Interview
(Progressive Newsletter Nr.22 09/98)
excerpts from an interview with Todd Braverman (Keyboards, Guitars, Bass), Craig Wall (Guitars) and Michael Seguso (Vocals)
(CRAIG) We took four years to finish because we wanted to make sure that this album was going to be an event to listen to and not just another album in a sea of albums. Every care was taken -- from the artwork to the keyboard patches to the amount of reverb on the vocals -- to make this something WE loved before anyone else could. Those kinds of decisions on an album of this length, scope, and caliber take four years to make.
(TODD) As Craig said, we were meticulous in crafting the songs. We worked on the arrangements to make sure that parts flowed naturally into each other. After listening to the first Magellan CD, which I enjoyed, I felt that they would play a riff, then go into another riff, then another, and so on for fifteen minutes. I wanted my music to flow so that listeners would not know that we glued one section into another. But to answer your question, I took a long time because after working for two years on the project, we realized we really needed to have a "live" drummer playing the songs. We originally were going to use programmed / sampled drums (Alesis D4) that were sequenced via a Drumkat. So we had to go back to the drawing board and record the drums and then re-record all the parts, so that they fit the new drums. In many instances, the original parts (guitar, bass or keys) did not fit the new rhythms, so we had to come up with new parts. Also, I got married, switched jobs, my wife had a baby, I bought a house and switched jobs again. Life and responsibility do get in the way of making music!
The main goal of your music is to recreate early 70's progressive rock with extended songs with memorable melodies and interesting arrangements. Did you feel a kind of pressure with this goals always in mind or how to you manage to write long songs still having a logical song structure?
(MIKE) Recreating the 70's progressive rock sound was not difficult at all, as long as we had the right instrumentation going in, the sound would come naturally. We are all so immersed in the genre that we found it quite easy to replicate.
(CRAIG) We had so many ideas to work with that it was always possible to do long songs. The fact that we're such lovers of the old Prog bands and their music simply meant that we had to write longer songs because that's the way THEY did it. If Ad Infinitum were a punk band, our songs would be a minute and a half long. We never felt a pressure to write long songs. There was always a multitude of ideas from which to take, so adding to or making a song longer was never a pressure issue. It was just what we wanted to do. Keeping the logical song structure in mind was a high priority. Too many bands, I think, lose their focus and forget that they're writing a song. They get to the jam and they stay on it.
(TODD) The songs were as long as we felt necessary in order to express the idea or concept contained within the song. If it was four minutes or seven minutes, so be it. But we did not deliberately extend a song just to make it long. In fact, we tried to trim as much fat (soloing just for soloing sake) from the songs as possible. As far as lofty goals, we always kept the symphonic prog bands as the high standard to reach. Hopefully we succeeded to some extent, but I know we have a long road to travel. Many other bands try or claim to reach that standard, but in my opinion, very few ever reach it. I have bought a lot of independently released prog CDs that claim to sound like Genesis, Yes etc., but all-in-all, most are generally disappointing (and don't sound anything like 70's prog!!). This is especially true of most neo-progressive bands. I was a huge Marillion fan back in the early 80's, but to me, Marillion never reached the same plateau as Genesis. The songwriting was not as intricate and the sound was definitely 80's, except for Mark Kelly's minimoog solos. However, they did carry the prog torch through the 80's, for which I am thankful.
How did you get in contact with Roger Dean, who created this marvelous artwork and logo for your cover?
(CRAIG) I discovered that Roger's original artwork was being exhibited at The San Francisco Art Exchange in the early 90s through a blurb that came over the newswires while I was working at a newspaper at the time. I called the gallery, they put me on the phone with him and, after I got my heart started again, I interviewed him. It was great. He's possibly one of the most gracious human beings I have ever encountered. As for how he did our cover, that was all Todd's urging. It was his idea to get me to re-contact Roger and proposition him to do the cover. We are more than pleased with that artwork. It sets the stage for what you're about to hear on the disc. With that logo, he gave us our identity as a band and a flag under which we will now do more albums. The logo visually flows everywhere. Follow the lines sometime; it's got many different pathways. Roger has always blown our minds as an artist and designer. It's funny too, because we told him that we wanted something "old" looking like in his 70s heyday. He just laughed. But he gave us just what we asked for.
Even though Ad Infinitum was more created as a pure recording project, are there plans to play any live gigs in the future and what can we expect furthermore from Ad Infinitum in the near future?
(MIKE) The band was created as, and is still a studio-band. Like the musical form itself, we all have complex lives that make gigging or touring an unviable option at this time. However, if the market-place dictates we should tour, we take that under consideration. So, buy those CDs!
Kristian Selm © Progressive Newsletter 1998