Interview: Dirk Ulrich - The Mastermind & Producer of TSR

By Rita Bayer

6 years past by since the idea was born to find 3 world class singers to perform the *best of* repertoire of the original tenors: Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo and José Carreras. “Although mixing classical and rock music has already been done before in the past we do believe that the TSR Project is a new and unique combination of these two forces” said Dirk.
TSR consists of Thomas Dewald & Vladimir Grishko [classical tenors] and Dream Theater frontman James LaBrie on vocals alongside with the mastermind and producer of TSR, Dirk Ulrich together with Sandro Martinez on guitars, Paul Mayland on drums, Marvin Philippi on bass and Christopher Jesidero on 1st violin.

On Thursday, Sept.14, 2006 Melody & I caught up with Dirk at Brainworx Music / Brainrox Studios. Before we listened to the mastered TSR album content in its entirely, we did a quick studio round-tour. I don’t want to spoil anything but let me tell you one thing: This is going to be a very spectacular, stunning CD release. Shortly after this incredible pre-listening session I conducted the interview with Dirk where we talked about every aspect that came on my mind in terms of TSR but also about other projects he is involved in as well as some small talk. Finally, Dirk played 3 tracks out off his own band’s debut album to us. If you like the tunes of Linkin Park, Evanescence, or a female fronted version of the Scandinavian band Engel but with German lyrics, you definitely should check his band GIFTIG ( Video clip Fallen Angel ) out.

A big THANK YOU to Dirk Ulrich for the wonderful time at Brainworx Music. We had a blast.



Rita: Dirk, you’re the mastermind and producer of TSR [True Symphonic Rockestra], you’re just back from Russia, how are you and what have you done over there?

Dirk: I’m fine, thank you. We have recorded all the TSR playbacks and band stuff here in Germany, Brainworx Studios whereas we’ve recorded the vocals in Russia and we’ve also mixed in MarinSound Studios.

R: Could you please tell us a bit more about your background, your working fields and other projects you’re currently involved in.

Dirk: Well, I started producing music about 15 years ago and I’ve worked with a lot rock and metal bands like Pink Cream, a lot German bands also with Pro Pain from New York. I mostly work in Brainworx Studios in Germany, besides that, I just started to work with MarinSound Studios in Russia. They book me as a producer and engineer for some of their bands. My main band here in Germany is GIFTIG and now we’ve started this TSR project. This is my new baby. [laughs]

R: You work at 2 studios, are you kind of freelancer?

Dirk: I’m an independent producer and guitar player, so I can work with any studio.

R: ah, I see.
6 years passed by since the idea was born to find 3 world class singers to perform the *best of* repertoire of the original tenors: Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo, José Carreras. The name TRUE SYMPHONIC ROCKESTRA explains already a lot, even so…. what was your intention and what do you hope to get out of this project?

Dirk: Well, when I started to record with a hardcore metal band who were at the label I had at that time, 2 other heavy metal singers were coming in because they had to do some background vocals and I just had the idea it would be cool to have 3 rock singers to do the 3 tenors repertoire. That was the original idea. The 6 years passed by not because we didn’t find the singers. Actually I got in contact with James 6 years ago. Just when we started he was very happy with the idea and immediately he said he would join this project but it took a lot of time to produce and to record all that stuff. It took us about 3 months only to do the arrangements because we worked with the original scores from all these classical pieces and then we had to transform the stuff. I also had some personal stuff that forced me to stop for 2 years in the middle of this project. When all that was solved I was trying to finish and then we had the idea to include the classical tenors into this, which was the best idea we ever had, I think. James was thrilled by this when I told him about the idea. He said that this would be great and I sent him mp3 demos of Thomas and Vladimir and he immediately said that these voices were great and that he thought his voice would perfectly fit to these voices. So we decided to do this. When we found MarinSound and Mr.Marin as a co-producer and financing person for this project we were able to go to Russia and to finish it.

Brainrox Studios

R: What do you hope to get out of the project?

Dirk: Right now, it looks like we’re definitely going to perform live with the TSR project. All the singers want it, Mr. Marin wants this as well. He runs a very big PA company in Russia and he wants to support us. What I really hope is that we can get younger people and rock audience to get into opera music because we all are big fans of opera music and the classical pieces involved. I just hope that people will see that this can definitely rock and that everybody will get fun out of listening to TSR stuff.

R: You mentioned that you plan to tour, in what kind of venues would you like to play?

Dirk: My biggest dream right now would be like to have a release party. I spoke with James about this lecture to have a release party with this album not in a typical rock venue but in some kind of opera hall.

R: I guessed so.

Dirk: Philharmonie or something like this. The Philharmonie in Cologne for example would fit perfectly. Right now, all I can say about touring is that we want to do this and we’re proud to have a very good booking agency but of course we’ve to follow all the business steps. There’s a lot of copyright stuff so it will take some time until we can release this album. We have to talk to all the publishing companies who have the rights for these original tunes that we perform. We’ve to ask for permission to use our versions. The ballads are pretty close to the original versions but other stuff we’ve pretty much re-worked. We have a Fear Factory version of “O Sole Mio” [laughs] and other stuff that is really heavy and fast. This all has to be cleared - we think, this can be done because we didn’t do a persiflage on the originals just new arrangements. Then we have to release the album and finally when people have heard about this album we want to tour. I can’t tell you right now where we’re going to tour. We’d like to tour everywhere.

R: You'll start in Germany hopefully.

Dirk: [laughs] I don’t know. Well, we as the basic band, me as the producer – we’re from Germany. Thomas is from Germany too but Vladimir is from the Ukraine, James is from Canada. So we’ve to bring a lot of people together to do this finally. We don’t know how big this might become. So far, everybody we played the material, is pretty thrilled. We played it to our friends and people in our studio like you - also the snippets on the internet have been received very well.

R: Do you already know who will play along with you on stage apart from the 3 tenors?

Dirk. The band is a fixed band. It’s not like session musicians. On the website there’s an artists page and all these musicians you can view there will also appear on stage.

R: Cool.

Dirk: It’s definitely planned to have the same band line up - including the string people who did the recordings.

Brainrox Studios

R: What were the biggest sticking points on your way to let your dream come true in terms of the musical arrangements / the pre-production/ the production (recordings/mixing/mastering) itself?

Dirk: First of all, we started with the original 3 tenors CDs and we listened to their songs and we decided which tunes would be the best to use, the most common songs, because we wanted to have songs on the CD which even the rock audience will know like “O Sole Mio”, “Moon River” etc.. There were a lot of songs on these CDs that were brilliant but more classic pieces that the rock audience might not know, so we decided about the repertoire first. I was very happy to find Christopher as an arranger who did all the classical arrangements whereas I and the band did the rock arrangements. Then we started without knowing who would be the singers of this project. First I tried to get in contact with James from Dream Theater because we thought he would be the best choice for us. It was tough to get in contact with him. We tried it through German record labels, managements – whatever – we couldn’t really get to him. Finally I saw on the DT homepage that all band members have their own homepage and that John Petrucci’s homepage is maintained by his wife. I decided to write an email to her and I asked her to pass my email to John Petrucci and asked him to send it forward to James LaBrie….[both laughing] and after 2 or 3 months trying to get in contact with James through all these labels, whatever – I got an answer back in 2 hours. He emailed me his private phone number and also his mobile phone number and said: “please call me, it sounds very exciting, if you have some music I can listen to - if it’s as good as your idea then I’m willing to do this.” This was even in the first email. Then I called him, I sent him mp3s.

R: This happened in 2001?

Dirk: Yes, he said that he’d like to do it. Of course we’d have to look for 2 other singers that have the same quality and level. That was our wish too.
The final sticking point was to find financiers to do all this because we did all the pre-production ourselves with recording the drums and arrangements. But to actually do the vocal recordings in Russia, to pay the flights for the singers, the fees and the studio whatever – we definitely needed some help and we were very lucky to find Mr. Marin as a partner. He was very excited about getting James LaBrie and the other singers to Russia and getting his new studio booked and stuff like this. All turned out to be good.

R: A few words about each singer, please.

Dirk: I assume that most people from Ytsejam.com probably know more about James than I do. [laughs] I followed James LaBrie’s career over the years with Dream Theater and some of his side projects and solo stuff and I decided to ask him because for me he was the perfect choice. He studied classical singing himself before starting Dream Theater. I just loved the flavour and colour of his voice.

James LaBrie

Thomas I came to know through the distribution company that works with GIFTIG, my band here in Germany. They’re a big label for classical distributions and jazz. They proposed Thomas as a very good singer to me and told me that he’s also a professor for vocal teaching at the University in Mainz. He won a lot of prizes and they gave me a CD of Thomas and I was just blown away especially because he did some of the songs that we recorded. I saw a DVD where he performed “ Nessun Dorma” and I copied the music out off this DVD and sent it to James and he said “we have to ask him”.

R: James was involved in this decision?

Dirk: Yes, through up the 6 years that I’ve been in contact with him. I also met him several times when he was on tour with Dream Theater and also with his solo tour. We constantly kept on working on this project. Well, actually I didn’t work on it for six years every day, of course; and James didn’t either but all the big decisions we did as partners. I knew James wanted to be involved and of course, he wanted to be part of the decision who would sing with him together. Thomas and Vladimir also knew that James would be part of the project so they could decide as well if they liked the team or not. James liked Thomas’ voice immediately, he sent me a very nice email back saying that Thomas’ voice is phenomenal.

Christopher, Thomas & Dirk @ MarinSound Studios

Vladimir was brought up by the Russian studio people because they knew Vladimir personally. They said that he’s a world famous tenor, he has sung with Pavarotti among others and he has won the Metropolitan Opera Award 5 times in New York, Pavarotti Awards and everything so they said they could get him to do this and asked us if we’d like this. We decided that his voice would be perfect too. He has a little bit different tone in his voice. Thomas is more of a bright and clear voice, Vladimir is a real hero tenor as it is called. He likes to do some really strong vocals.

R: At what point did you decide to use 1 rock tenor and 2 classical tenors, why exactly this constellation?

Dirk: The idea was brought up in 2005. I presented this whole project to people of this distribution company, Delta Music, who do a lot of classical music like I said. I told them that I was still looking for 2 other singers to do this. The boss of this distribution company said “why don’t you use 2 classical singers” and I thought “wow, that’s a good idea”. I don’t know why but we never had this idea before and from that day on the whole concept changed a lot again because we thought that would be really cool – we definitely want to try not only present it to the heavy metal audience, I mean, it’s definitely rock, you heard it, some of the stuff is very wild and fast. But we also want to try to present it to people who are not only into heavy metal, maybe people who like different styles of music. We thought including these classical tenors would be really cool to reach a wider audience.

R: Well, I didn’t expect that it would sound soooo METAL in between.

Dirk: [laughs]

R: I’m wondering how the classical audience will react. [lauging]

Dirk: [still laughing] Vladimir spoke with Luciano Pavarotti and Madame Caballe on the phone before he decided to join this project. He said that he was offered to be part of a new rock meets classic project and Madame Caballe said that she thinks, the only way to get younger people to listen to classical music, to survive for the classical scene in the long run, is to open up and to combine with more modern stuff.. She sang with Freddy Mercury. She said to Vladimir he definitely should do this. We just hope that some of the classical audience will be open for this. Yes, of course, there will be people saying this is too wild, too loud, maybe too fast for them but we also recorded 2 ballads without any drums, just strings and acoustic guitars, we recorded 2 more ballads that have drums but they’re still very balladesque. Classical music itself is very fast, there’s a lot fast stuff in classical music, a lot of fast cello and violins, stuff like that. We think, it makes sense.

R: There’s an enormous interest in the TSR project already in the run up to the release….you mentioned it yourself once, your website got more than a million clicks. Did you expect it? How do you feel about it? Do you feel like getting pressure in any way?

Brainrox Studios

Dirk: No, we can’t really speed up the process of releasing this like I tried to explain before - we have to talk to a lot of publishing companies to get permissions to release our versions of the original scores. We were hoping of course, with somebody like James LaBrie involved that we would get rock people interested in this project but I’m really surprised about the amount of interest that we have so far because we don't have anything out, only snippets, 2 small videos, we don't have released a complete song until now.

R: You didn’t do so because it’s currently forbidden to upload a complete song ?

Dirk: Until we have all the release contracts from these publishing companies, we definitely don’t want to do this. Also we feel that it might be a little bit too early because we don’t know exactly when this album will be out. We hope it will be somewhere early 2007. Jan / Feb depending on how fast we can come up with the agreement of the label and all this. That’s the only reason. I’m very proud because when I started this project I already talked to a lot of people – in the beginning some people didn’t really see the whole picture, they didn’t really believe in this but we believed in it throughout the whole time. James also did. Even before we had the 2 other singers. Now that everything is recorded everybody is giving us very positive feedback and I’m very proud of it, of course. I’m very happy.

R: You can! Did I miss anything or is the album still untitled?

Dirk: [Dirk started typing on his keyboard/notebook] I can show you something… We thought about calling it “The concerto in true minor” That was the working title right from the beginning. [he pointed on the screen] and this is the set list.

R: Yes, I see, but it wasn’t clear to me that this is the album title.

Dirk: well, the band itself is called TSR, True Symphonic Rockestra, the working title for this album has always been “The concerto in true minor” and now we have come up with the slogan “The 3 Rock Tenors” so it might be called “The concerto in true minor by 3 Rock Tenors” or it might be titled “The 3 Rock Tenors featuring the TSR” – we don’t really know yet. Probably the label will have some ideas as well.

R: How did you choose the musical pieces?

Dirk: I’m a big fan of the 3 tenors and I have some of their CDs, probably all of them. When I had this idea I talked to some of my musical friends like Paul, a very good drummer who plays on a lot of productions and also in 2 former bands we had together. I told them about the idea. We sat together listened to all these CDs of the tenors because we wanted to pick the *best of* repertoire of the 3 tenors’ music. Focussing on tunes most people would know. There were some songs that were very obvious like “Nessun Dorma”, “My Way”, “Moon River”. These are like the super hits in classical music – then other stuff like “Pourquoi me réveiller”, a very nice ballad which is not so well known. Classical people will know it but rock people won’t know it, I guess.

R: Were the originals at any time involved, I know, you’re in contact with Mr. Pavarotti, maybe saying “could you add this or that, it’s my favourite.”

Dirk: Actually Vladimir Grishko is in contact with Pavarotti. Right now we’re working on getting them a CD from this…

R: oh, they haven’t heard the final mixing yet?

Dirk: I just came back from Russia 2 days ago. 4 weeks ago I already had a mix of all but there were some small changes now. The final versions are finished for 2, 3 days only, so they don’t have any music yet.

R: and the TSR singers, have they had any influence on the set list?

Dirk: The repertoire we picked before we even knew who would be the singers and we also recorded most of the stuff – while we were recording we got in touch with James. We always sent him the playbacks and he sent us some comments about the stuff. Most times he sent emails back like saying “Hey, tell the drummer he did a phenomenal job” when I sent him some of the faster stuff. Paul was very proud of it because James plays with DT and they have one of the best rock-drummers in the world, if not the best...

When we recorded the vocals now and it came to mixing all the stuff – of course, we spoke with the singers what their preferences would be. When you mix an album you can still do a lot of arrangement stuff, you can mix the guitars louder or not so loud, you can mix the vocals more up or down – stuff like this. We tried to find a mix that features the vocals definitely - the voices might be a little bit louder than on a heavy metal CD. We think that the most important thing on this album are the voices so they get the main attention.

R: We’re here at Brainworx Music. You already mentioned that the arrangements were recorded here, everything else happened at MarinSound Studios in Russia?

Vladimir, Dirk, James, Thomas

Dirk: We recorded everything in Brainworx Studios except for the vocals. We recorded all the strings, all the drums, all the bass, all the guitar stuff – almost everything here. It’s not as big as MarinSound Studios but it’s a very good studio especially for rock. We produce a lot rock, metal, punk, some very loud bands. [laughing] And we get some very good results with it.

R: Describe the tenors’ recording sessions in 3 words, please.

Dirk: In 3 words – oh.

R: Yes, that’s quite challenging, I guess. [laughing]

Dirk: [laughs too] 3 words, ok. I start with Vladimir. He’s very impulsive, very spontaneous…

R: very professional? [laughing]

Dirk: [laughing] of course, they’re all very professional. Actually I wanted to say: very funny. Vladimir is a very funny character. Whenever he had sung something and he wanted to listen in the studio he came back, he came up with the metal fingers [me laughing] and stuff like this.

Thomas. I think, Thomas is first of all well prepared. I think he didn’t record anything more than 2 or 3 takes. Most of the stuff he actually did in 1 or 2 takes. I think there was 1 part he did 4 times ….mmmm, 3 words, [Dirk bursts out laughing] was ist das für eine Frage? [What sort of question is that? - once in a while it happened that we switched automatically to German.] so, ok… Thomas: perfectly prepared, always in tune [laughing], good spirit!

R: … and finally James.

Dirk: loyal (!), open-minded & spontaneous.

R: What do you think, for whom was it a bigger challenge – the classical tenors or James?

Dirk: we had this discussion in this TV interview we did in Russia with Thomas and James. It was the same challenge for both of them just with different aspects. For James, I think, the most challenging thing was the pronunciation and to do all this in all these languages. He has no problem with singing the melody lines and he’s used to working with scores. He’s very professional with that but the pronunciation and to get the right feeling “on tape” for all this classical music.

For the classical people it was very easy to sing most of the stuff from the melodies and even from the pronunciation because they knew almost all songs of the repertoire. But the timing was the most challenging thing for them and the speed because some of the tracks we recorded in a really fast version and every song has a steady tempo of course, when you work with drums this has to be. Thomas and Vladimir needed some practice in singing this ding – ding – ding without having their flowing tempo.

R: But it was great fun for all of them?

Dirk: Yes! Vladimir, one night he was jumping around the studio more or less and he told me “look, eh, I will bring you to the opera and you have to make me a Rock Star, ok???”.

Vladimir Grishko & Thomas Dewald @ MarinSound Studios

R: [laughing] Maybe he will become the frontman of a metal band in the near future, who knows.

Dirk: He said that he has done all the classical stuff for so many years now, it’s still fun for him and he loves his job but it gets like ….

R: boring?

Dirk: Not boring, it’s routine but this new rock thing is totally exciting, challenging, new for him.

R: What was the most memorial moment during the recording sessions?

Dirk: I think, there’re two. The first thing was - on the flight to Krasnodar I had to stop in Moscow for one night because my first plane had a problem. James was already in Russia then and Vladimir came directly from the Ukraine. Thomas, Christopher and me we were stopped in Moscow. Almost nobody in Russia spoke English or German and we had to stay in this very bad hotel at the airport and I got a very bad cold because I wore only a T-shirt. When I arrived at MarinSound Studios I was very excited to have my 3 world class singers there and I had to set up the sound for them. I had to do the sound-check with almost hearing nothing. I thought it was very unfair because I was waiting for 6 years for this moment to start and I was in such a bad shape – you can see it on the video which was done on the 7th day we were in Russia and there I was feeling already much better because they bought me a lot of medicine, but still I look like sh**. That was my worst scenario. The very best feelings about this were: with each singer it was very cool and intimate to do the recordings because most of the time when one singer recorded the other people left the studio, maybe just Christopher or Thomas as guides sitting next to me. That was really cool and then one moment I really like was the last day when we sat in the studio and we listened to all the songs completely as a pre-mix more or less. Everybody was just very thrilled because we never listened through all of them before. After 6 years of waiting – you’re sitting there with all these singers and finally we are all listening to this TSR - music – that was big fun.

Rita: Did all 3 singers meet in person for the very first time?

Dirk: Yes.

R: Do you know if the classical tenors have been familiar with James’ music? DT or solo stuff.

Dirk: They didn’t know James before we contacted them. But Thomas for example told me – he’s a professor for vocal teaching – that he spoke to some of his students and everybody said – “what you’re going to work with James LaBrie from Dream Theater? Wow…”. Then he checked on the internet and he found out that there’s so much stuff about Dream Theater and James on the internet and he realized what this would mean. Also, James brought a brand new unreleased copy of the Score DVD to Russia so we were able to watch it. The classical people are more used to do live performances than doing recordings because most of their jobs are live performances at opera houses, so they could see now the quality of James and his band on a live recording.

R: They liked Score?

Dirk: Thomas said at one time: “I’m not into rock at all, I’m not used to listening to rock but if you tell me now that this is rock - meaning DT- then I consider myself a rock fan from now on.”

R: Brilliant, cool !!!

Dirk: He just caught all the quality of DT. He thinks, there’s still a lot rock music out there that he just doesn’t like because he thinks it’s just noise, aggressive. This doesn’t really make sense to him.

R: Well, SCORE is just a great opportunity to introduce high quality rock music to a classical musician.

Dirk: With the orchestra and all that stuff, they got it.

R: Was there anything the 3 tenors didn’t expect?

Dirk: A lot!!! [laughing]

R: Oh, [laughing too]

Dirk: First of all, when you record opera music – the way the voices were recorded is totally different from recording pop or rock music. A rock singer is standing like 10 or 15 cm from his microphone to get this real close sound. The classical voices of TSR sound different than on usual classical albums but that’s what I wanted to get on this album because I think it’s much cooler. The classical tenors are used to stand 2 or 3 meters from the microphone to catch the room sound. - And this steady tempo all the time as I mentioned before. That was really challenging for them.

R: So all vocalists have heard the final results already, are they pleased?

Dirk: They’re happy. Thomas calls me and he even sends me SMS every second day [me laughing]. I really like him as a person. Same with Vladimir but the contact is not that steady because he lives in the Ukraine and it’s very expensive to phone with him. We’re writing emails. With James – I mean, I work as a producer for many years and I did some decent bands before but James has so much experience with productions that I always send him new mixes and masterings and he always gives me back some well-founded comments.

R: Would you call TSR your most challenging production to date and are you pleased for 100% with the final results [ me laughing] yes, I know you are !

Dirk, guitarist of GIFTIG

Dirk: [laughs] Yes, I’m pleased at least 110 %!! I couldn’t imagine how all this would fit together before we went to Russia for the recordings. I was sitting here with Christopher about all these songs and we said: “this part James should sing, then the next part Vladimir, etc. We were only thinking about their voices and we changed the arrangements a little bit in Russia when we worked on it but most of it was more or less recorded like Christopher and I decided here in Germany. Now I’m really pleased to hear the final results. Also when we mixed in this big studio in Russia. I could work on all the equipment I’ve ever dreamt about. All the music and the vocals we recorded are excellent. It’s my most challenging project definitely because there’s so much different stuff involved. When I record with some metal band or hardcore band or whatever, I know exactly - because I´ve done it many times before - what I have to focus on, but with this project there was a lot of new stuff for me like recording opera vocals and recording string sections and all that. It was very challenging for me as well.

R: Is TSR an one-off project?

Dirk: No, I mean, we recorded one album so far, so it could be considered as an one-off project, but all the 3 singers are extremely happy with what we created and they already said they would be interested in recording another TSR album and Mr. Marin wants us to do a LIVE DVD, he is willing to support us with this. He has the biggest PA system in Russia so he said if we’re going to do it somewhere we can use his equipment. He will set up the stage and I will be responsible for recording the stuff again. So I hope for the future that there’s going to be a second album. We have already some cool ideas about new songs, not the whole album and we haven’t worked on it actually, but ideas do exist. Especially, now that we know which singers we have it’s much cooler because we can arrange the stuff especially for James’ or Vladimir’s or Thomas’ voice. The singers are happy with it, the reaction of the people is very good so far. So I believe, it’s not an one-off project.

R: Do you want to talk about the album we’ve heard yet or shall I go on with other stuff.

Dirk: I can’t really talk so much about the album in terms of the release date or through which label it will be released.

R: Maybe in general about the songs.…what was your favourite song and why?

Dirk: I think what touches me most is “Pourquoi me réveiller”. I don’t know really why but whenever I hear this song I get goose pimples. I can’t say there’s really one favourite song. There’re at least 3 or 4 songs. Also “Nessum Dorma”. It came out great and it has a big meaning to me because I love this song. From the hard tunes, I really Like the “O Sole Mio” – Fear Factory version.

R: I’m still kinda speechless - I never expected it so metal in between, that it would rock so hard. Was it planned right from the beginning to let it sound so heavy, so metal?

Dirk: Yes, actually we did it because we didn’t want to sound like a Rondo Veneziano with some distorted guitars. We wanted to let it sound hard rock or metal, but with “class”. Especially it’s cool because of the drums. Paul is an excellent rock drummer. We have so much double bass stuff. I think the way we’ve mixed it finally, it doesn’t really sound aggressive although it’s fast and heavy. We didn’t want to let the album sound like noise and screaming voices. It was very important for us to find great singers who can do the songs the way they were intended to be. But we wanted it to sound ROCKKKK.

R: What is your most precious talent and what is your blind side?

Dirk: Me personally? Referring to this album?

R: No, in general, please.

Dirk: Well, I hope that I have a talent for getting the overall picture of something clear which would be my job as a producer because I’m never only focussing on one instrument in a mix or a band, e.g. the guitars having to be like this or that. I always see the whole picture to make the entire album, the whole band, sound good. If this means that I have to take my own guitars a little bit down to let a song sound better overall then I’ll just do it. I’m not egoistic about stuff like this.
My blind sides, I don’t know.

R: [laughing] Maybe you don’t have one.

Dirk: No, no, no, I do have some, of course. Let me think. I’ve to think about anything that fits to the topic: music. Maybe with regards to this project. Sometimes I’m impatient. For example when I came back from Russia, I wanted to finish this album immediately. I started the same night here in my studio fixing the small stuff. Later, when I got some sleep, I found out that I completely over-did it and whatever I did wasn´t that great, so I thought it would have been cooler to wait for 1 or 2 days, cool down, get some sleep and then do it again. Which I had to do anyway in the end [laughing]. But that’s my nature, I want to finish it immediately. Sometime that’s not so cool.

R: The band ASPECT, a few words about them, please.

Dirk: It’s the Russian band Igor Marin produces. They work in his studio every day. He has casted this band. He put together the best musicians he could get in Krasnodar. They have a music University there. The best drummer, the best guitar player, a very good vocalist who also plays violin in an orchestra. Mr. Marin also gives them an English teacher to teach them English so that they can go on tour very soon and because they’re singing in English now. It’s hard rock music, melodic hard rock. They have a very talented drummer and Anton is a very fast guitar player. Sascha is a very cool rock singer. Mr. Marin makes them able to study their instruments for many hours per day to become very professional as a musician. When it came to mixing their album they asked me to do this because they really liked what I did with the TSR stuff as well as what I did with other CDs that I have mixed and mastered. They have this big studio in Russia but they don’t have an in-house producer. They have 2 people who are able to record with the bands but they don’t have an experienced mixer and mastering engineer.

R: And GIFTIG.

Dirk: GIFTIG is my band here in Germany, it’s different from TSR stuff. It’s not so traditional. Think of Linkin Park, Evanescence and stuff like this, we’ve a scratcher in the band. It’s very poppy, I can play you some of it after this interview. We’ve released 1 CD, We’ve been in this DAT 20 charts, the German rock club charts with 1 song, “Fallen Angel”. And we’ve just signed a publishing deal with EMI.

R: And you’re the song writer and guitarist?

Dirk: Yes. I mean we all write. Karina writes most of the lyrics, also the other 2 people are involved in the writing process. Paul, the TSR drummer, is the drummer with GIFTIG as well !

R: So it’s a female fronted band with a good looking girl.

Dirk: Yes, she was my girl friend years ago but we never did any music together when we’ve been together. We’ve been together for 2 years but it’s 7 years ago and we split up about 5 years ago, then we started this band right after we split. At the time we were together we said: no, we spent enough time together, so let´s not also do music together in addition.

R: Do you have other interests besides from music?

Dirk: I work a lot and I really like seeing my friends. I’ve 2 or 3 friends since I’ve been in school like my best friend Patric. He’s my best friend since we’ve been in the 5th degree. Also I like spending time with my family. I love riding my mountain bike, playing tennis. So I’ve some stuff I do to recover from music. [laughs] But I still say: music is my first and biggest love.

R: Do you also work as a music teacher?

Dirk: I used to when I was studying law for 2 years to finance the studies. I also worked in a music store for some years so it’s more or less the same old story like with most musicians. [both laughing]

R: What is your favourite DT album and why?

Dirk: Besides the old, well known DT stuff they have released, I have been blown away by the SCORE DVD. I really love the classical part within, the orchestra.

R: Do you have an insider tip, a band, everyone should give a try?

Dirk: GIFTIG

R: [both laughing] Name all instruments you can play.

Dirk: If someone asks me this question I always say that I’m a professional guitar player. I can also get along with playing some bass stuff. I’m able to play a few rhythms on the drum kit and I also can play a few chords on the piano but I’m not a drummer or piano player. I’m a singer with GIFTIG. GIFTIG has the female main voice and I do some backing vocals but also lead vocals and some spoken stuff, not like a rapper though. And still I am NOT a tenor….

R: Best song writer of all times.

Dirk: [laughing] only one? Mmmm, actually there are too many songs I truly adore to name only ONE writer…

R: [laughing too] Well, if I ask you: “what drives you crazy?”, you’ll probably reply: “Your questions”.

Dirk: [laughing] No, you’re going to ask this next?

R: Yes.

Dirk: Ignorance. I hate it. Even with this TSR project - we’re in contact with so many business people, and some of them are so strange, I don’t know why, but it drives me really mad at times.

Dirk Ulrich

R: Your favourite dish and drink.

Dirk: Steak and broccoli

R: Drink? Don’t say “water” now. [me laughing, we all were drinking water]

Dirk: Bacardi / Coke

R: Not bad.

Dirk: Sometimes without the Bacardi. [laughing]

R: Finally, are there other projects in the pipeline?

Dirk: I’ve just started to record a rock opera. Christopher, the arranger of the TSR stuff has written with his band a rock opera about Romeo and Juliet and Karina of GIFTIG will be the Juliet…

R: Sounds like a family thing.

Dirk: That’s normal. [both laughing] Probably the guy from ASPECT will do Romeo or the narrator – there are 3 main roles in this opera. And then there will be one guy, who will be well known to Ytsejam - readers, but I don’t want to spoil anything yet. I’ll give you the name in time. So there will be some really great vocalists involved, overall we’ll need 7 or 8 vocalists. There will be people from Russia, from MarinSound, and also from here. The music is hard rock / metal. We’re also going to record with an orchestra. It will be in the pocket of the TSR thing even so very different. And it won’t be James, to avoid rumours. [laughs]

R: Best songwriter, you had no idea…probably you can’t answer to “best band of all times” spontaneously too.

Dirk: Yes, I can! For me the best band in rock is definitely Metallica. I don’t really like their latest stuff but what they have done until 3 or 4 years ago is just incredible. And they have been important for the metal scene in general… but I also really like modern stuff. I adore Linkin Park. I’m very open. I also like pop music.

R: For which luxury do you spend the most money?

Dirk: My girl friend is my biggest luxury. [laughs]

R: Fantastic!!!! I’m done. Anything further to add?

Dirk: No, you’ve really asked everything.
[We went over listening to GIFTIG]

Please visit:
TSR official homepage
TSR MySpace page
GIFTIG official homepage [in German]
Brainrox Studios [in German]
MarinSound Studios

Note: All images have been added with kind permission by Dirk Ulrich.