VANDENPLAS
The German band VANDENPLAS has been releasing albums for quite some years now, and gained some success. Their latest CD 'Beyond daylight' is their best release so far. This is a fantastic album that mixes all kinds of styles, making it interesting for both fans of Progressive Rock/Metal and AOR//Melodic Hardrock fans. I had an interview with the band...
Did any of the VANDENPLAS members do something musically before forming the band?
The Band
Vanden Plas developed out of a german group called Exodus 18
years ago. I found it with Andy L. who was still in the band.
3years later Stephan joined us. I had a German Punkrockpop band
in these days called Rock Zock singing in german slang. Thorsten
played drums in a death core metal band called Odious.Günter
played piano at "duo frohsinn"
Could you
tell me more about the beginning of the band?
in these
days we really had no idea about the dimensions of the business .
we practised 3 times per week and if we had good luck , we played
once in a month for less money in small ugly clubs
Your debut
CD is going to be re-released, can you tell me more about it?
Itīs
gonna be re-released with great old photomaterial out of these
early days in 93 to 97 We reissue it with the "accult"
in one package.
How did
you get in touch with Inside Out Music?
Fortunately
we met them at the popkomm in cologne and we had canceled before
our deal with dreamcircle.
They were very interested in these days and we are still glad
that weīve signed with these guys.
You just released your finest album (my opinion), the fantastic 'Beyond daylight', can you tell me all about the included songs (the stories (and I believe there is a concept)?
First of
all, you are right it turned out to be a concept in the end. When
it came for me to the point of this decission , that was pretty
hard cause i basicly donīt like concept cdīs. I find the most
are boring, pseudo intellectual and hard to realise when you play
live. Second, itīs much to early to tell about the story in
details.
I donīt want to tell the clue of a film before the fans could
see it. Yes thereīs a red line ,but you could only realize it
after listening the whole album. BD deals with 9 totally
different stories with a combination out of fictive
tales also inspired by historical or autobiographic material in
various times or even seperate worlds.
FX :death and the curse of the kennedy clan (end of all days), the source of inspirations for charles beaudelaire (scarlet flower fields) The fears to lose a intimate person forever. (the healing tree), is a hole in the universe combining the different worlds. You can meet them all there again. The total story is a puzzle with the last song"beyond daylight" which is the center of the album combining in the end everything.
On your
new album, we can hear a mixture of classy instrumental
progressive rock parts mixed with super melodic choruses (almost
AOR), which bands influenced you to come to such an amazing
sound?
You never know it exactly.Also this is maybe a strange combination out of very diverse tastes of each bandmember. I had my first big international heroes in (peter frampton,thin lizzy,van halen, magnum, sting, kansas, styx,genesis)
Looking
back, which album do you consider your best one?
I can not compare them.Everyone stands for a certain magic, time and emotions.
Can we
expect some side-projects from any of you in the near future or
are you gonna keep your heads together and focus on VANDENPLAS?
The main
goal in the next months is to work together with our management
on the realisation of the tour.
We focus on that and after weīre goin to realize again a few
other dreams.
One more
question, I always wondered how you got your bandname VANDENPLAS
(Dutch Perhaps?)
VP is the
name of a great car designer in the early 80īs (Jaguar,Rover
,etc.)
I didn't
knew that! Anyway, thanks for the interview, anything to add...
Thanks for the interview and maybe we meet each other on a concert in the netherlands during our tour.
