Interview с Virgin Steele : DARKSIDE.ru

Many artists who have done concept albums say it takes them much more time and effort than to do a regular album. But you are doing concept albums on a regular basis, and we would like to know a bit more about your working process. What do you begin with – do you get the idea first, or do you start with writing some music and then think what the songs can be about?

It’s a little bit of everything, no one song is born in the same way. Sometimes it’s the title first, sometimes it’s the lyrics first, sometimes it’s the music first, sometimes it’s a combination of the lyrics and the music at the same time. It’s always different. For this album, I had a concept in my mind about what I wanted to say, and where I wanted the story to go, so I kind of made an outline and roughed out what the scenes will be. And then I began to gather music and lyrics that would fit each scene. I thought a lot about what was happening in the scene, and in some places I wanted aggressive music, in some places something mellow, I always thought about what fit the scene in the best way.

When you enter the studio, do you have all the songs ready, or do you continue writing and creating music right while recording it?

Generally before I go anywhere near the studio, I have to make sure that I have songs. What I do is I write all the songs on the piano and I sing and play to a very cheap little cassette player which I have sitting on top of the piano. And I edit on the cassette player – I may play different versions of the song, make sure the arrangement is totally correct. When I have that, I go into the studio. But of course, when I’m in the studio, I’m hearing things in another way, so I might end up re-writing some things or writing more parts, because I’m inspired by how I hear the music coming back at me. So it’s a combination of things – I always go to the studio having complete songs, but also the studio inspires me to add some songs or reinvent others.

For every album you write much more music than you actually use. What happens to the rest of the material? Do you throw it away, or do you sometimes use it on next records?

I don’t throw it away - if it’s good, I’ll keep it. I wrote over 60 pieces of music for this project, I have a complete instrumental record that I wrote out of 60 songs. Because there are much more songs that fit on the album, I originally wanted to put out a box set or a triple or a double CD, but the label was not interested in doing that, they just put out this one very long CD. Yes, everything that is good will see the light of day.

We know that the studio work on the album “Age Of Consent” (1988) was very difficult for the band. How do you like working in the studio nowadays?

“Age Of Consent” was really a pain in the ass, because I didn’t get along with the engineer that we used, so it was like eight months of torture. I like that record a lot now, but I hated making it at that time. But now it’s different, because the studio is in my house, so I am mainly the engineer more than ever before on the recordings. I enjoy the fact that I have the freedom to do whatever I want and when I want. If I wanna work at 3 o’clock in the morning or 2 o’clock in the afternoon, that’s perfectly fine, and I can work as long as I want or as much as I want, and there’s nobody to bother me, which is quite nice. This time there was nobody to stop me from working, that’s why I wrote 60 songs. (laughs)

Many of your songs are based on legends, myths and ancient literature. When and how did you get interested in mytholog

y? And what myths are more interesting for you – Greek or Sumerian, for example?

They’re all interesting to me, I enjoy them all, they all have their different sides. The Greek myths, even though there is a certain darkness to them, they have more of a sunny, summery sort of flavor. The Nordic myths are darker, and I like those as well, everything has its own special mood. I got interested in the world of myth probably because I was exposed to the theater where myths were born by my father. He is an actor, and he is a director and producer of plays, live theatrical productions. I was brought in the house where he was rehearsing tragedies by Aeschylus or Shakespeare. I was turned on to the world of drama at a very early age. At the same time, there was opera – we had played operas in the house, and my sister is an opera singer, while my other family members were rock’n’rollers, so I got a well-rounded education from all of that.

How did you come up with the concept for the latest album “Visions Of Eden”? Why did you decide to write about Lilith and “destruction and eradication of the Goddess Principle”?

I started to think about what problems we have in the world and why we have these problems. And I started to think about relationships, especially male-female relationships, and the power and influence that religion has on humans’ lives. Even if they don’t believe in a religion, there are so many aspects of the religion that influence the society. And you all know it, you follow these old golden rules. So I started to think about Creation myths, the myth of Adam and Eve and what a fucked up mess it is – it makes women look like such horrible creatures! I think this is one of the problems in our society today. I know it wasn’t always this way, because I’ve researched and I’ve studied all the cultures and pagan things. It came to my understanding through all my research that that myth was just a further propaganda smear campaign against the worship of the Goddess. They wanted to eradicate any kind of the Goddess Principle that once dwelled within divinity. I wanted to know why, and what could have happened if it all had gone in a different direction, how the life would be today. Those are the things that I was thinking about, and I wanted to raise those questions and get people thinking and talking about them.

Speaking about the Goddess Principle, what do you think about the book called “DaVinci Code” and the movie of the same name?

I have not seen the movie, I have not read the book. I understand that it is about Jesus and the family of his, especially Mary Magdalene, but it doesn’t interest me so much, because I personally don’t believe in a historical Jesus. I think Jesus is just another myth in a long line of dying and resurrected god-men, there were Dionysus, Mithra, and Adonis before him. Even Pythagoras, the mathematician who we know, belongs to this line, as many of the things that are attributed to Jesus in terms of being miracle things, can be found in the teaching of Pythagoras. So I don’t believe Jesus ever existed, let alone that he had a family. (laughs)

Another related question – what do you think about the revival of the interest in paganism and pagan cultures? Even on the metal scene nowadays there are a lot of bands who call themselves pagan…

Yeah, pagan metal, I’ve noticed this. I think it’s an outgrowth of the dissatisfaction with our times. People are trying to search for the roots of the matter, they believe that maybe there was a better way once. They are fed up with the traditional view on the origins that the world’s

organized religions have, so they are looking for the sources of the Nile River – how do we get back to the God, how do we find the Visions of Eden? Some people are indeed willing to know, while others are just jumping on a trend, but I think that if you do your research, you’ll find there are other ways of being, other ways of knowing yourself spiritually.

In the song “Black Light On Black” you sing “Fuck you Adam, fuck you Eve, fuck you God!”. Don’t you think that this line may cause problems with religious organizations and people like that for Virgin Steele?

It could, I suppose, because it’s a strong line. But you should understand the context where this little line comes from. Lilith is in a rage at this point, she’s had it with Adam, and it ended because of Eve. Adam decides to stay with Eve, because Eve is submissive, rather than having a relationship with the woman who’s equal. What I’m suggesting in that song is that the real fall of humankind was not the eating of any apple, but Adam’s dissection from Lilith. As far as people getting upset about it, they’re just getting it out of the context of what it is. It’s a theatrical piece, it’s a story, and I’m not saying that people should not believe in what they wanna believe. If you wanna believe in Adam and Eve, it’s wonderful, and if you wanna believe that their God kicked them out of Eden, go right ahead, I’m not saying you shouldn’t. I’m just saying there are some problems here, let’s think about this. There are many spiritual beliefs that don’t recognize Jahve or Jehovah as the real god, they claim that there is a god above god, so this concept is embodied in this work. What is the god above god? This is a divine master of all things. And what is Lilith? She’s the cheesy equal half of that, she’s the goddess above the god, she’s the founder of Creation who went by many names – Isis, Inana, Astarte, etc. And what is Virgin Mary? She’s the vestigial limb of a far greater idea. But the people have a problem with it, and it’s OK, let’s have a dialog, let’s discuss it. I’ll tell anybody what my research is and what my beliefs are, and I’m open to discussion. I’m not saying that my way is the only way, but these are my beliefs. The record with that line is not meant to provoke, it’s meant to raise questions. People aren’t really asking these questions, especially people who are really gung-ho, religious fundamentalists who say that the Bible is the beginning and the end of all things. No, it’s just another book, and let’s think about where these things came from, why there is so much propaganda, so many distortions, why they have to stamp out things.

You said that “Visions Of Eden” is probably the darkest Virgin Steele album. Is this somehow a reflection of your personal life at the moment, or is it just what the topic of Lilith requires?

It’s a combination of the two. The subject matter is rather dark, and maybe I’m drawn to the subject matter because I’ve had pretty dark past three years. I’ve had my ups and downs, I’ve had my demons that I battled all the time, and though I tend to remain triumphant on top of my game, it’s not always easy. And as you know, in Virgin Steele what you get a lot of the time is my particular trip that I’m going through, but it’s not spelled out in the open for you. But if you know me and you know what to look for, you can find me in all the lines.

We have read in several interviews how you describe your own music, and every time these descriptions are very poetic with a lot of metaphors and stuff like that. What is going on in your head when you hear music? Do you associate it with certain color

s or certain images?

Yes, sometimes certain chords or notes do appear to me to have a certain color. I try to think of the music as if I was a painter or sculptor. It’s a sonic landscape that I do, and I try to put in every emotion that I have, not just trying to be storyteller, and that’s true for each song. If you had one song to listen to until the rest of your life, it encapsulates the entire history of the world. (laughs) I’m trying to make them sound like a living world, each and every one of those songs. I try to transcend as I’m writing things, it’s an amazing feeling when you’re composing and it’s going well. It’s like something else is coming through you, you’re in touch with another realm, you’re beyond this world at the invitation of the muses. I like to remain in this state perpetually, that’s why when it’s going well, I keep writing, writing and writing.

A posting on your website says that the promo version of “Visions Of Eden” is not the final version of the album. How much will the final version be different? And what made you use the rough version, so to say, for the promo?

The promo was done earlier, because I had to get something out there. The final version was done about a week and a half ago. The mastering of the final version is heavier, it’s more in your face, there’s gonna be more clarity all around, and some of the mixes I changed to bring some of the guitars up, and the balance is shifted a bit here and there. Overall, it sounds better to me. If I had my way, if I was allowed to have the time, I’d still be working on it, I’d still be mixing it, that’s my nature. I’m never satisfied completely with the mixes, I always think, “It could be better, could be better, could be better.” It is better than the promo, but it’s not unrecognizable, the song is still the song.

But you probably know that the promo is already on the Internet in the mp3 format…

Well, that’s unfortunate, that’s really fucked up, that’s one thing I hate about the Internet.

Yeah, and the problem is that people download the stuff not knowing that it’s the promo, so they discuss it in forums and say the dislike the sound or stuff like this…

Yeah, it’s a shame. I knew that was going to happen, that’s the world we live in today, everybody wants instant gratification, everybody wants to push the button and have the problems of the world solved. People want free music, free this, free that. That’s one of the problems of the Internet.

Do you consider mp3s and the Internet in general a danger for Virgin Steele, or on the contrary, a tool that helps spread the word about the band?

It’s a double-edged sword. On the one hand, when it’s used well, it can be very good. This helps get the name out there, get the music out there, but it’s more often misused. Hey, we survived many years without it, I don’t need it, I don’t mind going back to the old ways, mailing stuff out, reading magazines, and just being there live. I work pretty hard on this shit all the time, and I’m never gonna be compensated in any kind of fashion for the amount of energy that I put into the stuff. Anyway I’m not doing it to be a millionaire, I’m not interested in making most of the money in the world. The band could be a lot bigger, we could have played the game, we could have made records that people exactly want, just straight to the point, so on and so forth. Sure I could have put out straight-ahead rock songs that would have sold 50 or 60 million copies, we could be a lot more popular than we are, but that’s not our thing. Our thing is just

trying to further the course of music and to create a way of life that we would be enjoying. And that’s what we have done.

We’re not sure if you know this, but in Russia, until this year, Virgin Steele albums were only available as imports, or there were cheap pirate copies. But this year, all of them saw the official release simultaneously. What album would you recommend for a new listener to start with?

Oh, it’s hard to say. They’re all different, they all have their own quality. Some people really got into the band with “The Marriage Of Heaven And Hell Part 1” (1995), that might be a start, while others came onboard with “Invictus” (1998) and some with “Noble Savage” (1986). It’s hard to say, I don’t know. (laughs)

You have toured intensively all over the years. But why haven’t you released a live record or a DVD so far? Do you have any plans to do it in the future?

I don’t know why we haven’t really. I wanted to, but it seems like the labels that we were on always wanted another studio album, so we never had time to do it. I would really like to do a live album and a DVD before the next studio album comes out, I would really like to make that the next project that I do, and I hope that the label will agree with me this time.

Your current live show lasts over three hours, which is a very rare thing nowadays. How is it possible to play for so long with such an intensity? What do you do to keep yourselves fit for such shows?

Well, the set is three hours, so you can imagine that the rehearsals are like five hours. (everybody laughs) Once we start playing, we enjoy each other. This line-up has been together for quite a long time now, and we enjoy playing together. We don’t sit there and chat bullshit around, we say, “Hello! How are you?”, we plug in and we just go. And then we go until we drop, and that’s it. It’s just that we enjoy playing, we enjoy living through these tunes, and every rehearsal is like a concert for us. It’s a way for us to transcend and become larger than life. Rehearsals are just as important to us as the gigs are, and that’s why the set has got longer and longer – we always wanted to have different songs that we can fly in at a given town. “Oh, we don’t wanna play that one tonight, let’s play this one or that one or the other one!” So when we go on the road, we don’t just plan 15 or 20 songs to play every night, we have about 70 songs to choose from, they are always swapped and thrashed out, and the set has just got longer and longer and longer.

At a recent show in Spain you played the whole set without the drummer. Can you tell us a bit more about this incident?

Sure! Our drummer Frank Gilchriest missed a plane, or there was some problem with the plane. He was flying over a day after we had already left, so we were already in Spain, and about an hour before we had to go to the venue from the hotel, the road manager came and told me that he was not gonna be there. I was like, “OK, I guess we can’t play our usual set that have planned for this concert.” So we sat in my room and we put together something else, based on acoustic shows that I do with Edward Pursino, the guitar player – he and I just do acoustic gigs as well – and based on our rehearsals. Again, when we rehearse, if somebody can’t make it, it doesn’t mean that the rehearsal is cancelled. We just carry on with whoever is there. It’s kind of like last man standing, we just keep going. So we’re used to playing without the drums or the bass or me or the guitar – whatever the case may be, the band is used to playing and get

ting through the songs. That’s how we managed to do it, because we have an experience of playing in all kinds of positions. And the gig itself was brilliant, I loved it. We just went out there, and first the audience was a bit confused, but they got really into it very quickly. I was stomping around on the stage with my boots, making percussive noises, getting them to clap, there was a lot of improvisation in the show, it was really a fun moment. I like to have challenges, I like taking the risk and pulling it off.

Most of your touring activity takes place in Europe. But what about your status in your home country? How many fans do you have in the U.S.?

I don’t know how to calculate that, but it’s always been better in Europe. They just have the infrastructure in Europe, our the booking agency is in Europe, our record companies have always been European, all the magazines that have written about us are based in Europe. As to the States, now and again we release a record here, and normally it is not released at the same time. We hope to turn it around and see what happens over the next months, but it’s something I’m not worried about anymore, because for a long time the U.S. market has turned its back on metal. They’re more into it now, so maybe the time is right again for us. We’ll see. Again, we’re not meant to be the biggest band on the planet, we’re just creating our music and living our own way of life. Wherever that way of life is working is fine by us.

Your band has always been very untypical for the New York metal scene, and we cannot recall any band in your area that is at least a bit similar to you. Are you comfortable in such a position? Or would you rather have colleagues or followers?

Well, it’s got to this because I just go over, do my thing, then come home and do something else. Life is different. We have friends here, I’m friendly with guys from Riot and Type O Negative, but generally we don’t play that much here. There are other bands you’ve probably never heard of that I’m friendly with. There’s a kind of a scene in the underground fashion here, that’s interesting, and I’m part of this scene, I enjoy it. If it gets bigger, that’s great, and if it doesn’t, that’s OK.

What do you think about the current metal scene in America? Are there any young bands that you consider worthy of attention? Or do you prefer old classic bands to all the newcomers?

There are some friends of mine who are a very good band, they are called Immortally Committed. They’re about the best band that I’ve seen in quite some time, they have good songs. It’s not just because they’re friends of mine, it’s because they are a good band, a kind of cross between Iron Maiden, Pantera and some of the Swedish metal like Children Of Bodom. I actually played keyboards on a couple of their tracks a while back.

Speaking about classic bands, we know that you, your guitar player Edward and your bass player Josh Block are taking part in a cover band called Carnival Of Souls. How did this project come to life? And what material are you playing?

Carnival Of Souls is more like an original band that a cover band. We picked obscure tracks that we liked from others that we liked and tried to present them in a bluesy, gothic-y, improvisational way. They sound as if we had just written them right in front of you, that’s the kind of approach that we use. It’s theatrical, it’s over the top, it’s just something that we wanted to do. I’ve always been friendly with the drummer that we use (Geoff Fontaine), they guy who played on an album of the band I produ

ced years ago, they were called Exorcist. I wanted to do something together with him, and he brought in the keyboard player, whose name is Lynn Delmato. He was really excellent, so I could just sing, and it was a lot of fun to me. Edward and Josh both agreed to do it, and we’ve done four or five gigs so far. We haven’t played that much, we haven’t done anything this year, we are all too busy. But it’s another nice outlet, we can just go out there, improvise, have a great evening with friends and do something that’s a bit different. We would even do a few of Virgin Steele songs that Virgin Steele doesn’t do, stuff like “Strawgirl”.

You produced a lot of bands in the 1980s. Why did you eventually stop doing it? Is there a chance that you will produce somebody else in the future?

I didn’t stop doing it completely, I’ve done it for people whose record never really came out, and there were a few other things that I did. But I got more and more involved with Virgin Steele, and there was really no time for it. I would love to do it, sure, for some other artist, whoever they may be, I may end up doing something with friends of mine, it’s a group called Oxygen, there’s a girl singer, and I got my drummer Frank Gilchriest to play on these sessions. That record might see the light of day within the next months, and yeah, I might be getting my hand back into that again. But there is so much to do just on the Virgin Steele front, I have so many songs that are not finished, and this takes the bulk of my time.

A few years ago you contributed vocals to a couple of songs on the project called “Avantasia”. How did Tobias Sammet persuade you to take part in this project? You very seldom participate in rock operas of other people…

What happened was that the girl called Sandra who was doing the promotion for my label at that time called me up and said, “This guy Tobi wants to call you, he’s a nice guy, and he has some music that he wants you to sing on.” I said, “OK, if I like it, I’ll do it.” They sent me over these little bits and pieces of music, and they sounded like something I could get my teeth into, so I did it. I didn’t think much of it, I just sang my parts one day while I was taking a break from the “House Of Atreus” sessions. I sent it over, they put it together and linked it to the rest of the album. I wasn’t in the same room with any of those guys. (laughs) But people seem to like it, and I’m happy to have participated in it. People seem to enjoy my character, Jacob the Monk from Meinz, so it’s cool.

Tobi used to say that when he got your part back from you, it was quite different from what he originally planned to hear…

I don’t really know what he originally planned! (laughs) We never talked about it, I just do the things that I do, and he was probably amazed because I gave him all these harmonies on some of the tracks. I did big choirs and things like that myself, which is what I always do, so for me it was only a day’s work.

Let’s now talk about your own rock operas that are performed on stage in Germany. First of all, was it your own idea to bring your music to the theatrical stage, or did the theater people approach you themselves?

It began in a very nice organic way, which is what I like. We had a fan, a girl living in Germany, who met the director of this theater, and he asked her, “What should I do for my next work in the theater?” She said, “How about a rock opera? I have the perfect band for you,” and she played him some of the tracks from “The Marriage Of Heaven And Hell” – “Emalaith”, “A Symphony

Of Steele”, “Crown Of Glory”. He loved it, so he called me up and said, “I’d like you to do something like an opera.” I told him, “How about “The House Of Atreus?”, and he was like, “Mmm… OK!” It was because this thing just popped into my brain, I always wanted to do something with that story. And that’s how it began. I started thinking about that particular idea and wrote all the songs for that, and it was my first thing on the stage. Then we went back, and put a nice operatic stage presentation together for “The Marriage Of Heaven and Hell” and “Invictus” albums. And then we did this thing called “Lilith” which has got some of the “Visions Of Eden” tracks.

Do you participate in picking up the cast of characters for the operas? And why don’t you sing any parts onstage yourself?

It’s probably because I had other things to do at that time, I couldn’t be there for the limit of time they wanted me to. I was interested in doing that, I was actually thinking about doing it. They have asked me to do another one, and they wanted me to be in it this time, but the balance between the dialog that goes on during the actual play and the music to me was a little off, especially in the last one that we did. All the lyrics that I wrote were done in English, and the dialog that the director wrote was in German. They wanted me to be in it this time, but I said, “There’s too much dialog, not enough singing, not enough music.” I found out there was too much of a gap between tracks in the last one, so I was not happy. I didn’t wanna do a fourth one with those conditions, especially I didn’t wanna be in the so-called musical when there’s not enough music in it.

We are not aware if there are any recordings of these theatrical performances, therefore we ask you how much are the Virgin Steele songs played in the theater different from their regular versions?

I made special mixes, so the effect if you saw the show was as if Virgin Steele was playing live, but you couldn’t see them. Of course, all the lead vocals were left out, so the actors and actresses could sing live, but occasionally you would hear my background vocals. Occasional lead parts that were too strange for somebody to sing were left in as well.

The operas based on your music are performed in Germany. Have you offered them to any theaters in America? Do you think there are chances of getting them played on Broadway one day?

It would be great to do it in America or any other country, it would be great to do it anywhere. But that’s a full-time job, that’s something I can concentrate on and intend to do it later on. But right now I’m trying to forge forward, create new works and do what I wanna do with the group. I actually have a company in England that’s supposed to be shopping these works for other theaters, they haven’t really done much yet, but there’s somebody kind of working on it.

After bringing your music to the theater, the next logical step would be to write a book or make a movie based on the stories you deal with in Virgin Steele. Have you ever thought about that?

Yes, I would really like to make a movie about this Lilith project, because one of the reasons why the album has the subtitle of “A Barbaric Romantic Movie Of The Mind” is that it looks like a film and it would make a good film. The entire work takes place inside this woman’s head, as she’s going through a rape ordeal. I think this could be a very cinematic experience. The music on this record coupled with all the other songs that I wrote could be pretty over-the-top, it could be something like “Lord Of The Rings,” a three-cycle piece. (laughs)

One more question about the future – we know that you are already working on the next Virgin Steele CD. What can we expect from it?

It will continue some of the ideas expressed on “Visions Of Eden”. There will be songs that were written in the similar headspace, we’re pushing the envelope, there will be heavy tracks, there will be moody tracks, there will be a further exploration of the questions I’ve raised on this record, and hopefully there will be some kind of conclusion in the next one or two records.

Special thanks to Maxim Bylkin (Soyuz Music) for arranging this interview

Roman “Maniac” Patrashov, Ksenia “Wolfin” Khorina
July 26, 2006
11 сен 2006 the End


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