CALLENISH CIRCLE

// Falber Teles

SOURCE - Hej ! Before talk about the new release "Pitch.Black.Effects", let's talk about "Forbidden Empathy" released by Candlelight Records in 2004. Why Metal Blade Records doesn't release this compilation?
GAVIN HARTE (D) - The reason is fairly simple. We agreed only to release new material on Metal Blade Records. So, since we had quite a good relationship with Karmageddon Media they did the job in Europe and they licensed it to Candlylight Records to serve the American territories.

S - You guys just recently finished the "Pitch.Black.Effects" tour in Mexico with PARADISE LOST what was that like?
GH - Well, visiting Mexico was absolutely awesome. We got a great welcome from the audience every day and people responded great. The circumstances where also very good and all was really good arranged. Thumbs up for the organizers Carlo and Rodrigo of Inferno Productions.

Touring with PARADISE LOST was an absolute honour for us. Not everyone might know, but when we started in 1992 as a coverband we played quite some PARADISE LOST songs. So all in all one of the best tours we ever did.

S - I'd like to talk about the Mexican tour again... What kind of impressions did you had for this tour? Concerning fans, venues etc.
GH - Before the tour we were quite unsure about what we should expect. I must say it was a great relief when the flight tickets where finally booked cause it took quite some paperwork to get everything arranged.

We knew that the Mexican people can be quite dedicated fans but because this was our first time we thought the Mexican people would be more expectant. But it turned out the other way. The people received us great and they made a lot of noise during our concert. In the venues was everything well arranged.

For example, we played the Hard Rock Live in Guadalajara. Many big names played there but we didn’t expect it to be this good. This counts for all the venues. I also want to give a big compliment to the Mexican crew. They did a great job with a professional approach. So, thumbs up for you guys!

S - Where was the best audience and did anything unusual or funny happen during the tour ?
GH - I think it was Mexico City… That was the loudest audience of the tour and the fans were very dedicated to CALLENISH CIRCLE. Unusual or funny… mmm.. The whole Mexican tour was quite unusual for us…

On our way to Monterrey we got several inspections from militaries and at the last inspection from the migration services our work permits didn’t seem OK, so we had to drive all the way back to their office. Spend about 3 hours to get everything arranged. The organizers had to pay loads of cash to get everything arranged. So finally we were set te leave but… the people at the migration office first wanted to take pictures with us and our autographs.

S - How has fans reacted to "Pitch.Black.Effects" that shows a sound more modern and mature ?
GH - We are noticing that we’re reaching a lot of people that never were into CALLENISH CIRCLE before. So that’s absolutely a positive development.

On the other hand, there are always people around who are quite conservative regarding their musical taste. So, only guitars and drums and if it smells modern or contains some electronics they react pretty allergic.

S - There are lots of electronic sounds, was this something that just happened?
GH - We always had these electronic touches in our music. On the previous albums we mainly used these sounds in the intro’s and outro’s and for this album we decided to take it a step further by embedding the electronics into the songs more. I must say it feels very comfortable having doing this. We also use the electronics during our shows and it really rocks!

S - You have a female vocalist appear in “Scwharzes Licht”, why did you decide to do that?
GH – “Schwarzes Licht” is based on a person in a hopeless situation; physically locked and with no prospect to a better situation.

A few years ago, I was in Berlin - Germany, visiting the Jewish museum. Besides the whole Jewish history the most impressive part was everything concerning the holocaust. One room in the museum was created to give the visitor an impression of how it would feel to be locked in one of the camps. You must imagine to be in a concrete building; pitch black, cold, humid, alone, feeling really tiny, desperate and the only light was to far way and unreachable. For some reason this made quite an impression on me and when I read a poem a few months ago, it immediately reminded me of my visit at the museum.

The poem told a story of someone in a hopeless situation, who got their energy from really simple things, like this beam of light coming into the room every morning. The poem described this experience as coming from a completely dark environment (pitch black) into a light environment in a symbolical way. If you do this literally, what you get is an overexposed effect in your eyes: a pitch black effect. Besides the title ´PITCH.BLACK.EFFECTS´, the song “Schwarzes Licht” describes this whole story and the overexposed effect comes back into the artwork.

Anyway... a long story about the song and the album title. When composing the song we were searching for elements to strengthen the atmosphere of the song. So, then we got the ideal for a female German voice. Now you know the background of the song so it’s pretty clear why we used a German voice.

S - What would you consider more important for you: experimenting with new sounds and probably music styles or the loyalty to the certain style of music and its fans ?
GH - I think it’s a combination of both. First of all we don’t want to change CALLENISH CIRCLE into a pop-rock-electronic band so we’ll stick to our roots for certain. On the other hand the band contains of 5 different persons all wanting to develop on grow as musicians. Our way of doing this is to experiment with new sounds and styles, within the boundaries of CALLENISH CIRCLE. Luckily our boundaries give is plenty of room to experiment.

S - So far you had some very successful albums and the new will also be a success. But how far your ambition goes, where do you see CALLENISH CIRCLE in the future ?
GH - Well, since our signing with Metal Blade Records a lot of doors went open. The past 4 years we did a lot of great things and new things are still coming up. So the main drive for us is that we are still able express our creativity by creating new albums, meet new people and visit countries we never visited before.

S - How much trouble do you have with day jobs conflicting with touring and general band responsibilities?
GH - We indeed all have out day jobs and our holiday days. Sometimes it’s really hard to get everything combined. Being in a band as CALLENISH CIRCLE asks 110% dedication and things get quite buzy sometimes. What touring concerns, we get quite some offers to tour but since we only have our holiday-days to spend we have to be very picky to only choose the tours that really give the expected results.

S - Are there any up and coming bands around the area that have caught your attention ?
GH - In my opinion the scene in Denmark is bringing some promising bands like MERCENARY and VOLBEAT. Further there is this Dutch band called TEXTURES who are working on their second album. I expect this album to be an absolute killer album.

S - I was wondering if you had any final comments or news that you would like to pass on to people ?
GH - You’ve might have been reading and check out some tracks of the new album at http://www.myspace.com/callenishcircle ! That’s the only way how you can be convinced, I know for sure!

Thank you for paying attention the CALLENISH CIRCLE and hopefully we’ll be able to tour Brazil!

Metal Blade Records
CALLENISH CIRCLE

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