Prog-Nose

Hi Nicholas, congratulations with your concert, was this the first time in front of such an audience?

Well, it was very impressive to play on such a stage. But it was not the first time for us, we did a show with Oceansize in april 2008 in front of 700 people, and we opened for Ministery for 2000 persons. The fans of Ministery were very curious about our music, although it was naturally a big contradiction in style.

Can you describe your musical career before Demians?
I used to play in bands, but it was nothing professional. I just was a normal guy for 10 years, very shy from the beginning. If I would have done this interview some 2 or 3 years ago, perhaps I would not have been able to talk to you. I always felt that there was something wrong with me, being very introverted. But after playing in several bands and not really wanting to be a professional musician, I just needed to write songs and to record something. I did not know how to play drums or to write arrangements, it was this or I would die, at some point. After many years of not saying anything, it just happened! All the songs on the cd and the hundreds of songs that are not on the cd came in the same way, just by singing them and then adding the music. I learned a lot of myself by doing it this way.


That is perhaps the main reason why you did everything yourself on the cd?
People are asking me all the time if I did this because I did not find the right musicians, but I did not even look for them. I had a clear vision of what I wanted to achieve, recording everything by myself came very natural.

What are your main influences?
Actually I started to listen to music at a very young age, maybe 5 or 6 years old, Peter Gabriel, Rush, Metallica, The Beatles.. But being very introverted at that time, I did not feel the need to talk to someone, but I was really impressed by that music. I even learned English by that way, listening to the Beatles.

Could you describe your own music in a few words?
I really tried finding and understanding music categories, like metal, pop, progressive rock, I don’t hate them but I don’t understand them. A band like Opeth is also really hard to target, but everybody who has feelings and experiences in his/her life, can find something in my music. I am just interested in playing Demians music, not progressive or whatsoever.

Is there a certain concept on your album?
There are connections between the songs, but is not supposed to be a concept. When you talk about your life and events in your life in your songs, there are certainly connections between the different events in your life, the concept is in the process.

Steve Wilson of Porcupine Tree had some nice words about, was that a big support and motivation for you?
I think it is really important that your first record is promoted by someone, who is already famous. I was afraid people were expecting my music to sound like Porcupine Tree, but I respect Steve’s music a lot, so it is great to know that someone who is very honest in doing his music, is supporting you. I know him also from No-Man and Blackfield, but I am not trying to copy him, I am trying to do my own thing.

Nevertheless there are some correspondences between Demains and Wilson’s music or even bands like Radiohead?
Some of my songs were written in 2002, that is before Blackfield or In absentia were released, so I am not trying to say ‘I did it first’, but the only connection is that we are both open minded, because we are attracted to several music styles, the link is simply in our musical background.

Are you familiar with the progressive rock scene in France, bands like Ange, Magma or more recently Lazuli?
Progressive rock for me is just a music scene, a philosophy. On my record I have songs of 3 minutes or 16 minutes, but it was not really intended to be so long, it just happened, I have to say what I have to say, I just use everything I need to convey the message.
You are playing for the first time with these musicians, was it difficult to find the right musicians?
I admit that at first it was very difficult to have somebody touching my music, but it disappeared quickly. I had problems finding the right guys for the music, actually it reminded why I wanted it to do it by myself. One of the first drummers I tried when searching for musicians woke up at 3 or 4 o’clock in the afternoon, I did not want to wait for somebody to rehearse. If you want to connect with my music, you have to learn and to work on the songs. It is so hard for me to do that with kind of people, you have to learn things, you have to respect the songs and then you can make it your own. And this is exactly what these guys have been doing. It was a long and expensive process to find them, I had to move three times.

You are going on tour with Anathema, how well do you know them?
What is attracting me with these guys, we both play different music, but they are very open to my music. They are a very poetic band and have a lot of ambiences, actually it is my touring agent who contacted them and they were very enthusiastic.

What does Demians stand for?
It is a character from a book of Herman Hesse, which is called Demian. The main character in the book is Emil Sinclair who is leading a very narrow vision of life, like ‘what people is teaching me at school is always right’. But he is greatly influenced by Max Demian who is very critical. I did not want to name the band after myself, because I did not want people to think that it is all about me. I wanted to give a name to the songs, because that is the most important for me, my songs are my ‘Demians’.

What are your plans for the future?
My first plan is to go on tour naturally, but the new album is already ‘shaping’ in my head. So right after the tour I will record the new album. Its colour and texture are already there, I know how it is going to sound, this is going to obsess me very quickly.

Are you going to do all by yourself again?
I know how it will go, I sit down and take the guitar, I am afraid that I will not let them to interfere. It is my feelings, my life, my path, so I think I am going to do all by myself again, but I will certainly ask their opinion.

OK, thank you very much for this interview!

I met Gazpacho during The Night of the Prog (The Loreley Festival) and had a spontaneous interview with them. They asked me to publish it now, because they are performing at The Spirit of 66 in Verviers as headliner of the first day of the Progrésiste Festival.

I never interviewed you before, so let’s start with the name, Gazpacho?
Jan: Gazpacho is cold soup. It’s a contradiction in terms. When we didn’t have a band name, we thought that people, who had a full day time job and only did this as a hobby (and we have very, very different jobs as well) and who have different music interests, needed this kind of name, with a contradiction in it. Gazpacho is cold soup. In Norway, Soup is supposed to be warm, so… And it needs a lot of different ingredients to make a good Gazpacho.
Thomas: There’s tomatoes, onions, celery, cucumbers and wodka if you’re very lucky.

I got to know Gazpacho, because you were one of the pioneers in giving free downloads of your songs
Jon-Arne: Yes, we have a members area on our site and as long as you tell us who you are and sign on to the newsletter, you receive a user name and password. So you can log on and download our music. And you can stream the whole albums.
Doesn’t that diminish your sales?
Jan: We don’t know.
Thomas: If no one has ever heard of you, then no one is going to buy your albums. If no one knows your music, no one is going to be interested in you. So we had to find a way to get people to listen to our stuff. With no record contracts and no possibility to get anything played on the radio, the only way to get something out, is to give away something for free.
Jan: A lot of people, who download it, think they don’t have to buy it, because they have a copy, but in our case, thousands of people have downloaded it and discovered us through the web and bought our albums. There was a guy coming to me, from Brazil who came to this festival because we are playing here. And I met lots of people today, who know us from MySpace.


Are you well known in Norway?
Jan: No, not really. We are better known in the prog circuit in Holland, Germany, Italy and France. France is a big country for us as well. But Holland is the biggest for us.
Thomas: Although that’s the problem with the downloading, you don’t really know where you’re big and where you’re small. And that’s very difficult when you are touring.
You don’t have any idea if you will play for 2 people or for 100 or 1000.
And this Loreley festival is a big one.
Thomas: Yes, it is
Yet, although it’s a big festival loaded with big names, there’s not that many people.
Jan: It’s not easy to get there. Had it been in Köln or Berlin where it’s easy to fly in or get by train, there would have been a lot bigger audience. The site, the location is perfect but you almost can not get here. There aren’t that many Norwegians or Swedes here, for instance. You have to get a plane to Frankfurt and then a bus or something?

So, you’re touring after the summer? Coming to Belgium?
Jan: Yes, we are playing in Verviers on October 18. And then we will finish the new album, which should be ready by Christmas. The plan, the hope and the prospect is to release it late spring, early summer.
It will be an own release again? No label
Jan: No label. We have full time jobs and we are doing everything ourselves. Recording, mastering and all the rest.
Jon-Arne: We are helped by a lot of friends. We call them our family. They helped us out in Holland, Germany and Norway.
Jan: And now the Italians are helping to get us to Rome. It’s something like: “my brother owns a club and they are playing progrock”.
Jon-Arne: We have to do this ourselves. We don’t have a promoter.
Jan: You need a booker to do it properly and a tour manager and he has got to be paid. There’s no economy in it. We played in Köln yesterday in a very small place and we played break even.

Even without any professional help, you get to tour with Marillion.
Jan: We got invited by Marillion, because they like our music. Steven Rothery asked us to play a solo on our album “Firebird”. And of course we said no, hahaha. So we sent him the files and he played the solo and send it back to us.

Are your albums concepts?
Jan: The last one is, but the first three weren’t.
Jon-Arne: There a general theme on “Firebird”, but there’s no concept.
And what’s “Night” about?
Jan: It’s about the dream, about the place between the conscious and the unconscious you. When you’re going to sleep, it’s still your brain which is making that up or processing that data or whatever a dream really is. I think it’s getting order in the file cabinet in your head.
Jon-Arne: There are five stages of dream, so we have five tracks on the album.
Jan: It’s something we all felt, which makes it easy to write about. So it’s about the irrationality of dreaming.


Is the next album a concept? I heard the new track “Tick Tock” in your set.
Jan: We are still debating whether it’s going to be a concept or not, but it will be about time. About different ways of travelling and how time seems to us during that journey.
Thomas: We want to make albums that are like soundtracks. If you listen to “Night”, it’s about you and we want to do the same with “Tick Tock”. It still will be you. Which memories are triggered in you by certain images; your perception of time; how does it feel,… It’s difficult to explain, but we are trying to something along this line.
Jan: We always compose and record, especially compose when we make the demos and the sketches. We make it layer by layer. Thomas can talk about that for an hour, being the producer.
Thomas: We make the music first, then the lyrics and we try to see what the song wants and what’s it about and then we try to get the lyrics to fit the music. It just makes itself.
Jon-Arne: Usually we have the music first and then the lyrics and then we record before we rehearse live. Now we are actually playing the song live because we found out that the more you play it live, the better it becomes. So we record it afterwards.

Isn’t it a problem that the audience doesn’t know the new pieces?
Thomas: We don’t have any problems with that because we are Gazpacho and most of the people don’t know our music anyway, so it doesn’t really matter. ;-)
Jan: it’s really fun, because of the Internet. Internet has no boundaries. The whole front row today, were singing along with our songs, so they know the lyrics.

I heard you mention something about a Spanish painter who did the artwork?
Jan: Antonio Seijas Cruz, he did all the artwork for “Night”. He’s a great painter and he also painted the cover of the coming Marillion album. Which is really funny because they had us as support band and they saw our cover and then they nicked our painter. ;-)

Thanks for the interview and I hope to see you in Belgium during your tour
Jan: We will be there and I hope you and your Belgian audience will too. Thanks.