FELONY (THOMAS BROGLI) INTERVIEW
Please tell me a little bit about your new excellent album "First Works" So what do you want know about it? Ok, the first thing I tell you about it is that actually it’s not that ‘new’ - at least not for us… before we got signed by Escape Music we self released it here in our home country Switzerland about a year ago. It contains songs, older and new ones, from all the eras of the band since we started out in the early 90ties. Of course some of the older material went through some re-working and re-arranging since then. As the title suggests it’s our first album, that we’re very proud of, and that hopefully will establish us in a way in the music-scene and attract a lot of people who like our music.
What
did you do before putting together Felony? -Felony has been and still is my very first band, so if you’re referring to what I did before musically, the answer is ‘not much’…;o) I started kind of late in my life with playing music, it was at the age of 20. In my job back then, I had to work shifts which prevented me from still being a member of our local football team and go to practice, so I decided it’s time for a new hobby and started learning to play the bass. Then I joined a local band which evolved into Felony and the rest is history…;o) I think you have successfully mixed symphonic neoclassical metal with AOR, do you agree? or how would you describe your music to someone who is not familiar with it? - I think you hit the nail right there with your description of our sound! When people ask us we usually use the terms of symphonic hardrock & melodic metal. Which guys would you consider to be your main influences?
We all have also a preference in common, that’s 80ties pop music like Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, Frankie Goes To Hollywood etc. We also play sometimes a cover of the 80ties hit ‘When the rain begins to fall’ by Pia Zadora & Jeremaine Jackson at our concerts. How did you develop your own style of playing, did you take any lessons? - As I told before, I started quite late. I first went to a music school for about a year taking single lessons. And when my teacher left the school I went to his home for private lessons for something over half a year. Since then I think my playing did evolve from what I heard on albums by other artists. Some of my favourite bassplayers are Stu Hamm (worked with Satriani & Vai), Eddie Jackson (Queensrÿche) or Steve Harris.
You have worked with the famed produces Sascha Paeth, what was that like? - Unfortunately I can’t tell you from my own experience, because I did record all my bass tracks here in Switzerland in Markus’ homestudio, so it wasn’t necessary for me to go to the Gate Studios in Wolfsburg. Only Andy, Markus & Björn went there to record the drums, a few additional vocals and all the mixing and mastering was done there. The guys told me that it was very easy going working with Sacha, that he’s such a nice and polite person who did treat them no different than the other ‘famous’ artists he worked with. I recently had the pleasure to meet him in person. He came to my hometown for the CD-release party of the band Lunatica (he was mixing their sound at that event), and I got introduced to him. What is the most important, feeling or technique? can you survive with only one of them? - I think the ‘regular’ listener at first notices more the lack of technique than feeling when a band plays – but of course both things are equally important (I guess every musician you’ve asked that before told you about the same…;o). You can cover up the lack of feeling with technique to a certain amount, but if you really play without soul people will start notice that sooner or later. What kind of equipment are you using live or in the studio? - For concerts I’m using a bass pod from Line6 that simulates you a variety of sounds digitally. I don’t mind not playing with a real amp, it’s also quite easier to travel to concerts and back, everything I need fits into my gig-bag… For the recording, I have to admit that I don’t quite recall what equipment exactly was used, we had a pre-amp with tubes from which we went directly to the hard-disc recording device. As you can see, I’m not really a guy who’s into all that technical stuff, I just want to plug in and play… haha. How was the album recorded? - We recorded all the guitars, the bass, keys and vocals in Markus’ home-studio with digital hard-disc recording systems. Then Markus went to a professional Studio here in Switzerland where some additional syths & keys were recorded and the arrangements finalized. As mentioned before the drums then were recorded at the Gates Studio in Wolfsburg, Germany as some minor additional vocals. What kind of music do you like the least? - It’s not a kind of music, it’s all those ‘music star’ singers & bands from the tv-shows I can’t stand. This is all just about image & selling a product and has nothing to do with ‘rel’ music!
- Oh yes, of course I do. There so much great music out there that you really shouldn’t limit your taste to a certain genre. I listen to all kinds of music from classical music, soundtracks to pop music, rock and all kind of Hard Rock & metal (from AOR to Black Metal). Some albums I recently purchased are for example the new albums by Mercenary, Slayer, Communic, Scar Symmertry, Evergrey, Evanescence & Into Eternity. I’m a really big Queensrÿche & Nighwish fan and also the Canadian singer Amanda Marshall. Other bands I like very much are Nevermore, Zeromancer, Masterplan, Psychotic Waltz, After Forever, In Flames, Brainstorm, Therion, King Diamond, Chastain, Children Of Bodom, Queen, Death, Lisa Dalbello, Faith No More, In the Nursery, Arch Enemy, Bal-Sagoth, Subway To Sally, Die Krupps, Charisma, U2 and many more – I guess I could extenbd that list forever… haha. What other plans do you have for the near future? - In the very near future we will play a few more gigs here in Switzerland and hope to add even some more, to gather a certain amount of stage experience. And meanwhile we’re working on the songs for our second album. We already played some at our last concerts, and we started recording demo versions of them. I think by the end of this or early next year we’ll start record them ‘for real’, but we don’t have set any deadline or so yet, so I can’t tell you when you can expect the next album. How is the musical climate for your kind of music in Switzerland at this moment? - It could be better, but we try to make the best out of it. I think in countries like Finland, Germany or the Netherlands our kind of music or metal/hard rock in general is more accepted by the public than here. You rarely have ‘hard’ bands in the charts in Switzerland. But it’ getting better – our friends from Lunatica for example managed to enter the Swiss Top100 album charts for four weeks with their latest CD. There are some clubs who book newcomer bands like us, and we appreciate their support. But as in other countries too, you just can’t sit there waiting for someone to call you – if you want to play live, you have to be persistent and ‘convince’ them to book you. What are your feelings about the world we live in and how do you look upon yourself in 15 years from now? - I wouldn’t want to live in another world or period than now, I’m happy with my state of life and the things going on in ‘my’ world. But I think a lot of people are very fast with complaining about all kind of things, instead of looking what good things they have in their lives. Society also runs on a faster pace then it used to when I was a teenager (or maybe I’m just imagine that because I’m getting old, haha), and people should more often take a break and have a deeper look at things than just have that superficial attitude. How do I look upon myself in 15 years? Where’s my crystal ball, I have to take a look into it…;o) No, seriously, I have no clue at all, this is such a long time period – I’m gonna be 52 by then, so this may sound odd but to be honest I’m not sure if the band will still exist. but who knows, I don’t mind if I’ll be proven wrong, time will tell…;o)
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FELOBUY FELONY'S "FIRST WORKS" HERE:
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