Organizer Glenn Harveston again allowed me to be the official band interviewer for ProgPower USA. So, to Glenn, I say “Many thanks!” To all those about to read my interviews, I say “Get ready for an experience unlike any other in metal journalism!”

On with the show…

What follows is one of the most comprehensive interviews with Lars available anywhere. If you want to know what makes Lars Larsen tick, what drives him to succeed, read on.

For the uninitiated, Manticora was formed in Hvidovre, Denmark, in 1996. The power-metal band has released six albums to date.

NOTE: All band and personal photos illustrating this interview are courtesy of Lars who spent a week or so searching for them and then, kindly, allowing them to be seen by everyone. Many thanks, Lars! I owe you one. (Or several.) Special thanks to my wife, Elisabeth, for transcribing this one so quickly. I owe you my heart and soul.

Enjoy!

LL: Hello, Bill.

BM: Hey, Lars. How are you?

LL: I’m pretty good, man. Pretty good. I am tired, I must admit, but that’s ok. [laughs]

BM: Would you like to do it a different night?

LL: No, no, it’s cool. I just became a father a week ago, so the child is not sleeping very well at night. [laughs] Keeping me awake all the time.

BM: Really? That’s great news. The birth part. Not the keeping you awake part. Congratulations!

LL: Thanks.

BM: What’s your baby’s name?

LL: Her name is Sara Larosa Larsen. The mom is Italian and I’m Danish, so we had to find a name that would be compatible in both languages. Sara it was.

BM: How’s your wife doing?

LL: Federica’s doing really fine. She’s, of course, tired. But I guess all women are when having all their fat on the body sucked out through their breasts 10 times per day [laughs]. The kid was born through C-section, so the scar has to heal and all that, before my wife can begin training again. Anyway, I think she doesn’t care that much about herself — it’s all about the baby now.

BM: How do you think your life will change because of this? What will you do — or not do — differently?

LL: To be honest, I just don’t know. We’ll embark on USA tour and I’ll be away for 3 weeks when the baby is no more than 2 months. But it’s all part of who I am, you know with Manticora and touring. Things like that. I cannot change my entire being just because of a child, and frankly I think my wife would kill me if I did. She is incredibly supportive, and almost anything I do, she is backing up 100%. But let’s say that I might stay home 1 or 2 Saturdays from drinking with the guys, as I of course need to spend some quality time with Federica and Sara.

BM: Yeah. I can understand that.

LL: Yeah…it’s a matter of getting older and trying to accept it…priorities, you know.

BM: Oh yeah. [laughs] Well, it’s great to talk to you, I appreciate your time.

LL: Yeah, no problem, man. I’m the one thanking you.

BM: You’ve got a couple of tours coming up. Your first stop is with Helloween and Gamma Ray in Atlanta [on the opening night of ProgPower USA IX].

LL: Yeah.

BM: How did you get hooked up with that tour? And what’s it going to be like to be back in Atlanta again on the ProgPower stage? [Manticora appeared at ProgPower USA VI]

LL: First of all, I will answer the last part of your question first. We cannot wait to get on that stage again. It was a totally crazy experience the first time we played there, you know.

BM: [laughs]

LL: After I walked down from the stage, thanked all the people and all that, walked down the halls below the audience, I felt like the king of the world. I felt like, “Ok, all my dreams have come true now, we don’t need anymore for me to be satisfied with my career.”

BM: [laughs]

LL: So to come back and experience that again is going to be so fucking great. To answer the first part of the question, the Jon Oliva’s Pain tour was made a reality through the fact that we also toured with them in the spring. And Intromental Management thought about keeping it consistent, you know, having Manticora on the festival, having Circle II Circle and Jon Oliva’s Pain on the festival, what would be more natural than having the bands tour together, since we also supported Jon Oliva on the European tour. So I think everybody’s happy with this combination, and I think we’re going to have a pretty successful tour.

BM: Oh yeah. It looks like you guys play almost a month, from late September through mid October. Is that the longest time you’ve been in the States?

LL: Yeah, we have actually never toured the States before, so it’s going to be the first time for us, which is pretty exciting because the territory we’re venturing into now, it might be 500 per night, it might be 50 people per night, I have no idea. I have no clue what’s going to happen. So for us, it’s all, it’s just exciting. Totally exciting.

BM: What are you looking forward to most when you get over here? Is there anything you want to see here in the States, is there anything you want to do in the States?

LL: Besides go to Hooters? [laughs]

BM: [laughs] Well, that’s a given.

LL: Nah, I really just love to have a successful tour, you know, to meet as many people as possible out there, and have some great shows where the fans embrace our music and we can embrace our fans. Because we know we don’t sell shitloads of CDs in the US. Hopefully we will after the tour, because we’re going to give 120% every night. We’re used to doing that, but for me, it’s just about the interaction with the fans. I want to make them headbang, and to make them headbang, I have to give 120% myself.

BM: Oh yeah.

LL: So the fans are going to get everything from us, and we expect everything back from the fans. If that happens, I am totally satisfied with the tour. And of course, it’s going to be great to see all the cities, Detroit, Chicago, all these big cities. I’ve just been to New York myself in May, too, I was the best man at Claus’ wedding, you know, Claus from Intromental?

BM: Oh Claus, oh yeah.

LL: So that was a great experience. But we went to New York first, me and the wife, so before that I have been to Atlanta and to Los Angeles, so I kind of know how it works in the United States. Also went to Washington in May. So I know the drill over there, roads, and cities and highways. But of course it’s great to come and see some of the other big cites as well.

BM: I remember when you guys were originally going to tour the U.S. with Circus Maximus earlier this year. That tour fell apart when Circus decided to tour Europe instead. A lot of disappointed fans on the ProgPower Forum tried to get you over here themselves, kind of pool their money and bring you over. Did that make you feel good that you had that many gung-ho fans here in the States?

LL: You know, I really love those people. It’s….it feels special. It makes you feel special actually, to have people wanting to get you over so much. It’s just, to have you over and play for them. They could just sit down and say, “Ok, we don’t give a shit. Manticora will come over another time. They’re going to play here.” But they actually tried to find a solution for us, and being fans, who even would have to pay the ticket to come see our show, and I mean, it’s really heartwarming. Unfortunately, it was simply not possible to do, because it would have been too many expenses, and it was not logistically possible to do.

BM: Right.

LL: So I hope we won’t disappoint at least those fans when we come over there in September/October.

BM: Oh yeah. Well, you had mentioned earlier about how you give 120% on stage. And I’ve seen some Manticora clips on YouTube. You look like you’re giving at least 120%. [laughs]

LL: Yeah.

BM: How do you keep yourself fit for a tour? You have a powerful voice and you run all over the stage. You must be exhausted. What do you do to prepare for that?

LL: I run. [laughs]

BM: Do you really?

LL: Yeah, you know, I go to a fitness center, and for nine months now I also have been working out as a spinning instructor, you know, those classes inside when you’re sitting there with 20 people spinning on bicycles. And I try to run as much as possible, and try to beat my own times constantly. Because I know when I have to sing on stage, and I need a lot of air, because I’m moving a lot, then I need to be in extremely good shape. So it doesn’t, it simply doesn’t compute if you say, “Well, I’m lazy. I’m just going to drink my red wine and eat my fat stuff and don’t do anything at all.”

BM: [laughs]

LL: So I stay focused. When I’m standing on the treadmill or running outside with my watch on, I always try to beat my own time. And whenever it feels like, “I’m going to die, I’m going to die.” I just think about, “I need to perform. I need to be there on stage and be able to sing.” So if I don’t keep on going for at least five minutes more, even if my lungs and my legs are burning, then I’m not going to be able to sing those high notes. People are going to be dissatisfied, and they’re not going to buy my album.

BM: Well, that’s—

LL: It makes sense.

BM: Oh yeah. That’s a lot of dedication. I mean, it sounds like you really are appreciative of your fans.

LL: Absolutely.

BM: Yeah, that’s great.

LL: I mean, we wouldn’t be here if people didn’t buy our albums. Maybe we’d keep on working anyway because we’ve talked about this a couple times, with failed albums and stuff like that, the record labels were complaining all the time, we said, “Well, our sales are falling as well, but should we stop, or should we go on?” And everybody in the band was like, “No, no fucking way. We’re going to go on, because we’re not here to make millions, we’re just here to make music. And if people buy it, then it’s just a bonus and it’s cool.”

BM: That’s great, “We’re not here to make millions. We’re here to make music.” [laughs] That’s great.

LL: Yeah. [laughs] You can use that as the main line. [laughs]

BM: I might have to do that. [laughs] That’s great.

LL: It is.

BM: You’ve got five albums out now.

LL: Six.

BM: Six, that’s right. Six full-length albums. How big will your set be? How many minutes do you think it will be on the JOP, Circle II Circle tour?

LL: On the tour it’s going to be 40 minutes, and on the Atlanta, at ProgPower it’s going to be 40 minutes as well. That’s pretty good.

BM: Yes. But here’s the question. Six albums, the last two of which are major concept albums, how are you going to pick songs for a 40-minute set?

LL: Yeah, I know. It’s really, it’s really, really hard for us, because there are so many songs we want to bring on the tour. But we have done it this way, we have picked songs that will fit with the Hellish Rock tour perfectly, which mean some of the harder stuff we have done. That’s really a lot of songs with the double bass drums and all that.

BM: Yeah.

LL: And for the Jon Oliva’s Pain tour, we have taken some of the extremely fast songs out, and put in some more melodic stuff, because on the European tour we did in April and May, it seemed like people weren’t really embracing Manticora, probably at the first two or three shows. It seemed like the fans who came to see Jon Oliva’s Pain wanted to see some more melodic and slow stuff. So we changed the set list during the tour, actually, and suddenly it looked like people were embracing us a lot more. So that’s how we’re going to do it in the United States, which means that we can actually put songs into the Hellish tour and also into the real tour. But it’s hard. It’s like one song from each album. [laughs]

BM: [laughs] Yeah, that’s about it, yeah.

LL: Except we are not going to play a song from the first album.

BM: Oh really? No songs from the first one?

LL: Nope.

BM: I did a lot of research on you, read some interviews, looked all over the Internet. I found a phrase that was repeated a lot, and it’s this: “Manticora is criminally underrated as a band.” Would you agree with that statement?

LL: Oh, well of course. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

LL: I mean, I think anybody in a band would say yes to that if it was a statement about his own band. But I do believe we are underrated. It is said a lot. But a lot of bands go out there and they get the success that I feel would be appropriate for Manticora. But again, I can’t do anything about it unless we prove ourselves through sales. And through selling t-shirts at tours, through getting the shows. But there are so much politics in the record business, so much nepotism in the record business, and I don’t even want to get into that discussion, because it’s just going to make me angry. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

LL: Not angry enough not to use it myself, you know.

BM: Yeah.

LL: Since I work for Intromental Management, I use nepotism myself. I have tours where I actually have some of the final say in getting the bands on, and I of course use my contacts to get the Intromental bands on these tours, which is my kind of nepotism. So I’m not even better than anybody in the record business. But I can always, from the point of view of being in Manticora, I can complain about the nepotism being there.

BM: [laughs] Nepotism. Yeah. Here’s another comment I read a lot in reviews…and I don’t, well I’ll just ask the question. I don’t mean to upset you with this. But some of the comments say, “Great music, but sometimes Lars’ voice bugs me.”

LL: Exactly.

BM: You guys even have one of those reviews on the Manticora website. It says something like, “A problem is, Lars isn’t a very good singer.” What do you think about that? Does that really bug the hell out of you, or do you just say, “To hell with those people”?

LL: It definitely doesn’t bug me anymore. It used to, you know. In the beginning it was all about trying to create something that sounded like power metal, and then suddenly you’re like, “Oh, what are the critics going to say?” When we’re doing some live shows in Copenhagen here, being a pretty small band and whatever. And then we got the record deal, and “Oh, what are the critics going to say about the album? And what are they going to say about my singing style?” And for the first album, I was smashed totally [laughs] by all the critics.

BM: Really?

LL: I mean, it was like one out of 20 would say “Lars is a good singer.” And 19 would say, “Lars is the most horrible singer we have listened to for the last five years.”

BM: [laughs]

LL: [laughs] “A Hansi Kürsch wannabe without Hansi Kürsch.” And at some point, I thought, “Well, Lars, don’t let it get to you. Just continue on, develop it.” Listen how a guy like Kai Hansen sounded in the beginning of Helloween. And how he sounded on Land of the Free with Gamma Ray. It’s a world of difference. So we made the second album, and the critics said some things that were a little bit better, but still not good enough. And when we released the Hyperion album, the third one, 17 people caught on and said, “Well, Lars’ voices might not be the best in the world, but he has personality, and there’s something in it that just suits the music. Manticora wouldn’t be the same without him.” And I turned around and said, “You know, I don’t actually give a shit. It’s better than telling me you’re a good singer or you’re a bad singer, whatever it is. I sing the way I do. It’s a matter of me being here still 10 years after we released our first album. And we will continue to release CDs, and we have our fans. Some critics might not agree with me staying with the band as the lead singer, but they’re not going to get me away from the band.

BM: [laughs] Yeah. Well, that’s good to know, you’re committed to that.

LL: Definitely.

BM: One of the things I like to ask musicians about is each one of their albums. For example, when I mention the album name, tell me what you remember most about that period of time. Either recording the album, personally, or in the studio, which was the easiest song, which was the hardest song? For example, if I say Roots of Eternity [1999], what do you remember most about it?

LL: That it was the most horrible recordings we’ve ever had. [laughs]

BM: Oh really? [laughs]

LL: It was really horrible. We had a budget of 14 days in the studio, and previously we had only spent weekends in the studio, so for us, it was like 14 days, yeah, that’s cool. But then again, we had to record 10 or 11 songs, you know, bonus tracks and all that. And everything went smooth, and we rented this little house, through our lead guitarist Flemming [Schultz], who knew somebody who had a father who had a house in whatever town it is. It was a horrible house, with no electricity in the bathroom.

BM: [laughs]

LL: But we had a good time, because everything was new and cool to us. But the recordings went well for the first eight days, and then we had to mix it, we used the old big tapes that they used to record on in the old days.

BM: Yeah, yeah.

LL: This was before computers. And then we had this 24-channel digital thing that was not computers, but a kind of high-eight tapes or something like that. And of course, it broke down right in the middle of the mixing.

BM: Oh no. [laughs]

LL: Which made that, I went down our keyboarder that used to live very close to the studio we used, and I met the other guys, and I said, “Guys, everything broke down. Shit, we have to go home, we have to delay the album.” So we had to delay the album for a couple of weeks, and we came down again to the studio to fix everything. But at this point, we found out coming to the house that there was no key in this house. And all our stuff was inside, our sleeping bags and things like that. And suddenly we found out that the guitarist’s friend hadn’t cleared it with his dad that we could use this house.

BM: [laughs]

LL: So suddenly we have an old guy standing there saying, “No, you can’t use my house, it’s my house. What are you doing here, you Copenhagen guys?” And we’re like, “What the fuck is going on?” [laughs] Everything went wrong with that album.

BM: [laughs]

LL: So for us it felt like a miracle when it came out.

BM: So that’s one you don’t even want to think about anymore, huh?

LL: Not the recordings, anyway. The only cool thing about those recordings were actually the producer, Jacob Hanson, who’s also producing Mercenery, stuff like that. He is the most funny guy in the world. He’s really a good guy.

BM: Well, your next one, a couple years later, 2001, Darkness with Tales to Tell. What do you remember about that time?

LL: Actually, it was kind of chaos at that time, because we had the lead guitarist, Flemming, who wasn’t that involved in the band anymore. He came up with bad excuses, staying away from the rehearsal room, and everything was a mess. The keyboard player, Jeppe [Eg Jensen], was pulling in one direction, Mads [Volf, drummer] was pulling another one, I was pulling a third direction, so the album became too diverse. There is no thread through the album where you can see this is Manticora. There are some songs that just stinks of Manticora, reeks of Manticora.

BM: [laughs]

LL: [laughs] But there are also songs that are totally out of place. Songs like “Dragon’s Mist,” even if it is a cool song, we have this Bach piece put into it, it’s just unlike Manticora. So for me, it was just like a chaotic album that wasn’t the best album we released. But, I have to say, it has one of the best live songs of us, of all. It’s just a classic, “Shadows With Tales To Tell.” It’s really a great live track to do.

BM: That’s great. The next album, then, really broke you guys, didn’t it? I mean, put you on the map, with your Hyperion [2002] stuff.

LL: Absolutely.

BM: I mean, that’s a heck of an album, for a third album. Tell me about that period of time. How did you get really excited about that series of books, and how did you—and by the way, I read the liner notes where it said you guys couldn’t get the rights to actually say the actual names of the people and places in the book and all that. What can you tell me about that time?

LL: Well, actually just by you mentioning these books [The Hyperion Cantos form a tetralogy of science fiction novels by Dan Simmons] and all that, I actually, I’m standing here with goosebumps on my arms, because, I’m not lying. I really, really – not shitting you – have goosebumps on my arms. These four books that are Hyperion and the other four books in the series, are simply the best piece of novels or a novel, it is actually one big novel, I have ever read, in my opinion. My brother threw the book at me and said, “Whoa, read this.” He’s got a lot of fantasy fiction in his apartment and a lot of other stuff, and I was like, “Oh, I don’t have anything to read.” And he was like, “Read this.” So I read the book, and my jaw just fell to my stomach. It was just like, “What? What?” And I read the other four books. So I threw the books at Mads and Kristian [Larsen, guitarist], because we three guys are the ones writing the lyrics to the albums. So the other guys read it, and they felt just like me, like, “What the fuck just went on? This is simply amazing.” And so I began writing a lot of lyrics to this. And somewhere along the way, Mads and Kristian called and said, “We want to write about this as well.” So we divided the tales between us, and we wrote some tales each, and suddenly we found ourselves doing a concept album. I mean, we had done two proper albums, and suddenly we’re doing a concept album, and we didn’t know what to do, because suddenly you have to create music around these lyrics, and before we just created the lyrics in the end for the music. So we’re like, “Ok, I have a bridge here that we need to create, because I have some more lyrics.” So we started creating all this. At the same time, Rene [Nielsen], our bass player on the first two albums, jumped out of the band. And at the same time, a couple of months before we went into the studio, we had to fire Flemming, our lead guitarist at that point, because it was simply becoming too lame, hearing his excuses. It was like, “Oh, I fell asleep on the couch at my mom’s place, and forgot to come out to rehearse. Oh, my car broke down, and I went out to look what was wrong, but I left the car keys sitting in the car.” “Fuck off, Flemming.” [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

LL: So we had to kick him [out of the band]. And then we called Martin [Arendal], who is the lead guitarist now and asked him, “Martin, you have exactly 14 days to come up with solos, leads, and everything, melodic pieces and all that, for this album that consists of 13 songs, or something like that. Can you do it?” And he was like, “Yeah, yeah. No problem at all.” We had been playing with him at the Iron Maiden jam in Copenhagen, so he was like, “No problem.” So we went in the studio without performing as a group. So with that in mind, Hyperion, for me, stands as the album where everything turned from chaos to actually being my favorite album of our career.

BM: Hyperion’s your favorite album?

LL: Absolutely. No question about it. I wrote approximately 50% of the music for that album, actually. Normally, I don’t contribute that much to the music, but due to the fact that Flemming jumped out of the band, I just had to grab a guitar and play along with the rehearsal room. And I just got so much inspiration out of these books, so this is the album where I have contributed the most to my part, of the three albums.

BM: Was it upsetting to you when the author and his agent wouldn’t let you use the names and places?

LL: Not really. I definitely understand Dan Simmons, and the agent, Richard Curtis, because the fact is that Dan Simmons has written this amazing book, and some Hollywood studio has obtained the rights or the, I don’t know what it’s called, pre-rights, to do the movie.

BM: Oh yeah.

LL: Which would be like a thing with Martin Scorcese’s direction and Leonardo DiCaprio playing the lead role.

BM: Oh wow.

LL: So this is suddenly pretty fucking big. Meaning that he can’t of course, just give the rights away to make music for this book without getting some kind of compensation, and we’re talking big compensation.

BM: Yeah.

LL: Because you know, later on, when the movie comes out, and people are like, “So where is the soundtrack?” “Well, Manticora has already made music for this, blah, blah, blah.” It’s going to be a complication. So he actually had to turn us down and say, “Guys, you can’t use original names and whatnot from the book.” So, that gave me some extra work, because I suddenly had to rewrite all the lyrics. This was a month and a half or two months before going into the studio. And I had all the lyrics written down. So I had to rewrite all the lyrics during the next two months, and it was fucking horrible, you know, you have to, I had all the lines done and all that, melodic wise, so I had to finds words with, what do you call it, syllables, the right amount of syllables and all that, that would fit inside, and would mean the same thing and would be grammatically correct, and blah, blah, blah. It was horrible, but it was cool. [laughs]

BM: Well, you know, it’s amazing then, through all of that hard work, and the band member leaving, the author turning you down for that, this is still your favorite album. You must be just absolutely, totally passionate about that series of books.

LL: I am, you know…I’ve been reading them six times. My wife here, who is standing here brushing her teeth [laughs] has been reading them, she got them in Italian, she is from Italy. Everybody else I know, I have been able to tell, “Ok, read these books.” And they have read them, and they come back to me and said, “Lars, this is the best I’ve read in my life.” Almost all of them. It’s really amazing. So if it was up to me, we would write Dan Simmons an email telling him, “Now, we’re going to do the follow up, The Fall Of Hyperion.” But I also know we will get in trouble for that. [laughs]

BM: [laughs] Well, do you identify with one of those pilgrims, one of the seven pilgrims [the priest, the soldier, the poet, the scholar, the starship captain, the detective, the consul]? Do you kind of see yourself in the book at all? Are you one of those characters in your own mind?

LL: Actually, I think maybe I would be a mixture of them all, because there’s this guy trying to be funny all the time, but being a complete bastard and all that. And I have that in me.

BM: [laughs]

LL: I’m very, very self-indulgent. People always tell me that I am self-indulgent…at least I know. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

LL: And I’m not afraid to admit it, and to deal with it myself. There’s also the fighting warrior, you know, the guy growing up on Mars, a Palestinian guy growing up on Mars, having to be a fighter all his life. And I have that fighter spirit in me as well. I have the—have you read the books?

BM: No. But I, actually, because of your album, and because I read how passionate you are, I just started the first one the other day. Yeah.

LL: Oh, you’re in for a ride. I guarantee it.

BM: I know, that’s what I’m hoping for. [laughs]

LL: So when you get into, have you read into the priest’s tale, the first tale right now?

BM: Nope, I’m only a few pages into the first one. But I’m familiar with all the characters.

LL: Yeah.

BM: You’re a little bit of all those characters, is what you’re saying.

LL: I think so, not the specifics, not the detective, not the priest. But yeah, I think I got a little bit. And I think it goes for all people, actually. That’s what’s so beautiful about Dan Simmons. Whenever you sit down and contemplate about the book afterwards, after the books in general, he’s got everything inside. He’s got all kinds of religion inside. He’s got all kinds of philosophy inside. He’s got history, and he’s got you contemplating about how much shit he actually puts into his books. It’s really amazing. And I don’t think the book actually makes one bit of sense until you read it the second time. Sorry. [laughs]

BM: Well, I’d better get reading then. I’ve got my work cut out for me with them. [laughs] So you’re saying that series of books is better than Lord of the Rings? Better than Harry Potter? Better than all those classics of sci-fi and fantasy?

LL: I haven’t read Harry Potter. I refuse to read it. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

LL: For me it sounds like some childish crap. You know, I might be surprised. But I’ve seen the movies, because sometimes my wife wants to see something sometime when we’re visiting her family in Italy, and sometimes we’re watching a movie, and sometimes it’s Harry Potter. I hate it.

BM: [laughs]

LL: The Lord of the Rings, I really love it. But it just doesn’t compare to Dan Simmons, at all. Lord of the Rings is total fantasy, you go through all these feelings, and what an amazing author he was. Great, great, great, great. But he just does not…he’s not anywhere near the master, and the master is Dan Simmons.

BM: Wow. See, I’m pretty excited about it. I can’t wait to get further in.

LL: Just wait until you get halfway into the priest’s tale. You will be amazed.

BM: [laughs] I’ll send you an email or something, let you know what I think. [laughs]

LL: Please do. [laughs] I’m very excited to hear what people think about it.

BM: Cool. Two years after Hyperion, then, you hook up with Mattias Noren for the cover art, you put out an album, 8 Deadly Sins [2002], that a lot of fans, like on the Manticora website, voted their second favorite Manticora album. What do you remember about recording that one?

LL: First of all, we changed record labels, so going from an Italian record label to Massacre in Germany was like, “Whoa, now we’re really onto something.” But we changed record labels after we recorded the album, because we went away from Scarlet having no record deal, and we just thought about, “Ok, do we really want to spend like 10,000 euros on going into the studio, recording an album, and just hoping ourselves to make music that is so good a record label’s going to find us?” And we just looked at each other and said, “Yeah, that’s exactly what we’re going to do.” So we borrowed 10,000 euros, which is like $15,000, and we changed producers from Jacob to Tommy Hansen, who also did Helloween and Pretty Maids, and stuff like that. And it was the first time that we stayed just beside the studio, because we had a house just beside the studio. And just to have to go out every morning, walk 50 meters, and then you would be exactly at the studio. We had a big house for ourselves, with a lot of sleeping places, a kitchen and all that. We would make proper food and everything just felt like a, what do you call it, school camp, camp or whatever it is?

BM: Yeah, yeah.

LL: You know what I mean. For us, staying over there for like three and a half weeks, probably, it was like, “Oh, this is luxury. We have bought ourselves a lot of time.” [laughs] And Tommy just captured what we wanted to put down on tracks, immediately. I mean, he knew exactly what we wanted. It didn’t hurt that he has golden records and platinum records hanging from Helloween in his studio.

BM: [laughs]

LL: We could look around and say, “Ok, Tommy, that’s what we want to be. We want to sound like that, ok?”

BM: Yeah. [laughs]

LL: [laughs] He’s like, “Yeah, yeah, of course guys. Just get in and perform.” [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

LL: What I remember most is actually my own vocal performance, because normally I would have been going in as the last guy, you know, pressure in the end, “Lars, you really need to sing five songs per day.” And do all that shit. And I would go in, sing all the songs that I was supposed to do, and come out, correct all the things that I don’t think I do well, and go in and do it again. And do the same with the second voices, choir voices and all that. Suddenly I’m facing a producer that stops me after one song, sorry, after one line. Like, “Lars, do that again.” I’m like, “But Tommy, I need to sing the whole verse.” He’s like, “No, no, no, that’s not the way we work here. You sing one line and I correct you if I think something’s wrong. Because we might as well start at the beginning.” “Well, ok.” Suddenly I found myself recording one or two songs per day, and this guy is kicking my ass severely.

BM: [laughs]

LL: He’s dragging every last drop of blood out of me every day. He’s doing it this way that Mads might be recording drums four hours, and then we are having lunch, and then we have four hours, and Mads is tired of beating drums. He’s like, “Lars, now it’s your turn. Go in and take the mic. We might as well use the time, properly instead of having a tired Mads on the drums or having you being tired from eight-hour shifts in the end.” So we were mixing things, and it made so much more sense to me. It created an album that was, sound-wise, and what do you call it, effort-wise, 200% better than anything we ever did before.

BM: Oh yeah.

LL: Which also meant that Glenn [Harveston, organizer] booked us for ProgPower USA, we suddenly went out with Angra in Europe, we had record deals with Massacre Records and better deals in Japan and all that shit. So a lot of things happened with this album.

BM: Well, what is your favorite track off Hyperion, the album? What is your favorite track off that? What do you look at and think, “Man, that’s the best song on the album”?

LL: On the Hyperion album? Or the 8 Deadly Sins album?

BM: Both of them. I was going to ask you about that, I guess since we’re talking about 8 Deadly Sins, what is your favorite track off that one?

LL: The 8 Deadly Sins is, hmm, that’s a hard one to answer. I think I might have to go with “Playing God” or yeah, actually yeah. I think it’s going to be “Playing God.”

BM: “Playing God” yeah.

LL: Maybe “King of the Absurd” is a close second.

BM: Great, great songs.

LL: Absolutely. But “King of the Absurd” is the favorite because of the lyrics. I wrote the lyrics mostly for this song and they pretty much are about myself. [laughs]

BM: [laughs] “King of the Absurd”? Yeah?

LL: Yep.

BM: [laughs]

LL: And you know, I also did most of the “Creator Of Failure” and that’s also about myself. [laughs] Nobody knows that. They think it’s a concept album about this old guy, but the things I wrote are about myself.

BM: So it’s almost autobiographical for you? You’re drawing on some of your own feelings and experiences and thoughts?

LL: I’m actually bleeding out my own life on my album.

BM: [laughs]

LL: [laughs] That sounds sooo poetic.

BM: Yeah, it does, doesn’t it? [laughs] I gotta write that down too.

LL: Yeah.

BM: See, that’s what I like to hear, that kind of stuff. Now when I listen to that album, I’ll know it’s a very personal album for you.

LL: Exactly. You definitely need to do that. It’s the same with Kristian who wrote most of “Fall From Grace.” You know, if you sit down and listen to the lyrics or read the lyrics, and you think, “Kristian is what this is about. It’s not about this old guy.” Of course, that’s our cover story [laughs] or whatever you want to call it, because we have written the story line for this, but we are spilling out our own hearts on the album. So if people think about that, they’re going to see some very troubled young men. [laughs]

BM: [laughs] Well, let me jump back just a second to the Hyperion album. What is your favorite track off that one?

LL: “Cantos.”

BM: Oh yeah, yeah. Why is that?

LL: No doubt about it. First of all, because I think I wrote like 80% of the music for that song. So there’s so much of me inside. And I wrote like 95% of the lyrics. So it’s so much me. It’s exactly what I want Manticora to sound like all the time. Luckily, I have the other guys to pull me away from just beating the bass drums all the time and creating thrash power metal, or else Manticora would sound like that all the time, if I was to decide. But it has the most me inside it, and it is a great, great live track.

BM: It is. And do you mean what you say in these liner notes to the album, “You will never remove that song from your setlist”?

LL: Yep.

BM: Good. [laughs]

LL: So you’re going to see it on both the ProgPower show and on the tour.

BM: Perfect. That sounds great.

LL: Yeah.

BM: Then, what was it like working with Mattias Noren? How involved were you with the cover art for that?

LL: Not very much, actually. It was more Claus than us wanting something from him. We had created some images of an old man sitting down in pain, and we just wanted that with a totally black cover, and this guy in black and white, and Manticora across the front cover. Little bit like you see on the Sanctuary cover.

BM: Yeah.

LL: The black and white stuff with the old man. This was a little bit inspired by that. But it was my uncle who was totally white-haired, or grey-haired, or I don’t know what you call it in English. [NOTE: Some of the photos Lars provided (above) include pictures of his white-haired uncle.]

BM: Yeah.

LL: I think you’d call it grey-haired in Danish. We took some pictures of him, I think it looked cool. It was something special. But Claus was like, “Guys, this is just not good enough.” And we’re like, “Oh, shut up, Manager, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

BM: [laughs]

LL: And he told us, “Guys, I’m going to find something special for you, ok?” So he had talked to Mattias Noren, who had this picture that was actually created for Kamelot. So you know that now.

BM: Yeah. [laughs]

LL: If you look at the front cover, there’s a Manticora M above his head, like a plate or something.

BM: Yeah.

LL: That was actually the Kamelot logo being there.

BM: [laughs]

LL: But they didn’t want to use it. So Claus said, “This just kicks whatever you guys want.” “Ok, what’s he going to charge for it?” And we found a good price, and then we thought, “Well, maybe Claus is right. Let’s listen to the manager once in a while.” [laughs] I mean, that’s what we hired him to do, to give us good advice. So that’s how we got that picture.

BM: Well, the next couple albums were originally going to be released as one double album. But they ended up being two. First of all, let’s talk about the artwork, which is absolutely stunning. I mean, it’s amazing artwork.

LL: Yeah.

BM: You’re working with [artist] Leo Hao.

LL: Yeah.

BM: How did you connect with this guy? And what was the inspiration? How involved were you coming up with the art for this one?

LL: First off, we had this idea that we don’t want to work with the same artwork guy twice [Note: And they haven’t. Each album is designed by a different artist]. Of course we have done it with Leo Hao because it’s parts one and two, but nonetheless, we wanted something new, and we said to Claus, “So, what can you propose?” And he proposed a lot of different things. And I think it was Kasper [Gram], the bass player, who saw Nocturnal Rites [New World Messiah, 2004] or something like that and said, “Well, that’s a cool thing, and that’s that Russian guy.” And I think that was among the ones that Claus had proposed. So we just thought, “Well, if he can do something very, very cool like that, or like the live thing that Blind Guardian actually did [Imaginations Through the Looking Glass, 2004], which Hao painted as well. If he can do something very, very cool for us with this story, because it’s a fascinating story, it’s a horror story, he must be able to create a very, very cool thing.” And Claus contacted him and said, “So, what do you charge for this and can you do something very special for the band, because they really want a cool cover.” And he’s like, “Yeah, of course. You’re going to pay me X amount of money.” And he gave us two drawings. And we wanted a big, big, big tent in the center, you know, filling up the whole picture, but at the same time, we wanted depth in the picture, like having the background and the trees in the fields. So he was like, “I cannot do it all, you know? [laughs] You cannot have both A and B, so you have to choose.”

BM: [laughs] Yeah.

LL: So he created something in the beginning with a guy, the pictures I sent you the other day [NOTE: See artwork above, which Lars says has never been seen before], with the guy being in front and the other stuff in the background to create the depth in the image. And we thought, “Well, it’s cool, but it’s not exactly like we want it. And we don’t want some guy on the picture.” [laughs] So we wrote him and said, “Can you please incorporate a gypsy woman standing there like welcoming the guys?” I think that was Kristian’s idea. “Welcoming the audience and then having the tent in the background. And we really need some landscape. And we really need one of those carts that they use as transport, like in the old days.” Is it called that?

BM: Yeah, uh huh.

LL: Uh yeah, ok. And it took two days. I mean, it took two days, and he came up with this. So that’s what he did for us.

BM: Wow.

LL: Ok, we are happy to pay him the money. So we recorded both [Black Circus] albums at the same time, except for the solos and keyboards for the second album - we did that afterwards. And while we were mixing the second album, we also had the artwork for the second album done. And we came up with a lot of ideas, like we wanted it to be inside the tent, like watching the show go on inside the tent, because most of the second album is about that, being inside the tent. But we also realized to create an atmosphere where you have a grandiose, a really big tent, and having to paint it inside, it would be totally impossible, to give the feeling of all the evil inside and all the things going on on stage. And I got an idea of like, why don’t we take it as the continuation of what you see on number one, and take the booklet, fold it out, and the right side would be there, so it would be a double-sided picture compared to the one we actually had. And here comes all the evil stuff.

BM: Yep.

LL: And the guys were like, “Yeah, that’s a good idea. But how is he going to do that? I mean, he can’t just paint on with the picture, because the picture is done. It’s finished.” I wrote him, and I guarantee you, five days later, the second album cover was there. And he just created it. I was like, “How the fuck did you do that?”

BM: [laughs]

LL: And the picture’s actually very, very big. It’s not a small picture. He’s painted it with an airbrush or whatever it’s called.

BM: Yeah.

LL: So he has painted the different parts, like the guy standing with the knife, the gypsy woman, they’re painted by themselves and put into the picture afterwards. So it’s really, really amazing. I love this. And we have posters created, that have the whole picture, actually, both number one and number two put together.

BM: Well, it’s stunning.

LL: If you want one, I will send you one.

BM: I would absolutely, of course. Yeah. That’s just absolutely one of my favorite album covers of all time. It just really touches me. It’s amazing.

LL: That’s fucking cool, man. Just tell me your address, I will send you one poster. [NOTE: He did, signed by the members of Manticora. It’s spectacular.]

BM: Oh man, thank you very much.

LL: No problem at all.

BM: This concept, this whole Black Circus thing is supposedly sort of inspired by [American horror author H.P.] Lovecraft [1890-1937]?

LL: Yes.

BM: How did you discover Lovecraft? And did this hit you in the same kind of way that Hyperion did, where you said, “Man, this is just kicking my ass. I gotta make something out of this”?

LL: Well, we’ve been pretty much inspired by H.P. Lovecraft since the beginning of getting together in Manticora.

BM: Really?

LL: Yeah, we have several songs on both the first and second album dealing with Lovecraft actually.

BM: Oh yeah, yeah.

LL: Originally, I think it was Mads, who introduced the rest of us to this. We had known the name, H.P. Lovecraft, but didn’t really get into it. And Mads was just like, “Well, read some of his novels, they’re very, very cool.” We did. And then we did some role-playing games as well, where Mads was the dungeon master, but just in the realm of H.P. Lovecraft. Kind of to get into the mood of writing lyrics for some of the songs.

BM: Yeah.

LL: And it was kind of us wanting to get back to, not to the roots, but back to where it all started, lyrical-wise, for us. When Mads proposed this, “The Black Circus” thing, it was like, “Yeah, the wolves coming in, and they’re eating people, and blood and gore all the time, and I’ve written five songs, you know, the lyrics for it”. And I’m looking at this, like, “Ok, blood is everywhere, blah, blah, blah, gore, and somebody’s arm is ripped off, and somebody’s hair is ripped off, and yes, we can use this. But let’s try and develop it, ok?”

BM: [laughs] Yeah.

LL: [laughs] We began to develop it into a story, and suddenly Kristian and I had an idea, why don’t we put a Lovecraft inspiration to it, so you suddenly have something evil coming from outside. You don’t know what it is, but it’s fucking evil. And you have the gypsies, they’re working together with this evil entity being there, sucking the minds out of these people, and suddenly we have the story. It became H.P. Lovecraft inspired, but definitely our own songs and our own lyrics all the way through.

BM: Well, it looks like, and when I read all your lyrics and look at your albums from start to finish, that you draw a lot of inspiration from books, from literature. Where do you find the time to do all this reading? You have a pretty busy schedule, how are you reading all these books? [laughs]

LL: You know what, this is going to be a very, very personal answer. I spend a lot of time on the dump. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

LL: [laughs]

BM: Jeez, I guess so, because Hyperion’s a lot of books. [laughs]

LL: Well, you know, have you seen the movie Lethal Weapon Part II with Mel Gibson, and what’s his name, the black guy?

BM: Danny Glover? Yeah. Danny Glover.

LL: Danny Glover.

BM: Yeah, yeah.

LL: Yeah, you know the scene where he’s sitting on the toilet like, “For 25 years, my wife and my daughters and my sons have been there all the time, and I have to get out in the morning and fight for the toilet.” And suddenly he’s retired and sitting on his toilet and for the first time in his life, he’s relaxing. Sitting there, reading his fishing magazine, whatever it is.

BM: [laughs]

LL: Taking a relaxing time for himself. I feel the same way. Going to the dump, I want to spend my time, get some reading done and all that.

BM: [laughs]

LL: And, of course, I’m exaggerating here, but I also try to spend as much time as possible on my holidays reading. Relaxing so much, so I get a lot of reading done at that point.

BM: What else inspires you? Where do you get your ideas from besides literature?

LL: From life itself, actually. You know, I am an atheist. I am very, very anti-religious. I don’t get this thing with people wanting to, what do you call it, I can’t find the word. Maybe it’s called indulge into religion.

BM: Yeah, sure.

LL: And having to have something bigger than themselves creating their lives, and having to bow down to something that must be there, because why are we here? I just don’t get it. But I’m writing a lot of lyrics about that. It doesn’t show that much in Manticora. I don’t feel bad about other people wanting to believe in that kind of god or whatever it is, it’s their personal matter. Just don’t push it down on my head [laughs] because I don’t want any of it. But I’m writing a lot of lyrics about why and how and all that. You know, all the questions, how can you put your hands into this. And at the same time, I’m watching wars go on around the world a lot of shit like that, and life in general. How we’re being assholes to each other, some people who don’t have anything actually being the good guys toward each other. A lot of things like that. Feelings. And I’m writing a lot of stuff about my own mental state. I’m not crazy or anything, which is what the crazy guys used to say. [laughs]

BM: [laughs] Yeah, sure you’re not.

LL: [laughs] Exactly. Denial’s the first phase.

BM: Yeah. [laughs]

LL: I’m not crazy! [laughs] I’m not a drunkard!

BM: [laughs]

LL: But I’m also very aware of the fact that I have a bit of lunacy inside my head. Which I think all artistic people have. That’s my theory. To have this crazy thing, it’s like a pushing force, all the time, knowing there’s something there that shouldn’t be there. I don’t know how to explain it.

BM: Yeah.

LL: Trust me, I’m not crazy. And I have to get into the United States to perform, so if they ask me in the customs, I’m going to say, “No, I’m perfectly sane. I’m totally sane.” [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

LL: Nah, but you now, it’s life. Life inspires me to write.

BM: In your liner notes, you mentioned this earlier, you talked about yourself and your indulgence. In your liner notes to Black Circus, you actually thank yourself, “And to myself, for keeping up with my own self-indulgence.”

LL: Yeah.

BM: What is your self-indulgence? How does that manifest itself? What does it look like?

LL: Well, it looks like me. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

LL: It’s like, I’m extremely pushy towards people. If I have decided something in my mind, I will do anything I can do to make it reality, even if I have to step on other people sometimes. And that’s where I am actually self-aware of my indulgence, because I try not to step on other people’s toes, and I try to say, “Lars, for Christ’s sake, calm down, ok? Just let the other guys have some space and whatever it is.” But I find myself time and again, pushing people. Pushing people to get into the line of thought that I have. I’ll try to find an example somewhere. Here’s an example. When we had done the first part of the Black Circus, we had a meeting at my parents’ where all the band was invited, and we ate and had a good time. We try to do that with the parents and the band, we eat at their places so our parents know what their sons are walking around doing with the other guys. It’s very, very cozy, and good times. And we’re discussing the sound (of The Black Circus, Pt. 1). Some of the guys in the band thought, “Well, maybe the sound is a little bit too, what do you call it, not enough bass, it sounds a little bit too crisp.” And I’m like, “Whoa, guys, we need to do the same thing on the second one as well, because we simply just cannot go out and change the producer in the middle of a concept album.” They’re like, “But maybe, Lars. Maybe we need to do it.” And I was like, “No. No Way. We cannot do that.” And at some point I was becoming just like a child, you know.

BM: [laughs]

LL: Trying to tell them, “If you do that, I’m just going to leave the band. I’m just going to do this and do this, and you can fuck off, and you can.” And the other guys have told me that, “Lars, that’s not ok. That’s not ok to behave like that.” And I’m like, “No, I know.” [laughs]

BM: Yeah.

LL: But this is just the way I am. And I think they have begun to live with it, they just say, “Well, that’s Lars.” That’s the way I am.

BM: Well, yeah, I can understand that. You sound a little bit like the guy from Mustache, Ralf Gyllanhammer.

LL: Yes?.

BM: He said those kinds of things to me as well. He’s got that kind of driven personality.

LL: Yeah. But I think it has to do with the fact that I have been the one that the media and some of the fans and all that have been bashing from the beginning.

BM: [laughs]

LL: Because I don’t have a talent for singing, I have admitted that in numerous interviews. I have been fighting for it since the beginning. I have been trying to fight to become a singer. Where give Kasper a bass in his hands, and he’s like [makes bass noise]. Just amazing. We call him “The German Thunder Fingers,” because that’s what he does. Give Mads a drum kit, and he bangs those bass drums like 210 beats per minute. And that’s what he does. I have to fight for every inch I take with my singing. And I have to push in the other ways, you know, push in the studio things, I have to push in the promotion of the band and all that. And I think it’s reflecting me at some point in this.

BM: Well, boy, there’s a lot of things I could ask. But I’ll ask you just two things more. Road stories. When you guys are out on tour, who’s the prankster in the band?

LL: Kasper is the energy bomb.

BM: Is he really? [laughs]

LL: He is totally a bomb of energy all the time. If you’re feeling down, turn over to him, and you just talk to him, and five minutes later you feel good, because he’s like, “Hey!” Totally. He’s the youngest guy in the band, and he’s just amazing to have on tour. Mads is actually the funny guy. I know it sounds crazy, the drummers are always the cranky guys, not being able to do anything else but the drums. But Mads is just a funny guy. Whenever we have something funny going on, people say, “I have a story, blah, blah, blah.” And the next guy is, “Well, my story’s better. Listen to this.” And we go on, and put each other up into the 10,000 feet in the air, and suddenly Mads just slams down everything with a single comment, and everybody is screaming with laughter, and you know, crying!! with laughter sometimes.

BM: [laughs]

LL: He is really amazing, that guy. It’s the most stupid things, but it makes the rest of us guys just stop saying anything because we know we cannot beat what he just said.

BM: [laughs]

LL: So yeah, but he’s the prank.

BM: Well tell me, this is the last question, you guys just put out two of the finest albums that I have in my collection. Really, really phenomenal.

LL: Thank you.

BM: By the way, I’ve always enjoyed your voice. It is a unique voice, but I don’t see anything wrong with it. I think it’s powerful, you hit some great notes, and yeah, I think it’s a really good voice.

LL: Thank you for that.

BM: I wouldn’t worry about the critics. [laughs] The last question is this: where do you go from here? Two of the coolest album covers, two of the coolest concept albums, does your amp go to 11? I mean, how are you going to top this?

LL: [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

LL: [laughs] That’s a good one. [laughs] I guess we gotta build some amp that goes to 12 or something like that.

BM: [laughs]

LL: [laughs] I actually don’t know how to beat this. Are you going to be reviewing the next album? I need to ask you that.

BM: Yeah. You got another one coming out?

LL: No, no. But just I know from your side it’s going to be a very, very bad review. We’re not going to top the Black Circus things. I have to prepare for that. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

LL: Nah, we have four or five half-finished songs right now.

BM: Really?

LL: Yeah, but it’s, we’ve kind of taken a break from music writing, because in the past we have felt like, “Ok, it’s been one year since this recent album, we need to write a new one and get it out immediately.” You know, have a consistent release schedule of every second year. But now we’re like, “Hmm, we released an album in 2006 and 2007, we don’t have to release something in 2008. We don’t actually have to release something in 2009. We can wait until 2010 if we want to.” So we have taken a break. We went over to this summer house, the six guys, and did a working weekend where we just created riffs, just wanted to see what it amounted to. We did two songs at that point. But right now, it’s all about touring, touring, touring, getting shows, because we realize that the record sales are falling. We realize that if we just put another album out in 2009, it’s going to be another album selling nothing more than the previous album, because we have not toured enough and gained enough new fans. So we’re going to tour and tour and tour and tour. And then we’re going to record the new album whenever we feel like it’s going to be ready. But I think there’s going to be some change, actually, in the style. It’s still going to be Manitcora, but I think it’ll be even more diverse than we have tried previously.

BM: Wow. Can’t wait. I’m looking forward to it.

LL: Me too.

BM: Well, Lars, I appreciate your time tonight so much. I know you were tired to begin with, and I kept you on the phone for an hour, so I’m really grateful. How about this: I’ll buy you a beer. You know, when I see you at one of these gigs, I’ll buy you a round. How’s that?

LL: Well, if you buy the first one, I’ll buy the next three.

BM: [laughs]

LL: How about that? [laughs]

BM: That’s way too generous, man. [laughs]

LL: You know that Manticora is known for drinking shitloads of beer at one time.

BM: Yeah.

LL: On the Angra European tour, the tour manager complained about us having extra beers all the time. “What do you Danish people do besides drinking beer?” “Nothing.”

BM: I was going to say, every picture you sent to me was you guys drinking beer. [laughs]

LL: Yep. [laughs] It’s all the time. I mean, and on tour, it’s even worse. Of course, I try to lay a little bit low, because of my voice and all that, I have to keep it at a certain level. But some of the other guys, they are stoned dead drunk some of the nights. I can’t believe they can get up and play the next day, but that’s what they do.

BM: [laughs]

LL: By the way, talking about pictures, do you need more pictures, you know, normal picures? Personal pictures?

BM: Well, whatever you have. This will be a long interview to transcribe. It’s going to end up being probably like, oh, an hour interview comes out to about 35-40 pages transcribed. So any pictures you have would be useful. I’m going to use all of your album covers. Plus, I’ll use all the pictures you sent.

LL: Ok. I’ll send a shitload.

BM: That’d be great. Send a shitload. [laughs] Alright.

LL: I have like 2000 pictures of Manicora.

BM: [laughs] Well, I really appreciate it, Lars. I can’t wait to see you guys. My wife and I are just big fans. The last two albums just kicked our ass. We just can’t wait.

LL: I’m looking forward to see you guys as well. So whenever we get to ProgPower, you are coming to Atlanta, ProgPower?

BM: Yeah, we’ve got tickets to the first night of ProgPower, we’ve also got tickets to when you guys play in our hometown, so we’ll be seeing you at least once, probably twice. [NOTE: The gig originally scheduled for The Intersection on October 2 in Grand Rapids has been canceled. As of this publication, Hoyt from Intromental is scrambling to reschedule in Grand Rapids.]

LL: Just grab me and say, “Hey, I’m Bill.” And we’ll grab a beer together, ok?

BM: Sounds great, Lars. I appreciate it. Have a good evening tonight. Get some rest.

LL: Ok man, you too. And thanks for the interview.

BM: Oh, you’re welcome. Thank you. Bye bye.

LL: Alright, bye bye.

This interview was recently conducted by Greg, aka General Zod on the ProgPower USA Forum.

Jon: Hello

Greg: Hey Jon.

Jon: Hey man, what’s happening?

Greg: Going well. Is this the beginning or the end of a very long day of press for you?

Jon: It’s getting towards the end. I got about an hour and a half to go.

Greg: OK… well I try not to be too redundant.

Jon: Alright. (laughter)

Greg: Before we jump into it, I know you guys have been bouncing all around Europe, how’s your back holding up?

Jon: It’s doing good. My back is good. The biggest thing is, I have to be careful. Kind of watch what I’m doing on stage. I can’t do the stuff I did years ago. I just have to tone it down a little bit and make sure that I stay fit… exercise. If I run into a problem, things start to feel weird, I have to just be in tune with my body. When we’re doing an extended run of dates, I have a physical therapist go on tour just to prevent any potential problems. But when we’re doing these sporadic dates, like we were in Europe, the festivals mainly, which are on the weekends, if something starts going on I have to get a massage or get to a chiropractor. Whatever I feel like my body is telling me. I just have to listen to my body and not ignore it like I use to.

Greg: Before we get into what you guys have going on right now, I just want to touch on a bit of what’s happened over the last six to nine months, because obviously its been quite eventful for you. One of the more fun things, was you got a chance to open for Heaven and Hell over in Europe . I know those guys are some of your heroes. So, what was that like for you personally?

Jon: It was awesome. It was an honor. I love Ronnie to death. He’s one of the most special people that’s ever graced this industry… from an artistic stand point, and even more so from a personal stand point. It’s a rare thing to meet one of your heroes, and see what an awesome person he is. Ronnie is the real deal. He’s a sweetheart of a person… he’s really genuine… he cares. I don’t know. I just can’t say enough good things about him. He’s one of my favorite guys. Obviously Tony Iommi he’s uhhh… Tony Iommi.
(mutual laughter)

Jon: He’s the Godfather of the Metal riff. That was really cool as well. I’m a big Geezer fan so… it was great. It was an opportunity for us, because the UK really started to open up when we signed with SPV, when we had the release of The Glorious Burden… that is definitely are biggest album to date there. Framing is doing very well also, but The Glorious Burden has been out longer, so it’s sold more. It was one of those things that was just awesome. Our real tour of the UK was an arena tour with Lamb of God and Black Sabbath.

Greg: That’s a nice threesome.

Jon: It was really great. It was a blast.

Greg: So the tour wound down, and all the big news came down. In regard to Tim, the comments he made, he felt the departure was inevitable and best for everyone. He said he had no hard feelings and nothing but great things to say about you. Which sounds a bit curious. If everyone felt that the departure was inevitable, yet there were no hard feelings, can you give us some insight into what led to the split? Was it personal? Was it business? Was it, “Hey, I want Matt back in the band’?

Jon: Well, here’s the thing… Iced Earth has always been, even before Matt was in the band, about spirit in a live setting, and kind of a way of life and a certain dedication. It felt… and all of the guys that were in the band were true believers. And I love Tim’s voice and I think he’s one of the greatest singers that will ever grace this industry and in the studio working with him was just incredible. But live, it did feel… and I’m not saying that he didn’t do well live… he did. But from a spiritual point of view, on stage, it just didn’t feel like it should have. That was when I really started … here’s the thing. We didn’t do that much touring when Tim was in the band. The Glorious Burden tour of the states, it went really well and we had basically a sold out tour everywhere… at least for the A leg. For the B leg we played a lot of Tulsa, Oklahomas and those kind of places, and that was the first time through and there’d be 400 – 500 people. But, The House of Blues, the big leg, it was all sold out everywhere…. we had good reactions. But I sensed something was up, but I was really struggling with my back and I wasn’t really in tune, like I should have been, because I was really hurting on stage. I couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was that was feeling wrong, I just knew I wasn’t feeling right. Well, on the Framing Armageddon tour of Europe, which is a few years after the fact, I’m doing good and feeling good, but it’s not feeling right on stage. And obviously I never wanted Matt to be out of the band anyway. The way 9/11 effected him and the way if effected me was different, although I considered stopping Iced Earth as well. I considered really heavily joining the military. It was some Navy SEAL buddies that actually talked me out of it and said, “No, you’re going to be a such a bigger help for us if you keep doing what you do, than if you join the military. There’s enough of us, we need you. We need somebody out there spreading the word.” I really listened to that. But it was a consideration. Because I was fucking pissed. I was really feeling like I needed to do something. And when something like that goes down, it makes Iced Earth pale in comparison to the importance of what’s really going on in the world. And it does pale. And now I have a daughter, and she’s the number one most important thing in my life. But before she came into my life, it was the band. But when something like 9/11 happens, it makes you question everything around you, you know?

Greg: Yeah. It was definitely scary. My wife was in Manhattan when that all went down.

Jon: Oh… fuck.

Greg: Yeah… that was a crazy day. But uhhh…

Jon: But Matt went through that too. And that was when he was really analyzing what am I really going to do. And a different path in his life opened up. And I talked into staying in the band. We tried doing The Glorious Burden recording. We tracked all of it. And it just didn’t go well. It was obvious that Matt was disconnected mentally. It wasn’t like all of a sudden he couldn’t sing anymore. He just wasn’t there. In the midst, I decided to stop production and said, “I can’t do this, I can’t release the album this way”. And that’s when I called Tim to come in as a guest singer, just to finish the record, and then I’ll figure out what to do next. Well, one thing led to another, Tim does the record, does an amazing job and on the way home he finds out that Priest and Halford are reforming, which had been a rumor for a couple of years at that point anyway, but it was a reality. So he came into the band, we did it, and uhhh… things went down as I just explained. Here’s the thing… there would have been a change after Part II anyway. And when I heard about Matt doing the thing with Pyramaze, and even though I had seen Matt a few times through the years we never discussed anything concerning music… it was about family… whatever. But when I heard about that, I called him up when I got back and said, “So man, you getting the bug? You missing it?” And he was like, “Yeah… I am missing it.” And the first thing we discussed was doing another project. You know like, starting something else. And uhhh…

Greg: Really?

Jon: And as the discussions went on, that didn’t really make sense. It was like, “Fuck it man. Let’s do it again. Come back to Iced Earth. If you’re missing it, this is the way to do it.” And he was like, “Yeah man… fucking A, let’s do it.” So that’s how it went down. And I immediately let Tim know. And I know he’s complained about the way it happened and stuff, but the reality is…. You know, I’m not going to get into the details because, I just… it’s not worth it. I’m not feeding the gossip streams.

Greg: Let me ask you this… because it is obviously something that’s been floated out there. And I know you said you don’t want to get into the nitty gritty details… so let me put it to you this way… given the way it went down, if you had it to do over again, would it have been done differently?

Jon: I would have done exactly the same thing.

Greg: Cool. I just wanted to get an idea.

Jon: Here’s the thing… Yeah… OK, it was around Christmas. I’m sorry, that’s difficult. But… BUT… the decision was made and I could have lied.

Greg: Right.

Jon: And been deceitful and played games through Christmas. That’s bullshit. I’m not the kind of person whose going to… you know, Matt and I talked for two days and the decision was made. It wasn’t like there was months of negotiations going on and whatever, like what was going on with Judas Priest… there was all kinds of rumors being leaked out. And I think that is a much more deceitful way of doing business than just being straight up about it. And the way things were handled on his end after that? Getting a call from a Yoko Ono kind of a situation. Now that definitely exasperated the thing and I was pretty pissed off, but… I wouldn’t, on my end, change the way anything was done.

Greg: Fair enough.

Greg: With Matt back in the band, having done the recording with Pyramaze, they made it clear it wasn’t a touring project, but they didn’t make it sound like it was a one time deal with Matt either. In your discussions with Matt, did you tell him this needed to be his primary and only musical focus? Did he have to step away from Pyramaze to come back to Iced Earth?

Jon: No. But he actually offered to. He hadn’t done the Pyramaze recording yet.

Greg: Oh… OK.

Jon: He told the guys… dude…. he wanted to be in Iced Earth. Obviously, it’s kind of a slight step up.

Greg: Right.

Jon: Those guys are cool. I met Michael. I told Matt, “Hey, I wouldn’t expect you to not fulfill your obligation. You’re a man of your word. You committed to this and I don’t have a problem with it.” Here’s the thing… it was a project. It was something for Matt to do. They were never gonna tour. It wasn’t going to be a real band situation. And Matt told them, “Maybe you should find somebody else, that’s actually going to be able to the couple of shows a year that you’re going to do and whatever.” But the reality is, with Matt’s lifestyle, he can’t do two bands. There’s no way. It’s not like I told him he couldn’t or anything like that. In fact I told him I think you should finish it. But he gave those guys the opportunity to find somebody else to do the album that would be able to do any kind of shows, if it was going to be two shows a year or whatever. He gave them the opportunity to do that. And they still wanted to have Matt in the band. And from a business stand point… it’s mixed… it’s probably not the smartest thing to do. It is for getting press and promotion, but… you know it depends on what your goals are, and those guys all have jobs and stuff. From that standpoint, it probably was the smart thing to do. From the standpoint of, if you’re really trying to do something with your band it’s not the smartest thing. Whatever. That’s on them. I met Michael over in Germany, when we did the Rock Hard Festival, and said, “Well I guess you’re the guy I have to thank for convincing Matt to come back into the music world.” And he’s a cool dude. And I’m sure he was a little disappointed in it. And they tried to spin it at first and say that you’ll be getting Matt in double doses. And he was saying a lot of stuff that Matt had not approved him to say. Because actually, while all that was going on, Matt’s baby was born. So he’s in the hospital having a baby while these things are being put out there and he’s obviously dealing with something far more important.

Greg: Wow.

Jon: There’s some interesting spin going on at the time but, when Matt came back from the hospital and got situated he set the thing straight. It is what it is.

Greg: That actually gets into my next question. Given Matt’s work/vacation schedule, how often do you see Iced Earth being able to do a tour. Once a year? Is it every two years?

Jon: We’re doing a lot of touring. I know as soon as we announced this all these people were like, “They’re just a festival band… it’s over now… they’re going to be doing this… blah, blah, blah.” And Matt and I are sitting back, kind of smiling, going, “That was easy… it was easy to see this kind of bullshit coming.” Yes, it makes things a little more tricky as far as scheduling goes. He has a pretty flexible schedule. The vacation time he gets applies to his actual shift. When you have four days on and four days off, that turns into a pretty good amount of time. How long he’s going to do that? I don’t know. It’s up to him. That’s a decision that he purely has to make. If he wants to come back full time and really go for it, that’s cool. What this does, if we keep it like it is, it gives me more opportunities to do things that I have been offered so many times that I can’t do. Like producing other bands, doing other projects, and first and foremost, being home with my family more. I’m cool with whatever we do. Because we’re going to be able to do the required amount of touring, which is Europe, that states, the festivals, and South America and Japan, we can work that in on every album cycle.

Greg: Talking about touring, there was a lot of talk amongst fans about how Tim would handle some of Matt’s more emotional, lower register vocal lines. Now people wonder if there’s anything Tim did on Glorious or Framing, that you would like to do live, that is outside of Matt’s range?

Jon: Matt can do all of those songs and sing all of those songs in the proper key. Now… is he going to have to do it different technique-wise? Yeah, probably. Because Tim’s strength is he has a very big sounding falsetto, which is kind of abnormal. Because most people go into falsetto and it gets very thin, because it’s false… it’s a fake voice. But Tim’s sounds huge. Matt has a very wide range as well. He can do a lot of high parts. It may not sound quite as thick, but I think that’s the kind of thing that’s noticed more in recording than it will ever be in a live setting. It’s not a concern of mine. We haven’t run it that. Matt did redo a few songs from Framing. He had already sung the entire Glorious Burden album. It wasn’t technically he couldn’t do it, it’s just that the spirit wasn’t there. That was what was missing. The reason I pulled the plug on it was because it was the biggest, best album that I had ever written, the “Gettysburg” thing was my magnum opus, let’s say, at that point. And I just didn’t feel like there was enough heart put into it and I had to just pull the plug. Purely because of the mental state Matt was in. It had nothing to do with his ability. Those are two different things. Anybody who knows anything about singing knows 80% of it is mental. There’s going to be people who have varying opinions on that and I don’t give a shit and never have.

(mutual laughter)
Greg: You mentioned Matt recorded a couple of songs from Framing for the single, is there any thought of having Matt re-record Part I?

Jon: Yes. It’s gonna happen. It’s because a box set has been planned since the very beginning, since I signed the deal with SPV.

Greg: So Matt doing all of Framing will be part of the box set?

Jon: Yes. It’s only to give it continuity, it’s not to erase anything Tim did.

- 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.

So I was thrilled to interview, at length, guitarist and co-founder Esa Holopainen on May 6, 2008. The interview was conducted via Skype. Special thanks to Esa for providing the photos of himself.

Enjoy!

EH: Hello?

BM: Hi, is this Esa?

EH: Yes, it’s me. Hi Bill.

BM: Hi, how you doin’?

EH: Doing all right thanks.

BM: Oh good. Good, good. Did I call at the right time?

EH: Yeah, yeah, exactly. It’s good. And Skype seems to work as well, so it’s good. [laughs]

BM: Yeah, this is great. I’m really glad I checked the world time zone website today, because I found out it was a seven-hour difference, and not six.

EH: Exactly. [laughs] So how are things? Good?

BM: Oh, things are great. This is a gorgeous day here. It’s about 65 degrees and sunny. It’s beautiful.

EH: That’s good. It’s getting better here in Finland as well, so it’s really nice. It’s getting really nice.

BM: I really appreciate your time tonight.

EH: No problem. No problem.

BM: Well, our ProgPower interviews tend to cover a band’s history, not just their latest album, so I’ll ask you a lot about your early work to give people an in-depth look at who you as a musician, as well as a person.

EH: Yeah, yeah, right.

BM: I have to tell you Silent Waters is one of my absolute favorite albums.

EH: Thanks.

BM: Phenomenal work.

EH: Thanks. It’s a huge change, you know, when Tomi [Joutsen, vocalist] came to the band. I mean, we had a good time with Pasi [Koskinen, former vocalist], but the last years with him, because we saw when he was suffering with lack of motivation, so it was like change between day and night when we decided to work with Tomi. And we sort of found again the passion for the music. So I think it can be really heard, a glimpse especially on Silent Waters. And it’s a brilliant album, I’m totally proud of it.

BM: Oh yeah. Well, as a matter of fact, congratulations. You recently received gold-record awards for Eclipse and Silent Waters.

EH: Yeah, that was pretty amazing as well, because it’s the first gold records for us. And it’s really weird how things have changed since we started. It’s like, you know, I wouldn’t ever imagine that we would someday achieve gold status here in Finland, but it’s like, metal music in general, in Finland, it’s like the national style of music.

BM: [laughs] Yeah. Well yeah, a lot of great bands come out of your country. And that region of the world is just phenomenal with bands.

EH: It’s pretty amazing if you see how, it’s not the big population we have, it’s a bit over five million people here, so it’s a shitload of bands. [laughs]

BM: [laughs] Well, when you got those gold records, were you thinking, “Gosh, I can’t wait to put these on my wall?” Or were you thinking, “Take that, all you doubters who didn’t think we’d get this far?”

EH: [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

EH: I have to say that when I was about expect the gold record to be received, I started to look a little bit to the space on my walls where it would look nice. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

EH: But it’s important. It’s something for yourself that you have crossed sort of a line. So it really feels good.

BM: Oh yeah. Well, you mentioned just a second ago about how far you’ve come. And I have to tell you, I understand your name is based on sort of a play on words, you know, amorphous being no determinate form and shapeless. But your first album is just straight death metal. As a genre, it’s very restrictive. So when you chose your band name, were you thinking down the road somewhere, that, “Gosh, we’re going to be completely different in a few albums?” In other words, why did you pick a name that’s so open, and yet you started with a music style that’s so narrow?

EH: It was like pure accident. It was a name which sounded pretty cool [laughs] and we decided to pick it up because we didn’t want like any gore fest. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

EH: Or bands which were starting at that time as well. So we wanted something different. And that just sounded cool. And next year it will be 20 years since we came up with that band name. [laughs]

BM: Wow.

EH: So it’s, if you look back now, I think I’m really happy that we are Amorphis and not, like, [called] Gore Fest or something like this. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

EH: Because we’re, on the other hand, we could have picked up like a silly name, and for a longer term, it would have been a different situation. [laughs] You know, stand behind that name.

BM: I can think of two bands like that, Edguy, and Symphony X. I talked to both of those guys, and they both said, “We have no idea why we chose those names, and now we wish we didn’t.” [laughs]

EH: [laughs] You know it’s, I never asked this from [Tobias] Sammet [vocalist[, but we did a lot of festivals playing since, I always wondered but I never asked, you know, “What is this Edguy, and what does it stand for?” [laughs] Who is Edguy? Ed who?

BM: [laughs] Yeah, I think he told me it was some guy named Ed that they knew in school or something, and they just decided to call it Edguy. [laughs]

EH: That seems sad. [laughs] Funny-ass Germans. [laughs]

BM: [laughs] Germans, yeah. What can you expect from Germans?

EH: Yeah. [laughs]

BM: You started with a form of music that I mentioned a second ago. Given that region of the world, there’s an awful lot going on: melodic death metal, the whole Gothenburg Sweden thing’s in that region of the world, power metal from Finland, Nightwish, Stratovarious, folk metal, Finntroll, Korpiklaani. There are a wealth of sounds and styles over there. How did you get attracted to what many call just straightforward death metal? What was it about that genre that grabbed you at first?

EH: At that time, I think that was the sort of style of music that was operating a lot with like underground networks. So there were like little magazines by people who were doing them by themselves. They used copy machines to print their magazines out.

BM: Oh yeah, yeah.

EH: And you had cassettes, there’s a lot of tape trading involved, people share of their demos with each other, and small record companies started to get involved with that as well, they started to listen to a lot of the demos. And Relapse guys started like that, they started to pick up demos and then pick up bands. And a lot of little, nowadays huge labels, like Nuclear Blast and Century Media, they started like this, and it just started to grow and grow. And for us, we, from the very beginning, when we started to play together, we wanted to add you know, little bit like melodies in our death metal music at that time. Because it was fun to play death metal, but we just wanted to put something only in there. And already at that time we were listen to lot of, like Jethro Tull and bands from ‘70s, and besides of digging the death metal bands at that time, like Carcass and Tool, and so on. So at the end of the day, our music started to be little soup, like influences from there and there. And yeah, I don’t know, from all that soup, sort of started, we started to create our own sound.

BM: [laughs] Yeah.

EH: And that’s how it started.

BM: You had a logo change, your first two albums, you have that one style of logo that looks very death metalish, and suddenly with the third album, Elegy, different logo, different sound.

EH: Yeah.

BM: Did you consciously make the decision to change the logo and the sound at the same time? Or was it purely accidental?

EH: Yeah, we, you know, it’s nice thing from the past, but on Elegy we started to, I don’t know, think a little bit more about being some concept. So we decided [to use] that battle logo [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

EH: Wasn’t good for the cover. So we decided, at that point, a little bit to change the logo. But you know, there’s a lot of people who still dig the old logo, and so we, these days we do the retro t-shirts, we have the old battle logo and old Amorphis t-shirts out.

BM: Oh, that’s cool. Very cool. Amoprhis draws often from the Kanteletar and the Kalevala [Finnish national epic and collection of ancient folk poetry, respectively].

EH: Yeah, that’s right.

BM: The question I have is – and I think other fans on the ProgPower forum have asked this too – when we as fans outside of Finland look at your lyrics, and some of your music, can we conclude, “Wow, those Finnish people must be really steeped in classical poetry?”

EH: [laughs]

BM: Or should we look at it and say, “Wow, these guys just happen to like those poems?”

EH: Um, I think you should look it like, “Wow, these guys must have been really weird at all times.” [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

EH: [laughs] You know, we used to eat, like, testicles when there was civilization in other places.

BM: [laughs]

EH: But it’s like the old myths and there’s a lot of old sagas where people used to believe here at the old days, the old gods. And it’s perfect, old, little or huge world where people used to believe. And there are a lot of stories and beliefs we started to tell throughout our music. And at first it was just, it was not accident, but we wanted to add like folk melodies to our music and we had an idea that why not putting out some old traditions in lyrical form as well.

BM: Yeah.

EH: That’s basically how it started. And we really liked the form, how the music and the lyrics started to work very good with each other. That was something we wanted to develop further. And at certain point, I think during our [Am] Universum album [2001], and the album after that, Far from the Sun [2003], we wanted to get a bit more rid of the power metal image and all that. But then when Tomi came into the band again, we started to think about concepts and ideas. We really felt good to come back with this world and starting to create what I think we can do the best.

BM: The, one of the posters to the ProgPower forum wanted to know this, and I think it’s a pretty good question: Do you want to be known as a Finnish band? Or do you just want to be known as a power metal band? In other words, do you feel like you’re carrying the weight of the Finnish history, representing your country with the ancient poems and all that?

EH: Uh, that’s like a question a lot of people asked. Do we want to consider us more like a Finnish band or are we proud to be a Finnish band? And I think what the themes are dealing with are definitely very Nordic, very Finnish, what we do. But for the same time, we do very universal music. We want to spread our music everywhere, so it’s just the themes and topics what we are dealing with are something what interests us and we want to share with other people. But definitely, because I think the lyrical theme is so strong in our band and the image is so strong in the band, it’s of course, Finland and to be a Finnish band is always going to pop up somewhere.

BM: [laughs]

EH: People talk with this band. There are a lot of bands like Finnish bands where if you listen like, music from the band HIM, which is great guys, great music, but if you listen to their music, you can’t tell if they’re from Canada or they’re from Finland or they’re from States or they’re from Germany. [laughs]

BM: Yeah.

EH: Oh, you could say if they would be from Germany. [laughs]

BM: [laughs] Yeah.

EH: That’s for sure. [laughs]

BM: [laughs] Well, you know what’s interesting, a lot of bands go way into the folk metal, that whole genre, with Finntroll, Korpiklaani, and Turisas.

EH: Yes.

BM: How did you guys stop from crossing that line? You know what I mean? It’s like they went way into it, they’re completely folk.

EH: Yeah.

BM: But you didn’t. You just sort of toed the line and then backed off.

EH: Yeah. I think they went, they have gone very far with that. It’s very, bands like yeah, Finntroll, Korpiklaani, they took the polka music into their, it’s like oompa, oopma, oompa.

BM: [laughs] Yeah.

EH: But it’s how we’ve started to do like folk ideas into our music was the main influence were the progressive bands from ‘70s. There were a lot of bands during the ‘70s in Finland who took rock music and some old folk melodies and did very well. So it’s like our idea was to develop our music and use the folk influences so that they match well with like rock music and with metal music. So it sounds more like Jethro Tull type of influences.

BM: Yeah, yeah.

EH: Yeah, Finntroll and the guys, they are really deep in what comes to folk metal themes, so it’s very, very traditional way how they proceed with their music. And it’s very common thing is that they have this polka beat in their music.

BM: Yeah, I like those bands. But sometimes it’s difficult to listen to too much of Korpiklaani, because it’s so, the humpa-beat thing, it’s almost too much going on. [laughs] You know?

EH: Yeah, yeah. They have a lot of good things in the music, but it should be something else than you know, “Humpa, humpa, let’s drink beer.” [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

EH: You know, we like to give a lot of emotions and feelings throughout the music.

BM: Yeah.

EH: You know, especially during the live situation as well, so you have like different moods and you have little things here and there in your live set, and it can’t be the same thing all times. You know? People get bored really easily.

BM: [laughs] Yeah, I know. You mentioned Jethro Tull as an influence. Your album Tuonela —

EH: Yeah.

BM: That sounds like, especially “Rusty Moon” with the flute and all that –

EH: Yeah.

BM: It sounds like a Jethro Tull song.

EH: It is, and on that album we took flute and saxophone in with the music, because there is a lot of folk influences in the songs that is really, you know, I think songs started to live in another light when we got flute in there.

BM: Yeah. It’s great.

EH: Yeah, it’s great. And that’s, you know, great thing about Jethro Tull. I always like how they manage to combine the folk elements into their progressive rock music. It’s amazing how they achieved it. And if you look at the old live recordings, what they did, it’s amazing band, how well they played together.

BM: Oh yeah. Definitely. I always liked Jethro Tull.

EH: Yes.

BM: ProgPower USA. How did you guys find out you got the gig? Did Glenn call you or email you? And what did you think when you landed that? You know, what does it mean for you guys to play ProgPower USA?

EH: Great, great, because it’s been a while since we’ve been in the States. And with that festival also, it was very great opportunity for us to be able to tour surrounding this festival as well. So, well, basically we got a call from our management and they told about the opportunity for this festival, and yeah, we really got excited about this, because it’s definitely a festival we want to come over, and looks very nice lineup there.

BM: Oh yeah. As a matter of fact, are there other bands in the lineup you’re looking forward to seeing yourself?

EH: I don’t know. That’s a lot of, what was the one band?

BM: We’ve got Elvenking, Andromeda, Rob Rock, Iced Earth.

EH: Oh yeah. Elvenking is definitely one of what I would like to see, and for sure Iced Earth, yeah.

BM: Yeah. When you play gigs, especially at ProgPower, I guess, do you like to spend time sort of mixing and mingling with fans, saying hi to people before or after your set?

EH: Usually not before, but after a set, it’s nice to go out, especially if you know, you don’t have to play last. Then it’s really boring because everybody is leaving. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

EH: But during the festivals, it’s nice to go and see the other bands from the audience side as well. And to have a chat with the fans. It’s great fun always, you know, to get like real feedback from people and they have chance to shake your hand. It’s great. You can make somebody happy just by showing your face. [laughs]

BM: Oh yeah, definitely. And you have a great tour coming with Samael, Leaves’ Eyes, and Virgin Black…what is it, September through October?

EH: Yes.

BM: A tour of the States that looks pretty extensive. Are you guys up for that? Are you looking forward to it?

EH: Yeah, definitely, especially, as you said, as we have such a good lineup with us. It’s really, really nice. It should be really good. And it’s a good variety of bands.

BM: Oh yeah, we can’t wait. I’m sure we’ll go see you guys in Illinois after ProgPower.

EH: Yeah.

BM: That’ll be great. Your entire career, like you said, has been nearly 20 years. When you look back at your two decades years in the band, what would you say was your biggest mistake that you made?

EH: It’s the last album we did with Pasi [Koskinen]. Far From the Sun.

BM: Yeah?

EH: The only negatives I have with that is that you know, it was like the album I think we should have done later, perhaps with Tomi. I don’t know. But you know, it was really hard to work at the studio when we saw that Pasi was not motivated at all. And then we were coming up with the vocal ideas for him and so on. And that was also the only album we did here in Europe for a major label.

BM: Yeah.

EH: So after Relapse, we tried Virgin EMI here in Finland and in Europe. So that was like disaster.

BM: [laughs]

EH: Everybody warned us before that, you know, “Don’t go for a major label.” But you know, that’s what happened. And we talked with the guys who, basically, told us, it’s no use to do another album. Nobody’s doing anything, no promotion at all. So yeah, it wasn’t good. After that we called up the Nuclear Blast guy, and said, “Would you like to start to work with us again?” So it was an easy choice.

BM: [laughs] When you look at your career, was there ever a time in the last 16-20 years or so where you thought about just ending it, quitting the band, ending Amorphis?

EH: No, not really, to be honest. I’ve never thought about quitting. That’s never been an option.

BM: Good.

EH: We even had an idea, if we wouldn’t have found Tomi or wouldn’t have found any new singer, I think we would have done an instrumental album and see where that would have led us to.

BM: Yeah.

EH: But we’ve been so many years with the band. So I couldn’t imagine a life without this band, because it’s like one extra leg for me. [laughs]

BM: [laughs] Well, it’s interesting. You’ve done a lot of tours, you’ve gone a lot of places. Do you have a favorite road story? What’s the strangest thing that’s ever happened to you guys out on the road, or the funniest thing or the scariest thing?

EH: Uh, let me see. Lots of things have happened, but when you look at them now, it’s more as funny.

BM: Yeah. [laughs]

EH: You know, like the typical things. Like, the tour bus has left me during the night at the gas station and all the obvious, Pasi has broke his leg a couple of times during a stage performance.

BM: Oh no.

EH: I broke my arm during the mixing session of Elegy [1996] in Liverpool.

BM: Oh man.

EH: [laughs] There’s been a lot of things, you know.

BM: Well, you’re a really good guitarist and songwriter. What has been your biggest challenge as a guitarist with Amorphis over the years? And in what way do you think your guitar playing has improved since you started?

EH: I think I have to say that the biggest improvements I’ve noticed is like taking ideas from another member of the band, because every musician thinks music in a different way. And if somebody tells me about the idea of the melody he wants me to play, or has an idea of rhythm idea, or some song structure or whatever, all that really helps because then you have to like go into another person’s mind and play, try to play how he thinks I should play. So that’s been like huge, huge help.

BM: Yeah.

EH: I think that’s for a guitar player or every player, that’s the greatest thing to go further, is to listen the other players and how they play. Because it’s like playing music is only, you know, bringing your mind and ideas into your instrument, and everybody thinks in different way. So that’s a huge help. And then you know, try different things and try to develop your music in like stupid ways.

BM: [laughs]

EH: Like play kids songs, old folk songs, whatever, just play and play. Until you realize that you have picked up a lot of good ideas.

BM: Well, there’s so much difference in your sound from the first album to the most recent one, Silent Waters. And some fans really like the death metal sounds, and some fans really like the newer sound. Do you ever worry about sort of leaving some fans behind when you change your sound from album to album, or every couple of them or so?

EH: Yes, I think that’s something we faced pretty soon when we released Tales From the Thousand Lakes [1994] and we got Elegy out.

BM: Yeah.

EH: There was a lot of people that wished we could have done an album which was more like Tales From the Thousand Lakes.

BM: Yeah.

EH: And then when we released Tuonela, there was a lot of people moaning about why we didn’t released an album like Elegy.

BM: [laughs]

EH: [laughs] So much like this. You know. It’s, things sound different these days. We do play even songs from the first album these days, but it’s, at the end of the day, they match very well together with the new material we do. So I think nowadays we have a lot of the old fans and still new fans in our shows, so everybody is happy now. [laughs]

BM: [laughs] Well, the thing that seems to be kind of a sticking point, sometimes American audiences have trouble with the growled vocals, you know, the death metal type things.

EH: Yes.

BM: Do you mix that up? Do you play some in that style in your stage shows nowadays, and how do you make the choice for that?

EH: Um, it’s pretty much, we never think about it, this song is going to too much growl or not. It’s basically the music, what—

BM: The music dictates how it sounds.

EH: Yeah, exactly. And musically, it’s the live show as well. So I know there are a lot of people that like melodic music but they can’t stand aggressive vocals. But still you have to stick with the basic. We started as a death metal band, and there’s still the roots that we have in that music. And the aggressive vocals are very strong way to, how should I put it, to put up great feelings with the songs.

BM: Oh yeah.

EH: You know, especially when people see us live, they forget the whole growling thing, even though Tomi is singing with the red face. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

EH: But it’s, it will be something that I’m sure people will not, you know, take that hard thing when they see us live. They’ll let us, the people who listen to pop music, they can’t stand growlers vocals, but they still like our albums in a weird way. [laughs]

BM: [laughs] Yeah. If I name an album, can you tell me what you remember most about it? Let’s start with your first one, The Karelian Isthmus [1992]. What do you remember most about that time? If your remember back that far, really. [laughs]

EH: [laughs] Yeah. I remember very well when we went to Sweden. That was the first time we, you know, took off and went into a proper studio. And we got a chance to record at Sunlight Studio in Stockholm, which was like the studio, beside Morrisound, at that time. And we lived in a little cottage village, like one and a half week, and that was the period we record the album at Sunlight. And we got surprised, because Sunlight was really, really small. Tomas [Skogsberg, producer] got an electric drum kit where we recorded all the drums, you know, it was very, very, very small in the way how we thought it would have been. But still there was a good mood up, and we found out that Tomas is a great fan of punk bands. And he, the secret behind his like old Entombed and this death metal sound was to do like a punk rock things throughout his amplifier. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

EH: But it was very interesting. As I said, we took a little bit over one week and we recorded the album. And it was great feeling when we have recorded it and we started to get feedback from Relapse guys.

BM: How did it feel to have that album in your hand finally, the final printed CD and everything? Was that a great feeling?

EH: It was a amazing, you know. It was like the first actual album you released. And then beside vinyl and cassette, we also got CD, which was quite rare at that time. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

EH: But, um, yeah, it was amazing feeling. That was like at one point, that was just the main goal, just to be in the band and get opportunity to record an album. If our career would have ended there, I would have been very happy. You know, we still got a chance to record an album.

BM: Yeah. The next album, Tales From the Thousand Lakes. What do you remember most about that? What was the most difficult song to record? What was it like in the studio?

EH: Oh yeah, it was pretty much the same thing.

BM: Yeah, not much changed, because you’re back at Sunlight and Tomas is still producing.

EH: Yeah, exactly. We got a bit more time for the recordings. I think it took around two weeks for the recordings for the whole album. But yeah, again we went to Sunlight, then we took a hostel and we lived there. And it was funny. I remember when we were doing all the basic tracks and Tomas was asking, “Does your record label know what you’re doing? Because this is not like death metal, not typical death metal record anymore.” And he was very worried about that. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

EH: Relapse guys going to blame him that you know, he’s doing album that they are not pleased with. But then, things happened.

BM: I would say, yeah, the album starts out differently, even. Doesn’t it start out with this nice, gentle piano-type song, “Thousand Lakes?”

EH: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. At the time, we had a proper keyboard player in the band, so we really wanted to give more space for keyboards as well. And the idea for clean vocals actually happened during the time at the studio when we called our friend over to Finland, that you know, you could sing over it. So he came over to Stockholm and did some clean singing, and that was great.

BM: How about Elegy? Now this is the big change you’d mentioned earlier, different logo, different sound. You’re still at Sunlight with this, but you are listed as sole producer, Amorphis is, actually, not Tomas.

EH: Yeah. It was a very, very messy recording process.

BM: [laughs]

EH: [laughs] We went to Sunlight again, started with Tomas, and at that time he started to explore his studio, you know, he wanted to build a bigger studio. But because you know, he’s a really great guy. He’s not the guy who can handle building studios. So it was disaster. His studio was like half empty and it was like, we recorded, I think all the basics there, and then we decided, it’s no use, we go back to Finland and then we recorded rest of the guitars and vocals in Finland with Mikko Karmila, who mixed the album.

BM: Yeah.

EH: That was the last thing we had to do with Tomas, because it was, he couldn’t handle recording an album and same time building his studio.

BM: [laughs]

EH: It was really a mess. But at the end of the day, this album was pretty nice. We came up with some good sound at Sunlight, and then some very good things here in Finland. And at the end of the day, when we decided to go over to England, to Liverpool to mix the album there, it was great, great. You know, that was lot of different things recording-wise and mixing-wise there. Lot of different ideas which I think really reflects for the final result.

BM: Oh yeah, totally different sound. But how did you manage to break your arm in Liverpool?

EH: It was very nice studio, it was a studio called Parr Street Studios. And you had like a hotel in the same building, and then you took a lift downstairs, and you had a chance to go there and do the mixings. And then, you know, next door was a really nice bar.

BM: [laughs]

EH: It was a typical bar evening, we went back to the hotel, and I was too drunk, and tripped over, and broke my arm. [laughs]

BM: Oh no. [laughs]

EH: It was bizarre, you know. I was lucky enough to be drunk, because it was like my arm was totally off position.

BM: Oh man.

EH: And I had to spend a couple days in the hospital there. It was, ugh, it was so mean.

BM: Which arm was that, right or left?

EH: Left.

BM: Oh.

EH: But what I was most worried about, because I lost some nerves from there, and it was really, really hard to start to play again, because there was no feeling. There’s still some spots inside two fingers where I don’t have, it’s like a little bit itchy.

BM: So did you learn a lesson not to be drinking and recording at the same? [laughs]

EH: Well, sort of, yeah. [laughs]

BM: [laughs] Well, you know, your next album is just fascinating to me. I was listening to it this morning. Tuonela, recorded at Finnvox, different producer, Simon Efemy. Really cool sound to it. What was your approach to that one? What do you remember most about putting that album together? That was 1999.

EH: Yes, then we had an idea to use, because we wanted to use like, proper producer, and we got a chance to use Simon, because the latest thing he did was really good success, was Paradise Lost’s Draconian Times [1995] album.

- 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.

Seriously, in the span of just three full-length albums (a trilogy comprised of Out of Myself, 2003, Second Life Syndrome, 2005, and Rapid Eye Movement, 2007), plus a couple of EPs (Voices in My Head, 2005, and 02 Panic Room, 2007), Poland’s Riverside has become the new Pink Floyd meets Opeth meets Porcupine Tree meets, well, no one. Although sporting the sublime craftsmanship of the aforementioned bands, they have managed to transcend comparisons to reach the rarified status of being wholly unique.

After a long, two-month process trying to connect with bassist Mariusz Duda, he and I had a lengthy chat on June 18, 2008.

You’re welcome to eavesdrop.

Enjoy!

MD: Hello?

BM: Is this Mariusz?

MD: [laughs] Oh yeah, it’s me. Hi.

BM: Hi, this is Bill Murphy.

MD: Finally.

BM: [laughs] Yeah, this is great.

MD: Yeah, I know. To be honest I didn’t realize how important this is, and I’m very sorry for the last, for the Monday. I had a situation, I had to go and I was waiting a little bit, but unfortunately, some problems. But it’s already fixed, so it’s ok.

BM: Good, very good. Well, it’s great to talk to you. I appreciate your time tonight.

MD: No, it’s ok, of course.

BM: Well, as you know, we’re doing these ProgPower interviews, and they’re kind of highly regarded because they’re pretty in depth, you know. I’ll talk to a musician about his whole career, not just the latest album. So, I appreciate your time. I understand you guys are working on a DVD right now. How’s that going?

MD: Well, we just recorded everything. A lot of tapes. [laughs]

BM: Oh yeah.

MD: Yeah, we started some kind of post-production now. And I think, well, we will finish this I think in September, October, because now we had a few concerts now, and don’t have time to finish this. And of course, the studio is booked for the autumn, so we’ll go back to this. But I have, I think we have very good material, and it will be very nice release, really.

BM: Is there any particular challenge with this? Do you think you’ll have to overdub anything in the studio, or are all the tapes pretty well, pretty solid as they stand?

MD: Well, we will try to do as much, you know, real [laughs] as we can. And but of course there is some kind of troubles with the balance and stuff, and sometimes maybe we have to change some kind of mistakes. [laughs] If it will be. But for sure, we would like to keep as much as we can the whole atmosphere, because that was there during the show, it was very nice, very fantastic. The audience was amazing and we all hope this. So I hope it will be a good release. I hope at the end of this year.

BM: Great. And you chose now to record and release Lunatic Soul, your first solo album.

MD: Yes.

BM: Can you tell me, why did you want to have a solo album? What is it about this album that’s allowing you to make music you can’t make in Riverside?

MD: Well, first of all, it’s a project without electric guitar. [laughs]

BM: Oh really, acoustic?

MD: Yes. Yeah, I am playing an acoustic guitar. All guitars are acoustic in this project. But sometimes it sounds a little bit different than acoustic guitar. But this is first point, so imagine Riverside without the guitar. You know?

BM: [laughs]

MD: So I had to do this, because you know, from the beginning I just wanted to develop myself, develop my style. Not only as a vocalist, but also as a musician. And I think it’s a good, when we closed some kind of chapter in our, if I can say that, career, [laughs] so I thought that it could be a good moment for doing something just at the side a little bit. And this is some kind of my closure of my own personal stuff, and I thought that you know, this year, it will be something like I will have 32 years. So, well, just decided to do something before they crucify me.

BM: [laughs]

MD: All these people around. No, I think you know, Riverside will be my priority, but I think that it’s sometimes necessary to the artist to try to develop a little bit your own ways, and I think it will help for the band also, because you, for the future, you have to do something more original. And it will be better.

BM: Oh, I see. Well, congratulations on playing ProgPower USA this fall. It’s going to be interesting to see you guys. For those who aren’t familiar with a Riverside live concert, what can they expect from yout? Your CDs seem to have a very cerebral kind of quality to them. When you play live, how do you replicate that? How do you capture the headphone thrill of a Riverside album on stage?

MD: Well, I think Riverside has some kind of two faces, you know. The studio face and the live face. And it’s nice because when we are on the stage, we are sometimes trying to change our songs a little bit. And this whole atmosphere and the contact with the audience, sometimes just pushing you to do all this songs you know better. [laughs] If I can say that.

BM: Yeah.

MD: So I think there’s much more energy in Riverside when we are playing live than in the studio. And because sometimes you know in the studio it’s much easier to sing several voices, you know, at the same time, and you just noticed much more atmosphere, you’re just trying to focus on the atmosphere more than on the energy, if I can say that better.

BM: Oh yeah.

MD: But on the stage, Riverside sounds quite a little bit different, sometimes because of I can’t play bass and acoustic guitar at the same time.

BM: [laughs]

MD: So we’re trying to change our arrangement, and it sounds pretty original, you can tell.

BM: Well, you guys have a trilogy, three albums, major studio albums.

MD: Yes.

BM: How will you choose a set for ProgPower with that? Like a third of each one, or how will you divide that up? How will you represent your career?

MD: [sigh] I don’t know. We will try to choose the best tracks we have. And because this is a ProgPower, and we will try not using only ballads. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

MD: So I think there will be a lot of fire on the stage.

BM: Oh great. Well, let’s start at the beginning. When you first wanted to become a musician, how did that come about? How did you know you wanted to be a musician, and did you dream of being a rock star? Or did you just start wanting to play an instrument and see what happened after that?

MD: To be honest, this was the easiest thing I could do, you know.

BM: [laughs]

MD: Just take a guitar and play some songs. That was much easier than, I don’t know, write something for the lesson. [laughs] Yeah, really. But my sister was into piano, and I remember I was in the primary school, together with my friend. We did some kind of our own records on tapes. And I remember I had a keyboard, and I just recorded in mono, in mono, not stereo, in mono, 90 minutes of some kind of improvisations. It was very terrible, really.

BM: [laughs]

MD: But we’d get our friend, and my friend was better player on the keyboards, but I had I think better ideas sometimes. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

MD: And I remember this moment, you know, where we just, we put also our own sleeves and our own covers. That was very nice. I remember that moment, that would be nice if in the future that would be my job. So I waited 15 years, I think, and I have what I wanted to. [laughs]

BM: Well, your bio on the Riverside website says that you “put music above everything, you hear it everywhere.” It says you “want to enjoy life inside the world you created in your mind. For these reasons, you sometimes appear a totally unreal man.”

MD: Sometimes yes.

BM: Explain that. Does that mean you walk around all the time with a \smile on your face and songs in your head? Sort of out of it?

MD: Sometimes my girlfriend’s always telling me, “You didn’t listen to me again.” And I said, “Yeah, that’s true. Sorry, I was somewhere else.”

BM: [laughs]

MD: I know it’s sometimes hard to be together with that kind of man. I am really trying to learn how to live with second person with that kind of disease, if I can say that.

BM: [laughs]

MD: But to be honest, I’m very happy with this disease when we’re together with friends in the rehearsal room and just doing this stuff. So I can finally, you know, just combine all those elements I had in my mind for I don’t know, two, three days since our last meeting, and just do something with it. So, but I think, well, now I’m learning how to live with different people [laughs] without this undoing when you’re sometimes in front of somebody. But I think I’m going better and better with this.

BM: [laughs]

MD: But I’m really good with that, really. It’s really cool thing, you know.

BM: Well, your influences are great. Your bio says your inspirations are Geddy Lee, John Wetton, Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins, Fish. And I like what you said about Steve Hogarth [Marillion] singing “out of tune” and “through his nose.” [laughs] That’s the way he sounds, isn’t it?

MD: [laughs] That was some kind of joke, you know. I didn’t mean to say something bad about Steve Hogarth, because I really, I used to have moments that I really appreciate this guy, really.

BM: Yeah, it’s true. I’ve got a friend in a progressive rock band in England who says the same thing about Steve Hogarth, he says he always sounds like he’s playing with a head cold. [laughs]

MD: Well, what can I say? But ok, somebody might not like that kind of voice, but I think this Steve has a, he’s very talented if we’re talking about for instance, creating melodic lines.

BM: Oh yeah.

MD: This is very nice, really. And this is sometimes much better and much more important if you know, the sound of voice. Like, just take a look at Rush, for instance. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

MD: I mean, those previous records, well, Geddy Lee is a phenomenal bass player, but I don’t think so if he’s also the same phenomenal in vocal, vocally. But that’s ok, it depends on your mood. It depends on the way you feel. So whatever.

BM: Yeah. Well, your voice is, I can hear a bit of John Wetton in your voice sometimes. You have a really pleasant, smooth voice that’s kind of a cross between John Wetton and Steven Wilson. So it’s real pleasant to listen to. What do you think of vocals these days that are becoming really popular, that so-called growl, the death-metal, cookie-monster sound?

MD: Well, to be honest, I know that it’s, now it’s quite popular. I think that this some kind of contrast thing is very popular.

BM: Yeah.

MD: [laughs] Ok, let’s talk about Opeth. You know, their last album I think is very progressive, so it’s quite nice balance. But to be honest, I think it’s because you know, people wants to look for something original. And it’s I think sometimes nice when you want to express yourself out of limit, you know?

BM: Yeah.

MD: It’s the same we wanted to do on our first record, when we just did, when we recorded “Out of Myself’ it was two moments, in “Out of Myself” and “Loose Heart.” I remember, about “Loose Heart,” “Ok, we did quite nice ballad, let’s destroy this now.” [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

MD: “Let’s do something completely different at the end.” And we used a little bit harder vocal, and I noticed that that’s quite popular stuff. But to be honest, we started before all this happened, you know. Ok, it was Opeth maybe first, but I feel that what we did in that time, it was quite original. And if now this is very popular, so ok. Maybe within a few years, somebody says, “Ok, one of those bands that started singing like that was more or less Riverside also.”

BM: Well, when you first started Riverside, did you envision how it would eventually sound? In other words, when you look at Riverside as it is now, is it what you wanted it to be when you started out?

MD: You know, if I would like to turn back time, I’m not sure if I wanted to change something. Because it was very natural. All we did, it was just very honest. It was a quite original mix, you know, our drummer used to play death metal for 10, 15 years. So when someone like him just trying to play in a very mellow song, it’s always a little bit different. It’s not, [laughs] normal. You can hear that this guy has something with his legs and arms, you know.

BM: [laughs]

MD: [laughs] Very, also some kind of troubles with, I don’t know, just playing very fluently. But no, I mean only that this means it’s very original. I don’t know if you will take someone else who is play exactly what he has to do, what he has to.

BM: Oh yeah.

MD: Well, Piotr [Grudzinski], the guitar player, just played just from the bottom of his heart, all those things. And what we could do, what we could change, only we wanted to have Michal [Lapaj], our second keyboard player, earlier that we had. Because Riverside became a band on Second Night Syndrome, when Michal joined us, because now we have exactly what we wanted to.

BM: Oh yeah. That’s a great position to be in, great for me to ask the next question. One of the things I always ask all these ProgPower musicians is if I mention the name of an album, I ask them to tell me what they remember most about that time, recording that album, something going on in your life, the easiest songs in the studio. So for example, Out of Myself, what’s the most important thing or most vivid thing you remember about recording that album?

MD: Well, I think it was the song, “I Believe.”

BM: Oh yeah.

MD: Because when we recorded Out of Myself, first we recorded demo. And it was five tracks. It was “[The Same] River,” “Out of Myself,” “[Reality] Dream,” [Loose]heart,” and “The Curtain Falls.” And that’s all. We started with this demo, and people liked it very much. And well, we said, “Well, now we have to do whole album. We need to add a few songs and do something with that.” And I remember that I had two songs, like “I Believe” and “In Two Minds” played on acoustic guitars. And I remember that “I Believe” was some kind of signal that we’re on a good way to finish this album on a high level. So I remember I enjoyed it very much. A lot of vocals, a lot of guitars, that was nice moment, very nice moment for me.

BM: What was the most difficult song to lay down in the studio for Out of Myself? Was there one that just gave you a lot of trouble, or were they all fairly quickly and easily done?

MD: More or less, you know, it was on the same time, we did everything at the same time. I didn’t remember if we had some kind of problems with the track. I remember that I always wanted to change the position of the tracks, you know. This track should be first, this one should be second. [laughs] I had the biggest problem with that later, when we have finished everything.

BM: Oh really?

MD: Yeah, but it was very quite continuous, you know. We had a lot of fun during the session, and I think you can hear this on this album.

BM: How about your next one, two years after that one, The Second Life Syndrome came out. What do you remember most about that?

MD: Well, first of all, Michal just came out from the shade. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

MD: And we, I from the beginning wanted to do the album that will be more darker, more heavier. We wanted to play more natural, just it sounds more live than studio. And Michal brought with himself more piano and more Hammond, so it’s also sometimes sounds like you know, from the ‘70s. I remember that first of all, of course we wanted to do trilogy, but we wanted to do more or less the same mood, but with different sound. And I think we did it on The Second Life Syndrome, because this is a very dark record. I think it’s sometimes too dark. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

MD: I mean, you know, there’s not so much treble. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

MD: When you hear this, so you need to add this on your equipment.

BM: [laughs] How about the most recent one, Rapid Eye Movement? What do you remember most about that period of time?

MD: Well, Rapid Eye Movement, the second chapter, the third chapter of the trilogy, I remember that I wanted to do album which is totally unprogressive. I mean, not not original, but we didn’t want to do something like you know, the solo of guitar for 15 minutes or very complicated written for I don’t know, 7:30 or something.

BM: [laughs]

MD: We just wanted to do simple tracks, simple short tracks, and more rock, more rock-ish. And that’s why we did things like “Rainbow Box” or “[02] Panic Room.” I think it’s fresh because it’s not sound like, I don’t know, something from progressive rock, typical progressive rock. So I remember during this session was always the troubles if it would be accepted. Because we knew from the beginning that all the fans loved Out of Myself and all those romantic solos and a lot of keyboards, will be a little bit disappointed, because it’s not in the same mood a little bit. But it was the third chapter, so we had to do something in a little bit different way.

BM: Well, there’s one track on there that I really enjoy a lot. All the fans that always said you guys sound a bit like Pink Floyd, you actually do two or three minutes from “Shine On You Crazy Diamond.” What was the idea behind that? Is it a nod to your fans, or was that a tribute to Pink Floyd?

MD: Well, we are huge fans of Pink Floyd, you know. Of course, I also like a little bit different bands, but Pink Floyd is kind of a band that sometimes three sounds are more important than 10 or 12. So it’s very important I think, in Riverside’s music. And I remember that we played some kind of instrumental track, which is by the way, we took the solo from “Back To The River” to this track. And just in the middle we started to play this [laughs] just for fun. And later we just realized that it sounds very nice, so maybe we can just keep it. Why not?

BM: [laughs]

MD: It will be only very short moment, but I think people will realize that it’s some kind of, you know.

BM: It’s a tribute.

MD: Yeah, yeah. So it stayed. And I think yeah, I’m very happy of the “Back to the River.” This is quite nice track, very nice intro on our shows.

BM: Well, you know what’s really cool, and you mentioned with Pink Floyd, sometimes two or three sounds are more important than a whole lot of them, and one of those sounds is David Gilmore’s guitar.

MD: Yeah.

BM: And I think Piotr did a phenomenal job of sounding like David Gilmore on that track.

MD: Yeah, yeah. I sometimes have a lot of fun, you know, Piotr just playing sometimes one tune, sometimes how he plays one tune for I don’t know, 15 seconds, you know. [laughs] And this is his style, very long, long, long sounds. But I have to say that of course when you are listening to Piotr, you can listen to a shade of David Gilmore, but Piotr also has his own style. He’s very specific. And that’s why for instance, he just couldn’t play on a solo album, because every one would be Riverside again. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

MD: So yeah.

BM: What was the idea behind the trilogy, by the way? Did you plan to do that right from the start? Or after you made the first one, did you think, “Wow, let’s make two more that are the same theme?”

MD: Yeah, it was in the middle of Out of Myself, I remember that when I started to write the whole story, I thought, “Alright, let’s write a story which will be a little bit different because there will be a lot of space for your own interpretation about looking for your own personality, looking for yourself.” So I thought, “Well, we probably have to do two albums more, because we need to complicate this a little bit.” [laughs] So no, I think it’s quite nice, when the band just starts from the trilogy. It always looks nice on the shelf when you have three albums the same. [laughs]

BM: [laughs] Where do you go from here? This is almost like Spinal Tap going to 11, where do you go from a trilogy this cool? I mean, what do you think you’re going to do next?

MD: Well, we’re working on a new album already, maybe not in the studio, but in our rehearsal room. I think it will be a little bit more, how can I say it, I think I will leave this reality dream and dreaming, and just flitting around stuff for another times, and now I would like to focus on some kind of social stuff. Maybe it will be some kind of voice of my generation now. You know, this sort of specific part when you don’t want to grow up, but you have to. [laughs]

BM: Oh yeah, yeah.

MD: So turning 30.

BM: You’re turning 30 and all of a sudden you feel that way? [laughs]

MD: [laughs] I know. So I am thinking of maybe it will be nice because a lot of people of course in my age can realize what exactly I am feeling now. So but if we are talking about music, of course, we would like to sometimes go a step farther, of course. Experiment a little bit more, but we would like to keep our own style, because I think it’s now, it’s doing better and better, and it sounds Riverside. We sound like Riverside, more and more. So it will be worth to keep it.

BM: Well, one of the things I did is I asked the ProgPower forum, I asked all the posters there if they had any questions for you that I could ask you. One of them, a guy whose screen name is King’s Gene asked, “Does the depressing anxiety-based lyrics come from the personal experience of someone in the band, or is this strictly novels or fiction? Where do these angsty and anxious lyrics come from?”

MD: Well, I’m quite a sensitive person, I think. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

MD: Sometimes maybe too sensitive.

BM: [laughs]

MD: I always liked little shades of grey much better than just regular colors. So I maybe, I don’t know, maybe I have depression and I don’t know about it. I need to just take and maybe I should just go to the shrink. I don’t know.

BM: [laughs]

MD: Maybe, but I’m just saying when you’re doing sad sounds, [laughs] when you’re doing that kind of music, it will stay with you sometimes more often than just funny songs. So maybe I just wanted to do something beautiful. It would be nice if in the future Riverside would create a really beautiful album, and it’s really hard to just record beautiful album when you’re just trying to play only funny songs.

BM: Oh yeah. [laughs]

MD: But ok, I agree, maybe it’s sometimes a little bit too depression. So on the next album will be more, I’ll try to focus on a different level of my mental problems.

BM: [laughs] You mentioned that the next one would be more socially aware, like maybe turning 30 and not wanting to grow up. Do you think your lyrics will ever look out into the world to the point where you’re commenting on politics or religion or some of those other things, rather than being internally focused?

MD: I don’t know. I would like to avoid things like, ok, maybe religion is more personal, but I would like to avoid things that are connected with a politician and stuff, because I would like to just leave it for others. I think in Riverside, we’re very specific band, because we are trying to focus on ourselves, I mean, on our own personality. In the lyrics I would like to, you know, solve some type of problems connected with myself, with a personal mental problems.

BM: Right.

MD: And you know, politics, it’s something which is I think on the other side of the line. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

MD: So I would like to keep it for those guys who just scream, who just are very angry. I think metal bands, the strict metal bands doing this much better. [laughs]

BM: Warrell Dane of Nevermore comes to mind. [laughs]

MD: To be honest, I don’t want to waste time writing lyrics about, I don’t know, some kind of presidents.

BM: [laughs]

MD: I don’t know, I just leave it to the journalists or something.

BM: [laughs] Yeah.

MD: But of course, sometimes in the middle of the lyrics, you can put something, but the great thing is when you write it, you know, on the first look, you don’t notice that this is about politics maybe.

BM: Yeah.

MD: It’s about love, ok. [laughs] For instance, but when you listen to it three, four times, oh, I think this is not about love. [gasp] This is about hate. You know? [laughs]

BM: [laughs] One of the things I like, and you said you’re kind of a sensitive person, I noticed in the liner notes to all your albums, you always thank your parents, your mom especially. What is it about growing up, what kind of advice did your parents give you, and why do you always thank your mom for the music that you play?

MD: My parents always told me, “Don’t drink too much, don’t smoke cigarettes.” No, I had very good parents, and I still have, but now they’re living in a different town, so I had to change a little bit in a different way. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

MD: But I think my parents just learned me a lot of, I think I’m a good person, you know. If I can tell that. Of course, it depends on the interpretation, what is good. But I think I can find a balance between the bad stuff and the good stuff, and I think I owe this to my parents very much, and I appreciate it. And I love for this. And I hope it will help me with my future life, and with future, for instance, records which I’m really excited for.

BM: You know you mentioned a good person, a bad person, that kind of stuff. It seems to be, when you wrote another part of your bio, you said, “What’s important in your life: Love, friendship, being square with my conscience, audio/visual stuff, just a small obsession which makes me feel alive.” But being square with your conscience seems to imply a good head on your shoulders. Kind of knowing the balance between right and wrong.

MD: Yep. That was very old text. [laughs]

BM: Yeah. [laughs]

MD: No, what can I say. I’m trying to be honest with myself, first of all. And if I’m trying to be honest, and if I first of all, I am doing things that I feel that I have to do. So it’s, everything is connected with positive vibrations, so I think all people that I have together, that they’re around me, are also satisfied. [laughs]

BM: [laughs] Yeah. The audio visual stuff. First of all, is Riverside your full-time work now? Or do you do things, do you have a so-called day job?

MD: Well, I’m just now trying to finish Lunatic Soul, it’s only one track left. I think in the beginning of July, I will have the whole record, and well, it depends on the conversations of course, with the labels, but I hope it will be, I will release this album in September, October. And I’m very happy because only when I finish Lunatic Soul, I’m trying to take again be involved in Riverside, and we are just starting to compose new songs for the new album. We had a lot of drafts, so it’s time to combine all these elements together and do what we have. I hope it will be a nice album, because there’s a lot of new, fresh ideas. I think good melody is back, so we have to keep it.

BM: Riverside’s music is very visual in one’s mind, like when I listen to your albums, I really love them, and I can almost picture things, you’re painting pictures with your music. And yet, you guys haven’t done a whole lot of music videos. Why is that?

MD: Why we what? Why we don’t have videos?

BM: Yeah, even though your music is very visual mentally, you haven’t really portrayed that in a lot of music videos.

MD: Well, yeah. I agree, we have only one video so far, to “Panic Room.” No, you know, I hope it will change in the future. [laughs] We, to be honest, we didn’t, I don’t know why we didn’t do this. I think we wanted to keep our music only for ears. It should change, yeah, I agree. Maybe, we started from the Rapid Eye Movement, together with all next albums, we would like to add more and more visual stuff. The same we started on our DVD, for the first time, it was the first show with a visual effects. So I think it was a good beginning, next beginning. [laughs]

BM: [laughs] Next beginning. You’re credited with writing the lyrics, and Riverside is credited with writing the music. How do you put the two together, and which usually comes first?

MD: Well, ok, I’m always trying to bring most part of the music. But I realized at the beginning that if we have to be a band, so we have to be a band. And sometimes it doesn’t matter if you’re teaching all songs at the rehearsal and all songs are yours, you have to name that “music by Riverside.” Because it’s, I think, everyone feels very important. And when we are doing things, we’re always doing only those tunes that satisfied everybody. So if there is something like one of us saying that this is not so good, we just cancel this, because if this music just don’t satisfy each of us, it’s not so good. [laughs] So I think we’re trying to always be in, we’re always trying to get as much compromise as we can. Of course, sometimes if there are problems, so I have always two votes, because I am playing the bass and I am singing.

BM: [laughs]

MD: So it’s sometimes very comfortable.

BM: [laughs] Are you a perfectionist in the studio? Do things have to be absolutely perfect and you drive your fellow musicians nuts with that?

MD: Uh yeah, I think so. Yes. Of course, when I’m just hearing this now, when I’m hearing out of myself, I’m trying to hear Second Life Syndrome, I try to realized how all these things happened. Where was I at those times? Because it sounds totally, you know, unprofessional. I mean, some kind of things. And where are all those details? I spent a lot of time for just corrections, and I can hear this now. [laughs] No, I’m trying to do all these things the best I can, of course, each of us. And trying to always find that kind of solution that will be as much perfect as it could be.

BM: Oh yeah. Do you have, is there an all-time favorite Riverside song that you just really love to play live that you could never do without, maybe?

MD: Well, we had a moment that we really like to play “Second Life Syndrome.”

BM: Oh yeah.

MD: And yeah, and we played it and played and played. And now, this year, we decided to not play it, and this because we have this limit, and we probably played it too much. But now I’m very happy when I’m playing, for instance, “Rainbow Box.” This is very simple track, but full of energy on the stage. And the same with “Panic Room” which is a good arrangement and very powerful. But of course, there’s a lot of tracks that we can play with a smile on our faces. Everything depends on the mood, everything depends on the day. So we never know what we will play on ProgPower, but I think it will be all those tracks we wanted to play.

- 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.

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.

In a career that has taken him around the world – working with such bands as Savage Circus, Gamma Ray, and, for over 10 years and seven albums, Iron Savior – Piet has become known as a brilliant studio wizard as well as a highly motivated singer/songwriter/guitarist. And yet, as his entry in Wikipedia states, “he maintains a good relationship with many bands” – a relatively uncommon trait I asked him about during our lengthy phone interview on May 15, 2008.

SPOILER ALERT: Piet mentions a few of the songs Iron Savior will play at PPUSA. So don’t read any further if you want to be totally surprised when they take the stage. (Thanks, nailz!)

Enjoy!

PS: Hey Bill.

BM: Hey Piet. How are you?

PS: [laughs] Well, I’m doing ok. [laughs] So how are you?

BM: [laughs] Doing very well, thank you very much.

PS: It’s good that we finally made it.

BM: [laughs] Yeah, no more trips to the Baltic, huh?

PS: Yeah, I’m really sorry about that.

BM: No, that’s no problem. How was it?

PS: Well, actually it was pretty good. We have a really great weather pattern this time. It was all sunny, blue skies, and so my wife and me decided to take a short break and go to the Baltic.

BM: Oh, that sounds great. Sounds like an awful lot of fun, actually. I was going to say, where do you do your surfing? On the Iron Savior site, it lists one of your interests as surfing.

PS: Yeah. Actually, that’s not very much surfing at the Baltic Sea.

BM: [laughs] No.

PS: [laughs] I mean, so for surfing I have to go to the Atlantic border.

BM: Yeah.

PS: To France, or best spot for me is Spain, I love that.

BM: Surfing in Spain? That sounds great. Well, congratulations on landing another gig at ProgPower USA. According to the ProgPower forum, the fans are just nuts waiting for you. They can’t get enough of Piet’s power metal, it seems.

PS: [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

PS: Yeah, that’s good to hear. [laughs]

BM: Yeah. Well, what was it like doing the Savage Circus gig there a couple of years ago? Did that go over as you thought it would?

PS: Well actually, I mean, it was under a little bit weird circumstances, because we didn’t have Thomen [Stauch, drummer] at that time with us. We used, Thomas Nack, our Iron Savior drummer. Actually, we had no expectations at all, and we were very surprised, in a positive way, of course. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

PS: About ProgPower itself, I wasn’t familiar to the festival before that. And I would say I really like the way Glenn [Harveston, organizer extraordinaire] is doing all this, it’s really a great place to go. And I mean, all of us enjoyed very much to play there and to hang out there.

BM: Oh good. Yeah, this is really an extremely well-run festival. And all the bands I talk to just have a great time meeting the fans. And they say it goes pretty smoothly and they just play and have a good time.

PS: Absolutely. I mean, that’s what my memories of ProgPower are, just to have basically having a good time in Atlanta.

BM: [laughs] Well, that’s great. Well, for people who may not necessarily be familiar with Iron Savior, but who did see the Savage Circus show a couple of years ago, how will an Iron Savior show be different?

PS: Well, I mean one big difference would be that on an Iron Savior show, I would sing a little bit more.

BM: Yeah. [laughs]

PS: [laughs] Ok, just kidding. I mean, I’d say that Iron Savior definitely is a little bit, is definitely more classic metal in the way of the, well, New Wave of British Heavy Metal, known from the ‘80s. That’s where Iron Savior is coming from. That’s where the whole band has its roots. And I mean, listen to the new output, Megatropolis [2007]. It definitely sounds a lot different than Savage Circus. Savage Circus is for me a completely different thing.

BM: Yeah. Definitely. Sounds more, [laugh] actually sounds more Blind Guardian-ish than New Wave British Heavy Metal.

PS: Yeah, I wouldn’t say that Iron Savior rocks more than Savage Circus. Savage Circus also kicks some major ass, but in a different way.

BM: [laughs] Yeah, that’s true. Well, you’ve got seven albums out with Iron Savior. I asked some fans on the ProgPower forum what they would like me to ask you. And one of the things I noticed is, everybody has a favorite album, everybody has a favorite song. [laughs] There’s very little consensus. One guy wrote that Condition Red [2002] is by far his favorite album. Another guy said Unification [1998] is his favorite album. Another guy wrote, “They could play all of Battering Ram [2004] and nothing else, and I’d be as happy as a bee in a flower shop.” [laughs]

PS: [laughs] Yeah, I mean, looking at the band, of course the band made some evolution. I mean if you look at the records like first title Iron Savior [1997] or just a little later, Unification, it’s a little bit different. It’s more production on it, put it like this.

BM: Yeah.

PS: More big choir works and guitar overdubs and all that kind of stuff. Actually, throughout the years, we were cutting down this a little bit, which I think makes just the thing good, because it makes Iron Savior more recognizable to other productions. Iron Savior stands for quite raw metal, and that’s exactly what we want to do. And there’s also, of course, a need to make Iron Savior even more extreme Iron Savior-like, nowadays that I have Savage Circus going, to make those bands distinguishable, you know. But all the albums you named I like very much, and be sure we have a good collection in our pockets that pleases everybody.

BM: Well, I was going to say, with so many albums and so many fans liking so many different songs, how are you going to play a set that’s roughly 45 minutes and yet please everybody?

PS: Well, I think we’ll just pick our guns. [laughs]

BM: [laughs] Yeah.

PS: For example, I mean one song that, it’s a must, I mean, it’s definitely, “Atlantis Falling.” That’s a must that also has to be in every Iron Savior show. From Unification is “Coming Home.” A must, also, is “Titans of our Time,” speaking of Condition Red.

BM: Oh yeah.

PS: “Battering Ram” is also a must. So we’ll play those songs [that I just named] for sure. [laughs]

BM: [laughs] Well that’s good. You know, this one guy said he would love to see you do “Deadly Sleep” from Unification. He wrote that’s his all-time favorite Iron Savior song.

PS: I know. It’s a very good song, but it’s not easy to perform that live.

BM: Really?

PS: Yeah, because at that time, I don’t know. We tried it in the rehearsal room. For me, it’s not easy to sing and play guitar along with it.

BM: Ok, yeah.

PS: It’s a really hard rhythm, I will have to stop playing guitar. I don’t like that.

BM: [laughs]

PS: I do that, though, on a couple of songs. But it wouldn’t work on “Deadly Sleep.”

BM: Yeah.

PS: By the way, I think I know this guy. He wrote me a couple of emails telling me this is his favorite song. We’d really love to please him, but I can’t promise. I’ll bring it up again. [laughs]

BM: [laughs] Well, the last important question I’ll ask you from the forum is, “Will you bring your long heavy-metal hair to the ProgPower gig?”

PS: Oh, I will most certainly do so if I still have it.

BM: [laughs]

PS: It was, my kids used to have it, and it disappeared. I think it must be somewhere down in the basement.

BM: Yeah. [laughs] That was a lot of fun watching those promo videos [from the Iron Savior web site]. Almost Monty Python-ish. Did you have a good time making those?

PS: [laughs] Absolutely. I enjoyed myself. I had a great afternoon. [laughs]

BM: [laughs] I can tell. Well, let me ask you a lot of questions. I like to ask musicians their history and the current things they’re working on, to give people a good insight into who they are. And tell me what’s been keeping you busy right now post-Megatropolis into 2008? What are you working on now for Iron Savior?

PS: Well, for Iron Savior I don’t do too much at the moment, because right now I’m still on the songwriting process for Savage Circus again.

BM: Oh yeah.

PS: Which is quite a bitch, I must say.

BM: [laughs] Oh really?

PS: It’s taking me really long, much longer than I really thought it would take me, because I mean the songs must turn out to be really killer. They must be at least as good as on Dreamland Manor [2005]. So that’s quite a heavy job to do that. And I mean, also the situation with Thomen was not an easy one, and of course that, well, drew some energy away. But right now—

BM: How’s he doing, by the way?

PS: Actually, I haven’t heard from him very much. I mean, I heard that he’s forming a new band. I mean, the split wasn’t a good one, I would say.

BM: Yeah.

PS: And so far, we haven’t talked to each other again.

BM: Oh, not good.

PS: Well I mean, I still wish him all the best, but for us, there was just no other way anymore. We tried it very long, and it reached a point where we couldn’t go on like this.

BM: Yeah, that’s too bad. One of the things I wanted to ask you is right along these lines. Let me see if I can find it. Oh, here. Your bio on Wikipedia says that you “maintain a good relationship with many bands, having participated in several of their albums as a guest musician.” I’m not in the music business, but I know enough to know it’s full of egos, and backstabbing and all that. How do you maintain good relationships with so many other bands?

PS: Well, I mean, usually I’m quite an easy-to-get-along-with person. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

PS: That’s my secret. [laughs]

BM: [laughs] Well, see you’d be unique then, because apparently not many of them are like that out there in musicland.

PS: Well, I mean, everybody has to live his own life, and if you’re good being that way, then ok. But it’s not my way. You know, I mean I like to get along with people. And there are of course people who piss me off, and I don’t have contact with them anymore, but it’s not so many. I mean, it takes really a bit to piss me off. [laughs]

BM: [laughs] Well, that’s good to know. Another thing I read in one of your bios, or maybe it was on the Iron Savior website – was about Butch [Piet’s dog]. His birthday was the 17th of January. Is he still around?

PS: No, he’s not around anymore. He passed away last October.

BM: Oh no. I’m sorry to hear that.

PS: Well, I mean, he would have turned, he had a real great dog life. He would have turned 17 in January. And so, I mean, he was a really good, a family member, and so of course it was not easy to let him go. But in the end, it was the best. He had lived his life, and he had a great time on earth, and now he’s in dog heaven. [laughs] And feeling good again.

BM: [laughs] Well, that’s good to know. Yeah, 17 is really old.

PS: Really old, for a dog.

BM: Well, let me start at the beginning of your career for a second. Your first band was Gentry with Kai Hansen.

PS: [laughs] Yeah, right.

BM: That was in your mid teens. Did you know at the time that you wanted to be a professional rock star? Or did you just kind of fall into it, over time, because you were so good at it?

PS: No, at that time, when we were with Gentry, and then later on with Second Hell. [laughs]

BM: Yeah.

PS: And Iron Fist, I was absolutely sure that this is what I will be, a rock star. We also with Iron Fist, we planned out our major worldwide tour, having trucks which looked like a fist with the arm on it, you know.

BM: [laughs]

PS: [laughs]

BM: Sure.

PS: At that time, there was no doubt about it, that rock star is the thing that I will become. But later on, when I turned 18, and well, some other interests came to my mind and I lost track a little bit, I must say, for maybe two or three years. But then, well—

BM: Was that when you went to LA to become an engineer?

PS: Well, actually that was the time when I thought, hey, ok, music is really what I want to do. And now I missed that chance being a musician, so at that time I saw myself being more the man behind the scenes, you know.

BM: Oh yeah.

PS: Which was a good thing for me to do, because I learned quite a bit. But then recording and working with so many musicians brought me to the point that, hmm, maybe I can, they’re good, but they’re not necessarily a lot better than me, so maybe I can do it myself.

BM: [laughs] Yeah.

PS: I came up with the idea to record an album, I had the facilities to do it. And well, I just wrote and recorded the first Iron Savior album just as a blind shot, you know, to see what happened. And it turned out to be good, I think.

BM: Well, you were working as a second engineer, I guess, on the first Gamma Ray albums. In fact, you were credited on one of them here as “Piet, the Professor.”

PS: [laughs] That’s I think the—

BM: Sigh No More.

PS: Sigh No More, yes.

BM: [laughs] Why “the professor”? Were you just so good at engineering that they called you a professor?

PS: Well, I mean, I don’t know why. I take things very serious, so I was watching carefully to everything was done properly. [laughs]

BM: Yeah. [laughs]

PS: And at that time we had the producer, Tommy Newton, with us. He was a good guy, and he is doing still great work, but he laid back quite a bit. So in the end I was a little bit…pissed is not the right way, but second engineer was not really fitting what I was doing. [laughs]

BM: Yeah, yeah. [laughs]

PS: Anyhow, I mean, that’s really long time ago, and I has no regrets about that anymore. But at that time, the [word] assistant could have been not there for my taste.

BM: Yeah. Well, then you were working with the Gamma Ray guys, Kai and Thomen, and you guys just decided to put together Iron Savior. That was ’97. Did you think that, at that time, you’d still be in Iron Savior 10 years later?

PS: No, not really, as I just said. I was not really, I had absolutely no idea what would turn out, if anybody would even be interested in that kind of music. But I got a deal at that time, right away, with Noise Records, the label that Kai was signed on at that time. And I could very naturally put it out, and it turned out to be a really good success in Germany and also outside of Germany. And even the follow-up album, Unification, also was really successful. And so, one thing that I really would be doing different, now that I think back, looking back, is the third album. I don’t like the Dark Assault album anymore.

BM: Oh really?

PS: Yeah, no. It’s, well I mean, as the name already implies, it’s dark. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

PS: Lyric-wise and also music-wise.

BM: Yeah.

PS: Which results in, I mean, in the end, it’s a mirror of my personal situation I was in at that times. You know, I was facing divorce and all that kind of shit. And so I wrote that kind of album. [laughs]

BM: So track four, “I’ve Been to Hell” is literal. [laughs]

PS: Absolutely, yeah. I mean, it is. I was in hell. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

PS: I mean, today I can say, “Ok, I was in hell, but I left hell, and now I know what hell looks like.” [laughs]

BM: [laughs] And you never want to go back there.

PS: Absolutely.

BM: Yeah.

PS: Well I mean, two years later, I was definitely in a different state of mind, and I wrote Condition Red album.

BM: Oh yeah.

PS: Which is still one of my favorite albums, because it carries so much positive energy. I mean, Condition Red really is what, for me, heavy metal is all about, you know.

BM: I think that’s probably my favorite album. You know, I like Dark Assault a lot, and I like Unification, but Condition Red’s got some great songs on it.

PS: It just rocks. Unification just fucking rocks, from the very beginning to the very end. I really love this album.

BM: Yeah. Well, you know, your themes, as Wikipedia says, or anybody who’s read your lyrics can figure out for themselves, sci-fi imagery throughout the whole thing. The whole Iron Savior, you know, the self-aware robot spaceship kind of thing. How did that come about? Did you think this up and say, “Wow, this is a killer idea, I better go talk to Kai and Thomen?” How did this whole theme and this sci-fi image come to be?

PS: Well, actually I mean, this whole Iron Savior idea goes back to the time when I was working with Blind Guardian in Copenhagen. I think it was the, which one was it, the one they recorded with Flemming Rasmussen [producer]. I can’t, yeah, “Imaginations from the Other Side.” Exactly, that’s the name of the album.

BM: Oh yeah.

PS: I was working in Copenhagen as an engineer, and at that time I was doing all the guitar recordings with André [Olbrich guitarist]. And Andre is the night owl. [laughs]

BM: Oh really? [laughs]

PS: Yeah, he only can work at night, so I had to work at night also.

BM: [laughs]

PS: Which means I had a lot of spare time during the day. And well, I mean, of course Copenhagen is an interesting city, but after a while, [laughs] I’d seen it all.

BM: [laughs]

PS: And so, [laughs] I sat in my room and though, “Hey, Piet, what are you going to do?” And so I started writing, because of pure, I was simply bored so I started writing a sci-fi story.

BM: Yeah.

PS: Which was the Iron Savior. It didn’t get very much, you know, I finished the first chapter. [laughs] But the idea was there, you know. The plot was worked out, and so yeah, production was over, so the thing was sitting on my hard disk. And when it came to songwriting for the first Iron Savior album, I remembered this and I thought, “Hey, yeah, it might be a good concept. Why not?” And so I pulled out this Iron Savior story and wrote lyrics about it.

BM: Well, what did your band members say? Did they say, “Gee, this is really cool?” Did they think, “Gosh, Piet, what have you been smoking, man? This is kind of out there?” [laughs]

PS: Well, I mean, Thomen, at that time, he was not very much into the songwriting process and also the lyrics, but Kai liked it very much.

BM: Oh yeah. Yeah.

PS: I mean, Kai also is, I mean with Gamma Ray he also used a lot of sci-fi stuff, and he’s into sci-fi also.

BM: When it comes to sci-fi literature, if you read a lot of sci-fi, you know that sci-fi in the ‘30s and ‘40s, and maybe even in the ‘50s sort of depicted the future as a utopia. People sitting around with robots waiting on them, and they’re just writing poetry and books and all that. But in the ’60, ‘70s, and ‘80s, the future became dark and nasty, and a totally different take on the future. How do you see the future? Are you more thinking the future’s going to be a great utopia, or are you thinking the future’s going to be dark and we’re all going to die? [laughs]

PS: [laughs] No, no. I’m more the utopia kind of guy.

BM: Yeah. [laughs]

PS: Yeah, I really love to believe that everything will be good in the future.

BM: So no Terminator 2 or Matrix sort of future for you, huh?

PS: I mean, it’s definitely absolutely interesting and fascinating story lines. Of course, I mean nobody can foresee what will happen. But you know, being, as I said before, basically a positive guy, also my vision of the future is actually more a positive one than a negative one.

BM: I always like to ask what musicians remember most about their albums. You told me a little bit about your first one, so I won’t ask you that. But how about the second album, Unification. What do you remember most about that album?

PS: Major pressure, because it had to be really good. I mean, it was the follow-up of the successful Iron Savior album, and I really worked my ass off. I think I recorded everything the most brilliant way it was possible for me, and I mixed like hell. It took months and months to finish this album. Way too long. [laughs]

BM: Really, yeah. [laughs]

PS: Yeah, because I wanted to make everything just as perfect as possible. And so I really put a lot of energy into it. I spent basically all of my time in the studio, and yeah, that’s what I remember about Unification.

BM: I love the cover of “Neon Knights.” Like you said, the album rocks, man. Great album. How about Interlude [1999], the EP that’s part live, part studio. What do you remember about that?

PS: Well, actually, we recorded at the Wacken Open Air.

BM: Yeah.

PS: I liked the show very much, but it was too short to make it, to make a live album out of it. And on the other hand it was too early, after the second album, to come out with a live album. And remembering how long it took me to come up with Unification, I thought, hey, this would be a good idea to have something in between. That’s why I called it Interlude.

BM: Yeah.

PS: [laughs]

BM: Clever. [laughs]

PS: And it also started, you know, there are also these divorce things that I just mentioned earlier, and they started to come up with this album. So it also has some strange moments on it, which I like. I must say I really like the album better than Dark Assault [2001]. And but it also is the prelude to Dark Assault, put it that way.

BM: Pre-hell, the slide down. Yeah. I won’t ask you about Dark Assault, because I just did, but Condition Red [2002], as you mentioned, is a totally different, brighter, rocking album. How did you get to that place outside of hell to do Condition Red?

PS: Well, as I said, I left hell.

BM: [laughs]

PS: I stepped back into life.

BM: It shows, really. The sound of that album and the tone is just bright.

PS: Yeah. Sometimes before, a couple of months before, I started writing, and I met my, now my second wife, and you know, that really turned me on quite a bit. And yeah, I just had, I can remember the songwriting. I just had so much fun with the songwriting, just totally different than Dark Assault, which really was hard for me to come up with the, I mean, sometimes songs just come to me, burst out of you. And that was the kind of songwriting I had with Condition Red. That’s why the album is like it is. Also, these funny videos, these things that you mentioned, that was the state of mind I was in at the time. So that’s why the album is that way. And that also is why the Condition Red will always have a big place in my heart. I really love this album.

BM: Yeah, so do I.

PS: I have a lot of good memories with this one.

BM: The cover song “Crazy” is great. I love the line, “We’re never going to survive unless we get a little crazy.” [laughs] That’s a great choice for this album. How about Battering Ram [2004]. Tell me about that one.

PS: Well, with Battering Ram, I really wanted to make Iron Savior solid. That was the basic idea. I really was, because I thought, hey, we have too much, put it like that, we have too much complicated songs. We must get some more easy songs, easy to come along with. Because I thought to myself, oh man, when you listen to songs like “Protector” or “Titans of Our Time” [from Condition Red] which are great songs.

BM: Yeah.

PS: But the lyrics, if you are not familiar with Iron Savior, you come to a song and you say, “What the hell is this guy singing about? I understand nothing.”

BM: [laughs]

PS: [laughs] And you know, if you have no idea what somebody, even though you understand everything, but you have no idea the lyrics are just in there, out there, you cannot connect with the songs. And with Battering Ram, I really tried to write song which are simple structured, and which are just, yeah, catchy. That was the basic idea for Battering Ram, to write catchy songs.

BM: Well, you succeeded.

PS: And of course, really metal songs.

BM: Yeah, it’s got a great vibe. The riffs on Battering Ram are fantastic. I mean, you succeeded well with that one. The, three years passed then between Battering Ram and Megatropolis [2007]. In your liner notes to Megatropolis you wrote, “Thank my family and fans who finally gave me back the powers to create this album.” Was that a difficult time between Battering Ram and Megatropolis?

PS: Yeah, actually it was, because in 2005, my brother died in a car accident. And that was really, it was really a shock. And it really brought me down quite a bit. Yeah, I mean, not much to say about it.

BM: No.

PS: I’m still sad that he’s not around anymore. No, I mean, the Megatropolis album, just a little bit of my brother Tim is in that album.

BM: Your dedication to your brother on Megatropolis was so well written, very touching. It’s in German. But, literally translated, it says, “I endlessly lack you.” That’s a beautiful sentiment.

PS: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That’s the case.

BM: Yep. So when you look back on all your albums—

PS: So anyway, just one more, one addition. On the other hand, that album is also a very important one to me, because this, even though this was a very sad incident, I didn’t want to transform my sadness again into music.

BM: Right. You wanted to avoid the Dark Assault approach.

PS: Exactly. I didn’t want to come up with a second Dark Assault. So I really had to push myself to, well, to overcome this. And I think in the end I really succeeded. And well, the songwriting also for Megatropolis was really fast, because once I started to write, and it took some time to, well, to make some peace with the situation. And once I did that, I was able to write songs again, and I had a really great time writing the songs. Just like on the Condition Red. And also the production was really fast, because I wanted the album to be really pure, even more pure than the Battering Ram one. So there’s not much choir vocals on it, there’s not really much, not too much production on it. It’s really Iron Savior pure.

BM: Yeah, Iron Savior pure. [laughs] Well, for somebody who’s just starting out, getting to know Iron Savior, which album would you recommend that they start with?

PS: It’s really hard to say. Mean question. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

PS: Because there is an evolution.

BM: Oh yeah.

PS: I think, well I mean, Condition Red is still an album I really would recommend.

- 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.

Apologizing profusely, I rescheduled. And this time, I checked, double-checked, and triple-checked to make sure I had the time correct. Thankfully, I did.

I thoroughly enjoyed my wide-ranging interview with Martin Hedin, which took place on April 26, 2008.

In a subsequent e-mail, Martin included an attachment with this note, “These are pictures from Progpower scandinavia last autumn. Photo by Daniel Andersson. Hope you can use some of these!” Indeed I can. And did. Thanks, Martin!

Enjoy!

MH: Hello?

BM: Is this Martin?

MH: Yes, it is.

BM: Hi, this is Bill Murphy.

MH: Hey, Bill. [laughs] Finally.

BM: Yeah, I wasn’t going to blow it this time. [laughs]

MH: [laughs] Exactly.

BM: Thank you very much. I deeply apologize for yesterday.

MH: Well, that’s nothing. To be quite honest, I had forgotten it too. [laughs]

BM: [laughs] Well yeah, to tell you the truth, I know that happens, because [another musician] forgot my interview when I called him the first time. [laughs] He just wasn’t there.

MH: Oh really? [laughs]

BM: [laughs] So I know it happens. I just hate it when it happens to me.

MH: [laughs]

BM: So thank you very much for your time today. I really appreciate it. It’s great to talk to you.

MH: Yeah, thanks.

BM: I don’t know if you read any of my previous ProgPower interviews, but I like to ask about entire careers, not just the most recent album. So for all of the people who haven’t heard of you before, this interview ought to be a good place to start. It’ll give them a chance to get to know you.

MH: Yeah.

BM: And get to know you as a musician, and not just the band.

MH: Yeah.

BM: This past week, a thought occurred to me. You said in an e-mail that you have a couple of little kids who always get colds every time they go out the door. [laughs]

MH: [laughs] That’s true.

BM: Are they old enough to appreciate the stuff you do? Do they listen to your music?

MH: [laughs] Well, my daughter is three, and she likes Andromeda. She mostly likes Thomas [Lejon] playing, she is always saying that “Thomas is playing a lot of drums.”

BM: [laughs]

MH: “Thomas plays a lot of drums.” And that’s true. [laughs]

BM: Is her name Aila? Is that it?

MH: Aila, yeah, that’s true.

BM: In your liner notes to Chimera, you wrote, “My little daughter Aila for proving this record works as a lullaby.”

MH: Yeah, well, that was when she was a baby. So we did Chimera, and I sat there and I mixed for hours and hours, and I was trying to make her sleep and she wouldn’t sleep. And when I started to mix all that metal music, she fell asleep somehow. [laughs]

BM: [laughs] That’s great.

MH: I don’t know if that’s a complement or I don’t know what, how to interpret that. [laughs]

BM: The bio for you on the Andromeda site seems to indicate that you are what we call a prodigy. I mean, if you exhibited musical interest at the age of two and you were composing your own or playing it at least, at four, do your kids, especially Aila, do you see the same kind of musical interest in them that you had as a kid?

MH: Yeah, I can’t stop it. We’ve said that many times, me and my wife, but we haven’t done anything to make her, like, be into music or anything, but it just comes naturally. I don’t know. She, right now she is singing all the songs from Sound of Music. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

MH: I’m a bit fed up with it. [laughs] But still, she’s three and she loves it.

BM: Wow.

MH: Yeah. That’s pretty cool.

BM: So I guess that answers the question nature vs. nurture. I mean, somehow the music is innate in her, just like it was in you.

MH: Yeah, I think so. I mean, of course it’s probably inevitable that she would be interested in music because my wife is also into music. But still, so much comes naturally, that we are amazed.

BM: [laughs]

MH: [laughs] I don’t know about the prodigy stuff, though.

BM: Well, I don’t know too many other people that at the age of four are creating their own music. [laughs]

MH: Well, it certainly sounds good to say that, but if you would listen to the music I created… [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

MH: I don’t know.

BM: According to a lot of the questions posted on forums and whatnot, it looks like fans are eager for Andromeda four. Are you guys pretty far along in that? Can they expect an album soon?

MH: Yeah, I know it. Actually, the album has been ready for a couple of months already, but we’re in between labels, and we’re trying to sort that out. [Andromeda just signed with Lance King’s Nightmare Records label and is scheduled to release The Immunity Zone on September 16, 2008]. We’re trying to be promoted as good as possible, and we also want it to be out before we play at ProgPower in Atlanta. And so it’s kind of nervous right now what will happen. [laughs]

BM: Yeah.

MH: Anyway, that’ll all change, I mean, when people read this interview, it will all be sorted out, hopefully, the album will be out. But right now, we actually don’t know which label we will be with.

BM: So you’re sort of shopping it around to different labels?

MH: Yeah, exactly.

BM: Have you gotten any bites?

MH: We are kind of shopping it around.

BM: Well, the good scenario would be if it does come out before ProgPower, but if it doesn’t, will you still play some of the new material at ProgPower?

MH: Yeah, that’s the question. We’ve been talking about that. We actually, we were playing in Moscow a few months ago, and we were discussing then to play some new material. But it somehow didn’t happen because we thought like, “Oh, they have never heard it.” And one song is like eight minutes of strange music they’ve never heard before. I don’t know.

BM: [laughs]

MH: [laughs] So we didn’t do it then, but we’re kind of anxious to kind of start to play it live also, because it’s a different thing than to just record the songs. And we have actually, we haven’t played any of the songs from the fourth album live yet. So I can’t make any promises, but I would really, personally, I would really like us to play even if the album is not out.

BM: Oh yeah. Well, it’s a great thing to have you part of ProgPower this year. Congratulations on being part of the lineup.

MH: Yeah, thanks. It’s going to be a lot of fun. [laughs]

BM: How did that come about? Did Glenn call you or email you, or how did you get to be a part of ProgPower? And what did you guys think when you found out you were?

MH: I don’t remember, because I wasn’t the one contacted. I don’t actually know the story behind it there, but of course, when we were confirmed there, it was a great feeling. I mean, we’ve never been over to the States, so yeah, it’s going to be very, very exciting. And we were talking about maybe planning some other gigs.

BM: In the States?

MH: Yeah, while we’re over there. But nothing is set yet.

BM: Well, for people who, let’s say, aren’t familiar with Andromeda, maybe haven’t seen your DVD [Playing Off the Board, what can audiences expect from you guys? And don’t say, like you did on the DVD answers, “A high energy, kick-ass show.” [laughs]

MH: [laughs] I’m not allowed to say that?

BM: No. That’s a given. [laughs]

MH: Ok. Yeah, then I don’t know what I would say. [laughs]

BM: [laughs] Ok, well, we’ll skip that one.

MH: That’s pretty much what you can expect. No, you can expect a good variety of songs. We always tried to balance our shows, so yeah, little of this, little of that, a few songs from every album.

BM: Oh, that’d be good.

MH: Yeah. And yeah, I don’t know. We don’t actually perform them exactly as they are on the record, maybe. Johan [Reinholdz, guitarist] tends to improvise his solos, and we’ve rearranged some things, but yeah.

BM: Yeah. Are there other bands on the ProgPower lineup that you’re looking forward to seeing as well?

MH: Yeah, actually I haven’t, I’m not really aware of which bands are playing there yet. I haven’t looked into it yet. But are all the bands confirmed?

BM: Oh yeah. Right now, we’ve got Amorphis, Riverside, Iron Savior, Elvenking, Pathosray, Iced Earth, Jon Oliva’s Pain, Mustasch, Rob Rock, Spheric Universe Experience, and Saint Deamon.

MH: Yeah.

BM: Yeah.

MH: Actually, it might sound strange, I hope people don’t take this as an insult, but the only band I recognize there is Mustasch. [laughs]

BM: [laughs] Is it really?

MH: Yeah, really. I’m not really…I don’t really listen to prog. [laughs]

BM: [laughs] Well, two things about that: Mustasch is the one band in the lineup that most of us aren’t that familiar with, and it’s the one band in the lineup that you are.

MH: Yeah, it just happens that I’ve heard of them. What I listen to is mostly what, I just happened to hear them and some friend just happened to have an album. And I start to listen. It’s not like I am, like I actively search new people to listen to. It just happens.

BM: Well, the fact that you don’t listen to prog all the time really isn’t that different from other musicians like yourself. I think you draw more inspiration from other forms of music and then apply is to prog.

MH: Yeah, maybe. Of course I listen to prog, but not maybe the scene like, how do you say, I listen mostly to ‘70s prog like Genesis and Yes.

BM: Oh yeah, that’s great stuff.

MH: Yeah, it is. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

MH: Otherwise I wouldn’t be listening to it. [laughs]

BM: [laughs] What do you think of Rick Wakeman, then?

MH: Yeah, he’s great.

BM: Yeah, yeah.

MH: I wish I could play like that. [laughs]

BM: [laughs] Well, one of the things about prog in the ‘70s though, back then, all the critics said, “Oh, this is bombastic, flamboyant, purposeless, pointless.” They just hated it. But now, when you look at it, you think, “Wow, these guys were great musicians. And who cares if it was bombastic?”

MH: Yeah, well at the same time, I think they had a lot of fans back then too. But it is a little like you say, that they are appreciated afterwards.

BM: Well, when you guys are at ProgPower, or any concerts, really, do you like to sort of hang out and chat with the fans before or after your set?

MH: Yeah, we always do that. I mean, that’s the point.

BM: Yeah, cool.

MH: To meet the fans, and not just to perform and then, I don’t know, go to the hotel or something.

BM: [laughs]

MH: That would be boring. We always hang out afterwards, and well, Andromeda is quite a party band, actually. [laughs]

BM: Really. [laughs]

MH: I don’t know if you’ve seen the bonus material on the DVD?

BM: Yeah, yeah. [laughs]

MH: It’s kind of, [laughs] yeah, gives a little hint.

BM: Yeah. Well, one of the questions that I saw you guys, when I watched the interviews on the bonus material, is this question seems to irritate you guys. You’re compared a lot to Dream Theater.

MH: Ah.

BM: [laughs] And the look on your face.

MH: No, I’m not irritated, I think I handled that question pretty well on the DVD. [laughs]

BM: [laughs] Yeah, I could tell. Both of you guys had faces that just said, “Uh, yeah, well Dream Theater.”

MH: They always come up, and I understand, I understand why people compare us with them. But I still, I respectfully disagree.

BM: Yeah, yeah.

MH: That we would have that much in common with them. Well, on the surface, maybe, at the first glance. If you just, if you listen a lot to Dream Theater and then you hear some Andromeda, “Oh, this is like they’re copying or something.” But I think anyone who gives us a listen will agree that we have our own stuff. I mean, we have our own approach to it. And it’s not that it’s, I mean, it’s flattering. They are great. But, it’s just a little bit tiresome that they always come up. It’s not that we’re irritated or anything. For instance, it would be great to do a gig with them or something, like support them or something, because it is kind of the same audience who listens to us. But we definitely have our own thing going.

BM: Oh yeah, I can definitely tell. On the one hand, like you said, is it somewhat flattering because Dream Theater’s held up as being such technical virtuosos. They’re speedy and they’re fast and they’re musically trained at Julliard or somewhere. But you guys—

MH: Yeah, they are. Of course, they are.

BM: But then, you guys are too. You’re music-academy trained, you’re very technical musicians. On the one hand, is it flattering to be compared to musicians who are considered some of the best in the world?

MH: Yeah, well of course it’s always flattering. But I think that the interesting thing is not who can play the fastest or anything like that, it’s more what you have to say. Like what is special about a band? What do you do with all that technical talent or whatever? If you just, I don’t know.

BM: Well, that’s a great question. It’s actually one of the things I was going to ask you. The style of playing you have on all these Andromeda CDs so far, you can play very fast, I can hear that and see it, like in the live DVD, but there’s some extremely beautiful piano pieces that I really enjoy a lot. You know, “Blink of an Eye” [from Chimera].

MH: Yeah.

BM: Yeah, do you find it more difficult to play all the speedy runs and be really lightening fast? Or is it more the emotional, what you have to say from the heart kind of stuff, that is more difficult to play?

MH: Yeah, I think that’s more difficult. I mean, when you reach a certain level of technical skill or whatever, it’s, that’s just a matter of time. Of course you can work a lot of time with technical stuff, but if you just put your mind to it, you can play, I’m not going to say anything, but you can play freely. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

MH: But I think it’s definitely more of a challenge to make a feeling, yeah, a certain feeling come across, and to really do that while the record light is on. I mean, it’s not that easy to be emotional maybe when you’re in the studio and doing everything else. For me personally, anyway, it’s like that.

BM: Well, that’s actually some of my favorite songs that you do are yours. Like on “Castaway” or “Blink of an Eye” that’s some extremely beautiful piano playing.

MH: Thank you very much.

BM: Yeah, it’s moving. Tell me about the name of the band. One thing I find really interesting is, you guys are called Andromeda, which evokes images of vast reaches of outer space, and just eons way out there. And yet your songs are usually about inner stuff, very small spaces, within people’s ears, in fact. You know?

MH: Yeah, that’s true. I think that’s a good thing if you get that association with space. And that’s kind of the point. You’d really have to ask Johan about that, because he came up with it, the name I mean. But I think it’s just meant to make you feel exactly like that.

BM: And it’s an interesting juxtaposition with the vastness of the name but the feel of the songs.

MH: Yeah, well, I think the lyrics are, well, there are many about inner stuff. [laughs]

BM: Yeah.

MH: I know you haven’t heard the fourth album, but it’s kind of darker in both lyric-wise and music.

BM: Darker than this “Parasite” stuff? [laughs] I mean, some of your lyrics are kind of, you know what I mean? [laughs]

MH: [laughs]

BM: Well, I’ll ask you about that in a second. One of the things I love asking all the musicians is to tell me what was going on, what do you remember most about each album. Like if I say, “Extension of the Wish,” what comes to mind first? What do you think of when that album came together?

MH: Yeah, I think about the [laughs] boring fact that I was sick when I was supposed to record my keyboards.

BM: Really?

MH: I had to do it at home. Everybody else went away and they recorded it in another town in Sweden called Uppsala. And they had a lot of fun there, and I was at home like, [coughs] you know.

BM: [laughs]

MH: [laughs] And then they sent me the tapes and I had to record and send the tapes to them. And it was kind of boring in a way, but I also had the privilege to do whatever I wanted because nobody could stop me. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

MH: So that’s what comes to mind with Extension.

BM: Another question is, what’s the deal with you guys standing waist-deep in water in that CD booklet photo?

MH: Oh, that’s just an idea. I don’t know whose idea that was.

BM: [laughs]

MH: It was bloody cold, I can tell you. We were there, I think we were there over an hour in that water. And it was, I think it was March or April.

BM: Really?

MH: In Sweden. And it’s bloody cold in the water. [laughs]

BM: [laughs] Yeah, that doesn’t look fun.

MH: I remember it was like three or four hours later I started to feel my legs again.

BM: [laughs] Wow. Is there a song on that album — I understand that they were not, this came together before you had a whole lot of input, this was all written music and lyrics by Johan.

MH: Yeah, pretty much.

BM: Is there one of those songs on that album that was the most difficult to put together, that gave you the most trouble as a keyboardist or composer? Or were they all pretty much about the same?

MH: I think they were all pretty challenging technically. Especially if you write something on guitar, it can sometimes be hard to translate to keyboards, and vice versa. But, well, I managed.

BM: [laughs] Yeah, it came out great. I like the sound of it.

MH: Yeah, I really like that album also. Of course, I don’t listen to it that much anymore because it’s, it just happens like that, you just kind of forget. But I like to play it sometimes.

BM: Was, your first singer, Lawrence [Mackrory]. Was he always just going to be a session guy, or was he ever considered to be — ?

MH: He was never considered to be a band member, he was just helping us out.

BM: I see.

MH: Because we didn’t have a singer, and the label really wanted the record released, and that just happened, actually. It came out great. But then we were going to release the album in France. The label there wanted the band as we were there, and we already had David, so if we had found David like a few months before, you would never have heard the Lawrence version. I don’t know, I think it’s been a lot of conversation about that, when you change singers there’s always a lot of fuss about it. But I think it’s kind of interesting. You can listen to both albums and you hear different things. I think it’s definitely a different mood.

BM: Well, let’s talk about the second one, II = I. You really stepped up to the plate here, and there’s a lot of music and lyrics by you throughout this whole thing. Why? Did you just come to the table with a whole lot of creative ideas, or was there a gap that you stepped up to fill?

MH: I don’t know. It started like, when we had recorded Extension, and then we rehearsed pretty intensively before that. And then we liked it so much that we just continued to do that. We rehearsed maybe three times a week or something. We never do that anymore. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

MH: And I don’t know, we just started to take fragments of different ideas like Johan had a riff, and I had some chord progression and some melodies and Thomas had some rhythms, and we just put it together. And the first half of the II = I album is, yeah, that’s what you hear. They are like band effort songs. And then I think, we worked individually at the same time at home. I think that it was just Johan wanted another instrumental, and he had written “Morphing.”

BM: Yeah, “Morphing into Nothing.” Yep.

MH: Yeah. And he worked with, I think it was a rehearsal, but nobody else showed up, just Johan and David [Fremberg, vocals] showed up, and I don’t know. And they wrote “Castaway.” Then we just needed some more songs, and I had the “Parasite Trilogy,” those last three songs, I had that pretty much ready already. I just had to write some of the “One in My Head,” instrumental parts. I had to do that, and I did that with Thomas. He did the ending of “One in My Head.” That’s one of the most progressive things we’ve ever done. [laughs]

BM: Yeah.

MH: We called that, when he came up with that, we called that little piece of music, “Thomas’ Brain.”

BM: “Thomas’ Brain.” [laughs]

MH: [laughs] Because he must have been on fire when he played that. But that’s just how it happened, and it made a very, I mean, the record is very broad or whatever you say. And that’s probably why, because we did half of the stuff together, and half of the stuff individually. And yeah.

BM: Well, your role really expanded. You’re credited as producer, engineer, mixer.

MH: Ah yeah, that just happened. We just thought, “Where are we going to record it?” And then I just said, “Well, maybe I can do it.” And I didn’t really know if I could do it, because it was my first album I produced.

BM: [laughs] Really?

MH: But yeah, it took, I think it took about 10 months of all my time. [laughs]

BM: Oh, I see.

MH: It was fun. Looking back, of course, I would have done some things differently, but I’m really pleased with that anyway. It’s probably the record I’m most pleased with personally.

BM: Really?

MH: Because it’s so, there is so much love gone into that. [laughs] Or whatever.

BM: Oh yeah. Well, where did you get the idea for the “Parasite Trilogy”? There’s pretty negative, interpersonal stuff there. [laughs]

MH: [laughs] Yeah, it’s not from real life. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

MH: Well, I think that the original idea was from David Lynch, Twin Peaks or something.

BM: Oh yeah, yeah.

MH: With that alter-ego Bob and things like that. And it just kind of emerged. I don’t know. It’s my own take on it.

BM: [laughs]

MH: Yeah, I don’t know. I think that criminals, people that commit crimes, they tend to be, people look at them like they’re all bad or something like that. And it’s much more complicated than that. And that’s the message. That maybe it’s not—

BM: It’s not black and white.

MH: No, it’s not black and white. And it’s kind of told from a first person point of view, to be in that kind of schizophrenia, not knowing exactly what you’ve done, and things like that.

BM: Wow. Which song on there was there one that you just had the most difficult time putting together? Like, take after take, or there were nuances you just couldn’t quite capture?

MH: [laughs] Well, actually, when it comes to recording, as with your question about Extension also, which was the most challenging, I think that they were about the same all of them. Everything is kind of hard if you want to do it, if you have a thought and you really want to do it like this, and it can be hard even if it’s easy to play. So I think the one I was working most was “One in My Head,” to get that finished in time. Because that was the last piece of the album, and I really wanted it to be intense and strange. [laughs]

BM: [laughs] You succeeded.

MH: [laughs] Yeah, thanks.

BM: [laughs] Well, this, the artwork is cool too. How much input did you have working with Mattias Noren on how the cover looks?

MH: Yeah, I worked very closely with him. I think he was quite annoyed with me. [laughs]

BM: [laughs] Really?

MH: I don’t know. I called him every day and like, “Oh, can you do it like this? Like no eyelids on those molecules, just eyes.” I had all those kinds of ideas. And it was fun, but I don’t know.

BM: Too much input, huh?

MH: Maybe a little bit too much, yes. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

MH: I wanted it to be different things from every lyric and like, it’s not a concept album, but I wanted it to have a concept feel, like both with the artwork and with some musical stuff like the piano soloing tucked away there. Different scenes from the four songs before. And the “Parasite Trilogy” is a concept within the album. So I just wanted that concept feel, even if it wasn’t really a concept album.

BM: Well, the cover kind of reminds me of a combination of the Twilight Zone TV show and Pink Floyd.

MH: Yeah?

BM: Yeah.

MH: That’s not bad.

BM: No, that’s good. It’s very cool.

MH: [laughs]

BM: In the liner notes, you mention how long it took. [laughs] You thank your friends for remembering you when you finally found your way out of the studio. [laughs]

MH: [laughs]

BM: Did it really feel like you were in there forever?

MH: Yeah, it did. Like I said, about 10 months of all my time. I just slept and then I did this album, I mean, that’s all. So well, it was a relief when it was finally over.

BM: You could do that then, because wasn’t that before you had kids?

MH: Yeah.

BM: Yeah, so you had a little more time. You probably couldn’t do that now, could you?

MH: Yeah. No, otherwise nobody would have ever heard that record. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

MH: If I would have had kids then. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

MH: And it was a little bit, that was, it was a little bit problems when we did Chimera, our third one, because I really didn’t have time to do it. And we still worked in the same way. We rehearsed much less, so that’s why there are much more individually written songs on the Chimera album, because we didn’t have time to rehearse. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

MH: Well, I didn’t have time, anyway. I don’t remember what the other guys did, because I had so much to do then. And it was around the time when we got our first kid, and I had two jobs, and recording this album, and I recorded Acts of Silence, Thomas’ other band. And yeah, all in one year, and it was a little bit too much. [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.

Some of my fondest memories are of the first albums from Led Zeppelin, KISS, Angel, Bad Company, Aerosmith, Black Sabbath, Marillion, Kansas, Dream Theater, Heart, Montrose, and Van Halen. I must be masochistic because when a debut album kicks my ass hard, I like it.

I received plenty of butt kicking from the debut album from Italy’s Pathosray. From the plaintive, classical-tinged piano opening (reminiscent of Rick Wakeman on Yes’ Going For the One album) to the Bohemian Rhapsody-like gong that closes the disc, Pathosray’s entry into the power metal world is a riveting, first-class effort all the way. Even the cover art by the one-and-only Mattias Noren (layout and design by Claus Jensen) is gorgeous and easily represents the music within.

My interview with bassist Fabio D’Amore took place on March 23, 2008. The first time I called, I was an hour early. He had just sat down to eat dinner. (It’s tricky sometimes coordinating the various times!)

NOTE: Fabio sent me an e-mail this week and provided this update on the new Pathosray album:

“We’re recording in these days the vocals of the pre-production for the forthcoming album. We’re really, really satisfied and we never heard our songs carrying on better than this before, modern and fresh.”

Can’t wait!

Special thanks to Fabio for taking the time to round up a ton of great pictures and e-mailing them to me. All photos (except for album covers) courtesy of Fabio D’Amore.

And now on to our interview…

FD: Hello Bill?

BM: Hi Fabio, how are you?

FD: Hello, hello. It’s ok now.

BM: Oh good.

FD: I understood the misunderstanding, because you know in Denmark, there’s no legal time. Here in Italy, after the, before the winter coming, we change the time for six month.

BM: I see.

FD: Yes, and we have one hour to discard. And we recoup it on April, May. And we call them legal time and solar time.

BM: [laughs]

FD: [laughs] And so, for Claus [Jensen, who told me what time to call Fabio], it was ok. But for us, we are from October, we are one hour early. [laughs] So that’s the fact, I didn’t imagine. Sorry.

BM: No, it’s no problem. I’m glad it worked out alright, thank you.

FD: Ok, it’s ok now.

BM: How’s your sister doing? You said she was in an accident?

FD: Yes, my sister had an accident. We were [together for] Easter, at my grandfather’s place, and she was coming with her husband to say hello to us in the place. And while on the road, she had an accident, a bad accident with a car. They didn’t notice a car stop on the way, and they [hit] the car and they [ended up] at the hospital. My sister broke [her] nose.

BM: Oh no.

FD: And her husband broke [his] wrist, and some parts on the head. And you know, the hospital in Italy is worse than the USA I think. [laughs]

BM: Oh really?

FD: Yes, because it’s public health. So we had to, you know, to wait a lot of hours for the medication and so on.

BM: Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Wow. Sorry.

FD: Yes, me too. [laughs] I didn’t expect my sister like that.

BM: No, no. Wow. Well, I do appreciate your time this evening. Thank you for taking my call.

FD: Oh, don’t worry. It’s a pleasure for me to take this chance for discussing a bit about this festival. I’m a little excited because it’s one of the first interviews I’m doing by phone. Because you know, it’s usually on the email or chat, and for me it’s so boring, because there’s no feedback.

BM: Yeah, I know it. Yep. That’s why people like reading my interviews, because there’s a lot of back-and-forth comments and feedback.

FD: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I have to say that it’s not so easy for me to understand you because you are American. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

FD: And so, yeah. Yeah, here in Europe, we are used to learn English, traditional English, so the pronunciation, the slang is a little different. But I am—[laughs]

BM: Well, this will be a great education for you then. [laughs]

FD: Yeah. [laughs]

BM: You can learn while we talk. [laughs] That’s great.

FD: [laughs]

BM: Your English is very good, Fabio.

FD: Isn’t it? Yes?

BM: Yes, it’s very good.

FD: Oh, thank you. It’s my commerce education. I started for a translator in commerce, in trade, so I usually do a normal job as a broker of fresh fish. So I usually call people in Greece, in Denmark and Norway, you know, and so I’m forced to use the English. But anyway, I like talking in foreign languages. It’s nice to discover new cultures and have contacts all around the world.

BM: That’s one of the reasons why I like doing these interviews, because I get to speak with people in all countries. And it’s a lot of fun.

FD: Yes. Yes, it is nice.

BM: First of all, let’s talk about the history of Pathosray. One of the questions you seem to be asked a lot, and you never really have an answer to, is what happened to Luca [Luison, guitarist]?

FD: Oh. [laughs]

BM: You always tell people, “Well, we don’t know, he just walked out without explanation.” Have you talked to him since then? Have you guys ever found out what happened?

FD: Yeah. Really, I have to say that [laughs] for us it’s a little, kind of a mystery what happened. Because you know, maybe you know, we were recording the album in the studio. And one day, Luca told Ivan [Moni Bidin], our drummer, that willing to leave the band for any specific reason. And I was very surprised, because in the last few months, we took a great affinity each other. So there was a great happiness for the recordings, you know. Exciting for after the final product. And so, we were just recording the guitars, I remember, it was on September 6, and we were in the studio. And the one night, I heard Ivan on the phone, and he told me Luca has been willing to leave the band.

BM: [laughs]

FD: And yes, [laughs] you are laughing, but officially, I don’t know why he left the band. Around this period, he was also playing as a guitarist with Elvenking, just for that period. He had them on the live tours, they had some festivals all around Europe. But first of all, I thought “Oh, it was a business reason, because you know, Elvenking was much famous than us.” So I thought, “Oh, ok, I can understand, even if it’s not a good reason to leave the band, you are working from the beginning.” But well, after three or four days, I heard from Elvenking that he was leaving also them. So we didn’t expect, we didn’t know, and at the beginning, we felt a little angry.

BM: I can understand that.

FD: Well, I don’t know anything. After this fact, I met him two or three times around. Also for the official release party was there, with hair cutted. Short hair, and not long hair as at one time. And I was, hoo, it was weird to [see] him that night. And well, I’m sorry I cannot explain you. [laughs] You know, it’s hard also for me to remember that fact.

BM: Yeah.

FD: You can imagine after the recording of the guitars, we are excited for, you know, we had to record the keys. So it was very funny days for us.

BM: Were you guys panicked? Did you worry about it? Or how quickly did you find Alessio [Velliscig, guitarist]?

FD: Well, maybe, I don’t know how much, but we had some trials with other guys. But you know, there was also a bad period for us because it was a very bad hit for us. Because you are recording the album and then you are afraid and you are a little sad. So it was very hard for us to continue, to keep the happiness high. And well, it was around Christmas period, and we met, and we decided to look for another guitar player. So we have done some trials with two guitar players, but we knew Alessio from time to time. And we thought to try him, and it was the right choice.

BM: Oh good.

FD: Because you know, he’s also a good composer. He has another band called Akhtamar. And he’s very good playing guitars. Acoustic guitars, classical guitars, but also mandolin, stuff like that. He’s also very involved in the piano, and in composition at the musical academy. So it was a complete choice for us.

BM: Oh, that’s great.

FD: Not so easy, but complete. Yes, it’s great. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

FD: Finally, we escaped from a bad situation.

BM: Well, you know what’s interesting, I find that you guys had two demos before you released your full-length album.

FD: Of course, of course.

BM: And you started in the band around 2005, from what I understand.

FD: Yeah.

BM: And you played bass on the second demo, called Deathless Crescendo.

FD: Yes, yes. Mostly, out of production. It was the first release under our studio, our home studio. And after some good lives, we thought it was the right moment to record and have enough support and the support for new songs, because you know the old demo, Strange Kind of Energies, sounded a little old. And I don’t know if you heard it?

BM: Oh, I’ve heard Strange Kind of Energies, but I haven’t heard all of Deathless Crescendo yet. Just one or two tracks.

FD: Ok, I can say that Strange Kind of Energies, it was a hard, progressive metal demo, with a live recording, so not multiple tracking and harmonies and stuff like that. And so it was, it sounded a little rough, and it was for free. So I wasn’t in the band for that period, but Ivan told me that it was great for them at that period, but in 2005, we thought it was a little old. We needed something new, in order to play out, and to reach maybe new fan. Stuff like that. So we thought to record what we composed with the new lineup.

BM: Well, here’s my question to you. How did you go from not being in the band, to being in the band and being credited with recording, mixing, and mastering Deathless Crescendo? How did you know how to do all those things?

FD: Oh, hey, you know, before the recordings of the Deathless Crescendo, and before joined the band, I was a fan, first of all. And you know, I’m younger than the other members. And when I was contacted for the first time by Ivan, he told me there was some new songs to record and to work with. So I was excited, because I was younger and you know, to work with older people who are much experienced people, it was very exciting for me. And before the recordings of Deathless Crescendo, we had already had the idea to record a full-length album. And we knew that those compositions would be finished on the album, because we thought in the compositions. And if you notice, four of the compositions on Deathless Crescendo are dated, from demo to the final recording. And so yes, it was a transition period before the recordings, but it was a final evolution for us. If you have the possibility to listen to it, you can notice not so much differences between the demo and, well, the recording and then the mastering, you know, Tommy Hansen has done great for us. But the sound is not so fat, and that is why we are very happy.

BM: But how did you know how to do that? You credited with, “Recorded, mixed, and mastered at Emerald Studio, by Fabio D’Amore.”

FD: Yes. Yes. And as I told you, it was our first release in the studio, in my own studio that I use my studio and Ivan’s studio. We own it.

BM: Oh, that’s great. So you guys are Emerald Studio?

FD: Of course.

BM: Oh, that’s great.

FD: Yes, it’s a known studio, not like a house studio. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

FD: You know, and we need money, first of all. But it was the first time we were recording an album.

BM: Oh, that’s great.

FD: Yes, and we didn’t learn how to do it, of course. But it was, I don’t know, automatic, isn’t it? Maybe something like that. It was, you know, “Let’s record the drums. And let’s try something. And oh, it sounds great. Ok, let’s continue. Let’s record the bass.” And during the recordings we were improving our knowledge on how to master, how to mix, how to edit and stuff like that. And we finished the demo in some months. It was no so hard for amateur people.

BM: Yeah, but it sounds really good. It sounds like you knew what you were doing. [laughs]

FD: Yeah, yeah. [laughs] It’s possible, yes. Thank you.

BM: [laughs]

FD: And at the time, maybe the best demo recording we have done at the Emerald Studio, even if it was the first. Maybe because we felt a personal product, because we are working with other bands, other bands that are willing to record with us in the studio, you know, maybe pre-production demo for the recordings or stuff like that. But this time I can say that the Deathless Crescendo, it’s already the best product in our studio. Yes, of course.

BM: Well, tell me about, since you are relatively young, you were born in 1986, you’ve only been playing bass, how long? How long have you been playing bass, and what attracted you to that instrument?

FD: [laughs] Oh, it’s not so unbelievable, but I played bass since 2000.

BM: Really?

FD: Yes, but I’m learning, I’m studying music since 1990. Since I am four.

BM: You were four years old studying music?

FD: Yes. I started with the piano for five years.

BM: Oh, that’s great.

FD: Yeah, being obliged by my mother, of course, because I was a child, I didn’t, I can’t thinking, you know. [laughs] I had the pleasure for the football, but not for the music. [laughs] But it was great to have the introduction of the music like that. And I left music just for one year, and then I came back and I was studying percussions with the town orchestra. And while I was studying percussion, I started playing bass, alone, stand alone, without taking lessons in 2000. Because you know, I don’t know the real reason. It attracted me. Yes, I was, that year I was watching at the TV and seeing concerts, and MTV and stuff like that. And first of all, the first inspiration were Red Hot Chili Peppers, you know, he is a great bass player.

BM: Oh yeah.

FD: So, “Oh, I can try to look for a bass, a used bass, a secondhand bass.” And I found a four-string. And I started like that in 2000. I think it was early 2000.

BM: Wow. Because your style is so good. I can hear John Myung [Dream Theater bassist – duh!] in your style.

FD: [laughs] Yeah. First of all, because it’s my hero, thank you. [laughs] It’s not so difficult to listen, to hear, well, I cannot hide. Because you know, it’s a normal process that your favorite band influences you in the composition style. [laughs] So yes, it’s true.

BM: [laughs] Well, tell me about it. That’s a very difficult style of bass playing. How did you get into not only playing bass, but going from that to playing progressive metal. I mean, it’s a really technical style of playing.

FD: [laughs] Easy, easy.

BM: Really?

FD: Because in the same year I started playing bass, I was attracted by a band called Dream Theater.

BM: Oh yeah. [laughs]

FD: And so, “Dream Theater, what is a Chinese/Korean guy doing?”

BM: [laughs]

FD: It was mystery for me. I was listening to Oasis, bands like that. And, “Oh, what is John Myung?” And I saw him also in a Yamaha catalog, I had the catalog around my house, you know, instruments, bass, guitars, and I saw this man holding a six-string bass. And I was impressed, you know, “Six strings, what the fuck?”

BM: [laughs]

FD: [laughs] Six strings. I thought the bass had just four strings, maybe five in, I don’t know if you remember the video from Red Hot Chili Peppers, but it was a hard thing to me to understand. So I took the chance to go to my musical shop, my close musical shop, and asked them, “What about Dream Theater?” I thought I was the only one, young guy in the world knowing them, because I was, in 2000, I was, I don’t know how many years old.

BM: 14.

FD: Yeah.

BM: [laughs]

FD: Yes, 14, something like that. And oh yes, the guy at the shop suggested me to, “Oh, let’s hear this, oh, the album title was funny, listen to some words. Hmm, great.” The cover, the album cover was interesting, you know, the little child and the heart. [Images and Words, 1992]

BM: It’s a great album.

FD: It is my favorite album ever. [laughs] So that’s the album introduced me into progressive and metal and the other kinds of styles. It was a hard jump into the professional music. I was a teenager, so it was a hit for me to listen to “Metropolis,” “Pull Me Under,” stuff like that. Oh, and so I started playing on the CDs, I came back into this discography and bought Awake [1994], and you know the last album that period was [Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes From a] Memory.

BM: Oh yeah.

FD: And I bought it, and I bought it also the DVD, maybe then VHS at that period, not the DVD. And I saw this man playing this green bass with six strings. Oh, impression. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

FD: And so I was, yes, I stopped the voices on the screen and used the camera to zoom in on the bass. And I try to follow the positions.

BM: Wow.

FD: Yeah, that was the reason. And I passed the whole weekend playing “Metropolis” and stuff like that. And that’s it. In that period, I had some guys that was playing stuff, an original kind of music called progressive. And they found me for a rehearsal, and they were called Acid Rain, was my first official band of progressive metal. And we finally, I finally started playing progressive metal, just easily, without any kind of change in my life or, just easily. After listening to the Dream Theater, I heard from this guy, and I thought, “I’m the only one who is listening to Dream Theater in the world.” Because Internet and mobile phones weren’t so spread.

BM: Oh yeah.

FD: So there was no communication, no change of opinions at that time, as now. So it was a present for me to know that other people were listening, in my same town, my little town, were listening to Dream Theater and progressive metal. And so I started like that. And then, after the Dream Theater, I bought V from Symphony X. That came out the same year, and you know The Perfect Element from Pain of Salvation, and so on.

BM: Oh, that’s great music, yeah.

FD: Yeah, it’s my favorite bands.

BM: You’re really good. I would have thought you’d been playing for a lot longer. You are basically self-taught then, right?

FD: [laughs] Really.

BM: Wow, you taught yourself how to play this well, by watching John Myung Dream Theater videos and listening to the CDs?

FD: Yes, yes, yes. I bought the video, and you know, the lessons, I didn’t understand anything, [laughs] but it was great because it’s very hard, the lessons from Jon Myung.

BM: [laughs] Wow.

FD: Yes, but I was impression. I was a teenager. I think it’s normal.

BM: That’s great. Tell me about the traditional role of a bass player is to sort of play in synch with the drummer.

FD: Yes.

BM: Sort of make the bottom end. Except for guys like Paul McCartney, or John Myung, or Michael Lepond, or Steve Harris. How do you view your role as a bass player? Do you try to keep in synch with the drummer as the bottom end anchor, or do you like to go out and play a million notes at once and all that?

FD: Yes. [laughs] Well, I have a personal idea about the bass player role in a band. In a metal band and in other bands, well, I try to match the groove with the drums, with the bass drum, etc. And you know, the melody a rhythmic instrument can give, it’s not so easy to match this and the melody. And that’s the view I have on a bass player. It’s not so easy to match, you know, in progressive metal you can see some bass player going and fucking the drums and going 5,000 million notes in a second. But for me it’s not, ok, good technique, but it’s not in 2008, it’s so easy to see a lot of quick bass player, but not so melodic. I love singing the melody of the bass sometimes. And that’s why I don’t like virtuosos apart from John Myung, but I don’t call him virtuoso. I prefer bass player giving the two sides of music. So feeling and technique melded together, but not to emphasize any of these two sides. So yes, I prefer stay in the middle. And that’s what I’d like to listen from the other bass players. You know, the last night I was at the New Age Rock Club to see Kiko Loureiro and Felipe Andreoli in Trio. And yes, they were playing mellow jazz fusion, but Felipe Andreoli has showed us his technique, but with Angra is doing basically is going with the double drums. So that’s what I’d like to listen from the other bass players. And so that’s also why I don’t like, you know, Billy Sheehan, or you know very quick and fast and playing a lot of notes, but maybe without follow the bass drum and the kicks. So that’s what I like.

BM: That’s a great way to put that, because one of my questions was going to be is this: what is harder for a bass player to master – playing with speed? or playing with emotion?

FD: Yes, you have to match both. [laughs] And then, that’s why for me to be a great bass player, you have to work a lot in the studio, and in the rehearsal room, of course. And you have not to practice so long the technique every day, like someone is telling me. Because you know, sometimes I have discussion with other bass players around Italy, at the concerts, at the venues, we are discussing how to make, drinking or something. And I heard from people improving every day for hours. No, for me it’s not so good.

BM: [laughs]

FD: I prefer to sit and listen to good albums, and then try to work at the same view with my songs. With Pathosray songs or anything else. So it’s not so easy, but it doesn’t mean that I have to practice so long with technique.

BM: Wow. That’s, so when you listen to a band, when you hear a band for the first time, are you listening to the bass guitar, or the vocals, or the drums, or they keyboard? What do you listen to when you find a new, cool band?

FD: Well, do you mean on the CD or live? Because it’s different?

BM: Oh, let’s say you go to a concert and you watch a band live. What are you looking at? Are you watching the bass player to learn?

FD: Oh, I basically try to watch to the whole band, because I’m interested in every instrument. I’m not a fanatic of my instrument.

BM: [laughs]

FD: I don’t care so long. No, I mean, I feel like a musician more than a bass player, because I am not so good as other bass players. I watch the drum player and the balance, stuff like that. I watch the guitar player, which guitar he is using. [laughs] The instrument, the player, the vocals are so important for me. I love singing, so I’m always looking for new vocalists, you know, unknown vocalists. I love the style. And so I’m always noticing the whole band, but the vocals maybe are the first impressions can give me to a band. The bass player I don’t care so much, because in the last period I didn’t see so good bass players as I told you, that can meld the two sides of playing. And well, apart from my favorite band, I saw a lot of concerts this last year, so I can say I preferred the vocalist, the guitar player, but the bass player, faster or maybe, ok, lot of groove, but annoying, boring me.

BM: Marco [Sandron] has a tremendous voice. The first Pathosray album is great.

FD: [laughs]

BM: And I see some of your preferred songs [in his bio on the Pathosray web site] are “Queen of the Ryche” by Queensryche or anything by Dream Theater or Symphony X.

FD: Yes.

BM: So you tend to like really powerful vocalists that have a great range. That’s what it seems like.

FD: Yes, yes, Marco has. Marco is a great, versatile vocalist that is also I think, in his perfect maturity period because he’s 30, so he’s not so young and neither older. And so we are doing stuff in the perfect period for him. And I think he has a large range of frequencies, from the lower to the highest. So maybe we are a little lucky also. Because he, in 2008, as I told you, it is not so easy to find versatile players and vocalists. Maybe they have some high points, strengths, but a lot of low points. And I think Marco doesn’t have so low points than has high points. And for me, he can do everything.

BM: Oh yeah, it’s amazing when I read the reviews of your album.

FD: Yes.

BM: A lot of people say the vocalist is absolutely stunning. So you guys have a great vocalist. Yeah.

FD: Yes, we have, and we are lucky. Yes.

BM: [laughs]

FD: Yes, because I don’t know if you are listening to, I am sure you are listening to a lot of albums in these years.

BM: Oh yeah.

FD: I am a fanatic, so I spend all my money in CDs and magazines because I love music, I love metal, progressive, so I’m mostly interested in the market and what’s going on. But sometimes the bands are really good, but the vocalist can destroy all the work of a band, because you know, the first impression is always the vocals, I think.

BM: Yeah.

FD: The drums for the production and the vocals.

BM: Yeah. You’re right.

FD: Yeah, the color can give the drums in the background. And then, of course, the first impression is the vocals because you can listen for the first time if you are bored about a singer or if you like singer because you like the sound, I don’t know how to say, but it’s really difficult. And I think Marco for the first time I heard him from the Strange Kind of Energies CD, I thought, “Wow, this is definitely vocalist.” [laughs]

BM: Yeah. Passionate. Yes, very.

FD: Yes.

BM: Let me ask you another question about your bass-playing style. Do you play with your fingers a lot? Or do you use a pick?

FD: Yes. No, live, I always using my fingers. But I can use a pick in the studio. And also because of the time, sometimes you have to save time because it’s costing so much. You know, with the power time riffs, like double bass? I sometimes I use the pick to be much precise, you know. And if I have to sound like more heavy, you know our song, “The Sad Game”?

BM: Oh yes.

FD: On the verses, I preferred to use the pick, because it was a very metallic verse. So I like to hear the sound of the pick on the string, so that’s why I used it. But you know on live stage, I prefer always to use my fingers. Always.

BM: You have a nice tone. Your bass guitar has a crisp, bouncy tone, like you’re using a Rickenbacker, like the old ‘70s Chris Squire sound.

FD: It seems to, it seems to. But it’s just Yamaha.

BM: Yeah.

FD: Yeah, yeah. I, for the recordings I use my Yamaha RBX-775. I don’t know if you know the model?

BM: Sure.

FD: It’s very recognizable. There’s nothing special, but just now I’m using the John Myung signature bass.

BM: Wow.

FD: The old Yamaha, the old one, the six strings. And on the new recording, I can do much, much more. Yes. I can do better on the sound because I have much time to work with.

BM: How much time do you spend looking for just the right bass tone? Is the tone of your bass really important to you?

FD: Oh, well, I prefer looking into the bands and maybe find some on instrument. And not specifically finding one bass player around, just bass player. I prefer to look into the band, I listen. And so, maybe I can notice the all instruments, and then I can say, “Oh, the bass is good.”

BM: Yeah.

FD: Yes. And I spend a lot of time looking for new stuff to listen, to hear in the car while I’m driving work. And so, yes, I can say yes.

BM: I heard that you will be working with a band called Fairyland.

FD: Yes, yes.

BM: You and Marco. How did you get that gig? Was it through Intromental? Tell me about that project.

FD: Yes. As you know, Fairyland is a very known band from France.

BM: Yeah.

FD: The band is doing a sort of symphonic metal, but in the last summer, Philippe [Giordana], the keyboard player, was left from the other players in the band.

BM: Yeah, they all walked out on him.

FD: Yes, it was, I don’t have to say anything, because I just heard a bit from him. But from what I heard, it was very sad. And so he remained alone. But Intromental and the label Napalm Records, suggested him to continue. And Claus told him to contact Marco first of all, for the vocals, because he preferred for the future just to make some sort of metal operas with guests. Something like Avantasia.

BM: Yep.

FD: So just invite good talents not specifically famous players or vocalists. And Claus from Intromental suggested him to call Marco [Sandron, Pathosyray vocalist]. And you know, we begin writing emails to each other, and he told us about the project. And it sounded very interesting because you know we were next to promote our album and I thought it was the right chance to increase the same, I can’t say the same, but increase fans. To attract the crowd to the new stuff from Fairyland but also to Pathosray, to our band. And then, after Marco affected to try this new project, Philippe also asked me to do the bass for that production and for the future. And to record the backing vocals. So we planned a meeting in Lyon, France. We met up, me and Philippe, and we discussed a lot on the project, and he gave me the files, the tracks we’re to work in. So I took everything to Emerald Studio, and we started to do the pre-production.

- 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.

Arguably best known for his work with Impellitteri, Rob has released four highly regarded albums on his own – the most recent of which is the jaw-dropping, riff-heavy Garden of Chaos [2007].

I first called Rob on April 2, 2008. It ended up being the longest of my ProgPower USA IX interviews, and one of the most comprehensive I’ve ever seen of Mr. R. and his career. My follow-up interview – to discuss events (the impending release of the new Driver album, and the surprise reformation of the classic Impellitteri line-up) subsequent to that interview – was held last Thursday, July 31.

Many thanks to Rob Rock for time spent with me. Thanks, also, for allowing me, exclusively, to hear songs from the upcoming releases from Driver and Impellitteri. All I can say is, fans are going to go nuts. Even after a quarter century in the business, Rob Rock can hit notes and sing with the kind of power found in guys half his age (if they’re lucky). Must be all that clean living and Florida sunshine. Special thanks to Rob and Liza for providing some of the photos that illustrate this interview.

First up: The 15-minute update interview conducted last Thursday…

BM: Thank you for your time tonight, Rob. I’ll make it really brief.

RR: All right.

BM: First of all, this “Change of Heart” song is great. I like your version better than the one on the Bruce Dickinson’s Balls to Picasso [1994] album. What made you guys decide to re-work this one?

RR: Well, that song you hear there is the original song that me and Roy [Z, producer/guitarist] wrote together back in ’89.

BM: Ah, then Bruce recorded his version from yours?

RR: Yeah. Yeah. Roy had played Bruce a lot of old demos that Roy did and he played him that song and I guess Bruce liked it. He then he changed it up the way he wanted to do it.

BM: [laughs] Well, that’s great. That’s even cooler.

RR: [laughs] Yeah. So when we decided to do Driver, we decided to use the original version.

BM: Well, it sounds great. It’s really a beautiful melody.

RR: Thank you.

BM: I found it on my Bruce Dickinson CD. There it was.

RR: I’ll have to pull that up. I haven’t heard that…I only heard that way back –

BM: It’s paced a little slower. I actually prefer your version better.

RR: Well, that’s cool. I’ll have to dig it up. I haven’t heard it in ages.

BM: We talked the first time on April 2. Since then you got involved with two major projects, the Impellitteri thing really took everybody by surprise – I don’t know if you looked at the ProgPower forum, but –

RR: No, I haven’t. I haven’t been there in a while. I’ve been so busy.

BM: I can tell. [laughs] You’re doing a lot.

RR: [laughs]

BM: How did your gig with Impellitteri happen? You haven’t worked with him since the year 2000. How did a reunited Impellitteri album come together?

RR: Well, me and Chris have remained friends throughout the years. We talk once in a while. He had given me a call and said he was going to do another Impellitteri record and he wanted me to sing on it. I said, “Oh, well what have you got?” He says, “Well, it’s another JVC Victor Japan release.” He doesn’t have the rest of the world yet. But he wanted to go back and do the first line-up, basically, me and him and do this album. I think it’s the last album for his JVC Victor contract. So he wanted to finish the way we started, I guess. I’ve been waiting for a long time to hear from him in that regard. Whenever we’ve talked in the past six or seven years we never talked too much about music. More about family stuff. So this time he brought up the album and I said, “Yeah. It sounds cool. Let me hear your demos and stuff.” He sent me some music and it was really good. So I said, “Yeah, let’s do it.”

BM: Hmmm.

RR: The big difference is, though, when I’d do the albums with Chris, I would fly out to L.A. for a couple weeks. First I would demo the songs at home, and then I would fly out there. And Chris would be the guy recording the vocals, you know, we’d record it in his studio. But this time, I was really busy, I didn’t want to fly out from Florida for a couple weeks out there, and he didn’t even suggest that this time, which really surprised me, because Chris is a very hands-on kind of guy.

BM: [laughs]

RR: He said, “This album, you do your vocals in Florida, do whatever you want to do.”

BM: Really?

RR: Yeah, he says, “I’m still working on my guitars and these songs for like two years now.” So he says, “I got my parts down, and I’ll just trust you to come up with something great. And just demo it for me first, and then we’ll agree, and we’ll move forward with that.” So that’s what he did. I demoed them up at home, and then once we all said, you know, once we agreed that this was going to be the melody, he didn’t even bother with the lyrics, I went in and recorded them locally here. And then I sent my vocals to the mix guy, up in Canada. And so it’s being mixed right now in Canada, while Chris is in California, and I’m down here in Florida, and the mixing guy is just sending us [laughs] copies of mixes.

BM: [laughs]

RR: And saying, “Ok, what do you think?”

BM: How is he sending them, via email or something?

RR: Yeah, you know, like YouSendIt, like downloading it.

BM: Oh yeah, yeah. [laughs]

RR: It just amazes me how much has changed since, you know, when I used to do the Impellitteri records.

BM: Yeah.

RR: You know, we’d just fly out there and spend time together. Now it’s like, I still haven’t seen Chris in a long time. [laughs] I haven’t seen Chris probably in six years. [laughs] And here we are making a record together.

BM: [laughs] That’s wild. Thanks to the magic of the Internet, you can make a record 3000 miles apart. [laughs]

RR: Yeah, it’s amazing.

BM: Well, how does the stuff sound to you, compared to the older stuff you used to work on with him? What made you hear it and say, “Sign me up”?

RR: Well, I heard a couple songs that reminded me of, like, the Answer to the Master [1994] album. And the Screaming Symphony [1996] album. And those two albums, for me, were the best stuff we did. So [on the new one Chris] stopped chasing the MTV video sounds.

BM: [laughs]

RR: Like on his last album, he wanted to be modern, he wanted to be on MTV, and he just, I guess he just stopped chasing that and said, “Well, if I’m going to do it with Rob, I guess we’ll do what we always do together.” [laughs] And that’s what I really liked about it, it’s raw and it’s really more, to me, straight metal, not trying to cop on some new fad or something. So I really liked it.

BM: Well, when I sent you the e-mail about Chris’ announcement on Blabbermouth [”The goal of this record was to make a historic album that will rival ‘Van Halen 1′, OZZY’s ‘Blizzard of Oz’, PANTERA’s ‘Cowboys from Hell’, YNGWIE’s ‘Rising Force’, METALLICA’s ‘Master of Puppets’, and even new artists like CHILDREN OF BODOM and AVENGED SEVENFOLD.”] I wondered if that confidence is typical of Chris Impellitteri, if he’s that enthusiastic all the time? Or if this new stuff really is that good?

RR: Well, Chris is very enthusiastic about it. [laughs] Put it that way.

BM: [laughs]

RR: But I talked to him, I said, “What are you saying here, man? I don’t understand.” He said, “Well, it didn’t come out the way I meant it” is what he said. He said, “What I meant is this will be, you know, for those bands, like Metallica, say they put out 10 albums, and their, whatever album that you think is the greatest, or Van Halen might think their first album is the best one.” He thinks this album is his Metallica, it’s his Van Halen, it’s like your favorite album from those bands. This is his favorite album for his band. So yeah, I’m like, “Well, it don’t sound nothing like that, dude.” [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

RR: I didn’t get that from that. Of course, people flag on him for it, but I’m just like, “Well, that’s Chris. He gets excited.”

BM: [laughs]

RR: [laughs] But no, it’s really good. I think it’s going to probably be our best album.

BM: Really?

RR: Yeah, I think it’s really strong. And Greg really mixing it, you know, it’s really, really solid. You know, with Impellitteri records, there’s always me and Chris in the mixing room battling it, you know, it’s funny. We’d be mixing it with Michael Wagner, and Chris would be like, “Guitar’s gotta be louder.” We’d sit there, and about an hour and a half later, I’d be like, “Ok, you done?” “Yeah.” “Ok, now turn the vocal up.” [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

RR: We’d go back and forth. So by the end of the record, you know, the drums would be small, because the vocals and the guitars are up in your face, you know?

BM: Yep.

RR: But the new album, with Greg mixing it, the drums are in your face, everything’s in your face. It’s really coming out really good.

BM: Who is the drummer? According to Wiki, it doesn’t list the bass, keyboard, or drums for this album. Who are they?

RR: It’s the same guys. Glen Sobel on drums, James Pulli on bass, and Ed Roth on keyboards.

BM: Really?

RR: Yeah, yeah.

BM: That’s interesting. Whoever updates those Wiki entries neglected to do that this time. So it’s James Pulli, Ed Roth, and Glen Sobel – the classic line-up?

RR: Yep, the band we toured with. And we toured Japan, I don’t know, four or five times. It was always the same band, so it was cool to finally make an album all together too. Because we had Ken Mary in there playing drums in the beginning. You know, I don’t know what happened with him in the more recent years, but now it’s back to, to me, the prime lineup and the prime sound of the Impellitteri sound of Rob and Chris. That’s the real reason why I wanted to do it, because it was back to what me and him do naturally, you know. Not some contrived thing where we’re trying to chase a sound. I was happy about that. We’ve even got the typical 15, 16 tracks of backing vocals going on too. Just like the old sound. It sounds cool.

BM: Yeah. It ought to be great. I’m excited to hear it. Is it going to be called Good and Evil?

RR: Yeah.

BM: Ok, good. When is that coming out, do you know?

RR: I don’t know. Originally, I think it was supposed to come out at the end of the summer, but we’re still mixing it. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

RR: But probably in the fall. I don’t know, maybe next year. I really don’t know.

BM: Sometime soon?

RR: Chris is like, you know, “When it’s done, it’s done.” He said, “I’ve always been rushed.” He said he’s always rushed his albums in the end, trying to make deadlines, and this time, he’s just like, when he’s done, then they can set the deadline.

BM: Yeah. Well, let’s switch gears to Driver a second [no pun intended]. Fascinating stuff, the tracks you sent, I just love the way it sounds. Great sound. What was it like working with Roy Z again, and tell me how Driver is different from Impellitteri? What are you doing the same, what are you doing differently?

RR: Well, Driver is really, really live sounding. I mean, everything’s played live, and when I go out there and sing with Roy, I sing the song two or three times, and I say, “Alright, ok, let’s do it now.” He says, “What are you talking about? You’re done man.” Like, “What are you talking about?

BM: [laughs]

RR: He grabs it live. He just pulls things out of the air, out of you. And then he says, “Come back in an hour.” And he’ll play it for you, and he does his magic. And that, to me, is a lot different approach, as opposed to sitting there, straining over every note and every tone, you know. Roy goes for much, much more instinctual thing. He’s not…I don’t know how you say it. The best way to explain it, I think, is the perfect record isn’t perfect. The perfect record has raw edges, it has emotion in it, it has straining in it, it has elements of someone’s sweat and personality on there, you know. As opposed to a Boston album where every note is perfect.

BM: [laughs] Yeah.

RR: But I love those albums too.

BM: Oh yeah.

RR: But I’m just saying, it’s a whole different style. It’s like a different style, and then the Impellitteri is more toward that Boston style, where Driver’s more towards the Jimi Hendrix style, you know.

BM: Yeah.

RR: Hi son. [talking to his son, Alexander, who just entered the room] I’m on the phone, can I talk to you later? He wants to play [talking to me]. [laughs]

BM: I can let you go.

RR: Oh no, it’s all right. He just wants to play.

BM: [laughs]

RR: Oh see? Now he’s shutting me out. [laughs] Ok, he’s gone.

BM: How did it feel to be back with Roy in Driver again? What was that like?

RR: Oh, that was fun. I mean, it was just like going back home. I mean, when you hang out with Roy, it’s always a fun time. Laughing and making jokes and just, it’s like a freestyle thing. He’s really back to, “Man, this is rock and roll, let’s just do it. Don’t sit there and sweat about it, just do it.” Basically letting the natural talent carry you, instead of getting into your, I think in my experience sometimes you get in your own way. You’re thinking about it too hard, and it’s not about thinking. It’s about emotions, it’s about playing and performing.

BM: Were you working on these two almost simultaneously, or did Driver come first and then you got into the Impellitteri mode of thinking?

RR: It wasn’t at the same time. I had the Driver done, basically, except for a couple songs. And then I actually went out to L.A. and did the Driver thing with Roy for a couple of weeks, and we ended up writing two or three songs there, for the album, quick. Just sit down and, “We’re going to write this song today. Here it is.” Sit there and bang it out.

BM: [laughs]

RR: Sweat over it all day and night, and then next day, record it. And so I had all the Driver recording done before I started the Impellitteri.

BM: Good.

RR: But then I had to record Impellitteri, and then when my recording for Impellitteri was done, I went back and started doing the mixing on the Driver [titled Sons of Thunder].

BM: I see.

RR: And now the Driver’s done, all that’s done, and right now, I’m mixing Impellitteri. So it’s like going back and forth.

BM: [laughs] Wow. Was that hard at all to switch gears, going back and forth like that?

RR: Yeah, yeah, I didn’t have to switch too bad. I just got in the world that I was in, and I’ve been used to doing it both ways most of my career anyway. It wasn’t a hard thing to do. And when I do my solo albums, I kind of in between. I go for that live performance, but I also kind of put it under the microscope, like Chris does too. It’s kind of like a mixture. But you’re right, Driver’s one extreme to the live side, and Impellitteri’s the other extreme to the perfection side.

BM: [laughs] Is this a typical summer for you? Is this atypical and you’re just abnormally busy?

RR: I think it’s abnormally busy for me. [laughs]

BM: Yeah. Well, it’s all really good stuff. I can’t wait to hear both of these, have both albums in my hand.

RR: Well, thank you.

BM: It’s going to be great. I appreciate your time tonight. I don’t want to keep you from the little one there, especially. Playtime’s important, man. [laughs]

RR: Yeah. [son talking in the background]

BM: Thanks a lot for your time, Rob. I appreciate it.

RR: All right, Bill, thank you.

BM: Bye bye.

RR: Bye.

Now, without further ado, here’s my original interview with Rob Rock, conducted on April 2, 2008:

RR: Larry’s Pizza, can I take your order?

BM: [laughs] Pepperoni and mushrooms, extra cheese.

RR: [laughs] Yeah. No anchovies, please.

BM: No, no anchovies. [laughs]

RR: [laughs]

BM: How you doin’?

RR: All right. How you been?

BM: Great, great.

RR: Cool.

BM: So you made it home today. All your out and about stuff, and you got home in time.

RR: Yeah, yeah I did.

BM: Cool. Very cool. I appreciate your time this evening.

RR: Oh, you’re welcome.

BM: It’s, you’ve had quite a career here. [laughs] It’s hard to try to get my head around a career that goes back 20 some years and 16 billion albums.

RR: [laughs]

BM: It’s a lot of fun.

RR: Yeah, it’s been a while.

BM: The hot news right now that has everybody sort of buzzing, is the live DVD shoot. Tell me how that came about. Did you plan it the second you got the spot on the bill, or did it sort of evolve over time?

RR: Well, the last tour I did for Holy Hell [2005], I discussed with my label about shooting a DVD, a live DVD. And they weren’t sure they wanted to invest in a DVD at this time, so we went on tour and everything. And then we got a headlining gig at a festival over there, and then they said, “Ok, yeah, we’ll do it. We want to do it.” So we had everything booked. They wanted to give us a final decision in a couple weeks, so we had booked all the crew and everything like that. And then, like, two weeks before the show, we had to know whether or not they were committed or not.

BM: Yeah?

RR: Well, they for some reason couldn’t get back to us in time, so we ended up canceling it, and then a week later they said, “Ok, yeah, let’s do it.”

BM: [laughs]

RR: And it’s, like, “It’s too late now, dudes.” [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

RR: And so that was, you know, I was extremely disappointed by that, but the tour went well, the gig went well. And I’m, like, “Man, this would have been a great show.” And so I’ve been waiting since then and since the release of the latest album, Garden of Chaos [2007] for an opportunity to film a DVD. So when I got the ProgPower gig, I went back to AFM and said, “Ok, you blew it the first time, let’s, we’ve got another chance here at a good venue and a great crowd, and I think we should do it now. It’s the right time in my career. I’m overdue for a live CD and a DVD.” And basically we discussed it and they agreed, and so now, now we’re going to go ahead.

BM: Wow.

RR: And I look forward to filming the show and putting it together and getting it out for next year.

BM: Well, it’s going to be a killer crowd. Have you ever been to one of these ProgPower gigs?

RR: Yeah, yeah. I went to one or two and did some signings and stuff like that. Both times it was a great gig, yeah.

BM: ProgPower fans are rabid. They’re going to go nuts. [laughs] I mean it’s a great, it’s like when the rock stars used to go to Japan, and you know, for all the live albums, so they would go nuts over there. It’s going to be the same kind of thing at ProgPower with your shoot. I’m pretty sure of that.

RR: Well I hope, if they’re as crazy as Japan, I’ll be happy. I’ve done a lot of shows in Japan. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

RR: That’d be great.

BM: Well does this add any pressure on you? I mean, is it going to be extra pressure on top of wanting to put on a killer show, like now you’ve got cameras and tape rolling. Is that more pressure?

RR: Just, it makes the, yeah, it adds a lot of different angles to it. I mean, I have to bring my band over from Sweden, and we have to rehearse. We have to hopefully do some kind of, you know, live gigging, whether it’s in the rehearsal room, or maybe I can book something locally around my house here in Daytona just to get, you know, get back together and shake out any cobwebs. Because, the band plays together a lot in Sweden, but when I go on tour, usually I’m rehearsing at home, and then I meet them.

BM: Yeah.

RR: And we’ll rehearse once or twice before the show. So we have to do the same thing here, at least. You know, I would love to have a tour in front of this, so when I get to ProgPower, everything is well-rehearsed and played over and over. You know, we’ve got 20 shows under our belt, now let’s film it. With this one right now, I’m hoping I can get some gigs in front of it or around it so it’s not just going in for one show and filming one show or whatever. Because it’s, that adds to the pressure, when it’s your first gig in a while. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

RR: And now you’re trying to film it all.

BM: Yeah. [laughs]

RR: But I’ll be fun. Not too worried about it, we’ve done it enough times.

BM: Yeah. [laughs]

RR: So it’s not a new thing.

BM: Well, what can audiences expect from you guys at ProgPower? What are you going to give them? Especially for the ones who might not be familiar with you, what kind of show can they expect to see from Rob Rock?

RR: Oh, high-energy, melodic metal, basically. Yeah. We only have an hour set there, so we’re going to try to pack in as many songs as we can in that hour.

BM: Yeah.

RR: And we’ll play a lot of stuff from my solo albums, but we’ll also probably take some stuff from previous bands I’ve been in to. I haven’t worked out the set list, though.

BM: Well, you know I’ve read a lot of interviews with you online, doing some research for this. And I don’t recall seeing anything that describes how you became a Christian. Were you raised one, or was there a transformation along the way? When did that occur?

RR: Probably when I was a young teenager, I would think. I was brought up in the Christian church, in a Baptist church up in Massachusetts. So I’ve had a Christian family all my life as well, so it’s, yeah, you grow up and you live your life with your family the way you’re expected to, but then there’s always a point in life where you decide for yourself that this is who I am and this is what I believe, and that’s it. That point for me happened when, the major point, when I did the M.A.R.S. Project Driver [1986], here I was, I was playing in a cover band back east.

BM: Vice?

RR: Six to seven nights a week, yep, in Vice. You know, we, I was running the band, and we had the big truck, the big PA, the big lights, you know, road crew. We were all living on it, doing very well. Then I got an offer from Rudy Sarzo, Tommy Aldridge and Tony MacAlpine to do this project in LA. So I was like, “Wow, I’m going to actually be singing for Ozzy’s band?”

BM: [laughs]

RR: “This is unreal.” You know. And Tony MacAlpine was like the hot new guitar player at the time too. And so it was a fantastic chance. And I flew out there and auditioned, I got the gig, and I was like, “Wow, I finally made it.” Everything was going great, we did the album, we started booking a worldwide tour. But while we were making contacts for the tour, David Coverdale was looking for a touring band as well for his new album that was coming out. That 1987 album. And he decided he would cherry pick Rudy Sarzo and Tommy Aldridge for his band. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

RR: So that big dream I had that was flashed before my eyes, was in a different direction than I expected. You know, I was able to get my first real, professional recording out, with real seasoned players. And I’m really grateful for such a strong start in my recording career from a cover band to my recording, you know, it was a pivotal moment. To start being on this, however many albums I have now, I don’t know, 20, 25 albums, whatever it is now, is, that was the point. But at that point, I thought, “Wow, I finally made it to the big time.” And when it all went separate ways a year later, I was pretty down about that. I was bummed out. And that’s when I realized, you know what? I believe in Jesus Christ, and I’m a Christian, and I think I was selling my soul to rock and roll or something. Because nothing else mattered at that point. For the years leading up to that point, it was like it was in my hand and it slipped through my fingers right there in an instant. And you kind of get a little, I guess I could have gotten jaded about it, but I didn’t. I guess at that point I realized that life is very fleeting, and you have to look at the bigger pictures. You’ve have to have, you can’t just depend your whole life on, in one day it’s all gone, whatever you think is going to satisfy you, it’s gone, you know.

BM: Well—

RR: At that point, I decided that I would, obviously carry on as a musician. I was given this great opportunity and it definitely put me in a big spotlight. But from that point on, I always tried to filter in my Christian beliefs as a tie and a tribute to my faith and how I was brought up and I tried to live my life from that, at this time.

BM: Well that’s pretty cool. I was going to say, I betcha something occurred after M.A.R.S., simply because I can see the progression of lyrics and boldness through the Impellitteri [1987- ] years, then from Joshua [1988] and Angelica [1989] onward, you’re getting bolder and bolder as time goes on, and I could see it started right after that. [laughs]

RR: Yeah. [laughs]

BM: So now you’re just blazing bold, like in this Fires of Babylon [2008] thing.

RR: Yeah, it doesn’t matter no more. I sing about what’s on my heart, what’s on my mind. People know who I am. They love it. I mean, I’ve had a lot of, not Satanists, but people who don’t care about religion and stuff, they don’t care either. They just want good metal, they want good tunes, they want good melodies, and that’s what I try to deliver as well.

BM: Oh yeah. Well you know, back in that day, the M.A.R.S. was kind of ’86 or so.

RR: Yeah.

BM: Christian rock, Christian metal, there were a lot of bands. That was the pivotal point. You had the Petras and the Rez Bands and the Strypers and Bloodgoods and Barren Crosses, but they were coming under some heavy fire, man. There were protests outside their gigs and all that. And Christian metal bands around at the time, they really had to make a choice. They could either be signed to a Christian label and play for Christians and have their records sold in Christian bookstores, or they signed to secular labels and sang for just regular people everywhere. You seem to have gotten pretty lucky in that you didn’t go the Christian label route, and sort of then labeled, you know, stuck in that little box. Was that a conscious decision on your part, or were you just lucky in that you just played with world-class musicians no matter what, on regular labels.

RR: I think that’s part of the, well, I’ll call it a blessing I received when I got that gig with M.A.R.S. Project Driver, that it was such a, I mean, Ozzy Osbourne, man. That’s the biggest metal band there is. I actually later on, Angelica was actually a studio project, but after that I checked into getting signed on a Christian label, they wouldn’t have me.

BM: Really?

RR: They said, “Well, you need to have a church affiliation.”

BM: Yeah.

RR: “You need to have a pastor that you can be accountable to, and a ministry. We’re about ministering and having a ministry.” I’m like, “What? I’ve been doing covers for five years professionally, and now I’m doing this stuff. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I just want to rock and roll, man.”

BM: [laughs]

RR: And because of the position I was in, I’d been able to do that and just be who I am. And I think the reason for my longevity and the success I’ve had is I’ve been true to myself, and I think people actually know that.

BM: Yeah.

RR: You know, I’m not singing about the usual sex, drugs, and rock and roll, but I think that makes me different as well. [laughs]

BM: Oh yeah.

RR: I’m not complaining, you know.

BM: No, you got lucky. There was a lot of, I don’t know if you remember Kerry Livgren [Kansas guitarist/songwriter] at all.

RR: Yeah, oh yeah. He’s awesome.

BM: His first solo album [Seeds of Change, 1980], he caught flak like you wouldn’t believe for having Dio singing on it. The Christian music business was a tough business to be in back then. You couldn’t do anything.

RR: Yeah, and I don’t agree with that philosophy. That is unbiblical, man, if you know your Bible.

BM: Sure.

RR: You know. [laughs] It’s just, why would you, you’re supposed to go out into the mission field, which is the world. You’re not supposed to have your own little club, you know.

BM: [laughs]

RR: That was the thing. Christians selling to Christians is like turning around and singing—

BM: To the choir. [laughs] Yep, yep.

RR: I got my start in the secular world, I had a great springboard, and from then, the Lord has sustained me for a long time, man. And every, and it’s still stronger than ever for me, and it’s been a blessing.

BM: Yeah, I was going to say, you really did dodge a bullet with that, because Kerry Livgren, Mark Farner, [Grand Funk Railroad guitarist/songwriter] all these people who sort of left secular music and got into the Christian stuff were just churned and burned, I mean they got burned badly by labels and Christians. And they almost lost it for a while. Now they’re coming back and doing their own thing, about like how you are, but for a while, they got really sucked into a bad gig. So you really sidestepped a truck there, man. [laughs]

RR: Yeah, yeah. I guess I did. I’m lucky in that sense. [laughs]

BM: What do you say now? This latest project, you sent me an email in which you said this Fires of Babylon thing is a hired-gun project for you.

RR: Yeah.

BM: What is your criteria for that? What does it take to be a hired gun? What do you look for when you sign on to do some vocals for somebody?

RR: I look for the freedom to sing any lyrics that I want to sing. That they have faith in me that it’ll definitely work with the music. [laughs]

BM: Yeah.

RR: And basically, I get a fee for doing vocals. And if I’m writing the lyrics and melodies, I just want the freedom to do what I do.

BM: Yeah.

RR: Like the Angelica gig I did back in, I think it was ’87, I think it was. A friend of mine, Ken Tamplin [killer vocalist and guitarist], was producing that album. Their singer [Andy Lyon], he had trouble in the studio, so Ken called me up and said, “Hey, want to make a quick buck?” I said, “Well, doing what?” He said, “Singing a Christian album.” I said, “Oh, I’d love to sing a Christian album.” And so I did. But that was never my band. I’d met Dennis [Cameron], the guitar player, but I never even met the band.

BM: Yeah. Actually—

RR: I was signing what they expected me to sing, but I don’t really do that anymore, when I’m a hired gun anymore. Usually I’m more hired to help with the songwriting. And like with Fires of Babylon, I wrote with Lou St. Paul. You know, he would send me music, and I would write my stuff to it. But I haven’t met the band, you know, I never met those guys yet.

BM: Yeah.

RR: The modern day of doing records. [laughs]

BM: Yeah, I know.

RR: Is a lot different than it used to be.

BM: I bought the Angelica album when it came out. The liner notes say, “All lead vocals were performed this time ‘round by: ROB ROCK. Except lead vocals on ‘Face to Face’ by Ken Tamplin.” Was he just not able to sing the gig? You did better? What? I mean, how did Ken bring you in? What did he say?

RR: When I got there, the songs were already written, Ken had sang all the backing vocals already, and he told me that Dennis didn’t want it to be a Ken Tamplin album, so he wanted to find another singer.

BM: [laughs] Yeah.

RR: And Ken knew me, and so he called me up. And Dennis was very pleased, because he was a big M.A.R.S. Project Driver fan.

BM: Oh cool.

RR: And that’s how it went from there. I don’t know the deeper story about Andy. Like I said, I haven’t met him or anything.

BM: Well tell me about Ken Tamplin. I mean, his, how did you know Ken? His Shout [band, 1987-1999] stuff and his solo stuff back then were just amazing. I remember thinking this guy was a guitar and vocal god. I mean, wow. Range and everything like that. How did you get to be friends with Ken Tamplin?

RR: I was in a band with him for a while. [laughs]

BM: Oh really? Which band was that?

RR: Yeah, yeah. Joshua.

BM: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That came out in ’88. Yeah. I forgot all about that one. See? Too many albums to keep track of. [laughs]

RR: Yep. When I joined Joshua, it was like ’87. It’s funny, it was after M.A.R.S. broke up, here I was in LA. I just, I had moved out there for the whole thing. And like so everything I had on the coast. So there I was sitting there with nothing, and I saw an ad for RCA recording artist Joshua looking for a singer. And all I had was a cassette tape of the M.A.R.S. Project Driver, I don’t even think it was out yet, I just had a cassette, homemade cassette version of it. And I wrote on my napkin my name and phone number. And I just put the napkin, and the tape in the package and sent it. [laughs]

BM: [laughs] Gee whiz.

RR: And I got a call, because I didn’t care at that point. I was like, “What am I doing? I don’t know what I’m doing. RCA Records? I’ll go do an RCA Records thing.”

BM: Yeah.

RR: You know, as long as the songs are good and stuff. So I sent it off and then I heard the songs, and I thought the songs were great. Ken Tamplin was in the band, he was doing a lot of the singing for Joshua. But Joshua [Perahia, guitarist] didn’t, I don’t think he wanted Ken to be the lead singer. He wanted Ken to be the second singer/songwriter. I guess they had toured previously, and the band had been together, so I guess their issues were they wanted just a front man, and that’s when I came in.

BM: Yeah.

RR: And my the time we did the album, in Ken’s defense, Ken had left and started Shout and stuff. And I think he left because he probably didn’t want to be controlled by Joshua, you know.

BM: [laughs]

RR: Or whatever was going on there was between them before I got there.

BM: Before I continue on the timeline we’re on, I’d like to jump ahead to your latest solo album, Garden of Chaos. It’s a killer album. It really is really very cool.

RR: Thank you.

BM: And again, you’re with Roy Z [guitarist/songwriter/producer]. You first got with Roy Z back in the Driver days, in 1990. Is that correct?

RR: Yeah. Well, when I got back from Germany and recording Intense Defense [1988] with Joshua, after that things went south with the band and stuff, and I decided to leave the band and start my own band. And I decided to call it Driver. And I actually called Rudy and said, “Do you mind if I use that name, Driver?” We used M.A.R.S. as the artist name on our album, and so he said, “No, I don’t care.” So I started Driver. I had a couple guys from Joshua, the bass player and keyboard player, with me. And we found a drummer, and then the drummer knew a guitar player, his name was Roy Z. And once I heard Roy Z play, it was like, “Yeeeah. This guy’s awesome.”

BM: [laughs]

RR: And he’s a great songwriter. So we proceeded to write 30 or 40 songs together, and that was, for two years solid we just wrote songs, played live gigs. We played like a year on the west coast, and then we moved back east and those guys came with me, we played here on the east coast. We did a lot of demos for Atlantic records. At that point, grunge was coming in, and they said, “Oh, you know, things are changing and we’re not sure what we want to find yet. Do us some demos.” We wrote even more songs, and eventually I went back to Axel Rudi Pell [1991]. But yeah, I met Roy in LA, and we have a great chemistry with songwriting. So when I became a solo artist, I said, “Man, we’ve got 30 or 40 songs we wrote, why don’t we cherry-pick those and make an album, make my solo album.” So that’s what we did. And since then, we just carried on our relationship, and we’re good friends since 1990, 1989, actually. And he’s since become a great producer.

BM: Oh yeah.

RR: He used to make, in 1989, he made four-tracks sound like records, man. He was awesome just with a four-track.

BM: [laughs] Yeah. I’ve heard a lot of his stuff with Bruce Dickinson and Rob Halford, and he’s got a great reputation as a producer, let alone a guitarist/songwriter.

RR: Yep. So it’s been, you know, he’s been a great blessing to my career and we’ve been great friends too. And our relationship’s much deeper than just music, but you know, it’s a longevity and it’s been really good chemistry.

BM: Did you have any idea, back in ’89, when you first met this guy, you’d still be hanging out with him 20 years later, making—

RR: No clue.

BM: [laughs]

RR: Not even. [laughs] Funny how life works out.

BM: It is, isn’t it? What do you guys bring to the table? What is your chemistry? Describe that for me. How does your relationship with Roy Z differ from your relationship with Chris, Impellitteri? How is your chemistry different from what you had with Chris for almost 10 years?

RR: Well, Chris is another good friend, and he was with me back in Vice [y’all gotta see this YouTube video of Vice doing “Tom Sawyer”]. And we’ve stayed in touch throughout the years as well.

BM: Yeah.

RR: But with Chris, Chris is very focused. He’s got one thing he wants to prove, and that’s that he’s the fastest guitar player there is. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

RR: So he writes the songs around that.

BM: [laughs]

RR: So when he gives me songs, he goes, “This is what I’m playing, I don’t care what you do, but I’m not changing a note.”

BM: [laughs]

RR: [laughs] So I was forced to learn how to write songs with parameters. You know, “Here’s the music, I’m not changing it for you, you make it happen with your voice.” And that’s ended up being a great asset for me throughout the years, especially when I’m doing hired gun stuff.

BM: Wow.

RR: So that chemistry is a lot different than with Roy Z, who says, “Whaddya got for me? You got any lyrics, melodies?” “Yes.” “Ok, sing it for me.”

BM: Yeah.

RR: And I’ll just sing it in midair, he’ll sit there with his guitar and get all crazy and come up with music underneath what I’m singing. You know, we write songs that way, like “The Sun Will Rise Again” from [Rage of] Creation [2000] was written that way, just straight off the vocal. And then other songs are written off the riffs or some song parts that he has, or parts of songs that we had written together back in ’89 and ’90, when we were driving around in a van doing a gig every night. So it’s different, because Roy says, “I’m here to make you look good, I’m here to make you sound good. Don’t sing that, sing this, do this, yeah, that’s the way to go.” And he encourages you more as a song-oriented person and a producer. And he’s more about lifting you up. It’s all about the singer, it’s all about the song. Where with Chris, it’s all about Chris. You’re there too, but it’s your ball, you’ve have to make it happen. It’s a different thing.

BM: [laughs] You’re still pretty good friends with Chris?

RR: Yeah.

BM: And you can say that to him? You can say, “Chris, here’s how it is. You wanted to be the fastest guitar player, and I had to play around you.” I mean, you guys have that kind of relationship where you can just say that and he’s not going to freak out or anything.

RR: No.

BM: [laughs] That’s pretty good.

RR: No, he knows.

BM: He knows. [laughs]

RR: He’d say it, not me. He says, “This is what I’m doing, man.” He says, “You’re good enough to do it.” He’s, like, “I’ll trust you with my stuff. Here you go. You make it happen as the vocalist. I’m making it happen as a guitar player.”

BM: That’s cool.

RR: It’s more, with Chris and my relationship, it’s more about mutual respect. We both know we’re really good at what we do. So when we do things together, it’s like, “Here, do your thing.” It’s very, it’s liberating, but at the same time, it takes a lot of trust.

BM: Oh yeah.

RR: And mutual respect to get it done.

BM: Well, tell me about Garden of Chaos. Out of the four solo albums you’ve had with Roy Z at the helm, this is the first one that says, “Produced by CJ.” What did you guys decide to change in your chemistry and your working relationship to let CJ [Carl Johan Grimmark, Swedish guitarist/producer] produce the thing?

RR: Well, I guess that depends on your definition of producing. That’s a term that’s loosely thrown around, and I don’t think anyone knows the meaning. But producing in this case of Garden of Chaos means that CJ took the songs that Roy and I demoed, rehearsed them with the band, recorded the band, and then put it all together with the editing and all the technical issues and the recording and all that stuff. So he did all the legwork. He’s the one that actually put what Roy and I, we wrote seven of the songs together, when I sat down in the beginning with Roy, I said, “This is what we want the album to sound like. This is our direction.” And we wrote seven songs together, and then I wrote songs with other players to finish up the album. But then Roy was like, “Dude, I got Halford and Dickinson to do. You know, what do I do? I can try to cram you in there, but I don’t want to rush through it, you know?”

BM: [laughs] Yeah.

RR: I said, “Well CJ, he just recorded and produced his last Narnia album. It came out really good, man. I’m confident he could do a great job.” He said, “You know what, I think he is too.” So that’s what we did. We gave the ball to CJ, and like I said, the band’s in Sweden. They got little rough demos that Roy and I made, and they rehearsed them, and then they recorded the drums over there. They recorded the bass and recorded the guitars, and then CJ flew over here with the, I was going to say tapes, but [laughs] you know, with the hard disk.

BM: [laughs]

RR: And I’d been over here writing my vocals and melodies, and he came to my house, and we just recorded them at my house, the vocals.

BM: One of the things I like to do with the people I interview for ProgPower, especially if they have a career that spans the range yours does, is ask them what they remember most about the recording of certain albums or periods of time. Like Garden of Chaos. When you think about how that thing came together, what is it that stands out in your mind the most? Do you have a favorite track? Was anything really difficult to lay down?

RR: Um, let’s see. Well, this sounds weird, but you asked it. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

RR: What stands out most is that I recorded that song in my parents’ house, but nobody was living in the house. You know, my dad died in ’04, and since then, my mom had remarried. So the house was empty. But it was on the market to be sold, but there weren’t any buyers yet. And I was like, “Well we could either rent a studio and spend money, or we could go to the house and set up my vocal chain, and make a booth on our own, and make it happen.” So that’s what we did. And so here I am in this house where my parents used to live, and I’ve got walls of blankets hanging up all over the place. [laughs]

BM: Wow. [laughs]

RR: So it didn’t look anything like it used to. And I’m in there blasting out heavy metal songs with some Swedish guy in the other room with a laptop and a hard drive. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

RR: So that, to me, when I think of the album, I think, “Man, that was trippy.” It was weird. You know, and since then, the house has sold, so I’ll never do another recording in that house. But it worked out really good and you know, that’s what I think about when I think about those sessions, was the vocal sessions being the last thing I ever did in that house.

BM: Wow. Is there one track, and by the way, I noticed that let’s see here, there was a change in personnel from album to album between Holy Hell [2005], Liza Schecter became Liza Rock?

RR: Liza Schecter became Liza Rock? Oh yeah, between Garden of Chaos [2007 and Holy Hell. [laughs]

BM: Yeah. In between that time.

RR: Yeah, you got that right.

BM: See, that’s what, I’m looking at the credits thinking, “Ok, she’s playing some background keyboards and vocals.” And then all of a sudden, the same person named Liza is named Rock, and she’s doing the same thing on Garden of Chaos. [laughs] I’m thinking, “Hmm, what happened there?” [laughs]

RR: Hmm. Yeah, what happened there? [laughs]

BM: That’s cool.

RR: No, that’s the same person. Yeah.

BM: You guys work pretty well together, I take it?

RR: Yeah, very well. She’s a very, very good pianist, and she’s a good keyboard player, and she sings great. And you know, when the talent’s sitting right next to you, I’m like, “C’mon, get on the mic, I need some backing vocals.”

BM: [laughs] Yeah. That’s cool.

RR: [laughs]

BM: Well tell me, before I ask you about the other albums in your solo career, is there one song off Garden of Chaos that really, really touches you the most? Really moves you or just really gets your blood pumping, or what? What, is there one song on there that if people had to, if somebody said, “Rob, I don’t know what you’re all about, I only have this one album of yours, I only have time to hear one song, what should it be?” [laughs]

RR: Oh man. You’re pinning the whole career on one song?

BM: [laughs]

RR: [laughs]

BM: Let’s say that’s too broad a question. [laughs]

RR: [laughs] I think the title track, “Garden of Chaos” is pretty strong about what I do.

BM: You did that with Gus G, didn’t you.

RR: Yeah. Yeah, actually.

BM: How’d you work that gig out? I interviewed him last year, he’s a cool guy.

RR: Yeah. He’s good, he’s real good. He’s a good friend of mine, actually, and we’ve talked about working together. And when I needed a few more songs for my album, I asked him if he had any cuts that he thought might be

- 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.