DATE OF INTERVIEW:

AYREON

17th October 2013

ARJEN LUCASSEN

METAL DISCOVERY: I actually interviewed Rick Wakeman around three years ago and we were talking about how prog has lost its significance from what the term originally meant, and it’s become a bit of a paradox now to have a genre called progressive. What does prog actually mean for you in the twenty first century? What would you say it is?

ARJEN: I would say it’s timeless music. And that’s why prog is still around because it’s timeless; it’s never followed fashions. For me, it has to be adventurous; that’s very important for me. And it has to be challenging… and my album definitely is challenging! [laughs] You’re not gonna get verse/chorus, verse/chorus… well, you’re not gonna get any choruses at all on my album!

(Arjen Lucassen on what, for him, constitutes prog)

"I would say it’s timeless music. And that’s why prog is still around because it’s timeless; it’s never followed fashions. For me, it has to be adventurous; that’s very important for me. And it has to be challenging…"

PART 3 BELOW

Arjen Lucassen - promo shot

Photograph copyright © 2013 Lori Linstruth

Interview by Mark Holmes

RELATED LINKS

Official Arjen Lucassen Facebook:

AYREON DISCOGRAPHY

The Final Experiment (1995)

Albums

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to Freddy Palmer for arranging the interview.

Official Arjen Lucassen website:

Actual Fantasy (1996)

Into the Electric Castle (1998)

The Dream Sequencer (2000)

Flight of the Migrator (2000)

The Human Equation (2004)

01011001 (2008)

The Theory of Everything (2013)

PART 3

PART 3 ABOVE

PART 3

[laughs]

ARJEN: So, yeah, it’s challenging music and I think, nowadays, with YouTube, it’s madness to do something like this where you get people zapping for thirty seconds or something, but I think there are enough people who still wanna be challenged; who are still looking for that adventure. I think they know if they buy my stuff that they get worth for their money. They get this beautiful package and the whole artwork, and a beautiful DVD with the whole behind the scenes. They get all the lyrics and put their headphones on and they dream away into the story. Yeah, I never thought there would be interest when I started with Ayreon but, now I know there is, and now I know that prog will always be there.

MD: Definitely. And on the whole challenging thing, I think what’s important is that your music is challenging but it’s also accessible. It’s not challenging in that it completely distances you. It draws you in slowly and you’re rewarded with accessibility by challenging yourself in the first place, I guess.

ARJEN: Well, the thing is, there’s a lot happening in my music but it’s not all happening at the same time.

MD: Indeed, definitely. It’s interesting you were saying about the whole package and something that people want to own because I noticed on Blabbermouth today, they had a sample of some music from the album and there were some comments underneath the article. I think the top comment was somebody saying the album’s leaked online and that they’d already been listening to it. Then the next guy was saying that he was definitely not downloading it as an Ayreon album is to savour, and buy, and put on your headphones to listen to and appreciate properly. So it’s great to see that people still do have that kind of opinion.

ARJEN: You know, it’s out there now and people are downloading it, and I get a lot of mails and they’re not afraid to tell me. They say, “hey man, I’m gonna be honest with you, I downloaded it but I’m gonna buy it anyway.” [laughs]

MD: Which is good!

ARJEN: That’s amazing. It’s amazing, yeah.

MD: Because you’ve written all these fantastic narratives for each of the Ayreon records, hypothetically, if you had an unlimited budget, would you ever want to branch out into visual media in the future with maybe a film? Like, ‘Ayreon: The Movie’?!

ARJEN: [laughs] Well, you said it, unlimited budget – to do a movie, you have to start with ten million dollars or whatever. But, besides that, I know nothing about that; it’s a completely different world. So I can’t do anything, I wouldn’t know where to start. But, yeah, if a movie director or a company or producer would contact me, of course I would be open for that, that would be great. That would be another dream come true. But, yeah, where would I start?

MD: Hopefully some director or producer will randomly contact you at some point then! It just seems to be the next logical step with the Ayreon aesthetic. The narratives are so vivid in their storytelling element, it’s almost crying out for a movie.

ARJEN: Yeah, but the thing is, my music is not mainstream at all. If you look back at all the rock operas that were movies – ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ had ‘I Don’t Know How to Love Him’ as a hit; ‘Tommy’ had ‘Pinball Wizard’ as a hit; ‘The Wall’ had ‘Another Brick in the Wall’ as a hit. You know, they were all mainstream stuff so, yeah, to get sponsors to invest in this for something that’s not mainstream at all. It sells a lot but it’s still under the radar. It’s a weird project. It’s a project that shouldn’t work on paper, but it does.

MD: Indeed. What you need is a big Ayreon fan to win the lottery or something and throw a load of money at you and say, “here you go, make a movie”!

ARJEN: Oh yes! Well, there’s been talk; there’s been a lot of talk about theatre productions, even about movies and, at the end, it starts small and then they realise, “oh, to be able to do this we need this, and we need this”, and then it becomes bigger and then bigger investors are involved. This happened about four or five times and then, at some point, it’s like, “oh, this is not going to work, it’s going to be too expensive.”

MD: This is a question I’m guessing you’re asked all the time but is Ayreon ever likely to make it to the stage for special live show or shows with maybe select musicians?

ARJEN: Basically, I’ve been touring for fifteen years, since the end of the seventies till the early nineties, and it’s really not my life. I see myself as a composer/producer and not a performer. It’s something I’m not very good at. I can do it but I really have to work for it. And it’s not my thing; I’ve become more and more recluse and I love the reclusive life, and I love every day to be exactly the same. I hate travelling, I hate socialising; yeah, it’s just not my kind of life. Apart from the fact that, logistically and financially, it would be a nightmare to do Ayreon live. It’s just not something I wanna do.

MD: That’s fair enough. The final thing I wanted to ask is what’s next in your creative journey, and is there ever likely to be another Guilt Machine album? The first one was pretty amazing and needs a follow-up!

ARJEN: It’s definitely an option. I love that album. In the end, it didn’t do so well. It could have several reasons – it was released by another record company…

MD: Mascot, wasn’t it?

ARJEN: Mascot, yeah, and it didn’t have the power that Century Media or Inside Out have. I love that album and so I’d love to do another one but, the thing is, I never plan ahead and, even if I do, I keep changing my mind all the time! I start in the studio and it’s like, “yeah, I wanna do this”; and I hear something and, “oh no, I wanna do that”; then I suddenly hear a singer, “oh, now I wanna work with this guy.”

[laughs]

ARJEN: So I’ve learnt that, again, when I started Ayreon, I was fixated, you know, this is what I want to do. But now I’ve learnt to let it go. If I have a better idea, I go that way… and then, at some point, I’m sure about something and I continue. So, yeah, I will just wait for some inspiration to guide me into the next project.

MD: So you never plan, that’s a good way to be.

ARJEN: I do plan for myself but I would never tell other people!... “But I thought you said it was gonna be this”… “Yeah, but now I heard this female singer, I wanna work with her.”

[laughs]

ARJEN: So I stopped telling people about it!

MD: Fair enough! Right, thank you so much for your time, it’s been very interesting.

ARJEN: You’re welcome, Mark, I enjoyed it too.