Interview
(Progressive Newsletter Nr.12 01/97)
excerpts from an interview with Jordi Planas (Bass)
The band was founded by keyboarder Jordi Amela and Jordi Prats in the beginning of 1993. Both of us came from the same band, Rara Avis, that disappeared some months before. They searched for musicians and in April '93 they found drumer J.L Pacheco and me. We both had worked together in Abacus and Kaplan. Dracma rehearsed for half a year while looking for a singer. Finally, in October, Pacheco brought singer Pedro Jiménez from his other band Hamelin. In December '93, Dracma recorded their first CD, the self-produced "Limits" in Trama Studios in Badalona. In January '94 Pacheco quits the band, the following month a new drummer is found in Eduardo Camblor, who had recorded an LP with Medianoche. During the following months Dracma rehearses both old and new tracks and looks for a record label. After several contacts, they sign with Mellow Records. In November '95 the first Dracma CD is released. "Limits" is distributed in Europe, U.S.A., Canada, Mexico, Argentinia and Japan. In February '95 Dracma receives an offer to make a contribution for a Genesis tribute CD. So in March, we enter Jan Cadela Studios to record "The light dies down on Breaodway". In May, the double CD tribute "The river of constant change" is released. In December the band goes again to Jan Cadela Studio in Barcelona to record "A fine stormy weather". The relationship with Mellow becomes worse and worse, basically because of the lack of communication. So a new label is searched and finally Dracma signs with Musea, one of the most solid around the world in the progressive scene. In April '96, Camblor gets out from the band and in May Rod Oliverira get in as the new drummer, who had also worked with Planas in Kaplan. In autumn '96 "A fine stormy weather", the second full CD of Dracma, is released.
Please tell me something about the current progressive scene in Spain.
The prog scene in Catalonia and Spain is really underground. There aren't many bands with CDs and still working. As fas as we know, that's only Galadriel, Rivendel and us. There are other bands trying to emerge, but only with demos. We know that here is not the best place to produce prog rock, so it's a real challenge for us to do this music! Also, as it happens in other places, the mass-media ignores progressive music, and when they talk about it, it's only in bad terms, except World Music magazine, the one I coordinate, which is about New Age, Jazz, Blues, Soundtracks, Folk etc. and a bit of progressive when possible. There are also some fanzines as Lunar Suite from Zaragoza, Margen from Lugo and Paraphernalia from Barcelona and some radio programmes as Contratemps from Lloret de Mar near Barcelona. But there is little audience for prog rock nowadays if we think about ist great succes in the seventies.
In the booklet of "Limits" you used several mosaics from the Park Güell created by Antoni Gaudi at the beginning of this century. Is your music in some way or the other influenced by his works?
We've recorded for foreign labels and we also sing in english, so to put in the artwork something out from Gaudi is a way to preserve something of our own cultural catalan roots. Also, the wide style known as Modernism suits very well in "Limits" music.
Another question to your first album. In the song "Feeling a tree" you used a part that sounds very similar to IQ. Was this planned or just happened by accident?
When "Felling a tree" was being composed, both Amela and Prats knew very little about IQ. I knew them well, but our influeneces are really wide. So it would be of poor creativty trying to copy someone directly.
Normally people don't like stormy weather. What was the reason to even call an album "A fine stormy weather"?
It may be an ambiguity, but the record contains a lot of changes even the front cover is contradictory, a red tree in the middle of a grey desert. "A fine stormy weather" was also the initial name I gave to "Beating life" when it wasn't finished yet. But Prats considered it also a good name for the whole album. Then all the band agreed that it could define the changing spirit of the albums' music.
Another contradiction seems to be that the wondeful, very melodic music is combined with lyrics full of desperation, like for example "what's the meaning of hope" or "the way we live makes me build my inner castle".
Thank you for paying attention to our lyrcis, not so many people seem to do it! We don't consider a contradiciton to put these "lyrics full of desperation" as you say. "Inner castle" talks about the world we try to keep inside where we can go when things outside don't run as well as we would like. It's something done by a lot of people, everybody? It's a way of keeping some hapiness when possible, so in a way it's a lyric with hope, to fight adversity with the "inner light". "Hope" may be a little sad. In fact, when I wrote it, I wasn't very happy, but I think it fits well with the music: it begins with good vibrations, very dynamic. For me it's the real hope, the good dreams we've got. And then comes the quiet sung section in the middle, sad in a way, where we realize that the world is not a paradise and some people suffer in so many ways: starvation, racsim, fanatism, poverty, loneliness, desperation etc. So to question about hope is licit to so many people. Nevertheless, all our lyrics contain hope in a way, so in this particular song after the dramatic instrumental part following the quiet one, comes another dynamic, optimistic one, so sometimes you can find a pearl when digging in the dirt.
A question about the Genesis tribute album from Mellow. Why did you especially choose "The lamb dies down on Broadway"?
When we had the chance to contribute, there were already 27 songs chosen. And we had little time to rehearse and record, so the alternatives were minimum. Anyway, we consider our cover quite acceptable , both preserving the original version and adding a little of the Dracma sound.
Kristian Selm © Progressive Newsletter 1997