The Windmill
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Topic: The Windmill
Posted By: toroddfuglesteg
Subject: The Windmill
Date Posted: August 06 2010 at 15:54
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WARNING: THE VIKINGS ARE BACK AGAIN !! Beware infidels, the Viking ships has returned and this time filled to the brim with marauding Hammond organs, flutes, guitars, microphones, bass and drums. The Windmill's To Be Continued album is the most recent Norwegian export. An album full of great symphonic neo prog which will win The Windmill new kingdoms. I got in touch with Jean Robert Viita for their saga. --------------------------------------------
When
and where was The Windmill formed and do you have any background from
any other bands ? Why did you choose that name ?
It
was initially formed in my head the summer of 1996. I and my family
were living in Brussels for a period, and once on a trip back to
visit people in Norway we drove through the German town Lübeck. The
only person awake in the car was me, and I was listening to Camel's
Moonmadness, while driving upon a hilltop filled with windmills. They
all seemed to rotate with different speeds, but still in correct time
with the music. It was a fascinating sight, and there and then I
decided that when time allowed I would start a progrock band and call
it Windmill. After moving back to Norway in 1998 I joined a band
called Desert Breeze, a party band playing covers. During some years
I met different people from other bands, and asked them what they
really liked to listen to when alone. That way I met musicians who
where dedicated "progrock" fans, and who would love to play
this kind of music. It was initially meant to be a sort of project,
more like an experiment, while keeping the other bands going, and we
started just some jam sessions and was meant to put together a couple
of numbers for a one off performance in 2001. We started to rehearse
the King Crimson song "In the Court of the Crimson King"
and also the first track of the album "Cinnamon" which I
wrote most of back in 1979. Of course the gig was cancelled, but we
all had been re-bitten by this bug called "Symphonic Prog rock"
and decided to continue. So that's really how the whole thing
started. As for previous bands I can just say that all of the members
have been active in different bands up through the years, some more
known than others.
For
my own sake I can mention that my first band which was started around
1970 together with our drummer Sammi, played this kind of music, and
that's where Cinnamon originates from. And I know that our Bass
player Arnfinn played with a progrock band once. But apart from that
I only know that most of us have been involved in cover bands playing
rock'n roll and blues.
And
for the name,.... I think I do remember already explaining about it
earlier, but we just had to insert “THE” in th front to avoid
being mixed up with the British artist calling himself Windmill.  To
start with; please give me your (long or brief) thoughts and lowdowns
on your only album to this date To Be Continued from 2010.
Well
it’s a good feeling finally to have reached our first goal.
It
took a long time finish, due to the fact that we all hold “normal”
daytime jobs in order to support ourselves and our families. That
meant we had one or at times two nights a week to do any recording.
The studio was situated 1 hours drive from where most of us live, so
by the time we finished work, had some food and drove out, the time
would be around 1800-1900 in the evening. Of course we didn’t
always feel motivated after a whole day at work and the long drive,
but we somehow managed to get our acts together. We also at one point
lost all the tracks for the 21 minute long “A day in a hero’s
life”, and that was at the time quite disastrous, and the mishap
did set us back some months as well. And yes we had backup, but we
forgot to reconnect the external hard drive, so the machine just
deleted the track from there as well. Well it was an amateur’s
mistake, and we managed to track down the files after a while, but
the project itself was lost. At least we didn’t have to make new
recordings.
Well,
finally we sent the whole production off for a final mix to this guy
David here in Norway, and he’s a pro who knows what he’s doing,
and things from then on started to move real fast. So within a couple
of weeks the whole thing was finished and all of a sudden the reviews
started to pop up around from the whole world. That felt weird, and
we still are a bit “outside” ourselves when reading all the nice
feedback. We have been working for such a long time with these songs
so it’s almost impossible to have an opinion about it anymore. Of
course we like the songs, and we do stand for the production. And of
course we are proud of what we have achieved. But it’s kind of out
of our minds now, so we have started composing for the next album.
How
is the writing and creative processes in The Windmill ?
That’s
a tricky question. For this first album I must
admit that I already had many songs lying around, so we used mostly
my compositions on this one except “The colour of seasons” which
is written by Morten.
There
are no standard answers to how the creative processes are run in the
band. Sometimes I have a track fully finished with lyrics (sometimes
written by my friend in Scotland Brian McNeil) and music. Then we all
are involved with the arrangements. When one of the band members
comes up with an idea, we always try to test it out before deciding
whether to use it or not. Other times we do have bits and pieces from
jam sessions and discarded songs that fit perfectly in to a new
track. I very often get “bullocking” especially from Arnfinn
because I hardly ever write anything down on paper initially. I do
explain that with the stupid excuse, that I want us to learn
everything by heart, and thus keeping our brains sharpened. In fact
it’s just because I’m too lazy and impatient to take the time to
write anything down except the lyrics of course. We do record new
stuff on rehearsals in order to remember what we do from one day to
another. Lately we have been sharing more and more on the composition
part, and it feels good to involve the others in this process as
well. But I will still come up with 20 minutes pieces almost entirely
ready to be recorded. So will Morten I think. The problem is that the
days are to short for all our ideas and it is difficult to choose
from the material. Well I guess that’s a “luxury problem”.
I
take it that you did the whole manufacturing bit, the promotion and the
distribution bit yourself. How difficult was is to find a good studio
and manufacturer for this album and how difficult is it to do the
distribution bit yourself ?
We
were in fact lucky that our guitarist at
that time already had a studio, so we did most of the recordings
there. After a while some of us purchased smaller studio equipment,
and we could start recording flutes, saxes, guitars and keys in our
own homes. Due to that we saved some hours on the road, as we just
sent the files over to the main studio to be inserted into the
project. That’s kind of handy, and for me anyway very high tech. (I
used to do some recordings back in the 80ies and those were purely
analogue). We did have a recording deal with a brand new label here
in Norway as we started, but the poor guy running it got quite ill,
and was ordered by his doctor not to get involved in anything for
some years, so the deal was cancelled and we had to do the whole
thing ourselves. The production was already so far advanced that
trying to get a new deal would delay the whole process even more. We
are also very lucky that my wife Kirsten is a painter, and had
already painted the cover picture years ago. Then Morten have
relatives who work in the graphic designer business, so we got a far
amount of help to put the whole coverbit together after our
instructions.
As
we got in touch with David to do the final mixing, he offered us a
deal for the digital distribution via Helping Hand Records, which we
did accept. For the physical CD, we do the whole thing ourselves,
which would not have been possible without the web. We have our own
little web shop on our website,(www.thewindmill.no)and whenever
orders for CDs and/or T-shirts are received we do the packing and
ship it off. I must admit that it’s been far easier to sell a
couple of copies than I would ever have expected, but In Norway it’s
not easy, due to lack of interest by the media, and by that I mean
the leading newspapers.
How
would you describe your music and which bands would you compare
your
music with ?
The
description we put on our music is Symphonic melodic neo prog if
I remember it correctly...
When
it comes to comparing I think it is difficult to say as we have a lot
of influences from early 70ies and up to today. But we have by others
been compared to Camel, Genesis, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, IQ, Arena,
Pendragon and even The Flower Kings and others. I see that as an
honour, as all these bands are amongst my favourite bands. When
it comes to Norway, the black metal scene springs to mind. But the
prog rock scene is very strong at the moment with some outstanding bands.
It is also a truly underground scene with very little or no media
exposure. How does it feel to be less socially accepted than murderers
& arsonists and how do you handle the marketing and media bit ?
He-he.
Last
question first. I’m very happy that
murderers and arsonists still get more media exposure than us, (it
would be a sick world if they didn’t) and as for social acceptance,
I think it’s growing world-wide, also in Norway. We have to keep in
mind that we are a small country with a population half the one only
in London. It is true that Norway has a strong but to Norwegians
relatively unknown black metal scene, more famous abroad than here.
That’s also the fact for the prog scene. I did mention the lack of
interest from our leading newspapers (how big can a newspaper be in
Norway?) The editors in these papers seem to have forgotten who
they’re supposed to be working for, and sit there with their
swollen heads, thinking highly about themselves, forgetting that we
are only 4-5 million people living here, and there is no reason to be
cocky about it. So for an unknown band to be reviewed in a leading
Norwegian newspaper is almost completely impossible (without having
blonde hair and huge tits). You need to be known already and in order
to be “known” or at least be heard of, you need some interest
from the leading media. It’s a catch 22 really, and you need to
know someone who knows someone to get inside.
But
we have some honest local papers that do their share, bless them.
We
have been fortunate to be reviewed in Classic Rock presents prog, and
we also have an AD for the CD in there. Next issue in August-2010 we
will be found amongst other bands on the attached CD from the same
magazine.
This
is a magazine that sells around 30 000 copies of each issue
worldwide, so that’s quite some exposure for a modest band from the
outskirts of Europe.
Having
said that, it’s a sad fact that almost all music scenes suffer from
diving CD-sales, as the industry were ignoring the obvious facts for
way to long, without having any means to meet the new market for
downloading music.
The
major labels stuck their heads in the sand, and hoped it was all just
a nightmare that would blow away. To late now. The web has come to
stay, and when people first start to get things for free, they’ll
never go to pay for it if they can choose. So the artists themselves
started to go on the road again.
That
was good, but the concert organizers are now starting to suffer as
well, as people start to get too much of a choice to see great bands
and artists. The recent years have seen lots of great bands only in
little Norway. But we are few, and people can’t be bothered to
travel for hours to get to a venue even if there are some huge names
on the poster. Festivals are bankrupt everywhere due to lack of
people and unsold tickets. It’s almost the same in all genres, but
of course prog is narrow already, so you feel it even more. But we
mustn’t give up hope. At least it’s rewarding to be able to do
what we like, and as long as there’s only one person in the world
interested in what we can offer, it’s worth the struggle.
I
think your band is a perfect fit for the many summer prog rock
festivals in Europe. Any chance you will tour abroad or are you
confined to Norway ?
Thank
you very much.
We
are hoping to be able to join some festivals next summer, but it all
depends if we can afford it. If they will
pay us the expenses to get us there, we will come. We have a guy
working for us in Scotland and UK, although it’s still a bit early
to tell. And of course travelling to Holland, Sweden, Germany etc. is
not that hard, so it shouldn’t be that expensive either. But we are
definitely not confined to Norway.
What
is the latest update and what is the plans for this and next year ?
Latest
update is that we have been joined by a new guitarist Mr.
Stig Andrè Clason, Morten’s son, as Bent (who’s playing on the
album) resigned a little while before the release du to health
issues. Our new guitarist is young, eager and upcoming, and it’s
nice to have a 20 year old guy in the band. He may show us some new
perspectives on issues,that we’d never think about ourselves. And
of course he is very good as well.
Anything
you want to add to this interview ?
To
all the listeners out there
Thank
you for reading this interview, and don’t
download music for free. You’ll end up with no bands left who can
afford to do recordings...
Don’t
forget to visit our website:
http://www.thewindmill.no/ -
for news and updates.
We
wish all of you a wonderful autumn.
Cheers.
Jeanni
On
behalf of
The
Windmill. Thank you to Jeanni and The Windmill for this interview
Their album To Be Continued can be purchased from http://www.thewindmill.no/ - or any good prog stores
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Replies:
Posted By: Todd
Date Posted: August 06 2010 at 16:55
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Very informative interview--thanks Torodd! This is an excellent album, and I look forward to their being accepted to the site. I'm sure it won't be long . . . ------------- "I have seen the broken sky turn blue." http://gnosis2000.net/ratertodd.shtml" rel="nofollow - My Gnosis Ratings |
Posted By: Windhawk
Date Posted: August 15 2010 at 00:43
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The Windmill can now be found in our database.
------------- Websites I work with: http://www.progressor.net http://www.houseofprog.com My profile on Mixcloud: https://www.mixcloud.com/haukevind/ |