Line Up:Eric Mannella: Drums
Grégory Giraudo: Guitars Bass
Stéphane Fradet: Vocal
Invites:
Frédéric Visconte: Viola
Guillaume Rigaud: Accordeon
Well,friends of Aristocracy!
Full Albuns and EP:
2013-Headlong Disaster
Unplugged Disaster-2015
Every Hour Wounds... the Last One Kills-2019
Echoes from Afar-2022
We speak of our newsroom,where we will have, in all our emotions,the seventy-eighth interview of the Aristocracy.This time, we will have a reunion interviewThis reunion is with the band Parallel Minds, who we talked to them in 2019 at the time they released their second album. This time, they return to show their third album titled Echoes From Afar. We thank our great Davide Pulitto for promoting this new date . Let's go to a song from their new album. It's wonderful to talk to you again.Welcome back!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxQFS0H0LA8
A1:Let’s talk about the composition work in “Echoes From Afar”?
Steph : Well, we did the same way we always do.We work a lot in an iterative way.Greg and I are the composers, so we send some basic ideas to each other, and build the songs with successive layers of ideas brought by our two parallel minds.Greg is obviously more in charge of the instrumental and “production” part, and I'm more focused on lyrics, and melodies.
A2:Which new ideas put the band in this new album?
Steph :There are the same elements contained in the two previous albums, but mixed in a different way.We've put a lot of effort on orchestrations this time, since the concept fitted well with a more sophisticated approach.
A3:What´s the new approach to the sound and lyrics in this job?
Steph : Usually deal with human behaviours and how shitty is this world, but this time we decided to take a break and talk about our favorite sci-fi works.So the challenge was more about paying tribute to this books and movies without being too literal and too descriptive.
Greg :This time around we agreed on an overall theme for the lyrics before we started working on the music. We picked several of our favorite science fiction stories and wrote music with those stories as a guide.It was a challenge but it really inspired us in trying to convey the right mood and feel for each song. It made us try to experiment more sonically and musically.We almost wrote this album as a movie soundtrack,that’s why there are a lot of orchestral parts and keyboards layers all over the songs.
A4:What is Parallel Minds from 2022 saying about Parallel Minds from 2015?
Greg :That’s great kids, but it gets even better, just you wait ;)”Joke aside, I’m proud of everything we accomplished so far, and each album has a reason for being the way it is. Obviously Echoes From Afar is a more advanced, polished effort but I still look back at Headlong Disaster with a warm heart and a lot of pride.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4ipQ52tKYA
A5:How did the band know Davide Pulito?
Steph : Internet
A6:When we first spoke in 2019, the band already had a progressive structure. If you believe that there were changes in the progressions, which were they?
Steph :As I've said, we've always had these heavy, progressive and thrash elements since the beginning. It's our background and main musical influence. The way we combine and use them evolves a lot that said. We make a great effort in writing songs you won't be fed up with in 10 minutes ^_^. So we want our songs to be catchy, but deep at the same time, the same way Blind Guardian writes their tunes for example.You enjoy their songs at first listen, but you can dig them 20 times and still discover subtleties.
Greg : I think we explored our progressive side more on this new album. We expanded our horizon and brought in a lot of new elements. But the core nature of our music is still there, just in a new, more fresh and innovative form.
A7:Is religion in general and not one in particular still the lyrical north of the band?
Steph :Yes, but not this time, except for a couple of tracks,Provider of Sins being one of them. because it's one of the main subjects of the “Endymion” book.But I usually write a lot about religion, since I hate every form of dogma or doctrine telling what you have to do, what is wrong or right. I'm an atheist, but I think I help people around me a lot more than 90% of believers do.You can act the right way because you know it's right to do so, and not because some book tells to do this way, or because you want to have an afterlife reward.
It's an absolute nonsense to me.
A8:Which emotive changes you see in this album?
Steph : We try to stick the most we can to the works we deal with, so we have very varied moods on this records.You can hear some orchestral stuff for the Star Wars song, then a djent/thrash mood on the Terminator one, or an intimate feeling for the interstellar song.
Every time we compose a song, we pay attention to have a strong connection with the music. We don't have a bunch of music or lyrics we use randomly to any topic, like some bands do.
Greg : We always try to bring a lot of different feelings and emotions to everything we do. This album was a way for us to express sides of us that we never showed before. “Stay” for example has a very Pink Floyd-Bowie style which might surprise our fans. We take those inspirations and make them fit within the Parallel Minds universe and I think we achieved that really well with this album.
A9:How did the band arrive to M&O Music?
Steph : Internet ^_^ And the M&O boss is following us since a couple of years. He asked for news quite often and was very motivated to have us aboard.
A10:What´s the idea behind the artwork?
Steph :I wanted to have this idea of an unnamed guy traveling through these different places and universes.The portal offers this opportunity.If you look carefully it may be a dangerous one with spikes and thorns.
A11:Without a doubt, before Parallel Minds, you had or have other bands. But, did you already know your vocal and sound capabilities long time before Parallel Minds was formed?
Steph : Yes, I'm an old 45 years guy, I sang in a 100% heavy metal band called FalkirK during nearly 10 years. We've made a lot of concerts and released 3 albums, so it's not a new thing to me. Before that, I sang a lot at every live shows so I knew I had a strong and very versatile voice.But I stopped totally 6 or 7 years before singing again in PM, so my voice has changed and was weaker than it used to be. After the first album, it was fucked, so I've been forced to take some singing lessons to take some good habits.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmSnn_JxOsE
A12:Is this album conceptual? Yes or no, and why?
Steph : Yes totally. The first 5 songs are about 5 different sci-fi movies, and the last 5 make one big song about Dan Simmons “Endymion” masterpiece.
A13:I imagine that besides being musicians, you have a professional life outside of music. Does this life outside of music probably inspire your band's music?
Steph : Not really ^_^ Greg is the only professional musician, since he's a guitar teacher and have others bands in different styles.I'm a graphist ,so I'm in charge of the covers, videos, etc and work for animated series, video games, movies etc...
Greg : I think that life itself is a good source of inspiration for music and art. You may not realize it but there some unconscious things happening in your daily life, professional or personal that shape the person you become and ultimately shape your art expression. Speaking for me personally, as a guitar teacher, interacting with my students and my colleagues helped me open myself to a lot of different music, and made me look at my songwriting and guitar playing in a new way.
A14:Parallel Minds is the name of the band. What are the most beneficial and most controversial parallel minds in the band's daily life?
Steph : We compare ourselves to Symphony X, Nevermore and Blind Guardian because we think they're the more similar bands to us among the big bands every metalhead knows. But we have a very rich backgound, so the list is endless.We can obviously name Conception, whom the sophomore album gave its name to the band and a thousand more (Savatage, Helloween, Testament...)Greg and Fab are more into prog, while Eric and I are the “thrashy” guys, so the influential bands go from Mr Big or Scorpions to Death or Sepultura ^_^.Nothing really controversial, but let's say AOR/Glam as well as more extreme / black metal stuff is out or our range.
A15:If all or most of the members are atheists or not, answer. Is religious skepticism just an introduction to skepticism by people or structure of society, or not necessarily?
Steph : Speaking for myself, as already said, I'm a convinced atheist.Though I'm not sure to understand your question correctly, religion are the basis of big societies of course. They create a feeling of unity between people and we can deny our modern western societies come from middle east mix of christianity, islam and judaism.Asian and african cultures have their own.But I think we can go further than that, the most educated countries like the Scandinavia ones are the least religious ones, and they live very well like that, so I think modern societies don't need anymore these dogmas and “obsolete” rules. Maybe it was useful when everybody died at 40 and had a sword to face any potential danger, but it's totally useless in my opinion nowadays. You just know you don't have to kill anyone, because it's bad, and you don't want to be killed by anyone !Look at the muslim world for example. They were the most advanced civilization a long time ago, and religion has stopped this evolution. The same during middle ages in Europe. Science evolution stopped during 200 or 300 years because of church's thoughts.But I respect people's beliefs, no problem for me. As long as it is private and noone tries to convince me ^_^.My step family are strong believers, and we love each other a lot !
Greg : I grew up in a pretty strong catholic education, my mom used to take me to the church every Sunday. When I grew older, I started to look at religion and the things I’ve been taught in a more critical way and progressively went away from it. Plus Steph introduced me to Metal around the same time so I had to make a choice :D I do think some of the core values of Catholicism and other religions are very positive and important. But as Steph said, you don’t need to go to the church or believe in God to be a good person. Those values shouldn’t be tied to religion and just be regular traits of humanity. Unfortunately that’s far from being the case. Then again I respect the need and desire for some people to practice religion and believe in a higher force. If that’s the thing that helps them carry on though their lives and be good persons, then I don’t see any problem with that. I just don’t feel the need for that personally.
A16:What´s the differences between “Every Hour Wounds… The Last One Kills” and now in “Echoes From Afar”?
Steph : Echoes is a richer, deeper album when Every Hour has its rawer and more “in you face” approach.
Greg : I love both albums for different reasons. Every hour wounds is a more grounded, “earthly” kind of album whereas Echoes is more epic, spacey and “out there”. I think they complement each other in a nice way.
A17:Not that I don't like twelve minute-songs, but did you assemble the song in some way or it happened naturally?
Steph : Well, we don't put boundaries to ourselves, so we let the song go where it wants.
At a certain moment, it begins to kinda live by itself. I'm sure every composer reading this would agree with me.Sometimes, we have a cool song packed in 5 minutes, and sometimes we feel we still can add some material and life to one, so we continue. So yes, it 'a natural process.Moreover, most of “classic” albums (Powerslave, Master of Puppets, Divine Wings of Tragedy, Something Wicked this way Comes, etc...) have one or various big epic pieces, so we love to have at least one on every album we release ^_^
Greg : Writing those long songs are always so much fun. I just love that. It’s like solving a big puzzle. You have all these cool ideas that you want to put together in a natural, convincing way, so it doesn’t sound like they're different pieces put together artificially. That’s the biggest challenge. Maintaining a cohesive vision throughout the entire piece.
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