Out of the omnipresent standard sound of mainstream, hip hop and tekkno For Your Pleasure have developed consistent an own music style since 1993. In the course of this commercial calculation never was an object. Instead of countless other artists an their grim pursuit of the big Hit, For Your Pleasure, at the beginnig born as studio project and in the meantime grown to a complete band of five, take another way. Inspired from the fascinating Art Rock of the late sixties and the early seventies, the musicians have taken up this music style and have it developed further. So varied elements of rock, folk, jazz and classical music shape the individual style of the band. After a long phase of personnel changes now the band presents its second CD timeless.
I got in touch with the band and Lutz answered my questions.
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Our For Your Pleasure biography is
quite extensive so let's bypass the formalities.
But were any of
you involved in any other bands before you joined up in For Your
Pleasure, which bands were you influenced by and why did you choose
that Roxy Music associated name ?
From 1979 till 1985 I played in Berlin
with Camembert(rock), Bizarr(rock), Keex(progressive rock),
Imago(progressive rock) and Solaris(jazz rock).
My main
influences are: (the early) Genesis, Yes, Jethro Tull, King Crimson,
Pink Floyd, PFM, Peter Gabriel, David Bowie, Van der Graaf Generator,
ELP, Traffic and Brand X ... and much more ...
Certainly I
like the early Roxy Music, too and if we were searching for a
project/band name I remembered the second Roxy Music album. Its title
was program, the reason why musicians publish music. And "For
Your Pleasure" sounds not so dramatic and lofty like some other
prog-bands.
Why did you choose your type of music instead of
pop, folk music, punk or brass bands?
I hear readily many music styles
(except hip hop/rap, tekkno and pure rock'n'roll), but as composer
and musician the versatileness of progressive rock me fascinate most
of all
Let's go straight to your debut album. Please tell us
more about Scattered Pages from 1993.
In 1991 the guitarist Georgios Zikidis
(aka Greeko) and and I (aka Margin)(voc, keyb, dr) came together in
Berlin to record some tracks for a demo-tape in my own homerecording
studio.
We didn't had a strict concept for the music style. I had
played pure progressive rock with Imago some years before, but after
the 70s the situation in the 80s and the early 90s in Berlin and
Germany was not very good for playing progressive rock - no matter on
stage or on CD. And as a unknown band it was still gaining weight.
At this time we had no motivation
to record only pure progressive rock with long tracks, complex
arrangements and many changes of measure. Therefore arised a less and
more random collection of tracks, some of them inclined to
progressive rock, some others to pop/rock.
Because the great
german labels didn‘t have interrest on the songs we founded our own
independent label MADVEDGE RECORDS and released in 1993 our
debut-CD.
I like our debut still today, in particular "Another
future", "Only We Are Trying To" and "The Damaged
Book", even if by now I would record some tracks with a better
sound and slight another arrangemnt. Only the song "I want you
now" was rather shallow.
And then there was a long break.
What happened ?
After some good reviews Georgios
Zikidis and I worked on material for our second album which should
contain pure progressive rock. Parallel to the recording sessions we
were looking for musicians to form a group for live performances. But
it was very hard to find good musicians for this kind of music. For
professional musicans our style was not commercial enough and at this
time in Berlin (till today...) the most amateur musicians want to
play pop, punk, heavy/metall-rock, grunge, funk, folk-pop and all
stuff which gave a chance to get a deal with a (major) label like hip
hop and tekkno - but no progressive rock.
We found with Frank
Brennekam an excellent drummer and with Arne Spekat a very good bass
player but it was a very big problem to find keyboarder.
I don't like to play keyboards when I
sing the lead vocals. Also the arrangements were so complex, that we
needed a additional main keyboarder. Some keyboarders came and went
and someday in 1995 Georgios Zikidis was tired to play only the same
titles and left the band.
After that, we had two problems: To find
a keyboarder AND to find a guitarist! And keyboarders (if ever) came
and went ... and guitarists came and went ... and always we practised
the same titles with changing musicians. At the same time we had over
the years some gigs for small audience.
After some years with
endless searching for musicians our frustation was too big and
someday Frank Brennekam and I decided resolve the band. But some
weeks later we looked again after musicians for For Your Pleasure and
found Nils Conrad, an excellent constant guitarist. But
Arne
Spekat did not want to came back. For him Peter Stärk joined the
band on bass.
But unfortunately we never found a constant
keyboarder.
Please tell us more about your second album
Timeless from 2000
Primary it was intended to record
our second album with the completeconstant band. Because we never
were such a band, I took 1999 the tracks, which we recoreded since
1993 in my home studio with overdubs of less or more actual members
of For Your Pleasure as material for our second album. That was also
the reason because 4 guitarists play on it!
The single tracks
and parts were recorded with different quality of studio equipment
over the years. Better we would recorded all tracks new, but at this
situation we had no time, no money and no desire for it. We only
wanted to publish finalley our second album after 7 years!
Today
I would record and master the material with a better more homogenous
sound.
The album title "timeless" less hint at these
recording situations over the years as at the obvious influences of
the progressive rock of the early 70s. In this respect "timless"
is more "proggy" as our debut "Scattered Pages".
And still today I like especially tracks like "City Nights",
"Goodnight and yet", "Sleepwalkers" and "The
Hole".
By the way the tracks "Always The Same Old
Introduction of War", "Sleepwalkers" and "Goodnight
And Yet" were older compositions, which I wrote in the 80s and
performed with my former band Imago.
That was ten years ago
and nothing has been heard of you since then. What has happened and
what is the latest update and plans ?
In spite of some very good reviews
for "timeless", we sold only few CDs. Both CD productions
were been commerical flops. We had no distribution, only our
homepage.
Beyond that we don't find musicans to complete the band
and in Berlin there were barely locations to play progressive
rock.
One event was symptomatic for our situation: In 2001 the
band Transatlantic played in Berlin. Before the musicians went on
stage we distributed at the entry and in the concert hall bulks of
flyers with exellent reviews for "Timeless" and "Scattered
Pages". After that and weeks ago no one had sold one single CD.
The only reaction was the interest of a journalist of an
online-magazine. As we had sent to him a promo-CD, he published a
another very good review... At this point I guessed that For Your
Pleasure has no future in Berlin as unknown progressive rock
band.
However Nils Conrad, Frank Brennekam, Peter Stärk and I
rehearsed less or more steady for several months. But someday we all
decided that we will suspend the rehearsels till we are a complete
band with a main keyboarder. And since that time we never played as
band again.
We had never resolved the band officially, but we
never have played together again.
About one year later, Nils
Conrad, Frank Brennekam, Arne Spekat (he had interest in the group
again) and I met us at home to speak about a new studio album. Each
of us had brought some demo tracks. As I heard the single tracks, I
knew that it would be a a very tough job, to form all these very
different pieces of music to a halfway homogenous style.
For this
work I didn't have neither the power, nor the time. Because nobody of
us wanted to produce a new common CD-project, the third album never
appeared.
Today, Arne Spekat, Frank Brennekam and I are still
friends, an we meet us less or more regularly. But till today a
reunion of For Your Pleasure is not a theme. The situation for
unknown progressive rock bands in Berlin is not better. Very possible
that For Your Pleasure was the last for this kind in Berlin. I don't
know another progressive rock band in Berlin, neither while we
existed nor after us till today.
After For Your Pleasure Arne
played only less or more on single private events. Frank played
(untill now)in cover-bands and performed Songs from Toto, Yes,
Marillion, Chicago, Kansas, Joe Cocker, Brian Adams, Peter Gabriel
and others.
Over the years I had recorded some progressive
rock tracks for myself in my studio. But this year I will release my
first solo CD on MADVEDGE RECORDS named "Psychedelic Teatime".
The title reveals the musical direction: it is a fusion of
psychedelic and progressive rock. All tracks are recorded and at the
moment I'm working at the mixdown. By the way on some tracks Arne
Spekat plays acoustic guitar.
How was the creative processes
in For Your Pleasure from coming up with an idea to it's being
recorded ?
Normally Frank, George or I myself
composed the whole track alone at home with concrete ideas for the
arrangement. In studio (or rehearsel room) we set the final
arrangement and the solo-parts.
For those of us unknown with
your music; how would you describe you music and which bands would
you compare yourself with ?
Prevailing the stylistic basic of
For Your Pleasure was the progressive rock in the spirit of the early
seventies with some elements of jazz-rock, folk and
psychedelic/ambient music and pop. I think on some tracks you can
listen the influences of the early Genesis, Jethro Tull, Peter
Gabriel.
If this is the end; what is your best and worst
memories of your time in For Your Pleasure ?
The best memories:
As I hold our debut CD in my hand at
the first time.
Some magic moments in the rehearsel room, when a
new song was played at the first time or we added some new parts
to an old song. So we extended the closing part of "The
Damaged Book", it grew to a real poignant trip, much more
intense as the cd-version!
The worst memories:
Wasted dates in the rehearsel room,
because the musicians had not practised their parts at home or
didn't came.
To wrap up this interview, is there anything you
want to add to this interview ?
I feel honoured, that today someone has
interest in For Your Pleasure.
And if only few listeners like our
CDs the whole trouble had been worth.
Thank you to Lutz for this interview
Their PA profile is here and homepage's here
/PAlogo_v2.gif "Progarchives.com Homepage")
For Your Pleasure
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