Interview
(Progressive Newsletter Nr.11 11/96)
excerpts from an interview with Tommy Eriksson (Vocals, Keyboards)
Scarab started in January 1983, when we changed our bands name from Heaven and did our first offical appearance after the arrival of young, loud Keith Moon-like drummer Kari Saaristo, on a local radio show for new bands. Other members were Tommi Toivonen and Pasi Nora. We split after the frustration of gigs being cancelled and the record company going bankrupt. Finally we had to finance the pressing and cutting by ourselves. The LP was released in December '83 with no response at all, you know back then Finland was a New Wave paradise so to speak and still is! We split up also geographically as some of us moved to different cities to work and to study, so it was quite impossible to carry on. The musical style was quite the same and the song "Asylum 32" which is included on "Showing paces" was actually Scarab's first single, which was never released!
How would you describe the music that Ageness is playing now?
It's a mixture of what I hear in my head, which is constantly changing of course, distilled by the skills and limites of nice competent musicians and the spirit of this band.
Are you satisfied with the economical and artistical success of your band or are there some things you'd liked to change?
I must say that I'm never satisfied 'cause I'm a perfectionist by heart and mostly I'm dissatisfied with my own performance, but that forces me to continuously find some new areas and means to achieve the moments I want to express in the musical form. Economically of course it would be easier to have all of us living in the same country and rehearse like all the other bands do, but that isn't yet possible.
Even though your music is very sophisticated played and your albums do have a high quality standard, it seems to me that you are a little bit underrepresented in the current progressive rock scene. Do you have any explanation for that?
The fact that we don't have any record company backing us, have made it a bit difficult for us to distribute ourselves. Because all the contacts we have, have come to us first and we have replied! We actually never had any idea that there are so many bands still playing progressive rock. The only other smaller bands we knew then are listed on the "Revelation" track of the "Showing paces" album.
Talking about "Revelation". In this song you're blaming certain bands who have been failed replacing Genesis. Personally I think even Ageness sounds a little bit like Genesis. Have you therefore also failed or did you just made fun about the other bands, who desperately try to sound like Genesis?
I think you've got it all wrong. It's not blaming Marillion or Rush to be failures! It is just a personal history and they just never could replace Genesis for me! Actually Mark Kelly of Marillion asked me about it when I met the band in Finland during their "Brave" Tour and I told him the same thing and while listening to the song he cried "Oh! It's this kind of song!" and then bassist Pete Trewavas came along spotting "The lamb lies down on Broadway" part in the end of the song just before the "I know what I like" chanting in the fade out. They both seemed to be very nice about it then, obviously.
Did it therefore just happen by accident or why is in the band's name the word Genesis hidden (A...GENES.S)?
When I was working for the synthesizer company Yamaha, I received a disk containing producer sounds for a digital reverb unit. One of the sounds was titled "New Ageness" and I thought it looked really nice. The next day I went out and registered it be my pseudonym and later I registered it as a company name. When we were then forming a band and didn't even had a rehearsal yet, one promoter called me up offering a gig and asked the bands name I used it. I honestly didn't notice the Genesis connection until someone pointed it out after we had had a gig somewhere later! But of course that was surely one of the reasons why I became so attracted to it, but it wasn't a calculated move to do so.
Kristian Selm © Progressive Newsletter 1996