TOURNIQUET
-
I found
out about this band, when I saw my brother Nick coming towards me with
a big smile on his face telling me that he came across an amazing new band.
So, I listened to their songs and I am ashamed to say that in the beginning
I wasn’t able to “understand” the complexity of their music and accept
it. I was seeking for a “safer” sound, for more usual stuff and this was
too much for me! It was strange, unique and so original. However, after
the 2-3 hearing I (thank god!) realized my mistake and from that point
on Tourniquet have a special place in my heart and I consider them to be
an amazing band that worth’s to get the best possible. It’s a fact that
we don’t get often the chance to come across such bands. Listen to them
and give them time…They will prove you right…
-
What else?????
I am a fan!
-
As for Nick…well
I don’t think there is much to be said, since he was open and able to understand
their value from the first minute.
1. FIRST OF ALL PLEASE MAKE A SHORT
PRESENTATION OF THE BAND’S HISTORY, POINTING OUT THE MOST IMPORTANT MOMENTS.
I KNOW THAT YOU EXIST MANY YEARS BUT MOST OF THE PEOPLE LEARNED ABOUT YOU,
AT LEAST HERE IN GREECE, FROM YOUR PREVIOUS RELEASE “MICROSCOPIC VIEW OF
A TELESCOPIC REALM”. ALSO GIVE ME THE CURRENT LINE UP OF THE BAND.
-
Ok well, Tourniquet was formed in 1990
in Los Angeles and our first album was called “Stop The Bleeding” and since
then we had ten albums out and a lot of people now us, as you said, from
starting from our last album which is our first album on Metal Blade and
so the new album "“When Moth And Rust Destroy” is our e11th album and the
current line up is myself, Ted on drums and Luc Easter on vocals and Steve
Antino on bass guitar, so we are currently looking for guitar player. We
are auditioning guitar players now.
2. WHY DID YOU NAME THE BAND TOURNIQUET
AND HOW DID YOU SELECT IT? DO YOU BELIEVE THAT YOUR MUSIC HAS IN A WAY
A “MEDICINE USE”?
-
Well, the name Tourniquet came…hhmmm…it
kind of has a spiritual meaning when we go through life and we try everything
there is to try and a lot of people find out that this doesn’t bring us
happiness then the Tourniquet kinda stops the…you know Tourniquet is something
you put on your arm if you are bleeding to death and it kind of stops the
flow of us trying to go through life without knowing the God who made us.
So, that where the name tourniquet came from.
3. HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR MUSIC?
TECHNO THRASH, RPOGRESSIVE METAL OR DO YOU THINK THAT LABELING YOUR MUSIC
IS LIKE TRYING TO SET BOUNDARIES TO IT?
-
I think maybe something else…We have
other people to describe our music because it’s kind of hard to say what
it is. It comes from the classical influence and groove, speed metal and
thrash, so it’s kind of hard just to describe it in one word.
-
Aaa…personally I don’t mind if people
say you are a speed metal band or you are a thrash band. It doesn’t bother
me but I think you are right. To call one type of music would be like to
expect that everything we do is going to be like that and you know we have
an acoustic album out and we’ve used all kinds of instruments in our music,
that aren’t normally associated with heavy/rock, we use flute and harpsicord
and all kinds of instruments…
-I THINK THAT RUSH MUST BE A BIG INFLUENCE
TO YOU…
-
Rush was definitely an influence on
my drumming personally, you know I was a big fan of Neil Peart, but yeah
all their music in general, the way they incorporated odd type signatures
and sawn into their music and yet it would sound like a normal song. I
think that Neil Peart was a drummer that made drums sound like a melodic
instrument and not just a noisy time keeper.
4. NOW TELL US A FEW THINGS FOR
YOUR NEW ALBUM. WE DIDN’T HAVE THE CHANCE TO LISTEN TO IT YET AND WE ARE
REALLY ANXIOUS ABOUT IT. WHICH ARE THE SIMILARITIES AND WHICH ARE THE DIFFERENCES
AMONG IT AND YOUR PREVIOUS RELEASES?
-
Ohh…I am very sorry you haven’t heard
it yet…you didn’t get the cd?
-NO, NOT YET…
-
Ohh…well we’ll be very excited to have
you hear it. It’s almost an hour long, it’s 59 minutes I think, 9 songs
some of the songs are quite long, you know 7-8-9 minutes long and it goes
from very very slow to very fast and we had 2 terrific guest guitar players
on it, Bruce Franklin from the band TROUBLE and Marty Freidman from MEGADETH,
he played all of the guitar solos…
-WOW!THIS ALBUM MUST BE KILLER!
-
Well, we are very happy with it. Bill
Metroyer produced it. It’s got a very big sound, a sick sound and you know
people have been describing it maybe heavier than the last one.
5. IS YOUR ALBUM A CONCEPT? WHAT
INSPIRES YOU TO WRITE LYRICS AND WHAT CAN TAKE AWAY THE INSPIRATION FROM
YOU?
-
It’s kind of a concept album, yeah…the
title track “Where Moth And Rush Destroy” kind of talks about not putting
all of our faith in material things, you know we struggle through life
to acquire enough money to pay our bills, to buy a car or to buy a house
or whatever and when we die whether we are a millionaire or broke we are
all in the same position.
6. I THINK THAT YOUR THEMATOLOGY AS
A BAND BELONGS TO WHAT WE CALL “WHITE METAL”. DO YOU AGREE WITH THIS TERM?
WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO ANSWER TO PEOPLE THAT MIGHT ACCUSE YOU OF DOING PROPAGANDA
FOR THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION?
-
Ammm…yeah I think people have called
us white metal for a long time and that’s fine. We are a band definitely
that it’s made up of Christians that are playing music and it’s certainly
not a gimmic, you know like just try to say let’s be different and do this.
It’s like to another band is important for them to sing about the occult
and things like that, then that’s what comes out in their lyrics. For us
our relationship with God is important, so that comes out in our lyrics.
-
I’d say that it’s definitely not a
propaganda. When we do shows and people meet us they see that we are just
normal people and we sing about, like any other band, what’s important
to us and we talk about what’s important to us and that’s all what it is
really and I think unfortunately for many people the only thing they’ve
seen from Christianity is crawling up in a very boring church maybe or
seeing a TV preacher go to jail for money laundring or something like that
and not all Christians are like that…
7. ON THE OTHER HAND MOST OF THE METAL
BANDS SHOW A DISAPPROVAL AND ARE AGAINST RELIGION. WHY DO YOU THINK THIS
HAPPENS?
-
Well I think maybe what I’ve just said
is part of that, that they’ve never had the opportunity to be around people
that are normal people that find that important and I think that’s a lot
of it, because some times we play shows with a lot of death metal bands
and we are like the only band with Christians in it and we find that once
they see how we play, they get to talk to us and they say “ohh I like that
drum sound or I like your guitar playing”, and they can see that we are
just regular people.
8. WE HAVE LISTENED TO YOUR ALBUMS
“VANISHING LESSONS” AND “MICROSCOPIC VIEW OF A TELESCOPIC REALM” AND SOME
VARIUS SONGS FROM YOUR PREVIOUS ALBUMS. HOW DO YOU MANAGE TO MAKE THEM
SOUND SO DIFFERENT AND YET ALWAYS KEEP THIS TOURNIQUET FEELING?
-
Well, I wrote most of the music on
“Microscopic…” and I just heard so many different music that I love, you
know I love so many different sounds that they come out on the album, but
maybe it’s hard to answer because other people ask that and I don’t have
a really good answer. It’s just the way I write music.
9. WHEN YOU COMPOSE MUSIC, DO YOU LEAVE
YOUR PASSION LEAD YOU OR IS IT MORE A MATTER OF LOGIC?
-
It’s both…it’s definitely…sometimes
I’ll be just outside or fishing or whatever and some melody will come into
head and then I go home and I play it on the guitar and it turns up on
“Microscopic…” or on “Vanishing Lessons” or something and then other times
I know that we’re gonna be recording in 3 months and I sit down with the
guitar and I say I must write some music now, so it’s both!
10. U.S.A. IS ABOUT TO MAKE WAR AGAINST
IRAQ. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT IT? ARE YOU AGAINST OR FOR IT? DON’T YOU
THINK THAT THERE CAN ALWAYS BE A PEACFUL WAY OF SOLVING PROBLEMS OR IS
SOMETIMES THE WAR “NECESSARY”?
-
It’s a very complicated situation and
there is no really easy way to do it. I firmly believe that the U.S. will
go over there because they want to prevent something much worse from happening
in the future and then it’s not that we want to be bullies or show our
military might, you know because the U.S. has a long history in helping
out other countries that are in trouble and people that are suffering,
so if we go over there and invade Iraq I would 100% support our president
in the war effort.
-SOME PEOPLE SAY THAT THE U.S. WILL
GO TO THIS WAR FOR THE OIL…
-
Yes…well that’s something that I think
is important to a lot of other countries and to be honest I don’t really
know enough about, I don’t know if any of us know enough about the economics
of how important that is and if this is the reason for going there or not…That’s
a very hard question to answer, but a good question!!!
11. HOW CAN WE GO TO WAR AND THINK
THAT THIS WAY WE CAN SOLVE SOMETHING AND BY THIS KILL INNOCENT PEOPLE (KIDS,
WOMEN, ETC…). ISN’T THIS A HARD DECISION TO MAKE? WHICH IS THE CONNECTION
WITH CHRISTIANITY THAT SAYS THAT WE SHOULD AVOID WAR IN EVERY WAY WE CAN?
-
Well all through the Bible there are
many examples of wars that were just wars, that God approved of them in
the Old Testament and of course when there is a war there will be innocent
people that are killed but like they say in ending something like World
War II in Japan, dropping the atomic bomb that of course thousands of innocent
people died, but when they look at the number if the war have continued
for years after that, the number would have been 10 or 20 times higher
than the number of deaths occurred…
12. HOW DO YOU IMAGINE GOD AND DEVIL
TO BE? WHICH SONG OF YOURS WOULD YOU CHOOSE TO DEDICATE TO GOD AND WHICH
ONE TO DEVIL?
-
God is exactly…of course as Christians
we believe in the Bible and God is described in great detail in the Bible
as a being and a Trinity consisting of God…
-THE SON AND THE HOLY SPIRIT…
-
Exactly! Of course and then the devil
is all through the Bible is described as a real force in the world
and if you believe in the Bible you can’t just believe in God and not in
the Devil, because…
-YOU CAN’T HAVE GOOD WITHOUT BAD AND
VICE VERSA.
-
Right! So, I think people describe
the devil as someone that was cast into hell by God and that there are
demons and evil forces in the world and the Bible is very clear, there
is a verse saying “Greater is he that is in me, than he that is in the
world”.
-SO WHICH SONGS OF YOURS WOULD YOU
DEDICATE TO GOD AND WHICH TO THE DEVIL?
-
Ammm…I’d surely dedicate no song to
the devil…
-NO, I MEAN A SONG THAT WOULD BE CLOSER
TO THE IDEA BEHIND HIM…
-
Ohh…I see! Ok. Let me think…Since you
haven’t heard the last album… I think the last song from “Microscopic…”,
the “Skeezix Dillema Part II” that’s a very clear song about God and the
Devil and that kind of a triumph and ending to that is the power of good
over evil.
13. WHICH ARTISTS, INTELLECTUAL PEOPLE
AND SCIENTISTS HAVE INFLUENCED YOU AS MUSICIANS AND AS PERSONS?
-
Let’s see…well at first the musical
artists…most people know I am influenced by classical composers, Beethoven
and Brahms and Scarlatti and Brahms, that would be one and then the regular
music I grew up listening to, Black Sabbath, Mahoganny Rush and then a
lot of the progressive music, Rush, King Crimson, Emerson Lake And Palmer
and bands like that, as far as people that have influenced me Edgar Allan
Poe his writing, I think he was a brilliant brilliant writer and my lyrics
are kind of in that style so that would be a few people.
14. YOU ARE GRANTED ONE WISH. WHAT
WOULD YOU CHANGE IN THE WORLD?
-
Well, my wish would be that all people
would come to know Jesus Christ in a personal way… That would be my wish!
15. IF YOUR MUSIC WAS AN EMOTION, WHAT
WOULD IT BE?
-
Ohhh…That’s a great question!!! I would
say… elation… it mean to be beyond joy.
16. IF IT WAS A PAINTING, WHAT WOULD
IT SHOW?
-
Ohh…I think it would be an impressionistic
painting, like a Picasso.
17. IF YOU COULD BE A HISTORICAL PERSON
FOR A DAY, WHO WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE AND WHICH PERIOD OF HIS LIFE WOULD
YOU LIKE TO LIVE?
-
Let’s see…I think I would love to be
Beethoven in the period were he was deaf but still writing music, to see
what it is like…
18. IF YOU HAD THE CHANCE TO MEET GOD,
WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO ASK HIM?
-
Hmm…I think I’d like to ask him…I’d
like to know if animals go to heaven.
19. WHICH IS THE WEIRDEST QUESTION
SOMEONE’S EVER ASKED YOU AND WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE ASKED AND NOONE
EVER DID?
-
Let’s see…what have people asked us?
Ooohhh gosh…I can’t think of any really strange things we’ve been asked
for…
-
I would like to be asked if I had one
wish, what would I do…and you’ve just asked that!!! Hahahaha
-SO I FULFILLED YOUR WISH!
-
Yes!That’s right! Thank you!
20. IS THERE A CHANCE TO COME TO GREECE
TO PLAY LIVE?
-
Boy!!! We would love to! I mean we
are just from the last album and I think with the new one we have started
having a lot more correspondence from the European countries and it’s obviously
historically and so on…I’d like to stay for a while. Of course all in America
know about all the fantastic things your country had offered, so we’d like
to play and have a week or two off, to see the country, so I hope that
we can. We would love to play there!
21.THANK YOU! HAVE I FORGOTTEN TO ASK
YOU ANYTHING AND YOU’D LIKE TO MENTION?
-
No! I would just like to mention, that
I hope that you… I look forward to hear the new album and I really
hope you enjoy it and thank you for your very interesting questions!
-THANK YOU FOR YOOR VERY INTERESTING
ANSWERS!
-
Hahaha! Ok! Take care and maybe we’ll
see you sometime there real soon!
-TAKE CARE YOU TOO! BYE!
Nick “William_Kidd”
Parastatidis
Christine Parastatidou