INTERVIEW WITH THE VOW reply Goetz Holger (italian version)
by Massimo Salari

Would you like to introduce your project to our readers? Who are The Vow? Which was your musical evolution?
Originally THE VOW started as a studio project, founded by Ralf and myself at the end of 1998. Recently THE VOW developped into a classical 5-men-band.

Why have you decided to play prog music?
Because this is the kind of music that has had most influence on us.

In my opinion you did the best with the long suites, do you feel the same?
We also like the long tracks most as you can take the listener onto a musical journey with them very easily. Maybe it is also due to the fact that we ourselves are fans of the long tracks, too, as for example Genesis´ Supper´s Ready!

You’ve decided to selfproduce the last album after two made under Musea, why? Did you’re not happy with Musea?
Up to now all our CD´s were selfproduced. Musea has only been responsible for the CD distribution.

How hard it was to selfproduce an album?
It is always difficult to produce an album as continuously new equipment is used and regarding sound we are always trying to make a step forward.

So far do you are happy about the decision to selfproduce yourself?
Yes, because the advantage is to have the time to experiment with various sounds.

Do you think that Internet is helping the artists to produce themselves?
Thanks to the numerous worldwide visits and downloads on our homepage, we see ourselves confirmed in our work and this is extremely motivating.

What are you doing to promote your new album?
Contacts to magazines, interviews with…..you ?, internet and playing live on stage in the near future.

Can you give us a song by song description of “Devil In Disguise”, please?
Please look at www.thevow.de/devil.htm

Why did you put at the end of the album a song linked to the previous album Trojan?
Because we ourselves are big fans of fantasy stories and are absolutely convinced of our CD Trojan. Unfortunately some reviewers did not like the Trojan story very much.

Which are the main differencies between your three albums?
Hm? Difficult question. Actually there are no differences for us between our three albums, beside the fact that we are continually developping ourselves.

Which are in general your favoured subjects for the lyrics?
Except for Trojan usually everyday incidents and own experiences are digested in our lyrics.

In the new album I’ve found some more new prog influnences like Clive Nolan, Flower Kings and some Pink Floyd also, am I wrong?
That´s just our style and happens only unconsciously. At the beginning even Marillion was compared to Genesis and today new prog bands are likely to compared also to Marillion. That will always likely to be the case.

There is a song that represent you best and why?
Trojan add-on. THE VOW is too complexe to represent themselves in three minutes.

Seventies Prog, New Prog in the eightes and now a new prog revival, what is still interesting in this music style and what is not?
Because we grew up with prog rock music and because this kind of music is simply timeless.

In Germany there is an important prog scene (to name but a few: Amon Duul, Ramses, Nektar, Kraan, Neuschwanstein, Chandelier, Mad Puppet, Rousseau, Tibet, Abacus, Eloy, Anyone’s Daughter…), there is something that you like?
RPWL.

How much important are for you the live exibitions and what do you do on the stage?
Very important! That will just show the near future…

If you have to play with another band, which one would you prefer and why?
Marillion, because we are fans of Marillion, because their style will match ours best, but unfortunately this will likely to last a dream!?

Which was your most weird experience?
In our previous band our bass player, completely dressed in black, was standing on stage with "open fly" so that everybody had a good view on his white underpants. All of us had to laugh and nearly lost the control over our instruments and finally had to stop playing the song when the "black neon light" went on (the audience also liked this incident! ?).

And the most bad one?
Some songs later the same person, leaning on the bass amp, fell asleep during a longer song interval! (that was also a great success!).

Why female musicians are very few in the progressive music, in you opinion (i remember Lana Lane and very few others)?
We do not know any women in the prog scene at all. Lana Lane is a good singer, however, but not really progressive, is she?

In these days we are discussing about the difficulty to realise the European Union, why does it seem so difficult to realise this project in your opinion?
Of course, such a big and important project in which so many countries, different opinions and views are involved can not be realised overnight.

If you have to choose a colour for The Vow…
Black, because you can´t do wrong by wearing black clothes on stage (provided that your "fly" is not open ?!)

Which are your future projects, are you writing new material and which are the subjects?
The song writing for the 4th CD is already in progress but our first aim are the coming live performances.

To end this interview, a salute and an invite to buy “Devil In Disguise”…
Just visit our homepage www.thevow.de. There you will find a "Devil In Disguise" preview and complete songs for free downloads. Accompany us on our musical journey.

MS

Reviews (in italian): Another World; Devil in Disguise

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