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Interview with Pierre-Emmanuel Pélisson - Heavenly
After Heavenly's live show at The Underworld in London on February 13th (Read review), we found ourselves riding through the subway back to Heavenly's hotel, where we got a little chat with Bass player Pierre-Emmanuel Pélisson.
Interviewers: Nina & Steen
Steen: First congratulations on the new album. I really enjoy it and see it as a big step forward in comparison with the first two. The songwriting seems more focused and the songs are more varied.
Pierre: That is really something we wanted to do because when we were ready to do the third album after the last tour we listened to the first two albums and we saw that there was not variety in the songs. It was pretty much double bass drums all the time. All fast songs. We also wanted to have a different atmosphere for this album, because the first two albums were really more on the happy side. We wanted to have something darker but still have the usual elements that we had on the first two albums, the orchestration and stuff. Basically we tried to make a lot of variety, to have something heavier and on the other side to add something symphonic to have some kind of contrast.
Steen: Did you decide on the concept before you started writing the songs or did that happen later?
Pierre: We wanted to do a concept album and we began to write the songs and yeah, pretty early on we had the concept. So of course it was interesting to work with getting the lyrics to fit the music and the music fit the lyrics. We tried to match the two together, so for example if the lyrics were more aggressive then we have more aggressive music. It was really different from the other two albums where you have just normal songs. You have to be more focused on what you can do.
Steen: When I first read about the concept I thought that it wouldn't fit your music because you're usually known for this happy kind of vibe.
Pierre: It was a challenge because we definitely couldn't do something like we did on the first two albums, so we had to do something heavier. That is also something we wanted to do even before we had the concept, but everything came together like that.
Steen: So why did you decide to base it on vampires?
Pierre: Ben had the idea. I don't know how, but we said yeah good idea.
Nina: The album was also delayed several times due to some technical problems. Can you go into detail about what happened.
Pierre: Yeah, we finished the last European tour in December 2001 and so we decided to write songs but it took a little longer then we expected, because the album got pretty long. It's not really something we wanted to do, a 70 minutes album, but we just kept on working on songs and somehow... So it took us a long time to write and we were also supposed to begin the recording in December 2002 and we were shooting for a release in March 2003. The problem we had was that we were supposed to work with another producer, but somehow at the last minute it fell through. It delayed things and finally we were able to start the recording in February or March last year and we were supposed to finish the mix in May, but we had a lot of technical problems in the studio so at the end we had to delay the mix and the guy who was doing the mix had a really heavy schedule and couldn't do it till september, so that's why. It's not something we wanted, because having a two year period between albums when you're a young band is not really good. The conditions were like that.
Steen: I was looking at the cover of the new album and I noticed there is this McDonalds sign on the cover. Do you have a weakness for McDonalds food or something? And why McDonalds? What happened to Burger King?
Pierre: (Laughs) Actually I like Burger King better than McDonalds but it was not our idea. We had the basic idea for the cover and the artist did the McDonalds, but we thought it was funny. The cover of course links to the story. We have on the left side an old town because the story begins in the middle ages and on the right side you have the modern town with McDonalds, which is like the big symbol of the modern town. Because the story happens throughtout the centuries an finishes there, so that's why. But in other words, we didn't have the idea.
Steen: Has the songwriting and recording process changed since the first albums?
Pierre: For the first album like it is for every band, the songs were written within a long period, because it was the beginning. I joined the band for the first tour we did with Stratovarius. We did the tour and right after we went into the studio. So of course the songs were written already but we could bring any ideas we had. For the new album it was pretty much the same. Ben has the basic ideas and we brought our own ideas as well. It was more of a band work this time. We also have had the same line up now for more than two years. On the second album Charley, the second lead guitar player was not there, it was the same guys who were there for the tour. So this time we had time to go together and work together as a band which was not the case for the first two albums.
Nina: How do you feel about being compared to Helloween and what do you have to say to people who accuse you of being just a clone of Helloween?
Pierre: It was probably a bit true on the first two albums. We were young, well we're still young, but we were younger, and of course we are big fans of Helloween, but I think this time it sounds less Helloween. Of course there is still a basic influence, but I mean when you are within this style of music, every band is related somehow. So yeah you can still draw parallels with Helloween but not that much I think.
Nina: You've found your own style...
Yeah more, I mean it is not really this yet, but we are starting to have our own sound.
Steen: Can we expect you to go even heavier or more symphonic? Do you have any idea what direction you are going to take next.
Pierre: Probably heavier I think. But still melodic.
Steen: If you had only to define Heavenly what would that be.
Erm... Great! (laughs) Ah, really one word? No... I'd say Metal instead.
Nina: Why did you decide to divide the album into three parts and do you think there is a big difference in atmosphere between the parts?
Pierre: A little bit yeah. Actually it is more a way to tell the story because each chapter is a bit different. The first chapter is the beginning of the story, so it is the basic vampire atory. The second chapter is more... The vampire lives throughout the centuries and so has time to witness the human evolution, so it's more like a reflection of today's problems like pollution, hunger and poverty. It's a bit different and a way to get away from the basic vampire stories, so that's why we decided on the second chapter. The third then goes back to the vampire story. But the atmosphere of the songs. Maybe the first chapter and the third chapter are heavier and the middle chapter is more melodic. More like we used to do on the first two albums.
Steen: On you first three albums you have had a different logo each time. Have you decided on this one as the final one or are we going to see a new logo on the next album?
Pierre: We change every time because basically we are not satisfied. We like this new logo, so probably we will keep it. But you never know. We may set our minds differently. It would be cool to keep it, because most of the time it is a trademark of the band.
Steen: When did you know that you wanted to become a musician?
Pierre: Actually i started to play guitar when I was pretty young, I was around 7 or 8. I started to listen to heavy metal and tried to start bands and stuff, but I live in a pretty small city in France, so it was difficult. Especially in the nineties because our music was basically dead in France in the nineties. We couldn't find people and everybody wanted to play Nirvana or Rage against the machine. So it was pretty hard, but actually before I joined Heavenly I kind of saw that I didn't have any chance to "make it". We didn't really make it but we were doing something. I never saw that we could record an album and do a tour, so it was really great to be part of Heavenly.
Steen: Are you able to live of music or do you have work besides.
Pierre: None of us have a proper job, we have temnporary jobs all the time. It is difficult because you can't have a normal job and say "Ok, I'm off for two months to tour". So it's the bad side of the music business, but we see that we have to do that to be able to go and tour and play concerts.
Steen: What's the next step for Heavenly then?
Pierre: We are going to play the Sweden Rock Festival and we hope to go on tour with W.A.S.P.
Nina: That would be cool.
Pierre: And I if we do the tour we will play in Denmark.
Steen: Cool. About your website: It got a new design recently but a lot of the pages say "Coming soon".
Pierre: Well, because of all the work we are a bit lazy and a bit late. (laughs) But we are working on it.
Steen: If you have anything you want to say that we didn't ask you, now is the time.
Pierre: Well, I want to say that I like Denmark very much and for two weeks we worked with Tommy Hansen in Horsens. We love Denmark so if we will tour with W.A.S.P. we will play our first concert there.
Also check out our website at www.heavenlymetal.net and leave a message.
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Written by Steen - 3/7/2004 |
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RevelationZ Comments
| Comment by Emmanuel (Anonymous) - Sunday, November 12, 2006 | Heavenly a sido unos de los grupos mas grandes de la historia del Power Metal
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