Vanishing
Point
Vanishing Point has recently
released a great melodic metal album with enchanting riffs that stick to
your mind! Well, actually like the band says "Embrace The Silence" might
have the longest duration in the history of metal music! Anyway Silvio
and Chris are here not only to break records, but also to explain in a
really nice and friendly way what's the deal with this great band! Enjoy!
1. HELLO! FIRST OF ALL I WOULD LIKE TO TELL
YOU THAT “EMBRACE THE SILENCE” IS A VERY BEAUTIFUL AND MATURE ALBUM. SO,
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT IT?
We feel very happy with the outcome... It
has been a long time and we are very content with the amount of effort
we have put into it... you are right it is a very mature album, I guess
because we have experienced a lot collectively in our lives and we try
do our best to show this through our music.
Thank you very much for the compliment Nikos
, we are very happy about it, actually this time we just really went with
what we felt and fortunately for us it came out true to what and where
we were at in that time.
2. IS THERE ANYTHING THAT YOU’D LIKE TO CORRECT
OR CHANGE?
I think we have changed enough! Hahaha we
did a lot of changing from what songs sounded like in rehersals to what
they sound like now. We even had to shorten songs due to not having enough
space to fit them all on the CD... I believe we have the longest running
metal CD in history.
3. SO FAR YOU HAVE RELEASED 3 ALBUMS, SO CAN YOU
TELL US WHICH ARE THE SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES BETWEEN YOUR NEW RELEASE
AND THE PREVIOUS 2?
I believe the differences would be in the
song writing, we have always felt the same way in writing our songs through
every CD but I would say as you mature as a person so does the music.
It was a time where we were growing as individuals
and as musicians, so there was so much happening at that time it was crazy,
yet we have always just written our music from the heart and given the
songs the best we could within our abilities.
4. DO YOU THINK THAT AS A BAND YOU HAVE ACHIEVED
TO CREATE A PERSONAL SOUND?
I feel we have achieved our own sound. All
of us in Vanishing Point have different personal tastes within our own
musical tastes. So we try to accommodate to everyones own style .
5. IN A SITE I READ THAT YOUR KEYBOARD PLAYER
DAN OLDING LEFT THE BAND IN MAY 2003. WHICH WERE THE REASONS THAT LED HIM
TO THIS DECISION?
Danny had his own reasons for leaving us.
I think he had to put personal things before music, I’m sure everyone can
respect that.
6. HIS DEPARTURE WAS A MISFORTUNE EVENT FOR THE
BAND?
It was sad to have him go, but he is still
a very good close personal friend of all of ours and we still see him on
a regular basis which is great!
7. DID HE HELP YOU IN ANYWAY, WITH YOUR NEW WORK?
No not really.
Unfortunately in a way Dan decided to leave
when we were just starting to settle down and take time to write the new
album so he isn’t there, yet as Silvio said, he always comes to visit and
we are still great friends with Dan.
8. NOW YOUR NEW KEYBOARD PLAYER IS LEONARD KOPILA.
SO CAN YOU TELL ME IF HE WILL BECOME A STABLE MEMBER OF THE BAND OR ARE
YOU STILL IN THE SEARCH?
It is great to have Leonard with us his musical
abilities are enormous and are a great contribution to our live show and
our recordings. We would love for Leonard to become a fulltime member.
Len is one of those guys who has such an open ear and knowledge in music
and we’ve learnt a lot from him because he comes from a theory background,
where the rest of us wouldn’t know what to do with a piece of music notation
on paper heh heh .
9. CAN YOU TELL US WHICH IS HIS BAND AND WHAT
KIND OF MUSIC THEY PLAY?
He has his own band called Manic Opera. They
play real progressive metal, melodic and greatly technical. Its truly great
work I have experienced it first hand as I have sung on a few songs of
his. Hopefully in the near future you will get the chance to hear it for
yourselves one day soon.
10. SO FAR YOU HAVE RELEASED YOUR 3 ALBUMS FROM
3 DIFFERENT LABELS. WHY DID THIS HAPPEN? IS IT PERHAPS POSSIBLE THAT YOU
ASK TOO MUCH FROM A LABEL OR DID THEY OFFER YOU TOO LITTLE?
We don’t ask for much at all! Maybe that was
the problem, I don’t know. But we have a great label we can finally call
home. You don’t get married to your first girlfriend until you find the
right woman you are compatible with. It’s the same with record labels I
believe. Hehehe actually I gotta agree with Silvio there, because we pretty
much had the same experience with our previous management, we did everything
and they did some things, but not without us paying our own money for it
heh heh...
11. IF I AM NOT MISTAKEN YOUR NEW ALBUM WAS READY,
BEFORE YOU SIGNED WITH DOCKYARD 1. WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO LET THEM RELEASE
IT UNDER THEIR NAME AND NOT SELL IT ON YOUR OWN?
We are musicians we are not a record label..
There are enough pressures writing music to the best of our abilities let
alone try to sell it our selves. We wanted to put the album into experienced
yet at the same time eager and fresh minded individuals who believe in
the music as much as we do, so the decision to go with Dockyard 1 was an
easy one, other than that, trying to write your own songs, run your won
label and somehow juggle your personal life is a bit much, one has to take
a little time out as well heh heh .
12. IN A FEW WORDS IN WHICH WAYS HAS YOUR NEW
LABEL HELPED YOU?
They are the people who are the professionals
in this line of work. When it comes to promoting the band and the
music and when it comes to finding reliable distributors all over the world,
Dockyard1 truly have this part of the business covered very well. I sleep
very well at night because of this. We couldn’t be happier.
13. YOU‘VE BEEN CHARACTERIZED BY YOUR LABEL AS
A PROGRESSIVE METAL BAND, A TERM WHICH I THINK DOESN’T DESCRIBE YOUR MUSIC
PERFECTLY. PERSONALLY, I THINK THAT YOU PLAY MELODIC POWER WITH SOME HARD
ROCK AND CLASSIC HEAVY METAL ELEMENTS. WHICH IS YOUR OPINION ABOUT IT?
You are pretty much on the money there, we
do incorporate some progressive elements in our music, yet we consider
ourselves a melodic metal band .We like a lot of different music and in
our writing we seem to naturally come up with some AOR moments as well,
so I don’t know any other way to describe our music other than being melodic.
14. SINCE THIS IS THE FIRST INTERVIEW WE DO, I
WOULD LIKE TO KNOW WHICH ARTISTS AND BANDS HAVE INFLUENCED YOU AND NAME
5 OF YOUR ALL TIME FAVORITE METAL ALBUMS…
I suppose that the first album that really
pretty much took us all over the edge would has to be “Operation Mindcrime”
by Queensryche, then it would have to be “Images and Words” by Dream Theater,
“1987” by Whitesnake, “Hysteria” by Def Leppard to a degree, “Master Of
Puppets” by Metallica and last but not least “The Number Of The Beast”
by Iron Maiden. It’s really hard to pin point just a few bands because
so much great music has been made and even within the band our tastes in
music are quite diverse, yet we seem to always meet in the middle, so I
suppose that’s a cool thing, otherwise if we all liked the same music we
would be bored somewhat heh heh .
15. I THINK ONE OTHER RISK YOU TAKE IS THE DURATION
OF YOUR NEW ALBUM, WHICH IS QUIET LONG. DID YOUR LABEL TELL YOU TO MAKE
YOUR COMPOSITIONS SHORTER BECAUSE THEY WERE AFRAID YOU MIGHT TIRE THE LISTENERS
OR THEY DIDN’T HAVE ANY INTERFERENCE AT ALL?
Actually , we didn’t have any interference
from our label at all, they are very understanding of the way that we work
and let us do what we want to a certain degree. I think that the duration
of the album was just something that happened naturally and we actually
did sit down and had a meeting about it as a band and tried to minimize
the songs as best as we could, in fact I think a couple of the songs were
a little shortened. We really felt that we wanted to give the listener
and our fans something for their money for the years that they have been
patient with us and for their support. I don’t think that the next album
will be as long as “Embrace The Silence” heh heh, actually we know that
as a fact heh heh .
16. ANYWAY, I HAVE TO ADMIT THAT ALL THE SONGS
IN THE ALBUM ARE VERY INTERESTING AND DIDN’T TIRE ME AT ALL! HOW DID YOU
MANAGE TO DO THAT? DO YOU FOLLOW ANY SPECIFIC PROCEDURE WHEN YOU COMPOSE
MUSIC?
Thank you very much for the compliment, to
be honest with you we didn’t have a formula or any preconceived ideas,
all we wanted to do was make an album that reflected the time that we were
at and where we were as musicians, fortunately it has paid off and the
album ended up the way it did, because we never imagined it would have
sounded like it did in the end result and that to us was an accomplishment
because we just write songs together in a band environment. What you hear
on the album is similar to what you hear when we play live, apart from
the layers of keyboards and vocal harmonies, all the rest is easily played
live and thats because we wrote the songs by just jamming our new ideas
which eventually became songs and made it to the album. Within Vanishing
Point we are a bunch of opinionated bastards sometimes, so sometimes we
really have some heated practice sessions and that is because we all want
the songs to sound as good as they do, there is not one song on the album
that does not have a connection to us as people and as a band.
17. WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE LYRICS? WHICH ARE
YOUR SOURCES OF INSPIRATION? DO YOU BELIEVE THAT YOUR LYRICS ARE AS IMPORTANT
AS YOUR MUSIC?
Primarily it is Silvio, Joe , Tommy and I
(Chris) who are responsible for the lyrics, we each just go with the flow
and write what we feel and what best suits the song. Tommy recently started
writing lyrics and came up with two songs for the album which was really
cool of him because none of us expected that, yet it was cool to have something
come our from his mind space, which mind none of us still understands heh
heh, only kidding of course. Silvio and I seem to get together once in
a while to write some lyrics and it all comes down to sometimes Silvio
having a vocal melody and both of us writing words to it. There are some
songs where Joe has only written the words and there are some songs which
I only wrote the lyrics myself as well, yet at the same time, I can picture
what it would sound like because Silvio's voice is versatile and meaningful,
so for me to write songs that come from deep within are not a problem because
I know that it would be sung with an open heart , mind and plenty of conviction.
Our source of inspiration is pretty much life as we see it from day to
day, the positive, the negative, the joyous and the downwright ugly side
of reality as well, for us the words are a release and a cathartic process
in a way.
18. CAN YOU TELL US IN A FEW WORDS WHICH THE STORY
OF EACH SONG THAT YOU HAVE INCLUDED IN YOUR NEW ALBUM IS?
Sure, no problem! OK “Hollow” is all about
being let down to the point that you feel totally betrayed and feel the
need to seek some sort of retribution whether positive or negative, yet
realizing that if you keep yourself submerged in this state of loss then
you are not any better than what you actually feel hard done by in the
beginning, so in a way it is all about letting go and moving on to better
things and a better way of life. “Live To Live” is all about life in general
and how time is the enemy and how unforgiving it can be to the extent in
which you seem to think that you will never find peace within and somehow
in the process try to overcome whatever obstacles come your way. “My Virtue”
is all about not selling out and believing in who you are. “If Only I”
is all about missed opportunities and the thought of thinking in retrospect
if perhaps things were done differently to what outcome would they have
been and the need to shut out the world at times and just get away from
everything. “Embraced” is all about love and the feeling of being lucky
knowing that you have found someone who you feel as one with, pretty sucky
huh , heh heh. “Season Of Sundays” is about hope and the whole stupidity
of mankind fighting over differences and wasting what is most precious
of all and that is human life . I suppose it’s a dream of mine to perhaps
know that one day there may never be any of these conflicts and that a
utopian way of life could exist where everyone is at peace and living side
by side regardless of religion, colour or creed, but at the same time acknowledging
that a utopian society will perhaps never exist because mankind in a way
is reckless in some ways which are obscene. “Once A Believer” is about
betrayal and the disbelief that something or someone you believed in so
much could turn out to be the complete opposite and betray you, in some
ways it’s a “fuck you” kind of song from us to those who tried to overrun
us and keep us down, it’s a song for the downtrodden in some way and perhaps
they can find some solace in it. “Somebody Save Me” is all about wanting
to be content with life without having to experience lies and deceit, its
about wanting to keep your childhood innocence with you because its the
purest thing that you hold close to your heart. “As I Reflect” is about
positive changes in one's life and the want to take the melancholy you
felt so comfortable with along the next part of your journey through life
because it keeps you balanced and your feet firmly planted on the ground
, the song has a double edged meaning to it which meet at the same ending.
“Reason, A Life Less and Breathe” I can’t explain what they represent lyrically
because I didn’t write them, although I assume they are pretty much along
the same parallels as the lyrics that Silvio and I write.
19. IMAGINE THAT YOU HAVE A BIG BUDGET TO DO A
VIDEO-CLIP. WHICH SONG WOULD YOU CHOOSE AND WHY? IS THERE ANY SPECIFIC
DIRECTOR YOU’D LIKE TO COOPERATE WITH?
Geez , thats a tough question , I really don’t
know of many directors because I generally just like to watch a movie and
enjoy it for what it is worth heh heh, I'd like to have the director who
did Van Helsing or Brahm Stokers Dracula which had Gary Oldman in it direct
it, there was something about those movies with all their darkness that
I enjoyed.
20.DO YOU READ BOOKS? CAN YOU PROPOSE US ANY BOOK
THAT YOU READ RECENTLY AND YOU LIKED IT A LOT? (PLEASE DON’T MENTION LORD
OF THE RINGS ?)
I have recently read The DaVinci Code which
I found to be interesting, other than that I read about history, mainly
Eastern European history from where my background is originally whether
it is about Polish history, the Austro-Hungarian Empire or Vlad Tepes,
very thought provoking stuff heh heh I read a lot about current affairs
as well, as long as it is cutting edge and not of any political point of
view, I like to make my mind up for myself.
21. WHAT KIND OF REVIEWS HAVE YOU RECEIVED SO
FAR? IS THERE AN ELEMENT OF YOUR MUSIC THAT YOU BELIEVE THAT HAS BEEN PASSED
UNNOTICED FROM THE BIGGEST PART OF THE REVIEWERS?
Actually we have been very happy with the
reviews that we have received and to tell you the truth some people see
the album in an entirely different way from the others, yet it is cool
that people perceive the album as they do and without the need to label
it is this or that. We don’t really mind what people say about it, because
at the end of the day, some people will enjoy it, some will not, so it’s
just the way it goes, but with that being said every review barring a couple
where the people hadn’t even gotten off their asses to actually listen
to the album have been very positive, so we are happy with this heh heh
.
22. THANK YOU FOR THE INTERVIEW AND HOPE I DIDN’T
TIRE YOU! THE LAST WORDS ARE YOURS AND LEAVE A MESSAGE TO THE READERS OF
BEHIND THE VEIL WEBZINE…
Not at all! You didn’t tire us man heh heh,
actually we would like to thank you for your interest and support and for
taking the time to interview us, so two thumbs up to you and to the staff
of Behind The Veil Webzine. You guys are awesome!!!! And last but not least,
a big thank you to all our fans out there who have waited patiently for
the album and have been there for us through the hard times, we are sincerely
grateful to your never ending support.
Nick “William_Kidd”
Parastatidis
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