| INTERVIEW
WITH RPWL (italian version) Reply by Yogi by Massimo Salari Wow, I’ve liked a lot “World Through My Eyes”, I’ve found an artistic progression in respect to “Stock”, can you tell me more about your feelings? Stock was only a compilation of previously unreleased material. In my opinion WTME is a consequence of "Trying to kiss the sun". I like STOCK because we enjoyed the studio work and recording the album in surround was an important step for the band but the lyrical main theme, which is so significant for an RPWL-album, was missing. Now we came closer to the heart of the songs! We´ve been already very close in songs like "Waiting for a Smile" or "Side by Side", songs full of emotions that where very important for me at this time. All that we have done up to now is somehow leading to what we did on this album! How much weight have had the Lang’s interest in indian mythology and religion over the new album? The loss of spirituality in the thinking of our western society is something that has been on my mind for quite some time. It´s very helpful to open your eyes and to have a look at other civilizations: the values of living, morals, history... all these things are very important for our mental and spiritual beeing...The indian mythology delievers wonderful pictures about values and moral... A new line up change, can you tell us more about, please? Does it has changed something in your sound? Not really because Andreas Wernthaler was only a live keyboard player. But RPWL grew together during the concerts we played to the "GOD HAS FAILED" and "TRYING TO KISS THE SUN" tour, and so we decided to complete the band with a fifth member. After Andreas got married he decided to leave the band after the stock tour.But somehow it inspired me to feel more as a keyboard player than I did the albums before. I was impressed by the crescendos like the one in “Lights”, how it is born this song? 3 Lights was the first song we did! Chris Postl came up with this nice chord progression on the akkustic guitar. The song is about a feeling I had when trying to run away as a kid one day; I was about 16 years old and instead of going to school I just walked around the city till I ended up at the train station and took a train to my grandmother! The first thing you see when the train arrives are 3 lights in the distance coming closer. So last year, when I took the last train to my hometown after a long day of work, the feeling came again. But this time the train picked me up to take me home. I remembered the chord progression , and so the song was playing in my mind! We tried to record the song as it was a travel through the emotions I had... it´s an amazing song... In “Everything Was Not Enough” we can found some Beatles influences, there will be in future another band as influent as they were? Hm, it´s always hard to say what kind of music influences you while you are doing an album. Your emotions are wide opened and you try to let it come out, whatever it is... I’ve found also some referencies from “The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway” (the same for the new album Octane by Spock’s Beard), why this album is so important after so many years? I have never heard an album of Spock´s Beard, but exspecially "The Lamb lies Down..." is an album that is based on lyrics and the music is dependend on the story! This is an aspect of the music that was very important for us, too. And I like old keyboards: a long time ago I got a sample of an old RMI electric piano, that inspired me to ad this appegio to the wonderful chords of the middle part. Everybody knows that you love Pink Floyd and seem that you prefer the seventies period of this band, what do you think about the albums made after “The Wall”? The music had been devided in two pieces: the fabolous lyrics of Roger Waters and the wonderful music of David Gilmour. So Pink Floyd is all what was before "The Wall".It´s a different Story with Roger Waters and Gilmours "Pink Floyd". In “Start The Fire” seem to ear something about Porcupine Tree (which were heavily influenced by Pink Floyd too), do yu know this band? I heard a lot about Porcupine Tree but never heard a cut of them. How is born your collaboration with Ray Wilson, why did you choose him? Ray has a wonderful voice. "ROSES" deals with the fact that if you´re reaching another state of mind, you´ll be alone, nothing will be the same, your friends may won´t be your friends anymore. This feeling of lonelyness is perfectly represented by Ray´s voice. “Day On My Pillow” is wonderful, it sarts with a modern vibe, than reminds to old seventies songs in his solos, is this the way that must be pursuit by new prog artists? Thank you very much! I am glad you like it. We always liked to have wide variety of elements in our song arrangements. “World Through My Eyes”, can you tell us more about your vision of the world, does the human race is really so selfdestroying? No, I don´t think so. THe human race lost control over the most dangerous thing in the world: the money. Money replaced our religion, replaced our ability to act and think natural. Look what money did to the western religions; money is the main reason for everything we do; it's even responsible that we are having wars. There is no alternative, money makes the world go around....But if you really open your eyes, you see a world in all its grace. It´s a great gift to be alive and I don´t think that the higher reason of living is to earn money. It´s a shame that up to the 21th century we learned to destroy a world that we still cannot feed. With your music do you want to: let the listener escape from reality or think about reality? That is definetly the point! The reality is in the eye of the beholder. And the world you see is the result of what you learned so far. If you learn to listen to your inner feelings you are able to see more of the world. Maybe if you listen to the tracks, you can deal with my thoughts and maybe find parrallels or disagreements; you know, I don´t want to talk about the objective reallity. I´m only talking about my world and how I see the world through my eyes... What are you preparing for the next tour, can you give us some anticipations? Mainly we´re going to present WTME! But I´m sure there will be some surprises...! We´ll see. Will you come in Italy this time? Not all tour-dates are confirmed... but we would love to come to Italy! Till today which is the country that gave to you the best audience? That´s hard to say! I think that our gigs in poland are amazing, but playing in belgium is like coming home, playing in the states was great , so was spain, of course germany, and france was so great, too .. so you see, we love to play everywhere.. RPWL is still a live band... Are you making a new dvd? We had enough work with the super audio cd format (SACD). We recorded, mixed and mastered in highest quality. But we are planning to record the next tour anyway... so, maybe it´s a good idea.... Wallner solos are very touching ones, have you ever thinked about lengthen them or do you think that they are long enough for your sound? That´s the difference to performing live. There is more room for improvisation. On the album we always have to work in the favour of the song and its needs... How are you considered by the german audience? The same as by any other audience. We love being on the road and meeting our fans no matter where it leads us.We feel very blessed to have such a great following in so many different countries. Looking at the cover art we may think at the hippy movement… or there is a different message inside it? The message is that the world we live in is multicoloured. Our planet is a great gift given to us; it´s something divine and it surrounds us. The great gift for us is beeing part of it.. this is something we should be aware of.... Thankyou for this interview, would you still like to say something to end it? We love all our fans that stood with us through the years. We hope to come to Italy this year! It would be a great honour for us... MS Diskography: God Has Failed (2000) Trying to Kiss the Sun (2002) Stock (2003) World Through My Eyes (2005) Start the Fire (2005 live) The RPWL Experience (2008) Interviews: 2003 Reviews (in italian): God Has Failed; Trying to Kiss the Sun; Stock; World Through My Eyes; Start the Fire; The RPWL Experience; Live Experience; A Show Beyond Man and Time Web Site |
