Different Strings is a new band from Malta and the creative vehicle for Chris Mallia. A new album has just been released and I got in touch with Chris for the Different Strings story and the latest update.
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When
and by whom was your band formed? Did any of you, past and present
members, play in any other bands before joining up in your band? Why
did you choose that name and which bands were you influenced by?
First of all this was a
solo project, if I may say so. The idea started when I had some
experiences with lots of bands in the 90’s that never really gave
any fruition. So I quit all bands and decided to do it all by myself.
One reason of doing this is because I always wanted to have a prog
related band and the musicians that I used to play with never saw it
the way I did. So it was basically formed by me and it was around
2001 but had already material written before that became Different
Strings’ material in the end.
Yes, as I already
mentioned I played in other bands but even the present other members
have and had other projects. The bassist “Johann Tabone” was with
another band called “Rising Sunset” whom released an album a few
years ago. The drummer “Karl Dingli” is playing in two other
bands, it’s more for a few bucks and fun really.
“Trevor Catania”
played bass on the EP and on two tracks of this album about to be
released. He was with another Maltese neo-prog band called Different
Light in the 90’s. Nowadays he plays with hard rock band called
“Fire”.
The name chosen suggests
the famous Rush song. As a matter of fact I am a huge Rush fan but I
never really chose it because I am a Rush fan. It actually came
naturally to my mind in the beginning when I decided to do it myself.
I was writing songs that involved a lot of strings using keyboards
and of course I had to play all guitars and bass parts myself too,
and I said to myself “I really need to play a lot of different
strings here” and it came naturally.
Other influences are
various like Dream Theater, Porcupine Tree but even older prog like
Genesis, Yes, Pink Floyd. When I was younger I was into Iron Maiden,
Black Sabbath, Deep Purple and other similar bands too. I studied and
listen to classical music as well. My discography is hugely varied so
I believe every band or music gave its contribution of influence.
I
have heard a lot about Malta from some close relatives who holidays
there two weeks every winter. The people are very decent and friendly
and the landscape is great. But how is the music scene on Malta now?
Well, as you said, Malta
is great from a landscape and hospitality point of view, that’s why
people keep coming to holiday here. From a musical point of view it’s
not that nice. Here are a lot of decent musicians but tending to
focus on making money and I don’t blame them. They concentrate on
holiday resorts, hotels, jazz clubs etc. so they can make a living
and therefore they don’t have spare time on bands like mine.
The scene sucks too!
Sometimes it’s very difficult to have a venue where to perform live
so bands recently are joining forces and create events with 2 or
three bands on 1 night. It’s starting to pay of but still we have
very limited sales of merchandise. One thing that pisses me off is
the fact that we are getting absolutely 0 money from PRS. We don’t
have our own PRS in Malta so we have to use the UK PRS, although
recently they expanded a section for Maltese performers but still
we’re getting nothing and 1 reason for this is because the
authorities are not doing their jobs of monitoring radio stations and
clubs of the events or radio play lists.
We have a very huge death
metal scene though whom I support them for the effort but I’m not
much into that genre.
Bottom line is that Malta
is increasing a very good reputation in musical events but excluding
a couple of artists that are present everywhere, which is pissing the
bands off, nothing in particular is done for other genres like prog.
Over
to your four releases. Please tell us more about Dead
Man Walking from 2004, It's
Only the Beginning from 2006, Victims
of Love from 2010 and The
Sounds of Silence Part 1: The Counterparts from 2011
The first single “Dead
man walking” was released in November 2004 because I didn’t
have a vocalist till summer 2004. When I met Alan Mayo and agreed to
be part of my project we recorded the song and released it as a
single to announce the presence of Different Strings as a new band to
check out.
Unfortunately Alan was a
very busy person that took me 2 more years just to record the
remaining tracks that ended to be the debut album “…it’s
only the beginning” which was released in February 2007.
When I started to record
the second album “The sounds of silence” the songs were already
written but again I had to face the same problem of finding another
vocalist since Alan went to UK for good.
I tried various and
didn’t find anyone interested in singing my songs. Suddenly I
remembered of a friend of mine, Errol Cutajar, whom we use to sing
together in a charity raising choir called voices. He has quite a
high pitched timbre but he’s not into prog at all. So I took the
chance to try him, whom he agreed with enthusiasm and ended to be the
next Different Strings vocalist. I have to be honest that I didn’t
expected to be so satisfied with his voice, it was surprising and
satisfying!
We started recording the
songs starting with the ones on the EP, “Victims of love”.
This EP was released for 2 reasons. The first and more important is
that one song on the EP, “Time and again” was dedicated to a
friend of mine that lost his life on a tragic accident on his job.
The profits of the CD went to his family. The other reason was
similar to “Dead man walking”. Since it took me quite some time
to release the second album the EP was a kind of reminder that I’m
still here with a new project!
It
very much sounds like, from the title, that The Sounds of Silence is
going to be a series of albums. Part 1 released this year. Please
tell us more about this concept.
The second album, “The
Sounds of Silence – part I” is a huge project which intended
to be a double CD album but for financial reasons and of course it
needed much more time to record I took the decision to release them
separately. The second part of this project “The Sounds of Silence
– part II” hopefully will be released in a nearer future.
This album, which is the
best work so far, has more of everything. More analogue synths,
heavier parts, more acoustic parts and even more epics. Part I will
contain the 30 minute epic “Trance of sorrow”, which it’s a
huge song that I’m very proud of. It also has another epic
“Selfishness” but on this CD it will be released part I only. The
second part hopefully will be on “The Sounds of Silence – part
II” CD. Both parts will be about 26 minutes as well.
I’m really excited
about it and awaiting the reviews when it will be released physically
as a CD on the 26th November.
How
is the creative processes in your band from coming up with ideas to
get them onto a recording?
Well as I told you
before, this is not a band tour de force; it’s more a solo
project. The songs I have are all written by me, both musically and
lyrically. So at the moment the other band members are playing my
music and it will remain that way till I have the other CD planned.
They like the songs very much so it’s not a problem for them. I
agreed that there live performances can have their own touch as well
of course. First of all I’m not a musical dictator and the fact
that live performances can have a little twist it’s more
challenging and interesting.
Personally when I compose
I will have dozens of ideas, bits and pieces. Some of them I find
them very cool so I expand them ending to be songs. I don’t force
myself for inspiration, it’s a natural thing, you just need to
welcome it and write it down when it arrives.
To give you an example it
happened with “Dead man walking” and “Time and again”. I
wrote that songs in 10 minutes. Of course I finished them later with
lyrics and a more polished composition but the basic structure was
really fast. That’s when inspiration struck you.
For
those of us unfamiliar with your music; how would you describe you
music and which bands would you compare yourself with?
This is a tough one. I
don’t know how to describe it really and I say this for the reason
not to misguide who wants a description. As I said earlier I’ve
been inspired from dozens of bands/music in general so I tend to be
sometimes similar to a style at one point and them completely
different with another style at other moments.
If I have to narrow the
decision I might suggest that my music is a kind of symphonic rock.
Since I studied classical music I think I give a more classical
approach to my songs but yet again when I compose, as the song
progresses it depends on the moment and I don’t limit myself for
timing or anything else.
What
have you been up to since the recording of your new album, what is
your current status and what are your plans for this year and beyond?
Well I still study music
and I give guitar lessons too. I never had a decent teaching
qualification so I dedicated a little time for a degree in guitar
teaching.
Regarding my music, at
the moment I’m really concentrating on the present which is the
release day of the album which will be on the 26th of
November and of course the very first live performance from Different
Strings. We are rehearsing hard for this event so basically that is
my main objection. I’m also giving more attention to a more
merchandising way of promoting Different Strings hopefully it will
pay off a little.
Next year will be a
busier year, hopefully with more live performances for bigger
audiences and of course the recording of the second part of “The
sounds of silence”.
To
wrap up this interview, is there anything you want to add to this
interview?
I want to thank to all of
the people, including yourself, for the reviews you make. The ones
made for the debut album were very positive excluding the fact that
had a not so very good production but the music was liked. So I have
to make it a point that this recording is highly pro and there will
be no production deficiency. I’m looking forward for new reviews
and hopefully a little less illegal downloads!!!
The more I sell the
better will be the next album. I will also have a review on Fireworks
magazine which I’m really looking forward to as well.
Thank you to Chris for this interview
The PA profile is here and his homepage is here
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Different Strings
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