[mixcloud https://www.mixcloud.com/angelo-hulshout/interview-with-the-royal-spuds-on-july-29th-2016/ width=660 height=208 hide_cover=1 hide_tracklist=1]

Sometimes it is interesting to take a little side track. This site is mainly about progressive music, as I state on the about page – and that leads quite quickly to progressive rock. However, sometimes it’s good to refresh your mind and venture outside the regular. So, today I publish an interview that I did with a band called The Royal Spuds, a punk/folk band from Leiden in The Netherlands. And surprisingly, there still was a progressive link there. The band consists of members with different backgrounds, leading to influences from folk, punk and metal in their music – the lead guitarist turns out to be an actual Porcupine Tree fan…

So, on a Wednesday evening, we sat together in the Muziekhuis (music house) in Leiden, and talked about the history of The Royal Spuds, the background of the band members, the pending tour in Ireland – with a short side track into Irish food and banjo players here and there. As usual, we also touch upon production and composition, to make sure the balance between history, humour and music is correct.

Enjoy!!!

Tonight I got a few reports from people who were not able to properly play the interview I did with Karibow. Turns out the server that hosts my blog doesn’t really keep up with multiple people streaming audio in parallel. That is solved now in a way that I had in mind already, but hadn’t gotten around to implementing yet. The interview audio files are from now on hosted on Mixcloud, and links to the Mixcloud streams are included in the blog posts (all are updated already).

So for those who want to listen to an interview, you now have two options:

1) Open the blog post on this site, and play from the widget there, or

2) Go to my MixCloud profile where you can choose from all interviews I uploaded.

During the Night of the Prog festival on the Loreley in Germany, I found some time to have a coffee and a chat with Oliver Rüsing and Gerald Nahrgang. One being the guitarist, vocalist and founder of Karibow, and the other being the band’s drummer, there’s no guessing to the subject of the interview we did there.

[mixcloud https://www.mixcloud.com/angelo-hulshout/angelos-rock-orphanage-interview-with-oliver-r%C3%BCsing-and-gerald-nahrgang-of-karibow/ width=660 height=208 hide_cover=1 hide_tracklist=1 hide_artwork=1]

Gerald Nahrgang and Oliver Rüsing

Addicted, contains 16 tracks, and can be found on the border of prog and AOR. The tracks included were a deliberate selection out of 60 tracks that were available for the album, the others are still waiting for release. The album may not meet all ‘definitions’ of a full prog album, for Karibow musical quality in the form of composition and melody come first. The complexity may be hidden underneath that and not be obvious at first. As drummer Gerald indicates: “It’s hard work for me as a drummer. At first you don’t notice, but there are odd meters everywhere”. The two men don’t believe in progressive rock being a cage, in the end it’s about music, about ideas developing in a song, not about fitting a definition made certain listeners.

From this, in the interview we took off to discussing the album, the way of composing that Oliver applies and how that differs from what e.g. Genesis did in the past. We also touch upon loudness war, short sound clips that make up modern pop music, and the next album that Karibow is working on.

I had an interesting morning, and preparing the audio track of this interview made me think about the next one already – I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Yes, I know, it’s already March 3rd 2015, and this interview should have been published 2 months ago. No need to argue about that, it’s published now – and it’s a load of fun to listen too. More details below the picture…

Picture collage by Sonia Mota

On December 23rd, 2014, I spent a total of two hours on a Skype connection with Colin Tench, guitarist of BunChakeze, Odin (Of London), Corvus Stone, Minstrel’s Ghost, Oceans 5, Colin Tench Project, and a few more new projects coming on this year. Ok, since you asked for it: Transmission Rails and Coalition. Last week, he concluded that he had been working non-stop on recording and mixing music for three whole years, in his snow cave somewhere in the (at this time of year still) freezing cold heart of Sweden. In this interview, he talks about how he ended up being a progressive rock fan and guitarist, how it could happen that the BunChakeze album was released just 25 years after being recorded, and what happened after that.

In passing, he addresses the importance of the internet and social media for modern independent music. In fact, without the internet, he probably would never have found the driving force behind his main project Corvus Stone – a force that is not a musician… Indeed, he is talking about Sonia Mota’s art work, this time without referring to her bum.

Overall, these were two hours well spent. As you may notice, the recording here only covers just over 50 minutes. Reason for that is that we covered some other topics, which are not directly related to Colin’s own work – these will be published in a separate, written article some time in the coming two months.

Happy listening – and please share this interview if you like it. That will encourage me to do more of them.

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