Under Linden

Interview with Under Linden by Torodd Fuglesteg


Tell us a little bit about how Under Linden was formed and which bands you consider have influenced you

U.L Was founded in 2001 by drummer Mario Gimeno.
He gathered together some friends, including his wife Gabriela Gonzalez on keyboards.
Later on, another keyboard player and a violinist joined the band.
Mario and Gabriela, are founding members of “Fahrenheit”, a local well known prog- rock band in the 70’s and 80’s, where bassist, Jorge Dalcin, also play for a while.
The drummer performed some professional gigs such as “The Platters” in the 70’s, and “Dee Dee Ramone Trio” in the 90’s among others, like “Elixir de Pasion” at the beginning of 2000; together with Roberto Medina (violin) and Gabriela Gonzalez (keyboards).
Our influences: The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, J. Hendrix, Led Zeppelin. Deep Purple, Stix, Procol Harum, Focus, Yes, K. Crimson, Genesis, P.Floyd, Rush, Kansas, Classical Music in general, Pucini, Eric Satie, Vladimir Kosma, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Astor Piazzolla and many, many others.

Unknown musicians life in Argentina is as hard as you can imagine, probably the same happen in the rest of de world, specially for the prog-rock bands.
It’s no easy ti get 250 or 300 people for a show. As this happens, other kind of rock bands (entertainment, cover bands or similar) has no problem to have that amount of people, even more, in pubs or night- clubs.
But  we have the other side where well known argentine rock bands plays for 10 to 40 thousands of people; last Sunday Pearl Jam played for over 40.000 in the “ Estadio Unico De La Plata” (La Plata Stadium), our city town, and Roger Waters will perform “The Wall”, for about 500.000 along nine shows in the “River Plate Stadium” in Buenos Aires.
But I also have to say that the argentine music scene is outstanding!
Everybody plays something, lots of bands in each neighbourhood...all the young people studying music in public and private schools...all kind of fusion like tango rock, tango new projects, Latin American fusion with rock or something like, candombe- rock, etc.etc. Very interesting.

Please also tell us about your live album from 2003

The 2003 live album is in fact a cd-r designed  and hand – made one by one. That was our début show and we didn’t know at that time that it will be recorded. The recording was in a single track that later was mixed up with a V.H.F camera audio in a studio.
The whole design of the cover album, including the U.L logo and the craft manufacture was totally done by Mario and Gabriela (drums and keyboards).
The music in it represents the spirit of the band at that time: charming melodies floating over the harmonies created by the keyboards, many spaces creating lots of sensations, and rushing movements in between.

In 2005 the band needed to get into the recording studio to perform a “real” album. At that time we were rehearsing some new material to add to the old, we realized that the spirit of the band was intact, despite the mix of old and new tunes, and some years in between.
The whole album was recorded in only one take for each song.
We think that the music in this album comes from our heart and soul, and hope to reach people’s mind and souls too, creating a cool atmosphere.
At last, U.L. music sails between calm and storm.
As soon as we finished the album, Nacho Scarsella left the band.
We had a long brake until we found our new guitarist; Juan Gonzalez.
So we had a great delay until all the material was rehearsed again and it was ready to go. New songs were composed then.

Please also tell us about your 2nd album from 2007 and current recording projects

A similar situation happened with our 2nd album.
After the show in Rio De Janeiro (Brasil) with all the material ready to be recorded, Juan Gonzalez left the band. A new and even longer delay...
New guitarist Juán Cortes needed about 8 month to get the tunes and the feel of Under Linden. Finally he did it and recorded our new album.
And again... another guitarist was needed because he had several music gigs, and go away.
Then we found Jati Signorio, who actually plays in the band after a lot of time of rehearsing sessions.
Until when?
Only God knows. It’s a Kind of Guitar_ Karma.

Well, we have been composing new material for our 2nd studio album.
Which is already ended except for mastering process, and performing live in Rio De Janeiro (Brasil) Montevideo (Uruguay) Rosario, Tucuman, and La Plata (Argentina)

What live plans do you have for the future?

As many people know, we are the producers of the “Sinfo.Prog La Plata” Festival, and want to tell them that it will take place in May 2012 instead of December 2011 as we usually do, because we have had some problems to find the right place to do it.
We are expecting to bring down some bands from our  “neighbourhood” (Brasil- Perú- Chile- Uruguay) and also some others from the local scene.

Under Linden's PA profile can be found here:http://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=3335





Edited by ExittheLemming - September 22 2012 at 00:56