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With the
release of their debut album 'State Of The Art', we catch up with
founding member and vocalist Johannes Stole to find out more about the
band, their new album and what the future holds for Xorigin.
MM
- How did the whole Xorigin come together?
JS - Me and Daniel
met in Los Angles when we were studying music out there. That was in 98
when we formed Orange Crush and when we got back to Norway and Sweden we
worked a bit together on different projects, but we didn’t do much with
Orange Crush until we hooked up with Daniel Flores, the producer, and we
recorded three songs. That was back in 2003. After that we didn’t do
much with those three songs, didn’t shot them around until 2010, because
Daniel Flores has some contacts with Frontiers and he was doing some
work for them. He said that this would be a great opportunity to record
a new demo and see if they were interested, and sure enough they wanted
us to do an album. We were so happy.
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MM
- So was the chemistry there from the beginning?
JS
- Oh yeah definitely. Me and Daniel are like brothers. We
have been visiting
each other as well as working together on different projects and it's
always a pleasure working with him. When we are writing together, the whole
process is just a pure joy.
MM
- How did the song writing for the idea come about? Did you write
specifically for this album or did you have ideas that you had before
but that
didn’t have a place in any of the other projects and bands you worked
with?
JS
- When we got the deal we collected all the ideas we both had, things
Daniel and me had written together, things I’d written and stuff
he’s written, and once we'd gone through the stuff, we realized we wanted
to write new material for this album, so we only used two old songs.
The rest was written specifically for this record. We had some help from
Robert Sall of Work Of Art and Daniel Flores as well.
MM
- How have you both developed as artists in the last 12 years?
JS
- We are both full time musicians and we have been working on a lot of
stuff since we met. I think we have really matured and we are confident
in what we do.
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MM
- Not to pigeon hole the band but how would you describe the new album
musically?
JS
– It’s melodic rock. It's very much inspired by Toto and Yes.
I guess
that’s the two bands I’ve been listening too the most and that has
inspired me as a vocalist. Both Bobby Kimball, Joseph Williams and
John Eriksson, these guys are my heroes.
MM
- When working on the album did you have a vision in your minds as to how it
was going to sound, or did it just evolve along the way?
JS -
We had a clear vision, we wanted to do AOR but with an edge. Rock guitars
and a little bit heavier than we've done before. So we had that in mind when
we wrote and recorded the album.
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MM
- Speaking of the name, where does Xorigin come from? It’s a lot
different to Orange Crush! (laughs)
JS - Yes! (laughs).
We wanted to
change the name so we asked some friends what they thought of Orange
Crush. We wanted to find something cooler. We thought about Origin, but
there were about ten thousand bands with the name Origin. Then we added
the X and that’s quite unique.
MM
- Yes it’s a name that intrigues. If you see a band with a name like
Slayer you kind of know what to expect, but a band with a name like Xorigin,
well you
feel compelled to check them out.
JS – It’s cool that you think
that, that was the idea, to try to find something unique that had a ring
to it.
MM
- The band is mainly a duo but there is a third member, the other Daniel?
JS - Yes, Daniel Palmqvist.
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MM
- Yes, how did he get involved with Xorigin?
JS - We’ve known
him for years. Daniel Palmqvist has been working with him for a long time
and I’ve worked with him before on my other band Slaves To Fashion.
He
played drums on one of our albums, so we’ve been friends for years
actually and he know this style of music in and out. He a great producer
and is very musical.
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MM
- With only two members do you ever see Xorigin as a touring band?
JS - We’re talking about it. That’s something we definitely want
to do, but at the moment we don’t have a live band, although we have a lot of
people that want to join us, so now it's just finding the right opportunity.
MM
– You’re both very busy men so is this the first of many releases or just a one
off album?
JS - We’ve already written a bunch of new
songs. We write all time. We definitely want to do one more,
so we hope that this
will escalate to another album, even better than this one.
MM
- Going back to the album, it has a lot of different styles on it, from
the rockers to the out and out ballads, was this the intention for the
beginning to mix things up a bit?
JS - Yes I guess so because
we like so many different styles in Melodic Rock and AOR in those genres.
We tried to produce the album like it was one product. I like the
ballads and the pop stuff but I also like to scream.
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MM
- The band have, as we mentioned earlier, been likened to Yes and Toto.
You can
hear those influences in the music, although the band have managed to take those influences
and develop them into your own sound?
JS - That’s what I
wanted to do. We're not trying to reinvent the wheel, we just wanted to do
this style of music the best we could.
MM
- What does the future hold for not only Xorigin but also for you both as
artists?
JS
- We’re doing the promotion for this album and see how it goes.
We
are continuing in writing new songs. Me and Daniel are also writing for other
artists. My other band Slaves To Fashion are going on tour in October in
Norway, then Germany. I’m a freelance musician so I have a lot of stuff
I’m working on.
MM
- Well thanks again for taking the time out, I know you’re a very busy
man and good look with the album. Hopefully we’ll get to see
Xorigin on tour before too long.
JS
- Thank you.
We'd
like to thank Johannes for taking the time out of his busy schedule to
chat with us this evening and wish him and the band every success with
the new album/ Fingers crossed we'll get to see Xorigin over on
the UK shores at some point.
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