VISION DIVINE

mailer  by Salvo "Lovedeath" Russo ___    

20.01.2006

organized by Scarlet Records  and gryphonmetal

THIS IS MY WAY OF MAKING HEAVY METAL

 Hy Olaf! It’s a great pleasure to interview you again!!! Olaf…your personal opinion about the new V.D. album…..

  Hi Salvo and many thanks for everything, even the great review we got from your site! What could I say about our latest album that couldn’t sound predictable?

Of course I love our last album, and I really consider it as our most mature release ever.

We found a perfect balance between all our influences, and this album sounds so “full” of all this. Also, it’s probably the most difficult album we wrote to be played on stage, and this is a very interesting challenge to us, ahah!

You can’t but admit that Michele Luppi’s presence has given a great and important value to this band…but, in my opinion, he  influenced the compositions in a away that sometimes they seem melodic hard-rock oriented …is it true?

  Of course I agree with you. Michele has been very important to us, thanks to his great voice and also thanks to the fact that he quickly became a real member of this band.

Again, TPM is surely the album in which he had the chance to express himself at his top and freely, so definitely this is the one in which he found more comfortable.

About the influences and all the rest, I already told you that this is the album in which we really found the way to mix all our different influences at the same time, and surely this is the strongest point of this cd. We have been always looking for an improvement, and our 4 albums are there to show that Vision Divine are always looking ahead, trying to change a little bit, album by album.

 The latest two albums represent a new era for this band…In particular I notice a great production that gives value to the essence, to the music...How much time has been spent in the studio-recording for the sessions of “The perfect Machine”?

  We spent a couple of months in total, but I think we could say that the real recording session lasted about a month. All the rest has been time spent to look for the proper sound to give to this album.

About our 2 latest albums, I also think that one of the main reasons why people see them as our “new era” is due to the line up changes and at the same time the fact that I finally left Labyrinth and focused just on VD. This reason alone would be a good reason why from then and on, our music has started to change so dramatically, of course also thanks to the new members that joined us.

  Are you satisfied of the Italian audience?...or you think that Italian audience is not so interested to Italian bands…my personal impression is that Italian bands are more appreciated abroad…do you agree?

  Personally I can’t be anything but happy. Our name has grown year by year, and honestly Vision Divine have been always an important band here. Now, after 4 albums and a live Dvd, we are in a wonderful position, and without using any embarrassing comparison, I can say that we are one of the most loved bands here, even more than other stranger and bigger bands.

By the way, you are right when you say that Italians are not used to love Italian bands that much, there’s a strange behave that make fans always love strangers much more that Italian bands.

  It’s strange but in my opinion both V.-D. albums and Labyrinth get a great melodic approach that seem to belong to the typical Italian tradition…Italian bands are able to create amazing melodies…how much does pop-music, or in general our melodic tradition, influence the compositions for a power-metal band?

  Why you think it’s strange?

I think that this is peculiar from these bands, and this is what makes them different from others. I don’t know if this comes from Pop, but I don’t think so. I believe melody is something we have as an instinct, as personally I never think “ ok I’m gonna make this sound more melodic”. It just come out as it is. This my way of making Heavy Metal, and thanks God is different from other German of Scandinavian bands. I don’t mean it’s better, I just mean it’s different!

  What does Timo Tolkki (producer) think about this album? …How is your relationship with him and how was it born?

  I had the chance to meet Timo during some festival along the year, and once, in Paris, we were even staying in the same Hotel.

Of course I never had the chance to really get close to him, but you know, when you meet someone many times and you know he’s a musician, it becomes easier then to get in touch and discuss about music.

Simply I offered him to produce our new album, and I have been surprised to have his reply where he told me that he would have been enthusiastic to work with Vision Divine, which is a band he knows and like a lot.

Timo loved this album and he believed for first that we would have done great.

Now we are good friends, and I am used to talk with him every now and then, not only about music.

   The lyrics and the concept…can you explain to our readers what is the theme of this album?

  In this album I tell the story of human kind in a close future, when a scientist will finally discover the way to become immortal thanks to the progress of genetic and science.

From here on I move to explore how the human kind would change thanks to such an incredible discover, and I believer we would find it not so completely good as we might think.

We are not made for eternity, and our life and our perception of it would change too much.

In this concept man reaches the point to feel there’s no need for a God nor anything else, as man is the perfect machine, but this will bring humanity to a black hole, were there are no feelings and no needs anymore, a sort of oblivion from which it will be hard to get out so easily…

I won’t close the story, but there will be the need of God again to help us.

Of course the God I am talking about is not a God in the way of the white metal bands.

I never preach people like “ you have to believe in God”. The God I use can easily be seen as an allegory of our inner conscience, so that even who’s an atheist could follow my concept and find it interesting.

   Which are the band you’re listening to nowadays? What’s the future for prog-power metal (in your opinion)?

  I don’t know anything about the future. Personally I never write music thinking I am realizing a prog power album or anything like that.

I just play the music I like the way I like . I don’t listen to prog power that much honestly ,and the bands I listen to these days are not coming from that kind of music.

I listen to a lot of music of course as I also need to understand what other bands are doing nowadays, but when I really put my favourite cd in my player, then I listen to bands like A-ha, Yes, Queen and many others that have not that much to share with the music I play with my band.

   A great idea “Stage of Consciousness”…will there be another dvd for this new album?...please  tell us also something about the new tournèe….where will you go?

  I don’t think there will be another Dvd that soon. I don’t’ think it’s so good to make a dvd every year, so it’s better to wait some more time and maybe some more albums.

This dvd wanted to present the new band to all those who couldn’t have the chance to see us on stage. We reached this target, and now it’s time to go back to normal studio albums and of course a lot of shows!

So far we are preparing the new tour, which should bring us first in Italy of course, then South America, Usa, Japan and hopefully Europe, where we are still in contact for a couple of offers that I can’t confirm you now, regarding some possible tour.

Of course, you can be updated perfectly just by visiting our website www.visiondivine.com which is constantly updated with any new regarding us.

Olaf..you’re a talented artist, a great composer…which is (till now) the song you’ve composed that is more representative about  yourself?

  Wow, many thanks for your words!

I cannot choose between my songs, as they are all born in relation with a particular moment of my life, a particular mood or something, which makes some of them too different to me.

Sometimes I love a song just because of the lyrics I wrote and that still remind me of a special period just by reading them

Other times I just love a song for the nice riff I got out from my mind…

It’s too difficult man,  don’t ask me!

 A question about your solo-project…Will it follow the same Vision Divine style or it’s something different?

  No, it will be totally different. A mix between the thrash of the bay area ( Anthrax, Forbidden etc etc), and something more technical in the style of great bands like Atheist and Watchtower… It will be a surprise for sure, at least !

 Last question: typical gryphonmetal, The Game. The bands we interview for the second time have to “enjoy” the Game of the Emptiness! Imagine you must go on travel for 15 days, and the only thing you can put into your baggage (concerning music) is a mp3 player of 128mb....so imagine this mp3 player empty: which albums you'd rip to put them into the memory?

  That’s another difficult question.

I think at the end I would choose a compilation of songs from mine, and then another one from  Queen and A-ha .

 Thanx Olaf for your time!!!!

You are welcome bye!

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