Artist:  Roland Grapow (Masterplan)

Date:  31 May 2010

We catch up with founding member, guitarist and producer of Masterplan Roland Grapow to talk about the new album, the return of Jorn Lande top the fold, the bands new album 'Time To Be King' and much more. 

MM - Firstly thanks for taking time out for this interview and secondly congratulations on another superb Masterplan album 'Time To Be King'.
Roland - Thank you very much 

MM - Since the band was originally formed there have been several line-up changes, how has this effect you as an individual and the band as a whole? Roland - I think it definitely isn’t nice when you’ve started something great in the beginning, the first two albums we had a nice line-up and everything was perfect, and then we had some discussions and some conflicts but nothing really drastic honestly, but something was just not right, and when the changes were happening firstly the new drummer then a new singer coming into the band, I felt a little insecure of how fans would react.  It took a while for me to realise this was wrong.

Mike is a great singer and he did a great job on 'MKII', but live I was missing Jorn’s power and stage presence.  He’s a different kind of frontman.  That's why after the tour I went home very frustrated.  I didn’t know what to do.  I didn’t want to fire someone and be the typical boss type, I was very weighted down with the band at the time, so I went back into the producing side of things with other bands and really started to enjoy what I was doing.

I was still involved with music and younger bands then I realize it had gone too far.  Then I got a call from Mike saying ...  “hey what’s happening dude?  Are we not touring any more for this album?” ... I said ... “No sorry, I don’t want to go out on tour”.  So I explained the situation and my feelings and he left the band, because it just wasn’t the right chemistry between him and the band. 

MM - We saw the band in Manchester when you were supporting Saxon and thought Mike did an excellent job, he’s a great vocalist and I love his work with Riot and The Lizards and I’ve also seen Jorn on stage.  The two styles are very different, on stage Jorn being a more of an extrovert vocalist who can play a crowd, where Mike let his vocals take centre stage. 
Roland - By the end of that tour, when we were playing in Japan, Mike was really getting there but by then it was too late.  When he left the band I contacted Jorn immediately because we still kept in touch, we never stopped being friends. Jorn said yes he would be interested but we’d have to have a long talk about the future and how things would go.  We had a few meetings and it took about five months for him to come back to the band. 

MM - So how long after Jorn rejoined the band did the album take to put together and was there anything that you'd already started while Mike was still in the band or did you start from scratch?
Roland - It was not so much, like I said before I wasn't motivated and I wasn’t writing anything for Masterplan. Our other main writer Axel, the keyboard player, had some songs partially written and some ideas that later we created together. 

I wrote totally fresh material because I knew the singer and that was the inspiration for me.  Jorn doesn’t need vocal melodies written for him, he has all that, he’s inspired by the music and he wants to write from the heart, he want to be inspired, that’s the kind of chemistry we have. 

MM - All the Masterplan albums are really really good, the 'MKII' album I enjoyed the music from, the band hasn’t changed from album to album, I think each album is a progression of the last and I think this album again shows the bands progression.  I really do think this is the bands best album to date.  Roland - Thanks man, I really appreciate that, because some people have the opposite opinion.  I’ve seen reviews from the smaller webzines and magazines I’ve never met try to be clever in what they’ve written about the album and I disagree with what they are saying about it.  I started this promotional tour for the album about two months ago and the feedback has been good, and this is my second day of interviews on the phone and again everybody has been positive about the album.  I think we’ve done something very strong and we are all very proud of the album.

MM - I said I think this is the best Masterplan album so far, we’ve been a fan of Jorn’s for a long time, he has one of those voices that can do almost anything, and he has that frontman persona that is sometimes criticized, but that’s the job of a frontman, he brings the crowd up. 
Roland - Yes when he’s on stage he has a presence, he has a quality, you're just mesmerized.  I remember in the early days of Helloween we were moving around a lot as guitar players, I think this isn’t necessary anymore.  You have good musicians on stage and we’re not getting any younger.  I'm older and wiser now than in my younger days and I don't feel the need to do that stuff any more.  

I’m fifty now and I think seriously about how to present myself on stage.  I don’t want to look stupid and run around, even if I could (laughs) people would say ... “hey look at the old guy, he looks funny!” ... or ...  ”he thinks he’s still twenty two!" (laughs).  When you see the likes of Tony Iommi on stage he's just cool. 

MM - I also noticed you’ve decided to produce this new album yourself, what was your thinking behind this decision?  Did you want more control on how you wanted the finished album to sound?
Roland - I think it is always nice to trust other people when you have good people with you, I wanted to get more involved even more on the 'MKII', but with the line-up changes I had to concentrate more on that, but I think the main thing was opportunity, this time round I had the opportunity. 

MM - Sonically the album is really really good, the keyboards are bigger and Mike Terrana’s drum sound is great, this is the complete Masterplan package.
Roland - Having my own studio here has given me more freedom, so I could record when I wanted and when I was in the mood to do so.  Also when Jorn came here to the studio I kept a three week slot free for him to record the vocals.  He came here and said ... "Hey Roland, I didn’t have much time to finish the lyrics at home”.  He was rebuilding his house in Norway so he didn’t have time to think so much, but when he came here I said to him ... "Hey enjoy the time here".  

It was summer time here in August.  He spent three weeks here and wrote about 90% of the lyrics here in the studio.  In the day time between 11am and 8pm he was writing the lyrics and then we started recording it.  Then we’d have a couple of drinks or take in some sight-seeing as he hadn’t seen much if Slovakia and the whole thing was very relaxing.  That’s what you get when you have your own studio and Jorn was very happy not to have any pressure on him at all during that process.  When we finished the album he said he’d like to do the next album in the same way, and it has improved our friendship as well. 

MM - Yes with your own studio you don’t have the pressures of other bands who also have studio time booked, you don’t have a tight timeline like you would if you were using another studio somewhere. 
Roland – Totally, this has always been my dream.  Ever since forming Masterplan when I had my studio in Hamburg, which was much smaller than the one I have now, it gave me the freedom I've always wanted to have.  Just to be able to find my guitar sound is so great.  This is even more possible with my new studio in Slovakia. 

MM - Back to the album Roland, how do you compare the new album to the bands previous albums?  Roland - I think it’s a step forward.  It's not that the sound has changed so much it's just that it sounds more natural to me, it sounds more relaxed.  I think the time we spent on the album was right, we didn’t want to over produce the album.  Maybe with the others we spent too much time on the guitar overdubs.  During the talks I had with Jorn before this album we talked about this and we agreed on how we wanted the guitar to sound.  One thing he said to me about this sound was that it is easier to sound great on stage.  People did complain i the past about band not sounding the same live.  That was one of the steps we wanted to create when going forward with this album.  It's still well produced, but not over produced like it was in the past.  I’m really proud of the song writing as well because there was great teamwork between everyone in the band.  It was really inspiring to work with all the band on this album.

MM - So are there any tour plans yet Roland or any festival appearances planned for this year? 
Roland – Touring ... our tour agent is already working on a tour for November this year.  We hope to play around 25 shows.  AFM our label is sponsoring the tour and it will be a tour with other AFM artists.  I think next year we will be coming back strong and hope to get a few festival dates also.  We’re also shooting a video next week but I don’t know which one, my favourites are 'Time To Be King', 'Blue Europa or 'Fiddle of Time', I feel any of these would be good. 

MM - Have you any plans to do another solo album?  Your last album was back in 1999 with ‘Kaleidoscope'.
Roland – Yes that was a long time ago.  I would love to do another but I don’t know which direction to go in.  I produce a lot of bands here and I hear different influences, maybe I’ll do something a bit more extreme, between Thrash and Limp Biskit or Korn.  I don’t want to make something similar to Masterplan, that wouldn't make sense to me and I don’t want to do any of my 90’s stuff, the Neo-Classical.  I think I've stopped playing this style of music now.  I might try some singing in parts though.  I’ve improved my singing voice and I've learned a lot from Jorn.  I think people would be surprised.  Overall though I don’t have big plans as such. 

MM - Well thanks again Roland, it’s been a pleasure to talk to you again, I can't wait to see the band perform live again and this time with Jorn in the band.  I will seriously try to make a show even if you don’t get over here to the UK. 
Roland – I’m still hoping we’ll have some dates in the UK if we don’t we’ll try to make it over some time next year 

MM - I know the fans over here would love it if you did do some shows over here again.  I noticed when we saw you supporting Saxon in Manchester that there were as many Masterplan t-shirts in the crowd as there were Saxon ones.  So the support is definitely here. Thanks again and hopefully we’ll get to see you over here very soon.
Roland – Thank you. . 

MM - We'd like to thank Roland for taking the time out from his busy schedule to talk to us and wish him and the band all the best with the new album.  Hopefully it won't be too long before we see them rock the stages of the UK again.

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