Interviews:

Moonhead interview By Stephan Schelle : November 2005

German: click here

English version

Stephan: Frank, you’ve just released your fifth album “Closer” .
You could really say that you’ve established yourself among the respected artists in “Electronic Music”
Since when do you release your own music and how did you come to concentrate on “Electronic Music”?

Frank: At the age of 18,back in 1980,I founded the Belgian New Wave Band “1000 Ohm”.
With this band I was making synth pop music in the style of “Depeche Mode” and “Ultravox”.
We were lucky to score a few hits,mainly in Belgium,France and Canada.
Because we were relatively succesful we had a record deal with a major record company and so had budgets to spend lots a time in recordingstudio’s.
Even before the split of “1000 Ohm” in 1987, I had already become a “studiorat” and started engineering and producing other bands.
A few years later I bought the Antwerp based ACE studio,as a permanent base for my recording projects.
When the financial stress due to the takeover of that studio was gone (this took a couple of years),I started to book the studio on a regular base to record the music that was in my heart,the kind of music I just had to make for myself (not for some client) ; Electronic music with roots going back to the seventies and early eighties.
So in 1998 my first solo album “Colours” was released.

Stephan: In your compositions one can hear some Vangelis influence. Has the great Greek been an example to you?

Frank :I do respect him a lot and ofcourse he has had a great influence on my music,but also many other artists have been influencing my music.
I have been listening to electronic music since I was very young and I’ve always preferred the melodical type of electronic music, so ofcourse you couldn’t miss Vangelis in those days.
There are few composers who are able to make high quality melodic EM,so if people call me the new Vangelis I am ofcourse very honoured but at the same it irritates me a bit,because it sounds as if you are copying and this is something I really don’t do.
People tend to categorize everything,this is natural by the way,and in the category they put me in there are few other names than Vangelis and J.M.Jarre and because of that lack of names I am mostly compared to Vangelis.
To me this feels a bit like comparing every guitar rock band that uses no more than four chords in a song to ,let’s say , “The Rolling Stones” because there are no other names to compare them with.
But lets look at it in a positive way ; people who like Vangelis are very likely to like my music because we share the same love for great melodies and good sounding synthesizer arrangements.
Also, some people who lost their interest in the great Greek are following my music now and this fact alone is good enough for me to keep on making and releasing my music.

Stephan : In some of your songs I can feel the atmosphere of earlier Vangelis albums like “Albedo 0.39” and “Blade Runner” . Which Vangelis album is your favourite ?

Frank : My favourite Vangelis album has to be “Soil Festivities”.
I think it’s the most beautiful ambient work ever recorded.
Ofcourse he has recorded more great records but this one I really have played most,and I still do play it from time to time.
As second best Vangelis album I would vote “China”,also a real masterpiece.
On the other hand “Albedo 0.39” was ,together with Pink Floyd’s “Dark side of the moon”,the album that made me aware of the excistence of an instrument called a “Synthesizer”
I didn’t know how it looked like but I did know it sounded fantastic and I had to get me one.
I was about 14 year old then.

Stephan : At the E-live 2003 festival you offered each visitor a „give away“ CD „Hi-Tech Hippies”. It’s peculiar that this track,in condradiction to your previous work has a sung vocal line in it and that it sounds ,how do have to say this ....yes,“commercial“.
What’s the story behind this release and how was it possible to make this a “give away” CD

Frank : I’ve a lways got a bunch of compositions lying around in my studio.
From time to time I compose music that is a bit out of “my personal style”,but which is still worth recording .
“Hi-Tech Hippies” was such a track.
Normally I would not have released it but while I was working on this track some people heard it in the studio and were all very enthousiast about it and asked me to release this track.
So I decided ,because I had enjoyed my E-live 2002 performance so much,to make this a “give away” maxiCD for all the visitors of E-live 2003.
I could have offered all visitors a drink but I preferred this way to say “thank you”.
On the maxi CD I also added a track called “L’etang”.
This one comes out of my private collection of ambient works that I’ve written over time.
It’s all very “floating” music with some classical influences.
You could describe this as “Claude Debussy” meets “Steve Roach”.

Stephan : In the sleeve notes of “Hi-tech Hippies” you mention that this song will be released on a future album. But it isn’t on “Closer”.
Will it ever be released on an official album,or can every E-live 2003 visitor consider him or herself to be the owner of a unique collectors item ?

Frank : Actually on the MaxiCD cover is written that it is “not” shure that this music will be released on a future album.
As I suggested already this music was not suited to be released on “Closer”.
It won’t be released on a future album and the MaxiCD will never be repressed !
So yes,it’s a unique release .

Stephan: On your latest album „Closer“ you have included a cover version of Deep Forest’s classic „Sweet Lullaby“ . Up till now you’ve never done covers on your albums.
Why did you decide to cover and release this song ?

Frank: I’ve never wanted to do covers because I think most of the time you can’t improve the feel an artist has put in the original composition.
From time to time I do hear a song that I would like to cover but the reason I would like to cover it, is always that it has that kind of magical energy that you can never replicate in a cover version.
So it’s best to keep your hands of !
However,with “Sweet Lullaby” I’ve always felt I could arrange that main melody-line into a typical “Van Bogaert” arrangement without losing energy or quality.
It’s a melody that has been lingering in my head from the first time on I heard it
I never worked on it because I was convinced it was Deep Forest’s own original composition.
It was only when I discovered that the melody line was a traditional melody from the Solomon Islands and that “Jan Garbarek” had also released his version of this melody,that I got interested in doing my version.
The melodyline sampled by “Deep Forest” was sung by a female singer from the Solomons and recorded by “Unesco” back in the seventies.
She called the song “Rorogwela” and therefore I choose to give my version of this beautiful melody the same title.
I think it is one of the most beautiful melodies ever created in world music !

Stephan: On E-live 2002 you’ve given a fantastic,exuberant concert. There was just so much energy in the air and everyone could see how you truly enjoyed playing live.Was this performance important to you ?

Frank: I think it was important to do the E-live concert.
Too many people were asking for it and also, I had just released my fourth album “Human” and that needed some extra promotion.
You know I spend most of my time in a professional recording studio environment and so I’m used to work on music until it sounds perfect.
But on live concerts there’s so much that can go wrong and so I’m not to fond of going live unless it’s been prepared very well.
On the other hand it’s always very exciting to play live.
I still love the tension you experience those couple of minutes before you have to enter the stage. And once you’ve entered stage that tension is transformed into a load of energy that you just want to “catapult” into the audience.
I’ve always loved it and it wasn’t until E-live that I found out it had been to long since I left stage back in the eighties.

Stephan: Will you ever perform live again?

Frank: I’m having new thoughts about a live concert mainly because very soon a “best of” album called “One out of Five” will be released.
This album is mainly ment to attract people who don’t really know my music,so it will not contain new music.
All of my albums have a slightly different feel but “One out of Five” will have the best tracks out of those 5 previous releases.
My label,”Groove Unlimited” and I have decided to have this release because we feel that such a “best of” album could reach a much broader audience than the “Electronic Music (EM) scene “ alone.
A funny idea we came up with, is that we’ve invited people to help us decide ,through e-mail,which tracks should be included.
Everyone who helped is included in the sleeve’s credits.
In the meanwhile I’m also working on a new album which I guess,will be released by the end of 2006.
So I think whether it is to promote “One out of Five” or the new upcoming sixth album,another live concert in 2006 is likely to happen.

Stephan: You’ve also got your own professional recording studio.
Do you produce other artists and if so,do you only produce electronic music or do you also produce music in other styles ?

Frank : Yes, I do produce a lot of other people’s music. It may come as a surprise but I hardly never produce electronic music other than the music I release myself.
Over the years I’ve become specialized in producing rock bands (and from time to time a jazz band) and the style I really enjoy most is definitely “Prog-rock”.
You know I’ve grown up with bands like Yes,Pink Floyd,Genesis….so I’m verry happy to see that this “prog” scene has its second birth now.
I love bands like “Porcupine Tree”,”Ozric Tentacles”,”Kino”,”Spock’s beard”,”The Flower Kings”…..and I could continue naming new generation prog bands.
This year I’ve been producing albums for the two leading Belgian prog-bands “Ghirribizi” and “Mind Games”.
When I’m working on that kind of music I feel like a “fish in water” .
As there has always been a crossover between electronic music and progressive rock it’s also easy to “give and take” ideas from each other.
I’m very happy to see that this scene seems to have a bright future,even if it will maybe stay an underground scene and never reach the exposure prog bands in the seventies had.
But anyway,I really don’t like what is being played on radio and TV these days,we hardly ever get to hear music made by real musicians with a heart for what they do.
Good that we have the internet now, there’s just so much good music to be discovered !