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After
a hiatus of nearly 5 years Dutch prog-metallers Ulysses return with
their finest and strongest release to date 'The Gift Of Tears'. We
catch up with guitarist Sylvester Vogelenzang de Jong to find out more
about the band, it's music and it's hopes for the future ...
MM -
Firstly thanks
for taking time out for this interview
Sylvester -
It is my
pleasure.
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MM
- The Gift Of Tears is the bands first album in some five years,
why such a long period between albums?
Sylvester - That’s correct, between Symbioses and The
Gift of Tears over five years have past. The “normal” flow
will be: record, tour, write new material and back to the studio
etc. But unfortunately we decided to part with our singer just
after the release of “Symbioses”. Which resulted in the fact
that we had to focus on finding a new singer instead of touring.
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With
a delay we finally started promoting the album in 2004/2005. We
also decided to really take the time for “The Gift of
Tears”. It took us a couple of years to write and record
“The Gift of Tears”. We will speed things up for our next
album, don’t worry it won’t take another 5 years.
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MM
- This new album sees Michael Hos take over the vocals, what made
Michael your choice to succeed Raymond Jansen?
Sylvester
- At a certain point it seemed obvious that it was better to carry on
with another singer, somehow our ideas drifted apart. Alas we made this
decision just after we released “Symbioses”. Maybe not the perfect
timing, but necessary to carry on. After some auditions Michael was
picked out as the successor of Raymond. We were looking for a vocalist
who could do Raymond’s parts of the existing songs and also had a
voice characteristic that could handle to other side of the spectrum,
that could bring more diversity into the new vocal lines. And of course
there is a natural chemistry, which is sooo important..
MM - Also you have recruited a new
bass player in Casper Kroon, how has he fitted in with the band and has
he brought any new ideas to the table for the band?
Sylvester -
Casper joined the band during our 2005 tour, In this period we already
had some basic ideas ready for the new album and most of the bass parts
were already laid out during the writing process. So he didn’t had
much chance for input on the album. Speaking of bass players.. recently
Casper decided to focus more on other things in music and we decided to
look further for a new bass magician. So again we had a vacancy, haha.
Luckily we have loads of friends and for the next tour in September
until November will be helped out by Leon Coolegem, an excellent bass
player. After the tour we will see if he still likes us, hahaha…
MM - The album has
several great prog moments non-more so than Anat, who is Anat and what
does this song mean to the band?
Sylvester - ”Anat”
tells the story about two young parents who lose their one year old
daughter, who is called Anat. At a certain moment Michael came to
rehearsal, telling us that friends of him just lost their child Anat,
caused by cancer.. Close friends of myself also had lost a young
daughter. So we all knew from up close what an impact this has on the
lives of the parents and environment. Most of the guys from the band
have kids of their own, so we could really relate to this issue and
therefore we felt that this story had to be told and written. Michael
had a concept of the story and together with the parents of Anat we went
over the story line and music we were writing. We ended up writing a
song based upon the lyrics, you can almost understand the meaning of the
song without knowing the lyrics. For us a very special song indeed.
MM
- So what comes first with the band music then lyrics or vice versa or
do things just evolve?
Sylvester - With song like Anat we had the lyrics
and music was created inspired by the lyrics. But this is a very
exceptional way of working and very time consuming. It took us over two
years to write Anat. Mostly we write a concept of a song and together
with the lyrics we will make arrangements until everything falls into
place.
MM
- When putting an album like Gift Of Tears together were there any
internal conflicts on what went into the album?
Sylvester -
No, none at all.. I don’t know how we do it, but
somehow everybody has an equal part in the writing process. During the
production process (done by myself and René) we sometimes made
decisions about – for example - synthesizer sounds or arrangement
changes, without specifically asking the others. Somehow we exactly now
from each other what’s o.k. and what’s not. Very unique I might say.
MM
- The album has many layers and many influences throughout but what
inspires the band to write the music you do?
Sylvester
- We don’t have a certain formula for writing. And we never
say to the person who come up with something new, that an idea is not
suitable for Ulysses.. Eventually five musicians have their swing at it
and it ends up typically Ulysses.. The blueprint of the “Ulysses
sound” is probably the balance between my guitar play and Ron’s
synths, this also what most critics hear.
Ron can be considered to be prog rock and symphonic orientated and I am
more prog metal orientated. All members have pretty diverse musical
tastes. Ranging from IQ to Nevermore and from Blotted Science to Allan
Holdsworth, in the end everybody brings In his ideas and together it
blends… some times it is the neo-prog that can be heard and some times
the metal comes forward.
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MM
- Tour wise the band have announced shows with Threshold and
Sons Of Seasons but any plans for a headline tour of your own?
Sylvester
- We will kick
off our album promotion tour this July. We will do about five
shows with Sons of Seasons. We will be opening act for Threshold
and we will team up with our good friends of Knight Area. So
indeed some great shows ahead. We love to do a headliner tour, I
would say when the time is right. We would like to come over to
the U.K.
Hopefully we’ll do a small tour in the U.K. early 2010.
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MM
- This is the bands ten year anniversary any plans to celebrate this?
Sylvester
-
We will shoot a lot of video footage during the upcoming
shows. Maybe we can use this in the near future. As a anniversary DVD or
something…Anyhow we will just put down some great shows with our fans
and celebrate together!
MM
- You formed your own label for this album, do you see this as the
future for bands, as they can have control over their product and gives
them more artistic freedom?
Sylvester
- Last couple of years I
constantly heard musicians complain about the labels they were working
with. About not getting their money, not knowing how many albums they
sold, not getting any support etc etc. Ulysses has already been in a
similar situation and I finally decided to take control. I formed
Symbioses Music with the intention to release, publish, distribute and
promote Ulysses albums. Also I work for and with other bands and give
advice in marketing and promotion. In this way we keep total control on
all levels and that’s great. Before you think of forming your own
company .. make sure that you understand that a lot of extra work comes
with it…
MM - What additional pressures do you think this may put on the band
having to do everything for yourselves as opposed to leaving it up to
someone else to sort out?
Sylvester
- It is very obvious that
good promotion takes a lot of time. Especially handling promo requests
and keeping in touch with the press is very timing consuming, but I like
doing it.
There are only 24 hours in a day and the consequence is that it leaves
less time to play the guitar and compose new music, so you have to plan
the days (and nights) better.
Ulysses is a band formed by guys with a real “hands on” mentality,
so everybody puts in all effort on his level of expertise. The website,
art work, marketing, album production, live production, bookings etc.
has been done by Symbioses Music and the guys of Ulysses.
MM
- What does the future hold for Ulysses? Do you have a mission statement
or do the band take things as they come?
Sylvester -
Until December we will play some great live shows and promote the album.
Beginning of next year we will focus on the festival and hopefully come
over to the U.K. In the meantime we are gathering new material and we
will start writing on a new album.
MM
- Finally thanks for taking the time out to complete this interview do
you have any last words for your fans and our readers?
Sylvester -
Thanks for your time and interest in Ulysses. We really hope to see you
and your readers on the road in the near future. Buy the album and prog
on!
Sylvester - Ulysses
MM
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We'd like to thank
Sylvester for taking the time out to chat with us today and wish him and
the rest of the band every success with their forthcoming album 'The
Gift Of Tears' and tour plans. Hopefully it won't be long before
we see the band on these shores. |