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German outfit Temple Of Your Soul just released their debut For All, but some might know them from their tour with Jon Oliva's Pain... Anyway, time to learn more about Temple Of Your Soul! Bassist Jürgen was so kind to answer my questions.
Please give us a brief look over your history!
In November 2006 I started to build up a line-up for a band which name and direction was in my head for a long time and it was completed 2 weeks later. After founding a new rehearsal room in Cologne we played some older songs of my former band and fractional some of my ideas I created on my computer. In the middle of 2007 we had some changes in the band, but they have been replaced very fast. In that line-up we've played some gigs in the Cologne area to get our first experiences. After this we composed a lot of new material to get a longer live program and in April 2008 our 2. guitar player left the band and so we had to arrange the complete material again for one guitar and one keyboard which took a long time.
2010 we began to record a demo CD with 3 songs to sell it on our gigs and for promotion, but it let to a 'real' CD during the recordings. In that time our singer Jeanette left the band on her own decision.
So we had to find a new female vocalist, which was not easy and we had some real 'funny' auditions, but we were critical enough not to take the 'first try'!
This leads to Karoline and she gets in the band in January 2011 and started to record 'the new voice' right from the beginning, because we had a fixed release date for the CD which had to be hold and so we couldn't change anything more of the recordings. Otherwise the CD would sound a little bit different and with a better sound.
Why did you choose the name Temple Of Your Soul?
It was a little bit of coincidence and joking. I always wanted to have a band name that leaves many possibilities of interpretation. So I search for letter combinations and so I get to T.O.Y.S.
This is an acronym which means that the short form of the name builds up a new name.
There are still many people who are very astonished about the fact that Temple Of Your Soul is T.O.Y.S.
We often use the name TOYS when we speak about the band.
Almost every band has to face line-up changes. You just have a new singer, please tell us a bit about Karoline Drechsel and how you found her?
Jeanette left the band because of private problems, but fortunately this happened in a friendly way. She helped us on the Jon Oliva support and some more gigs later on, but it was clear that she didn't get back to the band again. Karoline was a friend of Dirk and so we invited her to an audition in the studio and because of her 'not common' metal voice we knew that she was the right one. The pitch of her voice is different to other singers and so the complete sound is more different with her as it was before. She has many experience, because of her singing musicals and that all leads to our decision to take her in the band.
When did you start writing songs for For All?
The songs have been written mainly in the time between 2007–2010. Some ideas grew in the rehearsal room by jamming and some have been developed on the computer, but they have been changed and arranged more often in the time after our second guitar player left the band.
Warfare (for example) was written after our keyboarder Olli gets back from Kosovo and Afghanistan where he was based during his time in the army.
How long did the recordings take? Tell us a bit about the recordings!
In the beginning all went well, but because of the changes in the line-up we loose at least one year by searching for a new female vocalist. When Karoline gets in the studio we had to change some lyric parts and some of the vocal melodies. So it took nearly 2 years to finish the CD, but we had a lot of fun in the studio and we also get a lot of priceless experiences that lead to the situation that we are getting tighter on stage and grew together as a band.
What bands / artists inspired you? What are you listening to?
Everybody in the band has different influences and favorite bands and this also changes during the times.
It would lead too far to numerate all this bands. We had this list of favorite bands on our old homepage, but we noticed that this list had to be changed very often and so we let it be.
My all time favorite bands are still Dream Theater and Queensrÿche (until Empire).
But I (we) also listen to a lot of modern stuff.
Why did you choose to cover Eleanor Rigby? Was it difficult to metalize a Beatles tune?
This was my idea and I do this before with a former band also. I love this song and one day I started to arrange this in a totally different way with breaks and guitar riffs. It sounded great so we keep this idea.
I love to change well known songs into different ones and to surprise people in that way. It's always interesting to see how the audience react when they hear this song and don't realize for sure what it is until the vocals start. Maybe we will do this again with another song in the future.
Which song(s) would you like to do a video for?
Evening Takes Over and Change Sites. For Evening Takes Over we had some ideas for a video, but it would take a 'bigger budget' for it and so we have to wait to realize this plan.
These days you have a record release show and another one a few days later... Can we expect to see more of Temple Of Your Soul in 2012?
Of course! We are looking forward to play live as much as we can in the next time. Maybe we have the chance to play in some different countries and some summer festivals as well.
Will you document this somehow? Perhaps for YouTube use....
There are 3 videos of us in YouTube. But we didn't set them in there; it was done by visitors of our gigs. One is a video which was recorded on the Jon Oliva show in Essen (Find The Answer) with our former singer Jeanette and 2 of them had been taken on a gig in Cologne in a small location. But they all have a low quality.
We began to do a band video on our own which will be shown on our HP when it has been finished.
What else have you planned for 2012?
Playing, playing and playing as much as possible. And if all went well we want to start the recordings of the next CD at the end of 2012.
Jürgen
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