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Interview VANILLA REX

A Talk With KLAUS SCHWENZNER

METAL TO INFINITY

First of all thanks very much for your time and answering some questions! Please introduce yourself and the rest of the band. Where do you come from? 

Thank you for your interest in the band. I’m Klaus, the guitarist of Vanilla Rex. With me there are Andi on vocals, Carsten on keyboards, Daniel on bass guitar and Dirk on drums. We are living around Koblenz in Rhineland area of Germany. It’s the homeland of tasty beer and delicious wine! ;)

How and when did you guys originally get together? Who came with the idea to set up a Metal band?

Woah…ok…The actual line-up is not this old because of our former bassplayer Buddy (Carstens brother) left the band during the recording sessions for our forthcoming album about 5 months ago. Some of us do a job next to the band and Buddy’s job took more and more time so he decided to leave the band. Vanilla Rex was originally founded in the late eighties. We had to handle with some line-up changes so I am the only “original member” left. Except Daniel all of the other musicians of VR are playing together about 3-5 years. Before we all had experiences with other local bands of our home area. The idea of doing sort of metal music was there since the beginning. All musicians ever involved in VR were and are fans of Metal – only the style changed a bit over the years from “True Metal”of the 80s , the “Power Metal” of the 90s to classical influences and more progressive style today. VR always was a metal band and will always be a metal band.

Since how many years are you involved into the Metal movement?

I started up listening to music early at age of 8 or 9 years. My favourites in the beginning were bands/musicians like The Beatles, The Kinks, The Who, JethroTull, Jimi Hendrix, The Byrds, The Doors, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and all popular Hard-/Rockbands of the late 60s and 70s. At the beginning of the 80s The NWOBHM caught me in with bands like Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Motörhead and Saxon. At this point one thing was clear: I had to play with my own Heavy Metal band! So we founded our own band with some Metal maniacs from our school and started up to write songs and play concerts. The recordings left of this time sound funny and partly horrible! *g* So I can say I’m a Metalist for more than 20 years now.

How did you come by your name, VANILLA REX?

It was a brainstorming session. We needed a name that sounds ok and hooks in mind. Not even it had to make sense. Our first singer came in with the “Vanilla”part of the name and we accomplished it with “Rex”. Later some people brought up the “Vanilla Fudge / T-Rex story”, but that has nothing to do with our name or our music.

Which bands could be named as influences or inspirations?

Our influences are spread in a wide range from early NWOBHM acts, US-Power Metal bands like Vicious Rumors and Savatage to todays Progressive Metal bands like Dream Theater, Symphony X, Fates Warning, Sun Caged and so on. Classical music like J.S. Bach and Paganini is also a big inspiration to me in songwriting and melody-lines. I’m also a big fan of “Barock’n Roll” from the master Yngwie J. Malmsteen.

Which do you consider to be the mosti mportant national bands at this time?

Hard to say…there are not so many bands in Germany today I would say they’re important for the progressive genre. Rage and Blind Guardian are names that I would consider to be really important bands for German metal business.Top acts like Scorpions are more and more like commercial pop acts, only watching out for Top10 hits. That has not really anything to do with Heavy Metal anymore.

The term Metal Music…what exactly does it mean to you and how important is it in your life?

I know what you want to hear now! ;) Heavy Metal seems not to be only another form of music but a lifestyle. Most people listening to Metal are not only consuming music like it’s the way in pop music. It’s more like a movement but (most time) in non-politically ways. Metal fans are different in clothing, behaviour and thinking from a “normal music consument”. They are more interested in artworks of the albums and in the lyrics of a song. The song has to make a sense and can become an important part of a situation in life. I would compare it with the biker-scene. If you really got it in your heart it will stay there for your whole life and will always be a part of you.

How long have you been listening to Metal music? Are you a born Metal maniac or not? Some other music genres you’ve enjoyed before?

This question is generally answered above. If you could have a look at my record- and CD-collection you would see that I listened to the harder way of music my whole life. Sometimes I listen to some blues tunes too. But it all has to do with distorted guitars and groove. I like all hand made music and I hate computerized shit like techno or casted girl-/boy groups doing their playback stuff and don’t know the name of any single note of the song they’re performing.

How was music composed in VR in the very beginning of your existence?

We did and already do it the way 90 % of the bands are doing it. Somebody hooks up witha melody or a guitar-lick and the rest of the bunch works out its parts for the tune. Seldom a song is grown out of mind of one person. We throw all ideas together and construct the song from beginning to the end. When arrangements are already done we record the song live in our studio. So we are able to check out the functionality of the arrangement and the melodies. In earlier times we recorded on cassette recording machines. Today we use a hard-disk recorder or a computer.

Many years later now…still the same or something is really changed through the years?

I would say the professionality has changed. It grows with the experience you get. In the beginning party life on tour and fun stuff was more important. Today we also have the fun in making music but we think in a more professional way even in composing and recording. I would say there’s a change in mind for every band at the moment you got to deal with business and record companies. They force you into a more professional thinking. That’s, of course, the moment the“professionals” divide from the “wannabes” and the reason for nearly all the line-up changes of the past.

So your into Metal for several years. Did it change your lifestyle or not? I guess you guys have a daily job.

It changes lifestyle of course! Your girlfriend/wife and maybe family has to deal with your absence for days, nights, maybe weeks and months. If you are under contract your primary job has to step aside, hopefully your boss agrees, often he don’t. We always thank all the girlfriends and families for their understanding and for the support. We know how hard it is for them sometimes!
 

Going back to the very beginning of VR, I saw on your website you guys have many albums released. Can you guide me through those and a few words about the bands evolution would be nice!

To explain all these years would make this interview become a bigger book than the holy bible! *g* The first recordings showing up on our pages are classical demo-tapes released in the 80s an 90s and sold on our concerts. In the late 80s, after the release of our first demotape “Hydrophobia”, we were signed by a German independent label to release the first album (some songs of the pre-production are on the “Kick Ass City”- demotape) but the company failed and we were hanging in midair for about 2 years without any contract or support. At this time several line-up changes followed. In the early 90s we signed in with a management and entered the studio for pre-production again with new material. We toured a while in Germany and did some radio-promo jobs but no label wanted to sign our music and the management contract failed again. I have to say that the person that managed us was unexperienced in music-biz. He got some money but didn’t know how to use it the right way. We recorded another demotape “Shit Happens” in 1994 but some line-up changes made it impossible to play concerts or promote the music in any other way. It’s hard to find any good musicians for a “band under construction”. Most of them want to be instant-famous, best without any work to do, others could’nt proper play their instruments or had drug- or personal problems. You learn a lot about people if you’re involved in a band made of 4 or 5 different characters. So it needed until 1998/’99 Vanilla Rex had a stabile line-up again to write and preproduce. A drum machine had to take the part of the drummer but we could work out our songs this way. So we wrote our first complete longplayer “Genius Diary” in 1999/2000 and recorded it in our own studio on an 8-tracker. I know that the sound is not what you expect of a professional recording but it was the best that we were able to create and to achieve this time. Meanwhile we are writing new songs for the forthcoming album (release early 2005) and mixing/mastering the Maxi-CD “Shadows Of Insanity” (release end of September 2004). I should explain that the band as well as the music of VR 2004 has completely changed and is not comparable to the recordings before 2000! Also the sound of the recordings comes now in a professional way.

Satisfied with everything you did with the band so far or something to complain?

I’m more or less satisfied. All experiences, good or bad, have a good aspect: you can learn! Mistakes are there to learn from and never to do same mistakes again. Our primary gain is to write good songs and give our fans best entertainment we are able to manage! We have the simple wish all underground bands have: Getting enough income with our music to live and pay our lifes.

A new CD comes out at the end of September, right. Tell me about it and what can we expect?

The CD contains 3 new songs, every song between 7 and 10 minutes playtime. We composed in a more progressive and pathetic way. A song is finished when its end is reached not when playtime is about 3:30 minutes! The title song “Shadows OfInsanity” comes after a poem of T. S. Elliot and was inspired by a paint-artist from our hometown. He asked us to write a song for one of his exhibitions and perform it there. The exhibition took place in a hospital of our hometown! What band can say they have played live right in front of an intensive care unit in a hospital??? But don’t be afraid! No one died! *ggg* So “Shadows..” is a real progressive piece of music with tons of instrumental skills and rhythm changes. The 2^nd song will be “Wasted Life”, a stomping mid tempo title with an athmospheric keyboard/guitar intro, powerful vocals and melodic backings. This song leads directly into “Losing All”, what is the 2^nd part of “Wasted Life”. The song begins with a longer intro, leads over some progressive parts to a calm verse and rises up again to an up-tempo refrain. All songs are full of melodic parts and guitar/keyboard/bass interaction as well as melodic backing-vocals. The cover-art will be completely self-produced by VR again including the photo and layout. Carsten is a pro in that.  

What’s your vision about the Metal movement of today and what are the future plans for Vanilla Rex?

I hope and expect the Metal will get another push in the next years. Bands like DreamTheater and Symphony X are showing the way to go. The record companies will hopefully turn back to interrest for handmade music. The underground lives and will show up several new bands the next years. Our future plans are to record a good album and to get a label-contract with it. If no company will be interested in our music we will publish and produce our songs for ourselves and the bunch of people who like our tunes. After the album release we will watch out for some touring or single-concert activities to finally play live for the crowd again.

Let me thank you for your time and wish you all the very best with the band, the forthcoming album and everything that may come in the future. Something to say to our readers…go for it right here and now!

I thank you very much for your interest in the band! Stay tuned and stay metal! Watch out for news from the band at our homepage and feel free to sign in ourguestbook or send some e mails to the band with any questions and remarks you have! We want to stay in touch with the base – the fans! Cheers!

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