FREE! Magazine

From Toronto, Canada, Danko Jones delivers a high energy hard rock spiced up with the band’s leader unbeatable character, sense of humour and rocking attitude. A few hours before the trio sold out gig at Tavastia in Helsinki FREE! Magazine spoke to bassist John Calabrese about the new album, opening for The Rolling Stones and working with former Kyuss singer John Garcia.

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Although feeling Canadian, John Calabrese, or just JC, was born and grew up in a small village in Calabria in Italy. Always dreaming about playing music, soon he had the opportunity to move to Toronto, where he met Danko Jones and formed the band. Nowaday the band enjoys worldwide success, but JC is easy to approach and he behaves like a music fan rather than being an untouchable rock star. Being both from Southern Europe, before the interview we started talking about football and basketball as he is a fan of the NBA team Toronto Raptors.

How is the new tour?

We started a few days ago in Oslo. It’s always good to get the first show out of the way because it makes to all of us a little bit nervous. Now I feel more relaxed.

How did that first show go?

There were a few little mistakes, but I think one is more worried about making mistakes but then there are not so many mistakes. One thinks about stuff that it’s not really necessary. Everything is great.

What about the new album, Never Too Loud?

It’s pretty different but it’s doing quite well, especially among fans of hard rock. It’s a good record for us, and I think it’s going to have an appeal for a greater audience.

Some hardcore fans might not understand the band’s direction with new type of songs like Take Me Home. How would you explain them this change?

We have always been in a band to play live. Once the fans seen those new songs in the context of the live concert, it’s all going to make sense. For us, as musicians, we always want to make new stuff to challenge ourselves. But it’s not that different. It’s still a rock record with rock songs. We don’t want to repeat ourselves. What’s the point of doing Sleep With the Enemy Number 2? Never Too Late is a record that will grow in time. After some years people will go back to it and everything will make sense in the history of the band.

Only AC/DC are allowed to repeat themselves…

And not even them!!

How was working with Nick Raskulinecz who lately has produced very popular records from Stone Sour, Foo Fighters and Rush?

It was very good. We met him via a mutual friends of ours and kept sending him demos of the songs. With this album we had more time to write the songs and make the demos. That made a good difference. Nick told us to keep sending him demos. When we went to the studio we had 40 or 50 different songs and we all agree to cut it back to 12 or 15. We finally narrowed down to 12. We approach the recording in a solid way. We were ready to record from the beginning to the end.

Did you have any plans to make a specific type of record?

No. It just happened. If you hear the demos, those are the songs. No big changes. Nick did his role. He made us comfortable in the studio and get the best performance we could give.

How long did it take the recording?

It was about a two month process, although our drummer recorded all the drums in four days. He was very fast, but then he was bored for the rest of the recording, going nuts. He didn’t know what to do. When we went to the studio, we knew the songs very well. We did some preproduction and Nick became the fourth member of the band. He would be in the room with us playing guitar or bass or drums, showing little tricks that we didn’t think about but it sounded great. He helped shape the songs.

Tell me a little bit about working with John Garcia?

John is great. We met John for the first time while playing a gig in Sunset Strip in Los Angeles. We invited him and he showed up and it was surreal. He stood on front row and he knew every single song. Then he did the song Invisible with us. Last year we did this tour of Norway and we invited him over. We did a very special tours in all these places in Norway. We did the encore together, playing Invisible, a Unida song, a Kyuss song and some others. It was in small places, about 500 to 1000 people a night. John had a great time, although he is very scared of flying. Later when we were recording in California, we asked him again to come over so he drove his truck from the desert and we hang around. He is a great guy. After being fans of him, to meet him and work with him, it’s rewarding. We are music fans first of all.

Why do you think that the band is so popular in Scandinavia?

I think it’s because our label in Sweden has done a great job showcasing the band all around Scandinavia. Also because we are being able to tour extensively. This might our 20th tour in Europe. I think this is the 10th time we play in Finland and we come back in a couple of months. People know us and like us.

What do you think about Finland and the Finnish audience?

We always had good shows here. One strange thing is taking the ferry over here. I’m not very good with the sea.

You even opened for The Rolling Stones in the the first show of the Forty Licks tour in Toronto. How did you feel when you hear you got the gig?

They were doing some small shows in Toronto to prepare for the world tour. They had a long history in Canada and the production company is from there. I was up north in Ontario and our manager called us and said I need to know if you can come here and do a some. You can tell anyone and you can only bring one guest. I took my dad with me. When we went to the venue, The Rolling Stones had a big mixing board and our sound guy was looking at it. We saw the Stones doing soundcheck in the room with just 20 people. Then they told us that we could go and soundcheck, so they move the big mixing board and brought a small one for us… Back to reality!

{mosimage}Holland: the cradle of tulips, a source of tales about crazy adventures in coffee shops… and the native country of Arjen Lucassen, a versatile artist who has been able to gather and compose music for an incredible list of the best heavy metal musicians around the world in his Ayreon´s albums . He answered (with excellent doses of good humor) the questions shot at him.

 

Arjen, in your biography says that when youngster, you were a trouble-maker in class. Do you have any particular anecdote of those times?

Well, for one I was always chasing (amongst other things) girls, instead of learning! I also remember I once filled a condom with 20 liters of water in the principal’s personal toilet. I also once hit a teacher, because he tried to push me down the stairs. That’s when they kicked me out of school. Hmm… I’d better stop here! 

You are always immersed in many different musical projects. Do you consider yourself a work-alcoholic or it just does not feel like work for you?

Oh yes, I’m a workaholic at heart. I feel best when I’m being creative. But you’re right; it certainly doesn’t feel like work for me. {mosimage}

Please, tell us a bit more about the new Ayreon album: 01011001. Do you give a lot of importance to the new technological era? How is it possible than living in a world so interconnected, people seem to search for an own identity more than ever?

I’m very much a recluse, so I don’t really live in this world. Luckily my profession enables me to live in another dimension. I try to make technology work for me, instead of the other way around. It’s easy to be sucked into the computer and become a part of the game. I devise the game.

How is the normal process of recording an Ayreon album? Do all the musicians record their parts separately?

Yes, I fly them all in separately. 

Do you meet them all personally before recording to discuss about their performances?

No, we start recording very spontaneously in the studio.

We publish from Finland, a land with many talented heavy metal bands. Are there any Finnish singers that you would like to see participating in future Ayreon´s projects?

Oh yes. Marco Hietala, for instance, is a great singer.

Do you like the voice of Tarja Turunen, ex-singer of Nightwish?

Who doesn’t? I approached her once, but her husband/record company director didn’t want her to do it.  He was doing a project with her at the time. So maybe one day…

 

"Marco Hietala is a great singer" -Arjen Lucassen, musician and composer-.

 

Any dreamt names of musicians that you would like to see in your projects and still not had the chance?

The list is endless. Obviously the musicians I grew up listening to, but also new talents.

I have recently interviewed Johan  Edlund of Tiamat, who collaborated in previous Ayreon´s album, but he is not included this time. What was the reason?

I like to work with new musicians every album to keep things spontaneously.  I’ve worked with over a hundred singers now. Johan is great by the way; I love his voice and music.

What do you think of other metal-opera projects like Avantasia , and his creator Tobias Sammet (both latest albums from him and yours were released with a few days of difference and as appears in your website, there was some crossing of declarations between both of you) 

Although we both do rock operas our music is very different from each other. I think he’s doing a great job.

Now it is recently announced that you are releasing an EP together Avantasia and Ayreon. Could you tell us more about it? So it was that “hate” between you two a creation of the press more than reality, or you really have something against Tobias…?

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Of course not, we are just fooling around! We have become the best of friends and I’m glad we’ve been able to record this track together. I’m sure we will make people laugh when they hear it!

Are you afraid that people could pay more attention to the album just because of the list of participants than because of the quality of the music itself?

No. I hope people enjoy the album, for whatever reason. My sales are still increasing and the last album has charted in 13 countries, so I must be doing something right!

What are your future plans? Would there be any chance to see Ayreon´s compositions ever played on live?

Ayreon is not a live project, it would be impossible with (or without) the many guest musicians.

Anything else you want to add or say to our readers? 

If you are in for an adventure and you have an open mind for different musical styles, check out my music! But you are warned …  

 

For more information, check out: www.ayreon.com

 

Einstürzende Neubauten (translated from German means something like “Collapsing New Buildings”) is a legendary industrial music German band that has always been able to renew themselves in these almost 3 decades of existence. They are currently on tour and will visit Helsinki pretty soon at the end of April. A piece of European music history still alive and kicking!

Berlin now and then

In fact, the historical changes have played an important role when shaping the career of the band: The fall of the Berlin wall was a turning point in the member´s lives. Alex Hacke, who joined to the 3 original band members, Blixa Bargeld, N.U. Unruh and FM Einheit, some few years after their appearance, tells us more about his personal vision of what is going on in the German capital nowadays:

“I am still based in Berlin, but it turns out, that I spend the main part of the year everywhere else, which is good because obviously the place has changed to the extent where it is fair to say that the spirit, which once possessed this city has forever departed, to put it mildly. Certainly, West-Berlin was a special place, but it doesn’t exist anymore. Where there was room and artistic headroom resides now the government of this country and where there was intuition and rebellion rules now the struggle of survival and competition”.

But if a great part of the bohemian spirit is getting lost, is music still able to inspire and excite the minds of the listeners?

“Of course! I like all kinds of styles and genres and better still it is to combine a choice of them. To me it is all about friction. 1 + 1 = 3. It’s that third kind of music I’d like to create” affirms Alex.

A straight relation band-supporters

The band has recently released his new album Alles Wieder Offen (“All Open Again”), and once more, there is space for a committed and risky tone in tunes like Nagorny Karabach, a line that is not new at all, since the Germans have always been very politically active in their lyrics, like in their previous work Armenia (1983). Innovation is their way of life. Years ago they recorded albums just using pieces of garbage picked from the streets, but this time the change comes when we talk about producing the album. There is no record company behind the creative process, and the album is just founded by the fans themselves, who paid even before the album is completed. On exchange, they have a much more active role giving feedback and advice to the band members via Internet. 

“To have an immediate response to the music we create is the most stimulating aspect of working in this set-up. It’s very much like playing a show with an audience in attendance. Besides that we just do what we choose to do, but we are able to tell when we are going astray, because at that point the attention of the supporters will quickly fade. What I like about this album is that for the first time it seems to deal with us, as a group of individuals, who spent the major part of their lives together. And it does that in a very intimate and loving manner. If you open yourself to that extend and let your guard down all the way, you certainly put yourself in a rather fragile position” explains Alex.

There is also time for a more relaxed and lascivious tone in their music, like in the new track “Let´s do it dada”. Simply love for Marinetti´s artistic movement? Hacke discovers the meaning behind it:“DADA is a French slang- or children-word, which means rocking-horse. It is also position in sexual intercourse, where one person is lying on its back, while another is straddling the former and therefore riding him like a horse…”

Einstürzende Neubauten will visit Finland on April 24th, playing at Tavastia club in the capital, Helsinki. If you want to listen to one of the bands that have defined the industrial music in the European scene, do not miss them!

www.neubauten.org
www.tavastiaklubi.fi