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Prog4you: Cliffhanger, Hang On, and the
Crusher; is it a theme?
Gary:
Actually that’s all one song. It’s really four parts. If you look at Hang On by
itself you got the very beginning of Carved In Stone, which we stole from. I mean
right down to the fact that we didn’t even go to the master tapes. I just put the
CD in and hit record. We took it right from the CD. The whole next part was a song
that Mike and I wrote called a Thousand Years, which we worked a lot on. Actually
that was just the intro of that other Thousand-Year song. That was one of the
songs that were going to possibly be on the album. We had a band meeting and we
started adding up the times we said we didn’t want to make a 70 min record. We
were going to try to shoot for 50 minutes so we could get it done. We still ended
up with 74 minutes of music. I think Carl said take the beginning of Thousand
Years because that’s a really cool part and stick it on to Cliffhanger part 2, so
it kind of got merged together at the last minute and Crusher is like a crazy
instrumental.
Prog4you:
It’s incredible.
Gary:
So it’s really the next chapter of Cliff
Hanger.
Prog4you:
Will there be a chapter 3?
Gary:
Yeah if that’s what you think.
Mike: We will never say. People were bugging us for the longest time; mostly our
diehard fans were saying, “When are you guys ever going to do this?”
Prog4you:
Would that be the fans from the Shadow Gallery’s news groups?
Mike: As well as others.
Prog4you:
I have been to your site; you have quite a huge guest book.
Mike: Oh yeah.
Gary:
We get fans from all over the place.
Prog4you:
You have a huge fan base over seas.
Gary:
A lot more then over here, that’s for sure.
Prog4you:
It’s incredible how many fans you have in Germany.
Gary:
Probably five to one. If not ten to one than what we have over here.
Prog4you:
I don’t know why they are so hooked into it and we are not.
Gary:
I don’t either.
Mike: We just did three interviews from Europe today.
Gary:
I think we probably sell more in Germany, Greece, and Italy in the first month
then we would in the states in probably years.
Prog4you:
Those numbers are staggering. Can you tell your fans what the state of affairs is
currently with the band? Will the band stay in tact?
Gary:
I hope so, I guess it’s up to everyone individually we signed a contract for four
records and this was the fourth.
Mike: So our contract is up right now.
Prog4you:
So now it’s time to sign a prime time contract.
Gary:
Well we either resign or sign with someone else, or we restructure. Everybody in
the band has to look at their lives now, it’s different when you were 21 years old
or when your 35. You say, well, do we want to do this again? I can only speak for
myself, and say definitely. I put everything I have into Shadow Gallery, all the
time every day. I’m not going to let that stop.
Prog4you:
Do you guys have a part time job or are you full time musicians?
Mike: We actually do things on the side. We all have jobs and families.
Gary:
That’s what makes it a little difficult
to put out records in a timely fashion.
Prog4you:
When you signed for Magna Carta records, didn’t they pretty much open the doors
for you?
Gary:
They opened the door to get our music to
people who would hear it.
Mike: Exactly, they had us all across the world.
Prog4you:
Did Magna Carta meet you or did you contact them?
 Mike:
We sent our Demo out to them. It was Mike Varney from Shrapnel Records that was
starting up a little sister record label called Magna Carta. The label was more
progressive. They heard some elements in our original Demos tapes that we did with
my original heavy metal band Sorcerer, that had some flutes and softer moments and
they really liked that. They thought this band could try something different with
progressive, go a little more progressive. That’s what happened, we got a few more
members in the band and we started changing.
Prog4you:
So the band line up has always been the same.
Gary:
Except for me. I came in just after the 1992 release.
 Mike:
Joe, the drummer, has been on the last
two albums.
Prog4you:
There seems to be chemistry with the band now.
Mike: Oh definitely.
Prog4you: The drumming on the album is very
polished.
Mike: Joe did a good job.
Prog4you:
This album is the most polished and the tightest Shadow Gallery yet.
Gary:
Thank you. I was worried people were going to say the opposite.
Prog4you:
You’re welcome. We didn’t know what to expect when we first heard it. From the
very beginning, from the very first time we put it on. It just blew us away.
Gary:
Oh that’s really great to hear. I was really envisioning when I was recording some
of the guitar parts, doing interviews and people saying so how come your not that
tight anymore - what happened?
Mike:
I had to ease Gary’s mind and put those little evil thoughts of his to rest.
Because he would sleep with it every night, he would work on it more then anyone
else in the band and after so many weeks and so many months of that, you start to
worry that it could not be good enough to live up to Tyranny, which we put so many
hours dedicated to that project.
Prog4you:
A lot of effort went into that.
Mike: Yeah a lot of effort went into Tyranny. It really set us back for a few
months after it was done. It took a while for us to regain our balance.
Gary:
Yeah: I’ll tell you it really is
amazing. I haven’t heard or played Legacy much. I just played it yesterday for the
first time since it came out. I had to separate myself from it and hear it with
fresh ears. Literally, the last couple of weeks of working on it, I couldn’t sleep
because I would be dreaming about the keyboards still being out of tune and felt I
had to tighten up that guitar part. I mean some really silly things. These were
some really serious things that I would wake up to and end up redoing.
Prog4you:
I know how you feel brother.
Mike: Yeah we’re perfectionists.
Prog4you:
My partner calls me anal.
Gary:
Well I think a lot of people go through
that in different areas of life in their different jobs.
Prog4you:
Well it’s important, it’s your baby and there gems for some of us.
Mike: Thing is, once it’s done and it’s out there, you can’t change it. You can’t
take it back and say; oh we should have done this differently.
Prog4you:
It’s like this interview, once it’s done and I put it out, I might get an Email
asking me to change it. When in reality I can’t do that.
On another issue, I heard that Gary has a new band. Is that true? Are there any
other side projects for the band?
Gary:
Well not really a new band.
Prog4you:
Ok can you elaborate?
Gary:
Well I’m in an acoustic trio. Not
progressive rock or anything close to it.
Prog4you:
So it’s a side project or something you’re fooling around with?
 Gary:
Basically, I produced a couple of records for somebody locally here named
Jim Roberti.
We have worked together for years. I just started sitting in with him, an acoustic
solo act with a drummer, next thing you know were booked four days a week. We
never rehearsed once.
Prog4you:
Is it instrumental?
Gary:
No it’s everything from classics to rock
to modern stuff and everything in between. It’s not anything close to Shadow
Gallery.
Prog4you:
That’s okay; we are open minded to any kind of music.
Gary:
You can go to the Shadow Gallery web page and check out our dates.
Mike: Yes, I’m singing vocals in The Absolute Man, Leonardo. Steve Walsh from
Kansas is singing on that, I have a smaller part on that.
Prog4you:
Now that you did this album, will you be doing some touring?
Mike: Well that’s a complicated issue for us, and unfortunately a very complicated
answer. We were talking about some dates to do Philadelphia and Atlanta and we got
offers over in Europe to do some dates. It’s kind of hard because unless we really
decide to go all out and do a six month tour. Some of us are afraid of the
security of leaving our jobs and having our families fend for themselves.
Prog4you:
That’s understandable; logistics are a definite concern for everyone involved.
Gary:
We’re really trying to juggle that and figure out what is the best for our
families and us and the future. At this point I don’t know if it’s going to happen
or not.
Mike:
We will never rule it out. It’s the most recently asked question of our
band.
Prog4you:
Someday we are thinking of possibly doing a progressive festival in Southern
Chester County, PA. We are really given it some serious thought. There is a lot of
logistics involved in that also. Maybe some day we will have you guys headlining
the festival.
Mike: Great.
Gary:
We don’t know if we will be playing at that point or not. If we are, we will
definitely be interested in playing for you.
Prog4you:
Thanks; we will keep you in mind for sure.
Gary:
Well,
Nearfest
was only five miles away from us. It was just bad timing for us.
Prog4you:
Talking about
Nearfest,
did they ever invite you guys to play there?
Gary:
Yes.
Prog4you: We didn’t know that.
Gary:
I know Chad through Email. He also had the radio show at Lehigh University and we
talked to him a bunch of times and he played our stuff for us.
Prog4you:
I have a son who is 13 years old and loves your music.
Mike: Really, 13/male and American who listens to our music. That’s hard to
believe it seems like study’s we have done on our web page years ago show that the
average Shadow Gallery fan is between the ages of 24 and 36, and all male. They
all have an occupation like a teacher or computer programmer.
Prog4you:
How do you feel about the future of progressive music?
Mike: I don’t think it could get much worse, so it must be getting better. I think
about ten years ago it hit an all time low.
Gary:
It was almost invisible, but it was there in the eighties. I think when Nirvana
came out they said okay you don’t even have to tune your guitars anymore. How
could someone really appreciate progressive music then?
Prog4you:
The other thing is I think people in general are just getting tired of what they
are hearing on the radio.
Mike: I know I am, I don’t even listen to the
radio at all.
Gary:
I don’t ether.
Prog4you:
I want to thank you very much for your time.
Gary:
Okay! We enjoyed talking to you.
Interviewers: George Roldan & Thomas
Connolly
If you want to check our
Gary Wehrkamp
side project check out
Gary's World
Go check out Shadow Gallery's web page at
www.shadowgallery.com/
You can purchase
the bands music from
Magna Carta.com
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