Disillusion – An Illusion Of Progressive Metal
Disillusion is a German Progressive Metal band that combines elements from all types of Metal perfectly, its debut album – Back To Times Of Splendor, received immediate attention among prog fans world wide. The band became of my favorites very quickly, and I was happy to interview Andy Schmidt (Guitars, Bass, Keyboards and Vocals), band mastermind and founder, about the band and its new album – Gloria.
Hey Andy, how's the feeling towards the release of the new album, Gloria?
Hello there, thank you for having us! The feeling is really really good.
The name of the album is very simple yet intriguing – Gloria. Can you enlighten us about the name and its meaning?
Actually I do not want to explain it beyond the obvious meaning(s) of the word GLORIA and it being a ladies name. Connect what you wish with title and music. I am sure it is better that way.
The cover of the new album is quite mysterious too. Those of artistic background may recognize the red turban from Jan Van Eych's painting, but can you please explain the idea behind it?
We have been working with a designer on the visual appearance for GLORIA for a long time. I believe, cover and booklet are in the combination designed very clever and brilliant in their understatement which suits the record perfectly. We decided very early to use iconography for the record instead of a bunch of layered and blended nothing saying pictures. GLORIA is a record with a lot of edges and sharp corners and that needed to be brought across in the cover, too.
Your debut album, Back To Times of Splendor, was described by the band as a grandiose journey between landscapes and emotions. How would you describe the new album?
I believe first of all that the record is completely indescribable with genres and styles. There is so much blended, thrown together and twisted and rebuilt again. GLORIA is most of all a highly modern record far beyond the boundaries of metal. The 11 songs on the record are an event, highly modern and truly deserving to be released in 2006. Fresh, unused, maybe never heard before. Combinations of things feelings and sound, not necessarily styles, that most would think could not be brought together. GLORIA is a grooving monster and yet an experimental hell, demanding you but giving a lot in return. GLORIA is an urban record, pulsating, rough, with edges and sharp twists all along – a stampede, a pop hit collection, a theme park, a disco sampler, a bulldozer, a whiskey, a fist in your stomach and the pill to soothe the pain. Maybe it is a soundtrack to a David Lynch movie, maybe not.
Of course there is the question why we did not do BTTOS Pt2 and therewith go the easy way. Well, as I said before, BTTOS was finished. It had an end. The song was sung, the story told. A moment that is gone should be cherished but not imprisoned. We had done what we wanted to do on the record and knew very very soon, that the follow-up needed to be different. Question was which setting the music was to focus on. Since BTTOS was like a C.D. Friedrich painting, a journey through landscapes driven by a strong feeling of longing, we were thinking that the place and time we live in right now and here Leipzig 2006 would be a great start, because the city is who we are. GLORIA so became an urban record, with a strong feel of deterioration and cynicism, and on the other hand, eagerness, glory and will.
In the year and a half of work on the new album you seem to have progressed quite a bit. It sounds much different from BTTOS in many aspects. What lead to this sudden change? It's quite clear that there are some Industrial/Electronic influences in the new album. Where is it coming from?
I am not even sure whether it was a decision, or plain development. What I know, is that right after finishing BACK TO TIMES OF SPLENDOR we felt we had said pretty much everything we wanted to say about and for that specific feel and picture on BTTOS. The writing took almost 2 years and I still believe it is a fantastic cinematic record, very warm, warm and worn at heart, filled with longing and splendid landscapes. As I said, once it was finished, it was finished. We then wanted to focus on another aspect of the band, which came to be the place we live at here in East Germany. The new record was supposed to truly deserve the label 'released in 2006' which we thought had to go far beyond metal. That was the starting point. To adapt the sound of Disillusion to that was necessary to create the mood we wanted for GLORIA. Also we were simply having great fun playing and experimenting with loops and beats, noise walls and effects. I believe, one of the greatest things about GLORIA is how everything goes together – in the end you get 11 tracks – all different, but together they create GLORIA.
There is a lot of distortion and effects in the vocals, why is that?
Why not? Suddenly it was there. At some point we just could not and would not remove it, because it had grown to a very important part of the feel of the record.
Can you please tell a brief biography of the band? You exist since 1994, yet released a rather small amount of material, why is that?
Well, Disillusion is from Leipzig/Germany and there has been Disillusion for quite some time. Of course there have been changes in line-up. I was with the band from the very beginning back in school and have found two great companions in Barthel and Maluschka in the year 2000 after long search. Very soon we released a 4 track demo 'Three Neuron Kings' and a 2 track single 'The Porter' – both stirred up German underground scene very much right from the beginning. Musically it was most likely Thrash Melodic Metal with a strong tendency to what was later to be our first full length 'Back to Times of Splendor' (2004). In 2002 we signed to MetalBlade Records and 2006 will be the year of GLORIA, our second full length… Anyway, some things just take time.
I've read on your site that you scheduled over 15 shows for the near future, including several festivals. That's quite impressive, is that a tour for Gloria? Are you also planning to play some shows aboard?
No tour is set yet. But I am very hopeful that there is going to be a European tour in early 2007!!! Maybe more, I do not know yet. GLORIA is doing very well after sever weeks of release, so we'll see.
Back to 'Back To Times of Splendor', it was written mostly by you. Did this happen again with Gloria, or was the writing process more evenly shared?
No, though it was different. We teamed up with a film team (film-m.de) right at the beginning. That turned out to be collaboration in every sector, video, design and music. So, Gloria became a record where a lot of ideas melted.
And if we're at it, you also produced both of the albums. How do you think it affected the final products?
It became Disillusion.
Right now you're only three members in the band, and your music is quite complicated. How does that work (if at all) when playing live?
We definitely love to play live. Disillusion has always been fighting with the live sound though. Not so much because the material is complicated to play but it is a tremendous job for the soundman to be very sensible for the important parts you need to hear or the song is ruined. The material on GLORIA is fairly easy to play live actually, no comparison with BTTOS, where we felt we needed to be 10 people on stage to get everything across. Today it works very well, if the stage sound is balanced, too. Again, it is more the surroundings than the things we play. We are constantly working on that!
What else do you guys do beside Disillusion? Do you have any other musical projects, or maybe "normal" jobs?
No regular jobs, but jobbing – I run a recording studio where I do recordings for other bands, when I decide to.
What can the fans expect from Disillusion in the near future? After all the changes in your active years, can we even use the word "expect"?
Maybe it is the music and our eagerness to go the complete way without compromise every time we do a record that you can always expect of the band.
Finally, if you were asked to recommend to someone who has never heard your songs, which of your two albums would you pick as the one that holds the essence of Disillusion the best?
Both and all of the demos. I believe, as I said before, Disillusion always go the complete way to bring a record to an end. For all the records we did, we concentrated on something special, something that is part of us. So, all together would give the best impression.
