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Voices Of Rock's album MMVII was very successful and now they have the follow-up High & Mighty in the stores. The dynamic duo behind this project are Chris Lausmann and Michael Voss, both are active for years and fans of hard rock / melodic metal will know them anyway. Time to get a few answers from multi-instrumentalist and producer Michael Voss!
When you did the first Voices Of Rock, have you expected such a success?
No, we just did it, never been thinking about what would derive from it. It still feels great to us and there are a hell of superb performances of the artists on there.
Did you feel under pressure when you started working on High & Mighty?
Not at all. Chris threw his bits in and I tried to come up with a couple of good hooks and lyrics. It all went naturally, no pressure. Just diving in and enjoying.
When you wrote the songs, did you already have certain singers in mind?
No, first we try to finish a track as good as we can. Means: all instrument and complete arrange is there. Afterwards I put some demo vocals on it, so we could decide whether to pick the tune or not.
Torben Schmidt is probably not that known... Did you had him in mind from the beginning? Or was the Skagarack show early this year made you choose him?
He is a wonderful singer. It was the idea of label boss Georg Siegl to give him a spin and it worked out to be a absolute fine choice.
Was there a singer which you asked, but who couldn't make it this time?
Yeah. Several ones, but as you might have to understand I won't drop their names. It is a kind of secret and maybe some of these guys will show up on the next album... Haha... (Fine with me! - Claudia)
Have you thought about doing a song with several singers like Jimi Jamison did at his last album?
Nice idea. I already did that in 2001, when I recorded a charity song for the victims of the world trade center towers called Wings Of Freedom (German rock project). Amongst these: Mat Sinner, Ralf Scheepers, Michael Bormann, Fernando Garcia, Doro, Andy Deris, Lenny Wolf, etc... But anyway good idea to think about it again. Thanx for giving us a hint. :))
This time you don't have a female singer on the album... Aren't there enough women in rock?
Yes, we do. The Canadian voice of rock Miss Lee Aaron is amongst the ones and will be hopefully on the Japanese edition... I tried hard to find her, so we can continue to have at least one female vox on the album.
What are you working at now? Some production?
Yep. Got the new album of Vandenberg singer Bert Heerink finished and I am just in the middle of the recording with my Swiss pal and Crystal Ball frontman Mark Sweeney. Later on this year I will do some work with my friends Zorro and Alessandro del Vecchio from Italy. :))
Or will we see you on stage again?
You should have come to America where we played with Mad Max the Rocklahoma... Haha... If you talking about VOR live...??? I do not know at the moment. Maybe there will be some timeframe and possibility to perform and we will jump onto it.
What can we expect from you next?
Music... Music...Music
All the best,
Michael
Music is their life and so it's no surprise that we will get more music from the guys. But with High & Mighty they have an album which will entertain hard rock fans for a long time!
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