AUTUMN

Pride comes before the fall

-Go back to your new effort. „Altitude” marks your first album with Marjan Welman. What happened to your previous female vocalist Nienke de Jong who left AUTUMN a year ago? What was a reason for her depature from AUTUMN?
In the end it boiled down to her just not having the energy to keep up with our pace anymore. She’d tirelessly put all her energy into Autumn for many years, always in the spotlights, through all the tough times with frequent changing of band members, record companies, crew, etc. She always kept her spirits up, but at a certain point in time, she reached her limits and it was impossible for her to get back in the saddle, though it has to be said: she is like a pit bull and held on for as long as she could. We remain dear friends.

-Is Nienke still actively involved in music- making?
Definitely! Together with her partner Arno Krabman, she runs Graveland Studio where we recorded „My New Time” and part of „Altitude” and she sings in DejaFuse, a project she’d been wanting to expand for quite some time. Her leaving Autumn gave her the opportunity to do just that and I think she’s in her element again, now!

-How did you actually get in touch with Marjan? As far as I know she had been playing in a funky rock band called ELISTER before she joined AUTUMN... I guess, guys from ELISTER aren't the happiest persons in the world at the moment...
It was through Elister that we first met. We played a festival a couple of years ago where Elister also made an appearance. Marjan’s performance instantly impressed me and I knew I had to keep an eye on this girl! In those days, the „Summer’s End” era, Mats and I were thinking of maybe launching a project next to Autumn and Marjan became our number one candidate for the vocals. The project never got off the ground because Autumn rapidly developed towards „My New Time” and we could use all our creativity for that, taking away the need for a project. However, when it became clear Nienke would not stay with the band for very much longer, Marjan was the first singer that came to mind to replace her. Some other names followed, but it was clear from the start that Marjan would be a very strong contender! She felt honoured and happily agreed to an audition. The chemistry was instantaneous, both musically and personally. As for the guys in Elister, we get along fine with them. They have no need to worry, Marjan will not leave them and it should also help put them on the map, since their name will be mentioned a bit more frequent now. With careful planning, it should be relatively easy for Marjan to combine both bands. We’ve always been able to cope fine: Jeroen has Massive Assault, Mats and I also play in Cantara and Seizure and I even managed to combine Autumn and God Dethroned back in the days when I was still part of them. A hefty schedule, but a nice challenge at the same time!

-Every pot has two handles. As you may know, THE GATHERING have been looking for Anneke's replacement recently and Marjan is definitely very talented and skilled person, so... are you not affraid that something might happen behind your back? Just kidding but... who knows... music business is quite unpredictable...
Hahaha! Well, in my eyes, she would be quite the candidate! But I’ll let you in on a little secret: just before Marjan joined us, she sent a letter to The Gathering, offering to come audition. Maybe it’s because they’re trying to launch this multi-vocalist project thing and they thought she sounded too much like Anneke or something, I don’t know, but somehow, they were not interested! The biggest mistake in their entire careers, if you ask me, hahaha! So I’m not worried! You’re right, the bizz is unpredictable, but I believe in the great relationship that we have built up, both musically and definitely also on a personal level. Marjan is a very loyal person, a good friend, shares our taste in music and she loves Autumn’s material. Just to see her enjoying herself more and more with every show we play, makes me overly confident in our future together!


-In my opinion Marjan is a fantastic singer. Her warm, sensual voice added a lot to AUTUMN's sound. Would you agree on that? How would you describe chemistry between Marjan and the band?
-I couldn’t agree with you more! Nienke was in a class of her own of course, with a sound so very personal you could recognize her from thousands. However, with Marjan entering the play, we also came across some elements where Nienke’s voice just couldn’t keep up with Marjan’s. Some songs that had not made it on to „My New Time” because there was something missing somehow, such as „Cascade (For A Day)” and „Skydancer” immediately became favourites in the „Altitude” selection once Marjan did a demo verion of them. I guess it is that cetain warmth in her voice and the ease with which she sings, seemingly effortlessly, that makes her voice blend in perfectly with Autumn’s sound and at the same time challenges us to come up with material even more suited to her voice in an effort to explore her full potential. She truly is a remarkable singer!

-Would you mind telling a bit more about writing and recording process for „Altitude”? What was your main goal when you started writing songs for this album? What were the greatest obstacles?
The writing process we’re most comfortable with, is one in which we individually work on song concepts in our home studios. One person will usually come up with a rough concept, record some guitar tracks and then send them to the next person, usually Jan, the drummer. He then programs the basic drums, adds some other details which he thinks will fit to the song and the files sent to the next person. In this way, layer by layer is added to the song. Lyrics and rough vocal guide tracks get added somewhere along the way as we progress towards demo and pre-productions. This way of working allows us time to work through ideas in our heads and add only those details that bring out the best in the song concept. Usually, three or four songs will be in the works simultaneously, so we can work pretty damn fast in this way. I don’t think we had any main goals writing this album, other than that we wanted to maintain the momentum we had built up with „MNT” and that we tried not to restrict ourselves in any way by song length, genre or any other factor. No obstacles encountered really, which created a tremendous amount of confidence, especially after Marjan joined and it turned out that we had even fewer limits vocally than before.

-What are the most important elements of your songwriting philosophy?
The most important element would have to be creative freedom. We try not to be influenced by genre limitations, but instead focus on what comes out of our minds and listen to our own musical taste until we’re 100% satisfied that what we’ve come up with is what we’d like to hear ourselves, as listeners. That’s pretty much the only thing that counted while writing this album.

-On your website I found a pretty good description of what the new album stands for: "it offers a diverse array of music that transcends the boundaries of many heavy rock related genres". I totally agree with it. The album is diverse, comprised of so many elements yet still coherent. How did you manage to achieve that balance?
That must be the chemistry between six songwriters, each with their own musical taste and style. With every layer added to a song, there’s a hint of a different genre or musical era added to the mix. When making the final selection of tracks for „Altitude”, we worked as a demoracy: All six band members had to agree on a song for it to make the album. In this way, when narrowing down from 40 to 13 tracks, we came up with a selection that was 100% Autumn in both quality and diversity. The final eleven tracks that make up „Altitude” were selected because they combined best to make an organic and well-balanced album. The other two tracks are featured on the first edition digipack as bonustracks.

-What inspires you in today's music world? What particular bands and artist do you consider your inexhaustible source of inspiration?
There’s so many great bands and musicians out there, it’s hard to keep up. Sometimes, you have to dig deep to find them and some have been classics for decades. Personally, there’s no band as such that is a constant source of inspiraion for me, though I guess Pink Floyd comes pretty close. Not much resemblace to my material though, except maybe David Gilmour’s melodic touch. But that goes for all of the music I listen to, such as The National Bank, Tool, Oceansize, Katatonia, Neurosis, Meshuggah, Ray Lamontagne or Seigmen. Maybe all this (and much more) together would form a mixture that tastes a bit like Autumn, hahaha!

-How did you come to an idea of playing such complex and layered music? Do you remember the first impulsions that led you to such experimental stuff?
Well, I don’t think I can, since we never really set out to write this particular sort of material, it just sort of gradually evolved in that way. As musicians and composers, we like to be challenged musically, challenge ourselves basically. As music lovers, we love albums that grow on you, reveal some new detail every time you listen to them. Combine these and I guess it’s not altogether surprising that our songwriting developed as it did. At the same time, it’s a much more intuitive process: We may very likely continue to evolve along these lines, or instead shift in a different direction, depending on our mood, taste or future experience. I doubt that there’ll be huge changes like there were between the first two albums, though. I’m confident that we’ve found our sound, our identity!