Interview с Arena : DARKSIDE.ru

Let’s start with discussing your latest DVD “Smoke And Mirrors”. First of all, you already had a DVD called “Caught In The Act” three years ago. What was the purpose of releasing a new one, and what are the main differences between the two DVDs, except the setlist, of course?

I think three years is a reasonable space in time to leave between performances. I think we’ve developed as a band slightly more. And also we were on the “Pepper’s Ghost” tour, so obviously we were playing different music. If you check out the new DVD, it’s sufficiently different and fresh, and it has quite a different vibe that the original one “Caught In The Act”.

How did it happen that both of your DVDs were recorded in Poland? Is that the country where most of Arena fans live?

No, it has more to do with the production company. The company out there is called Metal Mind, and they have a good system set up to record and film the DVD, and they’re actually brining them out, it’s not a release of our own label Verglas. We worked with them for “Caught In The Act”, and it just made sense to do the same with them this time.

By the way, where was Arena’s latest live album (“Live & Life”) recorded? The credits say it was recorded in Europe, but what does that mean? Did you combine the material from different shows?

I’m not absolutely sure. I think the material was done in several different venues, which is why they said “Europe”. We just chose the better performance.

The new DVDs includes fan footage of the so-called “reunion show” where material from the “Visitor” album (1998) was played and two former members joined you on stage. Whose idea was it to have this kind of reunion? What are those former members doing nowadays?

It was my idea, I thought it would be fun. We had talked about it before. John Jowitt is now the bassist in IQ, another progressive band, and Paul Wrightson sings in a kind of more metal band called Iron Heart. And both Paul and John appear on a solo album from one of the members of a German band called RPWL. So they are busy. And because it was our 10-year anniversary, we wanted to do something slightly different. And that seemed like a nice idea.

How do you like the work that Metal Mind has done on your DVDs?

They’ve sold plenty of the first DVD, hopefully they’ll sell plenty of this one as well. I’m hoping that it will be good for all of us.

By the way, how did you get the idea to set up your own record label? Was it because nobody wanted to sign Arena in the beginning?

Partly. There were some possibilities, but Mick (Pointer, drummer) and I thought, “Well, maybe this time we should do it ourselves?” And it seemed like a good idea at that time, so we did.

How much is the commercial success of your music important for you? If you start losing money by releasing Arena CDs, will you still continue doing it?

I don’t think it’s a question of whether we want to continue, I think it will be just practicality – if we’re losing money, we won’t be able to afford doing it. And I’d like to continue doing it. We don’t mind about not being on top of the charts, but obviously any success we can have is pretty handy.

You are a very

busy person – you have a band that’s playing live quite often, your own studio Thin Ice, your own record label. Do you ever have time for a rest, and if yes, how do you usually spend your free time?

I don’t have a lot of time, each year it gets more and more busy. I walk, nearly every day I’m trying to get out for a walk just to get out of this place. I enjoy cooking and I enjoy going to the cinema – these are the two things I get pleasure from. And that’s about it. I spend most of my time on doing music.

In an interview four years ago, you said you like power metal bands such as Dragonforce and Freedom Call very much. What kind of music do you listen to nowadays?

(pause) A good question! I tend to listen to film music, I like orchestral and instrumental music a lot. If I’m cooking a meal or something, and I want to put some music on, I’m more likely to put on some instrumental music or classical music. People usually imagine that I spend my whole life listening to Genesis and Pink Floyd, but I don’t. (laughs)

What is your opinion on the current situation on the progressive rock and metal scene? Are there any young progressive bands that you would like to single out?

Ehm… Honestly I don’t know. The funny thing is that I get to hear a lot of these bands as time passes, but I don’t really pay attention to them. I’m so busy with what we do that I don’t really choose to listen to a lot of progressive rock in my own time. I’m sure that there are lots of good new bands, I just think it’s hard for any band to make a sort of individual stand nowadays. It’s very easy to become just part of this enormous progressive rock genre and not have an individual identity, and I think the bands that do the best are the ones that manage to get some kind of identity of their own.

You have taken part in a lot of projects throughout your career. Do you consider Arena your main occupation?

I think it is one of the main things I do. People always ask me this – “which bands would you choose” and the rest of it. It doesn’t work like that. When I’m inside something, if I’m working in Pendragon or I’m working in Arena, that’s what I’m concentrating on.

I’ve heard that you are planning to release a new album by Strangers On A Train soon. Is that indeed the case?

It’s been a plan for an awfully long time. The intention is there, the difficulty is just finding the time to do it. It’s not exactly a money-making project, so we keep intending to make a start and then not quite getting started. But most of it is written, and at some point I would really like this thing finished.

Is there any chance that you will one day make another album with Oliver Wakeman?

Yes, I was talking to Oliver yesterday oddly enough and he said the same thing. We have an idea, we even have some material, what we don’t have is a record company prepared or able to pay for it. This kind of project includes inviting guests, and that can be quite expensive. So if you know a record label that wants to make another Nolan & Wakeman album, we’ll make one.

When you were starting out as a keyboard player, what albums and artists made the biggest impression on you? Who shaped your musical tastes, so to say?

I

think what made me decide to do keyboards was Rick Wakeman, not in Yes, but his solo stuff. I remember somebody lent me copies of “King Arthur” and “Journey To The Center Of The Earth”, and I really loved that stuff. That’s what got me going on it.

Many of your songs are inspired by literature and mythology. What is more interesting for you – to write about the past or about the present time?

I kind of like mythology stuff, I like history. There are lots of bands writing about the present and dealing with politics and drug abuse and god knows what else, but I prefer to go elsewhere. There are usually different levels of meaning in what I write, I tend to hide certain meanings inside anecdotes or whatever. There are about two or three layers to the lyrics I write anyway.

Arena’s latest studio CD “Pepper’s Ghost” (2005) has a comic-style booklet, which looks really great. Was it you who came up with this idea? Does this style of artwork have any connection with the movie “The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen”?

Yes, it was my idea. I was watching a film called “Unbreakable”, it was made by the director of “The Sixth Sense”. And the guy, one of the characters in that, was fascinated by comics. That kind of gave me the idea. “The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen” – yes, that had an influence as well, that’s where the idea of turning the band into superheroes and putting it in a Victorian setting came from.

You have taken part in creating a lot of concept albums. Which is more interesting and more difficult for you to make – a concept album or a regular album with each song standing on its own?

I don’t think I’ve ever written a regular album with just separate songs. Even albums which don’t call themselves concept albums usually have a concept running through them. That applies certainly to Arena – the albums that are just ordinary albums still have some kind of inner connection or vibe. I think of an album as a complete piece - if you write a symphony, you don’t write four pieces of music and put them together, they are four movements of the same piece. So I think of it in the same way.

Speaking about concepts – were the eight parts of the “Crying For Help” suite written at the same period of time or separately?

I think they were written during the first two albums. The first four parts were written during “Songs From The Lion’s Cage” (1995), and we wrote the next four during “Pride” (1996), but I think the intention is that some of that might have been written in advance. They were written in a relatively close period of time

What kind of connection do these pieces have with each other apart from titles?

They are kind of like an old-fashioned scene of variations. There’s a basic theme played in the beginning of the first one, and that theme or the chord or some elements of that theme appear in all the pieces.

One of the most epic Arena songs is “Solomon”. What events inspired you to write this very emotional music and these very strong lyrics?

This is the very first song I wrote the lyrics for in Arena. I’m trying to remember right now where it all came from… I know that when we were writing the first album, we wanted to have this kind of ancient history vibe – “Valley Of

The Kings” and stuff like that. And “Solomon” seemed like a really good idea. I just took that idea and developed it from my own experiences and things like that.

The song “Welcome To The Cage” is very untypical for the sound of Arena. Was it your attempt to compose a radio hit?

I don’t think so. We just wanted a song that was a bit more pop, and something just a little bit shorter. We weren’t trying to write a single or anything, but we were aware that it would be a lot more radio-friendly than “Solomon”, for example.

Arena’s first live album “Welcome To The Stage” (1997) was recorded in the U.S. How often do you play in that country? Would you like to play there more often, or are you satisfied with just touring Europe?

Well, we’d like to play anywhere as often as we can. The U.S. is a difficult country to get to and play, we’re only playing at these festivals, and that gives us the opportunity to get out there. I’m gonna be out there in a couple of weeks’ time with another band actually. It would be nice to get out there, but it’s just difficult to get there at the moment. We play America whenever we’re able to.

Yet another couple of questions about some specific songs. For instance, the lyrics to the song “Medusa” – are they based on personal experience?

Ehm… I can’t remember! (laughs) You’re asking me about songs I wrote 10 years ago… I don’t think it was particularly based on my own experience, it was based on the experience of someone I was very close to.

Do you like to frighten people with your music? For instance, I get goose bumps every time I listen to the song “(Don’t Forget To) Breathe”. What inspired you to write such frightening lyrics?

I like vampire stories and things like that. It started off with the idea that sometimes you can watch a film on television, and you’re so drawn into the film that you almost forget to breathe - you’re waiting for that person to go round the corner, to get attacked by something. That was the starting point, I just took the idea from there.

In continuation of this theme – when you wrote “The Butterfly Man”, did you come up with this image yourself, or did you borrow it from a horror book or movie?

The idea of “The Butterfly Man” was mine. I’m sure it has been used in films or stories, but I didn’t take it from anything. I just had this idea that this guy was a collector of souls, but he wasn’t a willing collector, it was like a curse for him as well.

The song “Tears In The Rain” describes a crying clown. Do you ever feel like this yourself? Being a musician, you have some obligations to the audience, right?

I think artists often do. For me, for example, I often find that my role as a keyboard player in the band is almost ignored. People assume that I’m good at what I do, and the only time I’m hearing anybody say anything about me is if I happen not to do it very well. (laughs) So people expect me to be good at it.

How did you get the idea to release two EPs as a prequel and a sequel to the album “Contagion” (2003)? Why didn’t you release all this material on a double-CD? Wouldn’t it be easier for the fans to get an understanding of the story this way?

I personally

don’t really believe in double albums. I usually find that these big double concept albums can be reduced to one good album and a load of filler. We didn’t really wanna do that, so we wrote all the material and then we cut the album. That’s what we always do – we cut the album down to the size that we want it to be. But we thought the material was good still, so that’s why we decided to bring out these kind of extra CDs.

But you did make a double album of this material, though only for the fanclub…

It hasn’t been made yet, but in theory they’re making a full version and putting the songs back in the right order.

Speaking about the fanclub and fans – how do you imagine an average Arena fan?

I don’t really know. I’d like to think they’re perfectly normal people that enjoy Arena.

Then what kind of audience do you have at Arena shows? Are they progressive fans, metal fans or rock fans?

We have a core of progressive fans, but luckily because we have a slightly heavier edge, we do crossover and we get more metal fans as well.

What songs are your most favorite one to play live?

It changes. I’ve quite enjoyed playing “Riding The Tide”, which is a keyboard solo. I like the tracks that have a certain amount of energy to them – “(Don’t Forget To) Breathe” or “Bedlam Fayre”.

And is there any song that you’re especially proud of?

“Opera Fanatica”. I did that on my own, which is not the normal process for writing in Arena, but that just happened to work out that way. And I kind of like the result.

Arena’s website hasn’t been updated since last year. What is currently happening in the band?

At the end of last year we completed the “Pepper’s Ghost” tour, which was also our 10-year anniversary tour. We wanted, particularly I wanted, to take a bit of a break after that, because I’ve got other things I’ve got to work on. And I think the other guys were happy with that, because they’ve got other things as well. So we decided that we leave it a few months before starting to write the next album, because for 10 years it’s been like writing an album, doing pre-production, going into the studio, doing post-production, doing interviews and promotion, starting practice, going on tour, and all of that non-stop. We just wanted to take a little bit of time away from it so we can come back a little bit fresher. In fact, I’m supposed to be seeing Mick during the summer, and that’s when we’ll start writing the next album. There isn’t any news at the moment apart from the new DVD. There’s gonna be a best-of album coming out later in the year as well.

So at the moment it’s too early to ask you what kind of sound you will have or what direction you will take on the new album, right?

I haven’t got a clue. I have started to think about it, I’d like to think it will be a progression from the last one. I really would love to do another comic-style “Pepper’s Ghost” one, but we can’t do the same thing again sadly. That’s my favorite album, and I’d like to do more like that with the artwork, but I’m sure where it’s all headed. I’ll have to see.

What are the chances of seeing Arena in Russia? Have you ever got any proposals from Russian promoters?

We keep trying. In fact, we were recently invited again to go and play in Moscow. We said “yes, great”, we asked for some money, and that was it. But we are trying to get out there, and we get closer each time.

Special thanks to Alexei “KIDd” Kuzovlev (Irond Records) for arranging this interview

Interview by Roman “Maniac” Patrashov
Questions also composed by Grigory “Starbreaker” Vorontsov
April 10, 2006
21 апр 2006 the End

Arena

Cutting The Cards