|
GR - We have listened to Moonspell and
Opposition, both of these albums are highly polished in the production department.
You seem to have your own signature sound; can you share with us what you guys are
doing in the studio to achieve that PD sound?
– Well, that’s a hard question to answer. Some of it
is due to the nature of the way we all play our respective instruments. Myself, I am
not necessarily a fan of the stripped down sound that seems so prevalent these days.
I like rack gear. I like to experiment with sounds.
I think too that a good deal of this comes from the fact
that we own our own recording studio. We’ve always recorded our own music. We built
up our studio to a fairly complex one at this point (32 track ADAT system with
automated mixing via a Mackie D8B etc). In doing so, Chris and I have learned a
great deal about the engineering aspects of recording sounds. This, combined with
the facts that we know what we want on tape and we are not confined by the clock
allows us plenty of time to get what we want. If not, we’ll spend the time to
experiment until we find a way to get it.
 - A band's "sound" is the combination of players, their instruments, recording
techniques, and mixing approaches. These core factors have stayed generally similar
over the last couple albums so people do start to "hang their hats" (so to speak) on
this "PD sound." But, it is always changing to a degree... being refined and honed.
GR - The making of a new album is very complex; can you
give us some of your ideas behind the formulation of the new "Opposition album"?
  – The title itself is a play on words. “Opposition” is an astronomical
term. It is the point in a planet’s orbit where it is directly opposite the sun in
our sky – which means it will rise at sunset and set at sunrise. I have been into
things astronomical since a young age and majored in it in college. However, the
term can be taken in many different ways
Most of the music on Opposition was written by myself, Chris, Kim and Ed during the
time period that Karin was pregnant with her baby daughter Bronwyn. Due to some
complications during her pregnancy, she was unable to join us at rehearsals for
several months. Then, when Bronwyn came into the world, she was rather busy for the
first several months as one might imagine. We would come up with song ideas (never a
problem for us) and send Karin tapes of the ideas. She’d go over them in her spare
time and decide whether she liked them or not. Some she’d work on with lyrics and
vocal melodies, some were rejects and we’d move on.
It should be noted here that we only write music as a whole entity in general. I
don’t sit around with my guitar and write songs that the band then plays. We write
together, as a unit. Often times the songs on our cd’s are the result of a group jam
session. We record all of our practices and then go back and listen to the tapes to
determine what we like and want to keep. If we keep it, it gets refined into a
usable song.
Once we had the “idea” of Opposition going, we worked on the idea of the concept. If
you notice, the song pattern on the cd follows the opposition idea – hard/heavy song
followed by a softer more ethereal one. The mythical couple on the front cover,
trying to escape from one another, have reconciled on the back cover and broken the
chain between them, etc.
GR - Which comes first, the words or the music?
 - It's not always a standard formula. Often, the music dictates what
the lyrics will be, but sometimes we will use lyrics that have been previously
written and then fit them to the music as it evolves.
– Karin and I are the lyricists in the band. Sometimes we’ll write lyrics and
present them to each other. Sometimes we work on ideas together. Sometimes one of us
has written a set of lyrics that will fit into something we came up with in a jam
session and they’ll end up in that song, once we’ve refined it. Sometimes lyrics
will come out of a jam session. Like Karin says, there’s not set formula for us.
GR - Did you go into this album any differently from
past efforts?
– No, not really from an engineering perspective. We did, however, set
ourselves a deadline of when we wanted the album to be finished and released (which
was the Powermad festival this past August). As fortune would have it, the new cd’s
arrived at our studio the day we were leaving for Baltimore. That’s about as close
to a deadline as I ever want to get!
- With a hard and fast deadline for the whole project. Moonspell did have
a couple of deadlines towards the end, but Opposition had one major deadline from
the start.
GR - What is your approach when it comes to
recording?
– Once we have a song worked out to where we like it and it feels
comfortable, we’ll spend some time mapping it out (how many measures, what time
signatures and tempo, etc). Once this is done, we’ll program it into a drum machine
and create a click track for the song. We’ll then play as a band to the click track
and record a scratch track of this song with all of us playing.
After that, I will go back and start laying down the guitar track to the
song. Ed will do drums next, then Chris on bass. After this it is usually John who
does percussion then Kim on keyboards. Karin does the vocal tracks last.
A lot of times I will add guitar parts after I get to listen to the song as
we recorded it above. What you hear us play live is the way the song was actually
written. All of the extra guitar (and sometimes keyboards and vocals) that you hear
on the cd’s are the result of us experimenting after the main part of the song was
recorded.
GR - What qualities do you like to make sure go
into a PD song?
– I like the songs to be able to draw mental pictures of the stories
behind them when I hear them.
 
- Lots of groove and crunch. I’m a metal fan so I always look to keep
it heavy. However, we are all disciples to the philosophy of keeping a sense of
depth during the composing phase. One thing I notice a lot of bands doing these days
is slamming you with a super crunch double-kick fury. Although I enjoy good metal
fury, I am always starving for a good melody to juxtapose the fury. Depth is key.
 – Most importantly, the quality of a true group effort. Who ever comes
up with the seed of a piece, brings it to the group. Then we nourish this into
being.
- A certain amount of complexity and a lot of emotion.
 – I love the melodies to capture your imagination, the key changes and
the tempo changes to flow naturally, or to shake the listener awake. The little
nuances added here and there really spice up and fill up the sound.
GR - Are there any particular inspirations or
stories behind any of the songs off the new album?
– Most certainly! TV Talk Show is a parody of all the stupid garbage
that shows up on TV these days as talk shows. Endymion is actually part two to
Millennium Moon (from MoonSpell). Endymion was Selene’s lover in ancient myths. The
idea for Dreamcatcher came to me when I was driving Kim’s (keyboardist) car one day.
Her aunt had given her a dreamcatcher that she had hanging on the rear view mirror.
I wrote the original set of lyrics from this inspiration then Karin rewrote them, I
added a few things near the end, etc. 10th Moon is a true story of two lovers whose
relationship was very intense but never worked out well in real life. Rather than
dissolving it altogether, they agreed to meet every 10 moons for a night of shared
intimacy. Stormchaser is sort of based on the same couple. It is more existential
though in that the imagery is based more on the danger and thrill of actual
stormchasers but written from the relationship perspective.
I think it is safe to say that regardless of whether Karin or I write a set
of lyrics, there will always be a real life story behind them one way or another.
Actually, on the next cd, Kim may have some lyric credits too. She wrote a
short story that Karin then wrote lyrics to. Kim has also written a set of lyrics
called “Wishing Well” that we are interested in using.
- I played the flute on Far Side of Eden. I enjoy flutes and will
probably try a few more. Plus, “Far Side of Eden “ is about the environment and I
feel emotional about the Earth at times. I also played Tony Levin’s “funk-fingers”
on 10th Moon.
 - Oh, yes. Several. For example, Bevel is based on a Flannery O'Connor
story entitled "The River." Kindred Soil is about a feeling I had once when driving
through the battlefield areas of Gettysburg as well as a response to a Civil War
documentary I had watched. Agent of Chaos and Serene Sea are both from on a short
fantasy story I had been working on whose themes are based upon the second coming of
the Messiah and the opposing evil who helps to bring about the demise of the
physical world.
GR - How long did it take to write the new album?
– Well, as I said above, we had some extenuating circumstances in the
time period between MoonSpell and Opposition. MoonSpell was
released on June 9, 1999. Opposition was officially released on October 2,
2001, although we had the finished product on August 17. I guess you could say two
years but that really isn’t altogether true. We recorded nearly 45 hours worth of
music between the time we finished MoonSpell and Opposition. Most of these
recordings were patterns and song ideas we’d come up with during practice sessions.
Some of them are pure garbage. But, there are quite a few pieces of finished music
out there that we didn’t include on Opposition and may have on a future album.
GR - Where and how did you meet your two new additions to the band John Tallent on
percussion" and Kim Finney keyboard / Synth?
– John was a friend of Ed’s. They have worked together before on other
projects, most notably is their “Rhythms of the Land” production which is a show
based on the life and works of J.R.R. Tolkien.
Ed brought John into the studio during the MoonSpell sessions to work with
him on the percussion song Earth Dreams. After
we had finished MoonSpell, the four of us (myself, Chris, Karin and Ed) started
talking about doing live shows for the first
time. Ed had added a lot of percussion into the songs on MoonSpell and we all wanted
them to be in the songs live. So, we
finally convinced John to join the group on a full time basis. It wasn’t really very
hard to convince him... ;)
 Kim
is a bit of a different story. I had known Kim for a year or so prior to
her joining the band. We were friends and she had no real contact at all with the
band. Just after we finished MoonSpell, the four of us were sitting around one night
discussing how we might play our music in a live situation without having to rely on
tapes and sequencers. Kim showed up during this conversation to visit me. While we
were talking, she asked if she could hear a piano sound on one of my keyboards. I
set it up for her and went back to talking with the band. Kim had told me she played
piano in high school but I never really thought much about it. As we were talking,
Kim started to play something classical (I think it was Bach) and we all just sort
of stopped talking and stared at her. A few minutes later I was showing her the
keyboard parts to Worry Beads and the rest is history.
I don’t think Kim ever thought about being in a band (PD is her first band)
nor had I ever thought about her as a possible keyboardist for PD – at least not
until that night. In all my conversations with her prior to that night, she had
never said much about music and hence, I never thought about her as a possibility.
But things have worked out really well. John and Kim have
been great additions to the band.
- Strange you should ask! Long story short: I met John Tallent (the second
time) through an ex-girlfriend of mine. I realized that I had met him once before at
a benefit show. A poor family had lost their oldest son and John and I were with
separate groups participating in a benefit concert for the family. I was surprised
at all of the great and varied percussion items that John made available for the
show and at his generosity in letting all groups involved in the benefit use his
gear. I was introduced briefly to him before we played but had completely forgotten
about him and hadn't seen him in years until our chance meeting through my
girlfriend at the time. After this second introduction we exchanged information
because I wasn't going to let him slip away this time. :)
We became friends and kept in contact until the day he accepted my invitation
to come and guest on Moonspell's "Earth Dreams." As the group began to get to know
John from those sessions, I was able to convince them that having a fulltime
percussionist would be a great addition to the group. And so we began to play
together... and, to my delight, haven't stopped since.
 – I met Ed Wiancko a long while back. It was only in passing but his
drumming ability stayed with me. We had a chance meeting again a few years later and
that began our infant friendship. Two years after that (I think !?!) I wrote a
musical/play based on the history of Middle-earth (this is 1998 time frame). Here is
where things get almost fairy tale like. Upon finishing the writing of this musical
which was percussion based, I realized I would now need a tip-top drummer to help me
bring it to the stage. I sat perplexed for two evenings when Ed knocked at my door.
It is important to know here that Ed and I were acquainted but our friendship was
very, very callow. I looked up and Ed said ‘Hi, I just moved in a block away and
thought to drop in on you.’ This was fate at work. I brought Ed into my apartment,
chatted a bit and then told him what I had been writing. He jumped in to help me
smooth out some rough edges and finally I was able to bring the musical to the stage
of the Carnegie Lecture Hall to standing room only. This was Ed and I drumming
together in public for the first time. The members of Persephone’s Dream came to see
this and that got their juices flowing. A week or so later Karin was twisting my arm
while Rowen stood on my chest saying,
“Join or die !”
GR - Has your music changed with the addition of your new
musicians?
– I am not sure “changed” is as a good an adjective as “expanded” would
be here. I guess that is kind of splitting hairs but that is how I would answer this
question. We have always been able to do a lot in the studio. I played almost all of
the keyboards parts on the first two albums, in addition to all of the guitar parts.
However, none of that could have been done live. Likewise with all the percussion Ed
added to the songs on MoonSpell. Kim and John have allowed us to expand our sonic
palettes a great deal, especially in the writing phase and live shows. The basic
ideas and/or style of music we like to write and play though has not changed much.
- Yes. We still have that PD sound, but with new layers. Our
orchestration has changed quite a bit as all of us ambitiously contribute our tastes
and skills. Look for more changes on the next CD.
- Sure they do influence the writing sessions because we all participate
in those, but the main thing is that we don't have to worry about pulling off the
stuff "live" that we've put on to CD's. Before we got Kim we were thinking, damn,
we're going to have to play to a tape or a sequence in order to have the keyboards
in the songs. (Or else have Rowen grow a 4th hand) What a relief it was to find
Kim... and that she could read music! We simply printed out the Moonspell charts
and, "boom," problem solved. Same theory with the percussion... we were going to
have to leave most of the tasty percussion parts out when we played live. In comes
John and, "boom," problem solved. Any you couldn't find two finer people!
– Well, I, as a musician, have found the people of PD to be a wonderful
influence on my musical growth. I can think of nobody else I would rather be on this
mystical journey with.
– My feeling is that John and I fill out the spaces, and add additional
feeling to the music. Though I do not feel we’ve changed the music significantly,
the addition of a percussionist and full-time keyboardist allows the other four of
us to breath and explore new avenues on their instruments.
|| 
PREV PAGE ||
NEXT PAGE
|
