Melted Space talk about "Darkening Light"
Hello. Many thanks to take your time to answer few questions for Distrolution. Typical question, I know, could you introduce yourself and your band? Hi thanks to you! Well, Melted Space is a personal project that I created a couple of years ago. It was born from some kind of frustration to not be able to play every metal I liked in a band. You only have to get limited to one style like black metal or prog metal... Melted Space is my way to juggle with all my different influences and music styles I love. So I created my own metal opera where I can mix all this and where I can gather a lot of great musicians, singers to give life to the stories I want to tell. To me, that is the better way to express myself. For people who don't know you, how would you describe your music? I would say it's a movie without pictures. I tell a story with different characters, so I like the idea that the listener will enter this strange universe for 1 hour and will live some great adventures or will imagine what can is happening while he's listening to the songs. I'm quite pessimistic about our world, so I want to offer an entertainment to change your ideas and maybe dream, escape...
I'm quite used to the Melted Space universe, and "Darkening Light" seems, to me, to be a prequel to your previous albums.Could you tell us the story of your last opus? Yes it is ! This exactly what I wanted to do with this album. When I started to think about it, the very first question was « Which story do you want to tell, another mythology or something different? »Of course, I could work on Egyptian mythology or anything else but something would still missing, so I started to ask myself« why all this?» and then I thought that the idea to give a meaning to the other albums very interesting and exciting. Create my own mythology! Talking about gods who never existed, who have no names... Then I went to the library for a couple of weeks and made some researches about creation of the world, cosmology, reading Stephen Hawking's books... That was a pretty nice experience! I wrote a story like old legends about creation and I asked some of my friends who know better than me about History or old civilisations and they told me « that sounds like a real one! ». That gave me the foundations of the album, how many songs, how many characters, what kind of ambiances...then I just needed to write the music hahaha ! The album deals from creation of the world, the universe by Dimensions, Elements... to the creation of Man. Man wants to get free from his creators and denies them. To survive they must create a new world: Melted Space. That was very interesting for me to work on something that already exists because I knew where I needed to go and that gave me the opportunity to put a lot of references to the other albums/stories to give them a sense and a reason, make some characters talking about their own desires, knowing what they will become later. As always, there are many guest artists. How's the recruitment going, how do you make your choices? Actually, all depends of the story... When I write it, I already start to think about what kind of voice I will need, which part of the character I want to work on so that is the main criterion in my choice. When I know which singer I would like, I contact them and we see what happens. Of course, now it's easier for me to contact some of them as I already worked with very known singers/artists so when I explain them the concept or the project, they already heard about it or they already know some of the singers I worked with in the past. But what is really cool, they always want to listen to the music before, so I really need to make them some vocal parts to measure. It's a nice pressure and a good challenge, and I need to convince them till the end!
Credit : Guillaume Bideau Photography With all these guest artists, how the composition and recording going? I guess that's not an easy task. Well, composing is quite easy, since I know they already said «yes» to the idea. I just need to imagine them singing when I listen to the demos. Recording is he bigger part. Planing the recording sessions is the bigger part actually... They all have some big schedules and sometimes I can't make them come to Paris to record so we try to find another way to work. Fortunately, technology is our friend, and we can talk by mail, Skype...or whatever to make sure we will understand each other and make our best for the songs. Most of the time, they send me some demos if they have some ideas about our vocal lines and we can prepare all the sessions they will need to do without me. I'm used to do it since many years now so despite, I prefer to meet and work with them in real, it's a nice way to work. You have work with the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra. First of all, I'm gonna try to beat you up, because you know how big a fan I am of this kind of work. Secondly, can you tell us about this magnificent experience? Haha yes sure, it's always a great part of the production process, going to Prague and work with all these great musicians and their team! I would say it was even better than the last time because it was the second one and I already knew how they work and how I needed to prepare it. Writing some orchestral part is one of my favorite things when I work on a Melted Space album and this time, I had a better idea of what I needed regarding to the last album. There is a bit less of the orchestra but I really think it's more efficient to highlight a voice, a special part of a song. When I went to Prague for the session, we had a great time all together, thinking about which part to double, how it gonna sound, make some tests... I probably wrote better parts so all went in a very very comfortable mood and I felt like a family job with people I trust in. This time, I juggled with a lot of synthesizers and the orchestra to give to the songs something new or something that I never used before. That was a pretty nice challenge, and I'm pretty happy and proud of the final result! 'Darkening Light' sounds like a prequel but also an end to that rich universe you created. Will there be a sequel, or are you planning to explore new horizons on future albums? You're absolutely right! This is the prequel that Melted Space needed. When I started some years ago, I only thought about creating my own universe and I continued in that way. But when I started to think about what I wanted to tell on this album, I understood that I needed to give a reason to all this. So now I know that I'll be able to explore everything I want in the future. There is a beginning. So, in a way I accomplished and ended a first part of this universe. Let's see what will happen next ! You are like our French Hans Zimmer and I know you appreciate many film composers. Do you have any projects parallel to Melted Space, musical or otherwise? Oh thank you very much, you know how I love Zimmer's music! Well yes, I have a lot of projects that is very stimulating! I still play in Embryonic Cells, we are currently finishing the new album that should be out around next Fall. I also make some orchestrations for bands and some projects that I can't talk about for now hehe. [embed] Among all your songs, if you had to choose "your" favorite song, which one would it be? And why? That's a very hard question actually... In this new album, I would say «Trust in Me» because of the «Lion's fight» between Mikael and Jeff but... it's very complicated to choose... In the Melted Space universe, I can't tell... Melted Space is now with Base Productions (booker) and the album is also distributed in the United States. Can you give us your feedback on this subject? Yes, that is very cool of course!! Base Production in one of the biggest bookers in France so, I'm very proud of it, they really believe in the project and Laurent and his team are doing a great job! I feel very proud to have drawn Base Prod's attention with Melted Space. They worked on Gojira's success, so it means a lot for me. Now we have some captivating chats about the future so, here again let's see what will happen! About being distributed in the US, it's something that I really understood when a friend of mine went to California last year. He went to a record store and asked for «The Great lie», they guy told him that they sold all the copies they had... Now, the new album is distributed by Sony in the US and it's quite unreal for me! Every step is important in a band's evolution so when I look the path from the beginning and the very first «From the Past» demos, I fell very proud. I know that music industry is very hard now so in a way, I feel grateful and privileged to ba able to do my own music and getting some people like this with me. Do you have an opinion on the music industry and its evolution? Yes, I think that is very hard to make some music nowadays... You have to consider your band like a company with investments, financial partners... making an album is like release a new product and the artistic part is almost the smaller one that is very sad. You always need to think about how being «special», how make the people get interested in what you are doing, how to get the biggest sound... Even since I started with Melted Space, the industry already changed, and I wouldn't like to start a new musical project now... I'm asked to make some masterclasses about how to develop a musical project and I always start saying « Well, today I will tell you about boring stuffs... » because it's reality! You can't simply think you will make your music, and people will like it, you have to spend a lot of time to be sure that people will know about it and how to get the money to do it. Furthmore, in France, administration is a big part of a musical project, so you spend a lot of time with paper to be sure you're in the right way with the law... I would love to only think about music or the band but, in the end, I'm a company head.
Credit : Phenix GalassoPhotography
Can you tell us how the first 'Darkening Light' promotional gigs went? It was great, we shared the stage with good friends like Misanthrope, Disconnected (Adrian's band) and Insolvency. The audience was really receptive to the new songs, and we were really happy to see a lot of people singing the old ones like Titania, No Need To Fear... It gave us a lot of energy, now we want to share this new material with as much people as possible! What are the next gigs of Melted Space? Actually, for now I can't tell because I don't know exactly what will happen next but there is a lot of discussions with bookers, agents about tours, opening acts on big stages, fests... Wait and see! Any last word for your fans? Well, thanks for reading, I hope that you will like this new album! See you on the road! Once again, on behalf of the Distrolution team, a big thank you for this interview. Cheers.
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