Yeah,that was the start of a difficult time and we bit offmore than we could chew. ‘Permanent Illusions’ was a very ambitious thing and only parts of it succeeded, to be honest. Thomas did write a story around some ideas I had. But the story wasn’t ready when the album came out. I think the problem was we were a bit too spaced out at the time. Nevertheless it has some great songs on it.‘Pandoras Calling’ became a stable live favourite for quite some time. And yes you are right, our ongoing fascination with mythological themes started there. A long silence followed between ‘Permanent Illusion’ in 2001 and the live album‘ACold Night’ in 2007. You said in an earlier interview that this period almost saw the band disappear. What were the difficulties and how did you overcome them? Just recently one guy calledme a Peter Murphy clone.He was the first! And surprisingly so.But you see people always need to compare you to other things. I couldn’t care less. ‘A Taste Of Decay’ saw the band expanding, and offered a more direct rock sound. Howdid this switch happen? After two albums which explored the dark wave sound in full, I just wanted to do something different. I always have been interested in changes and other perspectives. I’m not a conservative songwriter and I’m not interested in the status quo.I’m interested in progress.We wanted to be a rock band so we got a real drummer and became a ‘real’ band. The line-up changed completely.That album has a few fantastic songs on it, like ‘Nothing Stays Forever’which is sort of a quintessential Whisper InThe Shadowsong.The productionwasn’t verygood though. It was our first recording with a real drummer. It’s a very naïve record and somehow that might even be sort of its strength. The new versions we did for ‘Gilding The Lily’ from two of these tracks - ‘Nothing Stays Forever’ and ‘A Taste Of Decay’ - show the actual potential. I also have to point out we really became a band at this stage with Fork on bass and Martin‘Acid’Gutmann on keys,who is still in the band and who produced our last couple of records with me. The next album, ‘Permanent Illusions’ from 2001, is a further step forward. It offered a more psychedelic sound which earned you the title of‘goth floyd’, and a first taste of mythological references, in this case to the legend of Pandora.Youworkedwith theAustrianwriter Thomas Havlik for the concept, didn’t you? Howdid this collaborationwork? - 29 - ‘Permanent Illusions’ didn’t do well, neither with fans nor with the press. I was frustrated. Also, the band fell apart. There were private matters which were complicating things. The typical near 30 years of age crises. We also tried different directions. But nothing really worked.We recorded a whole album and tried to get our feet on the ground again. Parts of that album were released on the compilation release ‘Borrowed Nightmares And Forgotten Dreams’. Other parts remain unreleased to this very day. How did we overcome this phase? We finally found a direction which felt right. I began to have a clearer vision of what I wanted to do. And we also got a new record deal. Within a year or so everything fell into place again. The next big step must have been 2008,when you started a series of records around occult themes, a four-part cycle: ‘Into the Arms of Chaos’ in 2008, ‘The Eternal Arcane’ in 2010, ‘The Rites Of Passage’ in 2012 and ‘Beyond the Cycles of Time’ in 2014. Each album treats another alchemic state. In total, you have worked more than seven years on occult themes. The references to Austin Osman Spare and other occult writers are legion on these records. What inspired you in their work? I always was fascinated with Magick and Occult themes and I wanted to get that into the music. However, it all began with the movie The Fountain from director Darren Aronofsky. That movie changed a lot of things.Overnight,I dived deeper into the subjects of that movie. So, the changes for me were obvious. I learned about the usual subjects, Spare, Crowley, etc. and that influenced my lyrics and music. And it worked. We were back. A resurrection! We also became a five-piece around that time. With Lazy Schulz on Guitar our sound became way richer, especially live. When I had the idea of writing 4 albums with these themes, I knew that this would be a lot of work to stay focused and explore that path to the end.After that fourth ‘occult’ album it took a couple of years to actually write songs again because clearly all was said and done with that old direction. www.peek-a-boo-magazine.be
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