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In Words: Visions Of Atlantis



- Martin Harb - April 2011 - Claudia Ehrhardt -


www.visionsofatlantis.com








Visions Of Atlantis
© Toni Härkönen


Martin Harb - April 27th 2011 (by email)




Between Trinity and Delta a few years passed, but Visions Of Atlantis haven't been wasting time. To learn what happened and to get an idea about their future plans I jotted down a few questions which were answered by keyboarder Martin Harb.



Trinity was released in 2007, now it's 2011 and Delta is in the stores. A lot happened after the release of Trinity. How difficult was it to overcome the line-up changes?

Well, of course it has been a quite hard time for the band, but in the end everything turned out to be pretty good, but I personally think that line-up changes are not always too bad. Because without all that kind of trouble we'd have never come in touch with Maxi Nil for instance.

When did you start writing the songs for Delta? Have the songs been written over the years?

The songwriting started at the begin of 2008 actually when Mario Plank and me started working out our ideas separately from each other. All the material written came then together more and more and the songwriting process itself was finished by the end of 2009 actually.

With Maxi Nil you have a singer who differs from her antecessors. Have you been looking for a different style? And how much did the different vocal style effect the sound of the old tunes?

Actually it wasn't planned to change the style of the singer and so we invited girls with really different singing styles as we've just been looking for the right one, not the one with the same soprano as we already had before for instance. And well, we hear Maxi Nil, and we know "that's it"...

In February you toured with Rhapsody Of Fire, how was it to be on tour with the new line-up? How did the fans treat you? Any stories to share from that tour?

The tour was just amazing. Not only to be finally back on the road again, but personally for me also touring with one of my all time-favorite bands. Everything went very good, the fans reactions where overwhelming and I think people could see that we're back even stronger than ever before and that we really love what we're doing. Sharing special stories about this very special tour would cost to much lines here. Hahaha, but believe me, there was much fun! ;-)

Delta is your 4th album, lacking ideas for a title? Or why using the 4th letter of the Greek alphabet?

Using the 4th letter of the Greek alphabet was our complete intention as it's the fourth album, with a new singer coming from Greece. But not only this, Ii think without really ever talking about it we have something like a meaning behind this, as Trinity was our third album, Cast Away as the second had TWO word and the debut Eternal Endless Infinity was 3 words with ONE meaning, so you see.... Delta was no lack of ideas, but a consequent continue kinda concept. We're already thinking about the name for number 5, will be a hard discussion, I guess . Hahahaha

Are you satisfied with the feedback you got at the release shows?

Yes, absolutely. As our release shows where in Austria where we really don't play that often they where very special for us and the show in my hometown Graz right after the tour was even more special personally for me.

At Memento you partly use Latin lyrics, can we expect to find other languages embedded in your songs in future?

For all the songs I write I actually always try kinda connecting lyric and culture and as I'm also writing in the future about different cultures (details to be revealed haha) you can expect more stuff like this from me. If the others will also include such stuff in their material I'm not sure, we'll see, but I'd love it actually. ;-)

You did a video for New Dawn, why did you choose this one? Please tell us a bit about the video shot!

We choose New Dawn because it's really into the face, it's quite short and comes to a climax very fast with a great main hookline. The video shoot itself was quite fun and went very very professional. We shot in a small town near Mainz in Germany and the filming crew was very nice and I think we did a quite good job. It was great fun, but took also lots of hours and in the end I really couldn't stand listening to New Dawn for some days anymore! Haha.

Which other song(s) would you like to visualize?

Memento would be great to build up a big story around it and Conquest Of Others is also something I would be very interested in shooting a video about it.

You'll play some festivals this summer, a good chance to show that Visions Of Atlantis are back?

Yes, of course. We're really back and we gotta prove that with amazing shows at the best festivals. We're also looking forward happily to our first show on the African continent which will be in September. So from June to September there'll be no month without a Visions Of Atlantis festival appearance which is quite important for us and for the people to know that this band is really back on track.

Will you do a vlog for your fans from the festivals? Any chance you record some stuff for a future live DVD release?

We record lots of stuff when we're touring, so we'll also shoot some material during the summer festivals. If this material will be released officially in future I don't know yet, we'll see. And about a live DVD I just can say: Patience. ;-)

And in October you'll play 2 shows in the UK with Leaves' Eyes... Are you looking forward to play in the UK? Any chance that you'll play more shows with Leaves' Eyes? Any plans for a longer tour in Europe?

Yesss, this was a wish for long already within the band and know we can finally make it over to the British Island which is a very special appearance for us. And playing some shows with our friends of Leaves' Eyes makes it even more fun as we'll go to Belgium's Metal Female Voices Festival with them the days later then to spend some more time.

At the moment there are no plans for a next big European tour as we're planning on shows for the other continents which has priority at the moment.


One more time you'll play at MFVF... Looking forward to return to the MFVF stage?

MFVF has always been one of our favorites as people there where always welcoming us so warm und cheering so great. And as there are always most bands really fitting perfectly and attracting the same kind of fans every band has a great time there. Also the organization is one of the best ones I know.

Any news to share? Anything you want to add?

Well, at the moment the band is back in the studio to record new material, but more news on that will follow within the next weeks and months, so it's always worth taking a look on our FB-profile www.facebook.com/visionsofatlantisofficial

Thanks for the interview, Peace and Rock On!




Sounds like nothing can stop them now... Let's hope that they don't have to face more major problems, it would be nice to see them hitting the road frequently now. And that they won't be forced to keep us waiting for several years for a new album.



Claudia Ehrhardt

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