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Interview with Yogi Lang - RPWL
They are a band that might be somewhat hard to categorize, being proggy, psychedelic, experimental, and ethereal, sort of like a cross between Pink Floyd, Radiohead, and even Threshold at times. At one point in time they actually were Floyd cover band, but they have since evolved way, and I mean, way beyond that to really converge into their own identity.
Last April, at a festival that took place outside of Philadelphia, I had the honor of meeting and interviewing RPWL. Now, less than a year later, I have had the same pleasure of speaking with frontman Yogi Lang, right in the middle of the anticipation of their forthcoming release, World Through My Eyes, which is undoubtedly their most ambitious work to date.
With their fourth record hitting the racks in February 2005, a lot has changed since that cloudy April Sunday; at that point, the recording process had not even begun, the main plans at the time were to put this album out as an SACD (high resolution and multi-channel CD) and possibly play more dates in the United States, there was really no talk about what this record would sound like, except that it was to possibly be a return to the same vibe that Trying to Kiss the Sun provided.
Inevitably, even through some ideas might have been intact, the band started from the ground up on this record, this would not be like Stock, which was a record of material from the vaults, as Lang explains, "We started really new, really, without anything in the beginning, unlike Stock. This was something that was really cool for us, because we started with a very clear mind and stared discussing what we wanted to write about, we discuss it a lot and the music came very naturally and so it developed differently."
Unfortunately that development would go on without a band member. Right before the production of the record began, keyboardist Andreas Wernthaler left the group to pursue interests with family endeavors, "He just married, it was clear, somehow, that he would not make music anymore in the future, so we decided to do the album as a four piece band, but we will have another keyboard player in the future. It is difficult for me, at times, to sing and play keyboards at the same time," says Lang.
Lang now elaborates on how the latest record is actually a "consequence" of Trying to Kiss the Sun returning to making records that mean something, have the same atmosphere throughout, and peresent a snapshot in time, unlike Stock, "of course I like Stock a lot," explains Lang, "I enjoyed being in the studio a lot, doing that record in surround was still an important step. World Through My Eyes is available as a Super Audio CD, we did a 5.1 mix as we did on Stock, but only with a new technique. The main thing in my opinion that is so significant about doing an RPWL "album" was looking at Stock, of course, because it was a compilation. So what we tried to do now is to come closer to the heart of the songs and we did this with Trying to Kiss the Sun. You hear songs like "Side by Side" or "Waiting for a Smile" that were filled with emotion and were very important to me at that time, the songs were very close to what I felt, where the music has to be "RPWL."
Now with the development of World Through My Eyes, when we talked about the subject, we discussed it, then looked deeper into it and the music just came natural to it. I think that this is the great effort and great development in World Through My Eyes coming out as a consequence to Trying to Kiss the Sun."
The album as Lang says, is not exactly a concept album, but yet it is centered around the theme of the "loss of spirituality," a subject that has been on his mind for a while, "the source World Through My Eyes is the subject (loss of spirituality)," elaborates Lang, "to me, a concept album has to be a straight story, which this record doesn't have. World Through My Eyes has a beginning in "thinking," and an ending in "thinking," but it is not a straight story, it is just songs about "the world through my eyes" and the thing is, I thought about writing a story, but the first thing that I don't want is to have to teach people, that is something I really hate (laughing). I don't want to be teached and I don't want to teach people, so it should have been something where you can do some think of how you can add to your world and thinking about how you can add to yourself. The thinking of this story, when you look at what the World Through My Eyes is about, a great story would only represent a story from my world and not represent a story from your world would be. I couldn't add to your thoughts something that has a value to you, so I preferred to think about it, and all these thoughts whether in dream of visions that have, it goes song by song to an end where some kind of conclusion is coming out of all the songs. It's more or less an album where all the songs are all about the same subject, so this isn't really a concept album."
Lang goes deeper into the meaning of the album, talking about how us as people and as a society has become corrupted by worldly "wants," "This is the thing that I though was the most dangerous thing in the world, money, and how you can see it in Germany, how money has somewhat replaced religion and our ability to act and think naturally," elaborates Lang, now turning to how the objective status of money has affected the music and being that now we all see how MTV and commercial radio has fed the mainstream music audience with pointless material that feeds to mostly pop culture "supposed hipsters," music that is there to bow down to the almighty dollar and not possess any meaning, but as we all know within our own scene of music whether it is metal, prog, jamband, collge-indie, or whatever, there is this calling that we always have for music that really has great importance in our lives, as Lang now explains, "even if you look at what money did out of music, I mean, I am happy to see that progressive rock is still developing again, or should I say that people are discovering the value of music again and I can see this in progressive rock, because people are coming to music that really touches them and progressive rock is one of these musical scenes where you can see it because there are more and more fans that are listening to this type of music. Again you see that people are now searching for the value of music because they are fed up with these three-minute pieces of little videos of big cars driving around and beautiful bodies singing in the rain, of course, it's pure entertainment, and that entertainment is there to make money, but if music is not the point, what's the purpose. MTV and all these music TV shows have become "lifestyle magazines" where you can see that the value of living is (based on) the more money you have, the more clothes you have, the more trademarks you have and this is the reason of World Through My Eyes to be so colorful because nature is so full of colors and grace, you don't need all this (material) stuff. What we all need is more spiritual development and development of yourself and not the development of money, which I don't think (money) is the reason for living. It's a great gift to be alive and money is not a higher reason of being on this earth."
Switching gears, the recording process ended up including a mixing session for 5.1 surround sound, when the idea of doing a high resolution SACD edition of the record was presented to their label, Inside Out, Lang admits that it took some convincing that it was the right format to go with, considering the great investment on the labels behalf, but it worked out. The SACD and surround mix was not the only highlight of the sessions, former Genesis frontman Ray Wilson made a guest appearance singing the song "Roses," and as Lang says, it was a great honor to work with the guy, "It was nice, because for the first time, I was standing in front of the speakers in the studio and thinking that I could add to the feeling of the song that I wanted to have," says Lang, "I remembered Ray singing on the Calling All Stations tour in Germany. When I saw this show, I was amazed by the wonderful voice of Ray, he has this amazing ability to transport emotions and that was the thing I always liked about his voice. I saw him at a show in Germany, and I gave him the song and asked him to please listen to it and explained to him that he might know the words and understand what I was singing about. The song deals with the fact that if you are reaching another state of mind, it could be that you are alone and that nothing will be the same and you friends wont be your friends anymore because you don't see them as your friends anymore. This feeling of loneliness is what Ray (Wilson) understood because I met him three days later and said that it was a wonderful piece of music and I want to sing it. Of course when it listened to it in the studio it was so amazing, he has a wonderful voice, I know that it had to be, he added exceptional feeling that the song needed, it's perfect."
Turning back the clock to last years ROSFest, I proceded to ask Yogi Lang on how that overall experience was, and he could not be any more enthusiastic, "It was a wonderful gig, its somehow a personal thing, that when you go to a place you are always nervous, but somehow you get a feeling if you are welcome or not. Going to the States was so great because we were really nervous, but it was such a warm welcome, and it was so perfectly organized, on stage and with the technicians," states an enthusiastic Lang, whose band played the show with quadraphonic (four channel surround) sound and a video projection screen behind them, "you could feel that the people were really listening to the music, and this is a thing that is not always the same all over the world. Listening to music is something you feel on stage and we felt that we shared this with the audience."
As far as seeing these guys live, you can expect to see these guys out on a European tour in March and April. At this point in time the band is considering doing a live DVD as well as releasing "Roses" as a single as Lang says, "there is a lot of work coming up for us at this point," and when it comes to seeing these guys in the States Lang says that it is a matter of expenses, "When you are thinking about instruments, not every festival is as perfectly organized as ROSFest, it's expensive to bring your equipment. We would like to present the full show with videos and do quad sound, and yes it is rather expensive to come to the states but we would love to come to the states again, and there is a possibility," says Lang.
Wrapping things up, as far as future plans go for Lang and Co., Lang says that the recording sessions for World Through My Eyes wielded lots of material that didn't make it on to the record, and although Stock is behind them, with all the material that came forth, there are a lot of ideas under the table at this point, "There were a lot of things musically, that were great," as Lang refers to the material, "but (the songs) didn't fit into this natural development into what would become The World Through My Eyes, a lot of individual material is there, so we still think about doing maybe kind of an individual album, but at this point, there is so much (other) work we will be involved with in the near future and we had ended up working on World Through My Eyes through most of 2004."
It is extremely great to see a real group of musicians making music on their own terms, and one listen to World Through My Eyes, you will understand why the prominence to making meaningful music is important. Undoubtedly, RPWL have moved way beyond their days as being a cover band, they are continuing to grow in the world of prog-rock, now simply known as a band in their own right. 2005 is unmistakably beginning on a great note with their latest record (among others), so until the next time.
On behalf of RevelationZ Magazine I thank Yogi Lang for taking out the time to speak with me.
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Written by Hashman - 1/17/2005 |
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