Jack Young talks tracks, writing and replacing the very well known voice of the band for new album Act IV.


The new album seems to see the band doing everything they always have done, but with a new twist.
What was the thought behind the album when you got started in making it?
After Following Dreams it was felt that we needed to recapture our dark side on the heavy end without being too progressive and no more personal stuff and keeping the themes more open...and that we should once again focus on the elements that comprised our sound signature.

What were the circumstances that lead to singer Colie Brice leaving the band?
Colie's set skills in the music arena are broad-based. His solo career was beginning to blossom. He not only required room to sing, but to also expand his songwriting and production contributions. It was his time.

Terry Brock is obviously a classic melodic rock singer - how did his name get brought into the PO equation and did you shape any of the music to fit him, or did he do the shaping?!
We went through several lead singers in trying to fill the abyss left by Colie's departure. Finally, nearly a year into the process, Khalil Turk of Escape Music called me after hearing the rough mixes of the songs and says JACK !!!....I have the perfect lead singer for you...his name is Terry Brock and he lives next door to you in New York City .
And just like that Khalil sent Terry the RMs with my scratch vocals and Terry loved the songs. We hooked up and he recorded the nine songs in six sessions at my studio (POPS). We had a blast! Terry ate Cajun food every session.

As for shaping - none was required. The music and BK vocals were done and Terry was the natural match to sing these songs. He had the range and feel, the talent to work WITH the music, great diction and a phenomenal attitude. We had fun every moment along the way.

He did a great job, will his role be ongoing?
He certainly did and I hope so.

Could you add a few words about each song on the album?
Etched
You always hear how things change ... But you know what? The downside of love and the loss of it and the heartache end...its still as painful as ever, and still deeply affects you and others around you.

Insanity
Dave and Bobby G have written quite a few songs that are really hot. When I heard Insanity it was obvious that Phantom was written all over it.

Shadow
Our vampire song depicting the difference between understanding, condoning, and flat out acceptance.

Hopeless
You've gotta believe. Sooner or later that TRUE and maybe not lasting love will touch your life.

Lost
About the original lead guitarist in Phantom's Opera & Louie Russomanno.

In the Morning
My Favorite!!! Using first century Rome as a venue for dealings with the new and unknown and the suggestion that aliens were with us then and to put it to a Beavis and Butt Head banging rhythm.

Laura
Laura?......Haunting melody...an update to the girl we sung of in our first album.
Except now, we find out that she has spent time in the Insane Asylum. Tough life

God Save the King
Yeah another favorite of mine. The verse melody offered me a chance to really work the lyrics into one of the many realms we possibly harbor when thinking of our leaders and what we expect of them.

The music of PO is obviously quite complex, how do you go about writing in general - part of songs bit by bit, all at once?
It starts with a melody, then a working title that works phonetically. Then a theme which determines the musical direction and the lyrics. Section/part enhancement comes at the end.

Do you write a whole album in one length of time, or over several months/years?
The ideas can hit you anytime. If you've got the right environment, you just keep going. In the case of Act IV, the songs were written over a 3 month period, usually with one completed song opening the door for the next.

What are your influences as a song writer?
No current ones, but a few ingrained ones - Beatles, Zeppelin, Queen

Anyone that you would like to work with on future projects?
First, I have to say this Act IV - the practicing and recording of it with Dave, Booby G, E-Man, Terry, T.V and Roy (the Romans in In the Morning)..I had fun, one of the most enjoyable experiences ever. It was a great time full of laughs. To work with them again, I'd love it. Others?...I doubt I'll ever get to meet Sir Paul M. ( McCartney)

What's next for you personally and the band in the year ahead?
I m almost done with my solo album...I think its year 4 already. I'll keep writing and doing a lot of Country lately. As far as the group, we decided to see what happens with this release and well you never know, we'll sit down and talk with management as things unfold.

What are some of your all time best albums?
Beatles Revolver, Queen Jazz and Asia S/T.

Anything you would like to add?
Yeah - answers often lie in the wounds we don t reveal.
It's been fun Andrew…take care.

Thanks again!
 

The duo that is On The Rise - Terje and Bennech talk about the construction of their debut album, which I hope will be acclaimed by many in 2003.

First of all - congratulations on this fine album of yours. It's hard to believe it's your debut album.
Thanks a lot Andrew. We appreciate your compliments.

How did you achieve such a great production sound for this album?
I used a lot of time developing my guitar sound to the songs and completed the arrangements at home before we started to record the album. Eirik Gronner came up with solutions to reinforce it and made a brilliant result by amplifying my guitars once more in the studio (Ravnaberg Studio).
I was recording my own guitars at Bennech's place on a 16 tracks recorder and dropped in and out by the time I was finishing three or four songs. It all ended well and we completed the album with a mix where Eirik did the final adjustments that was needed to make it all sound really good.

Naturally, the production is pointless if the songs stink - which thankfully is not the case on the album. Who wrote the album's great songs?
We both contributed with a lot of songs to this album, and together with Serafino we decided to go for the following order and the writers are :
Beat Of Your Heart - (Terje Eide & Geir Johannessen)
Lift You Up - (Bennech Lyngboe)
The World Of Change - (Terje Eide)
Memories Forever - (Terje Eide)
Pride - (Bennech Lyngboe & Freddy Olsen)
Leaps And Bounds - (Terje Eide)
Running In The Night - (Terje Eide)
Keep Our Love Alive - (Terje Eide)
Stay Away - (Terje Eide)
Sadness Hits Like A Stone - (Terje Eide & D.O.Nilsen)
Two Young Hearts - (Bennech Lyngboe & Terje Eide)
Could Have Been The Last Time - (Bennech Lyngboe & Terje Eide)
Stranded - (Terje Eide)
The Moment - (Terje Eide)

I can hear a lot of great influences in your music - in your own words, what are your influences and why and how have they been included in your songs?
Terje: - My influences in music are Van Halen, Deep Purple, Whitesnake, Bryan Adams, Def Leppard, Ronnie James Dio, Ritchie Blakemore's Rainbow, Journey, John Farnham, Steve Perry, Kiss, Steve Vai, Gary Moore & Toto. I've been influenced by these artists since the day I started to play. The reason why is that they're representing the performance of high quality. I learned by picking up details from records and I developed my own way of singing and playing guitar, and I think that's how the influences has been included in my songs as well. Everybody's got their own source of inspiration. It's been a natural process for me to write the songs on the album. I think it's really nice if someone thinks your music are influenced or even compares your music to well known artists, cause I believe you should take it as a compliment !
Bennech: - In early days my musical influences was Bruce Springsteen. Later on I discovered bands like TNT, Journey, Def Leppard, Bryan Adams, Dokken, Iron maiden, Lynch mob, Toto, Van Halen and some others....

For those that haven't checked you guys out - or are about to - how would you describe the album and the style of your music?
Soaring and immediately hummable melodies, catchy choruses, in your face guitars and all the elements of AOR/melodic rock songs are all together on this album.

How long have you been working on this debut album and it's songs?
It took about 4 months to finish the record in the studio, but the whole process of making the songs started in January 2001. We made a demo and Frontiers signed us in January 2002.

What are both of your musical backgrounds? Other bands? Past histories...
Terje: - I captured the public ear at age 16, as singer, guitarist and songwriter. My musical career began in earnest a year later, through winning a local talent contest.
I later enjoyed a stint with the band Heaven & Hell, a rock institution in Bergen in the 80s. In 1986 I won the Norwegian National Rock Championship on national TV with the band The Heat. I started my own band a few years later called Tripolis. I've spent the past 9 years exploring various musical genres, as well as playing with local artists as a guitarist, singer and backup singer. This capacity landed me a variety of large-scale shows and concerts, backing acclaimed Norwegian artists.
Bennech: - It all started in 1987. After a few years of honing my talents as a singer, guitarist and songwriter, I tried out ideas with local rock bands, both as a live and a recording artist. In 1995, I released my self-financed single "Leaves Of Fall". The entire first edition of 1000 copies sold out in Bergen music stores, and the single enjoyed three weeks on the Hordaland Top Ten. Since then, I've been busy with my own and other's studio work.

What is your philosophy as a band - where to next and what are your plans?
We want to go as far as we can with our music. In the start we were not goal oriented but as time's gone by we've got an amazing feedback, and it really inspire us to go further on. We're in a process where we try to complete the line-up for live performances and our plans are not completed yet.

I heard that a bidding war broke out in Japan over signing this album - you must be very proud of that and the result of the album as a whole!
We're already signed to KING RECORDS in Japan, so I believe the fight is over.

What other artists do you enjoy listening to?
Terje: - Actually, these last couple of days I've been listening to Raised On The Radio by Journey (This is a great production), "Last Of The Runaways" the classic album of Giant (This record won't be forgotten at all, it's another good sounding production), "Big Ones" by Aerosmith and the compilation album "ROCK THE BONES" released by Frontiers. There's some great artists/bands on this record. Looking forward to their releases.
Bennech: - Lately I've been listening to the last compilation album of STAGE DOLLS, and some of the latest JOURNEY records. I'm still dreaming of a JOURNEY record with STEVE PERRY on vocals.

As this band is a newcomer to the melodic scene, how do you view the scene and how could it be improved?
I think if you want to create or even explore a new area of melodic rock, then I believe everyone should have more patience in writing better songs, making better arrangements & use more time on developing a good sound of the productions.
It's better to make one good record and to use what's needed of time to finish it, instead of releasing several half-done records every year. I don't believe in making records in a hurry, but sometimes it's needed to do so if the artist doesn't want to be forgotten. But then it's a gambling. All of a sudden you've got a choice to make, who wants that!!? In the end it's the music and the quality of it that makes the profits and the world go around.

I believe we're in a process that will shape and engrave our creativity as an artist. Such as this moment of amazing feedbacks. It's an inspiration and it will contribute to keep us going and hopefully to write even more good songs in the future. I believe our songwriting will reflect upon our feelings to what's happening right now. I think we'll improve ourselves by going a few steps further on with our songwriting.

How can other artists achieve a production sound and quality similar to On The Rise, with the financial constraints many artists work under these days? What advice can you offer?
We've been so lucky to have such great friends in the business who believes in us and the one in this case who really have been giving away his goodwill and inspiration on this record is Eirik Gronner (The producer).
This has been a very special occasion, cause we all wanted to make a great record including Eirik. If you get the chance to meet such great guys as him, then you're lucky. There's no good advice other than to look out and find the people who believe in your project, that includes the great team at Frontiers as well.

Would you mind doing a track by track for the album - some comments about each song on the record?
Beat Of Your Heart - Terje: - I wrote this one with an old friend of mine. Me and Bennech wanted to put it on the album because of it's catchy groove and good melody. It's a story about having a glamorous life and loosing it, to keep on wanting and hoping for it to return.

Lift You Up - Bennech: - I wanted to write an uptempo song and while I was jamming, I found the lyrics who became the chorus later on. It's a song about the promises we make for each other, but somehow we can't manage to keep.
Terje: - Bennech came up with this idea and I started to work on it right away as well as putting the arrangements together with him.

The World Of Change - Terje: - It all started with a acoustic guitar and a melody I've always wanted to complete. Then I tried to combine it with a rhythm I've always wanted to use. It all came down pretty well. I had some thoughts about the lyrics. Everything that I had in mind came easily down to paper. You know everybody's got their own thoughts and opinions about the politicians and what they've accomplished or not, and it combines the reflections of our history and the natural disasters as well. Writing lyrics like this isn't because you want to change the world, but if it gets the attention and people starts to think then I'm happy.

Memories Forever - Terje: - It didn't take me long to make this song. I even finish doing the lyrics before I finished the arrangements. This is a song about when you've had enough of heartbreaking stories, and then you want to spread your wings and fly. Do your own stuff for a while. Think things over. But when it's far gone, you'll never forget the love that meant something. No one can change that.

Pride - Bennech: - This is a song I wrote back in 96 and it inspired a friend of mine to write the lyrics and the story of himself.
Terje: - We both wanted to make it rougher than the earlier version, and I started to explore different angles on how to settle the right guitar chords. I wanted to keep on going for the policy of "less is more".

Leaps & Bounds - Terje: - This is one of the first songs I made for this record. I felt we needed a song to unite our voices in harmony. Basically I felt like making it rougher, but I didn't do it until we were supposed to record it on the album. Lyrically I came up with the idea of making a point out of the world's scientific eruption. I just had some thoughts about how fast things are going these days. Take your time out and look around. Do we dare !!? We forget to live our lives sometimes.

Running In The Night - Terje: - This is an old song of mine and it's a part of my history/collection as a songwriter. Lyrically it's a about the wars and the fights that surrounds us every day. How hard it is for the young ones to grow up and how to experience the first moment of showing up and to be accepted. It could take place anywhere and this guy has got the guts and confidence, but that's not enough in a world who's not too safe.

Keep Our Love Alive - Terje: - I wrote this song for this album and I believe it's the fastest song I've ever made so far. This is a song about when love is growing, dying and tearing us apart. It's about not giving up a long lasting love by seeking more of the unknown knowledge of each other. It all depends on how much we care about our valuable time together; if we're gonna keep our love alive.

Stay Away - Terje: - In this song you can catch a glimpse of two different styles of music. I enjoyed singing it. This is a song about the guy who observes that time is running by and he feels like not having enough time to do everything that he wants to do, and his reflections upon why we never learn to stay away from all the unnecessary troubles we're making out of our ordinary day of life.

Sadness Hits Like A Stone - Terje: - I wrote it a few years ago and a friend of mine said I had to put it on a record sometime. He wrote the lyrics as well. I started this year to finish the new arrangements. It all went pretty well. Sadness is a part of us all and loneliness is something that surrounds us everyday and do we really care about the ones who's too lonely??

Two Young Hearts - Bennech: - This is the first song I wrote for this project. I came up with some basic chords and a melody where we both contributed to the arrangements of the song.
Terje: - I completed this song with the solo part and wrote some words about the guy who's looking back at the days when he was young and certain things like a certain scent can remind you of someone once very special, at a time when life was easy. These are just some of the things you never forget. These memories do last a lifetime.

Could Have Been The Last Time - Bennech: - Actually I had the plan of making this song as a power ballad, but in the process it became as you all can hear today. This is a story about me and a girlfriend.
Terje: - Bennech came up with this brilliant song. He had some thoughts about the story and it was my contribution to substantiate the story by writing the lyrics and completing the arrangements.

Stranded - Terje: - This song is about a man who's tired of the ordinary day. He wants to break out and realise his dreams to come true. There are always opportunities in life, it's just the matter of believing in it and to grab a hold on those few chances you'll get.

The Moment - Terje: - This is the song of my heart. We wanted to end this record as easy as we could. Without drums and bass. I think it was a nice choice to make. When you've met someone special and it's your love of life, then it's not so much to tell by words but to
listen and to keep the moment forever.

Anything you would like to add guys?
Thanks for all the amazing feedback we've got so far from fans of AOR/melodic rock.

Thanks again for taking the time out to answer these questions!
Just a pleasure.

 

I asked Escape Music boss Khalil Turk about their recent release A Tribute To Boston - just how does one go about setting up a tribute album and how was Escape's Tribute to Boston put together?

What lead you decide on doing a Boston Tribute album?
After recording a Foreigner tribute album Steve Morris and myself were very satisfied with the results, so I brought up the idea to Steve, “How about recording a Boston Tribute?” We have always been huge fans of this band since their debut, and Steve was very happy to do it.

Were there any other artists in your mind to invite to participate?
There were many artists in my mind, I had to be selective who to invite. I gathered many names of musicians, when I decided who to invite on the album, and send the invite out to all. They were all delighted to take part on this tribute, being in this business for such a long time, you meet and to know many different musicians from established names to beginners, and you have to be fair with all of them.

So Boston is the band - what's the process involved in getting a tribute started and off the ground? Do you start picking a base band, or songs, or...?
First of all we pick the songs, with Boston most of the songs had to be from their first album and so on. Then we decide who will be good on each song. Once the lead singers are pinpointed, we look for a good solid rhythm section Bass / Drums. In the mean time Steve Morris will be preparing all the studio works programming and so on - while I am getting in touch with musicians.

Who picks who will sing what track? Is that up to you, or did guys like Chris Ousey come to you with their favourites?
Usually Steve and I decide who will sing which song. Or we ask the singer would they like to choose any particular song. With Chris Ousey, Steve thought Cool The Engine - check out Tommy Denander guitar solo it smokes!! - and A Man I'll Never Be (Japan only) would be suitable for him, knowing Chris he can sing anything even if you give him a telephone directory!!
Steve Overland wanted to sing Amanda, Timothy Lewis wanted to sing Can'tcha Say. Sometimes it doesn't work. After recording some vocals if we are not happy with, we will scrap it, and invite someone else to sing it again. It happened on the Foreigner tribute and on this one too.

When did you start recording and how long did the whole process take to finish?
Steve started with the pre-productions, programming of the songs and backing tracks way back in the summer of 2001, while I was getting in touch with the singers and musicians and arranging their time schedule who was available and who wasn't.
With Terry Brock, it was excellent timing, he was over in the UK to the GODS show was very convenient. I picked Terry up from his hotel to the studio in Runcorn, and he sang two songs and all the back grounds, and harmonies in three hours, what a great singer! Steve Overland was easy too, he only lives 20 minutes on the train to the studio. The album took almost one year to finish the album. This summer 2002.

Obviously some parts are recorded in various different studios, the mix process must be quite complicated. Can you take us through that?
Yes, some of the recordings has taken part all over place , from New Jersey (Mike Walsh / Timothy Lewis) to Vancouver, Canada (Kenny Kaos, Dave Hopia and Frank Baker), and back to the UK then all over UK from Warrington to Royton Lancs (Vinny Burns, Don Airey) Bedfordshire to Sweden (Tommy Denander and Anders Rydholm, Peter Sundell from Grand Illusion), Norway (Ronni Le Tekro), and back to Warrington then to Runcorn...Wah! Well travelled album.
What Steve Morris will have to do next is send CD-R or ADAT of each song as two tracks bounce down, to the person whom had to record their parts, and all they have to do is just play or sing on other tracks available to them. On ADAT with 8 tracks, less two tracks used as bounced down. Once they've recorded their parts they will send the recordings back to us, then Steve will transfer all that person parts into the master recordings all this procedure is taken place in our own studio Ocean Reach Studio. Then we will take all the tapes to the studio for mixing. Now days everybody uses Pro-Tools Nuendo.

Who did the artwork for the release?
I have always used Chris Johns (KICK) – from Crusoe. Chris is a very good friend of mine, and very talented, we have been working together for the past 5 years, and he understands my likings. He usually comes up with an idea, and then I will chop and change things around it plus re-arranging.

Obviously anyone can pick a song and sing it, but what are the technical requirements of doing an tribute album, as far as going about paying songwriter royalties etc?
Yes, anybody can pick a song and record it for sure, if the song going to be released for commercial purposes, then they have to apply for AP Clearance from MCPS London. They will grant you the license to release the song, and you will have to pay them 8.5% ppd.

Are there any other requirements needed?
As long you do not alter the arrangement or the structure of the song or the lyrics you will be OK. Once you start changing the song then you have to have approval from the songwriter.

What are your personal favourite songs on the tribute album?
My personal favourite on Boston has to be Amanda by Steve Overland. To be honest with you all the singers have done a great job, Terry Brock is FANTASTIC on Its Easy, Tony O'hora, Peter Sundell…they are all brilliant!

On the Foreigner has to be Troy Reid (Stranded) / Chris Ousey (Heartland) duet on Prisoner Of Love, and of course John Pratt on Hot Blooded (Firefly) on one of the most underrated singer in the business he is great! I love John's voice.

Tell us about the players involved on the album?
They were all excellent to work with. I would ask them back again. But of course with tribute albums you have to change musicians sometime, and use different musicians to make it more interesting.

Some are obviously Escape Music artists, others are guests. Is this a complicated situation for labels to work out?
There were no complications whatsoever, all the artists were happy to been involved. Except for one indie label their BIG "Boss" whom wasn't accommodating to pass my invite to one of their artists. I could've contact the artist directly myself since I knew the singer very well long before he was signed to this particular label. It was just a courtesy to ask the label. Next time!

Any other plans for another tribute down the track?
Yes, Survivor will be next, we have some great musicians in mind I have already asked Harry James, and Chris Child of (Thunder) who have accepted my invitations, once again Steve Overland will be on, and I will be sending invitations out shortly. I have penciled in few names already, now Tony Harnell - if you are reading this - don't you say its too late or any other excuses!!

xx

We have all heard rock opera's...we have also heard long rock opera's, but a Triple CD, released over three years? Sounds like an ambitious project. Just who is behind the Genius opera and hear the entire opera's story line.

Let's go right back to the beginning.
Can you tell us a little about your history as a musician?
I started to play piano when I was a child (at 6) attending a local classical school that gave me all the theory and harmonic notions, then I self approached guitar at 16 (1987), applying it all the classical notions.
I learned from classical piano experience. In 1993 (at 22) I won a national contest as Italian best guitar player and I won a paid trip and stage at GIT School in LA.
I stayed there for a long period, attending lessons from many of the biggest guitar player of the scene...it was there that I put together the lineup to record the my first solo project
album 'Viewpoint' that would have been published only later by Elevate records in 1999.
I also studied bass at 24 and drums at 25, I always had a great love for both classic and quality rock metal music and for all the instruments involved in it....
Even if I did many demo tapes and music projects since back in 1987, I can say that my official recording career starts back in 1997 as keyboard player and composer with the first release of my prog-metal band Empty Tremor 'Apocolokyntosys', released in Europe by Pick Up/Risin Sun and in Japan by Fandango records.

Then in 1999 I released by Elevate records my first solo guitar record 'Viewpoint' (recorded during GIT period 1993/1994), a sort of progressive guitar oriented instrumental project with some cool musicians like Julio Mathis at drums, Joey Vera and Ricky Wolking at bass (4 tracks each)...
In early 2000 I recorded and produced for Elevate Records too the second album with my band Empty Tremor, 'Eros & Thanatos'...one of the major efforts with this band!
I also have a second solo instrumental album ready to be released called Daily Trauma since 1999 in my pocket.
This album is the first musical experimentation back in early 1999 after the meeting of me and Dario Ciccioni, the incredible young talented drummer that has been playing also into the 3 episodes of Genius Rock Opera....it's a like a sort of prologue to the 3 episodes of Genius and it contains a lot of idea and basic atmosphere that have been developed and expanded into the full Genius rock opera trilogy production.

I'd say that the meeting and the initial jams with Dario are probably the main reason of the beginning of all my Genius project thread, I felt that I and him would have been able of doing a lot of good and inspired music, our styles, tastes and feeling was so perfect during the creation and the jams!
This 'Daily Trauma' album will be released after the Genius trilogy by Frontiers too...cause it's also very connected with Genius concept.
I also recorded and produced a record with Steve Walsh called 'Khymera' to be released at the beginning of 2003, Also there I played guitar, bass and Keys, Dario Ciccioni (Genius Rock Opera drummer) played drums...
I write sometimes for some Guitar magazines, but unfortunately I have not enough time lately and this is happening not so often at the moment...

Anyway this Genius rock opera trilogy has been basically getting me busy since 1998 in all its phases of creation and preproduction's of story, characters definition, music and lyrics! It's something that I always worked on also during other projects development
(Empty tremor & all the other projects)

At what stage did you think you would like to write such an ambitious piece of work, such as a Rock Opera?
I had this idea back in late 1997, due to a story that I wrote in that period called Daily Trauma (Same title of the instrumental album that has been recorded before the 3 Genius Rock Opera episodes).
I felt that that story would have been very adaptable to a sort of Opera with many singers, and after experimenting a first instrumental step of composition
(Daily Trauma album) I had more that opinion in my mind.
I had been working a lot in creating very progressive and guitar oriented music and I found myself very excited at the idea of writing lyrics and melodies in Empty Tremor band, so I decided to create a more complete and thrilling project where I could challenge myself in writing for many singers together, duets, big choirs and great orchestration, one of my favourite dreams till the years I was studying classical music...so I decided to try to make this dream become true!

What other Rock Opera's influenced you as a musician and writer?
I always loved Jesus Christ Superstar and Cats, even if they are very different type of thing comparing to modern Rock Opera like Avantasia, Ayreon, Nostradamus, and
Genius too...of course, I think that those were the real first steps talking about Rock Opera and Musical production....
I must really be devote to those early musical cause they really created something new about rock and opera production.
I've listened and enjoyed also to all the newer operas like Avantasia, Ayreon and Nostradamus...that I consider great masterpieces and big efforts that has given to metal music a great quality music...
Anyway I'd say that Genius Style is not near to any of these Operas, I basically tried to create something original and to experiment as many styles as possible inside Genius music...I tried to use different styles of music according to the story requirements point to point...and also there's a lot of progressive influences inside.

How long has the entire process taken?
It has taken more that 4 years to create the 4 hours of music (3 episodes) and complete the first episode also with guest singers lyrics recording..

Tell us about the story of Genius....
Genius is a rock opera trilogy that will include a total of 33 songs
(11 for each episode).
Even if the total duration of the Opera is about 4 hours of music for 3 CD, the whole story concept refers to a dream experienced by the main character 'Genius' that lasts only 10 minutes!
It's known that dreams are often creating a time-stretch effect in our minds, so that a 10 minutes long dream can be remembered as a day long story...
In fact, these 10 minutes of Genius' dream has been described in 4 hour of music!
But we are not talking about a regular dream like all humans have always experienced...
In this 10 minutes Genius goes too far and discovers for the first time
all the secrets of human's dream creation...
At 7 o' clock of a typical Monday morning (exactly the 20 of December 1999), his alarm clock near the bed starts to ring as usual.
While he's slowly getting awaken, listening to the sound of his old clock, he finds out that its bells are playing a strange but repetitive sequence of beats.
Genius is a smart heavy metal drummer and suddenly starts to imagine that strange sequence played on a snare drum...as a drum fill.
While his imagination is following that pattern he feels very strange and falls asleep again, feeling like attracted from his pillow.
After few seconds he starts to dream and he finds himself in front of a big golden gate, suspended in the air, where 2 woman's (Doorkeepers) seemed
to be waiting for him.
Initially he doesn't understand if what's going on is only the result of his dreaming or if what he's experiencing is something much more important...
Then he slowly realizes that this strange dream has connected his mind
with an alternative reality...
Genius has been attracted and wrongly admitted for a sum of casual circumstances into a strange and apparently nonsense parallel dimension.

Later he'll discover that that place is an alternative world where human dreams are created and conducted.
To best enjoy this opera you should have a brief explanation of some basic concepts of this alternative dreams creation world:
This parallel dimension is organized in many kingdoms, one for each
continent.
Each kingdom is ruled by a King.
The whole group of the kingdoms is called Dream League and is leaded by the supreme Main dream, the most powerful character...
The Kings involved in this first episodes are King McChaos (European dreams kingdom) and King Wild Tribe (African dreams kingdom).
Each time that a human starts to sleep an entity called 'Twinspirit' is created for him by the Dream League and sent into one of these kingdoms (depending of the continent where the human dreamer lives).
An ID number is assigned to this Twinspirit to be recognized from all the others.
This number is also the ID number of the dream that will be conducted by the twinspirit.
In fact, when Genius gets caught into that dimension, is identified with ID n.33 by the doorkeepers, and wrongly exchanged by a regular Twinspirit.
This 'Twinspirit' is responsible for the conduction of his assigned human dream fantasies.
His existence starts when his human owner starts to sleep and ends at his awake.
Its duty is to create all the fantasies that his assigned human will dream about during his sleeping session, using a sort of multimedia equipment that is provided to him by the Dream League.

At the end of his life (the end of the dream) he sends to his human owner mind all the memories of the dream that he has recorded into a multimedia support build inside him, of course if he has time to do this transmission.
If the human awake is very fast sometimes this can't happen.
That's why sometimes dreams are not remembered by the humans...
All these Twinspirits are created and sent into a sort of dream's factory, fully equipped with consoles ready to be used for the dream's conduction.
This place is called ''Twinspirt Land'...
Each kingdom has its 'Twinspirit Land' where all the twinspirit can perform their job during their short life.
So...Genius is actually dreaming and laying in his bed that morning for those intense 10 minutes... but during that unusual dream he has the chance of entering that unknown alternative world and meet the Twinspirit that is conducting his dream (his ID is n.32 in fact it's been created just right before Genius arrival,right after he started to
sleep and to dream).

This meeting creates a sort of incredible paradox...He's dreaming of being exactly there, in front of his assigned Twinspirit that can't believe to see his human owner in front of him! It's from that meeting that Genius will understand what's going on...and also the reason why he was been attracted and admitted there.
The strange repetitive sequence of beats that his clock is casually ringing that morning is exactly the same sequence that all the newborn twinspirits usually uses to knock on the gate of the European Kingdom as a sort of password to be admitted!

Being a drummer, Genius starts to dream of snare hits that follows that clock sequence and this sound arrives to the European Kingdom Doorkeepers that exchange it as a newborn Twinspirit knocking at their Gates...
As soon as the Doorkeepers open the kingdom gates, and attract Genius a
magic link between reality and that alternative dreams creation world is activated.
Genius sleeping mind is attracted and captured into a Twinspirit entity identified as n.33, starting to link his dreaming to that parallel dimension and experiencing everything exactly like a regular Twinspirit!
He is really looking like a Twinspirit, but the problem is that he's not a real Twinspirit with built in experience on how to conduct dreams of a Human.
There is no dreaming human assigned to a Twinspirit ID n.33!
He's only the mind of a dreaming human into a Twinspirit entity that doesn't know anything about how to conduct a dream and how that world was working!
Soon as Genius would be arrived at his console in the Twinspirit Land this would be noticed from someone.
Nothing would be appearing into his console, and into the console of his assigned Twinspirit n.32 there would have been the exact view of his eyes!

This dreams dimension was born at the same time of human appearance in
the real world, but has progressed a lot faster and has reached a level of evolution up to 100 times higher, so it's easy for every entity of that dimension to enter into human reality if it would have wanted.
As opposite, it would be Impossible for a human in normal circumstances
to enter their dimension...
But one of the main rules of Dream League is that all humans must be kept unaware of this mechanism and of this dreams dimension, to prevent safety and privacy of dreams...could you imagine if all humans could know how to get into that alternative world and interact with their twinspirit like Genius is doing?

Every human could have been entering that place and maybe learn to
conduct their dreams by them self!
The Dream League secrets and prestige would have been violated forever!
When the Twinspirit n.32 realizes that the entity he has near to him is not a real Twinspirit but the mind projection of his human owner 'Genius' that is dreaming
of being there into a looking like twinspirit, he knows that many problems would happen into the European Dream Kingdom (and especially to its king: Mc Chaos King) if this was discovered.
What is happening is strictly prohibited and very dangerous and the European king would be considered responsible for this crime and charged with severe punishments.
Genius is braking a basic rule with it's presence in that place!
Even if his Twinspirt knows that what is going on is something not allowed he could not avoid himself to conduct the dream of his owner...and his owner is dreaming of being there in that moment!
Genius is obviously discovered.
Twinspirit n.32 suddenly becomes wanted by the Dream Leage Force (The
police of the Dream League).
They need to terminate him before he would have the chance to pass the
dream memories to Genius at his awake, so that he would have not remembered that particular Dream and reveal to the whole humanity what he has learnt about dreams creation process and especially how to enter in!
All the dangerous adventures caused by the presence of Genius into this dreams creation world..., the meeting with his assigned twinspirit n.32..., the friendship they developed during their adventures.
The anger of the kings of all the Dream's kingdoms and especially of their supreme leader Mr. Maindream against King Mc Chaos, that is considered responsible for the dangerous crime of having allowed a human into his European Dreams kingdom..., the research of a solution to all these troubles by Genius and his Twinspirit n.32...
These will be the main thrilling content of all the Genius trilogy...

Was the story impossible to tell in just one set of songs?
Definitely impossible...., I would have been impossible to give the right space to all the events and to allow the music to flow without too much hurry..., I must say that it was difficult also with 3 Episode to complete the story concept with the right feel! :)

Are parts 2 & 3 written yet?
Yes, everything is written and already recorded except the lyrics of part 2 and 3....
I wanted to have the same sound in all the 3 episodes so I did the production of all the 4 hours of music, so that the sound will be respected also in the next episodes...musicians change their maturity and sound during the years and this would have been hearable if the production was divided and separated into different and distant periods.

What about the musicians involved? Did you have a wish list?
Basically I submitted my idea to all labels of the world heavy metal scene...Frontiers records liked the concept and the overall project planning I exposed to them.
So they offered my to work with them to build up a great Genius project giving me the possibility of choosing the cast from a list of over 30 great singers that were already working with Frontiers...you could imagine my emotion!
It was a great time to deal with all those singers for the casting...probably the best part of the production!
But I also had some wish in terms of singers, I wanted to include some singers that was not in the Frontiers list, Oliver Hartmann and Danilel Gildenlow and the great Midnight were contacted by me directly.
I knew that anyone else would have singed their parts better, and so searched them and I asked them to join the cast and after having listened to the preproduction demo they accepted and Frontiers was happy too with this!
To have Midnight back on the scene again is a dream come true form me...and even more in reason of the fact that he sings my lyrics! He's still a great voice and interpretation like at Crimson Glory times!

Are there more artists to come with Parts 2 and 3?
Surely, We are just thinking about the new singers to involve in the next episodes for the new characters that will appear...expect some big surprises!

Obviously not everyone could be with you in the studio - how complicated did this make the recording process?
Basically everyone has chosen a personal producer for the Vocals and recorded into their usual studios locally in their town, I was very happy with this choice cause everyone of them knew the right person to work with and some of them are also very good producers as well...
It was pretty a lot of time and work to make everything work fine, decide all the formats and speaking to all the producers has taken so much time, and also some problems have happened....but nothing too major!
I sent away all the music, the lyrics and charts and I followed all the recording via internet giving the final ok and my suggestion on the recording
from my studio here in Italy....
I decided to give very much freedom to the guest singers; everyone would have had the possibility of expressing his style into the character....
When I got back all the vocals tracks it took me months to edit and join everything! Every duet had to be perfect and every vocal part would have been in the right place...
The choirs have been done great! Chris Boltendahl has managed to put together the same team of Grave Digger for the chorus and they did a huge work!!!
I made some postproduction decisions on how and what use or not of the material and versions the singers gave me, but I had a GREAT material to choose on and it was so great time for me!!

The production quality sounds great - are you happy with the result about to be released?
I must say that I'm very happy with the production quality, and this is something very difficult to reach for a producer/Artist....
I usually have always some things that don't satisfies me after the mix is completed, happened with all my previous records, but this time I must say that everything seems to be perfect...maybe if you ask me this next year I'll have something to say to you!!
Anyway I put so much time and effort to make this disk sound well and I think that this has paid off...

What other music has influenced your career?
All classic music and classical operas surely....Rock and metal artist that have influenced me very much are Van halen, Malmsteen, Jason Becker and Marty Friedman, Dream Theater have been my best influences...

What are some of your favourite releases in the last couple of years?
Dream Theater 'Scenes from a memory', as I've already told the operas form Sammet, Kotzev and Lucassen...., I liked a lot also 'Superheros' form Paul Gilbert's Racer X, they were my best inspiration to the guitar back in late eighties...

And aside from Genius, are you working on any other projects? Or is it 100% Genius?!!
The music of Genius is almost completed, I only have to plan the singers and the vocals recording for Episode 2 and 3.
I'm doing a lot of promotion for Genius of course, but this is not my only project...absolutely not...hehe, I'm currently working also at the 3rd album with my band Empty Tremor, and also I'm doing a project with Steve Walsh of Kansas called
'Khymera' where I play Guitar Bass and Keys (like in Genius Opera), Dario Ciccioni is playing drums also here, and Joe Vana/Thom Griffin are doing the backing Vocals.....Pretty busy....not? :)

Anything you would like to add in Daniele?
It was great for me to hear my lyrics singed by such great singers, I hope that you all will share with me this incredible emotion....
I hope you'll come to my web site www.geniusrockopera.com and let me know your opinions on this first episode and share with me your comments....you'll make me happy!!!
All my music efforts are for you! I hope you'll like this opera and you'll get great emotions listening to it!

Thanks for your time and best of luck with the project.