Interview date: 13.05.2008
An interview with the splendid symphonic prog rockers Royal Hunt was still pure fantasy for RockLine and me a month ago. But then the guys stopped in Bologna, a mere 380km from Slovenia, where they had a confirmed gig. By eight I was already loitering at the scene of the crime, with Royal Hunt just off at dinner. After some 30 minutes of shifting from foot to foot and doing laps around the club and the tour bus, I finally walked up to one of the roadies and asked him to hook me up with the tour manager. The tour manager reacted quickly enough, but he seemed pretty grim, barely interested, even snarky with his follow-up questions about whether I’d officially announced myself beforehand with a proper e-mail interview request and so on…, which doesn’t exactly happen every day, though he’s well within his rights. Like there was something in the air that had soured his good mood. Soon after, my hunch was confirmed when I met the band’s boss Andre Andersen, who invited me onto the tour bus for a chat. The band was actually fuming, because the Sottotetto club’s capacity didn’t allow for an optimal setup of all the props and stage gear, including most of the lighting, and on top of that came a two-hour delay, which the Scandinavians, always used to order and discipline, can hardly stomach. Still, the conversation with Andre was super interesting and a special experience. The man doesn’t skimp on directness, authenticity and a sparkling sense of humor…
RockLine: How happy are you with how the tour has gone so far?
Andre: Except for our support band, who are outrageously catastrophic and who I have to put up with day after day, the tour is going really well. As for the support band (Godiva, power metallers from Switzerland, author’s note.), they get on my nerves every single day. Right now I’ve still got one of their songs, Pedal To The Metal, stuck in my head. Every morning when I wake up I hear it, every evening… Otherwise, as far as the current tour goes, we’re doing very, very well. Except for today.
RockLine: Except for today?
Andre: Yeah. Because we’re playing in Italy. I’m really sorry to have to say this, because I had a very nice opinion of Italy before today, but that picture has been completely shattered by this gig here in Bologna.
RockLine: Is this the only gig you have in Italy?
Andre: Yes, luckily.
RockLine: Okay, I won’t pester you with any more questions about Italy. This March you released a new studio album, “Collision Course: Paradox pt. II”…
Andre (obviously unhappy with the label’s promotion): Really? I didn’t know. Oh right. We released an album. That’s true. Frontiers Records takes care of that.
Andre: Yeah. Apparently we’re surrounded by nothing but Italians…
RockLine: Okay, tell us why you decided that Royal Hunt would do a sequel to the 1997 album Paradox, or rather its second part, and where you found the inspiration for it.
Andre: Honestly, I don’t even know myself. I started writing songs. Then our drummer, who’d been listening to the tracks, pointed out that they had an atmosphere reminding him of the album Paradox. As I kept working and we had three or four songs written, that Paradox vibe still hadn’t gone away. We said: “Okay, let’s keep going!” So we wrote the lyrics for the whole story to go with the music, they fit the music really well, and all of a sudden the second part of Paradox was born. So I didn’t actually come up with the idea of writing a sequel to Paradox in the first place, the idea kind of found me.
Andre: The concept returns to religion and things connected with it, picking up from the first part of the story. What I’m about to explain is just my personal opinion. I’m not planning to preach to you, not at all. All these conflicts between religions that we’ve witnessed throughout human history aren’t based on religion itself, but on everything that surrounds a religion. Churches, icons, the paradox is basically rooted in all those symbols that get erected on the foundation of some religion. Once upon a time people believed in hundreds and hundreds of different gods. All over the world. And back then nobody had a problem with that. Then suddenly someone came up with the idea: “Let’s build our own first church!” And once the thing moved from the world of imagination into actual idol worship, the questions started to arise: “My church is better than yours and my god is probably better than yours!” Before that, everybody had a different god for, say, the sun, the night, whatever, and nobody had a problem with it. The moment someone built the first church, laid the first stone, the first brick of that church, the trouble started.
RockLine: Tell us something about your new singer Marc Boals. How come you decided to replace John West with Marc Boals?
RockLine: Did it feel like you’d tried everything together?
Andre: Yeah. Nothing was moving anymore. We recorded a lot of songs and albums together, but this time we felt we weren’t going anywhere. There was no freshness, nothing new to discover in the songwriting. And while I was writing the music, I got the idea of trying someone else’s vocals on the new material. Anyone’s, as long as it wasn’t John’s voice. I told him that. At first he was surprised, but he understood.
RockLine: So you’re happy with Marc?
Andre: Absolutely.
RockLine: There’s a really excellent song on the new album, Tears Of The Sun, with a great duet between Marc Boals and an additional female vocal. How did you decide to bring the female vocal in on this particular song?
Andre: At first I wanted a child’s voice in this song, something worked into the opening verses. I was looking for something that would embody youth in that part of the song. But I didn’t want it to actually be a child’s voice, you know, a kid singing out of harmony, it had to come across as more serious. So I got the idea of adding Michelle’s vocal here (Michelle Raitzin, guest singer on the new Royal Hunt album, author’s note.). Her voice has that sincere touch of youth and at the same time it’s harmonious, gentle, soft…
RockLine: What does the new Royal Hunt album bring musically, looking at it in general, as a rounded whole? Is there anything new on it, or are we again talking about a typical Royal Hunt album that follows the tried-and-tested recipe?
Andre: Whenever we write new albums, we try to create something new, something different. We try to use different production, a different style of writing music,… Every album we make and release is a little bit better than its predecessor. At least that’s how we see and understand it. The fact is we get more mature year by year, we know what we want, what we want to achieve and how to achieve it. We weren’t capable of anything like that as a band 10 or 15 years ago. With every album that comes out there’s some kind of improvement. We climb up another step every time. Looking at the whole picture. Our fans might not see it the way we do.
RockLine: Now a more personal question for you. When did you start playing piano, who inspired you?
Andre: I started playing at five. At first I learned classical piano and so I got to know the works of the classical composers. In the beginning I only played classical music. Later I discovered the great rock keyboardists like Ken Hensley, Jon Lord, Keith Emerson, Rick Wakeman, and after them of course bands like Rush, Kansas, Saga, Pink Floyd, Queen. All of that clicked together in a single moment.
RockLine: It all merged inside you?
Andre: Yeah, basically. And if you look at Royal Hunt’s music, there’s a bit of classical music in it, a bit of progressive music, but there are also moments of more direct rock energy, in the tradition of Deep Purple or Whitesnake.
RockLine: What do you think about the general situation in rock music today?
Andre: Of course it’s not like it was in the eighties, and thank God it isn’t anymore. As for popularity, let’s wait another five years or so. All this stuff going on today around “downloading” will have to end at some point. Because if it keeps expanding the way it is now, I predict a very ugly situation in five years. Right now I’m in touch with lots of musicians around the world, and more and more of them are deciding to quit. They simply can’t earn enough anymore to make a living from music. Professionals are leaving the music business rapidly. First the labels felt these problems from internet downloading, then it moved on to the promoters, and now even the bands are in danger of losing their bread and butter. If this trend continues over the next six years, nobody will want to be in this business anymore. I know a bunch of musicians who are already thinking about hanging up their instruments. If you visit the Blabbermouth website, say, I’m sure there isn’t a day when you wouldn’t see in the daily news that some band has split up, or some band member has left.
RockLine: Is it true that there are too many people between the fans and the band who want to make money off an album?
That’s bullshit. That’s a made-up story. That’s what everyone who pulls music off the internet says, claiming they don’t intend to pay the labels. But in reality they’re stealing music from the bands, not from the labels. Don’t forget that labels support bands when they go on tour, they give the band money so it can record an album. In the end, internet downloading is a direct theft of the bands’ music. I’ve been in this business for 20 years, so don’t worry, I know how it works.
RockLine: Is there any hope for Royal Hunt to make it in North and South America too?
Andre: South America is full of corruption. Especially when it comes to selling records. I was on a promo tour in South America and found thousands of places selling counterfeit CDs, so South America is a complete question mark for us. North America has better chances. We’re heading there this October and November. We’ll play 10 or 15 shows and see what our prospects are there. It’s a tough market, hard to break into, but this fall we’ll find out firsthand and see how far we can reach.
RockLine: What are Royal Hunt’s near-term plans for the future?
Andre: We’ve got loads of plans. The first one is getting rid of the guitarist. He’s become a disruptive factor.
RockLine: Are you serious?
Andre: Dead serious. The next thing we have to do is get rid of the bass player. I’d also like to record my own solo studio album with piano. I’ve always wanted that, ever since I was a kid. A childhood dream.
RockLine: A really old wish.
Andre: Yeah. At first I wanted to become a model. Then I realized at the same time that I was too ugly for modeling. So I ended up in the rock business. Anyway, even in this business you still end up in lots of photos. As for this tour, it’s going really well, record sales are satisfactory, and when we wrap up the promo activity for the new record, tours included, in October or November this year, we’ll analyze where we’re heading and where it’s carrying us. That’s when we’ll get answers on whether we go record a new album, a new live album, whatever. We’ll see. Right now we’re fully focused on getting through this tour.
RockLine: What can we expect from tonight’s Royal Hunt gig here in Bologna?
Andre: It’s going to be a great show, definitely! To be honest, everything has gone according to plan up to today, but the way things have come together today has forced us to leave some of our stage equipment unused, which won’t affect the band’s performance itself. We’re a tight unit and we usually handle situations like this well. I hope everything turns out fine tonight too.
RockLine: So conditions for the gig tonight still aren’t optimal?
Andre: Right. But we’re professionals and that’s how we approach it. We’ll get the best out of the gig, be sure of that.
RockLine: I’m wrapping up the interview, but I’ve got one more question that doesn’t quite belong, but here goes anyway. Do you have a promo CD of the new record for a review in our beloved webzine?
Andre: Unfortunately not, because our dear label Frontiers Records didn’t send us any. They didn’t send us a single original CD.
RockLine: So it won’t be possible to buy your latest studio album tonight?
Andre: No. Like I told you earlier. I’m surrounded by Italians. This is the craziest situation I’ve experienced in the twenty years I’ve been in this business. That’s why I’m a bit on edge tonight. But at a moment like this you can’t do anything but go with the flow. Things are what they are. The manager’s called me twenty times today already, the CDs haven’t arrived, and a bunch of people keep asking and repeating: “Do you have any CDs, do you have any CDs,…?” That’s rock n’ roll. If one person doesn’t screw it up, someone else will. It’s always like that. The best thing is to have a drink, sit down, calm down, think about the fans who paid for their tickets and are happily waiting for your show outside the hall. So the band’s main job, in any case, is to pull off a good gig. Sometimes the catering isn’t what you expected, or the PA system doesn’t offer what you’re used to, but through all of it only one thing has to stay in your head. Play a good show.
RockLine: So the band’s fans are the most important, right?
Andre: Absolutely.
RockLine: Andre, thanks again for your valuable time.
Andre: You’re always welcome, no problem. Thank you too.
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