Interview with Nicolas van Dyk of Redemption
Interviewer: Eric
Eric: Thanks for taking the time out of your schedule to answer a few
questions. Why don’t you tell our readers how Redemption became a band?
Nick: I never gave serious consideration to being a full-time musician; I
embarked on a full-time career as an executive in the entertainment industry. I
had written a lot of music over the years that I never assumed would see the
light of day. One night, I happened to see Ray Alder at a club show in Los
Angeles, and went over and said hello -- just doing the appreciative fan bit. A
few weeks later, at another show, I saw him again and we struck up a
conversation. One thing led to another and we became good friends. He talked at
some point about wanting to do a solo project, and I played him some of the
music I’d written. He liked one of the riffs enough to use it for one of the
songs on the first Engine CD, but most of what I’d written was more progressive
than the Engine direction that he wanted for his solo project.
So instead, I asked him to help me produce a CD which I assumed at this point
would mostly be for my own enjoyment. I had met Bernie by this time, and he had
a couple of songs that were pretty different from what he was doing in Agent
Steel, and I met Jason Rullo of Symphony X at the first ProgPower show and asked
him if he’d be available to drum on it. He agreed, and we tracked everything and
hired Rick Mythiasin of Steel Prophet, who rehearsed at the same studio where we
tracked the drums, if he’d do the vocals. So that basically created the first
lineup.
After that, we were asked to put together a band to play at ProgPower back in
2003. Jason’s commitments to Symphony X made rehearsing together impossible so I
met with Chris Quirarte (drums) of Prymary and asked him to play, along with
their bassist James Sherwood. On vocals, Rick is more of a power metal singer
and I wanted somebody to whom prog metal came a bit more naturally, so we sked
Corey Brown (Magnitude 9, Balance of Power), who did a great job. When recording
for The Fullness of Time commenced, I suppose Corey would have naturally been
our choice for a full-time vocalist, but Ray heard the pre-production materials
and really wanted to be our full-time vocalist. Once we worked out the logistics
of how it would work with Fates, he was on board and we had our band. We parted
ways with James Sherwood shortly after Fullness was recorded and brought in Sean
Andrews on bass. Most recently we’ve added our touring keyboardist, Greg
Hosharian, as a full member. And that’s where we are today.
Eric: Everyone in Redemption is no stranger to the music industry. Do
you think everyone’s past music knowledge’s has played a success in Redemption’s
career?
Nick: It certainly helps to work with musicians that know their way
around a recording studio and a stage. Because these folks have other musical
projects, I don’t want to put them in a conflicted situation about where their
musical ideas go, so I write the songs, but they all have the chance to shape
them. Obviously Ray is something of a legend as a prog metal vocalist so his
experiences is helpful in many ways and continues to play a major role in our
success.
Eric: Snowfall on Judgment Day is set to come out this summer through
Inside Out Music. Can you give us an idea on what we can hear from this album?
Nick: It is a logical continuation of the sound we’ve been developing
over our last two CDs (our self-titled first CD being somewhat different). We
combine very heavy music with unapologetically catchy melodies, and we combine
technique with a very healthy respect for what the song requires – we don’t have
long extended sessions to show off musicianship just for the sake of doing so.
I think this new CD expands on these ideas: we have the heaviest material
we’ve done, with very strong melodies, and we also have some quieter or more
“progressive” moments as well. The “X-factor” in our music is what I would call
“emotional urgency” and this relates to both the music and lyrics. This clicks
with some people, and doesn’t click with others, but it is a key part of our
sound and helps define our voice.
Eric: A live DVD/CD entitled Frozen in the Moment was released last
month. Enlighten us a little about this release.
Nick: This was recorded during our set at the ProgPower festival last
year. It’s a five camera high def shoot and it’s a very cool package from my
perspective. We had the advantage of the tour with DT to work ourselves into
shape, and we were going to be playing to a “home crowd” of sorts – they didn’t
come just to see us but we fit into the bill pretty well. The setup there, from
the cameras to the audio, is totally professional – the promoter does an amazing
job. And he had been putting out DVDs of the performance for a number of years
so it was a matter of negotiating a deal with him to get our own film, and
making sure we got the audio as well. From there, it was a matter of showing up
and feeding off the crowd. We had a blast with that performance. The finished
product is very true to the actual performance – no overdubs or re-tracking or
stuff like that. I think it adds a human touch to it – we’re pretty tight, but
you can tell it’s an authentic performance.
The process of editing the video was a lot of work. I did it myself using Final
Cut and it wound up taking a very long time, but I think it was worth the
effort. Putting together the bonus materials was a labor of love, but we had so
much good material and so many memories from the DT tour that I wanted to
preserve that I knew we had to do something pretty special with it, and I think
the bonus materials are really, really cool. I’m very happy with the quality of
the audio, and I have to credit Matt Crooks for mixing and Ty Tabor for
mastering. The package turned out great from my perspective.
Eric: You guys toured with Dream Theater during their U.S. Systematic
Chaos Tour. How was it like touring with Dream Theater?
Nick: The Dream Theater guys were great to us and it was a 100% positive
experience. Their crew and management were fantastic. We got along very well,
had a lot of fun, and got great exposure – albeit to a pretty tough crowd!
Eric: Are there any plans to tour with Dream Theater again in the near
future?
Nick: We have an excellent relationship with the band and with their
management and I hope that we’ll have the opportunity to support them again – it
was a fantastic experience all around.
Eric: Can we expect to hear a new song off of Snowfall on Judgment Day
real soon? If so when?
Nick: We anticipate the CD will be out late this summer through Inside
Out, and they’ll do the promotion that one would expect. Prog metal isn’t really
a “singles” business, but hopefully we’ll have one or two cuts that will get
play. James Labrie of Dream Theater does a duet with Ray on one track, and we
have another track that our producer thinks has hit potential, so hopefully
college radio, Internet, and Satellite will pick these up. I was pleased with
the airplay that we got on the last CD and hopefully with the benefit of the
additional exposure from the DT tour, we can build on that.
Eric: The Origins of Ruin, released in 2007, was the last full length
you guys released. The import version of the album had covers from UFO (Love to
Love) and Tori Amos (Precious Things). Can we expect more cover songs in the
near future?
Nick: We’ve done covers for each of our previous releases, and we tried
out several this time around as well – I think it’s a cool thing to do,
particularly with songs that aren’t obvious choices. But this time out, nothing
really seemed to click, so there’s no cover with the upcoming release. In the
future, hopefully we’ll find something that meets our standards. Both the UFO
and Tori Amos songs turned out great so that’s the type of thing we’re looking
to do with covers.
Eric: Let’s end this interview with a simple question. Why should our
readers pick up The Origins of Ruin and the DVD/CD Frozen in the Moment?
Nick: The Origins of Ruin, and The Fullness of Time, and the upcoming
Snowfall on Judgment Day are all interesting, melodic prog metal on the heavier
end of the spectrum. I started out listening to heavy metal and grew into prog,
and that’s reflected in the music. I’d invite your readers to check out reviews
of these CDs from other listeners on Amazon or the like – it should give them a
good idea of what the fans think. They can also check out critical reviews as
well, which are pretty damn favorable if I say so myself. :)
As for our live DVD, this is a great package for fans of the band – it’s got a
strong performance covering material from all three albums, including the song
most people feel is our best, the 16-minute long Sapphire, which we rarely
perform live. It includes a CD. The DVD also has an 11-minute unreleased
instrumental that we recorded a few years ago and has a lot of cool
behind-the-scenes footage from our tour with Dream Theater, much of which is
hilarious (like when we dressed up like ants and stormed the stage during DT’s
set on the last night of the tour).
Eric: Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions. I wish you
guys the best with your new album.
Nick: Thanks very much – I’d like to thank you and your readers for your
interest and hope you find something you like about Redemption!
