Interview
(Progressive Newsletter Nr.26 07/99)
excerpts from an interview with Bill Berends (Vocals, Guitars, Bass)
I think it was planned from the start! After the Fish tour we knew it was time to get to work on a new album. I also knew from touring I was getting tired of playing the same material repeatedly... but this is a difficult issue since as an indie band we haven't toured that much, and people who are coming to see us live for the first time in their lives naturally want to hear material they know from the albums, but some of that music we have been playing live for over a decade and I knew I wanted to something different. I wanted to play something looser and more improvisational. So when we confirmed Jens would be playing on the album that cemented the instrumental concept. He would be the other "voice" on the album.
Even though the music reaches into different directions than the muscial predecessors, I honestly think it's far away from being jazz rock. Did you use this term to just get away from the label progressive rock or what was the reason for using this new description for Mastermind's music?
I guess it depends how you define "jazz rock". There is a definite Mahavishnu influence on 3 or 4 tracks on "Excelsior!" and they were known as jazz rock. I never called it jazz rock! But the Japanese think it's jazz rock. Some reviews have said the ELP influence is gone altogether, others have said "Soaring ELP fanfares", so I suppose it depends on your frame of reference. I don't think it's a jazz record at all, but it does have some jazz-like elements. It also has some metal flavor, some groove oriented stuff, some prog, some acoustic parts! Most importantly I think it flows well as an album unlike say Dixie Dregs which switches gears so dramatically mid-stream it is sometimes difficult to listen to straight through. To a degree I want to get away from the "prog" label because it has come to mean a retro derivative stylistically fixed sort of music, using time-stamped sounds and approaches. I would like to do something that has the spirit of 70's progressive music - notice I didn't say "prog" which has come to define a distinct style - and make it relevant and vital in today's musical environment. Progressive jazz-metal fusion perhaps?!
How did it come to the cooperation with Jens Johannson? Was he first choice or did you also have thought about someone else?
Jens has always been my first choice because of his improvisational style, like a Jan Hammer sort of thing. We have a lot of common ground musically and we get along well. I first met Jens in 1987 and we kept in touch over the years. I guess we started to talk about working together in '94 or so and it took 4 more years for our schedules to come together! Jens came down to my studio for a couple of days to record his parts, so it wasn't a situation of mailing tapes, I directed the parts he played and we worked together in the same room.
Will there ever be a live performance with him or was this record just something done for the studio?
We hope there will be some live shows with Jens at some point, we haven't ruled that out, but since we began doing this, Stratovarius has become quite successful - we recorded our first demo with Jens just as Stratovarius "Visions" was being released - and that keeps Jens incredibly busy. I can't imagine not gigging just because Jens isn't available, so we'll have some other guests fill in until we sort out if and when Jens will become available or find another more permanent person. This summer Mickey Simmonds, who played with Mike Oldfield, Fish, Camel, will be playing keybaord with us at the NEARfest and possibly some other shows, and Jens may be available in the fall, it is hard to say right now! But that is no reason to not make the best album we can. In fact Jens has already recorded parts for our next album and perhaps we might get Mickey to record some stuff too. Since I've mentioned it, Mickey and I became friends on the Fish / Mastermind USA tour and when we learned Jens wasn't available in June, Mickey was the first person we called to play NEARfest. Mickey is quite a different player than Jens, but the material is set up so almost any other soloist can step in and play the parts and Mickey is very talented. We knew from the beginning Jens couldn't join us as a full time member... not yet anyway!
In the last several months / last year you had some major changes in your line-up. First there's new bass player Bob Eckman and secondly also a new singer / guitar player called Lisa Bouchelle. Can you tell me something more about their status and how they joined the band?
1998 was a time of upheaval for Mastermind. Going into our second decade as a musical entity I just felt like I wasn't having fun any more, a certain amount of the joy was gone, it had become almost like work... You yourself know from the time we spent together in Germany that Phil Antolino and myself had personality conflicts. Also, Phil is not a very improvisational player which is where my interests were heading, so after all our shows in '97 we parted company with Phil and called Bob Eckman. We had worked with Bob as a live bassist back in '92 when "Brainstorm" was released, so it was a natural move for us. Bob plays some bass on "Excelsior!" but I still play much of the bass in the studio myself. It's just easier that way since I know what I want to hear and it goes faster if I just do it myself. I've know Lisa for many years from studio projects and as I was mulling over just what it is I wanted to do I heard her sing at a local showcase club and that was it! She had come of age I suppose you might say, and she is the best singer I know personally. So since I knew I wanted to concentrate more on guitar and less on vocal I had a hard time trying to imagine what sort of vocalist I might hear for Mastermind. I didn't want a "typical" voice, and I love female vocal in symphonic music, so we had her sing a few songs and it just sort of clicked. I still think of her as a sort of special guest, but she is committed to working with us and it is going well so far. People love her and she is a very talented and powerful vocalist.
With Lisa Bouchelle you now have also a new singer which also leads the music of Mastermind into a new direction. Will she now take over all the singing and are there also some recordings with her planned for the future?
Lisa was singing all the main lead vocals in our '98 live shows with me singing harmony. That is a new element too - background vocals! It's hard to imagine until you hear it, but it works very well. This is all part of the upheaval, of my desire to enjoy myself more as a musician and performer, and singing has never been a primary interest in my life. I decided that it was distracting from the joy I get from playing guitar so that decision is responsible for two changes; the instrumental album "Excelsior!" and bringing Lisa in as a vocalist. We are recording a new album with Lisa right now and expect to have it finished by the end of the summer. The new material was all written with Lisa and Jens in mind, so it is quite an interesting development and everyone who has heard the demos thinks it is our best work yet. We shall see! The new material is pretty intense and much heavier overall than "Excelsior!", plus it is more song oriented since I want to showcase Lisa's voice within the context of Mastermind. The funny thing is, Lisa had asked to sing with us several years ago and I just didn't think it would work at that time, but we have both grown since then and it seemed like the time was right to bring her on board.
Last year your toured extensivly throughout the U.S.A. with Fish. How did you get to have this chance, how were your received by his fans because Mastermind's music being very different to his and what were your personal highlights of this tour?
We landed the tour through our friend Jim Pitulski who is Fish's manager. I've known Jim for several years, and we met Fish earlier at "Rotherham Rocks" in the UK, so it just sort of fell together naturally. It was a great tour for us because it was the first time we made it all the way across the USA. We met lots of fans who were coming out to see us live for the first time and it was great! Some of the hardcore Fish fans were a little put off by our high intensity level, but we won over far more people than we offended. And, working with Fish was great fun, plus we met Mickey Simmonds and that promises to have some potential in the future as well. My personal highlights were getting to play in front of so many new people of course, and driving across America was quite an experience! The country is huge and there are just so many thing to take in, it was breathtaking at times, the deserts and mountains... I love traveling!
Kristian Selm © Progressive Newsletter 1999