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Interview with Ivo van Dijk
of Xystus
March 11th 2009 by Steve Green |
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The Dutch seem to have a great love of
Symphonic Metal. Xystus have taken that on board and have created a
hybrid of Symphonic Metal and an Operatic stage production,
Equilibrio, which features the likes of Epica's Simone Simons and
Orphanage's George Oosthoek. Drummer Ivo van Dijk very kindly
answered my questions about their new album and the resulting stage
production. Equilibrio is a huge
project. How did the idea first come about and did you decide to
produce the album first or was the stage production your original
idea?
We created Equilibrio with the stage production as the "main
product" in mind, so to say. Of course we always had the idea to
record some songs as our third album, but in the writing process we
always bore in mind that this was going to be performed on stage,
with costumes, with acting, with dancers and all other aspects that
make Equilibrio what it truly is.
Where do you start when you have such a
grand idea? Do you make a wish list of singers, such as Simone
Simons, or do you write the music first and then try and get the
best person for the part?
Indeed, we made a wishlist first, and at the same time I started to
write the first couple of songs. We knew what kind of voices we
wanted, so we did take that into consideration while writing.
Fortunately, Simone confirmed in a very early stage of the
preparations that she wanted to take part, and so did George. When I
knew that I knew exactly what I wanted to write in some of their key
scenes. For the other singers (Michelle and John) it went a bit
different, since they joined the group in a pretty late stage, but
we did have the advantage that we kinda knew what most musical
singers that were optional sounded like.
I’m fascinated on how you get everything to
fit together and to flow so naturally. When writing a story which
then has to be sung by various performers, how long does it take to
get the whole concept just as you want it? And how many hours of
re-writing do you have to do?
I truly have no idea how long, when I have to add everything up, it
took to write this whole show... We wrote the whole story and all
music in a span of little over a year, and really took our time to
incorporate all the different musical themes you can find on all the
right spots. All in all we were happy to finish it in time and to
our liking, which is always hard.
The album is just under an hour long and is
labelled (in the biog I received) as containing “key scenes from the
opera”. Is the stage production longer than the actual album and if
so, were you not tempted to release a double album instead?
Yes, the stage production is indeed longer. While recording the
album, we were still in the writing process of some of the songs
that are not on the album. Besides that, recording an orchestra is
an expensive undertaking, so we had to select a certain amount of
tracks that would be do-able within the set time span we had for the
recordings. |
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Of
course the Metal press have covered this album, but have any other
type of magazines covered it? And have you received any feedback
from more traditional opera and musical fans?
Most of the coverage was in the rock and metal press indeed. We do
have 1 leading Dutch magazine dedicated to musicals which paid some
attention to Equilibrio. Of course the shows in itself were reviewed
by numerous musical and theatre webzines. All reactions were equally
positive when it comes to the show. Of course we still are a metal
band, so that's were our main focus is.
You played 4 performances of Equilibrio in
Holland last summer. How did the shows go and do you have any plans
to play in any other countries?
The shows were amazing! We were all very proud with what we had
achieved those 4 days. There was so much enthusiasm on all fronts:
The band, actors, dancers, light and sound crew. Everybody was
equally excited and put in their (more than best) effort. We really
hope we can do more of these shows and take it abroad, but a party
with financial power that really believes in Xystus and Equilibrio
should step in take care of this in their home countries. It took us
over 2 years to get this show together in the Netherlands (of course
we had to build it from scratch) and it cost us a fortune.
Both Michelle Splietelhof and John Vooijs
are experienced performers in musicals. How hard was it for the
Metal singers to make the transition to perform in a stage
production?
I believe everything felt pretty natural after Bas, Simone and
George had some acting lessons at the Dutch Academy of Performing
Arts. Of course they had to overcome the urge to move along to the
music as you normally do on stage, but all of them did a great job.
George admitted he felt he had the easiest task: He just had to
exaggerate his normal stage performance.... That, and wear a white
dress. :)
You are releasing an Equilibrio DVD. Is
this a recording of the Dutch concerts, or is it something
completely different?
Yep, this is indeed a recording of the shows we did, and the DVD is
already available through our website. We filmed 3 nights with a
total of 8 camera's. The production of the DVD is totally in our own
hands, we did the recordings, production and mixing ourselves,
helped with the packaging and were at the video edit suite every now
and then to help our great editor/video producer Olaf van Dijk. We
are very happy we got the opportunity to record these shows, because
it feels like the crown on all the work we did the last 2 years.
Considering the huge amount of work
involved in putting this album and the stage production together,
what new skills have you learnt and will you now work with other
people utilising these new skills? Maybe staging a musical or
starting a record label or production company?
Well, I do run my own production company already, Evol Productions.
I worked with our synth player Joris on both the album (also all
self produced) and the DVD under the name of Phoenix Productions. We
will most definitely do another stage production in the future, and
will utilize all skills acquired when piecing together Equilibrio...
We are always looking for new and fresh ideas when it comes to show
and production and this was probably the best learning school ever. |
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When
the dust finally settles on Equilibrio and you move onto something
new, what will be your best memory of the past couple of years and
what will be your craziest memory of something going wrong?
The best memory is probably the week we spend in the venue, building
up the stage, sound-checking, general rehearsal and eventually, the
shows itself. Craziest memory of something going wrong.... That's a
hard one... I have so many of those! :) Probably the most nerve
wrecking was the one on the first day in the venue, when the
director walked in after the setup was almost finished after 6 hours
of manual labour, looked at the stage setup and said: "It has all
been placed wrong... We might have to do this over again..."
What’s next for Xystus, another opera or a
long break to recharge your batteries?
Break?! No way! We are already working on a new album, which will
not be a rock opera of any kind. After such a massive project it
feels good to just sit down together, write some songs, and rehearse
with just the band. Equilibrio was great, but it took up so much of
our time... If I invested that time in producing and writing we
would probably be working on our 6th album by now.
Thanks for your time. Any final comments?
Thank you for the interview! We hope people abroad will start
keeping an eye out for us. "Equilibrio" has been the first album to
get a decent release in other countries, and we are excited to see
new people getting in touch with our music. We hope to visit the
countries where the album is released one day, and we will continue
working on finding a way to bring the Equilibrio stage production
abroad!
www.xystus.nl
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www.myspace.com/xystusmusic |
www.equilibriodvd.com |
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