Interviews:

Interview with Frank for US radio station "Melodious Synth" by Jared White

There’s a certain intersection of symphonic, jazz, folk, and electronic music that very few artists are able to inhabit effectively. The most well-known purveyor of this style is that giant among giants, Vangelis. What’s sad is that Vangelis seems to have abandoned his synth roots since sometime in the late 90’s, and it has left a distinct void in the world of grand and thematic electronic music.

Thankfully, a new artist has arisen in recent times that has make an indelible mark in this corner of the EM genre. His name is Frank van Bogaert, and since the late 90’s (coincidentally), he has released five studio albums that are well-crafted, masterfully-executed, and impeccably-produced. I want to emphasize my opinion that his style is original and inventive and by no means a derivative of Vangelis as some reviewers have claimed. However, due to the fact that he swims in similar musical waters with an all-too-diminutive number of peers, there can’t help but be a noticeable resemblance.

Frank’s music is characterized by a penchant for short, catchy melodic motifs, a creative playfulness in the rhythmic sequences and percussion, and a sincere sentimentality that all combine to present a dynamic and invigorating listening experience. The influences of Romantic Classical and grand Hollywood scores are quite evident in his composing style, and an eclectic montage of modern popular music styles can be heard sprinkled on top like exotic spices in the hands of a master chef. It’s little wonder that Frank’s current label, Groove Unlimited, considers him one of their top artists and is pleasantly surprised by the strength of his commercial success in this era of fast-food, cellophane, here-today/gone-tomorrow music.
I had the pleasure of interviewing Frank van Bogaert via e-mail, and I present to you our correspondence edited only slightly for clarity. Enjoy!

Welcome to Melodious Synth! It’s great to have you here today. Let me start right off by discussing your latest release and brand-new compilation album: One Out of Five. What made you decide this was the proper time to release a retrospective compilation album? How did you decide which were the best tracks to feature?

Well, we (my record company “Groove Unlimited” and I) have decided to release this “One out of Five” compilation album because we felt there was need to. We feel that my music hasn’t reached but a fraction of its potential market and also we experience that with every new customer there’s always the same question being asked ….”Which one of the five Van Bogaert releases do you recommend most ?” As all 5 previously released albums have a somehow different feeling, this is a hard question to answer. Most of my fans have quite a different opinion about what might be my best album. So here’s our strategy: if you’re new to my music buy “One out of Five” as an introduction and then later on, if you like the album, buy all five releases. This is also why “One out of Five” is being priced lower than my other releases despite the more expensive artwork (by Pablo Magne, a very talented Argentine artist) and digipack packaging of the album. We see this more as an investment in the future.
I did compile the album with the help of fans around the world. By e-mail they could send in their top 5 of my songs. Out of these top 5 lists it was easy for me to compile an album with the most popular tracks. I myself had a few other favourite tracks but for this album I followed the rules of democracy.
One other thing that made me decide this was the right time to release the compilation is that the past year I have been very busy producing the two leading Belgian Prog-rock bands “Mindgames” and “Ghiribizzi”’s new albums and so had to put my own music on hold for a while.

You’ve arrived at an important milestone: five critically-acclaimed EM albums. Is it time to start looking towards some different kinds of projects now, or are you just getting started with your current style?

My current style, and by now it has become very recognisable, has grown out of many influences but it is still open to more influences. Those influences are mostly coming from the people I work with here in my studio, whether it be as producer or as engineer. The studio has a large and good sounding live room and so attracts a great variety of live musicians and bands, hence also my Ethnic influences. Work on the new sixth album (that is if you don’t count the “best of”) is now at a high and one can hear prog-rock influences from time to time but it’s definitely still “Van Bogaert.”
Talking about these prog-rock influences, this has always been a bit in my music. I grew up with bands like Yes, Pink Floyd….and nowadays listen a lot to the new generation of this music style. To me, Prog-rock and EM (electronic music) have a lot in common, so it feels very natural working with a Prog band one day and the next day composing my own EM. It’s a give and take situation.

How did you get started in music? What led you to form a synth pop band in the 80’s, which was your first commercial venture in the music business?

In 1980 I founded the Belgian New Wave band “1000 Ohm”. We were quite succesful and up to this day this is still very “Cult”. I lost track of the numerous 80’s compilations “1000 Ohm” songs were put on. When I listen back to the stuff I wrote during those years I’m not to proud about it musically but it certainly has that 80’s new wave feel so many people still love today. You know, now you can’t recreate the atmosphere those songs had. Sometimes synths were even out of tune and vocals were flat, yeah that’s the feel of the early eigthies. This is also the reason why I’ve been refusing, and still am (in great dispute with record excutives) requests by DJ’s and remixers to have a go on these tracks!

Yeah, I’m one of those 80’s people. I grew up listening to synth pop/new wave, etc., so that’s still a favorite genre of mine. Anyway, describe a bit about how you typically work. It seems you use a lot of hardware synths, many of them old classics. Have you tried more software-based instrumentation and effects in recent times? Also, you have a long and successful engineering background owning and operating ACE Studio — how has that affected your synthesizer techniques?

As I’m very keen on keeping ACE Studio an up-to-date studio there are a lot of “software based” virtual instruments in use and I like most of them. But one thing all these “soft-synths” have in common is that they’re not that “hands on” as hardware synths. “Soft-synths” are very handy if you have to work fast on a project because they mostly provide a lot of preset sounds which you can choose from. But to me, a hardware synth (certainly the older knobby ones) will always be a more expressive and creative tool. You have all those knobs to twiddle while you’re playing and so your recording will sound more expressive then when you would have played a soft-synth (even with a more or less dedicated controller surface). So the available “classic synths” at ACE, and also the Hammond Organ, are a great bonus for clients looking for original and fat sounds.
On the other hand, if you’re into let’s say R&B and want to sound like everybody else on mainstream radio and media, having original sounds doesn’t matter too much! Voila, by this statement, once again, I’ve expressed my feelings towards today’s mainstream music business.

While both you and your record label are based in Europe, I expect you have a number of fans here in the U.S. How well have you been received in EM circles on this side of the pond? Also, it seems that melodic/thematic EM is relatively hard to come by, especially in America. Why do you think it isn’t as well-known a genre as ambient electronica or dance?

Yes, I do get e-mails from U.S. fans complaining how hard it is to buy EM in the U.S. (by the way, it’s not always obvious in Europe also). A couple of years ago, melodic EM was mostly filed under (in the US that is) “New Age”. I’ve always been a bit horrified by this. Don’t get me wrong, there is good and relaxing New Age but melodic EM really is something different. It can of course also be relaxing but with EM the next track may be very uplifting and energetic, so there’s no reason to burn incense.
But I do realize that the decline of New Age (and the dissapearance of magazines like NAV) hasn’t done EM any good either. Although both styles are not to be confused, EM took advantage of New Age’s distribution channels in the US. And, yeah, why didn’t EM get infiltrated in the Dance scene (or even ambient electronica as you mention)? Maybe because EM is mostly music made to listen to (we are talking about the good stuff ) and not to make you dance, although the latter is certainly not prohibited.

Certainly, some of your tracks are quite danceable! But I think you’re right: EM is much more of a individual listening experience than an entertainment/dance-oriented art-form.
In closing, what inspires you artistically, music or otherwise? What things are you passionate about outside of music (hobbies, interests, etc.)?

There are a lot of things that inspire my music but I feel that I do get the most inspiration, apart from the artists I work with in the studio and the numerous CD’s I buy, out of nature. On a regular basis I do spend a weekend by the sea and then another one in the woods. I’m also very passionate about my garden. I own a beautiful garden (the result of years of labor) with two ponds in it. When you experience the relaxing feeling, drinking a good glass of wine while enjoying the different kinds of life such a garden attracts, it’s easier to get rid of daily worries.

2006 "Melodious Synth" (interview by Jared White)