Interviews - Live 4 Metal

Interview with Oliver Philipps of Everon
June 2008 by Sam Thomas

The German band, Everon, have just produced a beautiful, totally unGermanic, album, “North”. I was extremely keen to ask mastermind Oliver Philipps a few questions about life, music and North Sea islands…

How would you prefer to describe Everon’s music?
Fortunately I don't have to. In most countries our music is labelled as “progressive rock”, in the Benelux they call it “Symfo”, anything is fine with me actually. We have quite a wild mix of uptempo rockers, piano-based ballads, epic pieces, poppy tunes as well as epic songs, we do just about anything the cat brings in, so if that makes it “progressive” then maybe that’s what we are. Never thought much about to be honest, I didn’t even know the word “progressive rock” before I read it in a review on our first album back then in 93.

Which bands have influenced you? Which bands do you look up to?
There is not one particular band or artist who is kind of my personal “hero” or anything like that. My musical interests have always been diverse, and over the past 10 years of working as a producer for other artists of just about any genre from Death-Metal to classical music or mainstream pop, they have become even more diverse than they were before. Either a piece of music touches me or it doesn’t, this not linked to a particular genre.
Whom I do very much respect and admire, is artists who manage to stay fresh and creative over a very long span of years, like let’s say Sting for instance, or a band like Rush or also U2 just to give some examples. What I do not like is bands/artists who do one album which really turns out to be successful, and then they try to ride the same horse for the decades to follow. Commercially this may often be successful and often record-companies will encourage the artist to do it that way, but from an artistic point of view I find it very boring.

Your sound isn’t at all what I would expect from a German band. Have I been missing something, or is the German scene becoming more diverse?
Maybe it is, I have no idea which German bands you know of course. I suppose abroad German music is mostly noticed for the typical Heavy Metal Stuff like let’s say Scorpions, Accept and Blind Guardian. But of course it’s not that all German bands sound like that, like in any other country also here you find all kinds of genres and bands of every style you can think of. Then again also on German terms we’re probably an unusual band, we do not really sound much like anybody else, for whatever reason. It’s not that we make any efforts to sound “different” on purpose or anything like that, I just write the music that comes to mind and this is it, I really don’t think much about this and maybe that’s the trick.

The latest album, “North” is heart-rendingly beautiful. Has it turned out as you planned?
Thanks for the flowers! I didn’t really plan much, so there is no answer to that question. But I like what it came out as, it feels right to me, and this is the most important thing. I wouldn’t know how to describe the feeling you get, when you’re writing or producing and feel you’re on the right track, it’s really just a gut-feeling which tells you if you’re on the right way or not. And when relying on that and following your instincts and inspiration, I think you can hardly fail.
Then again of course you will still have people who don’t like what you’re doing, at the end of the day it’s a taste issue. A piece of music which is just brilliant to one guy, will be horrible for somebody else, and neither of the guys is more right or wrong than the other. As I see it music is kind of a non-verbal form of communication, it’s pure emotions translating and materializing into a piece of music. And it will resonate in a listener who can relate to it, so he will feel touched and moved by the song, and at the same time it will leave somebody else, who cannot relate to the emotion the song conveys, completely cold.
I do not think there is a lot of objective quality criteria when it comes to music. Set aside playing and production issues of course, but for the main thing, the composition itself, it’s all about taste in the end. Different people have different tastes, and I think I should respect that. I try to never take it personally if I read a bad review for instance; if somebody thinks our music sucks completely who am I to tell him it does not. As well I don’t get enthusiastic over good reviews, of course I prefer to read something positive, but at the end of the day, whatever somebody else’s opinion may be, it won’t change a note on the album and won’t make it any better or worse.

What do you hope to achieve with this album?
You must start to consider me an extremely stupid person, but again I do not think much about that either. When sitting down and putting a new set of songs together to make another album, the only motivation to do it is that the inspiration is there, and I just need to get it out and make it go somewhere since if I don’t I will not get it off my mind so it will block me from picking up the next project. Releasing an album is like throwing a message in a bottle, of course you hope somebody will pick it up and get the message, but even if nobody does that won’t change anything about the message. I do not earn a living with Everon, and I do not expect to be able to do so. I am not even sure I’d like it, since it would mean to tour a lot playing the same songs over and over every night, and to be honest this is a thing I rather hate doing. My fascination with music is the creative aspect, not so much the playing.

You’ve got a fairly strange method of recording music. Could you explain the process?
It never dawned on me there is anything strange about that, I find it quite conventional to be honest. While writing a song I already do a proper preproduction which does contain all the instruments already, actually the only thing missing is vocals at that stage. When I am done with the pre-productions, those serve as guide-tracks for the real recording sessions then, and we just replace my demo-tracks with the final tracks which are properly played and recorded. And off course we add a lot of details and stuff, but the “skeleton” of the songs is already there from the very beginning. Don’t know what you heard about how we record albums, but I do not see anything unconventional in this method actually.

I’ve seen that your website has an explanation of the songs on “North”. Why did you decide to do this?
I think I started doing that back then with Fantasma for the first time, and since our fans liked it and keep asking for it with every new album, I kept going with it. The thing is, that with every new album the request comes from press and also record-company to write a new bio, and since I never know what to say since I doubt anyone cares for it anyway, I just talk about the new songs instead. So the bio basically remained unchanged ever since the early days of the band, and I just talk about the new songs :-)

“South of London” is quite political. Do you think that music and politics make a good mix?
No, I firmly believe it makes a horrible mix. So I can only apologize for this one, it just kind of came out that way, and since I am stuck to my own principle of always relying on inspiration rather than twisting things into a direction which didn’t come naturally, I had to practise what I preach. But truth is, I strongly dislike mixing music and politics, even if I do it myself.

Which individual would you say is most to blame for the world’s current problems?
There is no serious answer to that question, since it would mean to simplify things in a way that does not do justice to the complexity of the situation. Of course there are always protagonists in particular functions that appear to be the most dangerous individuals, but they spring from an overall situation which puts them in power and makes them popular with the people. As I see it, rather than a particular person there is a particular human quality which is the source of most problems in the world. And this quality is greed, amongst all qualities there are I consider this the most horrible one, and it’s the one which brings more pain and horror to people than anything else.
It’s the irrational urge of always wanting to have more than anybody else, of being more powerful, having more money, having more whatever, I wonder at the point of that all but it seems to be an idea which regardless of race, religion, political background, you name it, all over the world people seem to relate to. In particular in the Western World our complete economical system is founded upon the idea of constant growth, so of course it collides with reality on a regular base. I suppose it would be much wiser to aim at stability, at keeping up a balance, not at always having to grow bigger. Since our economy can only grow bigger if somewhere else an economy gets smaller, if we want to have more, somebody else will need to have less. If we could eliminate the idea of greed from people’s minds, the world would be a much happier and much more peaceful place.

What do you hope Everon will achieve in the next five years?
Sorry for saying it again, but I have absolutely no idea whatsoever and to be very honest I couldn't care less :-)

Most of “North” was written in isolation on the Dutch coastline. Can we expect your next album to be written in an even more obscure location? An ice floe off Antarctica, perhaps?
Let aside the issue of electricity I do not see that happening. To be honest I am a rather warm-blooded person and not at all attracted to cold environments. I do like retreating to small wooden houses on North Sea Islands in wintertime, but only if the do have an open fire-place for the right atmosphere, and more than that for cosy warmth. So unless you install a proper central heating system, you won’t see me on an ice floe, and I am not entirely sure central heating on an ice-floe would necessarily add up to the overall safety of the trip.
But seriously it might very well happen I do something like that again, it depends on my particular situation at the time of writing a new album. These days I do not do so much work at the big studio anymore, I more or less retreated from producing bands since the business shrank quite a lot over the past five years due to the well known issues of diminished record-sales, illegal downloads etc., so instead of producing bands I do more composition work for films etc... That’s why instead of hanging out with other musicians at the studio most of my days, I work much more on my own in an all new and smaller studio I established at my house.
When working on my own schedule and rhythm that makes it a lot easier to also reserve time for writing songs for Everon, at the time of writing Bridge, Flesh or North, my more or less only chance to get to that was getting out of my usual surroundings. So this is different nowadays, but then again I might go ahead with this way of working just for the fun of it.

Is there anything you’d like to add?
Actually I wouldn’t know what else to say, so thanks for your interest and hope to hear from you sometime in the future again.