FRAGILE
VASTNESS
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THE GREEK
METAL SCENE SEEEMS TO GROW UP AND BECOME MORE MATURE YEAR BY YEAR. A PROOF
OF THIS MATURITY ARE BANDS LIKE FRAGILE VASTNESS AND HORIZON'S END. BOTH
OF THEM PLAY PROGRESSIVE METAL AND FROM THEIR FIRST RELEASE MANAGED TO
CREATE A UNIQUE SOUND. ALEX FLOUROS, THE GUITARIST OF FRAGILE VASTNESS
WAS MORE THAN WILLING TO TELL US HOW THEY MANAGED TO CREATE SUCH A BEAUTIFUL
PROG METAL ALBUM.
1.FIRST OF ALL GIVE US A BRIEF BAND
HISTORY AND INTRODUCE THE BAND TO THE FANS.
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the band members are:
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Zacharias Tsoumos -
Vocals
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Alex Flouros
- Guitars
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Vaggelis Gialamas
- Bass
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Evi Katsamatsa
- Keyboards,Piano
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Babis Tsolakis
- Drums
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Fragile Vastness was formed in february
2000 by basist Vaggelis Gialamas,drummer Babis Tsolakis and guitarist Alex
Flouros...at that time Vaggelis and Babis had just quited playing with
Greek prog band called Retrospect..also Alex Flouros was playing with Greek
prog band called Sound Of Silence..Evi joined the band some days later
and Zacharias who had worked with Babis in the past joined as 2-3 months
later...
2.WHY HAVE YOU NAMED THE BAND FRAGILE
VASTNESS? WHAT DO YOU WANT TO SUGGEST BY THIS NAME?
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i believe that by nature we would have
come up with a name like that. we consider ourselves very passioned and
emotional people.it's a blend of our member's character and the feel we
get from music in general...something beautiful, forthfilling yet not easily
explained. the balance between everything that
surrounds us.......
3.YOUR MUSIC HAS MANY JAZZ ELEMENTS,
ESPECIALLY IN THE USE OF THE PIANO. ARE YOU FANS OF THE JAZZ MUSIC OR DO
YOU JUST USE THESE INFLUENCES BECAUSE THEY FIT TO YOUR SOUND?
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that has to do with all our influences
combined......We listen to lots of different styles of music and that comes
out later on in our playing and songwriting.Of course jazz is a musical
treasure yet to be discovered. it is really fun for as mixing weirdly all
these kinds of music like jazz,latin,fusion under that heavy sound we like
so much... but i have to say that this comes naturally..we would never
try to fit another genre where it doesn't belong.that would probably sound
fake and badly presented...
4.THE MAIN COMPOSER IS VAGGELIS GIALAMAS
(BASS GUITAR). DOES HE VIEW FRAGILE VASTNESS AS A PERSONAL ACHIEVEMENT
AND CONCERN? IS THE BAND HIS WAY OF REALIZING HIS VISION IN MUSIC?
HOW IMPORTANT ARE THE OTHER BAND MEMBERS? ARE WE TALKING HERE FOR A BONDED
BAND AND HOW WELL CAN YOU PERFORM YOUR COMPLEX COMPOSITIONS LIVE?
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Vaggelis is a great composer besides
a bass player...he's the working machine in our own Fragile Sound Studio.he
breaths music all day even working with Fragile Vastness or not..so it
comes naturally,him to be in a position to produce massive music ideas....
the other members all sare the divotion to our band but work beside the
band..that takes precious creative time... now when it comes to the resault
of our music this is not a one mans vision.our usual pattern in songwriting
is this:Vaggelis presents us a new idea,basic riff or even a complete song.then
we take that and twist it until it becomes a F.V. song... the result is
sure different than the original form... now all us members share a unique
bond between us....hell two of us even got married(Babis-Evi)...xaxaxaxa
we have learned to work with each other and it would be quite impossible
to think else. live performance...we are used of doing to many rehearsalls..even
when we first met we where only rehearsing our
songs for 2 years before we started recording or giging.We need to feel
comfortable with the songs in order to perform in front of a live audience..
until now we are very pleased with the result but always looking for new
ways to do more on stage since we use a lot of stuff in the
studio....
5.I OBSERVED MANY SIMILARITIES IN THE
STRUCTURE OF THE SONGS WITH PAIN OF SALVATION. I MEAN THAT YOU HAVE QUITE
SMALL DUARTION SONGS, COMPLEX CHANGES IN THE MOOD, PIONEERING COMBINATIONS
OF SOUNDS, ETC. CONSIDERING PAIN OF SALVATION TO BE A TRUE PROGRESSIVE
BAND, HOW DO FRAGILE VASTNESS UNDERSTAND PROGRESS? DO YOU LIKE PAIN OF
SALVATION?
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I'll start from the end tell you that
we really love the music from Pain Of Salvation.... actually we are honorred
to open their live here in Athens on 22-3 with Rage and Sorrowful Winds..
I can't really relate our style of music with POS. I believe we let a song
grow in duration until we feel it's ready...we wouldn't like us or a listener
to feel bored before a song ends. Of course thats something random until
today. We could make an extra long song in the future if it would sound
good thatway.. but believe me you can say so many things in 6 minutes of
music... in our songs we try to keep a balance between
melody and music&instrument expressiveness. It's not good to overdo
it with the instrumental parts and loose the true meaning that
the song is trying to pass. Now at least to me progressive music is interesting
music in general.music that you don't recognize because you have heared
a thousand times in the past. Music that explores new ideas and sounds....
6.YOUR VOCALIST SINGS I MANY PARTS
OF THE ALBUM IN AN OPERATIC, CLASSICAL BARITONE WAY. IS IT SOMETHING THAT
COMES OUT NATURALLY TO HIM OR DO YOU USE IT AS A WAY TO DIFFER YOUR SOUND
FROM THE REST PROG BANDS THAT
USUALLY HAVE A SOPRANO SINGER LIKE LABRIE, ALDER, ETC?
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Our singer Zacharias is a pro singer
and works at the National Greek Opera... he had classical training for
about 10 years.so as you understand its very natural for him to sing that
way.. the odd thing is that he was only into classical singing for the
last 10 years but wanted so much to be a member of a prog band since he's
a metalhead... in the begining we weren't really sure if that
would work but we found out that his singing is a powerfull signature in
our music.. we didn't intend to make him sound like that but its quite
more interesting since there are not so many tenors in the field.... we
are really proud to work with him...
7.HOW DID YOU BECOME FAMILIAR WITH
A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT FROM SOUTH AMERICA LIKE QUENACHO AND MOREOVER HOW
DID YOU DECIDE TO PROPOSE TO JAVIER CADILLO, THAT KNOWS HOW TO PLAY IT,
TO COME TO GREECE AND RECORD FOR A PROGRESSIVE BAND? IS HE THE ONE THAT
DELIVERS THE SPANISH LYRICS IN THE SONG "FLYING OVER NAZCA"?
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yes that's right on the lyrics of that
song.... Javier is a close friend of Vaggelis.unfortunatelly i didn't have
the pleasure to talk to him because his recordings were quite short and
i lost the opportunity in the studio madness.he's from Peru actually..
he met Vaggelis here in Greece and soon they became
friends... Vaggelis has travelled in many foreign countries like U.K,France,Ireland
etc..he always wanted to go to Peru and found common interests with Javier..
quenacho is a really beautiful instrument and of course Javier a very good
player...
8.THE TITLE OF THIS ALBUM IS "EXCERPTS"
MEANING PIECES, PARTS... HOWEVER THE LYRICS IN SOME SONGS SEEM TO MIX IN
A WEIRD WAY. IS THERE A CONNECTION? IF NOT, WHAT ARE
THEY TALKING ABOUT? DO YOU WANT THE LISTENER TO LISTEN TO THE ALBUM AS
AN ENTITY OR AS SELF-EXISTENT STORIES?
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our songs in the album are very widely
oriented.. i can't really relate one song with another
one, musically speaking... each song is an individual part,excerpt,in our
trip along music.. now about the lyrics....every song has another theme
speaking until "formula". formula is a realy strange song that has no real
meaning to it...it has a quite surreal feel to its lyrics(and the music),and
you can find all over the song,phrases from all the songs before it...all
songs themes combine in this wild,weird
extravaganza!!! Eye to eye is really a part of the 3rd song,Obliged To
Suffer in a jazz form performed by our special guests that i'll talk in
another question... i would prefer a listener to hear the album and give
his own interpretation of the story...its more fun that way...
9.IN THE ALBUM THERE ARE MANY PROMISCUOUSLY
ELEMENTS THAT ARE COMBINED WITH THE CLASSIC PROG METAL, LIKE LATINO (FORMULA),
ORIENTAL AND ELECTRONIC SOUNDS (PARASITE), ETHNIC (FLYING OVER NAZCA) AND
JAZZ OF COURSE IN
ALMOST ALL THE SONGS. WHAT ELSE CAN WE FIND IN FRAGILE VASTNESS'
SOUND IN THE FUTURE?
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when i look at the completed album
i realize that we have left so many thing outside.... there are really
a zillion things you can do with a song but no space to put them all...
is impossible to use evrything we have in mind but we try to mix things
up whenever the oportunity is good... so i guess our imagination and ideas
will show later on in our future work... and believe me there are things
to come.................
10.DOES THE LAYOUT SYMBOLIZE SOMETHING
OR ARE THERE JUST SOME BEAUTIFUL PICTURES CREATED BY SET<?H> THAT YOU
LIKED? BESIDES SPETIC FLESH YOU MUST BE AMONG THE FIRST THAT HAVE TRUSTED
HIS WORK AND THEN OTHER BANDS, NOT ONLY FROM GREECE, FOLLOWED YOUR EXAMPLE.
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF HIM AS AN ARTIST?
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There's a story behind the artwork....
generally it represents the course of life towards death....you can see
the baby's cradle on its long road to the unknown.. the cradle should symbolize
pure,intact life through the baby inside...but in the picture there is
no baby...its being replaced by a porcelain broken doll with filthy cloths..and
all nature is almost in decay with a strange mood in the air... i
wont go any further and again leave the interpretation of the story to
you.... i really need to give the credit of the artwork to the 2 men responsible.....
the pictures outside and inside the cd are taken by Chris Kissadjekian
who has done a superb job for as.... the cradle,the scenery and the doll
are actually real..... because the concept of the artwork was ours Chris
understood that very well and expressed it in the best way... then we go
to the second man who is of course Set<h>... Chris had worked with Set<h>
in the past and introduced his work to us.... we were really impressed
and soon worked together.we were very priviledged to work with him since
he's a genious at his work.... the result made us more than happy...
11.MANY FAMOUS GREEK MUSICIANS
PARTICIPATE IN YOUR ALBUM. WHAT MORE HAVE THEY ADDED TO "EXCERPTS"? WHAT
DO THEY THINK OF HEAVY METAL IN GENERAL AND OF FRAGILE VASTNESS IN SPECIFIC?
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Every guest is a master in their field
so their contribution was precious to us.. in our music we want to be able
to use as much as possible,,,we wanna have jazz mixed,latin,ethnic etc..but
because we can spend only part of our time listening to every aspect,we
could never reach the level of a full time jazz player for example... these
guys( and girls ) know their field and give a more focused foreign feel
to the songs. A very big thanks to those who are:
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Tania Nikoloudi - piano,arrangement
in eye,vocals
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Themis Nikoloudis - Violins
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Javier Cadillo - quenacho
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Ioanna Mitsoglou - Drums on Eye To
Eye
12.IN THE METAL PARTS OF THIS
ALBUM WE CAN LISTEN TO SOME INFLUENCES (AND ONLY INFLUENCES) FROM BANDS
LIKE DREAM THEATER, FATES WARNING, SHADOW GALLERY, PAIN OF SALVATION, CONCEPTION
AND ARK. DO YOU LIKE ANY OF THE ABOVE MENTIONED BANDS
AND WHICH BANDS HAVE INFLUENCED YOU THE MOST (NOT NECESSARILY FROM THE
HEAVY METAL GENRE)?
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Noone of us can deny our influece by
all of those bands you mentioned...we accept that our music
would never be without bands like dream theater,fates warning,quennsryche,pain
of salvation etc... we 're extremely fortuned people to have
a legacy like that... of course our influences pass all sorts of music
but when it comes to progressive these names are synonym to that word..
of course thats different for everyone..i like to listen to some older
rock,blues stuff for example..Vagelis is a fan of electronic music and
stuff like Nine Inch Nails,Evi and Zacharias are more of the Classical
music and Babis is a big 80's thrash fun..... of course we all find each
other in the middle but the result is multidimentional music.....
13.THE PRODUCTION IS AMAZING
FOR THE GREEK STANDARDS. IS FRAGILE SOUND STUDIO IN GREECE? SO AFTER ALL
WHERE DO THE GREEK BANDS MAKE THE MISTAKE WHEN IT COMES TO THE PRODUCTION,
TAKING INTO ACCOUNT THE FACT THAT YOU
HAVE PRESENTED AN ALBUM THAT "COUNTS"
FROM THE PRODUCTION POINT OF VIEW.
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In the production field we feel very
lucky because we work in our own studio.... considering all the changes
we've made during recording it would be impossible for us to have this
result by renting a recording studio in the first place..... it's a great
luxury for us to record a song 5 times if we like until we hear what we
want... infinite time in the studio is a big advantage.... that's where
most of the bands loose....i have done that in the past actually and its
really hard to get a relaxed recording and put feel to it when you know
the clock is ticking and your pocket is getting empty.... except that who
knows better what you want than yourself.... our studio is in athens and
Vagelis does all the work to it.....of course no matter the studio,you
have to find a good engineer to produce good sound and Vagelis is very
gifted in that area....
14.MY MOST BELOVED SONG IS "WHAT
A SHAME". WHICH IS YOUR MOST BELOVED? I STILL BELIEVE THAT THROUGH SONGS
LIKE "FORMULA" IT'S OBVIOUS THAT YOU ARE TRYING TO CREATE YOUR PERSONAL
SOUND. HOW DIFFICULT IS IT TODAY TO BE PIONEERS?
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Actually according to what i know it's
our favourite too... of course all of them are favourites but Shame was
our first song and has a special value to as...... as i said before personal
sound is not something to create...it must come naturally out of you...
and that has to do with what you hear all the time....i mean i love dream
theater but if we all listened to dream theater 24-7 we would sound just
like them...its quite a trap for a musician not to stick to the sound of
his favourite artist....
15.WHAT TITLE WOULD YOU LIKE
THIS INTERVIEW TO HAVE?
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Considering i had a coffee and lunch
while typing this two thigs go down... naked women maybe??? nuh.... it's
good the way it is. Congrats for your site ..
16.THANK YOU! HAVE I FORGOTTEN
TO ASK YOU ANYTHING AND YOU'D LIKE TO MENTION?
GEORGE "Vault"
TASIS