Ray: Hello?

Bill: Is this Ray?

Ray: Hey, how you doin’, man?

Bill: Hey, this is Bill Murphy calling.

Ray: Ah, what’s going on?

Bill: Just wanted to do some chatting with you about your career and upcoming gig at ProgPower.

Ray: My career?

Bill: [laughs] It’s a long and famous one, yes.

Ray: Sounds so official, damn.

Bill: First of all, what’s the latest with FATES WARNING? I know you guys are playing ProgPower and I hear from Glenn Harveston it’s the only gig you’re playing this year. But what’s going on with the band? Are you guys going to do anything more?

Ray: Yeah, well right now we’re in the middle of writing another record, which has been a loooong time coming, obviously.

Bill: [laughs] Yeah.

Ray: [laughs] But the things that we do in our off time, our little other projects, other bands and things. They tend to get away from us, you know?

Bill: Oh yeah.

Ray: Time just goes by so quickly, before you realize it. I was working in REDEMPTION, Jim [Mateos] was writing and recording OSI, and it takes time to get back together and do something. You know?

Bill: [laughs]

Ray: But OSI’s done now, and the focus is doing the [next FATES] record, and not really going on the road. We haven’t had a record in so long, it doesn’t make sense for us to really tour, you know?

Bill: Yeah.

Ray: It’s kind of like punk bands. Punk bands can just tour all the time, you know.

Bill: [laughs] So you’re gonna be like THE BEATLES now, huh? You’re going to put out albums with no tours anymore. [laughs]

Ray: Well, me and Jim actually had a big sit down, over the phone of course. But we were talking about our careers. We’ve been doing this for so many years. [We were] wondering whether or not it was time to throw in the towel. We want to do. And we had a good run. We had a good time and made a lot of fans and did some good music. But we just decided this is not the time for us to go quietly into the night. We’re gonna make another record and see what happens. So we actually signed to a different label, the first time we’re going to release a record that’s not on Metal Blade. We signed with Inside Out in Europe.

Bill: Oh yeah, yeah.

Ray: Yeah. They’re having a hard time here, but as far as I know, we’re all good.

Bill: [laughs] Well that’s good. Can you take me back to that first album with FATES that you were on – No Exit? What was going on at the time? Were you a fan of the band before then? And how did you get that gig?

Ray: Yeah, man. John Arch, he was my favorite singer. They were pretty much my favorite band at the time. I mean, I lived in San Antonio at the time and I was a kid, I think I was 17. You know, I’d listen to [FATES], they’d play it on the radio. We had a DJ named Joe Anthony, the Godfather, they called him.

Bill: [laughs]

Ray: And he would play, you know, he was one of the first DJs in America to play like TRIUMPH and RUSH and things like that on the radio in San Antonio years ago. And he played FATES WARNING on the radio, and that was the first time I heard it, and it blew me away, it just totally blew me away. And “Guardian” was the first song I ever heard.

Bill: Yeah, wow, that’s a great one to hear.

Ray: Yeah. And since then I was a fan. [laughs] And I remember thinking, I remember hearing that John Arch was no longer in the band, and I remember thinking, “Whoever they get’s going to suck!”

Bill: [laughs]

Ray: “It’s never going to be the same!” And I was signing for another band and there was a guy managing us, and he had actually brought FATES down, as a promoter, to play a show. And they contacted him and asked if he knew any singers. He kind of went behind my band’s back and asked me if I wanted to do it. So we made a four full track demo, and sent it in. Unfortunately, they picked another guy, named Chris Kronk, with a k, who was from San Antonio as well. And they flew him up there. But they said it just didn’t work out. Their personalities didn’t gel as well as we did. So I was their second choice.

Bill: [laughs]

Ray: I’m second fiddle.

Bill: [laughs]

Ray: But you know, whatever. I’ll take it. [laughs]

Bill: [laughs] Yeah.

Ray: I was really the kid, joining when I had just barely turned 19, maybe.

Bill: Wow.

Ray: Yeah. And it was crazy. I mean, I’m auditioning, I’d never even been out of the state of Texas in my life. And here I am I’m auditioning for my favorite band in the world in Connecticut. It was really fucking scary, I’ll tell you that.

Bill: [laughs]

Ray: It was frightening. I mean if you’ve ever felt alone, if you ever want to feel alone, try something like that. That’s how it was.

Bill: [laughs] Well, what was your goal back then, Ray? Was your dream to be a rock star, and this, when you landed the gig with FATES, did you think, “Man, I’ve made it?”

Ray: No, I mean, I didn’t know what I was gonna do. I was young, and I joined, I was just having fun. My brother had a band and I just thought, “Maybe I’ll sing for you guys.” I didn’t know how to sing, but they let me. It was cool. And I was singing for several bands. I’d only been singing for about, I don’t know, just three years, maybe? Before I joined, and I had no plans. I just didn’t. I was playing in different bands, moving up in bigger bands since I was in San Antonio, and then that happened and I guess destiny took charge.

Bill: Were you singing in that sort of John Arch style at the time, so it was a natural switch over to FATES? Or did you have to work at that?

Ray: No. I was really, really influenced by Steve Perry.

Bill: Oh yeah.

Ray: And then I heard, you know, Rob Halford and SCORPIANS and IRON MAIDEN and bands like and I was totally hooked. And then I heard FATES and it was totally different to me. I mean, it did sound a bit like Bruce Dickenson, but not that much. It was just a different kind of band, and I loved it. So I guess I had my own style at the time, but I don’t know.

Bill: Wow.

Ray: Still to this day, I think John Arch’s melodies and vocals are just amazing. Amazing music.

Bill: Yeah. Everbody keeps asking about him, like on the ProgPower forum, everybody says, “Where’s John Arch? What’s John Arch doing?”

Ray: [laughs]

Bill: [laughs]

Ray: We’re going to make t-shirts that say, “Where’s John Arch?”

Bill: [laughs]

Ray: People always ask that. “Where’s John Arch?” “I don’t know. I don’t talk to him.” He had that studio thing a while back, the solo thing But I don’t think he’s doing [anything]. I haven’t talk to him in years.

Bill: Yeah.

Ray: That was cool meeting him too.

Bill: Was it really?

Ray: Yeah, I was like a fan, you know? All googly and “Hee-hee.” He goes, “Who are you?” It was really cool. And then we sang a song together in Connecticut, which was amazing, you know, one of the pinnacle moments definitely, for me, during this whole thing. [DREAM THEATER drummer Mike] Portnoy was there. Portnoy cried. It was fantastic.

Bill: [laughs] One of the things I like to ask the musicians I talk to is about the albums throughout their careers. I like to know what their most vivid memories were along the way. You just told me what your memory of No Exit was. But what about the next album, Perfect Symmetry [1989]? What do you remember most about putting that album together?

Ray: You know, we just did a complete 180. I remember I loved the direction [on No Exit], which was totally different than “[Awaken the] Guardian.” It was heavier in a different way. This was more raw, we had a lot more time changes and things.

Bill: Yeah.

Ray: And I really, really liked it. And then when Symmetry came around, they started writing music and laying it down, and it was just more modern? I don’t know, cleaner, not as heavy, more technical than anything. And I remember kind of being taken aback, I mean like, “Huh. Is this the route we’re gonna go?” But you know, then we had songs, “Through Different Eyes” and stuff like that, with a lot of melody, they’re kind of single-type songs. And then I really, really fell into it. I really began to love what we were doing, understanding the band, knowing that we can change styles and still be the same band, and still somehow kinda sound the same, you know? But that was my memory. Kinda being a little worried that I wouldn’t be happy with what we were going to do in the future.

Bill: [laughs] Well, how about Parallels [1991]? You went with Terry Brown, the RUSH producer, for Parallels. And that album is just loaded with so-called hit songs. I think it’s my favorite album, next to Perfect Symmetry. But what do you remember about making Parallels?

Ray: Oh man, that was crazy. We all met in Toronto. For some reason, we had this crazy idea to get away from everywhere, get away from everything, you know, why not go to Toronto? We don’t know anybody there.

Bill: [laughs]

Ray: So we were right there. We had a lot of songs written – several, five or six songs written – and the plan was to, like, make four or five more, and then record it there with Terry Brown. Then, you know, I don’t know, it just, too many cooks in the kitchen and it just got to a point where we had a big band meeting and it was decided that Jim would write all the music, we would can everything that we were working on. I don’t know what happened to those songs, either. And Jim would just write all the lyrics and all the music. And I think it was a great decision. [laughs] Obviously.

Bill: [laughs]

Ray: So he just, of course, holed up in his hotel room. We lived there for six months, literally.

Bill: Wow.

Ray: Living in hotels. So he just started writing the record. And you know, he would give us things, and we’d go to the studio, I’d work on it at night, and they’d work on things. Terry Brown would come and listen to things, and he’d have his two cents. In the studio, while we were recording, I just knew these songs are really, really great. It was a definite chance that some of it would make radio, you know. TV, whatever. [laughs]

Bill: Yeah. [laughs] TV. Yeah, well it’s an amazing album, like I said. The songs are just so memorable. Hit songs with a progressive metal band is just astounding.

Ray: Yeah, it was. I mean, I think the timing was just right, too. Everything was just kinda happening at that point. QUEENSRYCHE and that whole scene of modern-kind of rock. Prog metal was really a big deal, I guess. But it was fun. We had our long hair and black shirts on. Our hair was waving in the wind.

Bill: [laughs]

Ray: [laughs] We look at the pictures now, it’s like, “Oh god, we look like girls, man.” [laughs]

Bill: [laughs]

Ray: But you know, it was the style at the time. It just was, you know?

Bill: [laughs]

Ray: But the timing was right, and I think Jim just wrote some great songs. It worked out.

Bill: Well, how about the next album – Inside Out [1994]? You had a new producer with that one, Bill Metoyer And you’ve got a writing credit on the song “Down to the Wire.” Tell me, what do you remember about Inside Out?

Ray: That was our grunge record. That’s what I remember.

Bill: [laughs]

Ray: I mean, after Parallels, it was our most successful record, now, and the most successful tour we’ve ever done as well. I mean, it was like pretty much 99% of the shows were sold out and it was just incredible. It was the greatest time of our lives. And then all of a sudden everything crashed. So we got one American tour. That was it.

Bill: Really?

Ray: For as big an album as it was, I don’t know exactly what happened, I just know that somehow, it probably got pulled on us. And we became very defensive and angry and just said, “Fuck it. Fuck this whole business.” It doesn’t make sense. You try really hard, and then it’s not up to you anymore? So we basically, after Parallels, broke up.

Bill: Really?

Ray: For two years, yeah.

Bill: That’s why there’s three years in between those two albums.

Ray: Yeah. We never really announced it or anything. We just didn’t talk. We all just kind of moved on, did our own thing. Two years later or so, we started talking again and decided to do another record. And that’s what happened. We were really confused as to what direction to go in. Because obviously the record’s so different. And then all of a sudden we do Parallels, and then these singles kind of come out, and we didn’t know if that’s what we wanted to do, or should we try to be more prog band than what we are or whatever. So I think we were a little confused in the writing and things like that. I mean, I’ve heard some people say that’s their favorite record, but I don’t know. I think they’re lying.

Bill: [laughs]

Ray: It was just a weird time. It was a really, really weird time. That was a really serendipitous moment and “Monument” was one of those songs that I laid the entire vocal down, and Jim came in, and we’re all listening to it and he just had this look on his face. And I was like, “You don’t like it, huh?” And he was like, “No. I really don’t like it.” And I was like, “Alright, I’ll write something else.” So I stayed in the studio all night, until like five in the morning, it was like 12 hours, me and Bill, or Bill was asleep, I think. I kept trying to talk to him, “Bill! Bill! Bill!” I look up and he’s asleep.

Bill: [laughs] That’s funny.

Ray: Yeah, he’s a good friend of mine, though. But then I’d lay another vocal track over, and left the other one on a different track, and then Jim came in, and we were listening to a new vocal track. And Bill hit the wrong button, so the other vocal track came up at the same time. And it was just absolute serendipity that when both vocals were running, there was actually harmony at some points, and it was like an answer and a call kind of thing going on. And that’s what you hear on the record now.

Bill: Wow.

Ray: It was a mistake. [laughs] So that was really, that’s my biggest memory from that record. That and being confused.

Bill: That’s a great song. The lyrics, this is the first time you’re credited with lyrics. Were lyrics something that you were writing all the time and were comfortable with?

Ray: No. It was my first time. Even with my other bands, I never really wrote lyrics, it was just kind of, I’d sing. And then Jim asked if I wanted to write lyrics for a song. I figured, yeah, it’s an opportunity, I mean if I’m going to go further in my career, then I need to do something. Be productive. So that was scary, because I didn’t know what exactly to write about, and unfortunately, as I dealt with my dad, who had cancer and was dying at the time, was the only thing I could really think of. I figure pain is art, so why not? [laughs]. So that was my first writing credit.

Bill: This would be a good time to ask about your vocal style. Because when FATES started you started off with a sort of John Arch sound, with the really operatic, high vocals. As FATES progressed that quieted down. The music got less dynamic and flamboyant. And your voice mellowed a bit. Was that a conscious decision? Or was it just you guys getting older and you wanted to do something different?

Ray: I’m sure it had a bit to do with both. I mean, obviously, my voice isn’t what it used to be. But, again, it was the style at the time to sing really, really high. As I got older, I realized I can do different things with my voice. You can actually emote more if you’re not screaming.

Bill: [laughs] Yes, that’s true.

Ray: So you know, again, I’d only been singing for a few years when I joined the band. So I started finding myself, I think around Parallels time is when I really started figuring out what sounded good to me. And yeah, I was an adult, I’m not 20, I’m not saying anything about anybody else, because that’s fine, whatever they want to do, because I did it. I’m saying personally, I just didn’t like the high screaming any more, you know?

Bill: [laughs] Yeah.

Ray: It just sounded better singing. And somehow, my band mates agree. They said, “You know what? Yeah, let’s not sing high anymore.” “Ok.”

Bill: Yeah. [laughs] The next album – A Pleasant Shade of Gray [1997] – is another three-year delay between albums. What do you remember most about recording A Pleasant Shade of Gray?

Ray: I remember arguing with Jim because it was taking so long to write melodies. I remember that.

Bill: [laughs]

Ray: I was in Arizona, and at that time I had a full-time job, but it was a cool record because it was so different. And I remember the whole idea was, ok, we did Parallels, did great. Did Inside Out, confused, didn’t do as well, obviously. So we figured, we’ve been writing singles, and singles didn’t work for us, so we’re gonna write a song for us. And we’re gonna go the complete opposite route, and we’re gonna write a song that’s 51 minutes long.

Bill: Yep, yep.

Ray: You know?

Bill: Yep.

Ray: And have no titles. [laughs]

Bill: [laughs]

Ray: You know, it was anti-, it was very anti-popular. We just went the other route, and decided to do something for ourselves. And it was fun. It was really, really great in the studio once it all started coming together. We loved our record. It’s probably one of my favorite records, actually, to tell you the truth.

Bill: Yeah, that’s it. I was going to tell you that for singles I’d say Parallels is my favorite. But as an album, A Pleasant Shade of Grade is one phenomenal piece of music.

Ray: Thank you. Yeah. And I agree. And it was funny, because when we were writing it, in the studio, we were thinking, “How the hell are we going to pull this off live? I mean, who’s gonna wanna listen to one long song?”

Bill: [laughs]

Ray: And we won’t be finished for three hours, or who knows?

Bill: Yeah. [laughs]

Ray: But, I mean, we took a chance, obviously. But we went out, and our fans are great, man. Our fans have really, always been there. We went out, we played the entire album. Then we came out for encores and we played whatever else, and it actually went off pretty well. [laughs]

Bill: [laughs] Yeah.

Ray: We toured a lot for that record, man. I mean, we were all over the place for that record. It kept us busy for two years.

Bill: Tell me about Disconnected [2000]. I saw you on the that tour. You played with Savatage. You played in Grand Rapids. It was a great show. What do you remember about that album?

Ray: You know, Disconnected’s kind of a grey area for me. And it was, again it was probably one of those, to me, one of those albums that I didn’t really know what direction we were going in. I think we were maybe perhaps going to do some more singles kind of things, and then maybe mix it up with the prog thing. I don’t know. It’s not one of my favorite records, but I don’t remember a whole bunch, I really don’t.

Bill: [laughs]

Ray: Odd. [laughs] That’s a grey area.

Bill: [laughs] What about the next one, your most recent; FWX [2004]. What do you remember about that?

Ray: FWX. We’ve always recorded in studios and such. This time we actually went to Jim Matteo’s house and recorded there. So it was definitely different. And you know, everybody was really busy doing things, I was busy myself, and writing that record, it was just kinda, it was really hard, actually. You know, trying to get around to other stuff, and I had done the Engine thing already, and I was, I’m trying to figure out how I should sing, you know, I changed my singing style a bit, and it just didn’t really gel with what FATES did, you know what I mean?

Bill: Yeah.

Ray: That’s me personally. I don’t think I did as good a job as I could have. Probably because, as I said, I was trying different things I probably shouldn’t have. [laughs]

Bill: [laughs]

Ray: But you know, we’ll see.

Bill: Well, when you look back on FATES, what would you say is your finest hour, either as a lyricist, or a vocalist, or what are you most proud of so far in your career with FATES?

This ends Part One of Bill’s interview with Fates Warning vocalist Ray Alder. The complete interview can only be found in the official (printed) ProgPower USA program given to all attendees. If you want to read the entire interview, you have to come to the show!

Final Note: All photos are used in compliance with the principles of Fair Use. They illustrate reviews, opinions, and interviews with the band members who created the albums. Photos used to illustrate this particular interview (except album covers) were provided by Vince Edwards from Metal Blad, with many thanks. No copyright violations are intended.

Greg: Let’s start at the beginning. Can you talk a little bit about how the band came together?

Christian: Actually, Marc and I have known each other for about twenty years. And we’ve played in… I hate to use the term “rival bands”, but I guess that’s what you could call it back in ’89 or ’90. Fred Marshall, our vocalist also sang in Marc’s band. So they had been working together forever to begin with. Actually, a couple years ago, a mutual friend of ours had died. And we ran into each other at the funeral… talking guitars and shit, worked out some old differences, that didn’t really exist. Some of the people up here in the Bay area were saying that there was some sort of rivalry between Marc and I, which never really existed. So we got that straightened out.

Marc: We made sure it didn’t actually exist and then got to making music. To begin with, we were just getting together for fun, to try doing something that was different than what we had done before, and it just kind of evolved.

Greg: After reading the band member’s respective bios, it seems like the band is something of an all-star of underground players. So I’m curious, does this feel like a one off project or is this a group of guys who are in it for the long haul?

Christian: No. Actually, we made sure, when we put this thing together, that everybody understood that this wasn’t a project band. We do have some relatively heavy hitters in the band; Steve DiGiorgio and John Allen, a breadth of experience, touring all over the world… Steve’s kind of a legend. In fact, on the album cover, I make sure that everybody is included in the songwriting credits, because I didn’t want it to feel like Marc and are the songwriters and everybody else were just our hired guns. I don’t want the band to feel like that, and I certainly don’t want it to be presented that way. So no… this is something that everybody’s in it… we’re already talking about writing the next album together.

Greg: And that includes your rhythm section, the two of them are equally committed as you guys are?

Marc: Yeah. To begin with, we didn’t really know what it was. It wasn’t necessarily a band or a project. We were just trying to do something that we liked that was Metal, melodic, progressive and wouldn’t sound totally derivative of stuff we’ve done in the past. And I think, after we had written three or four songs, and we had gotten Fred Marshall the vocalist involved, we realized that we had something, more than just fun. It was shaping into something that we had not expected and were really wanting to pursue.

It was actually at ProgPower two years ago that I contacted Steve DiGiorgio, from Atlanta, called him on the phone, because I was so inspired by the line up. I had kind of taken an absence from being an avid follower of the scene because I had become a little disillusioned. I didn’t hear a lot of good new stuff and I was tired of regurgitating all the stuff that I enjoyed when I was a kid. Going to ProgPower made me see that not only was the genre alive and well, but evolving and it was really super inspiring. And based on the fact that we were starting to have some magic, we felt, I got on the phone. I thought that Steve would be an excellent candidate to help finish out that part of the rhythm section and was hopeful that he would dig it as much as we did. He immediately latched on and liked it. And then he suggested that John come on board, because they’ve been playing drums together since they were children… they live right next door to each other, that’s how close they are.

It’s hard to find a drummer and a bass player that gel together so well and have that kind of playing experience. Oftentimes a good drummer will chew up a bass player and vice versa. So they kind of came as a package deal. And John had never really done anything progressive like this, but Steve assured us that John could and then he blew us away beyond our expectations, we had no idea what he had in him.

Marc: The further we went down the road… then eventually we’d written the songs. The only person who isn’t in the Bay area with us is Fred, but we flew him out, we flew to Texas. We tracked all the vocals, the drums and the bass were the last thing to make it, in finality, on the album. By the time we put the drums and the bass down, everybody was looking at each other going, “Wow. This is better than anything else that we’ve involved in for a long time… maybe even ever.”

So we’re pretty fired up. Mainly because we love what we’re doing. It’s not so much because we’re trying to follow a trend or anything; we just stumbled across some kind of chemistry.

Greg: That’s really cool. Let me double back to two points about Steve. So if I was starting a band, I too would want to pick up the phone and call Steve DiGiorgio. I assume you guys had some sort of pre-existing relationship?

Christian: Yeah… actually, Marc, you’ve known Steve for what, fifteen years?

Marc: Yeah, I’ve known him for a long time.

Christian: And I’ve met him off and on, he lives in the Bay area, it’s kind of hard not to run into him.

Marc: We took a wild gamble, I had no idea whether we could nail him down for this or not.

Greg: And you mentioned earlier that he’s something of a legend, and that he is. The list of bands he’s played with reads like a who’s who. So is there sort of an added level of respect when you’re in the studio with him, because of what he’s accomplished, or is he just one of the guys? Or is it a weird balance?

Christian: I’d like to answer that, just because I’ve actually gotten to know him… Steve and I have become really close over the last couple of years. He’s one of my friends, actually. I love the guy. Him and John both are like family to me at this point. In fact last week we went to John Allen’s family barbeque for his birthday. And like Marc said, Steve and John literally bought houses directly across the street from each other. I’d trust the guy with my kid… you know what I mean? When we’re in the studio I’m busting his ass and telling him he sucks.

Greg: So how did you guys get hooked up with Lance (King) and Nightmare Records?

Christian: I’ll take that one, because that was my end of things. I actually was a DJ on an internet radio station for a couple of years. And I had gone to Texas Madfest… we both went, a couple of years ago. I got an opportunity to meet Lance then. I interviewed Lance for my radio show and then instantly Lance and I hit it off and kind of stayed in contact via e-mail. I’m naturally really good at networking and I made sure he got an e-mail from me, pretty much, once a week, so he wouldn’t forget who I was. The station owner actually sent Lance to… we had put up a MySpace page with the demos that Marc and I had put together. It was just guitars and a drum machine… and I think I played bass on it. There were no vocals on it yet. The station owner called Lance and said, “You need to hear this stuff.” Lance calls me, a couple of weeks later and says, “This stuff’s fantastic, I want it.” I said, “There’s not even any vocals on it.” He goes, “It doesn’t matter.Get some vocals on it and then we’ll talk.”

Greg: And was there ever a thought about approaching Lance to do the vocals?

Christian: You know I don’t think… we never discussed approaching Lance to sing on it. I mean Fred was pretty much who we had in mind from square one.

Marc: Yeah… I had actually started doing something that was kind of Metal but not quite as progressive with Fred over the internet, before. And when Christian came along and we started working on stuff, I suggested we merge the two because I was pretty confident that Fred could do the job and that point I didn’t even know who Lance was.

Greg: So someone asked me to ask you this; where did the band’s name come from and why no apostrophe? (mutual laughter)

Greg: It’s not an homage to the apostrophe-less NOVEMBERS DOOM, in some way is it?

Christian: (laughter) No… not at all. We needed a logo, because I put the MySpace page up and I called Marc and said, “Do you want me to do this or do you want to do it?” And he said, “No, I’ll do it.” And he busted out Photoshop and came up with the logo. So there’s no real meaning behind the lack of an apostrophe.

Marc: No… actually I think that I knew that a band name doesn’t necessarily have to be correct English. (mutual laughter)

Greg: Fair enough. And why FUTURES END, is there some meaning to that?

Marc: Fred came up with that particular phrase. There’s a couple things about names. One, you want to find something that’s maybe cool or interesting. But even MORE difficult to achieve is something that everyone else in the band doesn’t hate. (mutual laughter)

Christian: My recollection of that discussion was me getting really frustrated because none of my ideas were working, none of Marc’s ideas were working, none of Fred’s ideas were working… he throws that one out and I’m like, “Ahhh… good… that’s it.” (mutual laughter)

Marc: Basically something that didn’t suck as bad as everything else. (mutual laughter)

Greg: I think you achieved that. So in the process of setting up this interview, you guys were going through a bit of a nightmare trying to complete “Memoirs of a Broken Man”. Can you relive some of that nightmare for the readers?

Marc: First of all, I think most of it was not a nightmare, it was pretty enjoyable. I think the end part was the most hectic for a couple of reasons. One, we started realizing that we had to stop putzing around and actually finish it. There was also a little more pressure and more deadlines, especially with the impending ProgPower show. We wanted to have stuff available and we were still right, smack in the middle of fine tuning. And really, the end product was nowhere in sight yet, even though we knew we had to get it done. I think that’s where the nightmare part comes in. We have something and we don’t want to spoil it by rushing it, but on the other hand, sooner or later you have to finish your soup and say it’s done. The other thing was… I like to joke around. I mixed the record. I had to take suggestions with everyone in the band. And I joked around saying I’m in this band with all chiefs and no Indians.

It’s not easy mixing something that has so many different instruments going on at different times and making sure that everybody can be heard, the frequency is to their liking, their tones and everything. So, there was a lot of input that at some point was a little bit overwhelming. In the long run, it was all very helpful, because everybody is experienced enough to know what they want. And half the battle in recording is knowing what you want so that you have something to shoot for. I know from past experience, recording when I was younger, I would go in and tell the engineer I wanted a good guitar tone. Once I finally figured out what a good guitar tone was to me, I can go into any studio in the world and tell the engineer how to achieve that. I think that is the one advantage we had. We’ve all been doing this long enough that we know what we like and we know what we don’t like. Yeah… massive amounts of input from everybody.

Christian: I know that in my correspondence with you, I kind of detailed the issues we had. Because ultimately it was recorded in two studios. The drums were recorded at Trident Studios, at the extremely adept hands of our good friend and engineer Juan (Urtgeaga). And the rest of it… actually we recorded drums and bass there. And the rest of it was recorded right here at Marc’s studio. So it was up in air… OK… we’re going to have Juan mix the whole album. Then we got a deadline and Juan is very busy, he’s an extremely popular engineer, very skilled. His studio is very popular; he’s recorded a lot of really heavy hitters there. And then suddenly we’re getting close to our deadlines and we couldn’t actually establish a schedule that worked for both parties. And it went back and forth, and back and forth for weeks until finally Marc said, we had approached the deadline where it’s like “That’s it. We’ve got to lock down and do this ourselves and we got to do it now”.

The other thing is, Steve and John are pros that go way back, and like Marc said, they had some really specific ideas about what they wanted and ultimately it all gelled. Everybody is happy with it. So it was a nightmare and I can’t even begin to tell you how I’m sleeping better now that it’s done. (mutual laughter)

Greg: So obviously you guys are getting ready to release the debut, so it’s fair to assume most people who will read this will not be familiar with you. How would you describe your sound?

Christian: You know, I was talking to Lance King about that today and we came up with a good one, it’s like… What did we say? Oh shit… It’s TESTAMENT meets COHEED AND CAMBRIA and ALICE IN CHAINS. (mutual laughter)

Greg: That’s an interesting trifecta.

Christian: I think so too. A lot of people have decided it sounds like different things to them. We’ve always thought it was a progressive project, but I’m hearing Thrash, and I’m hearing Power Metal, and…

Marc: Well… we had some specific objectives. We came from an era where we were part of first fans and musicians of an earlier wave of progressive. The very beginning may have been… well, maybe IRON MAIDEN who is at least slightly progressive. Then QUEENSRYCHE… FATES WARNING. But then when I became reconnected to the scene, one thing I noticed was that the Prog and Power Metal scene had become extremely influenced by Thrash Metal and Speed Metal drums.

We consciously knew that if we were going to be more up to date, more modern, that we were going to have to do some stuff that was heavier and faster and more of a marriage of Metal. But we also consciously decided that, if we’re going to have fifteen parts before the chorus comes in, because we’re trying to be progressive and we like different, cool parts, we at least need to build these sections where the chorus is going to be, so that they support catchy melodies. Because if you have all sorts of complicated stuff and don’t leave the vocals any breathing room, than you have all salt and pepper and no meal. Definitely a conscious effort. We’re fans of MAIDEN and PRIEST and we thought that they had really catchy choruses. So we thought if we could bring that element to a new kind of school of Power and Prog Metal, and then… the heaviness and the Thrash and the heavy riffs, I don’t know… it was more of an accident, it just kind of happened. I think Christian brought some of that early on and then I kind of climbed on board as well. That particular aspect, I don’t think we planned on having the guitars be as heavy as they are, but once they were we were pretty happy with it.

Christian: I’d like to speak to that too. Your question is what do we sound like? Marc answered it pretty well. We are both children of the 80s in terms of the IRON MAIDEN, JUDAS PRIEST, METALLICA, MEGADETH thing. And I’ve actually been thinking about it lately, where did all this heaviness come out of me from? And that’s probably where the METALLICA, the MEGADETH…

Marc: And we’re in the Bay area and a lot of our friends, while we were trying to be more melodic, most of the people we knew were doing heavy stuff with what I call Cookie Monster vocals. And while we weren’t influenced by that vocal style, it’s hard to be around that much heaviness in Metal and not somehow be influenced, you know? I think one of the things a lot of 80s guitar players do is only alternate pick, and then a lot of the Thrash guys only down pick. So now, I think we made a conscious decision to marry those two, because either one by itself could be limiting. Being in the Bay area influenced us to be heavier. We’re friends with EXODUS, TESTAMENT, obviously SADUS. I guess it kind of rubbed off on us.

Greg: And speaking as someone who grew up during the same period as the two of you, and as someone whose now listened to the disc three times through, I’d say it really does sound like you’ve bridged that more classic Prog sound with more modern Prog sound, quite well, and wound up with something unique. Much of what’s progressive isn’t as dark and aggressive as what you’ve created here, yet you didn’t go to an extreme with it, ala NEVERMORE. So I think you’ve achieved something pretty interesting.

Christian: Thank you.

Greg: So “Memoirs of a Broken Man” is a full blown concept album, and it’s got a very well written back story to it. I’m not sure who came up with the story, but can one of you speak to the inspiration for the concept and perhaps also give a 30,000 foot overview of the story, for those who are first hearing about this while reading the interview?

Christian: The story is that of a man who survives… he comes back from the war in the Middle East. He and his best friend in his unit come back and they’re the only two survivors. And they spend their days and nights getting completely wasted, because obviously they’re suffering some sort of shock/trauma and depression. His friend ends up killing himself, his girlfriend leaves him, he ends up drinking himself damn near to death and he spends all of that time being angry and resentful, feeling that the world has left him to rot.

Ultimately he starts thinking his own thoughts of suicide, and that’s what wakes him up.

He decides that’s not the way he wants to go and maybe it’s time for him to try to breakout of this alcoholic and depressive haze and finally connect with what he believes in, or reconnect with himself and perhaps grow past his limitations. That’s what the album is about.

Interestingly enough, we did not conceive the album that way… that wasn’t the idea. Marc and I wrote the music. We would send it to Fred Marshall in Texas and he would write the lyrics. We had no idea what he was writing until it came time to recording it, actually. He would kind of hum or sing stuff to us over the phone, so we had an idea, but he never really sent us any lyrics or anything. We flew him out here the first time to record the vocals and that was pretty much the first time we heard the lyrics or the melodies.

Greg: So let me just interrupt for a second. So you guys were unaware, that behind your back, which isn’t to signify anything Machiavellian, this was becoming a concept album?

Christian: Exactly.

Greg: (laughter) That’s interesting.

Christian: Yeah, I know… it’s funny. We had reached a point where most of the lyrics, if not all, were written and I said “You know if you arrange these songs in the right order it tells a story”. So the three of us got on board with that idea and I wrote the back story. I wrote what it is that you have in your hand (CD artwork and liner notes), actually. It fits together when you lay out the songs in the right order. It actually really works well. (laughter)

Greg: It does. And just to clarify a point, the album picks up, where the back story leaves off, correct?

Christian: Yes… it does.

Greg: OK. I had intended on asking if you found the boundaries of a concept album useful, in that it could keep the writing process focused; or limiting, in that it can construct artificial boundaries. But I guess that question is now irrelevant, as the music was written without the foreknowledge that it was forming a concept.

Christian: Yeah… we didn’t actually turn it into a concept album until all the lyrics were already written.

Marc: I think the best way to describe it is that musically, lyrically and from a story point, the whole thing kind of unfolded for us in front of our eye. To our surprise. We didn’t anticipate the story. We didn’t anticipate the style. We didn’t anticipate the collection of songs. We just kind of rolled with it. And afterwards, we’re just as surprised as anyone else who hears it and wonders where it came from. We just feel lucky that it kind of fell together the way it did. Now we feel like we want to ride the train for a while.

Greg: Nice. So obviously you guys are playing ProgPower in September, it’s why we’re doing the interview. You’ve been to the festival, what are your expectations?

Christian: Have a killer time. Have a lot of fun. Hang out with our peers. At this point, we have a lot of friends in the business and in the genre. ProgPower, as you know, is just the greatest… I mean it’s like a meeting from all over the world of people who have the same passion for this kind of music. Everybody is friendly and everybody has a great time…

One of my expectations, to speak to something I saw you posted on the ProgPower message board, is that we’re going to play hard enough to the point where you don’t feel like you need to go the bar during our set!

Greg: (laughter) Excellent… I like that. That’s a good attitude. I think especially for a band like you guys, it’s such a perfect opportunity to showcase who you are, because I think you’ll appeal to both the Prog fan and the Power fans.

Christian: I hope so. To be totally honest with you, I’m really proud of what it we’ve done. I’m amazed at the quality of the team that we have, and the dedication to this band. At the same time, I’m really curious to see how the world is going to react to it. Like I’ve said, I’ve heard different things about it, I’ve heard comparisons to NEVERMORE, which I thought was really odd, to tell you the truth. And then John Cheek was saying it’s Power-Thrash with Prog overtones, which I thought was interesting. I don’t really know how the world is going to react to it.

Typically, traditionally, the Progressive Metal community is also extremely picky, very discerning. They like a really good quality in their music. So I’ve got a touch of nervousness about how they’re going to react to it.

Greg: I think you’re going to do pretty well. Let me ask you this, have you guys played out live yet, as a five-some?

Christian: We will be pretty soon. (mutual laughter)

Greg: So that’s my question. Obviously the music is intricate. I saw where one of you wrote on your MySpace page about how trying to reproduce all the technicality live is a bit intimidating. How will you prep for a show where you’ve got a lot of guitar players with folded arms in the audience?

Christian: (laughter) Yeah… that’s usually what we face. We have a couple of shows coming up before we go play ProgPower.

But at the same time, what I was really referring to was it’s taken two years to write all this stuff. We’re definitely technically proficient. We can definitely play it live. I’m not even concerned about that. It was more, what I was referring to, was going back and going, how did I play that exactly? Actually just remembering exactly what it was I did so I can reproduce it faithfully. But, in terms of being concerned as to whether or not we can play the songs live, that’s not even going to be an issue.

Marc: Let me add a footnote to that. When we first started this, we would write stuff that we couldn’t yet play, because we wanted to challenge ourselves. We didn’t want to reach for the same old tools and tricks that we had gained over the last twenty years. We wanted to pull something new out of the hat. And that meant, that to begin with it was difficult to play what we were playing. We would have to go and get a metronome and practice a section until we could actually play it. It was one thing to punch in it during the songwriting process and listen back and go, “Wow… that sounds cool.” Now we have to be able to play it all strung together. And honestly, I think by challenging ourselves, now after this whole process is done, we forced ourselves to improve and take our playing up a couple of notches. So whereas before it would have been almost too difficult to play, we’ve now boosted our skills to the point where we can play it in our sleep.

Christian: And believe it or not, even the great Steve DiGiorgio had a hell of a time playing some of these parts. (mutual laughter)

Greg: So, you mentioned that four of you are from the Bay area, and Fred is not?

Christian: Well, Fred is from here. He just moved to Texas a few years ago.

Greg: OK. What is the plan, beyond Prog Power, as far as the next move? Are you going to play dates locally, try to do a national tour, festivals in Europe?

Christian: Fortunately, we’ve all been doing this long enough and we’re all well plugged in enough to have some channels available to us to go play overseas. You know, I was talking to Lance King about getting some festival shows put together for us in Mexico and South America. There has been a great deal of interest already from some promoters in Europe to have us over there. One guy, at this party we were at last weekend, was talking about getting us in at Wacken, if at all possible. Yeah… that’s definitely the plan. I was talking to Lance just the other day about potentially playing with SYMPHONY X on a North American tour. It’s really just…
There’s a lot of things available to us.

Quite frankly, I think it’s really going to depend on how well the record is received, how much it sells before we get a gauge of how much time and energy and money to invest in, perhaps, buying on to a tour or something of that nature. But we definitely plan on going out and playing all over the place. Everybody in the band is down for that.

Greg: You mentioned earlier the pressure of the looming ProgPower date. Can I then assume the record is going to be available for sale at the festival?

Christian: Yes it is. Actually, Lance has posted on the ProgPower forum that it will be available. It’ll be pre-release. It will be the official, full release, but it will be available at ProgPower before the street date of October 1st, I believe.

Greg: So, I’m curious. You have your first album coming out… obviously not the first thing either of you have recorded. I’d like to know how you feel about the double-edged sword of MP3s and all the illegal stuff that goes along with it?

Christian: Wow. You know, I’m still trying to figure out how I feel about that myself. You know, Marc actually made his name by making his stuff available via MP3. You’ve been downloaded what, 2 million times?

Marc: Yeah. It’s hard to keep track after awhile because not everything is monitored like it used to be back when it was just album sales. I think it’s a double-edged sword either way that you look at it. On one hand, it opened up the market to almost anyone. In a way, the market can now choose what they want to perpetuate, you know, with popularity. I think in the past the record companies decided what they were gonna serve the public, and if it wasn’t up to their standard of commerciality, they would leave a lot of stuff on the back burner and music fans were disappointed. And I also think a lot of musicians got screwed over with bad contracts and being star-struck with being rock stars; signing away their whole career for a chance at stardom.

So, I think that the kind of disintegration of the old system leaves huge opportunities for both the listener and the musician. The problem is, it has become very difficult to predict how anybody’s gonna make any money off of records, in the present and the near future. Record sales are down in, like, record numbers, but I don’t think that people are listening to music any less.

Marc: It’s also created a whole… you know when I was a kid, I wouldn’t know about something unless somebody told be about it. JUDAS PRIEST wasn’t on the radio, neither was IRON MAIDEN. Friends would tell me.

An album was a universal experience. We all had the same albums and we all had similar music tastes, at least in our cliques. Now, you’ll meet somebody who has 80 different bands on their iPod than you do. The range of styles is much broader than ever before, and if somebody wants to go seek out something different, it’s all out there for the taking. So, I guess there’s obvious benefits… especially to the listener. You know, the music fan. There’s so much more available… you don’t have to go hunt in some obscure record bin for something that you could previously only get in Japan, you know.

On the other hand, Lenny Kravitz once said in an interview, “The future is about the live show. They can’t steal that”. (mutual laughter)

Marc: I think that ultimately that’s what it’s going to come down to. I saw the evolution of the demo tape. It used to be that a band would play well live and a good sounding demo was hard to come by, because it cost so much money. So people were judged on their live merit so much more. Then, the demo tape started becoming like an album, and anybody could record one, even if they sucked live. It was much harder to tell who was actually good because of studio tricks. I think what’s happened is people are not impressed by a flashy recording anymore, unless the band can actually play that way live. So, I think the importance of the live show has been amplified by this whole process.

Christian: I am concerned… I mean, I don’t think there’s any way for us to avoid the fact that somebody’s gonna buy the record, rip it on to their computer and then share it out to their friends. There’s no way we can avoid this.

But one of the things that impresses me about the progressive community, especially, is that they are all about paying for their music. There was a post on the ProgPower forums about a woman who was fined a couple of million bucks for downloading 90 songs or whatever. And most of the reactions to it were, “Yeah…she got what she deserved. You should pay for your damn music. Be fair to the artist.” So, while it’s inevitable that people are gonna share out our stuff, at the same time I also think we’ll get a fair shake.

Greg: Yeah… it is strange. To some extent, MP3s kept the genre alive in the ‘90s, but now it keeps some artists from taking that next step forward. It’s a strange kind of deal. But, yeah, you’re right. It’s such a tight knit community, people know the artists; they actually feel like they’re stealing from someone they know.

Christian: That’s a very good point and I think that that’s another thing that the Internet and MP3s have done for us, though. You had mentioned that we grew up in basically the same era. You remember how impossible it was to get to meet one of your heroes? These days you just send them an e-mail and nine times out of ten you’ll get a response. You get one that says, “Come say hi to me… I’ll see you in the bar after the show”. So you’re right… when you’re downloading MP3s it’s like you’re stealing from somebody you know or could potentially be friends with, so that makes sense.

Greg: So let me ask my final question. You guys aren’t 18, releasing your first album. You’re experienced musicians, yet you’re embarking on something new and in some senses you’re at the starting gate. What are your goals, individually or collectively, for what you want to accomplish with in music, with FUTURES END, the realistic or the outlandish, whichever way you want to go with it?

Marc: Well, let me take a first stab at that. The music thing can be motivated by a number of different things. One is pure love of music and entertaining yourself, the musician. Then, you can also be motivated by trying to give your fans a three to seven minute vacation from their troubles, at a time, with song; which is kinda what music did for me when I was young. Then, on top of that, you have to aspire to be able to pay your bills, so that you can continue to do what you love which is music and also giving people this three to eight minute vacation.

Marc: It’s kind of like, if you love to play football, you don’t necessarily need to go for the championship. But, if there’s a brass ring in the championship and you love to play football anyway, why not go for the brass ring?

I think, what our hopes for FUTURES END are, on a minimum level, is to keep doing what we love. And on a higher level, to have at least enough success so that we can keep doing what we love. I think, why not shoot for the moon or shoot for the stars, or whatever the saying is? So, if we can take this to a point where we can all live comfortably and do this for the rest of our lives, whatever degree that would be, I think would be fine with us. I don’t think we’re greedy. We’re not after a lot of ego attention or fame or money. We would just like to have enough money to live comfortably, so that we could do this for the rest of our lives.

Christian: Well, for me, of course I’d love to be able to pay my bills this way, but if I can’t it doesn’t really matter, either.

Marc: No, we’re not stopping because of the money.

Christian: No, that has nothing to do with it. For me, too, like I said. We spent two years writing this first album. We just got it finished. It’s being pressed as we speak. There’s a lot of cool things coming up; the potential to play the festivals that I’d mentioned next year. All of those things. In terms of goals, we should actually be able to do that.

I’ve spent time touring Europe. We’re gonna be touring South America this year. I want to be able to do that with FUTURE’S END. That would just be amazing to me.

Christian: Also, to get the five of us together again and write another record that takes us to another level beyond the one that we just wrote. That would be awesome. You know, to have people buy the record and enjoy it, would be just freakin’ great. All of the mechanics of it really don’t matter so much when I think about the goals that I have. It’s more about being able to go play places and have people enjoy the music; more than anything else.

Christian: And to be a part of the community. You know, the Prog community is full of incredibly cool people, supportive people. What a great community of support that we have. It’s a little different from other genres of music where you’re fighting each other to try and get someplace. Here, we all try and help each other out. And as you know, when you get into the inner circles in the Prog community, the circles get even smaller and everybody kind of knows each other. So just to be a productive part of the community. Go play. Make another great record, and create with the guys that I love creating with so much. That would be the ultimate for me.

Greg: Thanks you guys both for your time, I appreciate it. I look forward to seeing the set, buying the album and maybe chatting with you in Atlanta.

Christian: Hey man… great interview, thanks a lot. And I wanted to say, I’ve read your other interviews that you’ve posted. Really good job and thank you for doing that. I mean it’s really interesting. And it’s cool for you to contribute your time for the festival… it’s great. Thanks.

Greg: Oh no problem, it’s a pleasure to give back in even the smallest way. Thank you both… I appreciate your time and I am really digging the new disc.

Christian: Oh cool… thanks, man, I’m glad you like it. That’s awesome. I’m so nervous about that, bro.

Greg: Yeah… I can imagine. Actually, I can’t imagine what that must be like; to read reviews on something you just busted your ass on for as long as you guys did.

Christian: Yeah, especially from the Prog community. Like I said, that’s a tough crowd to please. A really tough crowd. So, I’m really glad you like it and thanks for your time.

Greg: Take care, and good luck.

Christian: We’ll see you in Atlanta.

This ends Greg’s interview with Futures End guitarists Marc Pattison and Christian David Wentz.

Final Note: All photos/images used to illustrate this interview are used in compliance with the principles of Fair Use. They illustrate reviews, opinions, and interviews with the band members who created the albums and on whose official web sites and MySpace pages some of these images reside. No copyright violations are intended.

Greg: Hi Ralf, how’re you doing?

Ralf: I’m OK, how you doing?

Greg: Great. So, the new disk, “16:6 Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead” is going to be released in the States on June 7th. Unfortunately, I haven’t had a chance to hear to it yet, but I read one reviewer who wrote, “PRIMAL FEAR manages to take at least one step forward, one backward and still stand for what PRIMAL FEAR has always stood for; pure Metal.” That’s a pretty flattering review. Can you give me your thoughts on the disc?

Ralf: Well it’s quite OK for me, because as the critic said and as we intended, to always keep our thing going with PRIMAL FEAR. Our intention is to make Metal of course, and not to lose contact with the modern world and try to mix everything a little bit. Which is still OK for us. If you write songs, first of all it has to be OK for us… it has to go through our filters, with everybody in the band. We are very positive about the result of the album, because we think this will please our fans from the very first album ‘til now. So, I think it’s a good mixture of everything on this one.

Greg: You have eight studio discs. As established artists, is there more pressure to change things up or more pressure to keep things the same? How do you find a balance?

Ralf: That’s the good thing about it; we don’t have any pressure because now with Magnus Karlsson, we have a very good composer in the band. And if we do songs… as I said before we have this certain filter, which helps us a lot to decide what we’re gonna do on the album, and decide which songs gonna make it to the album. We write more songs than we have on the album. And this time also we have more songs on the album than we intended to bring on the album. We had so much good stuff, it was pretty hard to leave anything out. So there’s no pressure at all. It’s the other feeling, where we have too much songs at the end which we don’t just want to keep on the disc, we wanna release for the fans. Nowadays, bands bring out CDs with maybe sixty minutes of music and we just wanna bring out what we think will be OK for the fans.

Greg: You mentioned Magnus writing on this disc. He did two solos on the previous album. How much did he contribute to this disc?

Ralf: That’s OK, it’s right what you say. He brought the solos for the “New Religion” album and Matt (Sinner), Henny (Hendrik Wolter) and Magnus sat together in September last year to write 80% of the album. I didn’t have so much time at that time, so they just “pre-composed” some songs, where I did in the end some melodies and some lyrics on it. So he was pretty much involved and he also… as he was a fan before that, a PRIMAL FEAR fan before that. We didn’t had to train him somehow to compose songs which would fit to us. We just said do whatever you want to do and he did it. So in the end, we didn’t have to force him to sound like PRIMAL FEAR, because he liked it before and he was composing songs on his own before that.

Greg: I read that you do a lot with sharing MP3s between the band. It sounds like some of the writing process doesn’t happen with the whole band in the same room How does the technology impact your songwriting process?

Ralf: Of course, this helped a lot but in the end you don’t want to lose this Rock and Roll feeling when the band is sitting in one room and makes songs like we did ten years ago in the rehearsing room. We still kept that and that’s the reason why those guys met up in Sweden. at Magnus’ house, and compose the songs together in one room. Of course also, the technique helped us a lot to swap MP3 and to load in DAT files into our ProTools sessions. Sometimes I worked on my own on my vocals. Sometimes I worked together with Matt in the studio. That’s the way how we work these days. You just mix everything, how you feel. We don’t wanna lose this basic, where the whole band meets in one room in the rehearsal room. But we also use the advantage of technology; you just sit down in your room and work out on your own. When I work out on my own, I’m so much a perfectionist. I remember we were working in the studio together and the other guys said, “It’s OK, we will leave it on the tape.” And I said, “No, it’s not OK.” That’s the way I’m working, I’m just a perfectionist, I don’t wanna leave anything bad on the disc. That’s the reason why I enjoy sometimes working on my own. But sometimes it’s also, as I said, good to work together with Matt in the studio. He’s just kicking myself a little bit in the butt to makes things better. It’s different it depends on how you feel and what day it is you know?

Greg: That’s interesting. It seems vocalists are often their own biggest critics. How often do you walk off the stage thinking… yeah, I was on tonight? Are you more often critical of your performance or pleased by it.

Ralf: That’s a good question, man. I mean, I was very satisfied with the gig in Moscow three weeks ago for example, and then when you go onto the internet the very next day and see the gig on YouTube you say, “My God was I bad!” (mutual laughter) But you know that’s the reason why you’re so critical. On the other hand, it’s a good thing to see a band working so good live when you hear it on You Tube, and you still have the feeling, well this is live and it’s really good quality, so we don’t have to exaggerate. We have to really be just normal and see it as you saw it 25 years ago when you were a fan, that the people will like it you know.

Greg: You know, it seems that as a singer’s career progresses, the higher range is one of the first things that’s impacted. Since the higher range is your bread and butter, is that at all a concern for you? Are there things you have to do to maintain your voice?

Ralf: Well, after so many years of doing that now, I know what to do. But of course I have to warm up before I do that. It’s not the thing, doing nothing the whole day; don’t speak and everything and then go and face the crowd. Of course, I have to warm up my voice now. It was different 25 years ago, I could it straight away but now I have to warm up my voice a little bit of course.

Greg: Not including the new disc, which disc in your catalogue would you say is your best work or the band’s best work? Hey this is the PRIMAL FEAR disc you have to hear, if you’ve never heard a PRIMAL FEAR disc?

Ralf: That’s a tough one because you know… I can say a musician always says the new one, the new-born baby is the best. This is what I say to 16/6 as well. Of course, we now have eight children. If you’re a parent and you have eight children, choose your best child… it’s a pretty tough question. I love every CD but the very new one is of course now for me the best. But, I think every musician does this.

Greg: PRIMAL FEAR released the “History of Fear” DVD in 2003. Any plans to shoot a live DVD in support of the 16/6 or the current tour?

Ralf: No plans yet, but you know it’s pretty, these days it’s pretty fast, so you never know what’s going on. We now have a lot of time, so we go on tour in Europe. Maybe we gonna shoot some video here and there but, ahh, there’s no certain plan.

Greg: The band has grown more popular with each release. Have you guys reached a point where you don’t need to work regular day jobs and can you just concentrate on the music full time or do you still need to balance your time between doing things when you’re not touring and not recording?

Ralf: Yeah, I still have to because of life standards at the moment, because I have a house, two cars, everything. So I have to lift my butt out of the bed and do something besides music. I decided last year, one year ago, I was close to doing only music, but it’s pretty tough if you do only music and then earn enough money to keep life standards. I’m still working 8 hours a day. But, I’m the only one in the band. Matt and the others are just making music. I was close to do that and it’s getting now with the economy, which is going on also everywhere around the world, I’m pretty close to do that, too just to live for music.

Greg: I’m always curious about that. Is it ever weird to work a regular job one day and then the next day play Sweden Rock in front of 20,000 people, or Wacken, or wherever?

Ralf: It’s great man, it’s really great because… I had this in 1990, for instance, where I was in Japan with GAMMA RAY we sold out the hall with 3,000 people each night. Two days later, I was going home to work, you know. (mutual laughter) I think this is also good for the brain and everything to keep yourself up-to-date with technology and everything. You can have a job and stuff and it also keeps your two feet on the ground. Not flying somewhere, around in the world of music, and you think you are a rock star, whatever. I think it keeps the respect and everything.

Greg: Aside from maybe your home country, is there a particular city or country that’s a favorite of yours to play?

Ralf: No… I don’t think so. I mean that’s a pretty tough one, as well. To play those big festivals, Wacken for example, in Germany it’s just a great. You just go out there and 30,000 people out there, they’re screaming for you and everything. So, but every country has something special so I think it’s not fair to any other country to say the other country is the best. Because they’re all true fans. They’re our true fans. It’s no good or bad out there.

Greg: Have you ever played a city or a country where you were just blown away by the response there? Just were surprised by how many fans you had in that part of the world?

Ralf: Yes. It was the first time we played in Brazil. I was overwhelmed. I couldn’t even hear my own voice, because the people were screaming the lyrics louder than I sang. (mutual laughter) It kicked me really back. It was great.

Greg: How difficult is it to balance the role of being a front man, being engaging and energetic, with being a vocalist, making sure you hit all the notes and hold everything as long as you need to hold everything? Is it tough or are you so used to it by now that you just do it?

Ralf: Yeah, it’s the second one. You just go out and do it sometimes. You know, I also drink a little bit of white wine to smooth down a little bit. It’s always this game of adrenaline in you, in your blood, and then keep it cool again with a little bit of white wine for me. And of course, then, after the show I sometimes think, “well my intonation here and there was not perfect”. But you know, it’s still Rock and Roll. We don’t make any musicals or whatever. We don’t have to be 100% perfect. Of course, I, for myself, as I said before, I’m a perfectionist and I can hear it that maybe here and there, there was a blown note. But hey, this is Rock and Roll.

Greg: You’re gonna be playing Prog Power for the second time. Was there anything about your first appearance there that stands out in your mind?

Ralf: Oh yes, definitely. It was when we just arrived the same day we already were at a festival and met so many fans and musicians. We thought this can only be good there. Because it’s just a part of this life over there. And I know that this year’s gonna be the same thing. It’s pretty tough actually to go… because I can’t sleep in planes. I’m just, I’m awake for the whole flight to there and I did not sleep at all. So even before the show. Maybe I slept two hours before we went on stage. For three days, and this was pretty tough. But, as I said before, the adrenaline helps you a lot to get over this. And I’m pretty sure this time we gonna have a good time again.

Greg: You ended up doing a duet with Floor Jansen, who I believe you guys wanted on the last album, but it didn’t work out. Was it interesting singing with her and doing a duet, after cooling down and doing your first set?

Ralf: Yeah, that’s true. I initially thought about to do the duet with her but in the end it… we have different schedules and yeah, that’s how things go sometimes. You know, I’m pretty sad about the thing with Floor. I can tell you one story. It’s about the perfectionism I told before. She had in-ear monitors and I had no in-ear monitors. And the guy running the monitors just turned down all monitors of the stage, so I couldn’t hear myself. (laughter)

Greg: At the ProgPower performance, you couldn’t hear what you were singing? Oh wow, that’s…

Ralf: I did not hear myself at all. She was singing with in-ear and I made my part and I did not hear anything. I sung out of key, the first verse a little bit. Oh my god, it was pretty tough for me. But in the end you know, again it’s Rock and Roll.

Greg: I think everybody was pretty thrilled to see the two of you up on stage together. I don’t think anybody noticed.

Ralf: That’s good (laughter)

Greg: So, for a European band there anything unique about playing the U.S. or is it just another country, just another tour date, just another stop on what is usually a fairly long tour for you guys?

Ralf: Yeah, there’s a difference of course. The U.S. is just such a big country. You know for PRIMAL FEAR it’s pretty tough because usually you have to do a tour in America which lasts at least three or four months to get the whole country, but we can’t in the end. This year we are pleased to do at least one-and-a-half weeks and we’re looking really forward to do the big cities there. And there is a difference, of course, because our first time that we were in the States we were doing these convention things. And it was a strange feeling because there were so many bands playing in different rooms and the people are going through a great hall from one room to the other. This is quite different to the working European kind of thing where there’s just one room, whether the bands play a festival or the bands play just one gig. Yeah, in every country there’s a certain thing which is really good and in America they’re really going for it. This is great.

Greg: So this is your second album on Frontiers. Have you been happy with the relationship so far? Are you getting the exposure you guys want? Better than with Nuclear Blast towards the end?

Ralf: To be honest, there’s always a point to complain about, but Frontiers is doing a really good job for us. Of course they pay a good advance to work really good in the studio to make it possible to make a good production and everything. To get good people to work for us. But in the end, you know, there’s always a little bit of criticism you have, when it comes about making promotion and stuff there’s always some certain things in your mind, where you think maybe they could do a little bit more advertising, whatever. But that’s with every company. It’s not only Frontiers or Nuclear Blast or whatever. The most important thing is that they are behind the music and they don’t force us into a certain corner. They don’t get mixed up with opinions about the music. They just let us do… they trust us and they in the end get good material from us and they’re very happy about it.

Greg: So the last time you guys played ProgPower, it was before your disc was released in the States. Yet it was probably obvious that people were already familiar with the music, that they had heard the music before it was actually released. Is that upsetting to the band… knowing people are hearing the MP3s before the disc hits the street?

Ralf: Ahh, that’s a good and bad thing about it. I mean, the good thing about it is the advertising and the promotion of the MP3 downloading and stuff. The bad thing, of course, is the money which keeps away from the musician in the end. First of all, when people buy CDs the main income is for the companies and the distributors and stuff and the last pennies will be at the musicians. But I think it’s more an advantage if the people listen to the stuff before, because it’s good for concerts in the end when you go out on stage and the people know your stuff. So I think it’s more positive than negative.

Greg: So overall, you think the technology that’s out there, the MP3s and the internet have been more beneficial to PRIMAL FEAR more than hurt them?

Ralf: Yeah… I think so, yes. It’s the same thing with me, when I want to hear some new stuff, I’m also going on the internet and look for it and enjoying it of course.

Greg: So, in October you signed a deal with Frontier to record a solo disc. It was noted in the label’s press release that it would be recorded under Matt’s direction. Was that an easy decision for you? Did you consider at all completely distancing yourself from your PRIMAL FEAR band mates and saying I just want to do this by myself?

Ralf: It was really easy for me because one guy from PRIMAL FEAR came up to me and said, “Why don’t you do a solo album with Matt?” Now he’s also producing my solo album. We still have a little bit of time, because first of all we want to record this record with Magnus, the PRIMAL FEAR album 16/6, and we postponed my solo work a little bit. And Frontiers understands that, but this fall we’re going to focus on my solo thing. I will tell you that it’s not so far away from PRIMAL FEAR, of course. Because it’s not going to be somehow a ballad piece or whatever, there’s also gonna be Metal on it. It’s not so tough, because Matt also does a lot of projects.

Greg: You said you start recording it in the fall. Have you lined up any other musicians or guest musicians who will make appearances on this disc?

Ralf: Yes. So I asked Kai, for example, Kai Hansen from GAMMA RAY, and he’s already recording a solo for one song I sent him. It’s gonna be a cover song from a very famous band, which I can’t speak about it at the moment. And I also spoke to the original musician, who’s going to solo on it, so I’m very happy about that. I’m also going to work with Roy G. and different other musicians. I’m looking forward to put everything together in the end.

GH: You performed recently on Pamela Moore’s SOLNA project. Can you tell me a little about how you became involved in that and what the experience was like?

Ralf: Actually, Pamela came up to me, because we got in touch one year ago, when we worked together in the Czech Republic, when she performed with QUEENSRYCHE. She’s a very, very talented vocalist, female vocalist. Since I knew from her Operation: Mindcrime already. And she came up to me and said she’s got an offer from to sing this and they wanted to do also this duet thing. She thought maybe this would be a good idea to do it together with me. And, yeah, so we got in touch with Zane (Petersen) in the end, and he sent me this song and I really liked the song. And that’s how everything came up. There’s also one song, a fast song on it, called “Celebrate”. The original singer couldn’t do it, so they sent it to me if I can do this, too. I said, “Yes, no problem” and we just did it. I think the outcome was pretty good in the end.

GH: Interesting. Looking back on it, what were the one or two albums or one or two bands that turned you on to Metal, that made you really want to become a singer?

Ralf: Well that was actually when I was sixteen years old, I started to listen to IRON MAIDEN and SAXON and stuff, those bands. And of course in 1978 when PRIEST came out with the “Unleashed in the East” album, that just kicked me in the butt and said, “Hey, what the fuck?” So great, and so much energy. And when I found out that I can do that too, with my voice I thought, “Well, maybe just rehearse a little bit and do it, too” (mutual laughter)

GH: Was it that simple, I’ll rehearse and do it, too? Did it just come naturally to you or did you seek out vocal instruction?

Ralf: Yeah, of course, I had to struggle many, many years to compete against those loud amplifiers, so I really learned how to sing loud. But also I found out to sing loud is not the best technique for a vocalist, because it’s not good for a tour, for example. During the years you find the best way how you can do it, if you don’t have vocal lessons which I don’t have in the end. But I got my instruction from teachers and from many people who sing. And you know the learning phase never will end. You always learn, still I’m learning. It’s just… through the years you go your way and find the best way.

GH: So you grew up on SAXON and PRIEST and MIADEN, how about now-a-days? What sort of stuff is on your MP3 player or in your CD player?

Ralf: Very diverse stuff. It’s from Phil Collins. It’s from Michael Bublé. Also NIGHTWISH, also DISTURBED and stuff. I hear many, many bands which have an impact on my feelings. And when I’m sitting in the plane, there’s mostly smooth stuff going on, because I want to just relax a little bit. When I’m out on the road I have also a lot of aggressive stuff, songs from DISTURBED on it, it’s pretty diverse.

GH: That’s all the questions I have. I thank you for your time and I’m looking forward to the new album and to seeing you guys in Atlanta. I hope you have great tour.

Ralf: Thank you very much.

This ends Greg’s interview with Primal fear vocalist Ralf Scheepers.

Final Note: All photos/images used to illustrate this interview are used in compliance with the principles of Fair Use. They illustrate reviews, opinions, and interviews with the band members who created the albums and on whose official web sites and MySpace pages some of these images reside. No copyright violations are intended.

Bill: Hi, Pontus. This is Bill Murphy.

Pontus: Hi, Bill.

Bill: How are you? ProgPower USA calling.

Pontus: Hi. I’m good, thanks. How are you?

Bill: Good. Did I catch you at a good time? It’s 8:00 there?

Pontus: It’s 8:00 exactly. It’s one minute past. But I’d say that’s exactly.

Bill: [laughs] Good. I like to be punctual.

Pontus: Yeah, that’s excellent. I was just sitting and waiting for your call, actually.

Bill: Good. Well, I appreciate your time today. It’s a pleasure to talk to you.

Pontus: Yeah, the same.

Bill: Let’s chat. There’s a lot of ground to cover here. It’s really cool to listen to your music because there’s so much going on in each song. There’s a lot of different styles. But before we talk about your previous album, let’s talk about your new album that’s coming out.

Pontus: Yeah?

Bill: What was different about recording it, and by the way, it’s called Sing-a-long Songs for the Damned and Delirious. Who came up with that title?

Pontus: Oh, I think I’d have to take partly credit to that.

Bill: [laughs]

Pontus: It was a bit of a brainstorming, but I think I came up with the final title.

Bill: Really?

Pontus: Some of the elements from that title were in earlier suggestions as well, but yeah.

Bill: [laughs] Well, it’s just a great title. It’s definitely catchy. Tell me about making this album. Compared to making your first one, what was different this time around?

Pontus: Well, for one, the first time around, most of us in the band didn’t really have a set idea on how we wanted to sound individually and as a band. I mean, it was a bit of a gamble to incorporate a cello with distorted guitars and everything. We wanted, I mean, for the first album, we wanted cello to be an instrument that could be heard, but that can sometimes be hard to make a reality, depending on how you write the songs and all that. And that was a big difference until, with the new album, since we wrote most of the songs thinking of all these things specifically. And also, all of us pretty much knew more of what kind of sound we wanted individually and as a band. That’s probably one of the major, major differences.

Bill: How about, and those are good differences to remember, but is there, how about in the producer? You worked with In Flames’ producer this time around. How was he different from who produced your first album? What did he bring out?

Pontus: Pelle Saether was the producer for the first album, and Roberto Laghi was the one for the new album. Well, of course, everybody, I mean, everybody on this planet probably has a different approach to music.

Bill: [laughs]

Pontus: Of course, Pelle and Roberto have slightly different approaches to recording and how to reach a goal, so to speak. I mean, it feels like Pelle is a more traditional metal producer, while Roberto has done a lot of punk things, hard rock things, and other stuff like that as well. And he’s done a lot of metal. But hard to say, really. I’d have to give Roberto a huge credit for being an incredible communicator and he also had a lot of ideas going into the studio. It was really great working with him.

Bill: How about the cover art? That cover art is amazing. How did you hook up with Peter? Did he listen to your music and then make that, or did you pick that from his?

Pontus: Well, I think it’s, Peter is an old friend of Andy, our bass player.

Bill: Oh yeah.

Pontus: And Peter actually made the first cover as well.

Bill: Oh did he? Really, I never would have known that. Yeah.

Pontus: Yeah, he’s done both of our covers now. So basically, I think he might have heard some of the pre-production stuff, but it was a lot of, I mean us in the band discussed a lot of what kind of feeling we want to get out of the cover and what, it was basically an order of what we wanted on the cover, and then he pretty much made it a reality. And made it much better than we all ever anticipated. It was, we basically said what kind of elements we wanted in the picture.

Bill: Well, it’s a fantastic cover.

Pontus: He came very close on the first sketch. Perfect. [laughs]

Bill: Really? [laughs]

Pontus: Yeah.

Bill: That’s great.

Pontus: Have you heard of an American artist called Mark Ryden?

Bill: Oh yeah.

Pontus: It was, we just once in the process said his name and we were on the same wavelength already so to speak. He was all ready, yeah.

Bill: Yeah, it’s striking. It’s a memorable cover. That could be one of those covers of the year that everybody talks about for many years to come.

Pontus: That would be fun, yeah.

Bill: [laughs]

Pontus: I think it’s an excellent cover. I think it illustrates what’s on the album as well, quite well. I don’t know if you’ve seen the backside of it, because I mean, basically it’s a pretty big painting, the entire thing. And the amusement park goes around the back of the cover.

Bill: Oh, no I didn’t. So it’s like a gatefold, so the entire backside of that cover opens up to be one long sort of mural or painting.

Pontus: Exactly.

Bill: Oh yeah.

Pontus: And I mean, the backside of it goes darker and darker.

Bill: Really? [laughs]

Pontus: With less and less color. So the front side of the cover is all happy, well, happy in a dark way, but still.

Bill: Yeah.

Pontus: And the backside is more dark with small amounts of colors.

Bill: How were you familiar with Mark Ryden? I’m looking at some of his art right now and it’s very Alice-in-Wonderland with sort of a Tim-Burton twist to it. [laughs] You know?

Pontus: Yeah, that’s a good explanation for it.

Bill: Yeah.

Pontus: I think Mark Ryden’s done some really amazing stuff. I like the feeling of, there’s a darkness and a big scoop of I mean, amusement in it at the same time.

Bill: Oh yeah.

Pontus: And that’s something that really attracts me.

Bill: Well, let’s talk about the origin of DSO. I’ve read the MySpace synopsis. I’ve heard reports, I’ve read your Wikipedia entry. That whole story about your history and how you guys came together…that’s a work of fiction, right? [laughs] I mean, it’s a brilliant piece of writing. But that didn’t really happen, did it?

Pontus: Well, I don’t know. You’d have to look into the history books to be sure. But I mean, [laughs] of course.

Bill: [laughs]

PM: But it’s a pretty good story, though, isn’t it?

Bill: It’s a fantastic story, Pontus. [laughs] That’s great.

Pontus: I’m glad you enjoy it.

Bill: Well yeah. [laughs] Well, let me put it to you this way. Who in the band put that story together?

Pontus: Mostly the writing has been, no matter if it’s music or lyrics to the music, all that kind of writing is mostly done by Daniel.

Bill: Oh really?

Pontus: He’s the main lyricist for songs and stories so to speak.

Bill: So he has a fertile imagination?

Pontus: Yeah, I’d say so.

Bill: [laughs]

Pontus: I tried to contribute, but yeah, he’s by far the one that writes the most.

Bill: Well, it’s a fantastic story, and a very cool band. How did DSO come together? Can you tell me how you guys found each other?

Pontus: Well, oh, it’s, well there’s a, it’s a bit of a scattered story.

Bill: [laughs]

Pontus: I think we all have different stories that are kind of linked in different ways, where some of us know each other from way back, and some of us just met six or seven years ago. Well, we’ve all played together, well, some of us have played together in different combinations way back. So the actual DSO project started with me and Daniel. What year was that? Must be 2002, 2003.

Bill: Yeah, in your Wikipedia entry it says, “The band was formed in 2003.”

Pontus: Yeah, that’s it.

Bill: So you and Daniel are just kind of bopping around, you ‘re playing music. Did you just think, “You know what, let’s put together a really cool band, and we need these kind of people?”

Pontus: No. We kind of, mainly, I mean what kind of things make us tick? You know, what kind of instruments do we like, what kind of songs do we like, what kind of vocals do we like? And I mean, at the start, Daniel had a couple of songs put together where cello wasn’t really a thought-out part of it, but we kind of stumbled on Johannes. Because I knew him since quite way back, from where we grew up. And it just felt perfect when we tried it out. And, I mean, upper vocals, it was something that, at the time, we had never heard of, to tell you the truth, we had never heard of anything called opera metal until we actually thought of the idea. I mean, we’d heard Muse, both of us, and thought that, “Yeah, that sounds pretty cool.” He sings slightly operatic in some way, it felt, sort of. And we actually, I mean, Daniel’s grown up with opera vocals, I think his mom was a singer.

Bill: Oh really?

Pontus: So he probably thought most of mixing that, from being quite young, mixing that with hard rock elements, and spinning it together. It was actually after we recorded the first couple of demos that we heard of bands like Nightwish and bands like that.

Bill: Yeah. Those are the bands that like, if you look at your YouTube videos, a lot of people comment like, “Well, Annlouice sounds like Tarja.” Or, “Gee, she sounds like Floor Jansen.”

Pontus: Yeah.

Bill: When I listen to your first album, I hear that you’re combining things that you don’t normally hear. Like the Big Band Swing and metal. Or Spanish classical guitar and metal. Or this didgeridoo thing and sort of a Middle Eastern vibe. How did you guys decide to put all that together? Is that just the kind of music you enjoy listening to on your own?

Pontus: Well, I think it feels like a double question.

Bill: Yeah.

Pontus: But I’ll try to answer one part at a time. When it comes to inspiration, for me, I find most of my inspiration for this band in music and in genres that are quite far away from the band. Most of us in the band are probably like that. Of course, most, I mean more than half the band listen and have historically listened a lot to metal and those type of bands, but lately found more inspiration in swing bands or oriental and alternative bands, that kind of music. But when it comes to actually deliberately mixing, for me, I’ve, as long as I can remember, I’ve found a lot of interest in bands that have mixed genres. Subtly, I mean, in very small doses and in high doses as well. I can’t come to think of any examples right now.

Bill: Well, Opeth is a band that mixes a lot of styles, you know, from—

Pontus: Yeah. That’s one pretty popular band in this, but most also in the band feel it is a very interesting band. But historically I know I’ve listened to a lot of bands I’ve found to be very interesting, just because they’ve started to mix genres and in some way started a new genre just by doing that.

Bill: Well yeah, I know what you mean. I can hear that. You guys have a very fresh, unique sound. It’s fun to listen to. Tell me about your background. Is this your full-time job, by the way? Is music your full-time job, or do you have the so-called day job?

Pontus: Well, I have the so-called day job that’s kind of pretty closely, close to music. I work in a guitar shop.

Bill: Oh really? That’s great. [laughs]

Pontus: [laughs] One of the bigger guitar shops in Stockholm at the moment.

Bill: Do you get paid in guitars, then? Like a lot of people, when they work in a shop with the stuff they like end up spending all their salary on the merchandise. [laughs]

Pontus: [laughs] Unfortunately, I don’t think I could afford getting my pay in guitars. We don’t have enough gigs with Diablo Swing Orchestra yet to be able to do that. [laughs]

Bill: Yeah. [laughs]

Pontus: No. But it’s been a great contribution to my guitar playing, and I just, before this album, the shop they have is basically both acoustics, electrics, and we also have four luthiers, working, and building, repairing instruments.

Bill: Oh yeah.

Pontus: And just before the new album, I had a custom-made guitar made specifically.

Bill: Oh wow.

Pontus: Baritone guitar, just for this album, which I’m very pleased with. He’s an amazing guy that does it for me.

Bill: Oh, that’s fantastic. Do you have sort of a level of fame to where people walk into the shop and say, “Hey, aren’t you that guy in Diablo Swing Orchestra?” [laughs]

Pontus: No, it’s quite far from it, actually. In Sweden, we are practically unknown. It happened, ok, it happened maybe five times since I started a year and a half ago, that people have commented on the band in some way or a couple has recognized me. But no level of fame whatsoever.

Bill: [laughs]

Pontus: [laughs]

Bill: How long have you been a guitarist? When did you first get involved with music?

Pontus: Well, for me it was, I think I was 10 when I actually started to take lessons. It was like classical guitar for a couple years. My dad’s a kind of a troubadour guitar player, so I probably started playing a lot earlier than that. I mean, sitting on his lap just strumming the strings while he held the chords and stuff like that.

Bill: Oh really? [laughs]

Pontus: Yeah.

Bill: That’s great.

Pontus: I have some faint memories of doing that. But I was 10 when I actually started taking lessons, and I did that for about three years. And after that, it’s mainly—

Bill: Self-taught?

Pontus: Taught myself.

Bill: Yeah. Well, what is your goal as a band? Do you guys have the sky as the limit? Do you want to just tour the world and sell millions of albums, or would you be happy just kind of selling a few and living a comfortable life in Stockholm?

Pontus: Well, I think all of us in the band of course want to play more and expand in some ways. I think all of us looked very realistically when it comes to what visions we have and what goals we have and what goals we put out. All of us, well, almost all of us have daytime jobs or a couple of us study. I mean, so it’s something that you have to combine with this, and therefore you have to be quite realistic.

Bill: Oh yeah.

Pontus: And also, I mean, of course plan ahead quite a bit. So of course you have visions of expanding, but it always has to be somewhat realistic.

Bill: [laughs] Yeah.

Pontus: We are not 18 anymore. When you’re 18, you can probably leave everything and just go.

Bill: [laughs] Yeah. Well, how old are you now?

Pontus: Well for me, I’m 28. The band is around my age, plus or minus five years.

Bill: Yeah. Well, you’re still plenty young to [laughs] do what you want to do. You know?

Pontus: Yeah, definitely.

Bill: Tell me about your first album. It’s been around for quite a while now, two, three, about almost three years, I guess. Everybody’s kind of familiar with it. So I always like to ask musicians I interview to tell me what they remember most about recording each album. So, for your first album, what do you remember most about putting this album together?

Pontus: Well, it was memories from that time is for me, going in a car on and off from Västerås to where I lived in Hultsfred, a couple hours south of Stockholm, so it was like a four-hour drive.

Bill: Wow.

Pontus: I just met my wife, we weren’t married at the time, but we just met a couple of months prior to us starting to record, and she moved down to where I lived, just at the same time as we were gonna start recording. So it was basically she moved in, and I moved out, and then for close to three weeks, it was like, “Hi honey, bye honey, see you in a couple weeks.” [laughs]

Bill: [laughs]

Pontus: But apparently, it worked out fine, because she’s—

Bill: Still there, huh?

Pontus: She’s still here.

Bill: [laughs]

Pontus: And also, yeah, it was also some fun at that time. Daniel did a lot of driving as well. We were probably the ones that spent most of the time in the studio on that album. And Daniel lived in Stockholm, which is like one hour away. So he worked daytime and after work, he’d go to Västerås and spend a couple hours in the studio, go back to Stockholm, get up in the morning, go to work, and do that for quite a while.

Bill: When you think about putting that album together, recording the songs, was there one of them or a couple of them that gave you the most trouble, that you were just absolutely sick of [laughs] by the time you got it laid down? Or did they all come together pretty easily?

Pontus: Well, on the first album, you mean?

Bill: Yes.

Pontus: Yeah. Well, we have a couple. We had a lot of trouble with the lyrics on “Zodiac Virtues.” The verse was practically not finished until last possible moment.

Bill: Really?

Pontus: I mean, you always, for me I think there’s always been, you somehow go through that phase, and most of the songs there’s been at some point you…

This ends Part One of Bill’s interview with DSO guitarist Pontus Mantefors. The complete interview can only be found in the official (printed) ProgPower USA program given to all attendees. If you want to read the entire interview, you have to come to the show!

Final Note: All photos/images used to illustrate this interview are used in compliance with the principles of Fair Use. They illustrate reviews, opinions, and interviews with the band members who created the albums and on whose official web sites and MySpace pages some of these images reside. The photos of the band were e-mailed to Bill by Pontus Mantefors. Many thanks, Pontus! No copyright violations are intended.

Bill: Hi, this is Bill.

Jon: Hey Bill. This is Jon Drenning.

Bill: Hey, Jon, how are you?

Jon: Good, man. I apologize for missing your phone call earlier, but I didn’t, I wasn’t aware you had called me. I was out running errands and my phone didn’t get your call, and I didn’t see it until just now.

Bill: [laughs] That’s no problem whatsoever.

Jon: Alright.

Bill: I appreciate your time. I just have a couple of follow-ups, and one of them I mentioned in an e-mail that my wife said I should have asked you at the time. She’s right. Here’s the question: Given the situation with Roadrunner and Metal Mind and the fact that these albums of yours seem to be illegal bootlegs, how can fans support the music of Crimson Glory right now?

Jon: Well, that’s a good, [laughs] that’s a very good question. But I always tell the fans to do whatever they have to do to get the music they love. I mean, like I said to you earlier, I believe that when you record music, and you give it to the fans, it’s their gift. It’s something they’re given, and it becomes theirs in a lot of ways, and they become very attached to the music. So if you went out and got it, it’s the only one you have right now. But I will say that we are making plans to have all the records re-released properly, through proper channels, with the band’s consent. And so that way we get paid in the process of doing it. But we’re thinking about making a few of the things only available through the band’s website in the future. At least some of the official releases. I mean, in the future, fans will be able to get them, and not have to worry about where they’re getting them from, because everything will be legit.

Bill: So you guys thinking about setting up your own Crimson Glory label or imprint?

Jon: Yeah, well we’ve talked about this before in the past, particularly Jeff and myself have discussed this on several occasions about finding ways to get our material to the fans through the band, so things are done properly, the band is compensated properly. We just want to get a better feeling out of the whole process, because it’s been a sour taste in our mouths for a long time, because of what the record company’s been doing to us. It’s very unfortunate.

Bill: Yeah.

Jon: Because had things not been this way, I’m sure we would have made more records. But why keep making music for somebody to keep stealing from you? It’s very disheartening.

Bill: Yeah.

Jon: And so you find other things to do in life that interest you. I have many interests in life, and I love music. I would prefer to do that. I would prefer to write and record, and sell records more than anything. But it does get very frustrating for myself and the rest of the guys in the band, knowing that every time we do something, somebody’s stealing from us.

Bill: The response from the fans is like, “Wow, we had no idea you guys had this kind of trouble.” So they’re dismayed as well as you are, because now they’ve got all these CDs in their hands, and they’re thinking, “Shit, [laughs] I’m ripping off one of my favorite bands.”

Jon: Yeah, we have no way of telling how many records have been sold, without proper audits and things. But obviously, the band’s longevity is a testament that there must have been lots of records sold over the years for the band to sustain a career as long as we have. We had to be selling records on a continuous basis. I mean, not only to our die-hard fans from years gone past, but meeting new fans that have discovered the band over the years.

Bill: Yep.

Jon: So trying to track all those sales down is going to be a very difficult task, indeed. However, it’s something that has to be done, and we plan on doing that through the proper channels and with the proper legal representation here in the States and abroad.

Bill: Another question I wanted to ask you last time was about you as a guitarist.

Jon: Sure.

Bill: What made you first pick up the guitar? Was it a song, an album?

Jon: [laughs} I would say, as a young boy, I found my mother’s—I must have been five years old or so—I found a little suitcase, an old suitcase full of 45 records. And there was just lots of albums from like, Elvis Priestley and The Beatles, my mother was a big Beatles fan, big Elvis Priestly fan. So that was probably what really got me excited, putting those 45 records on a turntable and learning how to play those records listening to the music that came out of this little old speaker.

Bill: [laughs]

Jon: And then I discovered LPs, and my mother really turned me on to rock and roll at a very young age. She was a rock-and-roll hippie.

Bill: Yeah. [laughs]

Jon: And that was our religion, music. Around the house, every night was a party. That’s basically what the hippies did. Every night was a reason to party.

Bill: [laughs]

Jon: So I went to bed every night with Santana playing in the background, Grand Funk Railroad, Jimi Hendrix and The Doors, and like Three Dog Night, and Robin Trower. A lot of cool ‘70s, you can call it acid rock, whatever you want to call it. And still, it was soon thereafter, I became a percussionist. I started banging on things, as a young boy would, sort of banging on the pots and pans and desks with your spoons and forks and knives.

Bill: [laughs]

Jon: And I wanted to play drums at first. It was when I got into grade school, I started, I went to a concert. My mother took me to a rock concert at age five. My first concert was, let me think, Joe Cocker.

Bill: Wow, was it really? [laughs] Yeah.

Jon: Yeah. Joe Cocker was my first concert at age five in Cleveland, OH. And then soon thereafter I started going to see other concerts, the list is endless. She took me to see Ted Nugent or we went and saw KISS or went and saw Peter Frampton or Cheap Trick, Robin Trower.

Bill: Yep.

Jon: A lot of those bands from that era. It wasn’t until I saw KISS though, that I really got excited about playing guitar. Seeing Ace Frehley shred his guitar, have his guitar have fire and smoke flying out of it.

Bill: [laughs]

Jon: That was pretty impressive. I was about 12 years old at that time, I was about 12, it was about 1976. So I was pretty, at a very strong, impressionable age at the KISS shows, so in some ways I think they had a big influence on me, maybe even the image of Crimson Glory. It was probably Dynasty, right around Dynasty, it was right after that. I saw them on the Dynasty tour the first time.

Bill: Yeah, that was probably ‘79ish or so.

Jon: Yeah, yeah.

Bill: You’re mentioning a wide variety of guitarists here, from Mark Farner to Ace Frehley to Robin Trower. A lot of these guys, like Mark Farner, are not necessarily known for being a great guitarist. But they created great riffs and cool music.

Jon: Those are the musicians that their music inspired me. As far as guitar players that really inspired me, it wasn’t until, it was Jimi Hendrix, listening to “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

Bill: Oh yeah, from Woodstock.

Jon: That was my first real experience to electric guitar, and it really blew me away. I had, my mother owned the Woodstock album, it was like the triple-gated album. I remember it folding open really big. And I remember playing “The Star-Spangled Banner” all the time, because I was just blown away that that was “The Star-Spangled Banner.” I used to sing it, we used to go to school and sing it.

Bill: Yeah. [laughs]

Jon: But to hear an electric guitar play it like that with that kind of feedback and distortion and craziness, it was like, it just blew me away. It was just like, otherworldly. That’s when, I really thought Jimi Hendrix was from another planet, because it was nothing like what we sing like in school.

Bill: I think he thought he was too. [laughs]

Jon: Yeah. And then soon after, I discovered Eddie Van Halen, he was a big influence on me early on. Of course, Randy Rhoads, he was one of my idols. I loved Randy Rhoads’ style of playing. He was so fluid. Uli Roth is like the grand master to me. He’s like the Gandalf of metal. He’s like the wizard to me. Uli Roth is probably one of the greatest, most unappreciated guitar players in history. To hear him, and to watch him play, I had the good fortune of actually seeing him play in Switzerland once, on the G3 tour, and Dave Van Landing, who was the Crimson Glory vocalist for the Strange and Beautiful tour, he was singing with Michael Schenker, and so I was invited as a guest to get to hang out with Uli for the first time. And I remember walking up to Uli Roth and telling him what a fan I was of his, how impressed I was with his style. And then when he found out what band I was in, he was like, “Oh, well, you’re not so bad yourself, Jon.”

Bill: [laughs]

Jon: I was like, “Well, let’s don’t fool each other. What you do is like, beyond my capabilities, trust me.” So I was always so blown away with Uli’s style. And people like Yngwie, of course, who I later discovered. But to me, Uli was the guy who really inspired me more. I mean, Yngwie is a fantastic guitar player, but I liked Uli’s combination of blues and classical mixture. To me, Uli was cosmic. He was a cosmic guitar player. I loved that. The other guitar player who really inspired me is Michael Schenker. I love Michael Schenker’s melody, and I love his tone, I love the way he phrases, just so beautiful and eloquent on the guitar. To me, he’s like the Eric Clapton of metal. And then you have, and I’ve really, really appreciated Neal Schon from Journey. I love Neal Schon’s style. I love the way he made the guitar sing. I loved his sense of melody and his tone as well. I always thought he had great, memorable guitar solos. So you can see, from Jimi Hendrix, to Eddie Van Halen, to Randy Rhoads, and Uli Rock, and Michael Schenker, and Neal Schon is where Jon Drenning got most of his influence from.

Bill: That reminds of the your solo on the extra CD on the Astronomica album. You rip a killer solo. I forgot which song that was.

Jon: I think that solo is off the song “Dragon Lady.”

Bill: Yep, that’s it.

Jon: Yeah, it was inspired by Randy Rhoads too.

Bill: The guitarists you mention have a wide style, a wide range. In your own playing, do you find it harder for you to play just ripping stuff, where your fingers are flying? Or do you find it more difficult to play slower, more emotional solos?

Jon: Well, it’s always more difficult to play less notes than it is to play more notes.

Bill: [laughs] Yeah.

Jon: It’s the same thing for drummers as well. A lot of drummers can really have amazing chops, but you take away all those chops and strip them down to just the beat, and then they’re lost. Same thing is for guitar players. It’s not the notes that makes the music, it’s the space between the notes that makes the music.

Bill: Yeah, very well put. I used to be friends with Ian McDonald of Foreigner. And he and I used to have discussions about the best drummers. And I would say, “Neil Peart or Mike Portnoy.” And he would say, “You know who the best drummer is, Bill?” I’d say, “No, who?” And he’d say, “Ringo Starr.”

Jon: Oh wow.

Bill: I said, “You’re shittin’ me. The guy’s a metronome.” He said, “That’s exactly what a drummer’s supposed to be.” [laughs]

Jon: Yeah. Well, sometimes Ringo Starr got a bad rap, because he wasn’t that accomplished. But I listen back to the old Beatles records, I hear some very interesting drum parts that are very unorthodox and different than what people, what most drummers would have played, just straight. And what Ringo did was very different. I’m not sure if it was Ringo, mainly, doing it, or if it was Paul McCartney’s influence on Ringo. A lot of times, Paul McCartney played drums on a lot of those old songs. Paul was a very accomplished musician. He played a lot of different instruments with the band. But as far as drummers go, I’ve always liked drummers that had a just great feel, great pocket, guys that can just lay down a groove that like nobody’s business. Having all the extra flash and chops is really cool when applied appropriately. Neil Peart’s one of those guys who can really play a lot of notes and still have a groove and still keep you in the pocket because it never goes away. I’m always impressed with that, with Neil’s ability to do that. For guitar players, same thing. As a young boy, I was really impressed with the guys that played fast, like Yngwie Malmsteen. But as you become more of a seasoned guitarist and musician, you start discovering that less notes can be just as much or more than a lot of notes. And it takes more talent and more grace and more skill to play with less notes and make it sound so well. Which is where guitar players like Eric Clapton, or I love Michael Schenker, with his phrasing, he can blow as good as anybody, but I just love the notes he doesn’t play, and the phrasings that he puts in.

Bill: Oh yeah.

Jon: That’s what gets me turned on, to hear guitar players. Give me somebody that sings me a melody that I can’t forget. I always come back to that: The melody must sustain the song. Attitude can only go so far.

Bill: [laughs] Yeah. I’ve got two questions, then I’ll let you go, and one of them happens to be about guitarists. Those were some phenomenal musicians, no doubt about it. What guitarists nowadays would you recommend that a new guitarist listen to?

Jon: Well, I have to be completely honest with you, Bill. I haven’t been listening to too many guitar players. When you find some of your favorites that have been so good to me, I appreciate so much, I probably just stuck with those, with the best of the best.

Bill: Yeah, I agree with you.

Jon: I mean, there’s a lot of great guitar players out there that have a lot of great chops. There’s a lot of guys out there that have a lot of good technical ability, but I still, when I want to listen to guitar players, I’ll go back to some of my favorites. I’d rather listen to a Neal Schon solo record than a lot of the guitar players today.

Bill: This is the last question I’ll ask you. It has to do with how you’ve grown over the years. You’ve been doing this for 25 years. In that time, what would you say you’ve made the biggest improvement in? Is it the guitar playing, the producing, just knowing the business side of things? What would you say is your biggest improvement?

Jon: Well, as a musician, you want to learn from your past mistakes and you try to get better in all areas, and all facets of being a musician, and a guitar player and a businessman. But I really like the production end of things. I’ve learned a lot in the studio as a producer. I’ve learned a lot about what songs you can use and what songs don’t need, and how to say more with less. And so, as a producer, I think I’ve grown more than anything. Also, my ability to communicate with others, other musicians, because when I was younger, I was so headstrong. I mean, it was my way, or I would just close my ears.

Bill: [laughs] Yeah.

Jon: I could be very difficult as well in the band. Midnight and myself, we always were going back at each other all the time, because we had very distinct ideas sometimes, and we would go back and forth, what was the right way. Most times we would find a way to make them both work. But nowadays I’m more open minded to others’ ideas, and to try other people’s suggestions and other people’s ideas than I was when I was younger. So in that regard, I think I’m a better band member now than ever, too.

Bill: Yep. Well, I definitely appreciate your follow up. And as I mentioned in an email, I was really moved by our interview the other day. It seems like you ought to be writing some sort of inspirational tome or book, something. You’ve got a lot to say that I think could help a lot of people.

Jon: Well, I know that with the 25th anniversary of Crimson Glory coming up, we had discussed about like, doing an autobiography on the band and about a lot of the interesting stories behind the band.

Bill: Oh yeah.

Jon: There’s a lot of questions about how things got started and what influenced us and stuff, and how we all came together. We discussed some of these things in the interview, but there’s just so much more still to tell. And there’s a lot of wonderful stories to tell.

Bill: I think you should. That’d be a book I would love to read, that’s for sure.

Jon: Well, we’ll see. Yeah. I think that would be really nice. We’ll see. 25th anniversary, we’ve got a lot on the table, a lot on the plate right now that we want to do, so we’re trying to like, formulate a game plan. We have a lot of different products we want to release, there’s a couple we discussed, re-releasing a live DVD of Midnight back in the heyday that’s never been properly released, in high-definition format and excellent sound quality. We have a new DVD we’re planning on doing at ProgPower this year. We have a lot of unreleased material that we want to put on the re-releases. We have new re-masters or properly re-mastered, not those versions from Poland.

Bill: [laughs] Yeah.

Jon: [laughs] And these are re-masters that I, myself, oversaw.

Bill: Yep.

Jon: With the original mastering engineer. So those are done the proper way, and they sound, I have to say, they do sound amazing. They sound as good today as they ever did, and much better. We made it much warmer and richer and fatter overall. I think people are going to be very pleased with the sound.

Bill: Oh man.

Jon: Obviously, and the icing on the cake is a new Crimson Glory record, and that’s something that Jack and myself have discussed on several occasions, and that’s really where the band wants to go. We see ourselves going forward with new material, and we have a bunch of ideas and how we wanted to approach that, and that’s something that we plan on doing for sure. So I think the fans, it’ll be worth the wait. They’re going to get something really special coming up here.

This ends Bill’s follow-up interview with Jon Drenning. Remember: To read the entire interview (excluding this follow-up), you need to attend ProgPower USA X and get the official printed program!

Greg: How’s everything?

Sean: Everything is good. Just another day in sunny San Diego, down by the beach.

Greg: Oh, that’s beautiful. Well first of all, thanks for taking time out of your day and for being flexible at the last moment (I had to push back the interview one hour, at the last moment).

Sean: Well, there’s nothing I like more than talking about myself. (mutual laughter)

Greg: That’s cool… because this is the perfect format for that. Why don’t you start off by talking about your music. For someone heading to ProgPower, who hasn’t heard of CAGE, how would you describe your sound and which of your albums would you point them to?

Sean: Our music is somewhere between Heavy Metal and Power Metal. We’ve kind of adopted the Power Metal moniker as we’ve gone along, just because the speed and intensity has increased as we’ve continued to write. But basically, we grew up during the Heavy Metal heyday of JUDAS PRIEST, IRON MAIDEN, OZZY, SCORPIONS, TESTAMENT, early CRIMSON GLORY, SAVATAGE, bands like WASP and even DOKKEN, with the Hard Rock stuff, and KING DIAMOND and METAL CHURCH. Just took all those influences and formed an amalgamation; just taking what I think are the best parts of all that stuff and put it into a band that’s got their own signature sound, that doesn’t sound like a copycat. And really focus on writing good, good, songs. That’s kind of what the goal is. We’re all Heavy Metal fans, that’s kind of why we did the band. So the policy for writing songs is; as a Metal fan, what would I want to listen to and how would it make me feel at the concert? Pointing to the albums, the very first album we were voted, by Rock Hard Magazine Europe, best new band of the year. Out of like a thousand bands. So we started at a very high level, and the critics have told us that every album has gotten better and better and that our current album, Science of Annihilation, is the best one. I would point them to the new album, because at least that’s the one the critics and fans believe is the best so far.

Greg: Perfect. So I was reading your bio, and it said that hearing Ozzy’s “You Can’t Kill Rock n Roll” was something of a seminal moment for you. Why do you think that song, or what about that song, had such an impact on you?

Sean: You know, the truth is, I was kind of a late bloomer on Metal. I was a guy who was into FLOCK OF SEAGULLS, DURAN-DURAN, friggin BLONDIE and stuff. I was living in Alaska at the time, and I had a lot of friends, of course, who were into Metal. And I came down to visit some friends in California and they were like, “Dude you gotta hear this Ozzy album.” And I’m like, “Ozzy? This stuff’s crazy.” It was one of those songs, where I listened to it over and over. That really got the ball rolling. Something about the melody and the power of that track. Something magical about it. And the Randy Rhoads factor. The first JUDAS PRIEST album I got into was “Defenders of the Faith”, that’s how late of a bloomer I was. But it’s cool when you discover a band like this and you find out they have eight other albums.

Greg: So as you began to develop as a vocalist, I would assume Rob Halford and King Diamond were two of the vocalists you drew a fair amount of influence from. Who would say are some of the less obvious influences that impacted your style?

Sean: Well King Diamond didn’t come around till much later. I didn’t discover him until the friggin “Abigail” album. I didn’t have a clue who MERCIFUL FATE was or anything like that. But, you know, it was Dickinson, Halford, early QUEENSRYCHE, even some of the Hard Rock vocalists. Just singing along to songs.

I started out singing as a Metal fan, you know with posters on the wall, air-guitaring around my bedroom, and trying to hit the notes. Then I moved from Alaska to California, to go to college in San Diego, and there was this band playing “The Trooper” who didn’t have a singer. So, I grabbed this little Radio Shack microphone with like a two foot cord and that was the start of my singing career.

The less known influences would be, once I discovered them, the first few CRIMSON GLORY albums… hearing Midnight sing was awesome. I dug the KING DIAMOND stuff, just because of the vocal melodies and the different voices that he uses. I always try to take that approach. Especially when you do records you kind of take a different vocal approach on each song, so the singer doesn’t sound monotonous. Early Savage… I like that stuff. Just the stuff I like to rock to, I would just sing along to it, no matter who was singing. But Halford is probably the biggest one.

Greg: Have you had any formal vocal training?

Sean: Not really. I took a couple of classes at San Diego State, but that was for singing friggin’ Broadway tunes. I don’t know if that really trained me for anything. That was just an easy A. I did go to this vocal instructor who was featured in People magazine, her name was (Elizabeth) Sabine. I spent one day with her. She had taught a bunch of… (Ron) Keel… a bunch of Metal singers, back in the day, how to scream and stuff. She had a real interesting, different approach on the voice; on how the human body was constructed kind like a stereo speaker coil, that the voice was electro-magnetic thing… and how breathing was not as much of a factor as traditional teaching made it out to be. Besides that, it’s been learning on my own. The key to singing, to me, is finding your own identifiable tone so that when people hear you they instantly go… like Ozzy, you hear him sing and you go, “That’s Ozzy.” Or Sting or somebody, you instantly know who it is just by the sound of their voice. And I think I’ve managed, luckily, to get that. And I think it’s a real gift to the great singers, especially in Metal.

Greg: So here’s something I learned while prepping for this interview… I think I’ve owned “Darker Than Black” since I saw you at BW & BK in Cleveland, but I was unaware that some people would describe you as a Christian Metal band. Do you think that’s an accurate description or too broad a generalization?

Sean: What’s funny is, some of the Christian Metal fans question whether we’re a Christian band, and the non-Christian, secular fans accuse us of being a Christian band.

Greg: So rather than getting kudos from both audiences, you’re getting crap from both?

Sean: Well… we’re getting a lot of support from both really. We’ve always hinted through our albums that the light always seems to prevail but darkness is always hovering around. With the “Hell Destroyer” album, the Christian fans really gravitated to that album because it was heavily based on (the book of) Revelation. And it was meant to lay a heavy trip on people.

Greg: I had read that it was based on the Book of Revelation. Was there something specific that inspired you to write on that subject?

Sean: Well, I’m always interested in religious prophecy and conspiracy. I had a pretty profound event that happened in my life, that provided me with some empirical evidence that there are spirit… there is a spiritual plane. I witnessed, whether it was an angel or an apparition, face to face with my wife at the same time. So it wasn’t just me seeing some blob of light in the corner. Me and her both saw this thing… completely detailed, like when the ghosts came out of the Ark of the Covenant, in “The Raiders of the Lost Ark”. That’s the closest explanation I can give. So just like when someone sees an alien spacecraft… They can try to convince people, but when you’ve seen something with your own two eyes, especially having another person there to corroborate it… Some people have to rely only on faith for that kind of thing. But when you have that kind of experience, now you’ve seen something. You don’t have to rely completely on faith that there’s something else going on. That definitely had a profound effect on me, on my personal spirituality.

But first and foremost, we’re just a Metal band. The new album didn’t really have a whole lot of Christian themes to it. Because we always have to keep it interesting for the Metal fans. We all happen to be Christians in the band, but that’s not necessarily the number one driving force of the band. To me, it’s not a bad thing. All the Satanic imagery in Metal is so cliché and retarded to me. Sometimes it’s refreshing, especially with the cover of the “Hell Destroyer” album, to show the other side and make god’s warriors look even more bad-ass than the satanic stuff.

Greg: So “Hell Destroyer” is obviously a concept album. I’m curious, did you find the boundaries that a concept album constructs more useful, in that it kept the songwriting process focused, or more restrictive, in that it created artificial boundaries?

Sean: I thought it was a lot easier for me. I’m a big comic book… nerd as it is. Originally, it was going to be a full comic book. We had it storyboarded out. Anyone who has it knows it’s a 30- page Heavy Metal graphic novel. There are images drawn out for each song and an extra paragraph of text describing the story, as if you’re reading a book. So there was a lot to it. We actually had a working video game for it, where you’re flying a Hell Destroyer around shooting demons out of the sky. So there were some big, big plans to it. It was also almost an 80-minute album. It’s almost like two records… super huge. But creating the story, once I floated the idea out to the guys, they were fully down with it. It was real easy just to keep writing it.

When we planned to do a concept album, I’m like, what’s the ultimate concept… let’s just take good vs. evil and close the book on it. We started at the crucifixion of Christ and ended 100 years past the apocalypse, so we covered it all. It felt real good to get that out of our system.

Greg: So you mentioned San Diego earlier, which is where the band is from. Is there much of a Metal scene in San Diego? Either when you were starting out or now?

Sean: Now there’s a real good Metal scene in San Diego. The cool thing now is the kids are really into it. We play a lot of all-ages shows. We play with Screamo bands and Death Metal bands and then we get up there and do our things. These kids, their jaws hit the floor. They run up to the front and they’re banging their heads for the full set. They’re buying the shirts. I pick my sixteen year old up from school and there are kids walking around with CAGE shirts.

Greg: Very cool.

Sean: Super cool. Yeah… the scene in San Diego is great. I think it’s better than the L.A. Metal scene. People here aren’t afraid to rock… crowd-wise… really go for it. In L.A. someone always has a claim to fame and is looking at you with a skeptical eye it seems. I’ll defend the San Diego Metal scene all day long. Part of the secret to our success… We started the band in ’92, when Grunge was taking over and all these Metal bands were abandoning Metal and trying to chase a trend. We became, virtually, the only Metal band left in San Diego. Because of that, we got to open up, at an early stage of our career, for everybody. Even a band like GREAT WHITE when they would come through. They draw 1,000 people. For a band like us, that really wasn’t that good back then, it was a great opportunity to get exposure and also learn how to be a good live band in front of a big crowd like that. Eventually, as the years went on, we were opening for MAIDEN, PRIEST, DIO… all those legends who you grew up with their poster on the well. So it was a dream come true and definitely a major accomplishment. It also allowed us, early in our career, to really hone in on what it took to be an amazing live act; how to control the crowd and how to keep the Metal vibe alive or create it if you start out at a dead spot. The other bands in San Diego hated us for years because we got every opening friggin’ gig that there was. So we were pretty well hated in town because “why does CAGE always get those shows?” But, that’s just how it goes.

Greg: So you mentioned the legends. I heard in a recent audio interview you gave, where you turned the question around on the interviewer and asked him if he thought there would ever be another MAIDEN or PRIEST. So let me throw that back to you… do you think the scene will ever get there again?

Sean: Well, of course our ultimate goal, we would love to be that band. I’m super skeptical. I don’t think there’s ever going to be another… I mean, you’ve got METALLICA, but I think they’re kind of a different situation than what PRIEST and MAIDEN are. Who’s on the landscape that could capture that kind of excitement and that kind of magic? I don’t know. I think the genre is more healthy now because I think the roots are so deep now. Metal will never be uncool again. This is based on what I’m seeing from the kids. I’m really skeptical that there will be someone else. I think CAGE has got the blueprint for it… we do what we do live, we kind of sound like that style. But it’s been a long, slow road. We’re not in it for the fame, we’re in it for the love of Metal and the feeling that it gives us; sharing the experience with the fans. I’m just real skeptical that we’ll ever see that. It may just fade off, where there’s just a bunch of mid-level bands in the genre, but no one who will ever be a MAIDEN or a PRIEST.

Greg: Do you think it would even be good for the genre? It seems you can pretty easily correlate Metal’s demise creatively with its rise in popularity.

Sean: I think it would be nice to have a couple of classic Metal bands have a good hot buzz where they’re doing some arena Metal type stuff. That was the fun thing for me; pulling up to the L.A. parking lot at the Long Beach arena for the MAIDEN concert. Everyone in the parking lot partying. MAIDEN cranking out of every car. New, young bands passing out flyers. To me that was really a lot of the buzz and the excitement. You know, lots of girls at the shows. That’s why, when the Glam Metal thing was happening, the guys went; because there was a bunch of hot chicks at the shows. That’s why I’d go to the CINDERELLA concert. Yeah, the music was cool, but there was also a lot of girls. I think it would be healthy to get a few more big, big acts. But, like I said, the genre… I think the roots are deeper in the classic Prog / Power genre, where there’s a deep-rooted appreciation for the style of music and there’s probably more bands in this kind of scene than there ever has been. Just not the “next big thing”.

Greg: So we talked a bit about “Hell Destroyer”, let’s talk a bit about the new album, “Science of Annihilation”. First off, will you be doing any touring in the U.S. to support it?

Sean: We’re going to play Tampa before ProgPower. Then we’re going to play ProgPower. Then we’re going to do two shows in New York, which is the first time we’ve ever played New York. So we’re real excited about that because we went for years and years with people going, “When you gonna play New York?” So that’s finally going to happen. And then we’ve got some Mexico stuff we’re going to do, because Mexicans are some of the greatest fans in the world for CAGE.

Greg: Really?

Sean: Our new DVD coming out is a show from Monterrey, Mexico. I’ll put the Mexico fans up against even the European fans anytime. We’ve had some amazing experiences down there. We just did Vegas, we did Phoenix, we just did three weeks in Europe. But, we’re probably not going to do a full U.S. tour unless the situation is right.

It’s getting more and more healthy for CAGE. We’re enjoying more success than we ever have before. We’ve probably sacrificed some publicity and being further along in popularity and success for real successful personal lives. Everyone in the band owns a home and has a family and has a good career outside of music. So we’ve been able to not have to sacrifice a real prosperous lifestyle for the band, which a lot of people do and that’s definitely cost us. I get e-mail like, “I don’t understand how you guys aren’t just huge”, you know, we get that like every day; especially when people see the live performance. And people actually get pissed off about it. But there’s nothing you can do.

We’re happy to get the opportunities we get, and now we’re starting to get offered a decent amount of money to play and that makes things more and more possible. We were able to do our first European tour ever because we got a good offer from the Elements of Rock festival which was a Christian festival that we headlined. Then we did a headlining tour from that, to support the new record and that really got us a lot further. If we could have toured for every album I’m sure we’d be way further down the line. It’s our fifth record and we just did our first real tour. So it’s definitely a factor, but you know how it is for all the bands, it’s economics primarily.

Greg: So you mentioned you have a DVD coming out, what is the release date on that?

Sean: We’re hoping to have it out by the end of the year. Most of it’s done, we’re just filming little “Cribs” episodes, they’re pretty funny… fuck around the house, showing our junky cars, instead of a Mercedes. So we’re putting that stuff together. But the concert footage is pretty much done. And just by the end of the year, we’re hoping to get it out. But there’s still a lot of buzz on the “Science of Annihilation” album, that’s still selling really well.

Greg: So on the topic of the “Science of Annihilation” album, how would you say it compares or differs from your previous releases?

Sean: Well it’s definitely like I said. We’ve been critically acclaimed to have turned the notch up and have a better and better album each time. I can’t even think of a band that’s put out five albums; started at such a high point and then been able to make their album legitimately the best one five times in a row. Again, the emphasis is on songwriting.

The thing that’s different about this record is…

This ends Part One of Greg’s interview with Cage vocalist Sean Peck. The complete interview can only be found in the official (printed) ProgPower USA program given to all attendees. If you want to read the entire interview, you have to come to the show!

Final Note: All photos/images used to illustrate this interview are used in compliance with the principles of Fair Use. They illustrate reviews, opinions, and interviews with the band members who created the albums and on whose official web sites and MySpace pages some of these images reside. The photos of the band are borrowed from the band’s official web site. No copyright violations are intended.

Greg: Hi, Pär this is Greg from Prog Power. I appreciate you taking time out to talk to me

Pär: This time you reached me. It’s cool… as I told you we’re making preparations for our ten year anniversary show.

Greg: This Sunday, right?

Pär: Today we are celebrating 10 years. We are making preparations, renting the space, stuff like that. We are not doing it like only SABATON is playing a concert. We’ve booked a quite big outdoor space and two stages and we are making an open-air festival out of it.

Greg: Oh wow… how many people will attend?

Pär: I think 3,000.

Greg: Wow… that’s nice… that’s very nice.

Pär: Yeah that’s pretty good. It’s a small, small city. People are traveling from more than ten countries to see us, so. It will be an international event, our SABATON Ten Year Anniversary Party!

Greg: Sounds like a great party… I wish I was going. Hey, I know you guys were at Sweden Rock and you performed the national anthem… is that right?

Pär: Yeah we did. At Sweden Rock Festival last weekend.

Greg: Is it kind of weird, getting up to do one song like that? Strapping on all your gear, getting in front of a crazy audience and then walking off stage without doing a whole performance?

Pär: Yeah… it is kinda weird. But we didn’t only do the National Anthem. Well all the stuff was rigged so we had, of course, to play at least one song.

Greg: I actually saw you guys at Sweden Rock in 2008 and I have to say it was quite an enjoyable performance.

Pär: Yeah? Cool. It was a very well-attended concert. And I still think we are holding the record of the number of people watching a concert on that stage at Sweden Rock, at the moment.

Greg: The audience was huge for that show… it was impressive. And it seemed like your label was giving you a really big push. I remember they were doing quite a bit of promotion for “The Art of War”.

Pär: Well… that was also arranged by, sort of, ourselves; in cooperation with the festival and also our record label.

Greg: So to begin, I was trying to find out on your website and on Wikipedia, how SABATON was formed, but was unable to find any back story. Can you talk a little bit about how SABATON was formed?

Pär: Well, then I have to go back a little bit, also, before we formed SABATON; because I played with the drummer, Daniel Mullback. There were four long-haired guys in the school and we decided we were the only head-bangers in the school, we should have a band. Everybody who have a long hair must have a band. So, we start a band, a Heavy Metal band but not very many of us knew how to play any instrument. Daniel Mullback knew how to play drums, but that was all. So three of us either hooked up with guitars or bass and somebody picked up a microphone and then we just formed a band and started playing Heavy Metal. And I stayed together with Daniel Mullback a long, long time; even after this first band was laid down forever to rest.

Then I didn’t search for a new band or anything. Somehow, I came along with Rickard (Sunden). He was like, “You and me should start a band. Let’s do it. Let’s party.” We did and we hooked up with my old comrade Daniel Mullback. We found another guitar player, also. We did some rehearsals… no shows. And it sounded like crap. We thought well we aren’t good enough to do anything, but we still thought it was funny.

Then at one party, we found this guy Joakim Broden. He said “I can play church organ, but I still wanna be in a Heavy Metal band”. Well, we don’t have a space for a church organ in the band and I don’t think that’s the kind of music we wanna play. He said, “Well I possibly could play anything with a keyboard, I think”.

Well, whatever. It can’t get any worse. (mutual laughter)

He came to the rehearsal place with the worstest, crappiest keyboard we ever saw. He started playing. It didn’t sound very good. He had skills, absolutely, but we had no idea of the sounds or anything… it was crazy. But, in awhile he came up and showed us, “Well I also wrote these songs, guys.” We realized that this guy could write songs… we couldn’t. He said “OK, let’s play all your songs, now” but we didn’t have a thing.

We were looking for a singer. And for the first time now we had, actually, some songs. When we booked the first gig, we still had no singer, so Joakim said “well, maybe I should try.” He tried and it didn’t sound very well. It sounded like “Whoa! This guy has absolutely no idea what he’s fucking doing”, but it sounds kinda cool, anyway. (mutual laughter)

So Joakim became the lead singer of the band until we found somebody better. And we still haven’t found a better singer. Now Joakim has grown over the past 10 years into a real professional singer. In the beginning he had never touched a microphone, and now he’s a professional singer. So he evolved, as others also evolved. In the beginning, basically none of us knew how to handle our instruments. Now, we know much better. (laughter)

Greg: That’s pretty interesting.

Pär: That’s the story of how we came together. On the first concert that counts as a SABATON concert, one of the guitar players couldn’t play because he hurt his arm. So we asked Oskar Montelius can you do this concert with us. He was fitting perfectly into the band so we decided he is a full-time member. Then we were the full band and that was ten years ago, on the 12th of December.

Greg: That’s a pretty cool story. Let me ask you this… I would expect that almost everyone who’s into Metal is aware of SABATON. However, for those who still may not have heard your sound, how would you describe yourselves?

Pär: Oh. It’s of course very difficult to describe your own music. There’s a lot of people that say it’s Power Metal. And Power Metal can sound very different. I mean, considering what typical people think Power Metal is; high-pitched vocalist and fast double bass drums. That’s not really what SABATON is playing. We don’t have high pitched vocals. It’s more rougher vocals. We also don’t use the double bass drum in every song. So I can say it’s a sort of Power Metal but more rough.

Greg: Looking at the band profiles on your website, it looks like most of the guys, with the possible exception of Daniel, were all raised on 80’s Metal, but I don’t hear a lot of that in your music. Do you hear it? Do you feel those 80’s influences are present or do you think your sound is more modern?

Pär: I think definitely our sound is more modern. I mean, the riffs and the ideas mostly come from kind of old school bands. It is mostly what we listened to, so the inspiration must come from there. But, then, we don’t want to stay in the past; try to copy something that was made twenty years before. We want to make something that is for today. That’s why we try to evolve sound-wise with the choruses and sing-along anthems with several harmonies… all this.

Greg: So let’s talk a little bit about your lyrics. Your lyrics are probably one of the things that define the band. And it’s also kind of unique to the genre, in that you don’t see a lot of bands that play a style similar to SABATON, who have a reoccurring theme to their lyrics. Was the theme of history, specifically of war, something that evolved over time or did you just say, “this fits” and go with it?

Pär: The story how it started was… when we wrote the song ”Primo Victoria”, we were in the studio and we had just recorded the song ”Primo Victoria” musically. We had no lyrics for the song and no idea what to sing about. So, we sit down and we listen to the song, over and over again and we think what do we see? What do we feel? What pictures comes to our minds? Well, something grand, something quite big.

And then we see the movie “Saving Private Ryan” and we said this is exactly what this song is about. We wrote the lyrics, inspired by the movie and then we sit there and think, “Well, this was interesting. It was a cool thing to write about.” Let’s start brainstorming what other events we could possibly write songs about. We came up with lots and lots and lots of ideas. So, OK, let’s do some research and see.

It turned out to be much more fun and interesting than to write the lyrics for, for example the album “Metalizer”, which is basically typical Heavy Metal themes. Just the regular Heavy Metal stuff… let’s party and have a fun time or whatever. The songs “Metal Crew” and “Metal Machine” on the album – they are different but they also represent the kind of SABATON that we want to show people; because we are a party band. We sing of terrible things, like people are fighting and dying for sometimes lost causes. Then we make these songs to remind the people that we are not crazy war heretics. We are in the end a party Heavy Metal band.

Greg: It’s funny. I think you just answered my next question. I was going to ask you about those two songs and ask if that’s the reason they were on those CDs… so thank you. (mutual laughter)

So do you find now, that having this theme or this image almost makes it easier because you can say, “Hey… let’s do something about this event or that time”. Does having that kind of direction make it easier for you? Or do you find it restrictive at all?

Pär: It makes it easier in one way because we know what to write of. But it makes it harder in one way because you cannot just write anything. Because you have to write facts. Also, it makes it more interesting for us because we learn something on the way. And also, it makes it more interesting for the fans because they hear songs about something that is not bullshit; that is not made up stories; that is not ridiculous. It is historical.

Greg: Looking a couple years or CDs into the future, do you expect SABATON will continue with this sort of theme or approach towards your lyrics and your music?

Pär: It could possibly be like that. I mean the human being is made to destroy each other, unfortunately. People will always be fighting and killing each other, so there will always be inspiration for us to write songs. It’s a bad thing but… well.

Greg: Very true. I wanted to ask you about “The Rise of Evil”. The first time I heard the song, Joakim’s unique voice and that big booming chorus singing, “The Reich will rise” I thought to myself, “What are they saying”? I had to go back and read the lyrics. Have you guys ever mistakenly caught any flak from that song, because someone thought it was advocating for something it wasn’t?

Pär: Well, we had some people that thought that we were sympathizing with neo-Nazis. Which is kind of bullshit because, in my opinion, the world should be happy and people should not be evil… they should be on the good side. The evil guys are the bad guys and I would want to be one of the good guys. The Reich was evil; the rise of bad guys. I want to be on the good side. I am not supporting anything like that.

Greg: Of course. But by the same token, I know Germany has a particular sensitivity to what you can and can’t say. You guys write about history and events that affected Germany. Are there any songs that you’ve been told you can’t play, or caught any grief for in Germany?

Pär: Well, people said we should not play “Attero Dominatus” in Berlin because we say, “Berlin is burning.” But, on the other hand, the people in Berlin love the song. The people of Germany love the songs… and so we have never heard any such things as you are not allowed to play this song. In the beginning, the distributor for Germany, for our CDs, always asked for the lyrics to make sure that this was no propaganda or something. But we show him the lyrics and then it’s like, “Cool… let’s make it happen”.

Greg: I see that you and Joakim are credited with writing most of the lyrics. Do you two actually collaborate together or is it you coming up with the lyrics and him writing the vocal line? How does that process work for you?

Pär: It’s more like… I mean first of all we sit down and we make up “What should this song be about?” The music is already written. We sit down and we listen to the song and it’s like, “OK… this is a fast song. This is a powerful, kind of dark song, maybe.” Then it should be dark lyrics about a dark historical event.

So then we look, and think and we research. We look into… I mean, we get our fans to send in a lot of ideas for writing lyrics. We go through them and find, “Oh this is perfect for this song.” Then we say, “OK… maybe you take this part of the song and you do some research and I take this part of the song and I do some research.” Then we sit down together and we say, “This song, now, what do you have on this song? Well I have this fact; maybe this happened.” And I tell the story to Joakim. Then we sit down and make the vocal lines and everything together.

Greg: Wow… that’s a very interesting process.

You guys sound very tight live. Do you guys live close together and have the opportunity to rehearse frequently?

Pär: We have the opportunity a lot, because we have a good studio. We are also playing a lot of concerts live so of course we are learning the songs and getting better and better live. It’s completely different to play a song in the rehearsal room or studio than to play it live. They’re two different things. When we play a song live for the first time, it doesn’t sound as good as for the tenth time, even though we have played it 100 times in the rehearsal room. Practice makes perfect.

Greg: I hear a very big progression between “Attero Dominatus” and “The Art of War”. On “The Art of War” it sounds like you were going for a bigger, more orchestral sound. Does it sound that way because you guys have more time and money, as you become a bigger and bigger band or was that something you were trying to achieve in the studio?

Pär: On “The Art of War” we invited with Peter Tägtgren, as sort of a co-producer with us. He was never producing an album with us in the past. So this time he was interested in also being part of making the sound. The songs that we’d written for “The Art of War”, that were chosen for “The Art of War” are songs that are more based on keyboards than previous albums. That means that they were more orchestral. They were bigger in a way. It’s sort of a coincidence; because all of the songs we’d chosen appeared to be songs with a lot of keyboards.

Greg: And do you expect you’ll continue to work with Peter in the future?

Pär: I’m not sure. I’m not sure. Peter did a good job and he’s a great friend of ours and he lives very close to us, so there’s a big chance. We are constantly in contact and we are having parties together all the time and this. We are good friends, but it is not always that he is home. He is doing a lot of touring with his bands and he’s producing other albums. Sure, we need his help, because he is an expert in some things that we need his help with. I’m sure that he is gonna be involved in some of our albums.

Greg: Let’s talk about you as a bass player. I know you said you got started because you were one of the long-haired guys at your school. What made you gravitate towards the bass?

Pär: Well… this is an interesting story; it’s an interesting question. Because I am not really so interested in all this musical stuff. You know, I love to be playing on stage, I love to perform. I’m not a person whose highest wish is to be the best bass player in the whole world. I just make sure that I am able to play the songs and perform good live. I’m more interested in that. My real role in the band is more like to… progress the band, to make sure that the band grows outside of the musical stuff.

Greg: So you met all these guys when you were going to school and you all sort of gravitated toward each other. Was there something that made you gravitate towards Metal? A record, a performance you saw, something that made you a Metal fan?

Pär: Well I had been listening a lot when I was younger to… two artists very much; one was QUEEN and the other one was Michael Jackson. And from Michael Jackson, I was more interested in the shows. They were entertaining concerts. They were not only music… they were a full show. I liked it. And, I didn’t know so much more. You couldn’t go to YouTube and find ten million of artists. You just looked at what you got at home. And my sister appeared also to be big fans of these bands and I stole her… whatever she had.

When I was old enough to realize what I want to hear, it was when my neighbors came in to me and said, “Hey, you’re old enough now to know what real music is.” He brought me to his room where he had the whole walls covered with IRON MAIDEN posters. He had a big Marshall amplifier and started playing some cool Heavy Metal riffs. I was like, “Whoa… that’s a cool sound.” Then it was like, OK, this is how real music sounds and he played IRON MAIDEN for me. After that, the day after I went down and I bought two IRON MAIDEN albums.

Greg: So the band is from Falun, Sweden. When you think Sweden, your style isn’t the first style you think of. Is there a scene in or near Falun for you to develop a following?

Pär: Well, I need to say a big thanks to HAMMERFALL. They opened the scene. They made melodic Metal once more. When we first started playing, it was Death Metal. Almost every band in the city played Death Metal. HAMMERFALL opened the market for melodic Metal to get a lot of fans. People who discovered HAAMMERFALL also discovered the origins, like HELLOWEEN, the real, older starting of the melodic Power Metal scene. Today, the scene is different than it was then. Now, in Sweden there is bands of every type.

Greg: I read you guys are fans of HAMMERFALL. And you got a chance to tour with them. How was that?

Pär: Yes, of course. At this period of time, it was the first albums of HAMMERFALL. Then we were just impressed by them, because they were growing and they were a big band. So for us, it would be a great opportunity to go on tour with them, to reach new fans, and of course we couldn’t say no to that. At this time, nobody knew who SABATON was in Europe, either. Not HAMMERFALL, not SABATON, not any agency… nobody knew. But it showed when we did the HAMMERFALL tour. Some nights we were equal and some nights we were bigger than HAMMERFALL. It was a big wake up call for a lot of people, I think, to realize that SABATON was such a popular act.

Greg: So you guys are playing ProgPower X in Atlanta in September. I believe this is your second U.S. performance, the first being SXSW. What was that first experience like?

This ends Part One of Greg’s interview with Sabaton bassist Pär Sundström. The complete interview can only be found in the official (printed) ProgPower USA program given to all attendees. If you want to read the entire interview, you have to come to the show!

Final Note: All photos/images used to illustrate this interview are used in compliance with the principles of Fair Use. They illustrate reviews, opinions, and interviews with the band members who created the albums and on whose official web sites and MySpace pages some of these images reside. The photos of the band are borrowed from the band’s official web site. No copyright violations are intended.

Bill: Hey Jon. Thanks for calling me back.

JD: No problem, man. We’re good, we’re all good.

Bill: Oh, good.

Jon: I’ve got some pictures, I’m picking out some pictures for you. Soon as we’re done with the interview, I’ll send them over.

Bill: Oh, that’s great, that’s really good. I appreciate that.

Jon: If you want me to send them as we’re talking, I can do that too. I’m just picking through them now.

Bill: Sure. Whatever works for you.

Jon: Alright.

Bill: I definitely appreciate your time tonight. As I mentioned on the phone, I’ve been a fan for 20 years. I picked up Transcendence when it first came out. I’ve been digging it ever since.

Jon: Well cool. I’ve been a fan too.

Bill: [laughs]

Jon: [laughs]

Bill: First of all, I just want to express my sadness at the passing of Midnight. That was a shock for all of us out here. You might have seen it coming from your end, but it hit all of us pretty hard as I’m sure you saw from the ProgPower forum. There’s been an outpouring of support and emotion for you guys.

Jon: Yeah, well I have to say I’m very happy about all the wonderful emails the band’s received, and I’ve seen a lot of the posts on the boards around the world, all the different condolences and the recent postings. I think Midnight would be very happy to know all the fans all over the world, how much they loved him so much. I don’t think he had any idea that he was loved and appreciated so much.

Bill: Yeah, I was just going to ask you that. Did he know how much he was appreciated?

Jon: I think Midnight…hopefully people took notice of him and recognized his voice and his music, but I don’t think he knew to the extent at which people admired him, really. He was very humble in a lot of ways, I think he wanted to be appreciated. But you know, the fact that he hadn’t really gotten to much over the last 10 years or so, and he’d been doing some solo projects. But I think you know, he wasn’t really in contact with too many people.

Bill: Right.

Jon: But I know he had a presence online. Whenever he had an opportunity, he would go online and communicate with people. But I don’t know if he really knew how much he was admired, and how many singers he influenced.

Bill: Oh yeah.

Jon: You know, one of the things we’re realizing now is how many singers have come forth, talking about Midnight’s voice, and how incredible it was to them, and what it was like for them to hear him for the first time. And trying to sing some of the things, trying to sing like him in ways. Midnight truly had this amazing, heartfelt way of delivering words. He had a way of making words like “and,” “but,” and “or” passionate.

Bill: [laughs] Yeah, that’s true.

Jon: I mean, you felt everything he ever sang. And if you ever sat down with him, when he was just sitting alone on the couch playing a guitar, that’s when he really impressed me the most. Because he would just sit back and play and close his eyes, and he would just take you places. He would just go someplace in his mind and sing these words, and he’d take you on this journey with him. And it was always just very impressive to see and hear him do those things. You know, I’ll never forget the first time we heard him record, or play and perform, record the song “Lost Reflection” [from the first Crimson Glory album, 1986] in the studio. This is the very version that ended up on the album, you know. We’re all standing there, it was late at night, he was in this little room by himself, the candle going, playing the acoustic guitar and singing along at the same time. And he went from beginning to end of the track, and we were in this darkened control room with goose bumps. We knew that what we just had heard was simply amazing. That it was going to be a timeless piece of music. You sometimes have those moments where you just know.

Bill: You mentioned that he wanted to be appreciated. Was he the kind of guy that realized the depth of his own talent,? Or did he sort of take it for granted? [Photo: Midnight, age 3.]

Jon: Well, no. I’m sure on one hand he realized that he had a special talent and a gift. But on the other hand I don’t know if he ever thought he could be as great as we believed he was going to be. He and I had a very contentious relationship, because  he’d always frustrate me, because he was our voice. And I always wanted him to do the great things, and push him even further than he even believed he could go. And so I was always pushing him harder to do it. We as a band did. And I mean, he would get frustrated with us, because he was doing things that were like, almost impossible. [laughs]

Bill: [laughs]

Jon: But we knew he could do it. So we were always wanting him to be even greater than he was. And push him beyond his own limits. So I knew how great he was, and I knew how great he could be. Now he was our greatest strength, and also our greatest weakness, because Midnight was, you know, he was insecure, kinda shy, insecure, he suffered from stage fright. His confidence could be easily shaken at times. And so, he could, when he was on and feeling good, he was at his best. But when he wasn’t, he could be a weakness. And obviously, through the years, his drinking became a hindrance to himself and the band. So Crimson Glory would have never attained the status, the legendary status that we’ve achieved, without Midnight. You know, he is our voice. But we could have gone further, had he maintained a better health condition. So it was kind of like a—

Bill: A two-edged sword? Yeah.

Jon: Well, a lot of great singers are like that. I think a lot of great singers have demons within them, have troubled lives or things that helped them become the great singers that they are, or the poets and the writers that there’s been in the past, you know. In some ways, Midnight was our Jim Morrison.

Bill: Yeah. I can see that.

Jon: He was our poet. He was our word guy. He was our singer. He was our voice. But he had all these other issues that came along with him.

Bill: You mentioned demons, and I’ve seen other people comment or wonder, what was his demon? What was driving him?

Jon: Well, to be perfectly honest, I couldn’t tell you. You know, I’d sit with him for long times and talk about it. And I’m not really sure what troubled Midnight so much that caused him to be  the way he was. But he had issues he had been dealing with, probably from his childhood, that led him on the path he went down, that he was dealing with his whole life. He was loved. His family loved him. His friends loved him. He wasn’t unloved, by any means. We loved him dearly, you know.

Bill: Oh yeah.

Jon: We took care of Midnight, our whole lives growing up together. We all pretty much took turns taking care of Midnight. It was just, you know, he was on this path that we just couldn’t take him off of. In some ways, like I said, he was our Jim Morrison. He’s like, you’re not going to get him off that path, no matter what you did or said.

Bill: Yeah.

Jon: He would often say to me, “Oh Drenning. Quit worrying. You worry too much, man.”

Bill: [laughs]

Jon: He’d always call me Drenning. “Drenning, quit worrying, man. You worry too much.”

Bill: Oh geeze. [laughs] Yeah.

Jon: You know? But he was never, he was very eccentric, you know, in many ways. He wanted, I think he liked to have all the nice things that people got that had normal lives and families and jobs. But Midnight truly just wanted to be an artist. If that meant that he’d sleep on your couch his whole life, well that was fine with him. He wanted to sing, he wanted to write, he wanted to draw, and he wanted to paint. Of course, he wanted to drink and drink while doing all of those things.

Bill: [laughs]

Jon: We intervened with Midnight on many occasions. His family intervened with him on many occasions. The band intervened with him on many occasions. But a person has to make a decision for themselves. And you know, we always had hoped that Midnight, at some point, would change enough to at least get himself in a healthier state of mind and a healthier physical condition. We always held out hope that we would work together again. We couldn’t stand by and watch him destroy himself.

Bill: Oh yeah. Yeah.

Jon: It was too hard for the band and for me personally. It was just too heart wrenching to be there, trying to, you know, create music with him during the time he was having such difficulties with his health. When he wouldn’t do anything to help himself.

Bill: Sometimes when people pass away, the people left behind kick themselves in the ass or feel guilty: They could have done this, they should have done that. It sounds like you don’t have that kind of feeling, because it sounds like you’d done all you could do.

Jon: Oh yeah, I feel like we’ve done all we can do. I look back and wonder could I have done more, in some ways. But I know, in my heart I feel good that I gave him everything I could. I shared with him all I could, and I helped him all I could. And he knows that now. You know, in some ways, I know, Midnight and I spent many hours talking about the afterlife. And many of the songs that were written in Crimson Glory dealt with the otherworldly parts of the universe, whether they be inner space, or outer space, or other space. We’re always interested in the unknown. And Midnight is looking at and laughing at me now because he kind of beat me to it, you know, he knows all the answers we both used to think about, we always wanted to know the answers to. But he lived two lifetimes in a brief period. Midnight lived life, hard. So he lived a full life, Midnight lived a full life, that’s assured. He just crammed it into 47 years instead of about 80 like the rest of us.

Bill: [laughs] Yeah, yeah. How was his memorial service down in Florida? Was there a dry eye in the house, or was it more like a wake?

Jon: No, no. The service for Midnight was very touching. There was a few hundred people who showed up there on the beach. It was the very same beach where we discovered him. I didn’t know Midnight at first, but Jeff Lords [Crimson Glory bassist] went to school with him in grade school and Dana [Burnell, Crimson Glory drummer] and Ben [Jackson, Crimson Glory guitarist] both went to high school with him. So they had not only known of him, but they knew him also playing on the beach. So when we had his service, we thought it was fitting to have it right on the beach where he used to sit and play guitar.

Bill: Oh cool.

Jon: He used to sit on the beach and play Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin songs. He was notorious for Led Zeppelin songs because he used to enter karaoke contests and win them all the time singing “Going to California” or some of those other ones.

Bill: Oh, that’s great.

Jon: Yeah, he really dug that. It was a very beautiful service, though, I have to say. There wasn’t a dry eye. There was not a dry eye in the audience. The releasing of the silver balloons was a very touching moment, because we were listening to Midnight’s version of “In the Arms of the Angels” by Sarah McLaughlin.

Bill: Oh wow.

Jon: Everybody released their balloons when that song was being played. It was very, very touching. A very poignant moment.

Bill: Man.

Jon: And I just realized at that moment, you know, we were never going to see Midnight again alive.

Bill: Wow.

Jon: But hearing his voice. Hearing his voice, it’s like he’s there with you in the room still.

Bill: A lot of people don’t realize, and I guess didn’t either, that Midnight was not in good physical shape from at least 1991, right on through now. I mean, that’s a long a time.

Jon: That’s correct. He’d be in the hospital a few times with serious ailments he had incurred. I think it’s very important for people to know this. Yes, Midnight was an alcoholic. But—and I want this very clear—Midnight did not die from liver and kidney failure.

Bill: Really?

Jon: No, it was totally taken out of context. Midnight died of complications. Midnight actually bled, he had an aneurism in his stomach. He actually had been bleeding for three or four days, internally. And because of his stubbornness, he refused to go to the hospital. So Midnight could easily be alive today had he just gone to the hospital when he was told to go the first time. But he was bleeding internally. He had had an aneurism. And so, for four days he was, you know, coughing up blood, and puking up blood and stuff, and he refused to go to the hospital. And his girlfriend at the time did everything she could to convince him to go, but he just would not go, until finally, on the fourth day, he was so pallid and weak they called the emergency, the ambulance, medical people to come and help him. And they immediately came in there and brought him to the hospital. But because of the internal bleeding, there was so much internally, they couldn’t even see where it was coming from. So while they were trying to figure out how to stop the bleeding that’s when his major organs started shutting down. With a loss of blood, your major organs start shutting down. And he died from loss of blood, and the organs shutting down after that. And by then, he’d lost so much blood, they couldn’t get things going back. They couldn’t get things restarted right. And he basically just slipped, you know, into a coma and his liver and other major organs started failing. And his heart was the last to go. I just want to make sure it’s clear that he did not die from drinking, he did not die by drinking himself to death. Drinking was probably, you know, the cause for many of these ailments. But all he had to do was go to a proper medical facility when he first had the internal bleeding, he would have lived just fine.

Bill: I’ve never heard that before now.

Jon: That’s because I’ve never shared it with anybody.

Bill: Man, oh, man. I don’t know how to phrase this, but that makes this whole thing seem even worse. Because he could still be alive if he’d just gone into the hospital.

Jon: Well Midnight was notoriously stubborn. He really would not do anything [laughs] unless he wanted to. And the idea of going to a hospital just did not appeal to him. He probably had coughed up blood before and just said, “Screw it, I’ll be fine. It’ll be fine, just don’t worry.” He would tell me, “Drenning, don’t worry. I’ll be fine..” And so he’d be alive today, there’s no doubt.

Bill: Man, I’m really sorry to hear that. I mean, that’s, wow.

Jon: It’s really sad, yeah.

Bill: I definitely appreciate you sharing that. It’ll be great to clear that up.

Jon: I think it’s important that the world know the truth. He did not die from drinking himself to death.

Bill: You mentioned his demons. You mentioned his problems. We’re talking about his passing. Tell me something funny about Midnight. What’s the funniest story or experience you had with him?

Jon: Oh man. The funniest story, one of the funniest stories I can remember [laughs] we were in California playing this show in LA, on our way out to Japan. And we were playing the show for MCA Records. And that night, Midnight had learned that his first child, Heaven, had been born.

Bill: Oh wow.

Jon: Back home in Florida. And so Midnight proceeded to celebrate and drink. You know, and this was a showcase show for MCA Records. We had just signed this big record contract with MCA, and they were going to be releasing the Transcendence album, and they had all the presidents, and the vice presidents and all the bigwigs came down to see us play on the strip somewhere, I can’t remember the club. But you know, Midnight proceeded to get drunk before the show, and by the time he got on stage, he was pretty schnockered. I remember at one point he went to leap up on the drum riser, and he actually missed, and he ended up falling head first into the kick drum.

Bill: [laughs]

Jon: His head ended up in the kick drum.

Bill: [laughs]

Jon: [laughs] And then he tried to recover by jumping back down, off the stage to grab his microphone, but he kind of missed it, and he ended up pirouetting around the microphone stand and falling down on the monitors, you know?

Bill: Oh jeez. [laughs] Was that funny at the time, Jon, or only in retrospect?

Jon: No, no. It was not funny at the time, but in retrospect, we used to laugh about it later.

Bill: [laughs]

Jon: Midnight would just say, “Oh Drenning. Let it go, dude. Nobody remembers that.” [laughs]

Bill: [laughs]

Jon: He used to tell me, “Let it go, Drenning. No one remembers that.” I’m like, “Yeah, right, man.” [laughs]

Bill: [laughs]

Jon: Are you kidding? It was, at the time, I had to be locked in the men’s room, in the bathroom for an hour after the show, because I wanted to just like, I just wanted to tear everybody apart.

Bill: Yep, yep.

Jon: I was so livid.

Bill: Yeah. I can imagine.

Jon: You know, we prided ourselves on being a great band, live. So yeah, at the time I was pissed, but later on, it was pretty damn funny. We’d always tease him about it.

Bill: [laughs]

Jon: But there’s plenty of others. Midnight was really funny because he didn’t have great rhythm. He couldn’t clap his hands in time, man.

Bill: Really? [laughs]

Jon: Yeah. [laughs] So every time we tried to give him like a tambourine or something to play, it was always messed up. I just would laugh my ass off, like, “Dude, how can you sing all those wonderful melodies and not have the rhythm to play to a beat?” [laughs]

Bill: [laughs]

Jon: You know? He was in his own world, believe me. In his own key. He lived in the key of Midnight, man.

Bill: [laughs]

Jon: You know?

Bill: [laughs] The key of Midnight.

Jon: Yeah, it was the key of Midnight, and the tempo of Midnight. It was like, he was in his own world. Like I said, when you put him alone, by himself, on a piano or with a guitar, he was pure magic every time. He could sing and play. It was just, you knew, everything he did was great. And we were thinking, “How are we going to use that? We gotta use that too.” You know? And matter of fact, we remained friends throughout the years, and occasionally we’d get together, I’d hear him play some songs, I would be like, just blown away, going, “Midnight, wow, that’s the best song you’ve ever written. Don’t mess it up, don’t let anybody screw it up, record it just like that. Record it just you, with a guitar, don’t fuck it up.” [laughs]

Bill: [laughs]

Jon: You know, because a lot of times he would get with those musicians, and they would like turn his songs into these other different versions that just were missing the whole message that he had, you know, the whole vibe he created on his own was lost. So I was a little disappointed that the songs I heard him play to me on the guitar or the piano would turn out being so different.

Bill: You know, I was going to ask you about his solo album [Sakada, 2005] a little bit later on, but what was your impression of it? What were your comments to Midnight about his solo album. Some people have commented that it came out of left field and was strange and bizarre.

Jon: Midnight’s was certainly very different. It was, in a lot of ways it was Midnight being unabated, and being without anybody interfering with just him. When you work with a band, you work within the confines of other people’s ideas, you combine them together to create this recipe. With Crimson Glory, Midnight would write with myself and with Jeff and Ben and Dana, and we would create this recipe. But by himself, you can see the recipe would be very different. And so you get this really strange, like, Syd Barrett, Pink Floyd kind of strangeness.

Bill: [laughs]

Jon: That was really him, all on his own. All by himself, on the tightwire, all by himself. For good or bad. And then, how it got recorded or transposed musically depended on the musicians he was working with. What they brought to the table was different than what we would have done.

Bill: Yeah.

Jon: So it came out completely different than say a Crimson Glory record would have. When I hear those songs now, I think about how I would have recorded them, how I would have had him play the parts, you know, how Crimson Glory would have done it differently.

Bill: Yeah. Yeah.

Jon: But he had a very distinct, unique sound. It, Midnight’s background was not heavy metal. That was not his thing at all. Matter of fact, when we first got him to audition for Crimson Glory, he had no idea who Judas Priest or Rob Halford or Iron Maiden was. Or Scorpion. He didn’t know who these people were.

Bill: [laughs] Yep, yep.

Jon: He, all he cared about was Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin.

Bill: [laughs]

Jon: But that’s what helped him bring that element to the band, though.

Bill: Oh yeah.

Jon: Pink Floyd was a big influence on him, the way that Roger Waters had this element of drama to what he was saying and the craziness he brought to it. And it’s interesting, because Roger Waters was just emulating Syd Barrett.

Bill: Oh yeah, yeah.

Jon: He was trying to take over where Syd Barrett left off. He was an imitation of Syd Barrett, Midnight was imitating Roger Waters. So it was like a domino effect of people, you know, emulating each other and then taking it to their own little music.

Bill: Is there anything in the can, any Midnight-era live audio or video that hasn’t seen the light of day yet?

Jon: Oh yeah, there’s tons of stuff. I have boxes full. We have a 25th anniversary coming up, we plan to release a lot of that material.

Bill: Good.

Jon: So people will get a chance to see a lot of live Midnight things he’s has done, a lot of the demo things he’s done. There’s a lot of different demos people have never heard. You know, there’s been some live things we’ve released that were terrible, for VHS versions. We’ll be releasing, you know, true digital versions that are proper. The sound is good and the video is really good, so people get to see it and hear it the way it’s supposed to be, that it really should have been to begin with. One thing, we’ve always, you know, we’ve always done what we did because our true passion for music. It was never about money. We’d have liked to have made more money, but it just, that never going to stop us from going forward. And today, same thing, same thing stands. We want to make more records. We want to release more material. We’d like to get paid for it, but you know, it all depends. With record companies, it’s just signing a piece of paper. Your contract’s only as good as the paper you sign it on.

Bill: Right. Yep.

Jon: I feel sorry for a lot of the bands out there, because these you know, these kids put their heart and soul into making these albums. You know, and these record companies steal from them. You know, they don’t pay them for the royalties, they don’t pay them for mechanicals, they don’t pay them for publishing. It’s terrible. You know, Roadrunner, to this day, to this very day has never paid Crimson Glory a dime for anything they’ve ever sold. They still illegally license our albums to other people, like that Polish company, Metal Mind? Is that what it is?

Bill: Yeah, yeah. They’re re-mastered gold discs.

Jon: Yeah, all that, all those records are illegal.

Bill: You’re kidding me.

Jon: Roadrunner has no right to release those materials. They’re actually licensing our material to other companies. Everybody in the world makes money off Crimson Glory. They’re all making, stealing money from Crimson Glory to this very day. They’ve never. Paid. Crimson. Glory. One. Red. Cent.

Bill: So these albums I’ve got in front of me, these Metal Mind gold discs, I shouldn’t even have.

Jon: Well no. I mean, look, the guy from Metal Mind called me to tell me he signed a licensing deal for them. I was like, “How’d you do that? They don’t hold the rights to us anymore.”

Bill: [laughs]

Jon: He says, “Well I got a contract.” I’m like, “Well, you just paid for something that you have no rights to have.” He wanted my input. He wanted our help to give him some, you know, new material to put on these discs. I’m like, “I can’t do that. I’m not going to help you bootleg my own record.”

Bill: [laughs]

Jon: “You crazy?”

Bill: [laughs]

Jon: I’m like, “You go ahead and release them if you feel like you have to, but I’m telling you, one day, I’m going to sue your ass.”

Bill: [laughs] Well—

Jon: The day is coming. Listen, mark my words. Mark my words. The day is coming when Crimson Glory is going to sue the world.

Bill: Yeah. [laughs] Well, why haven’t you? If Roadrunner hasn’t paid you, and now Metal Mind’s ripping you off, sounds like you have a wonderful suit.

Jon: Massacre Records [Germany], let me tell you something. Rising Sun Records, you’ve got, Roadrunner, from the very first day never paid us, and to this day they’re still, they are still stealing money from Crimson Glory. Still bootlegging records, still illegally licensing records. You’ve got Metal Mind over in Poland illegally distributing and selling records. You have Rising Sun licensing and selling records. You have Massacre are doing it. I mean, who the, how did these people get the rights to our music? They have no contract! It’s really frustrating.

Bill: I had no idea.

Jon: That’s one of the reasons why, you know I haven’t been itching to go out and make more records just to be ripped off. Why give the record companies more opportunity to steal from Crimson Glory even more? I love the fans. The fans can have all they want of Crimson Glory music. Because as far as I’m concerned, when you write a song, the fans own the music. They own it. It becomes their music. We record it, we write it, we give it, we put our hearts into it, and we give it to the fans, and it’s, then they own it. They determine your success, they determine your success or failure, they determine your longevity, they determine whether or not you’re going to be ever considered a legend in any musical genre. The fans determine it all. So as far as I’m concerned, the fans own our music. But the record companies are the ones taking all the money.

Bill: What do you recommend doing, then? Do you recommend the Grateful Dead, Phish and jam-band model which encourages fans to tape your shows and trade the tapes around the world with each other?

Jon: I would rather the fans have everything, and the record companies have nothing.

Bill: Yeah.

Jon: And rest assured, the next Crimson Glory record product that you’ll see, including the DVD that will come out of the ProgPower festival, including the live CD that Crimson Glory will be releasing, and DVD from the Midnight era, including the new Crimson Glory record, you will only be able to find those online through the band, and through the channels that we decide. It will be only, the only way you’ll ever see it. Crimson Glory, it’s more of a cult band around the world. And we’re happy it just stays that way, and the fans, you know, we have a great relationship with our fans. And that’s good enough for us. Let the rest of the people deal with the record companies. We can care less.

Bill: Let me just ask you this, then, given what you’re saying. How have you guys been able to make a living doing this for the last 20 years if you’re not getting paid?

This ends Part One of Bill’s interview with Crimson Glory guitarist/founding member Jon Drenning. The complete interview can only be found in the official (printed) ProgPower USA program given to all attendees. If you want to read the entire interview, you have to come to the show!

Final Note: All photos are used in compliance with the principles of Fair Use. They illustrate reviews, opinions, and interviews with the band members who created the albums. All photos/images used to illustrate this particular interview (except album covers) were provided by Jon Drenning, with many thanks. No copyright violations are intended.

Greg: So first off, thanks for taking time out of your evening to speak with me, I really appreciate it.

André: Thanks.

Greg: So just to start things off, for those people who may still not be familiar with ROYAL HUNT, how would you describe your music? I would think describing it simply as Prog Metal would be overly simplistic.

André: Yeah… that’s the usual problem we have. Because we have kind of like a mixture of a little bit progressive, and then melodic, and there’s Classic Rock mixed in there. So basically, (laughter) I don’t know. (mutual laughter) To be completely honest, I don’t know. I’m so used to everybody calling it something different. I was laughing my ass off the other day. I was reading some interview, and a guy was talking about bands and he said, “It sounds a little bit similar to JOURNEY” and that’s fine. Then I open another magazine and they said it was almost like a European DREAM THEATER. Completely opposite direction. So I don’t know, we sound in the middle of it.

Greg: While reading your bio I noticed you started playing music at the age of five. At what age do you begin to realize, this is something I want to do with my life?

André: Probably like most musicians, I started to love music when I was 13, 14, something like that. I hated it when I started.

Greg: Oh really? Was it one of those things where your parents forced you to play?

André: Oh yeah. Absolutely. I hated it all the way. And then, all of a sudden, I finished musical school… in a way I was kind of like wunderkind a little bit, because I was so young when I started. Usually, you’re supposed to be like at least 8, starting, but my mother kind of pushed me through it anyway. So when I was done, I had this little diploma thing, I’d bring it home and say, “Here it is.” I put it in front of my parents and said, “Thank you, good night.” That was it. (mutual laughter) And then some of my friends, when I was 13, 14, just started kind of messing around with bands and instruments and stuff like that. And all of a sudden, everybody needed a piano player.

And I remember there was some kind of dance thing, or whatever it was, and local bands were playing there, and my friend was playing drums. So I was 13 or something, so I was dressed up… all the dancing and girls around and blah, blah, blah. And the band started playing and all the girls were in front of the stage and I was completely forgotten. So an hour later, when they were done, I came over and said, “Hey guys, you looking for a piano player?” (mutual laughter)

Greg: So it’s the oldest story in the book; you joined a Rock and Roll band to meet girls?

André: Absolutely. It’s such a cliché, but it’s true.

Greg: You often cite DEEP PURPLE and Jon Lord as some of your earliest Rock influences. On your web site it says you discovered them, and I’m quoting, “Accidentally by getting DEEP PURPLE’S “In Rock””. Can you describe what you mean by “accidentally”?

André: So I didn’t even realize this kind of music existed. This story is a little special. I grew up in Russia, and back in the day it was still the Soviet Union. And none of my friends had albums like that. I don’t remember exactly at what time I discovered “In Rock”, but obviously it was a few years later, after it had been released. And I remember a friend of mine, who was getting this album called me and said, “You should listen to this.” I remember, he had this “In Rock” on some kind of tape recorder and he started playing it and I remember this classical organ intro. And then all of a sudden “Speed King” started. And it’s indescribable. It was completely off the wall. I didn’t expect anything like it. It was like seeing a Martian or alien or something. I grew up in this Classical music and obviously I heard some kind of Pop songs, but it didn’t really catch my interest in any way. And all of a sudden it was like this beast jumping at me from the speakers. And I was taken by it, on the spot. So I didn’t have to get used to it. I just loved the song from the first second.

Greg: It seems that DEEP PURPLE has had a huge influence on a great number of musicians. Can you elaborate on what it was they did, that accounts for the impact they’ve had?

André: Besides the fact that they were probably the most popular band back in the day and most people got exposed to them. But I’m pretty sure there were other bands around, who were equal to them or better, but they were quite popular at the time. And of course a lot of people were exposed to them as their first Rock band. They have something, they have this nerve. And they were very Blues based. But at the same time they had some kind of Classical… not in our sense, it’s not like new Classical today. Because Yngwie (Malmsteen) already did it all. It was something different. There was something majestic about it. And it was extremely aggressive… at the time. Compared to SEPULTURA or something like that, it’s Pop music. But back in the day it was shocking; there was something incredibly powerful about it.

Greg: That’s very interesting. Aside from Jon Lord and DEEP PURPLE, and Rick Wakeman of YES, which Classical musicians have influenced your music?

André: Ohhh… I have a vast collection of Classical music. It’s very hard to pinpoint. It’s such a huge variation. You like every composer for something different. Obviously, the Paganinis and Mozarts, everyone is mentioning them and Bach and Beethoven. It’s such a cliché. But they’re all different. I mean… it’s probably a combination of it. When you’re exposed to Classical music that much, as I was when was a kid, you’re going to suck it up. And you’re sucking up these details from every composer. On top of that, I was playing some of their works and some of them are interesting because of arrangements, the modes, the way the melody is constructed. It’s impossible to mention one. Even with Rock music, DEEP PURPLE was the first thing I heard. But Classical music, it’s tougher; there’s tons and tons of different composers.

Greg: OK. So let’s jump back to ROYAL HUNT. One of things I’ve noticed is that if my count is accurate, there are 10 x-members of ROYAL HUNT. What I’m curious about is, as a musician, has this turnover been a benefit, because you’ve had a chance to work with so many gifted musicians, or a detriment, because you can’t build a cohesive collaborative vibe, which may be built over a period of years?

André: It’s both. It’s absolutely both. Probably like everybody else, I hate change. I don’t like change. Everybody hates it. But the music world became… what it became. It’s very, very, very hard to be like another ROLLING STONES, which I would love… I would die to do that. But it’s impossible. There’s a lot of things. Because the economy is so screwed up today, it’s very hard for guys, to be like it was back in the day, in one band, continue touring and making albums. Everybody is involved in something else. And at some point in time, if you’re playing in different projects, one of them is getting a better deal, or getting ahead with some touring, blah, blah, blah. So people, understandably, are taking a chance and going on that direction. So all of a sudden, they don’t have time to be in two, three, four bands or whatever. It’s very frustrating. I understand all those things. ROYAL HUNT has been my baby for twenty years. So I’m kind of like proud to be here. I’m not leaving. But I regret it every time we lose another guy. It’s one reason or another. For most of them, it’s economical. Because we didn’t have any fights in the musical direction.

André: That’s the negative side of it. But the positive is yeah… every time you’re trying to find a new guy your expectations are growing. And you’re putting the bar higher and higher every time. It’s not to say that the previous members weren’t that good, they were great… all of them. Absolutely. No exceptions. But the thing is, of course you’re trying to find a guy who’s even better, in that perspective, in another perspective. Plenty could be different, it could be musical things, or whatever… the way he participates, the way he records. You know… little details. So in that sense, it’s been good, because the level of musicianship in the band, if you look back at 1990 when we started with the first album… much higher standards today. And previously, I’ve been accused a few times, by fans and the press, that’s a natural thing, that I’m kind of like, showing off too much. And nobody is saying it today, because the rest of the guys are seriously kicking my ass.

Greg: So with that in mind, let’s talk about a departure and an arrival. John West left the band in 2007 and you guys cited the typical “creative differences”. Was it really as simple as that?

André: No. There’s no drama there. Our relationship has never been better. On a social level, it was excellent. The thing is he spent eight, nine years in the band. And we had such a great time. I remember when he joined the band I was the happiest guy on Earth. He’s such an outgoing personality, and he’s a great singer and the whole thing. So we were just on a roll. What I noticed in the last couple of years, this little spark, we lost it somewhere. Because me and John, we became too predictable. I just noticed, when were doing PAPER BLOOD, whatever line I came up with, he kind of… like an old couple, finished it for me. And I would do the same thing with him. He would come up to me, “Oh, I have this idea for this lick” and he just opens his mouth and he goes, and it sounds marvelous, but I already know where it ends. But at the same time, when we were not making music, we had a great time, we would barbeque, we would go into town and we could talk for hours. Great friend… but all of a sudden I had this feeling, and John kind of partially agreed with me on that, we were not coming up with anything interesting. Everything became kind of predictable. Another thing, which I think partially, was kind of like involved in this thing, I think John was a little bit disillusioned. I don’t know if I have a right to say it, it’s obviously a personal thing. It’s more kind of like a John West thing. I noticed lately, every time we were doing a new album and let’s say we have a very enthusiastic journalist, and he’s like, “This is a great album” and blah, blah, blah. The keyboards are amazing, and the guitars and everything… and then John West as usual. It’s not great, it’s not horrible, it just like, as usual. I’m trying not to read the reviews. I’m trying to convince the guys not to do that. Because you know how it is; in one magazine they’re saying you’re god and in another you’re a piece of shit. Just ignore it. When you’re releasing an album you know you did the best you can. Why bother? But John, he would look at it, and I had a feeling he was disappointed a few times. Maybe that was a part of it, it’s hard to tell.

Greg: So John left, and Mark (Boals) came into the band. Can you talk a little about how you got hooked up with Mark?

André: It was very simple really. We just started looking for a singer, like everybody does these days. And then all of a sudden I had an e-mail from Marc. He saw our web site and he was kind of looking for a band. And somebody from Frontiers (record label) mentioned to Marc that we were looking for a singer, and he was looking for a more stable situation. He hadn’t been involved in the music business in like three years… like family problems, this and that… personal reasons. And he was on the way back and all of a sudden there’s this band he heard of, a little bit. So, he sent a demo of stuff he was doing and we sent a couple of old tracks he was supposed to sing on. And everything sounded very promising. All of a sudden we started working and it fit well, very much. When I started getting ideas for this next album, which became “Collision Course”, it was a very strange thing. Usually when I’m writing a song, in my head I can hear the singer’s voice. That’s a usual thing. Later you think about technical things, his range, this and that. But basically you have his timbre in your head. But when I started writing this song, I didn’t. Some kind of other structure to this voice. So I thought, OK, one song, whatever, so I just continued. The all of a sudden the second song, and I have this same thing again.

That side… Kind of accelerated the whole thing with parting ways with John and to find somebody else. I realized, when Mark sang on a couple of demo tracks that is the voice that will fit. Because I think subconsciously somehow, when we did the first “Paradox”, we had D.C. Cooper singing. And he had this very extended high range as well. And that kind of seemed to me appealing at the time. When Mark started doing some of his thing, some of his wails and falsetto, really supersonic screams, it’s sort of the same atmosphere as “Paradox”, which seems to be perfect.

Greg: So let’s talk a little bit about “Collision Course”. Its predecessor was released in 1997. What prompted to you to write a follow-up more than a decade later?

André: For five or six years, everybody was on my butt to do “Paradox II”, when we released the first one. Because when we did the first “Paradox”, nobody liked it actually.

Greg: Really?

André: Yeah… it was a new record company, new management, even the band didn’t like that much. Obviously, more than everybody else. But they were unsure about it. I remember everybody saying, who the hell will do a concept album? It’s ’97, and blah, blah, blah. And it sounded kind of weird… they didn’t like that. There wasn’t rounds of applause or anything. I remember on top of that I was sitting in the studio and I was doing this mixing thing and the guy from our record company, he called me and said, “I just heard this track you sent me, this Message to God.” I said, “What do you think about it?” And he said, “Hmmm… nothing special.” And I’m sitting there mixing it and he says, “Nothing special.” So it was weird, the whole vibe to this album. All of a sudden, two, or three or five years later, everybody is saying this is the best album we ever did. But probably most, so-called “good albums”, probably have this weird birth anyway.

Greg: Interesting. I saw an interview you did in Greece, where you talked about recognizing that while “Paradox” may be a fan favorite, it’s not one of your favorites. So then, if someone said to you, “What is ROYAL HUNT about?” which album would you give them?

André: Besides the last album? Because obviously you have all these feelings about your last album, so exclude “Collision Course”. Probably one of the least favorites of most of the fans is “Fear”. That’s probably, and the first album, that’s probably my favorite. Sometimes I’m in this whacky mood; I think “Eye Witness” is good. A lot of people hated it, because fans were saying, it’s a completely un-ROYAL HUNT album. Possible… I don’t know. I kind of like to experiment a little bit. But “Fear” probably, of all-time.

Greg: That’s interesting. You just mentioned how the fans view “Eye Witness” as “the least ROYAL HUNT album”. You’ve been doing this for 20 years, you have nine studio albums out. As a musician, do you ever feel confined by the expectations of your fans?

André: I’m fighting it every single day… trust me. Every single day. I just mentioned “Eye Witness” is a very un-ROYAL HUNT album, there were songs on it, especially this little Jazz thing, and it’s a ridiculous thing. I remember, Century Media in America, they dropped us. One of the reasons was that song. I mean, obviously they didn’t like the album, that’s another thing. But this was probably the last drop. Then they heard this song, and I remember this guy, he was talking to our manager, he said, “We can’t release this on this label”. I do understand them. It’s not like I was upset or anything. I do understand. Especially in the last 10 – to 15 years, everything is so cleverly, insightfully, particularized. Everything has a label, and hundreds of sub-labels. Sometimes I have a feel… I don’t do it consciously, but sometimes I feel like I’m doing things like that, to provoke somebody. Because why the hell would I do some sort of Jazz number? I’m an old-timer. I remember, back in the day, when I was getting one of the first QUEEN albums, they could go from Hard Rock, to Bebop, and it was fine… it was allowed. Nobody called them a Jazz band just because or whatever, just because of a bebop drum line. It was just natural; a much freer atmosphere. Today for god’s sake, if you have an album and for the first five minutes, you didn’t start with double-kicks, you’re not Metal any more. It’s a little ridiculous. I understand how it happens, in my mind. But still, it’s a little ridiculous when you step outside and look back in. It’s hilarious, actually.

This ends Part One of Greg’s interview with Royal Hunt keyboardist/founding member André Andersen. The complete interview can only be found in the official (printed) ProgPower USA program given to all attendees. If you want to read the entire interview, you have to come to the show!

Final Note: All photos/images used to illustrate this interview are used in compliance with the principles of Fair Use. They illustrate reviews, opinions, and interviews with the band members who created the albums and on whose official web sites and MySpace pages some of these images reside. The photos of the band are borrowed from the band’s official web site. No copyright violations are intended.

Milton: Good afternoon, Rodrigo. This is Milton calling you from the USA.

Rodrigo: Milton! How’s everything, my friend?

Milton: All is well over here. How’s Sao Paulo today?

Rodrigo: It’s nice out today. The sky is blue and the sun is shining. It’s actually weird, you can never predict the weather down here.

Milton: That’s a good thing though. Rodrigo, first of all, I really appreciate you taking the time for this interview today.

Rodrigo: The pleasure is all mine. I should be the one thanking you.

Milton: So, in a unexpected turn of events, MINDFLOW has landed a spot at ProgPower USA for the first time. How did this last-minute thing work out?

Rodrigo: Well, it was quite simple actually. We received an email from Glenn (Harveston) a few days ago, inviting us to perform at ProgPower, and we obviously accepted the invitation immediately. We are very, very happy to be able to play for the fans there. It’s something that we have always wanted to do, and we couldn’t wait for it to happen. Finally!

Milton: Good things happen to those who work hard enough, I guess.

Rodrigo: That’s true. It’s a really great honor for us to come to such as renowned festival. It’s quite an achievement in our careers, without a doubt.

Milton: Cool, were you familiar with ProgPower USA in the past?

Rodrigo: Oh, absolutely. We follow it every year, always check out the website and hear stories about how great of an event it is. We’re always tuning in for the latest news.

Milton: Cool, is there any bands in this year’s lineup that you’d be excited to watch if you get the chance?

Rodrigo: I actually want to see all of them! Especially FATES WARNING, that I have always loved. And our singer, Danilo Herbert will be joining CRIMSON GLORY onstage, that would be awesome to see too.

Milton: Great, it’s nice to see bands doing that. Now what can the fans in attendance expect of MINDFLOW live?

Rodrigo: Well, I think for sure the fans can expect a lot of energy, because MINDFLOW is much more powerful live than on the CD. This is something that we’re really proud of, this live energy. It is at the concert that MINDFLOW becomes the real MINDFLOW. It’s going to be an awesome show, for sure!

Milton: It’s interesting that you mention it, because I’ve always thought that MINDFLOW’s music, especially with the latest album calls for a live environment.

Rodrigo: Definitely. We really enjoy playing live, and the songs from Destructive Device work really well with the audiences.

Milton: Now, before we go on talking about Destructive Device, I wanted to ask you a little bit about the band itself, and its beginning.

Rodrigo: Sure. I think we started pretty much like any other band, a bunch of friends who wanted to play music together. We honestly didn’t take is very seriously in the beginning, but we always had in mind what we wanted to do. We always knew we wanted to play our own music, and we wanted to do something different. We wanted to innovate, you know?

Milton: Absolutely.

Rodrigo: So with this whole progressive rock and progressive metal thing, we took the liberty to try a bunch of different things and not confine ourselves to this genre. In fact, that’s the one thing I really like about the style of music we play. It gives us so much freedom to flirt with different types of music, and that’s exactly what we wanted to do. We always wanted to let our minds flow.

Milton: I think I’ve heard the expression somewhere before…

(mutual laughter)

Rodrigo: We started as an instrumental band with me, Ricardo Winandy, Rafael Pensado and Miguel Spada. Eventually, Danilo Herbert joined the band as vocalist and we renamed it MINDFLOW. That’s when we started taking it seriously.

Milton: How long ago was that?

Rodrigo: It was around 2003. Then in 2004, we finally released our very first album, Just the Two of Us, Me and Them, which we are very proud of. It was a whole new experience for us, since we’d never been in studio before. So that’s how we started, pretty much. The rest, as they say, is history.

Milton: It’s interesting then how the band’s name is not just a name, but rather, the band’s approach to writing music so to speak.

Rodrigo: Absolutely. That’s the whole point of the name. We try not to worry about the style, shape or form of the song. Usually we say that the songs end up composing us.

Milton: Cool. Just the Two of Us, Me and Them was a strong debut that immediately put the band out there in the scene, were you surprised by that?

Rodrigo: Oh yeah, very much so. We released this album with no ambitions, really. We sent a few copies to the press for reviews and I remember being very nervous to see what they would be saying about us and our music. And then all of a sudden we’re getting all of these positive reviews and we’re like “Wow!”

Milton: (Laughter) That’s great!

Rodrigo: Yeah, and then we attended this music expo in France and we brought a few copies of the album to pass around and promote our work. At this expo, we hooked up with a record label who really liked the album and wanted to sign us. We reached an agreement quickly, and our debut album ended up being released in 60 countries.

Milton: Wow, 60? That’s not too shabby for a debut, huh?

Rodrigo: (laughter) Not at all! We’re very proud of this album, like I said, it is very special to us. Kind of like the oldest son, you know? (laughter) And achieving that with our debut release gave us quite a boost of confidence to continue with our work and write more music.

Milton: I can imagine. I know there’s an interesting story behind the concept in your debut. Would you give me a little more insight on that?

Rodrigo: Well, first of all, allow me to say that when MINDFLOW releases an album, we always try to stay within a topic, or a theme, so to speak. We strongly believe this makes the release more powerful and we’re able to link this with various other forms of media, such as internet, videos, etc. Anyways, the concept behind Just the Two of Us, Me and Them is based on a true story. I had a cousin who was an airplane pilot in Brazil, and that had always made my family very worried about his safety. It was a recurring topic among our family, his safety and their worry. One night, I had a dream that something went wrong with his plane, and he died in the crash, but I never really mentioned it to anyone. I was never much of a believer in these things. Then, about a week later, we got the news that a plane crash ended up claiming his life.

Milton: Oh, no.

Rodrigo: Yeah, it was very sad. So the album really became kind of a tribute to him. We decided to tell this story through our songs. That’s the concept behind it.

Milton: I’m sorry to hear about such a sad story, but you created quite a tribute to him with the album. Now, you mentioned that you’re always trying to stick to a theme in the album, and yet bring the work to different media. Do you find it easier to stay within the same topic, when it comes to writing the songs?

Rodrigo: I think it’s something that you have to be much more careful with, actually. It requires more work from us, but it’s also something we really enjoy doing. We try to think of it as we’re not just composing an album, but the soundtrack to a specific topic. For instance, on the latest album, we approached as writing the soundtrack to an action movie. And we moved that beyond the music. Our artwork, the video, it all fits a “Mission: Impossible,” Hollywood-esque thing. Now that I think about, it’s much more labor-intensive, but it’s more gratifying in the end.

Milton: I can tell you that Destructive Device seems to have been a very elaborated project.

Rodrigo: You have no idea! (laughter) We always wanted to offer more to the public and to our fans, to go that extra step. Like I always say, MINDFLOW goes way beyond the music. Usually a band releases an album, does a tour and there’s that gap of a year or two until the next album, sometimes even more. We didn’t want this gap to exist, we wanted to stay connected with the public and always offer them interactivity with the band. So back in the day, we had the idea of creating an Alternate Reality Game about a Serial Killer.

Milton: Oh yeah, our good friend J.A.C.K.

Rodrigo: (laughter) Exactly. Basically, we created this character whose story goes through different parts. We released the first part of the game with our second album, Mind Over Body. It was actually kind of obscure, hidden in the album, sort of. Like, you’d have to figure it out by reading a few lyrics and looking at some signs and stuff. We left some cryptic clues so to speak so people could look and say “Huh, there’s something over here, what is this stuff?”

Milton: That’s really cool!

Rodrigo: It was awesome, because it took about a year and three months for our fans to finally reach the end of this enigma. And we had a lot of people who participated.

Milton: That’s a really awesome way to stay connected with the fans.

Rodrigo: Oh, most definitely. And that part of the story ends up with J.A.C.K. being arrested and thrown in a mental institution. Which is exactly where Destructive Device begins. Basically J.A.C.K. is able to escape from his confinement, and the detectives, who’re really the fans, have to figure out how he managed to do that, and try to catch him. They have just recently been able to solve this part, and now people are eager to hear what the next one will be.

Milton: So you’re not planning to end the story anytime soon, huh?

Rodrigo: Definitely not! It’s so cool, the fans love it and we have a lot of fun with it too. We try to innovate as much as we can, you know? We love our music, but there are other things that we believe to be very important, and we try to explore these things as much as possible.

Milton: So what’re you going to do that’s going to be innovative in Atlanta?

Rodrigo: (laughter) Ah, of course we have something up our sleeves. We will be playing a new song at ProgPower that is part of our next project, entitled MINDFLOW 365.

Milton: That’s great news. Tell me about this MINDFLOW 365 idea.

Rodrigo: Well, Destructive Device came out around a year or so ago. And we’re so anxious to put new music out, that we’ve decided to write and release one new song a month, in the period of a year.

Milton: Really?

Rodrigo: Yeah, we figured why wait another whole year? The first song will be released on 09/09/09, and we’ll have the opportunity to play it live for the first time ever at ProgPower. Each song will be released with a different product, the fans will be able to participate and choose the title of certain songs, for instance, it’s going to be very interactive.

Milton: That’s quite a bold project!

Rodrigo: It is. This way we can offer the fans the freshest ideas and music that we have.

Milton: That’s also a great way to allow the fans to know and to experience what you guys are feeling in the moment, or currently, so to speak.

Rodrigo: Exactly, you nailed it. That’s the concept, we want the fans to feel it as we do. If you think about it, a band writes the music, then the lyrics, rehearse it together, then start production in the studio, record the whole thing, work on the artwork and when you look at the calendar, it’s been easily six months. Then another few months until the album is out. It’s new to the public, of course, but it’s not the current moment the band is in, do you know what I mean?

Milton: Of course.

Rodrigo: So we thought it’d be interesting to release this album one song at a time and show the world what we’re living through and feeling through our music.

Milton: And would this be released only digitally?

Rodrigo: The idea is to release the songs digitally at first. We’ll set up a date for the fans to receive the lyrics, the title, then an exclusive wallpaper for that song, and finally, the song. We’ll be doing that every month, there’ll be different ways for the people to get the songs, which we haven’t announced yet. And then, after a year, we’re going to put out a conventional CD with these 12 songs, and the next part of our Alternate Reality Game.

Milton: Speaking of digital releases, MINDFLOW was one of the very first bands to make the whole album available on the internet, at no cost, for the fans. I’m curious as to what MINDFLOW’s position is on the whole Mp3/piracy issue.

Rodrigo: You know, we’ve had our opinion about it for a long time and it has never changed. We decided to make our songs available for the public for free because we really want them to listen to our music and get familiar with our work. And since nowadays we’re not really sure what tomorrow is going to bring in the whole Mp3 thing, we decided that we wanted our music to be available in the most widespread possible way. And we’re proud to be one of the first bands to do that, since it was great for us. It is an honor to have people access our website, download and listen to our music.

Milton: That’s a cool, sensible way to deal with it.

Rodrigo: You have to be. It worked in our advantage, because it increased our fan base and our concert attendance, which is really what matters. I don’t think anyone today should expect to make a living out of selling CDs. The CD is nothing more than a way to transport the music. Luckily, there are other ways for the music to reach the public, nowadays. Nobody really needs CDs anymore, if you think about it. So since day one, we decided on this approach. Think of the music as our business card. And then, more people will come to the shows and buy our merchandise.

Milton: That’s yet another way you guys seem to be one step ahead of things.

Rodrigo: Yeah, that’s a way to put it. Or even just follow the world as it evolves, really. CDs came out and they worked great for a long time, but things have changed. What matters the most to us is the proximity to our fans. Our fans can be sure that we’ll always be doing our best for them to reach us and our music.

Milton: And have you personally converted yourself to the digital era of downloads?

Rodrigo: (laughter) The funny thing is that I still like buying CDs.

(mutual laughter)

Rodrigo: But I’m slowly changing. I think nowadays there’s a general mentality that the band has to make the music available digitally, and not charge for it. Music listeners seem to have this mentality that allows them to listen to it without having to pay for it. I’m not sure if it’s a good or bad thing yet, but that seems to be a trend. It’s like music has become something that’s public domain. I don’t even think this is wrong, but I find it good and bad at the same time.

Milton: How so?

Rodrigo: I think if a band tries to shield themselves against it, they would end up hurting bad. However, if they embrace it and somehow evolve with this trend, I think it’s a killer opportunity for them.

Milton: What I can get out of this is that MINDFLOW is really not so worried about making money selling albums.

Rodrigo: Not with the albums, no. But for instance, our concert figures have increased tremendously. I think if we had opted to hold on to the music and not put it on the internet, like we did with our first release, I don’t know if people would’ve bought it. But once you release one product out there, the following ones will most likely be purchased. And the concert is one of these “products.” I think it’s a great way to start.

Milton: You guys seem to have a very cool and special connection with the North American crowd. Even Brazilian bands who have been out there for longer, don’t seem to get such a connection up here.

Rodrigo: Yeah, I know. I think it may be because of the style of music we play. I think the American crowd must be more into the heavier, more raw Prog metal. And obviously we’re heavier than those too. Especially with the release of Destructive Device, which received amazing reviews in the United States.

Milton: Now, you did a few tours here in North America, but you took a very unusual approach to those tours. Instead of trying to get an opener slot in a tour with a more established band, you chose to book your own headlining tour, despite of the size of the shows. Quite a risky attempt, no?

Rodrigo: Absolutely, but it totally paid off. It was a great experience, and the crowd’s response couldn’t have been any better. We were so thrilled by the way we were treated. I remember people flew hours just to be able to catch us on tour. That alone was worth the tour.

Milton: That’s excellent.

Rodrigo: I think when we were discussing the possibility of playing in the USA, it seemed right to us to do things the way we did. And it worked out. We usually tend to go where we believe we should go, you know? Even if it seems a bit unusual, sometimes, but it’s what’s in our hearts that counts.

Milton: Any interesting stories you can tell me of the last time you were here?

Rodrigo: Stories… we always have stories. Good and bad ones.

This ends Part One of Milt’s interview with Mindflow guitarist/vocalist Rodrigo Hidalgo. The complete interview can only be found in the official (printed) ProgPower USA program given to all attendees. If you want to read the entire interview, you have to come to the show!

Final Note: All photos/images used to illustrate this interview (except album covers) were provided by Mindflow. No copyright violations are intended.