Rockezine.com interview with Masterplan on Jan 20, 2007

with Roland Grapow on Jan 20, 2007

I got the change to do an interview with Roland Grapow in my home town Landgraaf. The new cd MK II is a great album. This was the oppertunity to ask Mr. Grapow some questions about Masterplan, Jorn and Helloween.
		Congratulations with the new album “MK II”. What does the title mean? MK II stands for Mark II. We have a new line up, so it means a new start for the band. When Jorn and Udo left the band it was like a deep hole. The keyboard player and I are great Deep Purple fans, so we compared with their situation when Glenn Huges and David Coverdale came to the band. So you can say Mark I is Masterplan with Jorn and Udo, Mark II is with Mike Dimeo and Mike Terrana. I can`t say which Mark is better but I hope that we can reach the same again with the new line-up. We don`t want to ignore the situation, we want the fans say that Mark II was also great.
		In my opinion the first track “Lost and Gone” of the promo is a typical Jorn-song. What is your opinion? Most of the songs fit totally with Jorn`s voice. Mike Dimeo and I created the melodies and I helped him to rearrange his solos and ideas because everything should sound like Masterplan. I`m always thinking of the two albums of Masterplan with Jorn`s performance, so it isn`t a kind of majestic thing and we have the typical Masterplan music. I play the guitar so I know the arrangements, that is why most people say they are not missing Jorn, because the arrangements and melodies sound totally the same unless Jorn`s voice. I called Jorn and I said to him: "I think you will be disappointed when you hear the new album, it`s really good".
		What was the reaction of Jorn? I haven’t spoken him since then. Maybe he asked for the promo at AFM, but Jorn didn’t react till now. Uli wrote me and made compliments for the album and the rest of the band. I didn’t ask him but for some reason he wanted us tell his reaction. We were fans from each other for many times.
		Aren`t you fans of eachother any more? Was that the reason Uli left Masterplan? We started to fight a little bit, I don`t want to say why but it was disappointing for Uli and for me. When he left Masterplan he really put me in a bad situation because I tried to survive with this band. Dimeo, Jan and Axel totally believed in me and the situation is so much better now. Uli wasn`t a bad person, he was a partner; but now I make all the decisions alone. I produced the basis stuff like the drums, the rhythm guitars, some bass and some vocals alone because Uli had a real bad time, he asked me if I can record the album alone and he trusted me. I recorded half of the album anyway because I couldn`t sleep; I had a bad time too. I was controlling everything but it was a lot of work extra you know. The mean problem we had in producing the album was we had only two months for recording, normally we had three months, so we missed several weeks. So I went to the mixing and I had to play all the guitar solos in the hotel room. Every morning from 6:00 to 10:00 one solo for each song, from 11:00 to 20:00 hours I went to the mixing room to mix the song and when we left for home I was even editing the drums for the next day. For two months I was full time busy and always with the fear that this album must be good or I would go down. That is why I`m not so happy he left Masterplan at that point, three or four days before we wanted to go to Slovakia to work at the album. Fortunately everything went good. With Jorn I have still great contact, he`s is a great guy. I heard so many rumours of him but I think it`s unfair and not true. He is funny and very relaxed, sometimes he can be difficult and his biggest thing is he`s a complainer; sometimes we had to hear things all over the tour. Above all he`s a great singer and he has great ideas as well.
		Who decides the musical direction of Masterplan? Maybe it is a natural changing, because my taste is also changing a little bit. Not that I want to make more hard rock but I think the very fast stuff is getting on peoples nerves. I know that Jorn never liked it anyway. All his fans said that Masterplan is great but they didn`t like the fast songs. Maybe that was influencing me as well. I have a few rules: (1) I have one heavy song (`Heart of Darkness` is really heavy), one balled and two or three fast songs on an album. `Warrior`s Cry` and `Masterplan` are so different for me they have a different kind of feeling that I wanted both of them. The rest can be a poppy song or a song with a strange kind of beat, on MK II it is `Take me Over`. I`m always thinking in beats to satisfy my taste. (2) Never start an album with a ballad, but it must be a bombastic opener followed by a fast song. The metal fan wants to have this exiting moment. I know it is typical for the metal scene, but I feel good with it. Helloween has always a lot of guitar during the whole song and the whole show that is what makes me tired, it isn`t easy.
		Not on every album of Helloween, there is one album that differs from the rest and has got a lot of negative credits. I know which album you mean, the Chameleon album.
		The album has a lot of influences, jazzy, rock, blues, orchestral and acoustic, not exactly the album the fans were waiting for. What do you think of the album? It definitely was a great experience, it was the highest battle I fought with a band. It was strange, I just joined Helloween, for me the first album with Helloween was Pink Bubbles Go Ape and the Mike`s (Kiske and Weikath) were always complaining about the musical directions. I didn`t know what was wrong with that, Keeper Of The Seven Keys Part 2 was a fucking great album. It was my favourite honestly, for the musical style and the voice of Michael Kiske. After the Keeper album they had big fights in the studio with the management because `Windmill` of Chameleon was already supposed to be on the Pink Bubbles album. Producer Chris Tsangarides said: "Helloween is a metal band for Christ`s` sake!" There was a huge tension between the management and the band and me as a new member was sitting between them. Kiske and Weikath are great fans of Queen and the Beatles, I`m a fan of Stevie Ray Vaugan, Uli Roth, Jimmy Hendriks and the `80s metal. You hear these influences on Chameleon. The song `Step Out Of Hell` was the rearrangement of the Rampage song `Victims Of Rock`, the lyrics were written for Ingo, because he was on drugs and alcohol, but we never told him. I wrote the song `I Don`t Wanna Cry No More` for my brother because he died a year before. Actually Chameleon was like a solo album for the Helloween members and there was now way back because Kiske didn`t want to change the style. The Chameleon album was mostly played live totally, so the fans and the management weren`t satisfied. The members had a lot of fights, so Kiske got out of the band. With Master Of The Rings we made an album that satisfied the bands and the fans again. Still I like the Chameleon album a lot.
		This weekend there are about 30 interviews with a lot of the same questions. Perhaps next weekend also. How do you experience the promotion tour of MK II? Well it depends, this time I like it very much, because I’m really period of MK II. I have worked so hard to make the album and I’m coming nearly to the end of my career. This album has to be great or I quit, I’m tired of building up a new band again as Uli and Jorn left the band. Masterplan is more or less my baby and with the new line up with Dimeo and Mike Terrana and with the new songs it feels great again. After the trouble I had with the making of the album the release of MK II is such a release of pressure to me. At the listening meeting at AMF the press people told me they liked the album very much. It was a beautiful experience. So for me it is enjoyable doing all the interviews. At the time of Chameleon it was less enjoyable. When you are not 100% proud, you will have to lie about it and that is the most terrible thing, not telling the truth about your cd but you have to be professional. Nobody is realising that.
		You have worked with a lot of musicians. Suppose you had the change to compose a band and everyone was available, what should be the line up of this band? That is a difficult question. It depends on what I want, I have still so much musical direction s in my head. But I would do some melodic metal again like Helloween of something like that, not the aggressive songs but something like `I want Out` or `Dr. Stein`. I’m still in contact with Michael Kiske and Kai Hanssen and we are still thinking of doing something together. It is not so far anymore; I guess after this tour and after the next Gamma Ray album we will start working on it. I would like Marcus and on the drums, well definitely not Uli.
		Today there are quite some terrifying things happening in the world (Iraq, Al Qaida, third world, Neo Nazi’s, young people shooting teachers and children at school, and so on) Do these events influence you when your write songs? No, not really. I don’t want to put my finger on these problems in the world. Masterplan has always a positive message. We pointed little bits here ad there, for the rest we make always a positive message. `Crystal Night` was maybe the most critical song I wrote about the Neo Nazi’s in Germany. It is about the bad economy in Germany and the frustration of the young people of getting no jobs; the best condition for Neo Nazi’s and there stupid messages like: we don’t want the foreigners in our country anymore. I really tried to translate the situation into `Crystal Night`, but not many fans realized this. They didn’t understand what I wanted to say.
		Please finish these sentences: - 2007 is going to be the year of me because because of a new start definitely. I feel it as a triumph after the troubles I had during the last period.
		- It is my ultimate goal my own albums. I’m not going to deliver a bad album anymore, that’s for sure!
Thank you for the interview. Thank you, it was fun. (Ralph Vermeere)