Rockezine.com interview with Morning on Sep 28, 2005

with Stijn Bannier (synths) on Sep 28, 2005


		After years of hard work your debut album will be released by Black Lotus Records at September 12. How did you get in contact with BLR? After we finished the mixing process of our album we decided to make a list of several labels who wanted to release our CD. Bas (our guitarist) contributed among others BLR. Since he is a big Savatage fan he found their website through Chris Caffery (now a label mate and Savatage’s guitarist).
		What are your expectations of the album? Finally we have a label and the possibilities to release an album worldwide with good promotion and distribution! On the other hand these recordings are over a year old and we play the songs already for two years now. We still hope to sell a few copies and to get some more nice gigs out of it!
		I know that all the music was written by Morning and that Saskia is responsible for the lyrics. Can you tell me something about the Morning writing process? Most of the time Bas, Martijn (our guitarists) or I myself come with a melody line, a chord scheme, a riff or something like that. Then we start jamming at the rehearsal and try to write/make all our own parts in it. At that time Saskia also looks for the lyrics that fit in the atmosphere of the song and she composes her singing lines. Normally we all discuss a bit about the song, what can be better, what should be different and so on… After a few times of jamming a new song develops and then we start to fine tune it ;)
		The voice on intro of the album is by Arjen Lucassen. Why (and how) did you arrange his contribution? First of all we wanted to have a special guest on our album and we thought in the intro would be cool. When I wrote the intro I noticed it became very spacey. Since Ayreon has lots of proggy spacey parts I immediately thought of Arjen to contribute a small spoken part. Since I know him for several years now, I asked him and he immediately said yes!
We hope the press won’t just listen only to the sound or production of the album, but also to the ideas, the songs, the freshness of our music.		The new album was recorded, engineered and produced at the PITStudio in Weert and mastered in the Athens Mastering Studio. I don’t understand why the album is of such poor sound quality. Are you pleased with the sound of the album? First must be mentioned that the PITStudio isn’t a professional, expensive studio. Hans Reinders has the PITStudio as his hobby. Since most of the members of our band are still at school or just work we don’t have that much money, but we still wanted to record our own album. First it wasn’t even meant to be released by a real label etc. But after we finished the mixing we thought we could give it a try. Several labels where interested and BLR made us by far the best offer. The label decided to master the album in Athens. Pleased? On one hand: Yes, we are pleased with the sound, considering our experience, budget and this is our first album. On the other hand: compared to other bands and albums, we know this is not the best sound we could get, but we learned a lot from it and hope to prove it with our next album! Second to that we hope the press won’t just listen only to the sound or production of the album, but also to the ideas, the songs, the freshness of our music. Luckily those people already gave us some very good reviews!
		Which of the thirteen tracks took most time writing or recording? It’s a long time ago again when we recorded the album… Let me think… Speaking for myself I think it was “Hour Of Joy” and “This Unreachable Mess”, since I used my analog Roland Juno a lot in it and this classic synth didn’t always do what I wanted it to do. 
		Half of the songs were released on prior demo EP’s. Isn’t it strange to finally re-release these songs on your debut album since most songs must have been written over three or four years ago? Not really. We wanted to release the songs we’ve been playing for 2 years now and we wanted to show which kind of music Morning makes!
		Did you make any re-arrangements to these songs? Of course, some songs were written for just one guitar (from the Circle Of Power demo EP) and some songs which were already recorded also evolved.
		The artwork was done by Seth-Design, also responsible for the artwork of releases by Angel and Chris Caffery. Did the record company arrange this or did you request for Seth-Design? Can you tell us something about your involvement with the album cover? The record company came up with the idea. We decided to choose this album cover out of several propositions. The album cover was made and adapted by Nathalie Shau. Seth from Seth Design designed the booklet.
		Why did you decide to enclose the Queen cover ‘The Show Must Go On’ on the album? I’m a big Queen fan and we were looking for a cool cover to do. Since everyone in the band agreed on this song, we decided to cover it and to record the song.
		What is the biggest compliment about the new album and what is the biggest bullocks you’ve ever heard about Morning? We’ve had some great reviews from several big magazines like Mindview (Gold: 6 out of 7!), we were included in the Aardschok soundcheck and we are invited to perform at the Mindview Metal Convention! People who just don’t want to listen properly to the album, write bullocks most of the time…
		In the past couple of years you’ve played most of the concert venues in The Netherlands. Which of the gigs you’ve played are remembered as your best/worst? Hmm… For me personally I will remember our support slot for Lana Lane and Erik Norlander as very special! Since I’m a big and long time fan of their music this was a great evening and a cool opportunity to meet and to chat with them! We had a great night with both the bands! There’s no worst gig for me… There might be some gigs we didn’t play so well or something like that, but as long as we have had fun and the people enjoyed it, the most important aspects are okay!
		What is the name of the best Dutch band at this moment? 37StabwoundZ!
		The release of “Hour Of Joy” is a definite milestone in the history of the band. What will be the next milepost? A cool tour to promote our album and the next album ;) Thanks for the interview! Greetings and all the best!
(Geert Oldenmenger)