Rockezine.com interview with Red Aim on Oct 30, 2003

with Red Aim on Oct 30, 2003


		Can you give us a brief update how Red Aim came to where it is now? It’s all part of our self-reinventing process that never stops! Our identity as a group is quite fulid. Sometimes we’re funny, sometimes serious and somtimes simply strange, as you can hear on the latest works. But besides this, there are things that haven’t changed: We’ve been touring till our asses bled, largely ignored by the corporate mainstream press, not selling truckloads of our hot stuff, but having more fun than ever. Since we left People Like You Records in 2001, everything became better. We’re now happy with the way we’re backed by our new label, Metalblade.
		Why the title “Niagara”? Does it have any to do with American sympathies, or an American exposure? Yes, it has a lot to do with “exposure,” especialy of the American female body. There is a famous movie exposing sexual practices that’s called “Niagara.” It deals with the “right in your face” stuff and here we see the parallel to our approach to music.
		Mainly your music is placed in the stoner corner. Mostly this type contains more doomy, slower dragging songs. Ever thought about slowing down? We don’t. We enjoy rocking hard and fast, especialy live. The way we perform on stage demands a certain force that is best expressed by a certain amount of speed. Actualy, we never considered ourselves to be in that category, we see ourselves more as a rock ‘n’ roll band. Maybe age will slow us down, someday.
		Can you identify with the description “party stoner”? Not at all. The last record was a statement against categories. Flesh for Fantasy was funny indeed, yet it must be seen in an ironic way. We ‘can’ party but as Niagara prooves, one cannot pin down our music to just that.
		Many seventies influences can be found in your music. What were your examples? Led Zep, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, but mostly 70’s progressive rock bands like Yes or Genesis.
		Who are the main songwriters, and how does the final result come through? The songs are created by the whole band. We like to experiment, collecting ideas. The songs on the albums are the result of common agreement. We’ve selected them from the amount of material that happened in the practice room.
		Do the different instrumental angles of approach (stoner guitar, sometimes funky bass, and typical hard rock voice) bring any troubles in song writing? No, we do not try to pursue a homogenous style. The band consists of 5 individuals with different musical backgrounds ranging from World Music to Death Metal and that’s rather an advantage. Makes the sound more colourful.
		Was the use of a children’s choir planned from the beginning, or is it added while in the studio? The use of a choir was planned from the beginning. We then tried different types of choirs, men, women and children, and agreed on the latter. Moreover, we experimented with the language of the choral section: Russian, German, Japanese, Arabic and English. Maybe there’s going to be a remix of the songs with the Arabian version. We decided on the English version, since the other one was a bit too exotic and strange for the record, but maybe we’ll release that for the fans later.
		Some outtakes on the album are quite odd (“The Invisible Ray” and “Rivolta”). Are these pieces, which still need to be worked out to a complete song in a later stadium, or are these complete themes? These are no outtakes. In the context of the whole record, these songs must be in that way. They enrich the album with their openness and variety.
		Coming from Germany, your Scandinavian based music is quite unusual (and not well known with the big audience). How is the German scene? Any other bands from your home country you can recommend in your genre? Why unusual? It’s right that the Scandinavian bands are most famous for that music and made it popular. But you must see that it is mainly these bands that get the better record deals and thus the public attention. The German scene is not as big as the one in Scandinavia, but there are a lot of bands around. A band I can really recommend is “Gods of Krallall,” very eccentric but unfortunately not yet available on CD.
		Is the popularity of both true metal and gothic music in Germany an advantage, or disadvantage for your music? Neither nor, really. A lot of the people that come to our concerts are in that kind of music, true metal and gothic, but not exclusively. The people that like our music have quite different musical backgrounds. We even played in front of motorcycle gangs and even jazz audiences (with an accoustic set).
		In short: why should people buy “Niagara”? Otherwise our label will drop us. For the sales it makes no difference whether they buy it or steal it. That’s a matter of personal decission.
		What are the plans for the near future? Thank you for that question. We defenitively want to get more girls!
(Cor Schilstra)