AHRAYEPH work ethic, which is something I find lacking, as I already mentioned.He was a hard taskmaster,but he demanded a lot from himself too.Prince's body of work is a master class in all these things and I knowhe was influenced bymany different genres of music. You'd never know it, but he did love bands like Kraftwerk and Joni Mitchell, and that's something I'd try to teach my students : don't be limited in your influences. I could be obvious and put stuff in there like Pink Floyd, Rush, Marillion and all those iconic 80's Goth/NewWave bands like The Sisters Of Mercy, The Cure, Siouxie, Joy Division etc. and of course they'd get those too, and a lot more, because there's so much good music out there, it's nigh on impossible to pick just a few bands, artists or songs. You should see my music collection : from Disco over Blues to Metal, Goth, Pop, Jazz Industrial,Ambient, Classical...The list is endless. But when it comes to understanding music and how to write it, I'd definitely start with Prince.And Toto.Unapologetically. When making music, do you demand a lot from yourself? I have the reputation of being a perfectionist and that is not undeserved. Although, as the years go on, and especially having spent twelve years in my studio almost exclusively, it gets easier to accomplish what I have in my head. But I do still suffer from performance anxiety when the 'record' button goes on. I can play a part flawlessly when I rehearse it, say, four times before committing to recording, but when I hit 'record', I get a bit uptight because my inner perfectionist is yelling'It has to be perfect now!',and while it does happen less than before, it makes me make one or two mistakes that I can't live with, so instead of cleaning those up - 'punching in' in professional terms - I just start from the top because I want to get the entire part right and will continue to redo the part until I achieve that. I guess I'm old school that way, as with computer recording, you don't really have to be perfect. But I take pride in my craft, so I don't like to 'cheat', even if punch ins have been an industry standard for decades, even before computer recording. The same applies to production : I'm unwilling to let go of songs until they sound just right. They don't have to be polished to death, just sound like I have it in my head and I won't stop until they do. That's the reason why I go back to old songs and re-record them, especially from the 'Samsara' days. It doesn't happen with the songs I've released over the past five years, because I finally got to a point where I can achieve my production goals easily. Your studio is called ‘Rose Creek’. Where did the name come from? Is there a special story behind it? It's a bit of a funny story, really, going back to the days of my second stint in Ancient Rites. When we were in preproduction for the'Rubicon'album,my bandmate and coguitar player Erik Sprooten used to come over from his home in Harderwijk, Holland on the weekends to rehearse my www.peek-a-boo-magazine.be - 20 - demo songs at my place and to teach me his. The part of town I live in is called 'Roosbeek',which in English translates as 'Rose Creek', something Erik always said when he arrived here : 'Back in Rose Creek'. It was a light bulb moment for me, because I liked how it sounded, so the name stuck. I since found out there are a few towns in Canada and the U.S. that are called Rose Creek, and it's also a town in the movie 'The Magnificent Seven'. Now that we are on the subject of movies again, 'Dark Century Bats' wants to make a biographical movie about your musical career. To give the movie the right mood they ask you to choose both the composer for the score, the director and the actor who portrays you.Who, oh who, will you choose? Score composer : the late, great Angelo Badalamenti. He's mostly famous for the Twin Peaks soundtracks,but I also love the album he did with Marianne Faithfull, 'A Secret Life'. It's one ofmy all time favorite albums andmany of the songs are based on Marianne's own life experiences, so I know Angelo could've translated mine perfectly as well. For the director... Perhaps Alex Proyas, who directed The Crow. Or the aforementioned Francis Ford Coppola, because I love the Godfather movies and he knows how to give a character the proper gravitas. Without taking anything away from his stellar performance,Michael Corleone wasn't just Al Pacino's merit. Actor... That's a tough one. I think, if he were still able to, I would go for Val Kilmer.Obviously not for his looks, he'd have to tone those down considerably to look like me,but he did a great Jim Morrison and a stellar Doc Holliday in Tombstone, so I feel he would be able to get into my head and not just play a shallow one dimensional derivation of who I am. A little birdie, a 5 feet Pteropus to be precise, told me you are working on a new album. Is there anything you already like to tell us about that? The only thing I can say about it right now, is that it will probably be the last release for a while.As I've mentioned before, I spent twelve years almost exclusively in my studio, save for one or two gigs.With the catalogue of music I have right now, I could play two and a half hour sets and still have songs left to switch things up and not play the same set night after night.As much as I love writing and recording,I've missed playing live, so my future focus will be on trying to get a band together and booking gigs. Of course, I can't just switch off my creative brain, so I'm sure I will keep writing songs in the mean time. It's just that I might not release them at the same frequency as I do now, depending on how well the resurrection of Ahráyeph as a live band goes. It may be a year or more before I release newmusic, if all goes well on the live front, that is. Hayley CLX https://www.facebook.com/ahrayephofficial
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