Artist: Awake

Date: 18 June 2007

Hailed as 'the saviours of British progressive metal' and 'the English Evergrey' Awake truly are the band that when the going got tough they grew to be bigger, stronger and tighter.  Now with a new name, a fresh start signed to Lion Music and an exciting new debut album 'Illumination' under this new moniker, we take time out to catch up with guitarist Richard Hall to find out more.

MM - Hi Richard, firstly I’d like to thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to take part in this interview with us.
Richard – You’re very welcome. 

MM - Would you like to start by introducing the band to us and giving us a little bit of history on how the band started.
Richard – We started in September 2000.  We all met in Cambridge in the Summer when we were all at college together and it was part of the course work to form a group.  We were all sort of like minded so we hooked up and basically formed a band.  We were called Humanity at the time.  Music wise at that time Metallica had just released their S&M album and a couple of us were really into that.  We wanted to do that sort of metal with the big orchestra arrangements and stuff like that.  So basically we got together and started writing music like that.  We changed our name to Awake last year after we recorded the new album which you recently reviewed.  That was basically how it all started. 

MM – Perhaps you’ve matured more over the years and found your direction as a band? 
Richard – Yes that’s right, as everyone’s matured, when we first started out we were all into Metallica and stuff like that, a couple of people were into Death Metal, but as you get older your tastes change and you start getting influenced by different things.  Personally I’m not just influenced by metal bands, I played classical guitar for 5 years and listened to blues and jazz and all different stuff like that.  Alex has been a very taught drummer so his influences have changed as well.

MM – Going back to the reduction in band numbers, what additional pressure has that put on you as the sole remaining guitarist?
Richard – At the time going through the process of becoming a 5 piece and having to tell somebody that you’ve been friends with a very long time, well I’d personally been friends with Steve for the best part of my life, it put pressure on me as being the only guitarist because I had to step back and take a look and how I did things.  I had to make sure that I wasn’t making the same mistakes that he was.  I’ve had to change my attitude towards guitar playing now because you can make the odd mistake in a gig with two guitarists and be covered, but there’s no room for error when you are the only guitar player.  It is a lot more responsibility but I’m really enjoying it.  I feel a lot more comfortable now on my own.  It’s not an ego thing at all but I feel more comfortable and more confident in what I’m doing right now being on my own.  I think it shows in the whole band actually, the bands a lot more tighter and closer together. 

MM - Your new album ‘Illumination’ was released last week, I know it’s still early days yet but what’s the general reaction been so far from the media to it?
Richard – Yes the new album was released last Friday.  The reaction’s been very good so far.  We’ve had the odd person saying they thought it would be a little bit more progressive, I think they were expecting it to be more twiddley, but in a way that’s the sort of direction we didn’t want to go down.  Working with Tom Englund from Evergrey, that’s also not a direction that he suggested we go down.  Literally when we first started working with Tom on the Monday morning, he’d just finished working with Apocalypse and the way he was producing, he’d just worked with some producers who were steering away from the progressive side of it, so that kind of came out in the way he produced our album.  I think some people are shocked by the commercial aspects of it, because maybe there are some more commercial songs on there.  I think some people have been shocked by that but then we’ve also had some people say yes the Evergrey link is obviously there What we’ve heard from the press so far has all been very positive. 

MM - How did the launch party go?
Richard – The launch party went very well.  It was a bit of a shock for us because we started out in Cambridge as Humanity and played the circuit a lot and had a really big following in Cambridge.  But then we branched out and we stopped playing in Cambridge because certain venues shut down and stuff like that, so the opportunity to play in Cambridge wasn’t really there any more.  It was really good to come back to there and do a gig at one of the first venues we’d ever played as a band together and we were really surprised at the amount of people who had followed us through Humanity and some old friends came out to see us.  It was really good though and the atmosphere was great.  It was a very good night.

MM – I know you describe your music as progressive metal, but I know a lot of the power metal fans have held Humanity up high in their opinion.  You do seem to appeal to a very wide audience and this new album is sure to widen that appeal even further.
Richard – Yes, I think the thing is with the new album, similar to the first Humanity album, is the way we write.  Sometimes we’ll be in a bit more of a progressive mood, sometimes we’ll in a little bit more of a commercial mood, but I think there is something on the album for everybody, which is what I really like about it.  It’s diverse and there’s a lot of light and shade in there.  There’s a couple of ballads which maybe a few more than some bands would put on a modern metal album.  Although Simon wrote most of the lyrics we all contributed to them and it’s all things that we felt strongly about.  Subjects like religion and there’s a couple of things about relationships which some people may think aren’t too cool, but we’ve always written our lyrics in the way we’re feeling at the time and the experiences that we’re close to or feel strongly about.  We’re not standing here singing about dragons or anything, it’s just a very real album about real stuff that happens to people, so hopefully people can relate to that aspect of it.  I know it’s suddenly become quite cool to sing about vikings and dragons again but we hope this is an album that everyone can find something to relate to on it.

MM – What are your own personal favourite song(s) off the new album? 
Richard – One of my favourites is definitely ‘Forgiven Now Forever’.  That was an interesting song because the main music part of that song was written by Simon our singer.  He’s a cool range classical singer and he plays a little bit of guitar.  He came into the studio one day with this little piece and was lacking in confidence to show it to us, then he just played it.  But it was a good song because it was just so simple but very effective and it just came together really easily.  It’s one of my personal favourites because I worked with Hendrik.  I recorded the session when Hendrik came in with the solo.  I just think melody wise it’s a great song, simple but effective. 

MM - What was it about this particular song that begged for the inclusion of an outside guitarist?
Richard – When Steve the previous guitar player was in the studio he was having difficulty putting a solo to that song that was tasteful and fitted.  As it happened he was unable to put a solo to that song that we all felt as a band, and Tom as a producer felt, was fitted for the song.  I was speaking to Evergrey’s guitar tech while we were over there and he said we could ask Hendrik because he’s very good at these types of guitar solo’s.  Which I know he is because I’m a big fan of Hendrik’s playing.  So we approached him and he said yes.  He came in and put one down.  It was just fantastic.

MM - How long did the album to be created from its initial conception to its final release?
Richard – We started planning the actual recording in Christmas 2005.  We started looking around because we had no label support at the time and we were looking for a label.  We’d recorded a 2 track demo, which was a very good demo, but looking at labels it became clear that we were going to have to do a whole album.  So we started looking around and in Christmas 2005 we looked at Thin Ice with Karl Groom from Threshold, then we decided if we were going to do this we’d better do it properly so we approached Tom from Evergrey and asked if we could come over and use his studio and he said yeh, would you like me to produce it?  So we went in and recorded in the February/March, then it was mixed shortly after that and then there was a long period of shopping it to labels and Tom was working with us closely looking at labels and stuff like that.  It did take longer than we had hoped, we would have liked to have had it released some time last year but it didn’t work out like that.  We had a lot of interest from the labels but they were looking at maybe waiting till the right time and their release schedule was busy.   Anyway we got signed to Lion late last year and so really it’s taken the best part of a year and a half really. 

MM – As you say the band are currently signed to Lion Music for the release of this new album.  What was it that Lion Music could offer that the others perhaps couldn’t?
Richard – Probably more enthusiasm than anything.  The guy Lars who is the label manager is a musician himself and he was very understanding and was relating to what we wanted as a band.  One of the main things with this new album is we wanted to be touring with it.  We’re a band that want to play live a lot.  A lot of labels were very accommodating to that.  Touring costs money.  It costs labels money, it costs bands money, a lot of bands aren’t willing to do it.  There’s a lot of bands like Threshold who only did two gigs in two years or something like that, that’s not what we wanted.  It’s just we don’t want to be one of those sort of bands. 

So that was a big thing for us.  He offered a lot of touring opportunities for us and was understanding of the live work and I think in having a musician as your label, we’re slightly more along the same lines of thinking than the other labels, so it was very good.  He was very willing to listen to our ideas and stuff like that, whereas a lot of labels try to tell you that they will release an album in this country but not in another, be very black and white about how they want to do things.  He’s very understanding of how we wanted to do things and very accommodating and worked with us and our management and I think that was why they suited us more.  

MM - Is this a one album deal or does it have the potential to go further than that? 
Richard – It’s a one album deal with an option on the next one.  Obviously if it only sells two copies then we won’t be doing another one.  We’ve got sales targets and stuff like that so hopefully we’ll meet them and then hopefully we’ll definitely do another album with Lion again.  Long term would be to step up and move on obviously, but we’d definitely be very happy to do another one with Lion. 

MM - Did you encounter any problems along the way and was there ever a point in time you thought this album or perhaps the band just wasn’t meant to be?
Richard – No not at all.  We’ve never really had that sort of attitude.  We’ve been through some seriously rubbish stuff in the past from our previous label Carbon 13 going into liquidation and if there was ever going to be a point where we were going to give up then that would be then.  But we all said that we’ve put too much into this and shit happens, so we just had to put it all behind us and get on with it.  We’ve had some very low points and another reason why Steve left the band was because he was the cause of a lot of these low points and a lot of friction, but I don’t think we’ve ever thought of packing it all in.  We’ve always just wanted to give it our best shot and didn’t let something stupid stop it.  

MM – I think in this climate if you want to be in a band you have to have the conviction to keep on going no matter what. 
Richard – That’s right, we’re under no illusion that to get to a certain level these things take time and we’ve seen bands that have been knocking around for years only just starting to get the recognition they deserve, so we’re not under any illusions that things are going to happen over night and to be honest we wouldn’t want them to.  We’ve still got a lot of growing to do and it’s all part of the business really.

MM – Do you feel this current line-up of the band is strong enough to last the long term and has the mutual respect that is needed to achieve this? 
Richard – Yeh absolutely.  It’s definitely the most solid it’s ever been and I think it will be for a good few years.  I think we’re all very much on the same level, we all work well together.  The beauty of it is that we’re all very good friends.  We spend a lot of time together but we also have an understanding where this is now business.  We’ve always had the understanding that if someone is no longer capable of doing their job then it’s only fair that they move on.  We have struck a really good balance though which is quite a rare thing for bands to have I think.  It helps we have very good management, I’ve never met a better manager than the one we’ve got, so I think both our management and the five of us are now very tight.  I think we’ll be good for a few years anyway.

MM - The band are scheduled to play at The Underworld in September with fellow label mates Sun Caged/Seventh Wonder.  How do you feel you fit in with their stylings musically and do you have any other gigs planned at present in support of the new album?
Richard – Of the two bands, Seventh Wonder definitely.  It was a bit of a shock with Sun Caged because I checked out their website and they were very different.  They’re a fantastic band and they have an absolutely fantastic guitar player (Marcel Coenen), they are a really great band though, more progressive.  But we’ve played with a lot of different sounding bands and I don’t think we’ve ever had a problem fitting in with other bands.  It should be a really strong tour and they’re both really good bands.  We’ve never had any problems fitting in across the board though, in the past we’ve played with thrash bands, we’ve played with prog bands, we’ve always seemed to fit in there nicely so. 
 

MM – Do you have any other gigs planned in support of the new album or are you still working on that?
Richard – We’re working on securing some touring in Europe for October time and possibly in support of some bigger band names.  We’ve got some bigger band names that we’re trying to secure possibly for October/November time.  Hopefully there will be some more UK dates as well, maybe one or two more in the UK but then throughout October there will hopefully be some tour supports for some bigger bands throughout Europe.  There’s a few things on the cards, it’s just got to be confirmed.   

MM - During your live set will you be concentrating more on the new album or will there be some songs from your Humanity day’s brought into the mix?
Richard – I think we’ll definitely be playing mainly new album stuff but we’ve always quite liked going back to the old Humanity stuff.  It will be a challenge because there was always two guitars and changing the parts to one guitar player is different again.  The songs are coming across differently which was really good at the album launch, we played a couple of songs off the first album, one of which we hadn’t played for nearly four years, so it was really good to do it again.  We will be doing some stuff from the old albums but mainly it will be off the new album.

MM - What do you prefer out of the two, being holed up in the studio recording new material, or getting out on the road and playing them live in front of a live audience?
Richard – For the band I think the band as a whole prefer being on the road and touring.  A couple of us love traveling and it’s great going to places around the world, that’s why you do it.  The recording of the album for some people can be a really boring thing to do, but unless are actually working they can be very difficult things to be involved with.  But for me personally I’m very much involved in the recording and the mixing side of things so for me I get a lot out of being in the studio.  I was there for the entire making of the ‘Illumination’ and everything and I worked very closely with Tom and I get just as much out of being in the studio working on albums as I do on the road.  It’s something that I plan to pursue more later on anyway, it’s great working with other people and learning from other people. 

MM – I think it can perhaps make it more interesting from a musicians point of view if you understand both sides of it. 
Richard – Yeh it’s interesting for me because I’ve changed the way I write songs and whereas now I also look at things from a singers point of view, or a drummers point of view a little bit more now.  Working in the studio makes you more aware of looking at the big picture and you’re not just concentrating on your own part.  Your focus does change a little bit more and you start to look at it a lot on the whole.  I think it’s really good.

MM - How does it feel to stand up in front of hoards of eager fans and just do your thing?
Richard – Well there isn’t a feeling much better than that, put it that way! (laughs).  I’ve never felt anything that comes pretty much close to it.  Unless you do it you just don’t understand it.  Anybody who just sits in the crowd and looks up at them, you just can’t imagine what it’s like standing up there.  Bloodstock would be the biggest one we ever did, there were a few thousand people there and it was amazing just to watch that many people watching you.  It's definitely a unique experience.

MM - Have you ever played a gig and not enjoyed it for whatever reason?
Richard – In the early days my attitude towards gigs we a little bit different, I was very serious about it.  If a gig went badly I would sometimes kick up a bit of a fuss, but that was because I took it very seriously.  It was what I wanted to do so I presumed if it was shit gig then it would hold us back and stuff.  But as I’ve grown up and toured with band’s like Evergrey, now I don’t think there is such a thing as a shit gig personally. 

Even if it’s a shit gig we’ve got this thing where we did some on the Evergrey tour, one being the gig at JB’s in Dudley.  We were very shocked at the turnout at that particular show, it wasn’t very good, the sound wasn’t particularly good but we got up there and we said … well treat it as a rehearsal, we’re playing in Germany in a couple of nights so we need the rehearsal.  It’s much easier when you look at it from a slightly more objective point of view.  

MM - Can you remember what magical musical moment in your life made you want to take up playing the guitar in the first place?
Richard – It was sort of by accident that I came to play the guitar actually.  It wasn’t anything like I’d seen Jimi Hendrix on guitar and thought God I wanted to be like that.  It was actually when I was at school and eight years old and I was looking to learn an instrument.  My older sister is very musical, she’s a singer and she can play the clarinet and a bit of piano, my uncle and my grand-parents were all musicians and played at churches and stuff like that.  It was always expected that I would take up an instrument eventually. 

Originally it was the saxophone that I was going to learn, but then I looked at the saxophone and decided that my hands weren’t big enough.  Then my dad said he has this acoustic guitar in the cupboard that he'd played for about five minutes in the sixties, so that was when I decided … yeh why not, I’ll play the guitar, it looks pretty cool.  It was because of my old man playing The Shadows songs with Hank Marvin and all that.  I was brought up on the Sixties music because that was my parents era, so it was always drummed into me while on holiday in the car with my parents.  So that was the type of guitar playing I was always into at the age of eight years old and that was what really pushed me on to electric guitar. 

MM – Can you remember what was the first song you mastered on it or not? 
Richard – Yeh, it would probably be The Shadows ‘Apache’, it was the first song I learned to play all the way through.  That was the first song I actually sat down and thought … yeh I want to learn how to play that.  It wasn’t The Trooper by Iron Maiden or anything like that! (laughs). 

MM – Well it never did The Shadows any harm did it?
Richard – Absolutely.

MM - What are you listening to these days yourself?
Richard – I have very wide musical tastes and I don’t apologise for it.  The rest of the band probably think I suck. (laughs)  Some of my favourite bands for a long time now have been Mr Big and Van Halen, they’re like my favourite bands, but then I also like a lot of modern stuff.  Disturbed is a favourite of mine.  Killswitch Engage because I like the aggression behind it.  On the flip side of things I’m not adverse to a bit of drum and bass at the moment and I’ve also liked certain classical composers.  I really like some blues as well, it’s always been a big thing for me. 

I don’t like listening to just one particular style and I don’t think people should just listen to just one style of music, particularly when you’re a musician.  When you’re a fan I think it’s a different kind of thing, you like what you like and that’s cool, but I think as musicians go, I’ve met quite a lot of ignorant musicians who say … this is what I do, this is what I’m about … and that’s cool and I like the conviction behind that, but I think as a musician you can become very one dimensional if you’re only listening to one kind of music. 

I have experienced some of that and that’s not the kind of thing I want to get involved in, I don’t want to be pigeon holed like that.  I like to be able to play everything really and as a guitar player it doesn’t help aspiring guitar players if they sit down with their guitars and just learn Trivium songs all day.  As horrible as that sounds you don’t progress as a musician by doing that, you don’t develop your whole musical taste by doing that.  There’s not really a style that I can’t either (a) respect or (b) enjoy.   

MM - If you could ask one of your heroes/someone who’s inspired you a question, who would it be and what would you ask them?
Richard – Oh that’s a difficult one!  I don’t know I’d probably sit down with Paul Gilbert and ask for a guitar lesson.  That would probably be one of mine.  Or maybe I’d sit down with Randy Rhoads again and say to him … teach me how to play that and we’d play Mr Crowley or something.  That’s a difficult question as a guitar player because it would probably would be just sitting down with someone like Paul Gilbert and asking how he practiced things or what amps do you use or something geeky like that. (laughs).

MM - A fun question now - talking of heroes, if one day you were involved in a freak accident and became a new breed of super-hero, what would your name be, what would be your special power and what would your costume look like?
Richard – Well I definitely quite like the idea of being the Invisible Girl’s boyfriend from the Fantastic Four, so if I could become invisible as well, or something like that, that would be good.  I think that could work.  MM – And what would your name be then? Richard – Oh … Invisible Hot Girl’s Boyfriend … or something like that! MM – And what about your costume? Richard – Yeh I would do the tight blue outfit.  I could do spandex it could be fun.  (laughs).

MM - Finally are there any words you’d like to pass on to all our readers out there or anything that we might have missed that you’d like to mention? 
Richard – Check out the album, I hope you really enjoy it.  Listen to it with an open mind and I hope to see some of you people when we go out on the road.  MM – Thanks again Richard for taking part in this interview with us today and we look forward to seeing you out on the road. 
Richard – Absolutely, my pleasure.  Thanks very much.   

All content copyright of The Mayfair Mall Zine unless otherwise stated.