly. Not only played, but it was well written. And this is what I love in those guitar players, is that they have so much creativity. They’re great composers and they have ideas that make metal go ahead. They allow metal to have this progression that is just the essence of our music.

BM: Well, you mentioned something really cool about the guitar players and the solos. Some guitarists are known for playing lightning fast. Look at Yngwie, or even Petrucci. And some guitarists, like maybe Gary Moore, are known for playing both. As a keyboard player, which do you find it more difficult to do, just to play the lightning-fast runs and be real technical? Or to try to get something real emotional out of your sound?

FC: Both are difficult for different reasons, but they are difficult. It’s hard to practice every day and get that technique level to be able to play very fast. This is something that I practice. I cannot deny it. I practice very long hours to have this necessary musicianship that is required in our music, so it’s very difficult. And it’s also difficult to play with a lot of emotion, and to be able, you know, to find the emotion within you, and find the right notes and melodies to express it. And it’s, you know, working on your technique is something that is pragmatic. It’s, how could I say, it’s almost like sports. You practice, you’re training, and no, it’s like training to run as fast as the speed of light. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

FC: And that’s approximately the same approach. Whereas working on emotion is completely different. This is something that you cannot get by saying, “Ok, this afternoon I’m going to practice my emotions for four hours.”

BM: [laughs]

FC: It doesn’t make sense.

BM: [laughs]

FC: You know what I mean?

BM: Yeah.

FC: It’s impossible. So it’s something that is quite difficult to have, and to know how to render in your music. But I’m working on both, of course. I wouldn’t be, I mean, it’s not interesting to me to be only a technical keyboard player doing fast live solos. And I don’t care about that. I wouldn’t like to be also only a romantic pianist that is only playing for ladies. [laughs] That’s not interesting to me.

BM: [laughs]

FC: That’s not interesting to me, and I’m trying to do it right. I still need some time to become a great musician on both standpoints.

BM: Is SUE your full-time job, or do you have a so-called day job?

FC: It’s not yet our full-time job. We do make money with that project, but it’s not enough to make a living. So we all have our regular jobs that allow us to eat everyday. [laughs]

- end part one

NOTE: The entire interview can be found in the ProgPower USA IX program given to all attendees at this year’s metal fest.

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