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Sunday, March 30, 2008

A chat between Ray and Sean

Ray and I got together via Skype today and had a chat. We are both prog musicians and avid fans of the genre. Despite nearly 5000 miles (7000+ km for my European friends!) we have a lot in common in terms of your experiences as independent musicians. We didn't have any planned topics, we just let it roll. This became a wide ranging discussion and I'm sure we'll have more chats in the future. Enjoy!

2008-03-30
guitarsean_wi:
Hi Ray!
I'm actually awake on a Sunday morning (yawn) sort of

stringray.f:
Good morning Sean :)

guitarsean_wi:
Guten... uh... sorry don't know the word for afternoon

stringray.f:
if it's too early for your brain, we can delay the thing of course.

guitarsean_wi:
No, not at all. I'm usually up my 9 on weekends
I have my (coffee)

stringray.f:
heh, we say guten Tag in the afternoon.

guitarsean_wi:
Ha, of course

stringray.f:
I forgot about the change of daylight saving time here, so it's an hour later now than I intended, but it's ok. :)

guitarsean_wi:
I think I'm the only person in my circle of friends who didn't take German classes in high school or college
Long German heritage in Wisconsin

stringray.f:
np. My english is good enough (hopefully). ;)

guitarsean_wi:
I'm sure your english is fine. Well, where do start? What are you up to, musically, these days?

stringray.f:
Well, it's a strange process I'm in at the moment. I'm kinda recovering from my doom activities. Didn't think that one year in another territory would cause so many oddities.

guitarsean_wi:
What kind of oddities?

stringray.f:
With all that slow playing my fingers slowed down, gotta practice to bring that back. And also, I kinda lost my own musical style quite a lot, which I had before I concentrated so much on Extorian. Simply, the progressiveness is out of my brain at the moment

guitarsean_wi:
(nod)
Thats understandable. But it sounds like you were willing to really devote yourself to Extorian and, for better or worse, make sure you were giving it your best

stringray.f:
It's equal what I'm into, I always want to give my best. Nothing I can do against it. But, hey I don't complain, I've learned a lot in Extorian. playing at a slow pace is quite a challenge.

guitarsean_wi:
Do you have any ideas about what you'd like to move to next?

stringray.f:
Oh yes, I'm back into writing for a prog metal project, which I started before Extorian came into the musical part of my life. That remained sleeping during the time in Extorian. Currently I'm sorting all ideas, riffs and melodies that I have in my brain, and I'm testing out what kind of arrangements would be best. I.e. I intend to add lots of orchestral sounds to it.
Modern computer technology is quite a great help for such things.

guitarsean_wi:
Sounds very cool! Will you be doing this all by yourself?
And I agree, I'd never be where I am without a home studio that can sound good

stringray.f:
No, that'd be impossible, I'm no genius. There are 3 musicians who are eagerly awaiting to hear some soundbits. But ,oh my, I'm not so far at the moment.
So you record all the music you release yourself at home?

guitarsean_wi:
Yes. I have a small setup here and there is another at Strange Land's practice space. We recorded everything ourselves for Blaming Season and for Catharsis, which is finally in the mixing stage
We have considered going to a studio to do drums. A good room can make a difference there. But we get good sounds with what we have. We also have someone else do our mastering. Its good to have fresh ears at that point.

stringray.f:
I see. So you guys are pretty smart regarding recording thechnique. Very Cool. I agree that at least the drums need a special treatment.
What can we expect from Catharsis? Which way are you going on the new record? Your solo effort is quite different to Strange Land, and I see that you got quite some repertoire at hand, with your writing.

guitarsean_wi:
Its been a learning process. I do all the engineering in the studio, and all the mixing. After every project is done I find things I wish I had done differently. But at some point you have to say "This is the best I can do right now" and you release it. Whatever you think you should have done better you save for the next project.

stringray.f:
Ha, yeah, it's the same in the movie business. If you want to do it entirely perfect, it will never be finished. I don't think there is one album out there in the world where the producer said "Hey that's it. The perfect album".

guitarsean_wi:
Sure, and always many of the things I think are wrong I am the only one who notices since I'm so close to the project.
So, Catharsis...
One reviewer from Sea of Tranquility commented on our drummer difficulty when reviewing Blaming Season. He said that he hoped with Brad back in the band we would bridge the more progressive sound of Anomaly and the heavier sound of Blaming Season. And I think that's what we have done.
We have our first real epic on this one (a requirement for prog bands right? :D )
And a lot of variety, which we've been criticized for for some reason.

stringray.f:
Hahaha! Indeed! Ad an epic to your album and you'll be called a prog band!
According to variety:
To my ears Strange Land somehow is in the Rush / Kings X camp of the genre. Have you added some writing that exceeds the known bandwidth of SL?
(Why ever can they criticize a band for variety? Oh my...)

guitarsean_wi:
Well, no influence gets disregarded. I agree, I think Rush, Kings X, Fates Warning and a little Zero Hour are our main prog influences
But we are also influenced by Living Colour, Megadeth, Helloween, Saigon Kick... jazz, classical... the list goes on. One of the songs on Catharsis has a latin sounding bridge with congas and flamenco guitar.
I think we throw people off by reminding them of Kings X on one song and Fates Warning the next. But we write to please ourselves and letting all of our influences and experiences show through make us happy

stringray.f:
Ah so you don't "brand" SL, meaning you don't throw ideas or songs to the trash because it doesn't sound like SL.

guitarsean_wi:
Not very often, but there have been a few songs tossed out. Usually to be used elsewhere, like a solo project. Our writing process: one of us will write at home and bring things into practice. Usually pretty complete. So, for myself, I might decide a riff doesn't fit when I'm writing at home, so it never makes it to the band. Sometimes when we're writing or arranging together we'll scrap a riff that we're trying to put into a song and it just wont fit. We love complexity but we want to balance it with melody and listenable songs. And some songs have gone unfinished for a long time. We've never really tossed anything out. There are songs from Anomaly that we don't play anymore though.

stringray.f:
I see, that's quite the usual process. And well, if a song isn't pushing the audience at live shows, well, why play them. That would be self destructive. They still turn out fine on the home stereo, I bet.
Being a totally independent band, what do you guys think about the "internet kills music" campaign of the industry?

guitarsean_wi:
Without the internet we would not have made it this far. Its the best tool independent artists have ever had. We've reached fans and friends in places that would have been impossible before. The local music scene here isn't great so we need to reach a wider audience outside our local area. Its kinda the 'long tail' idea at work. That said, I do hope people stop stealing music someday. Just because you can get something for free doesn't make it right.
What are your thoughts on it?

stringray.f:
well i think I have more than just one thought. first of all, yes the net is great for spreading the world.
About stealing music, well there are many who simply save money by downloading music from the web, and I wished they'd be as honest as me and pay the artists for doing their work.
on the other hand I've seen a couple of people learning to know bands and artists that way they've had never heard of otherwise, and lately buy the cd afterwards. So if you see it that way it is still a good opportunity to spread one's tastes.
One thing is for sure, it won't be stopped, no matter what efforts will be done. And, by the way, when we were young, we lent the vinyl from friends and recoded them to cassettes, because we hadn't have the money to purchase all the fine music. So, in my case, I stole tons of music as a teenager...

guitarsean_wi:
yeah... I had lots of tapes too. But there's a scale to it. Me taping one copy just seems different than posting a file containing a band's entire catalog so thousands of people can download it.
And although the internet and home recording have been helpful it hasn't gotten any easier. I often say that the good thing about home recording is that anyone can record their music on a budget now. The bad thing is that everyone does. Succeeding in the music business is about standing out in the crowd. And the the crowd is massive.

stringray.f:
Well, actually, the common guy doesn't post the files, he's just having his computer insecure an in common doesn't know that the world can look into his file system. If they knew that simply their entire library is reachable through peer to peer systems, they'd simply stop that. Of course there are some who definitely want to have their music files available for everyone, but in one way or the other that has always been.

guitarsean_wi:
Yeah, I decided to give my last solo cd away for free on my site just to see if I got more exposure, its been a mixed bag. Lots of downloads but no one has felt like making any donations. But I'm willing, for some projects, just to go for exposure

stringray.f:
Standing out in the crowd, that has always been a must. Back in the days when you needed a label for recording your music, there was no other way, but today the mass of bands has grown quite much, and the ones that had been refused then, just remained unrecognized. That's different today.
Oh, I must confess, I downloaded your album as well, listened to it and forgot about it. (that's one reason I dislike having my music library on the computer) I intended to make a donation, but it went out of my memory. I'll make that up, I promise.

guitarsean_wi:
Ha, no worries

stringray.f:
But it is the same with Extorian, It seems the entire world knows the band, but there aren't many who purchase the cd.

guitarsean_wi:
Hard to get people to part with their beer money

stringray.f:
I don't make music to get rich anyway, the world would be just a bit darker if I hadn't the opportunity to do so. Would just be nice if people did honor our efforts a bit more.

guitarsean_wi:
I agree with you there, Ray. Having to handle 'art' as 'product' makes it hard for people to appreciate it for its own sake.

stringray.f:
As a teenager I wanted to be a rock star, of course, but I'm grown adult and see the world in a more realistic point of view now. ;)

guitarsean_wi:
On the business side, I'd be happy if the band paid for itself. But music is like air for me so I couldn't stop if I wanted to. I'll keep doing it as long as it brings me happiness in one form or another.
Well, should we wrap this up? Plenty here for a blog post! We should do it again, too.

stringray.f:
Yeah, I think it is done for the moment. also I'd like to catch some sunrays on this first sunny day since a couple of weeks.

guitarsean_wi:
I'm jealous you have sun

stringray.f:
And I enjoyed the chat! It was quite great! See ya! (wave)

guitarsean_wi:
Take care Ray

1 comments :

MVunit3 said...

Well hell! . . .

I don't think any site or article devoted to Prog has had a live "discussion" that was published like that. These are the very thoughts many of us had about the craft of making music and on the topic of music in general.

It be nice to have people just "curious" to read that, because to us Proggers, its just "preaching to the Choir". . .
The General Public thinks we're a bunch of satan worshiping, un-imaginitive, un-musical bafoons, or they just don't acknowledge that we "exist" at all.

But nothing could be further from the truth...
We ARE Satan Worshippers (Hahaha ...ha... ha... ehh-em) jus keeding!

Thanks for that "Fly on the wall" look into your world Ray and Sean :)
Articles like that will make this site VERY unique and hopefully bring in more of the Prog and "Music" enthusiasts.

-MAVIII