Interview with Kansas Guitarist Rich Williams

Matt: After such a long career in the music industry you’ve lived through a lot of different changes in the business. What are a few of the big changes in music that have stuck out to you over the years?

Rich: When we first got started we were signed by Kirshner Records, and they kind of left us alone with the music. They gave us a budget and let us record the album. There was some input, but not much beyond asking us to have some material that they could play on the radio. That kind of a situation just wouldn’t happen today.

It wasn’t until our fourth album Leftoverture started selling, it ended up going gold, that we were able to break even with our budget. Today a record company wouldn’t wait for four albums to get their money back. They might wait for a second record, but if that didn’t sell then the band would be dumped.

Matt: That being the case, do you feel it’s even possible for a new band to develop a career with the longevity of Kansas anymore? It seems like labels are signing bands to release one or maybe two albums, then moving on to the next big thing.

Rich: A lot of people are starting to do things themselves, independent of the labels. If a band isn’t getting a large amount of money from a record label, they don’t have that much to pay back. They may only have ten grand of their own money in a record, instead of two-hundred and fifty grand from a label, which makes it much easier to break even and start making money. It’s not as much of a gamble if bands do things on their own. With the internet it does make it easier for independent artists, but you get what you pay for.

Without a label behind a record it’s easier and cheaper to produce, but the band won’t get the distribution they would with a label behind them. So it’s a trade-off either way, and radio isn’t what it used to be, it’s really hard to get things played on the radio these days. Stations stick to a fairly limited play list and it’s hard to crack into that for new bands. Unfortunately the bands with the most radio play are the ones moving the most product, that’s just the way it is.

Matt: Your latest release, There’s No Place Like Home, is a DVD and CD package. What was the inspiration behind releasing the DVD along with the recording?

Rich: A few years ago we did an album with the London Symphony Orchestra and we’ve been doing a few symphony gigs every year since then. It’s something that we want to do more of, so when our thirty-fifth anniversary came around we felt that it was the right time to do it. The thirty-third year just didn’t have the same ring to it. Laughs. So we had wanted to do something like that and the time felt right.

We recorded it in February, which is usually a down time in our touring schedule, so even the timing for the project worked out great. We’ve been doing a number of symphony gigs in recent years and we’d love to get up to maybe twenty or twenty-five every year. When people book Kansas for a band gig they just call our manager and book the band, but with booking the Symphony gigs it’s much different.

Yearly symphony schedules are put together by a board of people who vote on which acts to bring in that year and what music the orchestra is going to play. Once in a while they’ll bring in a band like us to do something different, so the DVD has also acted as a vehicle for us to get more attention from those committees. They might not know what the end product will sound like, but if we can show them a DVD they’ll know exactly what they’re getting, and the response has been good so far.

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Interview with Composer and Guitarist Stephen Funk Pearson

Matt: Your piece “Mountain Morning” is written for flute and guitar and features some extended techniques from the flute. Do you often mix more modern, extended techniques in your music as a compliment to your folk-based style?

Stephen: I’ve played flute myself and I in the case of that piece it was just a matter of trying to bring the sounds of nature, wind and birds, to the piece. That was the purpose in using those extended techniques. I use the instruments in a similar way for “Sea Peace,” where I’m trying to get the sounds of the sea and the sounds of the boat out of the instruments.

I’m not only pushing the instruments to the limit, in ways they’re not used to being played, I’ve also had to develop new forms of notation in order to convey those sounds on paper. The players on “Sea Peace” just knew what to do right away. I almost didn’t have to give them any suggestions. They really understood the notation and just did a great job with the music.

Matt: There are two pieces on the album, “Mountain Morning” and “Jaringhe,” that begin with spoken poems. Do you write a lot of poetry and if so, do you often mix it with your compositions?

Stephen: I’ve written lots of songs for different bands, rock and roll and folk sorts of things. I’ve always been writing lyrics to go along with my songs in those cases. For the two pieces on the album the poems just kind of happened. Every piece is different, and I had the poems written so I thought why not include them with those pieces? They seemed to fit very well and I like how they turned out.

Matt: Since you are an accomplished guitarist yourself, do you prefer to compose on the guitar or away from the guitar?

Stephen: If I get an idea on the guitar and it starts out there I tend to keep going that route. If I get an idea from a keyboard, or just off the top of my head, I may just finish it without the guitar. It all depends how it starts to shape up and what instruments I’m writing it for. I might even pick up a different instrument and see where that takes me. It all depends on the piece, every time is kind of different.

Matt: You chose to include two different versions of “Mountain Moor” on the album, that act as quasi-bookmarks for the record. What made you decide to include two versions of this particular piece on the CD?

Stephen: I wrote the piece for violin or mandolin, and it’s been recorded also by two guitars and other instruments. It’s my most well known work, the one that’s been recorded and performed the most. I like the idea that the record is more like a program, which has a beginning and an end. I really see it as being a cohesive whole. Having “Mountain Moor” at the beginning and end, with two different recorded versions, helps to make the record feel like a unit. It’s almost like one of my compositions where there’s an introduction and a related conclusion.

Matt: It seems like a lot of composers these days are associated with a college or university. As someone who is not currently teaching do find that it’s more difficult to get your works out there, because of the lack of support from a large institution like a university, or is there more freedom because you aren’t tied down to an institution?

Stephen: I actually like it this way. I don’t like to do the same thing over and over, I like to do my music but I don’t necessarily like to do it all day long. I like to be in the country and to travel. I didn’t want to make music my whole life. I make my money doing other things so I don’t have to try and make a living off of music. It’s nice to make some money with my music and I’m happy when people buy my CD’s, but I don’t even pretend to make a living with my music.

Matt: Do you think it’s possible in today’s society to be a non-commercial composer and survive without working a day job?

Stephen: I think that’s preferable anyway. If it’s possible to make a living just composing it might become too much. I think composers need to have other things going on in their life, even if just for inspiration. There’s also the risk of burning out if someone is doing the same thing day in and day out. I prefer to make a living doing other things. That way music never seems like a burden to me, I love the time I get to spend doing it.

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Interview with Incite's Richie Cavalera

Matt Warnock: Incite self-produced your first E.P. and were able to tour the world because of it. For your first full-length release, The Slaughter, you worked with I Scream records, instead of doing it on your own. What were some of the differences you noticed between self-producing your first album and working with a label on your second?

Richie Cavalera: The one thing is there is definitely a lot less money to be made. Laughs. Everyone is taking their chunk, it’s kind of wild. But, on the other hand I love it. It was a goal that the band set, to be signed to a label, and I Scream is a great label to work with.

We’re dealing with the owner all the time, so it feels kind of like the same vibe as before, when we were doing it on our own. And, we are still doing a lot of the stuff on our own, like contacting other bands to try and get out on tours, promoting our material wherever we go, things are running in the same way they always have

Matt: Have you been able to maintain your artistic freedom with the new label? Did you have to make any concessions with the music in order to sign with I Scream?

Richie: We had a hundred percent say on everything. It was weird, because I Scream has never really had a metal band on their roster before. But with Gloria being our manager, who’s so experienced in the business, it made things run smoothly. She was instrumental in building Roadrunner Records, so she had a lot of great ideas to bring to the table in how to set the marketing up, and how to set our future up.

If we have an idea we just call the owner of I Scream and let him know, and so far he’s been cool with everything, he really puts his faith in the bands he signs. He lets us pick the songs we want to record, the producer we wanted to work with and the tours we want to do. I know that if we had signed with a bigger label they wouldn’t be as flexible and understanding. They’d be asking us to do certain things and to change things, but with I Scream it’s totally cool.

Matt: You worked with produce Logan Mader on The Slaughter, what was it like working with a producer as experienced as Logan?

Richie: He’s the producer we wanted from the get go and we were so happy when it all worked out. Working with him was amazing, he really put himself into every song, and was really a big part of the album. I think he’s one of the best out there right now. I’ve known him for about twelve years or so, which was great since we’re friends and we could have a good time while working on the album.

Matt: How important is it to you to work with a producer, or a manger, that you’ve known for a long time? Do you prefer to have that familiarity in your team, rather than working with someone new?

Richie: That’s big for me, friendship and family are things that I hold dear. Losing family members has really shaped the way I deal with people, and really made those bonds important to me. To have friends and family involved whenever I can is a huge benefit.

I know it’s going to be done the best way, with everyone’s best interest at heart, rather than with a stranger who isn’t as close to the project as friends and family are. Besides, it’s easier to argue with friends and family and still be working together at the end of the day. Laughs.

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Interview with Guilt Machine's Arjen Lucassen

Matt: When writing the new album you invited your fans to be a part of that process by soliciting them to send you audio samples of quotes that related to the album’s theme of guilt. Could you talk about how that concept came about and how it evolved from an idea to the nineteen examples that were included on the album?

Arjen: I don’t play live anymore, so I like to involve the fans in what I’m doing. On the last Ayreon album I had seventeen singers and each time I recorded a singer I put a sample online and people had to guess who it was. It was great, people really enjoyed it, and those who guessed right won a CD and stuff. So I’m always involving the fans in the process.

For this record I started to think that since we had the concept of guilt on the album, maybe fans could send in quotes from their own lives that we could print in the album cover. After a while I began to think that it would be really cool to have people send in audio clips of themselves speaking that we could use on the album. Other bands have done that type of thing, most famously Pink Floyd on Dark Side of the Moon, which I always found interesting. So we did it and to our surprise we received over two-hundred messages, which was great, but it was very hard to choose which ones we would include.

We had tears in our eyes after hearing some of these messages because people were really putting their raw emotions into them. But, we ended up choosing nineteen messages in nineteen different languages and I put them on the album. It really worked for me, if it hadn’t of worked I wouldn’t have done it. I think it really adds to the emotional quality of the album, it gives it a personal touch.

Matt: You released three different versions of the album. Is this another way that you’re trying to involve your fans, since you don’t perform live anymore?

Arjen: Yeah, I want to give them a little bit more, because they can’t see us live, it’s great to give them a look behind the scenes. In this case there are interviews, video clips and extra songs. Fans get to see the band and get an idea of what we’re like. Though, not everyone wants to have that stuff, so we also released a regular CD for those fans.

There’s also the special edition DVD/CD, with all the great digital artwork, and there’s the limited edition, which people have always enjoyed. There are only a small number of prints of the limited edition, and we sign them all, so it’s something we like to do for the fans that really enjoy having a limited edition album.

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Interview with Element 57's Chris and Justin

Matt: As far as writing and playing is concerned, how do you guys divide the guitar roles in the band? Is it a case of the traditional lead vs. rhythm player, or is it not that defined?

Justin: A lot of times we start out with a basic kind of blueprint of the songs we’re working on, then add the rest of the material from there, but we don’t really assign a lead or rhythm role to either of us. We try and add stuff to the songs that will help make them better, instead of saying that Chris will play the lead line here, and I’ll do the chords there, it’s never really that specific.

Chris: A lot of times I’ll be singing, so I tend to take more of the rhythm stuff, just because it’s hard to be wailing away on a lead line when I’m also focusing on singing the lyrics. Justin joined the band about a year ago, and I’ve never really had another guitarist in any band I’ve played in. It’s been a great opportunity for me to take a breath, to hand certain aspects of the music over to him, so I can do other things, really makes things easier for me.

To be able to hand things over to Justin, who is incredibly capable as a guitarist, it lets me focus more on my singing, which is a really nice bonus for having that second guitar player. And we’ve never really run into any ego issues, we’re both really open to suggestion, and there’s been a rule in the band that if it’s good it’s good, if it sucks it sucks. So we’re just trying to come together to make great music, not worry about who’s playing what parts.

Justin: I’ve always been a fan of bands like Lynard Skynard, and even classical music, where the musicians have to come together like the gears of a clock to make things happen. It’s not about who’s playing what, the music comes first. It shouldn’t be a matter of playing something because we can, like adding a solo to a song where it doesn’t really need it, just because I came up with a cool lick. The overall sound of the song is of the utmost importance, how we get that sound is about the band as a whole, and not really about assigning solos or rhythm parts to either guitarist.

Matt:I’m wondering how you guys came up with the name Element 57, are any of the guys in the band chemistry buffs?

Chris: When we changed the bands name from the groups previous incarnation, and there were about ten names on the table. Jay came up with the name. The definition is a rare earth metal, and we thought, we’ll that’s kind of what the band is. It was also easy to remember and it sparks curiosity. People always ask us where the name comes from, and the more scholarly people will ask us about the reference to the periodic table. So, it’s just a unique name that we all dug, and it seems to have stuck.

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