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Kamelot





Prologue
It all began in the distant 1991, when Thomas Youngblood and Richard Warner decided to form the band Kamelot. Since then a lot of things have changed, the line-up changed several times, and gradually in the course of time the band from an inglorious American formation rose to international fame. Despite quite a big discography and rather a long history the band didn’t have the opportunity to visit Russia till 2007. Eventually the band succeeded and came to Russia, but of course it couldn’t go without adventures! Some time before the concert, which the band finally did in Moscow, we managed to speak to two frontmen – the singer Roy Khan and the guitarist Thomas Youngblood, which happen to be the main songwriters. The talk turned out a long one, and the guys had a lot of time to tell us about the DVD, new album and just helped us to learn a bit more about the band…
Kamelot
In
Kamelot
terview with Roy Khan

Hi, Roy! How are you?

Roy: I’m pretty good, how are you, Ksenia?

Perfect, I’m looking forward to you concert in Moscow!

R: Oh, there was a terrible mess about this thing. Our tour manager waited too long to arrange the visas, so it was too late. There were some Russian holidays and he was waiting till the last minutes to get the visas. But I hope this time it will work out! And I’m really looking forward to this concert in Moscow, because it will be our first time in Russia.

Is it exiting for you? What do you expect from Moscow, from Russian fans?

R: It’s hard to tell. I’ve never been to Russia before, so I don’t know what to expect. It’s always great to go to a new country. Judging from what I hear Russian audience is great and really enthusiastic. I’m just looking forward to it.

How did you come up with an idea of creating an opera CD?

R: It’s not really an operatic album. There is actually only one operatic song on it – “Ghost Opera”. The “Epica” (2003) and “The Black Halo” (2005) were concepts. And this album, “Ghost Opera”, is not really a concept album. And here it is – we wanted to write ten songs without any clear connection. The whole process of writing songs was really refreshing, because we didn’t have to worry about the lyrical concept before we did the music. To much greater extend than ever before we let the music inspire the lyrics instead. And I think it’s a new approach, something that has a stretch to you musical territory.

And how difficult was it to record such an album?

R: It wasn’t really difficult. I mean every album is difficult in a sense that we always try to do absolute best, we always try to develop. And we have high standards for ourselves. For example, take “The Black Halo” album, it was a tremendous album for us, because we knew that our fans expected a lot from this CD. You know we never tried to compete with the previous albums, we just try to do our absolute best with the available resources – I mean the people, energy, time and money, because you can’t really do without that. If try to do something, try to do your best and that was that we did this time.

As far as you mentioned your previous works, what is more difficult for you – to write concept albums or just separate songs that are not connected with each other?

R: Of course when you write a concept you always have to think about the lyrical content and make the music support the lyrics. And you also have to make sure that the whole story is connected in the end. It is more to think about. As far as the process of writing is concerned, it is not more difficult, it just takes you more time.

Aren’t you afraid that such work as “Ghost Opera” will be hard for perception because of its difficult composition? I’ve heard that for some fans it’s really so…

R: I hope not! (laughs) You know we always tried to stretch to new musical territory and develop with each release and the best thing is to make an album which we are inspired with. And hopefully our fans will follow us in our musical journey. At least some of them, because it’s impossible to satisfy everybody. Some people would like us to sound as in “The Fourth Legacy” (1999) and some people would like us to sound like even in “Siege Perilous” (1998) you know, which is the stage we left years ago. But we always tried to do our best and hopefully people will be able to follow us.

So far you’ve shot two wonderful videos – one for the songs you shot with Simone Simons from Epica and the other for “Ghos
Kamelot
t Opera”. Who was the author of the plots?


R: Yeah, we shot one clip with Simone for the song “The Haunting” from “The Black Halo”, and we also made the clip for the song “March Of Mephisto” from the same album with Shagrath from Dimmu Borgir. And now we have a video for the song “Ghost Opera”. And I should say it it’s always based on the lyrics, I mean the plot. And of course it’s more between the band and our director to decide about the videos, how to deal with this.

And did these clips get on TV-programms?

R: Yeah! “Ghost Opera” was lucky to get to MTV, and it is everywhere on MTV right now! Sweden, Norway, The US, France, Brazil and a lot of smaller TV-stations, and it’s great! Video is extremely important these days.

And how did Shagrath get into the song “March Of Mephisto”?

R: Well, we needed somebody to play the role of Mephisto – the Devil in our story, and of course in the book by Goethe – Faust. We really wanted to have somebody with evil voice, somebody who could play the Devil in the livable way. And we immediately thought about Shagrath, because he has a great voice for this type of music, and of course it’s a luck that he lives ten minutes from me, so it was just natural that I called him. I didn’t know him, so I was very anxious, because he doesn’t look to nice when you see him! (laughs)

And which songs from “Ghost Opera” would you call the central songs of the album?

R: Oh, very very hard to say… “Rule the World”, “Ghost Opera”, “The Human Stain”, “Love You to Death”, “Up Through the Ashes”, “Anthem” of course. Well, I enumerated almost the whole album! (laughs) Every song has a special character, so every song is essential. Well the first place I would give to the song “Ghost Opera”, because it’s the title song, moreover the first video was shot for this song. Then I would call “Rule the World”, “The Human Stain” and “Love You to Death” – they would be natural choices for further videos. But nevertheless all the songs are essential as they all belong to this album, and each song is one of the bricks of which the whole album is composed.

When you write music and lyrics do you write about your own life experiences, about things that happen to you in your life?

R: You know, even in songs where it’s not so clearly stated your own emotions are always present somehow. You always try to use your personal experience, because your own experience is much more reliable than second-hand experience. So I think it’s something that is present in everything we do. But of course there are certain songs that are directly inspired by happenings in our lives. For example the song “Anthem” is dedicated to my own child. I wrote the song three weeks before my first child was born. Lyrically and musically this song stands apart from the others – it sings about the light and love.

As far as you mentioned your family. What do they think about the music of Kamelot?


R: Of course all this traveling is a burden to my family, but they definitely like the music, and the understand that singing and writing music is my great great passion in life. I’m lucky to have a lot of understanding people around me!

Do you take you family on tours with you?

R: Sometimes yes. Now I take them with me more and more, because we spend more and more time on the road, the productions take longer and longer. We spend so much time away from home that we bring our families with us.

You’ve released a wonderful DVD. Was it difficult to prepare such shooting?

R: A lot of work! A lot of work!
Kamelot
The point is that it’s not so difficult as time consuming. We pretty well know what we wanna do, but sometimes it takes a lot of resources and a lot of money. Now we had a good budget from SPV, we came to the point where imagination is the only limit for us. There were a lot of work and a lot of stress before the shoots, but we work with a lot of really good people so they help all these things to be easier for us.

So you are content with the results?

R: Oh, very, very! I mean the DVD came out even better than our expectations, to be honest. The reception in the world was phenomenal.

Why couldn’t Shagrath take part in this recording?

R: He was busy with something at that moment, I can’t even remember now what it was, so he didn’t have the opportunity to participate. And we couldn’t re-arrange the gig, as the issue had been already planned for that exact day long ahead. Of course it would have been great if he could, but he couldn’t.

How did you get in touch with Snowy Shaw? As far as I know he was busy with Dream Evil…

R: Actually that’s how we got in touch with him (laughs), cause Dream Evil was opening up for us, supporting Kamelot in Japan. He is also a very good friend of Patrick – the director.

For the limited edition you promised a kind of photo-booklet. What’s become of this idea?

R: Yeah, a limited edition is slightly different, there are more photos, different photos, and it also includes a bonus-track “The Pendulous Fall”. There is also a DVD with “Ghost Opera” video and the making of “ghost Opera” video, which was absolutely fantastic. And there should be some more stuff, but I’m not sure. And of course the whole package is really really nice.

I know there was a reunion of Conception. Could you tell about it? Are you going to release some records?

R: Yeah, we did the reunion two years ago. We played 4 concerts one of which was in America. And we’re still very good friends. I don’t think that we’ll release any records with Conception, because it takes too much time and I’m very busy with Kamelot at the moment. And moreover, artistically and musically I’m satisfied with Kamelot. But we’ll see, maybe one day… (laughs)

Maybe it’s a typical question, but nevertheless I’d like to ask you about it. On all you booklets you don’t point out the authors of music and lyrics, you just write “All music and lyriscs by Kamelot”. So could you tell a bit more about the working process? Do you compose the stuff separately or do you work on it together?

R: Actually we write the music together with Thomas. And I write most of the lyrics. But each band member may contribute whatever he wants, especially to the lyrics, each of band members has his ideas for it, for the song-titles. But we write the music together with Thomas.

Let’s pass over to you voice. Could you tell about the lessons that you were taking? Do you think they help you now?

R: I studied classical singing for one year in one musical school. After this one year in this musical school a lot of people were inspiring me to go further with it, because they felt that I had a talent for it. I started taking lessons from one Norwegian opera singer; she is on of the three really famous opera divas in Norway. And she saw some potential in me; we really wanted me to aim for the operatic singing, for the opera school in Norway which was taking students every third year. But in the meantime I started my own band Conception that you mentioned. And at the certain point she said that I had to choose between that and the opera singing. Of course sin
Kamelot
ging in such a band is completely different from how the opera singer would sing. It’s much rougher on my voice than operatic singing or classical singing.

How do you work at your image on stage? Is it you who is responsible for it? Do you work at your movements, gestures and also costumes beforehand?

R: Of course the costumes are prepared and thought over beforehand, because the way we look when we are on stage is very important. But how I behave on stage and what I do on stage is not really a conscious process. I just sing and I try to thing as little as possible. And it’s something that comes really really naturally. It’s a kind of character that developed throughout the years, it’s not a very conscious thing. I just let my voice and my body do what they wanna do! (laughs) When I sing I try to leave myself to the song that I’m singing.

Haven’t you thought about the opening of the Russian version of you web-site, as for example Manowar did?

R: Ooh, I don’t know, because the web-site is a little bit aside of our responsibility area. There are so many aspects in running the band, so it’s really impossible to control everything. I know that we have a French site, a German site and a Japanese site. If someone in Russia agreed to take the responsibility for it, why not! It’s not something that we discussed so far, but maybe after the gig in Moscow it’s going to be reconsidered.

Do you have any ideas about your solo project?

R: I’d love to, it’s not the question of creativity and songs, it’s just the matter of time and energy. Kamelot is so energy- and time consuming, that I don’t feel like creating something else at the moment. Kamelot – it’s a lot of work: a lot of touring, lots of my ideas are going to Kamelot. I definitely have the artistic and musical need to do it, but it’s something I can’t find the time and energy to do. Maybe after the “Ghost Opera” I would create something. We’ll see.

Sasha Paeth works with you for quite a time already. How much does he contribute to the music? Are content with the way he works with you?

R: His primary role is to be the second opinion, the third ear. And sometimes he says, “Well, this’s gonna be like this, and that would sound better if…” Sometimes he doesn’t like the course of the melody or something else, so we think together of how we can improve this or that. He refines the raw material. He adds to the music a lot of arrangements, and it’s extremely important. And Miro is of great help to us, too. My keyboard programming is much simpler than it should be in the end, in the studio in the final arrangement by Miro. I, Miro and Sasha – we are good friends, everything we do is a big team work, we deal with each other in different situations and try to reach the best results. And as long as the band keep developing and as long as they have the same focus as me and Tom – we have no reasons to change.

Let’s speak about your comparatively new band-member - Oliver Palotai? How did you get in touch with him?

R: I think it was via the booking agent. Because he used to play with Doro and he is actually sometimes. First of all he played some solos on the piano on the records, but Miro still did all the arrangements. But then Oliver more and more got involved into Kamelot, also on the songwriting side. He wrote a couple of songs, but they were too late for the “Ghost Opera”. But first of all he is a very nice addition to our live-performance. And of course in the band like Kamelot we need somebody on the keys. And Oliver is very very talented. Especially in classical music. Oliver has a very good overview over this. And he’s a very technical musician and at the sam
Kamelot
e time he is a very good performer. And on the personal level he is the one who always manages to be around to help you out.

You go on tour together with Leaves’ Eyes. Liv Kristine takes part in your performances. Haven’t you thought of recording some song with her?

R: No, not really. They just support us during the tour, it’s just like a nice package of bands for the fans. The audiences are slightly different, but nevertheless they all are open-minded. Let’s see what the future brings, but we don’t have any concrete plans of having her as a guest musician on the album. No.

And could you tell about KMI Entertainment?

R: This is an American company which is as you know just a formality – making invoices and everything formal.

And what plans do you have for the future, for the time after this tour?

R: We’ve been touring for a couple of months. There is going to be a full Europe/Canada tour in August/September. Then we’re coming back to Europe in October – UK, Spain, France, Holland and also Japan. And then we have some plans for South America, and then the tour the next spring. There is something happening all the time, so there for sure will be a lot of Kamelot these years! (laughs)

You’ve been to a lot of countries together with Kamelot, so you can compare the audiences. What audience did you like best?

R: It’s difficult to say. Each country has something different about it. We were in Serbia in the middle of April and it was really great! It was our first time in Serbia and people knew the songs and it was a fantastic experience. But every audience is great and actually the average Kamelot fan is very devoted.

And a couple words for Russian fans.

R: I’m looking forward for the gig in Moscow! Hopefully this night will become unforgettable!

Interview with Thomas

Could you tell a bit more about your new album? What’s changed since your previous works? The new CD sounds quite different…

“Ghost opera” is a follower to “The Black Halo” (2005). The main difference I thing is that “Ghost Opera” is our first non-concept album in probably four years. But nevertheless all the songs are united by some melancholic feeling. Maybe this album is a bit darker.

Maybe it’s a typical question, but nevertheless I’d like to ask you about it. On all you booklets you don’t point out the authors of music and lyrics, you just write “All music and lyriscs by Kamelot”. So could you tell a bit more about the working process? Do you compose the stuff separately or do you work on it together?

It’s a good question. You know it’s a mixture. The music and the lyrics are written by myself and Roy Khan. The lyrics are written by Roy, but the subject of these songs is created by both of us. So a lot of the ideas for the songs come from me and he writes the lyrics. But as for the music side of it – we work at it together. It depends on each concrete song.

Haven’t you thought about the opening of the Russian version of you web-site, as for example Manowar did?

We’d really like to have a web-site in every country. But I egree with Roy, that there should be someone who would take the responsibility for it, because it’s a great job! It’s very difficult to keep up with the updates that we do on our official web-site for example. The problems may turn up with different languages in the forum – it will be too hard to handle.

Let’s speak about your comparatively new band-member - Oliver Palotai? As far as I know he is the
Kamelot
only band-member who was in Russia. He came to our country together with Doro. How did you get in touch with him?


We got acquainted with Oli through somebody in the Doro camp. At first he was just playing on the keyboards on tour with us. And he turned out to be such a great person and musician and he suited so much to Kamelot that we just ask him to join the band. I think it’s a great addition to the band as a permanent member. We’ve heard a lot of great things from Oliver about Russia, so it’s great that we can finally come here!

What was the problem with visas then?

Our European promoter, not Russian, waited too long, yeah. And when we went to the council they just shut the door before us. We really tried hard, but these people in the council, you know… Sometimes they don’t wanna do anything and understand the situation, and they just closed the window, and said NO.

You’ve been touring for quite a time already, at first supporting your DVD and now your new album. And what plans do you have for the future, for the time after this tour?

You know at the moment we have no particular plans. A lot of touring is in store for us, as well as a lot of new countries and it is always exciting to visit new countries. Of course we wanna have sold-out shows there! And of course we want to bring our music to more people in the world.

Speaking about your new album, how did you come up with an idea of creating an album like an opera? How difficult was it to record such a CD?

We just worked hard from the moment when we recorded the DVD till the time it was mixed. It took a lot of time and energy to the details, in everything we do we try to do the best we can for the fans, because without the fans there’s no band.

And weren’t you afraid to create such a difficult CD for perception? I’ve heard that some people didn’t appreciate the new album of yours…

Well, it’s impossible to please everyone all the time. A lot of people take the music and perceive the music immediately, and they like it at once, but other people need time to understand this or that CD, especially when it’s a concept. It all depends on a person I think.

So far you’ve shot two wonderful videos – one for the songs you shot with Simone Simons from Epica and the other for “Ghost Opera”. Who was the author of the plots?

One of them, with Simone, was done by Patrick ----, a director from Sweden and it was two years ago, but the new one “Ghost Opera” is done by Serbian director from the company called ICODE Team. He did an amazing job, I think, with the “Ghost Opera” video to betray the idea we had for the song. The video came out amazing I think.

Did this video get into some charts or TV-programs?

It certainly did. I’m sure all around the world this video is gonna be played and it’s gonna be a success. It’s the beautiful video, the song is great, so the combination is perfect I think.

Roy:…

T: Yeah, and he is an easy person to deal with. Everything was very simple: we told him about the part that we have, we sent him the song, and since he liked it he agreed to take part in it. As soon as we had time we arranged the day in the studio which is about 4 hours from Oslo and shot the stuff.

Could you tell about the plot of your new CD “Ghost Opera”?

The song itself is about an opera singer. When she was 18 she was on the way to her day-view at the opera house. And this incident drives her crazy. And for the shooting we found an old lady who imagined how it could have been. We send the lyrics to the director and
Kamelot
he put everything together, found the people for the clip, the ballet dancers, and this resulted in wonderful video.
As for the album, it’s our first non-concept album in probably 4 years. The songs are united by the atmosphere.

And which songs from “Ghost Opera” would you call the central songs of the album?

“Ghost Opera” surely, I think “Rule the World” is one, “Love You to Death”. Every time I listen to the album I find the new fresh songs that I like.

What inspired to write the song “Love You To Death”? Is it connected with some period in your life? How did you come up with the lyrics and music?

The song was inspired by the old Japanese tale about the two young lovers. For inspiration I look to different stories, they give me the ideas for the lyrics. So the story is about two young lovers – the girl who is fifteen years old, she knows that she’s going to die in a few days, and she wants to tell her boyfriend about it. She tells him that she will come back in his life-time to reunite with him. And then about 18 years later he met a girl that told him, “I’m your girlfriend from 18 years ago.”

An amazing plot I should say. And why did you choose a Japanese legend? Are you keen on Japan?

Kamelot has a very big fan base in Japan, that’s why we decided to write a song based on this legend.

You’ve released a wonderful DVD. One of the best DVDs on the metal-scene. Was it difficult to prepare such a shooting?

We worked very hard on the planning of this DVD,worked hard at the post-production in terms of editing. We thought out everything – including special guests. Because we had only one day to do it, so everything should be prepared properly. In the end we are extremely pleased with the DVD, with the composition, sound, the performance – with everything. Of course something didn’t work out the way we wanted, but nevertheless the result is great. It’s great to hear different bands and fans telling us that this is one of the best DVDs. That’s important.

And was it difficult to shoot such DVD?

For us it was no problem! (laughs) Because we just did our show. But there were something like 15 or even more cameras, and I don’t think it was easy for people responsible for all this stuff. Here is the Kamelot on the stage, here is the Kamelot here and there, and everything should be arranged. And we could just focus on that we were there for – we could focus on the concert.

How do you work at your image on stage? Is it you who is responsible for it? Do you work at your movements, gestures and also costumes beforehand?

Nono, there is no special person who takes care about the gestures and all the stuff. It’s the whole band that decides how to perform. The band image, the costumes and the stage performance – everything is decided by the band.

Why couldn’t Shagrath take part in this recording?

T: If I’m not mistaken he had some family matters which he could not cancel. So we asked Snowy Shaw to take the role of Mephisto and he did a great job.

As far as I know in your tour Liv Kristine supports you. But in Russia Arida Vortex were opening up for you. Why didn’t you come to our country with Leaves’ Eyes?

Well, it’s promoter that decides whether to take to whole package or not. I don’t know why the Russian promoter didn’t want Leaves’ Eyes to open up for us in Moscow. But it wasn’t only on Moscow that we played without them, the same situation was also in Denmark and somewhere else I guess.

Why not recording some stuff with Liv Kristine?

Well, there were some ideas, but there’s no song on the album which would suit her voice.

For the limited edition you promised a kind of photo-booklet. What’s become of this idea?

Yeah, you are right. For the limited edition we have a thicker photo-booklet. There is also a multi-media gallery of wall-papers and also high-quality video and making of this clip.

As far as you mentioned your previous works, what is more difficult for you – to write concept albums or just separate songs that are not connected with each other?

Well, I should say non-conceptual albums are easier to write because you don’t have to take care of the unity of all the songs. It’s hard to say. On the one hand concept album takes a lot of energy to tie all the songs together. You should take care that the songs are lyrically following one another, and musically you want them to sound together, too. But on the other hand with concept albums you don’t have to think out a new idea and a new plot for each song as in case of non-concepts. Each record is a challenge in a certain sense.

As far as I understand you spend a lot of time in the studio, rehearsals, tours and I think you don’t see much of your family. So what’s their attitude to the fact that you spend so little time at home with them?

In case with my family – I try to take them with me as often as I can. My family is the most important thing. But it’s hard to have a “normal” friendship, if you understand what I mean. (laughs) In the general and most accepted sense of this notion. Because the things I talk about are completely different from those my friends and acquaintance discuss. The reality of the musician with all this touring is different from everybody’s else, because it’s a very surreal kind of reality, you are in a different city every day. For example today I’m thinking about Moscow and three days later I am in Moscow walking around and watching all the places I thought of and saw on the computer. And a lot of people don’t have this opportunity. It’s a pretty cool thing to be able to do that. It’s a bit hard when you come home and start to talk to your friends about it. But as for my family – my wife and my daughter – I try to take them with me as much as I can.

Do they share your love for this kind of music?

Yeah, my wife for example likes Kamelot, but she is not a fan of heavy-metal. It’s amazing that Kamelot have a lot of fans that don’t listen heavy metal. I think there is something unique in the music of Kamelot – the vocals for example is not typical for heavy and this is great. So my wife shares my interests.

And at what age did you decide to become a musician? What age did you start to play the instrument?

I started playing saxophone at the age of thirteen I think, but I started playing guitar at seventeen. And then I started thinking about it seriously and giving it full-time. It’s a difficult thing to get to a certain level as a musician. You have to get a record deal, it takes a lot of work. But at the age of seventeen I realized that I wanna be a musician.

Why did you decide to be a musician? Maybe you had some idols in your –teen days?

Well, when I heard “The Number Of The Beast” Iron Maiden I realized that it’s really cool! It’s a band was like an idol for me. Then I tried to work to create my own style, to become musically worth and unique. It took a few years, but eventually that’s what happened.

You’ve just mentioned that you’ve been to a lot of countries with Kamelot. Do you have time to see the sights? Or your strict schedule doesn’t let you such pleasures?

Well, it depends on each case and each country. Of course I rty ti see around the city I’ve never been to before like we were in Budapest and Stockholm not long ago. And it usually takes some time to take photos and videos and to make sure that I saw the places I’ve always wanted to see. I get up early and go to see the sights whenever it’s possible. Or I can take a cab to the centre… I like to get acquainted with the new cultures.

Thank you for support, we’ve always wanted to come to Russia. I hope that 18 June won’t be our last time in Russia. I’m looking forward to hard-nights with all the fans.


Interview By Ksenia "Wolfin" Khorina
Questions also composed by Blindman
24 èþí 2007
the End


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