T O M O R R O W ' S E V E

Interview date

October 2006

Interviewer

Yann G

I N T E R V I E W (Martin LeMar Singer)

Three years after "Mirror Of Creation", you've just released the second part of this concept album.
Could you please explain us the story and the concepts developed in the lyrics through these two parts ?

Most important to me was not to make a straight sequel. When the guys told me they wanted to continue the story of "Mirror Of Creation", I tried to understand the concept of the predecessor. And to me the story was told in a very straight way. The main moral of the first mirror, was to say "cloning people is wrong" and that it will lead, like told in the story, to a catastrophe. So I spend a lot of time to develop the story for the MOC II because I wanted to twist the point of view and to bring the main story to another level. In the end I asked Daniel Z. Klein - a friend of me, who is hypercritical when it comes to english lyrics - if he wanted to join forces with me in this. I love the lyrics he did with me and his very passionate writing. He just finished the short novel for MOC II and we will publish it on our website in the next days. There are a lot things to discover for the people who knows the first album by heart and also some symbolistic riddles that are to find between the lines of the lyrics. But I won't spoil more ;)

What have you done during these three years ? Can you please tell us more about the line-up changes ?

If you spend a lot of time with people and try to work professional on your vision, it's hard to find perfect replacement, when one musician leaves. In case of TE it was the loss of three musicians after the recording of the MOC album. Though Rainer and Olli found the other guys (who are mentionned already in the MOC) to play live with them, after a few months it becomes clear, that not everybody shared the same vision of TE. After Tom and Chris joined the band it became more and more stable and finally Martin completed the lineup. In the three years we were a few times on tour (with artists like Paul Di Anno, Ryo Okumoto of Spocks Beard and Dan Swano's "Nightingale") played some festivals and after the lineup was stable, we started to write the new album.

You finally signed with Lion Music, typically the label that endorses a lot of shredders. Was it difficult to find a label ?

This took us a while also. We had a lot of trouble because we naturally searched a label in germany or at least near enough to visit personally. However most of the labels weren't interested or having hard times (no money, signstop). But gladfully Lion is a great supporter of Progmusic and we are glad to work together with those really cool guys.

Your play in a very complex, progressive and heavy style. Listening to your album, it seems that your music is influenced by bands like Evergrey, Superior, Dream Theater... Can you please tell us more about the bands who influenced this new release ?

There it is again. The comparision thing. Yes of course every artist is influenced by musicians of his own taste. If you listen to music it will always leave it's mark on you. But also every reviewer is influenced by his taste, so you can only compare us of music you know - if you know what I mean, and if you compare us to music that you like, I think that's a good sign then. Personally I think we found our own style in this combination of musicians and the most important thing is, that we want to compose music, that we love to listen ourselves.

Your compositions are very complex and extremely progressive. Such an album requires to be listened many times before the listener really catches and remembers the melodies. Aren't you afraid that this comlexity and lack of accessibility could ban you from a part of the metal audience ?

It's really impossible to please everybody. To be honest we tried to reduce a lot of complexity this time. Compared to the mirror album this one is more metal, straight and earcatchy. We reduced those instrumental parts and tried to make it complex but listenable. I have a lot of friends that are in metal but not into prog and I used them often as a kind of test-listeners. Altough they don't like keyboards in metal nor understand a lot of the more complex instrumental parts, they liked the stuff a lot. And when they tell me, that they already sing along to this album or cannot get some chorus parts out of their mind, I think we managed it somehow to make it more accessible.

This release, like the previous one, doesn't contain many guitar "shredding" solos. Contrarily to the Dream Theater music on which John Petrucci's solos are essential, you seem to me more focused on heavy rythms and on the melody. Am I wrong ?

No you are not, in contrary. We wanted to make really heavy riffs and melodies that come straight into your face. Most people think, that progmetal means to play 4 solos in one song and this for each instrument. But we don't want to win some olympic games. Music does not defines itself through technical perfection or solo-mania. It's what you feel when you listen to it. I think that what seperates our album from a lot of progmetal bands. For me an album isn't meant to show off your skills. This one tells a story.

What is your secret to have such an heavy and powerful production ?

A good man behind the mix ;). When we discussed where to record the album, we all agreed that it should be heavy and more metal than MOC 1. I proposed the SU2-Studio and Phil Hillen, who records with me for years. He makes the most powerful productions here in our local area and I have really good experiences in working with him. And I think it was a good decision.

What do you think of the progressive metal stage in 2006 ?

The progmetal stage? I don't know. There are a lot of cool bands that I discovered this year and a few nice releases. But the year isn't over yet and who knows whats to come...

You are a german band. Germany is still a country in which the metal stage is very important. Do you think you can be compared to german bands like Vanden Plas or Superior ?

Oh, it's not so important as it seems to be. The market for progmusic and the scene in germany is not very big, even if there are a lot of bands. We are more known in other countries than in our own. Perhaps and hopefully that will change soon. ;)

You're going to tour with Jorn Lande in Germany. How did you get that deal ?

Unfortunately the tour has been last minute cancelled by Jorn. We don't know much about the reasons. It's sad, but we will tour next year with somebody else. As soon we know more, you can see the dates on our site.

Are you proud to tour with Jorn ?

A good explanation of your question 9 is for example that Jorn is mostly unknown in germany. He had a lot of good reputation in german magazines, but I can count on one hand the buddies of me who know him. He may be very popular in the northern countries, but as I mentioned the scene for this kind of music isn't that big in germany. It would have been great to tour with him, but as mentionned before it won't happen now.

What are your future projects ?

We now started to write the next album, because this time it shouldn't take 3 years again between the releases. And for the first half of 2007 we already plan to tour with a lot of cool bands. So stay tuned for the dates.

Do you plan to come to France to visit us ?

We would love to play in france, yes. Who knows, we will see where the tours next year will lead us.

Would you have some words for the webzine readers ?

Thanks for your interest and reading this to the end. Stay metal and cool. See you on the road next year. ;)

Thanks a lot Martin for this interview.

Tomorrow's Eve