Interview с Mekong Delta : DARKSIDE.ru

Before we talk about Mekong Delta, we would like to discuss your career prior to this band. The earliest thing we know about you is that in 1983 you had a studio in Bochum and were a friend of Axel Rudi Pell. But what did you do before that? When did you start to play guitar and bass, and how did you become a studio engineer?

Oh, it’s a really long story. I started playing bass when I was 12. It was on a holiday in Spain, and I saw a band, I think they were called Second Impression or something like that. I liked their bass playing, so I went to my parents and said, “I need a bass, blah blah blah.” (laughs) So I got a bass for my next birthday and I started playing it. Three years later I saw a really outstanding guitar player for the first time, so I changed from bass to guitar. I continued playing both instruments, but I concentrated much more on the concert guitar, because its possibilities are much bigger than those of the bass. Over the years I trained a lot and I taught people to play bass and concert guitar. One day a friend of mine came up to me and said, “Hey, we should make something with music,” and he came up with an idea to make a small 8-track recording studio. It was in 1978 or something like that, and three years later we and other guys decided to invest some more money and open a 16-track studio. This one went very well, but nobody of us was a real recording engineer, so everybody had to learn it and everybody sat behind the desk. This is how I learned to be a recording engineer. Axel Thubeuville was the producer who worked in our studio a lot, he produced small bands, for example, Axel Rudi Pell’s Steeler. That’s when we changed from recording everything from classic to rock to specializing more on rock music, because Axel Thubeuville invited a lot of groups to record in our studio. After a while it happened that I found some bands that he didn’t like, but I did like them, so I started producing them by myself. And as it was difficult to release some of the stuff that I liked on record labels, I decided to make my own label (Aaarrg Records). That’s the brief history. (laughs)

Thus, you have never had any classical musical education, right?

Yes, I learned everything by myself. I did go to the conservatory for a short time, but the problem with conservatories for concert guitars is that when you get in, they can’t teach you anything. Of course, they have this high standard that you must meet, and you have to play everything anyway. But they give you a stamp of how they would like to interpret it, and that’s not my way. I interpret everything by myself, I don’t need anybody to tell me how to interpret classical composers.

When you worked as a producer in the early and mid 1980s, did you choose yourself whom to work with, or were you more of a hired gun?

All the things I produced at that time were chosen by myself, because as a producer you normally cannot handle things that you don’t like. Later on I was often booked as a producer, but that was when I had got a lot of experience and I was able to deal with the things I don’t like, to make the best out of them. At that time I was often booked as a recording engineer, somebody who’s got a musical overview, and that’s the job that taught me most of my knowledge about music.

In 1985 you produced the album “Prayers Of Steel” by the band Avenger, which later became Rage. Was it during those sessions when the idea of Mekong Delta first came to your mind?

No, that’s a totally different story. I got to know Jorg Michael in the course of this recording process, and I noticed that he’s got a lot of talent. I started arranging various occasions for him to play drums, I got him involved in various projects that I was working on, so we were often together, and we talked a lot about music. The thing is that he was deeply into rock music, and I was into classical things and stuff like Yes. We came up to discussing this, he taught me something about rock, and I taught him something about classic. One funny evening, I think it was late 1984 or early 1985, he came in with a demo by the band that nobody knew at that time. Do you know which band was that? Metallica! (everybody laughs) He played me the first song from the tape, it was called “Fight Fire With Fire”, and there was a rhythmical anomaly in it that’s not so common. He was deeply impressed by that, and I also found it interesting – this combination between punk and very fast rock. I said, “Of course, it sounds good, but you can do it much more complicated and better.” He looked and me and said, “OK, do it!” (everybody laughs) I said, “OK, why not?” I took my bass and in the evenings I composed four songs within a week. Of course, they were not real finished songs, more like ideas and riffs, but I played them to Jorg, and he was so enthusiastic that he said, “Let’s go to the rehears

al room, I have to play that.” That was the rehearsal room of Avenger, where Peavy Wagner also was at that moment, and we asked him to play the guitar to get a better sound. We tried it together, and for them it was a bit strange, because I put in some more abnormal rhythms than Metallica. (laughs) But Jorg is a really big talent, so he got it very fast. We played these songs, and Jorg was again amazed by that, so he said, “You must make a whole album of such stuff!” It’s he who is responsible for the birth of Mekong Delta.

What were these four songs that you first played together? Was this the stuff that later ended up on the self-titled Mekong Delta album (1987), or was it something else?

One of these songs was “Without Honor”, at least the structure of that song, then there was “The Cure”, but I don’t know exactly at this moment. These two songs were there for sure, because I remember they were very interesting for Jorg and Peavy, they showed the guys some special kind of rhythm.

Jorg Michael once said that in Mekong Delta everybody played on top of their abilities. How long did your rehearsals last in the early days, and how long was it taking you to compose the stuff?

The first album was very easy to compose, because I had so many ideas for mixing the classical and rock stuff in my mind. I think I composed the whole album in two weeks…

The whole album in two weeks? We can’t believe it!

You might know that I’m deeply impressed by Russian composers such as Shostakovich and Prokoviev. I knew that this stuff would fit very well to a rock group. So it was not complicated for me to come up something like that for a band. (laughs) It was like a giant pool of ideas that I could pick out from. And rehearsing… that was a special thing, because everybody rehearsed by himself. It was no problem for me to play my bass parts, because I was used to playing more complicated things. Before Mekong Delta I was making other kinds of music, such as jazz rock, and I could master my parts within the shortest time. Jorg and me rehearsed together, too, because he started Mekong Delta with me, and he was deeper into it than the other ones. He learned his parts much quicker with me than if we had the whole group around. As to the guitar players, they got the riffs, I explained it to them, and they rehearsed at home. Then they would come up to me and say, “Is this good now?” “OK, that’s good, let’s play it together!”

You already mentioned Axel Thubeuville, with whom you worked during various studio sessions, and who is also known as the founder of such record labels as Shark Records and Crazy Life Music. How do you evaluate what he has done for the German rock scene?

I think he’s the cardinal (laughs), he’s the biggest one for independent rock in Germany. He was really early in this stuff, he started in the very beginning of the 1980s. He took so many groups and tried to make them popular, because he liked this rock stuff, even before Noise and Roadrunner and all these big companies came. He’s the big guy behind it all, do you know what I mean?

You see, on the one hand, he has discovered a lot of names on the German metal scene, but on the other hand, every company he started either went bankrupt or was sold to somebody else pretty quickly…

Yeah, but it depends on a lot of factors. I remember one thing – do you know Doro? Who do you think found her?

We know it was Axel, he produced Warlock’s first album “Burning The Witches” (1984).

Of course! Every time he takes a band very early, gives it a start, and later on… you know, sometimes bands are stupid, they are not solidary. (laughs) Sometimes you come to the point where you sell 6,000 or 7,000 copies of your album, and then bigger companies come in with a big check and say, “Here’s 100,000 dollars for your next one,” and you say “good bye!” He got a lot of bad luck with that – after he builds bands up, bigger companies take advantage of this and pick bands out of his pool. He has invested his money, his ideas and his power and then… you know what I mean. The same happened to me with Holy Moses – it wasn’t that I went bankrupt, but our cooperation didn’t last long. We made their first album “Queen Of Siam” (1986) together, it was not really what I had in mind with them, but the second one (“Finished With The Dogs”, 1987) was a special thing. Me and the guitar player (Andy Classen) worked a lot on it, because he was influenced by the riffing on the Mekong Delta albums that I showed him. I told him, “If you work this out, it will really be a killer album,” and he did work it out. Then I asked Peavy to teach Sabina to sing, because she was not able to take any note. It was just like, “argh, argh, argh”. (imitates a dog barking) The album attracted

a lot of label attention, and it was good for me, too, because one of the labels eventually bought them, but on the other hand, it paid me that I would make no trouble. For me it was no problem, I made more than enough money (laughs), but I told them, “Believe me, you belong to an independent label. No major company will be able to handle your stuff.” And that’s exactly what happened – they made one record (“The New Machine Of Liechtenstein”, 1989), and they went back on an independent label. We sold about 8,000 or 9,000 copies of the second album, and if they had stayed, we could have increased it to 15,000 or 20,000 with the next one. But that’s mostly like that with young musicians, they always tend to say, “Oh, I want to make millions with my music!”

Speaking about cardinals - can you tell us more about the song “Black Sabbath” from the first Mekong Delta album? Were you influenced by the music of Black Sabbath at that time?

(cracks) No! That was really just a joke. Peavy is a genius, you know, he’s really crazy. One evening he came down, and we needed lyrics badly. I don’t remember whether we were drunk or something, but we needed those fucking texts, and so he put together all the song titles and lines that he remembered from Black Sabbath and rhymed them so that they would make sense. (everybody laughs)

Nowadays it’s more or less known where every musician in Mekong Delta is coming from. But where did you find singer Keil (real name Wolfgang Borgmann)? Did he play in any other band prior to joining Mekong Delta?

No, he’s an old friend of mine. I was making music with him before I started to make music with Mekong Delta. We both came out of the same corner, he listened to stuff like Yes, Emerson Lake & Palmer and Genesis a lot. As I didn’t find any singer who was able to sing on this complicated stuff off the first album, I asked him, “Hey, could you do me a favor? Please help me out!” He listened to the stuff and told me, “You’re crazy! But I’m a friend of yours, so I will do my best.” (laughs) Of course, it wasn’t an easy deal if you are used to singing like Genesis singers. But to criticize him would be totally wrong, because he’s a very good singer. Check out the last song on the album “The Music Of Erich Zann” (1988), this a-capella piece (“Epilogue”), and that’s where you will notice that he’s influenced by Yes and Genesis. Anyway, he was not a singer of Mekong Delta, he was a friend who helped me out, and that went on and on, because we couldn’t find anybody else. (cracks)

In the early days of Mekong Delta you used the name Bjorn Eklund. The reason for using different names is nowadays common knowledge, but why did you choose these particular first name and last name? Were you trying to pretend being a Scandinavian guy?

No no! (laughs) That’s also a funny story. I’m deeply into horror literature, and there was this series of books called “Demon Killer”. I don’t know if you have anything like that in Russia, it’s a series of small books 60 pages long here in Germany, in which a new book is released every week. This series was forbidden later on, because they thought it’s too strange for the public. You know, all the bad guys in those books were politicians, policemen and other people like that. I especially liked one of the characters, who was a werewolf, and his name was Bjorn Eklund.

You have told us that you are deeply into Russian composers, and already on the first album you did an arrangement of a classical piece (“The Hut Of Baba Yaga”). But what is it that attracts you so much in the music of Russian classical composers? Why Mussorgsky and not Richad Wagner, for instance?

Wagner, by the way, is also one of my favorites, but you cannot compare these two, because Wagner was composing in a totally different way. What I like about Mussorgsky is that he was way ahead of his time. What he did with harmonies was not understood in his time. If you read to what Rakhmaninov and other guys said about the music he was making, they at least said it is bullshit. But it’s not bullshit, it was a vision. But I like those harmonies so much, that’s what I like the most in the works of all Russian composers. You’ve got a real big country, it’s vast, and whenever you listen to a good Russian composition, especially played by a Russian orchestra, you can hear this vastness of the country.

Were you using a real orchestra for your arrangements, or was it done on keyboards?

For some things we used a real orchestra from a CD. (laughs) And for some other things we used synthesizers, which were really poor at that time. If we had had the possibilities you’ve got nowadays, we would have gone even further. (cracks) At the moment I’m in front of one of my computers, where I’m composing, and I have a

whole orchestra inside that you cannot tell from a real orchestra.

Among the bonus tracks on the re-release of the first album is the song “Black Betty”, which sounds quite strange. Can you tell us the story behind this track?

We were making a lot of covers for ourselves all the time, and this one is a kind of compliment to the singer. You know, this is a song you can sing on, and that’s what he did very well. We were choosing between four songs that we could put on, and we all agreed on this one, because it was the only possibility for the singer to show what he’s able to sing, it’s slower than what we were usually doing. The song itself is composed by a slave. He was supposed to be killed by the government, and he wrote this song especially for the governor to get free. (Ralph refers to Huddie “Leadbelly” Ledbetter, an African American folk singer who lived in the U.S. in the first half of the 20th century. However Huddie was never a slave, because slavery had long been banned in the U.S. by that time – ed.)

By the way, when the entire Mekong Delta discography was remixed and re-released in the late 1990s, only the first two albums had bonus tracks. Does it mean that you released everything you recorded, or are you unwilling to publish unreleased material from the 1980s and 1990s?

The reason for adding these bonus tracks is that we made two EPs in between regular albums, and I think it’s bad to take money out of people’s pockets for an additional release while you can put all these songs on a normal CD. Apart from that, we have no extra material. We recorded everything that was composed, there was nothing more. Every album is a finished product.

The second Mekong Delta album “The Music Of Erich Zann” is based on a story by H.P. Lovecraft. Why this particular story? Was it your idea or was it coming from Peavy Wagner?

It was my idea. I love Lovecraft, he's a great writer. But in our story there are a lot of metaphors, if you read deeply into it, you will find a lot of references to what is happening in the nowadays world. Once again it was Peavy who was handling the lyrics, I told him about the story and asked whether we should transpose it into the present time. He read it and said, “OK, let’s go for it.” We sat together, found out which parts we could put into the present time, and in our story Erich Zann is fighting against the media, lies and all this shit.

Mekong Delta has always had a cult status among the fans of thrash and progressive metal. But how did the band do sales-wise in the 1980s? Were you satisfied with the commercial success you had and with the amount of attention you got from the press?

What is commercial success? We sold more than many other bands at that time, but you cannot say that we were selling 100,000 copies. I think “The Music Of Erich Zann” sold 14,000 or 15,000 copies, but that’s quite OK. Nowadays if I’m gonna release an album, there is a specialized network all over the world. I know somebody who can put it out in Japan, I know somebody who can put it out in Russia, for example. And we didn’t have that network at that time. Since that time each album has sold way over 40,000 copies, and they are still selling, that’s the funny thing. Every month 20 or 40 CDs leave this place.

The third album “The Principle Of Doubt” (1989) is also said to be based on a book of several thousand pages, but we don’t know any details about this book. Can you tell us a bit about it?

It’s a fantasy book called “The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant The Unbeliever” written by Stephen Donaldson. I was deeply impressed by this book, it was for me more fun than “The Lord Of The Rings”. I also like “The Lord Of The Rings”, but that’s at least too much to read. (laughs) I like the main idea behind “The Chronicles…” very much – the protagonist, this Thomas Covenant, lived a normal life as a writer, but was suddenly pushed in a situation where everything was totally strange. He got leper, and from that point on he was no longer accepted in a normal society. He lost all his socialization, he was all alone, and he hurt himself. You know, if you’ve got leper, it’s very dangerous if you hurt yourself. He felt unconscious, and he saw a dream, but for the people he met in the dream it was reality. He woke up in another country where they don’t have leper any longer, so for him it was clear it must be a dream. And he lived there like an asshole, he kicked people’s asses off, because he thought, “It’s a dream, I can do what I want.” (laughs) Normally he would be the guy who would help these people, he would offer them support, but he didn’t think he should, because he thought it was a dream. It sounds totally crazy if you put it through your head.

“The Principle Of Doubt” marks the beginning of your coo

peration with graphic designer Joachim Luetke. What attracted you in him works, and how were you cooperating on album covers?

After I switched over to him as an artist, I didn’t influence him in any way. I would just give him the music and say, “Do anything you want.” We got to know him in Vienna, Austria, where he lived. At that time there was a reference to drinking that goes like this, “Born in Germany, died in Austria.” (everybody laughs) And we had several really serious drunken evenings with him one after the other, so we got to know each other very well. He had a lot of ideas that were very close to mine, not only regarding music, but also regarding life, and I trusted him totally.

By the way, who is responsible for the Mekong Delta logo?

As far as I remember, it is Dave. I don’t remember his second name, he’s the guy who made the covers for the first two albums. I especially like the cover of the second one a lot. It’s originally an oil picture that I have in a frame at home. (laughs) It’s a really well-done cover, but he didn’t have the time to continue with us. He went on to synthesizer music and had a little success, so he didn’t paint any longer. I had to look for a different artist, and I found Joachim by accident.

On “The Principle Of Dount” album you got a new guitarist named Uwe Baltrusch. How did you get to know him and where is he at the moment?

As far as I remember, we needed a second guitar player, because there were some problems with Reiner Kelsch, who had a lot of tensions with other band members, and there was no way to work together any longer. Uwe was found by Jorg, he rehearsed close to the same place where Jorg worked, so Jorg told me one day, “Hey, there’s a young guitar player who should be able to play some stuff of ours.” Unfortunately I don’t have any idea where Uwe is at the moment.

And in general, how many of former members of Mekong Delta are you still in contact with?

Actually with no one. (The only exception is Peter Haas, who drummed for Mekong Delta from 1992 to 1997 and is now back behind the drum kit – ed.)

By why? You spent so much time together in the rehearsal room, studio and later on tours…

Let’s put it that way: there was a period of five years where I didn’t have time to make anything. I had to solve some problems, but they are too private, and I don’t want to talk about them. I was like a submerged submarine, and that’s why no one has heard of me in the past five years.

There were rumors that you had moved to Turkey…

(cracks) Turkey? That could be fun. Actually I’m still living there! Do you really think you’re calling to Germany? (everybody laughs)

OK, let’s go back now to the history of the band. The fourth album “Dances Of Death (And Other Walking Shadows)” seems to be a kind of divide between the Mekong Delta of the 1980s and Mekong Delta of the 1990s. First of all, why did you drop the fake names for this record?

They were no longer necessary. We used the fake names for two reasons. The first reason was that all the band members were under contracts with several companies, and if some guy from their record label would have heard the music of Mekong Delta, he would say, “Hey, you are not allowed to play there, otherwise they must release their record here.” And the other thing is that I believe firmly that at that time nobody thought that a German band could do things like that. So we just decided, “OK, let’s take some funny names and solve all our problems. (laughs) Nobody will see us, we will make a photo where our faces will not be in focus, so they will have to make up their minds what this band could be, or they will have to just listen to the music.”

How did you get new singer Doug Lee in the band? As far as we know, he’s from the United States, so was it a problem for the band that he was living so far away from the rest of you?

Not, it was really easy with him. I produced an album of his band Siren shortly before, and he lived in Germany for three quarters of the year at that time. So I asked him, “Are you interested in doing something like that?” And he was always interested in doing things, like all Americans are – “Yeah, I do it, I do it, I do it!” He’s a funny guy.

Starting from “Dances Of Death”, you are also credited as the lyric writer. Was making lyrics fun or a tough job for you?

The ideas for the lyrics were coming out of my head all the time. It’s like that - I didn’t take care if somebody was not able to play some of my music. I was just composing, and if somebody’s not able to play it, he should rehearse. And it was the same with vocals for me. It was not very nice of me,

but I didn’t care whether the rhythm in all the words was OK, I just put a sentence down. In such a situation it’s much easier if you make up your mind what you want to say and then ask the singer or writer like Peavy, “Could you put this in verses?” We would sit together, discussed my ideas, and then Peavy would make the lyrics that were singable. With Doug we worked in a similar way. For example, for “Kaleidoscope” (1992) I wrote a story of ten chapters and I told Doug, “You can take what you want, you can change the words so that you are able to sing them better, but you cannot do one thing: don’t change the sense.” For a singer it’s much easier if he’s allowed to change words to find a stream that fits the melody better.

After “Dances Of Death” you started playing live for the first time. What made you go out to the public, and did this experience live up to your expectations? Did you enjoy the way the crowd was reacting to your music?

The first tour was really fantastic. Our first gig was in Vienna, and it was sold out. The room had a capacity of 600 people, but there were 800 people inside and another 400 were standing outside. The “Kaleidoscope” tour was not that good. The problem isn’t with the fans, we had enough fans, but we arranged a tour of 20 dates, and it would have been better if we had only played 10, because we had eight full venues and the remaining 12 were half-full or empty. But this is not my responsibility, our manager is supposed to know that. If he says, “You can play there, there and there,” I trust him, because he should know what he is doing. Anyway, it was always a lot of fun playing live, especially the tour with Coroner was excellent.

How did they happen that Coroner became your touring partners?

They had a management contract with Boggi Kopeck of Drakkar, and I also knew Boggi. So we came up with the idea that the two bands together should be able to fill the venue. Nobody of us felt like a headliner, we changed all the times – on some dates we played first, and on other dates they were the first to hit the stage. And we had a lot of fun on the bus, believe me! (cracks)

We’ve heard that for this tour you used some kind of extremely sophisticated sound system that helped you recreate the studio sound in a live environment…

Yeah, especially the guitar player was using a lot of these things, he needed them to change the sound all the time. There are so many things to play that you just have to change the sound, so he had a lot of studio equipment with him on stage. It wasn’t the case with me, I just had my bass and my amplifier, and – OK, here we go.

At your second show in 1991 you recorded a live album called “Live At The Exhibition”. Unlike all other Mekong Delta albums, this one has a very simple cover – just the band logo and the album title against the white background. Why did you decide to make it that simple?

We thought that the album was just for the people who are interested in listening to us live, but who were not able to go to the concerts. It was supposed to be sold at a low price, and we didn’t expect it to sell much, because all the songs were already known, and I was sure that all the people who liked us already had the original albums. It was more like a bet, because a lot of critics said in the former times, “You will not be able to play that live, are you?” (everybody laughs)

So it was like a challenge for you, right?

Yeah, and it was also a challenge to bring all the musicians together. If everybody plays in different bands, it’s really difficult to find the time when everybody has the time. That was fun! We had pre-planned this for over one year.

Now let’s come over to your fifth album “Kaleidoscope”. You said yourself that this album is more accessible for the listener, and you can listen to it while doing something else. Was that intentional? Did you intentionally try to write the music that would not be so complicated as it used to be?

(laughs) There’s a trick behind it, because the record is much more complicated than the other ones, but you have to dive into it. The reason for me saying the thing you mentioned is that I wanted everybody to listen to it and say, “OK, it’s cool played thrash,” but if you really dive into it and figure out what the bass is playing and how the other lines are going, it’s as complicated as the other ones, if not more complicated. It’s not as fast as the other ones, but what we learned is that we could play fast, but every song’s got its own tempo. I think this one is a really good album.

The final track on this album, “About Science”, is very interesting – especially when you use the line “Controlled by confusion, confused by control.” Is it a kind of tribute to the U.S.

band Watchtower, who also had a line like this in their song “Control And Resistance” in 1989?

No, it’s by accident. (laughs) I don’t need anybody making a tribute to me, and I won’t make a tribute to anybody except great composers. It could be that it’s a common phrase in America. As I told you, I wrote the story, probably I didn’t even have this line inside, and it could be Doug who put it in so it would be better to sing it. Maybe I wrote, “The guys are controlled by their own confusion.” And he said, “Oh, you can’t sing it.” Then I went, “OK, what’s the common American phrase for it? Controlled by confusion, confused by control? Then go for it!”

You recently said that when it comes to rock music, you only listen to the stuff written between 1970 and 1985. What happened to rock music after 1985? What went wrong with it?

That’s a really good question. If I only knew that… (laughs) The thing is that bands don’t experiment that much any longer. If you listen to really early stuff by Yes, what they are doing is incredible. Check out “Gates Of Delirium”, for instance, it’s 20 minutes of fantastic music, incredible poetry, high speed and so many ideas. But later on everything became more structured and reduced. Nowadays this techno stuff is reduced to one beat. But I can only say that every generation gets the music it deserves. I think in the 1970s everybody wanted to go forward, to create something new, and this is also true for Mekong Delta. But as to normal rock groups, I think this spirit got lost, so I don’t listen to them any longer. The only exception is Yes, of which I own even the stuff that came out after 1985. (laughs)

If, as you said, “Kaleidoscope” was very complicated, but a bit more easy for the listener to understand, what can you say about the next CD “Visions Fugitives” (1994)? How did your approach change by that time?

What I would like to do all the time was to create my own suite for group and orchestra, and I was approaching it with every album. I view the career of Mekong Delta as a pyramid: on the first album we came up with the rhythm, on the second one with harmonies, on the third one we dealt with melodies, on the fourth one we dealt with a rondo, and on the fifth one we mixed everything. I was on my way to new borders, and I felt that I was capable to make this suite. Originally I wanted to put only the suite on the CD, but it was too short, so we put four more songs on it.

You said you are not fully satisfied with the way this suite turned out on the remix version of the album. What is wrong with it?

This remix was done by a friend of mine, and I was not there, I was doing some other things. He had just got new computer stuff in his studio, and I don’t think he used the right sound. It sounds more electronic than the original version. But all the tracks are still here, and if I find the time next year, we’ll put this again in the computer and work on them with the nowadays technology, so that the result would sound real. Or maybe we’ll reach the point where we play this one again with a real orchestra or with special things. I don’t know.

We have just one album left to discuss - “Pictures At An Exhibition” (1997). You said it was the most difficult undertaking in your musical career mentally. What was the reason? Were the classical arrangements more demanding than you had expected?

No, it was the amount of work. I worked nearly two years on this album. What most of the people don’t know is there are several orchestral variations of this one done by several arrangers. I spent a hell of time to find the original piano version by Mussorgsky himself. This alone was a hell of work, and then we had to put all the arrangements on paper, and it’s 200 pages. Then in the studio it turned out so difficult to put it like I would like to get it, so we experimented a lot with synthesizers and multimedia equipment. There was a point where I said, “Stop it! Let’s do something else, forget it!” But my friends kept me up and said, “If you started it, you have to finish it.” I was really burned out when the album was completed.

What was the purpose in making “Pictures At An Exhibition” in two versions – a group version and a group with orchestra version – on the same CD?

I was not sure whether the fans would like the version for the band or for the band and orchestra better, and I came up with the idea to do both, so that everybody is satisfied. At least this wasn’t much more work, just some samples from some orchestras here and there. The main and the most complicated work was to get the basic tracks. The rest is always fun – adding some melodies and extra things, but the basics were damn hard.

What do you think about the version of “Pictures At An Exhibition” by Em

erson Lake & Palmer?

It’s great for that time, and you have to see that live, it’s fantastic! Emerson is dancing on his organ! (everybody laughs) He’s a crazy guy! And I like what he does with knives, sticking them up into the organ. Most people don’t know the purpose why he’s doing it. They don’t know that if you stick a knife between the wheel and the hammer in the organ, put two of them town and block them, you’ll get a major seven chord, using which you can play something different. And it looks good, by the way. (cracks)

You have been out of the music business for a long while. How much has the situation has changed since your departure?

I hope that the technical level is much higher nowadays. (laughs) And for the rest I’ll have to see, because I’ve only been back for three months, and I cannot say too much at the moment. I only know that my new guitar player Peter Lake from Sweden is technically brilliant, I can’t find any better word than “brilliant”. What has also changed for me as the composer is that I don’t need the guitar player to be near me. What we are doing nowadays is that I send him over mp3 files by the Internet, and he works on them at home.

But why Peter? What made you choose him as the new guitar player for Mekong Delta?

He’s got a very good reputation, and a lot of people told me, “If you need somebody who’s able to play more complex things than in the past, try Peter.” I can tell you that the composing for the new album is already finished. I have four pieces that came out much more complicated than I expected them to be, even I am unable to play them at the moment the way I would like them to be played.

Wow!

(cracks) Hard stuff! I thought that something like this may come out, so I was looking for a guitar player who is only playing guitar, not doing something else apart from it. I got information that Peter would be the right guy, I contacted him through the Internet, he was totally amazed and said, “Of course!” I gave him the thing he should play so that I could see how he is able to play and to hear music. It was six songs from the past, I sent them to him, he figured them out by listening, recorded his parts and sent them back to me three days later. So I said, “That must be the guy!

Did you listen to the stuff he’s playing with his band Theory In Practice?

Yeah. I noticed that it’s very technical, and that’s what I need at least. I can hear by this stuff what he’s able to do.

How is the search for the singer progressing? Have you tried any candidates?

Yeah, we’ve tried several ones, but I’m not very satisfied. In two weeks we’ll try a new one. It’s difficult, because we don’t play as a group, nowadays it’s just me and Peter, so I just send the candidates some files and say, “OK, sing something to that and send it back to me!” It’s not the normal way maybe, a little bit weird.

Can you tell us some more details about the upcoming Mekong Delta album?

We’ve got eight songs for the group and two pieces for the group and orchestra. We also plan a classical adaptation, at the moment it’s a piece of Shostakovich, close to impossible to play, so we only hope we can do it. I’m rehearsing myself all the time. (laughs) But if it doesn’t come out, we’ll probably not do it, I’ve got some other options.

What are the chances of seeing Mekong Delta live again?

The future will see. (laughs) Normally I would say, “Now it’s OK, let’s go on stage!” It’s no problem for me. If you are away for five years, your head is full of ideas. I’ve got ideas for five albums already. (laughs) It has been the first time it was really easy to compose, because if you are not in a cycle of doing a record every year or two years, you can accumulate a lot of ideas on paper. Then you go through them and say, “Well, what can we take? Oh, that’s a nice one! Oh, that one’s too complicated!” (laughs)

Since you have a good knowledge of classical Russian music, it seems logical to us to ask you what else do you know about Russia. Have you ever been in this country, or are you interested in making a trip here?

Of course, I’m interested, because I like the subway in Moscow! (everybody laughs) In the former times it was nearly impossible for a guy from a Western country to come in, I had enough problems even if I wanted to drive to Eastern Germany. Once I was in the Czech Republic, and it was totally stressing. I was deeply impressed by those old churches and stuff like that, but the customs officers were totally weird, they were looking directly in my face and asking, “You, you, what have you got here?” If I find the time, I will come over to Russia anyway, because now you are on the way to democracy… I think. (laughs) But there are some strange things happening that you have noticed by yourselves, of course. There are a lot of people that are making a lot of money. But I won’t make any political statements any longer. (laughs) The only political thing that’s interesting at the moment is these guys from Iran angry about caricatures. Strange, isn’t it? We come over as tolerant, and they don’t go back for one step. It’s really incredible. Ah, OK. It’s better to be discussed if we get together in person. (laughs)

Special thanks to Eugene Silin (Mystic Empire Records) for arranging this interview

Roman “Maniac” Patrashov, Felix Yakovlev
February 6, 2006
10 мар 2006 the End

Mekong Delta

Memories Of Tomorrow