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In Words: Saga



- Jim Gilmour - April 2001 - Claudia Ehrhardt -


www.sagaontour.ca








Saga - live 2001
© Claudia Ehrhardt


Jim Gilmour - April, 8th 2001 - Cologne (D)




The Canadian rocker are around for more then 2 decades and they are still together in the original line-up (okay, Jim Gilmour and drummer Steve Negus left for a while, but returned), they still sell records and tour with every album. On the current tour I had the chance to talk to keyboarder Jim Gilmour. Their latest release is called House Of Cards. "There is no deeper meaning behind the album title. It just sounds good!" The quintet had their own sound from the very first days. In that days their music was called art rock and later this genre was named into prog rock... "It's Saga, call it what ever you want, but it's still Saga! When you heard a song once, you'll al­ways be able to identify another Saga tune." On their latest release House Of Cards are two new chapters. People who don't know the band will might be confused and ask "Chapter's?", but the Sagarians know! "It's like a puzzle and each chapter is a piece which finally tells a story in 16 chapters. It's a story about politics, culture and religion, no more to tell yet. To make it more interesting we started on our debut with Chapter 5 & 6, on our latest release we have Chapter 11 & 15" bassist Jim Crichton stated for the bands biography. "When the story is told we may put all the chapters on a CD," the keyboarder mentioned. In another interview singer Michael Sadler mentioned that there are talks about an animated movie and a comic... Due to the fact that the sound haven't changed, it won't be a problem put the puzzle together. And like the band grow during the years, the fans followed them. "Our fans know that we will come to play and that they can expect a great show. There are fans who are loyal to us since the very beginning as well as young fans. The 'old' Sagarians bring their kids...." In the mid-80's the band listened a little too much to what business told them and changed their musical direction a little. Before the band started working on 1999 release Full Circle they decided to get back to their roots which means in their case not just musical roots also to the old logo and cover concept and that the story will be continued. But the band has no regrets about their experimental phase and even if some fans wasn't that enthusiastic about, it developed the musical skills of the band members. When they look back they see the time, when Jim Gilmour and Steve Negus had left, positive, coz it makes the band stronger. These days the band is spread over the world. Singer Michael Sadler is living in Germany for nine years now, while Jim Crichton lives in Los Angeles where he runs his own studio. The others are living in Canada. The album was recorded at Jim's studio and the video for Money Talks was recorded in Toronto. "Usually I don't like video shootings, but this time it was different. Perhaps because we shoot the video in my hometown," Jim explains. So some things change... But the band is still in a studio-tour-studio routine... "Still we love to tour and it's a lot of fun. In the early days when we toured in Europe we felt like strangers, these days we get the news from satellite TV and the internet. We get the sport results and hear what happens in our home country. That's cool!" Watching sport seems to be what most musicians miss on tour... "It's great to watch a game. It's to live the moment, you don't have to think what's coming next... Just enjoying it." And what else does the keyboarder enjoy? "I like scuba diving. When we played in Puerto Rico, we had a few days off and I took the chance to go scuba diving. It was great! But there are many places we haven't been yet... Like Australia. And we never made it to tour Japan, even if we have many fans there. I hope we can make it one day."
25 years is a long time in music business and they still sound fresh and enjoy it. Their hobby, their passion is their life and they appreciate it. They know that without their fans they couldn't live their life that way and try to give something back to their fans playing live and keep recording albums. And as long as they keep recording albums on the same quality level as House Of Cards, they will have to chance to live their passion!



Claudia Ehrhardt

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           ©2008-2010 by Claudia Ehrhardt • E-Mail: contact@ice-vajal.com


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