ANATHEMA
Hmm…I don’t think Anathema
need any introduction…So, I suppose I don’t have anything to say here in
this prologue, except for the fact that Anathema’s new album “Natural Disaster”
is out and it was a good opportunity to have a talk with Danny Cavanagh
regarding this album and many other interesting stuff.
1.WHAT HAS HAPPENED SINCE THE RELEASE
OF “A FINE DAY TO EXIT”?
Do you mean what have changed Globally?
Personally? In the World or in the band? (laughs)
-YOU CAN SAY WHATEVER YOU WANT, BUT
BASICALLY I WANT TO HEAR WHAT HAS CHANGED IN THE BAND (LAUGHS).
Ok(laughs)! Well life seems to
be speeding up lately. We are Traveling around, been on Tour, Writing on
Studios, we do many things. We had a fantastic show in Crete!
2.SO YOU ARE A BAND THAT LIKES TRAVELING
AROUND…THERE ARE SOME BANDS COMPLAINING ABOUT TRAVELS.
What? They are big liars! (laughs)
we like traveling a lot, meet new people, it’s fantastic.
3.YOU HAVE A NEW ALBUM CALLED “A NATURAL
DISASTER”. WHERE DOES THIS TITLE REFER TO? WHY DID YOU CHOOSE IT?
Well, it’s a change of events,
some things have changed, it’s what we feel. It’s our feelings, our thoughts,
general impressions etc. It’s also very rainy here and we are constantly
wet. But we got used to it now (laughs).
4.YOU HAVE DONE THE RECORDINGS AT PARKGATE
STUDIOS. DID YOU EXPERIENCE ANY PROBLEMS DURING THE MIXING PROCEDURE?
No problems at all! It was far
more easier that “A fine day to exit” and we have done better production
to the natural disaster. We have a young sound engineer who is very capable
and he knows how to use the equipment so the overall result is much better.
We were isolated in Nature.
-SO YOU LIVED A NATURAL LIFE?
Yes, you can say that! Natural
Life ! I liked That!(laughs)
5.YOU HAVE CHANGED MANY TIMES YOUR
STYLE AS A BAND. WHAT’S THE NEW MUSICAL DIRECTION YOU WANT TO GIVE
TO ANATHEMA’S MUSIC?
We don’t have a music style as
a band. We have never followed a single musical direction, we are open
minded, we play whatever we want and we have no standards. This time we
are little bit melodical…how can you call it now?
-I DON’T KNOW YOU ARE THE MUSICIAN
(LAUGHS). LET’S SAY AMBIENT MENTAL METAL…
(laughs) Mental Metal. Yeap I like
that!!
6.IN THE PAST IT WAS SAID THAT YOU
WILL CHANGE THE BAND’S NAME AND YOU WILL PLAY DIFFERENT MUSIC THAN WHAT
YOU USED TO. IS IT TRUE?
Yes, it’s true! We have another
record contract with Music For Nations and we are going to write another
record shortly.
-SO, YOU ARE THINKING SERIOUSLY OF
CHANGING ANATHEMA’S MONIKER?
It may happen or it may not happen.
If it happens, we won’t change only the name of the band. We don’t have
standards I don’t have a problem if we stay as Anathema or we change our
name. As long as we are having fun and like what we are doing, there is
no problem.
7.YOU ARE A BAND THAT KEEPS SEARCHING
LIFE AND MUSIC CONSTANTLY, NEW IDEAS AND NEW STYLES IN YOUR PERFORMANCE…
DO YOU THINK THAT SOMEDAY YOU MIGHT STOP SEEKING NEW DIMENSIONS IN MUSIC
AND JUST SETTLE DOWN?
No, we are lazy (laughs) but we
are not bored with music! We never had any ideas of settlement. We constantly
change, and we never get bored all these years.
8.WHICH IS YOUR FAVORITE SONG FROM
THE “NATURAL DISASTER” ALBUM?
Balance is mostly my favorite song,
not because I’ve written the lyrics (laughs) but most of the time I hear
this song. I rarely have favorite songs, my favorite song depends on the
mood.
9.DO YOU SEE LIFE OPTIMISTICALLY? IF
YOU HAS A CRYSTAL BALL AND YOU COULD SEE THE FUTURE IN COLORS, WHAT COLOR
WOULD YOU SEE NOW?
10.BACK TO THE “NATURAL DISASTER” ALBUM.
MY FAVORITE SONG IS “PULLED UNDER AT 2000 METERS A SECOND”. WHAT IS IT
TALKING ABOUT?
It a fast and dark song, it’s like
you are flying and someone pulls you under at 2000 meters a second! It
reminded you the “Panic” from a fine day to exit. Anyway Danny is more
capable to answer the entire meaning of this song! It’s an absolute wacko
song!
11.SPEAKING OF “PANIC”, I WAS VERY
IMPRESSED BY THAT SONG IN YOUR PREVIOUS ALBUM, BUT I HAVE A QUESTION… “PANIC”
HAS SO MANY WORDS AND IT’S SPEEDING LIKE A DEMON. HOW DIFFICULT IS IT FOR
THE BAND TO REMEMBER ALL THESE WORDS AND CHANGE THE SPEEDS DURING A LIVE
SHOW?
(laughs) I don’t know, probably
not get drunk before the show (laughs)! We are used to remembering most
of the songs (laughs) in our shows.
-DO YOU PRACTICE A LOT?
Never! (laughs) We are veryyyyyyyyyy
lazy and we barely practice!
12.WHAT’S THE STRANGEST THING THAT
HAS HAPPENED TO YOU DURING A LIVE SHOW?
Well there are many rare things
that happen in our shows! For example in Turkey we almost got electrified
(and fried) by a mistake of an electrician, In Romania we had a Riot in
the crowd and in one of our shows, I can’t remember it right now, our keyboard
player lost his balance and fell in front of me. He made me a professional
tackle! Like the ones you see in American Football (laughs).
13.YOU ARE USED TO CHANGING THE SOUND
OF YOUR SONGS FROM SHOW TO SHOW. WHY DO YOU DO THAT?
Yes, we do that a lot! We are spontaneous,
it’s an unplugged version of our songs, like the fragile dreams, we sometimes
perform it, little bit slower, we try to play experimental in our shows,
see the reaction of the crowd. You can say that we like to rehearse our
songs and play different versions of each song. We cannot do put them into
a record, but we do it on the shows?
-ARE YOU SPONTANEOUS AT THE END OF
THE SHOWS TOO? LAST TIME WHEN YOU PLAYED IN ATHENS, PEOPLE WERE CHEERING
UP YOUR NAME AND DANNY TOOK THE MICROPHONE, SAID GOODNIGHT AND LEFT…
I don’t remember that, honestly,
but I can reassure you that we didn’t have any bad time, as people may
have supposed. We have bad times only when we don’t play well on stage.
I remember one time when Danny and I sat down and stopped playing….but
it was a spontaneous action.
14.WHAT ARE YOUR FUTURE PLANS AFTER
THE RELEASE OF “NATURAL DISASTER”? WILL YOU GO ON TOUR? ANY CHANCE OF SEEING
ANATHEMA PLAYING LIVE N GREECE AGAIN?
Yes! We will be on tour and we
are going to write the songs to our new album. As I told you we have a
contract for another record with Music For Nations.
15.WHEN WILL YOU GO AGAIN IN THE STUDIO?
WILL THE NEXT ALBUM SOUND LIKE “NATURAL DISASTER”?
It depends from the Tour Schedule.
Right now, we are planning our next recordings on January and the next
album will be totally different than “Natural Disaster”, it will have some
slow songs, some ballads but it’s going to be different.
16.THANK YOU FOR THE INTERVIEW. IT
WAS A PLEASURE SPEAKING TO YOU! I WISH YOU ALL THE BEST FOR THE NEW ALBUM.
HOPE TO SEE YOU IN GREECE. TAKE CARE!
We definitely are coming to Greece!
We are having very good time in Greece thank you mate, take it easy!
-THANK YOU TOO!
Costas “C.O.B”
Meidanis
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