Interviews: Interview with REDEMPTION Guitarist/Founder Nicolas van Dyk
Posted on Saturday, February 21 @ 13:21:32 EST
Topic: Interviews
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Nicolas van Dyk:
From the Origins to the Fullness
by Tommy “Hashman” Hash
Having released three albums and a recent DVD/live disc, Southern California’s Redemption have been executing their personal brand of darkened melodic progressive metal - and it is a brand that is done on their own terms. Rather than standing by the typecasting of being this prog-metal supergroup, for which the band features Ray Alder from Fates Warning and Bernie Versailles from Agent Steel among others (also having featured connections with Magnitude 9 and Symphony X in the beginning), Redemption stands within individuality, being a singular entity fronted by the musical focus of founder/lead guitarist/keyboardist Nicolas van Dyk.
After two records on the Sensory label, the band inked a deal with Inside Out Records for their third record, The Origins of Ruin, and now after three highly acclaimed albums and a successful tour, the band has documented their stature as a live band on their first DVD Frozen in the Moment – Live in Atlanta, filmed at the city’s 2007 edition of the Annual ProgPower USA Festival.
“It really came down to two things,” begins Van Dyk about the DVD release, “First, we’d had the opportunity to hone our performance after the extensive tour with Dream Theater, so the band was very tight and yet organic at the same time. Second, the Center Stage venue in Atlanta is a great venue, and with the ProgPower Festival going on, we knew production value would be exceptional. We had a pretty large crowd, great response from them, and the opportunity to leverage the promoter’s investment in a multi-camera shoot. So it was the right time.”
“(As far as the editing is concerned) It was a labor of love, I’ll tell you that much. Frankly I’d been looking for an excuse to learn Final Cut Pro but I had no idea how long it would take. The one drawback from having a generalist crew, as opposed to our own camera guys who know every note, is that it was a little bit of “luck of the draw” in terms of whether or not a given shot would be the right one – like a close-up of me or Bernie (Versailles) when one of us was soloing, etc. So I had to go through each of the five cameras for every, say, five seconds of footage, and pick which section worked the best. If you assume it takes a minute to do that, and then you consider there are almost 1000 of these little bits of footage, you can imagine it took quite some time. Then there was the bonus material, which took FOREVER because we had about 30 tapes to sift through and about 2000 photos, so I had to pick which ones we wanted to use, which sections, and sync it all up to music…that probably took longer than the concert but it was a lot of fun.”
Of course playing ProgPower USA is a treat for both the band and the fans, as it is no sit down festival, it’s a metal festival where everybody likes to have fun, get up and create a party atmosphere – appearance number two at the festival had fared much better for the band, as their musical mantra had become a stronger powerhouse over time, “This was our second time at ProgPower and the first time with Ray (Alder) on vocals,” explains Van Dyk, “It’s really not comparable to our first appearance – we’d had two much stronger CDs, a stronger band, and the advantage of the Dream Theater tour to work us into shape. The fact is, unless you are Dream Theater, ProgPower is as close to “home court advantage” as any US prog metal band is going to get. The fact that this band was born at ProgPower made it that much more of a connection.”
“(As for song selection) honestly I had a pretty good idea of what would work before we started the Dream Theater tour. We had three set-lists on that tour, with a lot of overlap, and we basically combined them all and added "Sapphire," which I figured we’d have to play or risk bodily injury!”
The connection with bands such as Prymary, Fates Warning and Steel Prophet along with the vision of Van Dyk; the story of how Redemption came together is divided into four phases and regardless of whatever has been going on, everybody has been able to keep it together through lineup changes and so on as he explains, “Phase one was assembling the band to record the first CD. I had written a lot of music just for fun, and I met Ray at a show in LA (not a Fates show) and we became friends. I asked him to help me do something with the music. We went to ProgPower and got Jason Rullo to sign up. Through Ray, I met Bernie, Mark Zonder, and Joey Vera among others. Bernie did some of the solos for the album and wrote one of the songs, Mark drummed on a track, and Joey helped engineer it. Steel Prophet rehearsed at the same studio where we were recording and Ray spoke with Rick about doing the vocals, and that was basically the first CD.”
“Phase two was putting together a live band for the ProgPower performance in, I think, 2003. Jason (Rullo) was too busy with Symphony X to commit to rehearsals, and I also knew I needed a keyboard player and a bass player (although there was some talk about hiring Joey for the one-off gig). I went to see Prymary play at a club in LA originally just to check out the keyboard player, but found that the rhythm section was amazing as well. So I asked the three of them if they wanted to play ProgPower and they agreed. We got in touch with Corey Brown to do vocals for that appearance, and that was a fun lineup. We recorded an instrumental, which has been unreleased but which is appearing on the DVD in the bonus materials, with this lineup.”
“Phrase three was the writing for Fullness of Time. When Ray heard the music, he wanted to be the vocalist. We hadn’t firmed anything up with Corey, and I certainly wasn’t going to pass on the opportunity to have Ray be our vocalist, so once we established how this would work with Fates and all the other obligations, we got Ray in the band, with me still playing keyboards as Smiley was very invested in Prymary as well as his studio business and so he wouldn’t be able to be our full time guy anyway.”
“Phase four was the writing for Origins of Ruin and the ensuing tour. We had parted ways with our former bass-player (as had Prymary by this time) and found Sean Andrews to join us and he’s been a terrific addition. When we were invited to tour with Dream Theater I knew we’d need a superstar keyboardist and we found Greg Hosharian, who has also been a huge additional. That brings us up to date.”
Redemption, like any other band has seen growth; release by release and phase by phase – everything reflects a snapshot in time of where Van Dyk's vision has come into play, “The first self-titled CD was really a demo with session musicians,” explainsVan Dyk, “It showed some elements of promise but it’s not really an accurate picture of the band.”
“The second CD, The Fullnes of Time, is something I’m very proud of. The songwriting was much stronger, the lyrics were much better, and we started to develop a particular voice to our music, which I describe as something having a lot of urgency to it. There are a lot of chord voicings that move against the same root and that creates harmonic tension – the melody lines are progressive but they have unapologetically hooky choruses – we use keyboards in an orchestral sense and have something of a cinematic aspect to the music where it is appropriate. And of course, Ray’s vocals made a big difference, as did the involvement of Tommy Newton as an outside engineer. I knew the second CD would be light years ahead of the debut.”
“The third CD, The Origins of Ruin, is notable because the band had been together longer, we gelled a bit more, we had new energy from Sean on bass, and we were able to involve Tommy earlier. My songwriting continued to improve and the songs had more focus to them and were a bit more economical. But the sound was consistent. It represents a step forward in maturity, rather than the giant step forward in quality that happened from the first record to the second.”
“The live record is a different facet of the band, but is a good reflection of where we are today.”
Writing and recording the records is something that done by the guitarist himself, with a little bit of tuning up here and there with a little collaborative help from various members of the band. “I write the music, and will put down a rudimental bass line and melody line. I put down the rhythm tracks and sometimes a lead, and I put down keyboard tracks, either finished or rough sketches,” elaborates Van Dyk, “Greg (Hosharian) takes this and tweaks the keyboard parts or writes new parts where necessary, and he and I talk about what works and what doesn’t and we make changes accordingly. Sean then comes in and tracks bass with me, and we make changes as appropriate. I always try to push a bit more for unique lines that are technical but that fit the song, and that goes for drums as well. (Drummer) Chris (Quirarte) and I spend a few days in the studio together, occasionally writing parts on the fly together, trying different things here and there. Then when all this is done, Ray comes in and we spend a good amount of time tracking vocals, making changes to lines, adding harmony lines, etc. Bernie records solos around this time as well, and sometimes I’ll encourage him to try something a little different, but most of the time he intuitively has a great feel for exactly what the song needs. By the time it is done, everybody’s had their fingers in the pie, even though the basic songwriting is all mine.”
Interesting literary works have often been the source of lyrical inspiration, as well as true life events; these two subjects have found their way into the basis of the Redemption lyrical content, “After the first CD, which was mostly third-party storytelling (like large chunks of the CD based on two books: Stephen King’s Desperation and Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes),” says Van Dyk, “I have tried to focus on much more introspective lyrics. The music is emotional and the lyrics should fit that, in my opinion. When you “tell a story” you are inserting a narrator between the singer and the audience. My lyrics are more conversational. Some are influenced by events that have happened to me, some are more general, but they tend to deal with feelings that we all feel from time to time, human frailty, resilience, etc.”
Redemption is Van Dyk’s first serious band, having grown up studying classical piano and later teaching himself guitar. Like most of us, he “played in various cover bands for fun,” but it was when he hooked up with Ray Alder, to play some original music, when his whole musical journey took a whole new importance to him.
A follow up to The Origins of Ruin is currently in the works; and we can expect to hear a release of more music within the Redemption vein, being another helping great dark melodic full-fledged prog-metal that has proven that this band has planted their own flag in the world of ‘thinking man’s metal’, “We are finished with pre-production, so all the writing is finished except for that which we’ll change in the studio,” concludes Van Dyk, “There are ten songs, and they are all in the Redemption mold, but I think the songwriting is again more focused, but also a bit more varied than the last CD. One facet of our sound combines very heavy music with strong melodies, and we push that envelope on a couple of tracks. Another facet of our sound is the more epic, progressive tracks and we push that on a few tracks as well. In all, it’s a very logical extension of our previous works and continues in the Redemption tradition. With the DVD out, we’re free to focus on this next CD and then we’ll see where that takes us. I would love to do a large tour again, so hopefully we’ll have that opportunity. It’s a very exciting time for us.”
Copyright & Publishing: 2009 Tommy Hash for Ytsejam.com
CLICK HERE to Read a Review of The Fullness of Time
CLICK HERE to Read a Review of The Origins of Ruin
CLICK HERE to Read a Review of Frozen in the Moment – Live in Atlanta
Please Visit:
Redemption Website
Redemption at MySpace
Inside Out Records
Inside Out Records at MySpace
SPV Records USA
SPV Records at MySpace
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