Star One

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When Arjen Lucassen is not being a photo model for Prog Archives, he is the brain in projects like Ayreon, Ambeon, Guilt Machine........ and Star One. A very busy man in other words. But he took time out to answer my questions about the new Star One album Victims of the Modern Age.
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Star One is one of
your four main projects. Guilt Machine, Ayreon and Ambeon being the
three other projects. What is the main difference between your four
projects ? 

Ayreon is my
‘mother ship’, it contains all the styles I like: prog, folk,
metal, electronic, psychedelic, classic etc. But every now and then I
feel like concentrating on just one of these styles. Obviously Star
One highlights the metal aspect of Ayreon.

What is the main
idea behind Star One ?

This Star One
album is a reaction to the previous Guilt Machine album, which was an
atmospheric and profound album. I really felt the urge of doing a
straight-forward metal album based on guitar-riffs again, which
automatically leads me to Star One. 

It has been 8 years
between Space Metal and Victims of the Modern Age. Why this long
break between these two albums ?
I hate repeating
myself and I’m always looking for new challenges. There are so many
different styles of music I want to explore, and so I do! I never
really plan ahead, I always let my inspiration guide me. So there is
no logic to be found here at all. 

Over to your new
album which is out in some cold nights time (when these questions is
being brewed together). What is the main differences between Space
Metal and Victims of the Modern Age ? 

Victims of the
Modern Age is a darker and heavier album than Space Metal. It’s
also more down-to-Earth, that’s why this time all the stories take
place here on Earth. And although I really like the songs on Space
Metal, I think Victims sounds a lot better, especially the guitar
sound. It will still be recognizable as Star One though because of
the great singers and instrumentalists.

Please take us
through a track by track presentation of Victims of the Modern Age.

‘Down the
Rabbit Hole’ is the instrumental keyboard intro to the album, as
‘Lift Off’ was on the 1^st album. Only this time we’re
not lifting off into space but we’re descending down the dark
rabbit hole! 

‘Digital Rain’
is the first song I wrote for this album, and its unbridled heaviness
quickly set the mood for the rest of the tracks. Highlights for me
are Ed Warby's thundering drums and the big chorus, especially the
four awesome vocalists singing a-cappella at the very end. That last
scream of Russell Allen still scares the sh*t out of me! The
inspiration for this song was the movie "The Matrix", and I
think it clearly shows...an epic, dark and fast-paced track.

I
spent weeks trying out loads of guitar amps, microphones
and speakers to dial in my ultimate dream guitar sound. After all the
songs for the album were already written, I spontaneously came up
with the fat 7-string riff of ‘Earth that Was’. Before I knew
it, I had yet another song! The lyrics are based on
the great TV show 'Firefly', a sci-fi series that unfortunately was
canceled mid-season its first year.

‘Victims of
the Modern Age’ is the atypical song on the album, and therefore
based on the atypical and quite disturbing movie ‘A Clockwork
Orange’.  It has somewhat of a Celtic or Eastern feel to it because
of the recurring melody. Great soulful vocals by Russell Allen in the
verses.

‘Human See,
Human Do’ is the fast-paced double-kick song of the album that was
inspired by great 70’s rockers like Rainbow’s ‘Kill The King’.
Besides the bluesy 70’s feel this song also has some more modern
touches and great solos by Joost van den Broek (synths) and Gary
Wehrkamp (guitars). The lyrics are based on the late 60’s movie
‘Planet of the Apes’ with Charlton Heston.

’24 Hours’
is the most ‘Ayreonish’ and diverse progressive track on the
album, with its soft atmospheric intro with emotional vocals by
Damian Wilson and a synth-oriented instrumental middle part. The
lyrics are based on the John Carpenter movie ‘Escape from New York’
with Kurt Russell.

‘Cassandra
Complex’ is in my view the most commercial and catchy track on the
album and features a great vocal duel between Russell Allen and Floor
Jansen. In my opinion this song sort of has the feel of the track
Intergalactic Space Crusaders of the first album. The lyrics are
based on the Terry Gilliam movie ’12 Monkeys’ with Bruce Willis.

It’s Alive,
She’s Alive, We’re Alive starts off with a riffs that’s, I must
admit, inspired by Rammstein. But then it goes in a completely
different, more melodic direction. The lyrics are based on the movie
Children of Men.

‘It all Ends
Here’ is the darkest and the longest song on the album, very slow
and doomy. In the middle part I couldn’t resist playing a little
guitar solo myself, which automatically gives the part a little bit
of a Pink Floyd feel. The lyrics are based on what’s probably my
favourite movie of all, Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner. 

What is your plans
for this and next year ? 

I’ve been promising myself to do a
solo album now for the last 10 years, and I think I finally will do
it now! As a reaction to this Star One album it will not be a heavy
album. I keep changing my mind about what direction I want it to go
in, but we’ll see!

Thank you to Arjen for this interview

The Star One PA profile is here and homepage here

Edited by toroddfuglesteg - October 15 2010 at 14:01