Lothar Keller leads a blessed life. Not only does he have a nice job, a nice wife, and a nice personality, he also has talent – as Rush Limbaugh would say – on loan from God. He sings (and what a range!). He plays guitar like nobody’s business. And he writes songs that are immediately accessible. As the head honcho of the Chicago-area prog metal band Sacred Dawn, he has caught the attention of fans and critics around the world. But there’s even more to the story. He’s one of the few musicians I know who has released his band’s debut album not just once, not just twice, but three times – each time a little differently. [Gears of the Machine for the first release…Gears of the Machine: A New Beginning for the second and third releases] How does he do it? And why should you pay attention to Sacred Dawn at this year’s Nightmare Metal Fest? Read on and find out…
This is Part One of a Two-Part Interview recently conducted with Bill Murphy.
BM: Hi, this is Bill.
LK: Hi, Bill. This is Lothar.
BM: Hi, Lothar. How are you?
LK: Pretty good.
BM: It’s a pleasure to chat with you. I’ve been digging these two versions of the same album. [laughs] I wanna ask you about that.
LK: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
BM: Tell me about your name. Is Lothar a way-cool stage name? Or is that your given name?
LK: That’s my birth given name.
BM: Are you named after a relative in the family or something, or does that mean something?
LK: Well, my father was born in Germany. Moved over here when he was nine. And I had even asked him this recently, because I, all I know is I went through school, especially elementary school, growing up in western North Carolina, people kinda look at names like that, and they don’t really know what to make of it. [laughs]
BM: [laughs]
LK: He said to me he just envisioned a strong, German name. I guess it’s based off of a German warrior name, and he just always felt like that was a name that represents strength. And he just always kind of thought that would be suitable. And I was like, “Well, alright.” I thought it was interesting after a while, after having my name distorted to I don’t know how many different pronunciations. [laughs]
BM: [laughs]
LK: You know, a lot of people now just call me Lo, on the personal level.
BM: Well, did it work? Did you live up to your warrior-type name? Did it strengthen you like Johnny Cash’s “Boy Named Sue,” or what? [laughs]
LK: [laughs] You know, I guess the one thing I do know is that anywhere I’ve been—and it’s interesting, I’ve been getting hit up by a lot of friends. I grew up in Durham, my dad went to Duke University, and there’s people that are contacting me from there I haven’t literally seen in 26 years. And part of it I think is because of the fact, and everybody says this, they always remembered my name because it was unusual.
BM: [laughs]
LK: I was like, “Well, thanks, I guess.” [laughs] But at the same time, when I went to Full Sail [Center for the Recording Arts], the recording school down in Florida, I had a couple of instructors who always made comments like, “Oh, where’s your battle axe?”
BM: [laughs]
LK: I’m like, “Ok.” Just like, “Oh, you sound like some kind of warrior or something.” Here again, me not knowing the actual meaning of the name, that’s when I looked it up. [laughs]
BM: [laughs]
LK: But I don’t know. I hope so. I hope I, at least in some way or form or fashion utilize it to its best.
BM: Well, I read an interview in which you talked about how Sacred Dawn started as a band you put together as a solo project in your basement.
LK: Yeah.
BM: How easy was it for you to transfer from that to finding the right musicians to begin an actual band, outside your basement?
LK: Well, I guess how this became all born was I guess the fact that I’ve played in multiple bands, over, I don’t know.
BM: A lot of bands. Your first band was the Christian band, IHF.
LK: Yeah, yeah. And that was born out of me and a couple of guys going to my dad’s church that he was preaching at. And we were into the whole Stryper thing, but I was also into bands like Iron Maiden, the Grim Reaper, and King Diamond.
BM: Oh yeah.
LK: But I did grow up with a real strong faith, you know, growing up in a church like that. And we just kind of thought it was cool, like, “Let’s have a Christian rock band.” And then my dad actually got involved after about a couple of years and played bass for us.
BM: Wow.
LK: Which is always interesting. And there were people that thought it was really cool, and there were people who were like, “Hmm, what’s he doing?” I did that for a number of years. But I also had other bands as well. I mean, I played in, at that time I guess you could say an ‘80s metal cover band. [laughs] In high school, you know I was like 14, 15, I started playing some of the teen nightclubs at that point, whatever we could get involved with. With the Christian rock band, we were playing a lot of youth rallies, you know, things like that. And just always being involved with it, I knew this was something I wanted to do. Ended up also, after recording, and I do have a CD, actually, I think I have a couple CDs left of the IHF, if you’re ever interested in hearing it sometime.
BM: Oh, I’d love to hear that.
LK: We recorded, you know, my dad went to the trouble of looking for a recording studio and engineer that would work with us and produce us, and we recorded a full-length CD. And we basically, locally just kind of self-released it. We did some ads on the local FM station and stuff. And I was like, at that point, I’d already messed around with a four-track. And always enjoyed using it. My dad got it for me for the reason of, composition purposes. And it really opened my eyes to how I could compose things on my own. So I started getting more involved with learning how to play drums, for instance. And bass. I play multiple instruments, but guitar was always the main forte. I wasn’t even really doing anything as a singer then, because the old voice was going through some changes and didn’t really start developing until, because I used to sing in a boys’ choir, and I was a soprano. And then when my voice changed, my voice, really for about three years, was rough. But I’ve dropped down to a second bass, and started singing chamber singers in high school. Well, singing in the band was always very difficult for me. And when I was doing all the writing and getting involved, at the point at which we were recording in the studio, I was like, “I really like this, and I want to get further into it.” The engineer said, “Why don’t you go to this school?” He went there, and it was Full Sail. And went to it, got my degree, came back, got involved with sound, audio production. Always knew I wanted to build my own studio, but whether it was for my own purposes or being in the band, that’s what I wanted to do. I always knew I wanted to be able to sit there and write. And I ended up getting involved with a band, doing pretty well, almost to the point of, we were actually at one point offered the chance to do support for Savatage for a couple of months.
BM: Wow.
LK: And right before all of this is getting ready to get dealt with, talking to the agent and everything, the band became disbanded. I got really disgruntled, I put things down, and that’s when I went into full-fledged, TV, broadcast engineering. So I literally from the age for 28 to 32, I didn’t pick up my guitar for like five, six years. Started getting the itch because I was constantly traveling around the country. I was like, “You know, let’s turn this basement into a studio.” I started building a studio, started writing my own stuff again. One of the drummers from IHF had moved out to California, and we started recording some tracks. Got contacted by the old drummer in the band that almost went on the road with Savatage, and he’s like, “Hey, what have you got going on?” I was like, “Well, I’m in the middle of writing a bunch of stuff. Trying to get some recordings done with this solo thing I’m trying to get together.” And he’s like, “Hey, I’m getting out of the army, I’d like to try to get things going again. I’m like, “Well.” He’s asking me where I’m living now, and I’m like, “Well, Chicago area.” He lived in Hawaii at the time. So he came out here, and we got things going. And Sacred Dawn was basically born out of this. I mean, it was kind of born out of the fact that I was really kind of at the point where I’m going to need to get some musicians if I’m gonna take this another step, because doing solo stuff kind of doesn’t, there’s a couple of guys around here that do it, but they never really get out and play because they don’t have a full band.
BM: Yeah.
LK: And this guy’s like, “Hey, I’ll play drums.” I’m like, “Cool.”
BM: Is this Joe Marvin?
LK: Joe Marvin, yeah. So he’s the guy from the band Disciple 13, that was looking at Savatage. Some of those songs from Disciple 13 are actually on this Gears of the Machine. There are three selections on there we updated, did some rearrangements on them.
BM: Which ones are they?
LK: “White Road Black Sun.”
BM: Oh yeah, that’s one of my favorites.
LK: That song, believe it or not, used to be almost 10 minutes long.
BM: [laughs] Really?
LK: Yeah. [laugh] We had like a two and a half, three minute intro on it. I mean, [laughs] and when we were trying to look for an old recording of it, we were like, “Oh my god, I forgot about this part.” But I was kind of like, “You know what, if we didn’t remember those parts, they probably weren’t that important.” I’m like, “So let’s stick with what we remembered and try to make that work.” “Master of Thought.” That one kind of revived that one a little bit. And the other one, ah, “The Desire.”
BM: Cool. Yeah.
LK: “The Desire,” yeah, “(World’s Apart) The Desire.” That one was one that definitely took a new turn for the better. And like I said, these songs you gotta keep in mind it was like 10, 12 years ago that a couple of these songs had been played, and at that time, the main influences were grunge. So what we were doing at that time was probably a little bit off, but we were probably in that same idea, kind of a Maiden, Dream Theater-esque kind of mix. But the majority of the other ones have been basically arrangements and ideas I’d been kind of collectively writing over the past 10, 12 years.
BM: Well, tell me about, you’re actually one of the only bands I know of that will have released its first album three times. Either you’re extremely lucky, or someone up there likes you. [laughs] You’re really getting three chances to make it here with this. [laughs] Tell me about how this came about, the first album, to the second one, to now this third one is coming up what, in April, with Lance, Nightmare records?
LK: Well, this third one actually is basically a remastered and cover change version. As far as the actual re-record from the previous version [the second release of their first album] to the Nightmare version that was a decision based on the fact that released it on the day we played a fest just to get it out, just to have something to sell at the gig.
BM: So did you put it out out kind of – well, “rush” isn’t the word…?
LK: In haste, maybe?
BM: Yeah. Just to get it out ahead of some of your gigs?
LK: We wanted it out before we played with Kamelot. And at the same time, we knew that we needed this in order to start at least getting our name out there.
BM: So you weren’t happy with how the first version turned out, or sounded, an you ended up literally re-recording everything you had done on the first one for the second version of it?
LK: Absolutely. To me, it just seemed like a necessity. For me, it didn’t feel right to go out there and being careful how to say this, but sounding way better than the CD.
BM: Yeah, yeah.
LK: We were getting a lot of comments, and that’s really what kind of did it for us, because we were getting a lot of responses from people after we played the Kamelot show, and they were like, “Yeah, got your CD, but to be honest, I think your live performance level exceeds your CD.” And I was like, “Oooh.”
BM: [laughs]
LK: Don’t get me wrong, I love to hear that because in so many cases, people are usually disappointed when they go see a band. And they say, “I’d just as soon listen to the CD than see them live, they’re terrible live.” So I took that as a compliment, but I was like, “We need to be able to represent better on what people are buying.” So we did go through the re-record process, still in talks with the other label at that time. But knew that regardless of what decision was made, this was going to be done. Decided not to go with the other label, we were like, “Let’s get this done. We’ve got this Symphony X show coming up, we’d like to be able to sell this at the Symphony X show.” And so basically we made it as kind of a pre-release, you could say, while we’re shopping. We had it available to buy off our website for people who didn’t get a copy that night, and pretty much were like, “Let’s shop this label.” So we went out to shop for a label, and we had a couple others we were looking at. At the top of that, Lance was one of the ones that had been mentioned to us, because we’d actually played a show with Pownd. It was supposed to be Eternity X was supposed to have a reunion show. That fell through on us. It was in South Carolina and the other guys were in Peoria. But we played the show with Pownd, and even after that, Terry, the bass player from Eternity X was like, “I should talk to Lance for you guys.” I was like, ‘Ok.” And the guys from Pownd I guess, they were really cool and wanted to do some show swaps with us in the future, and I was like, “Ok.” Over that course of time, we also really cultivated a good relationship with Tom Wild, and at that point we were like really serious about trying to get this version out even though we had sold it at Symphony X and we had it online available. We still hadn’t really put it out there. So when the talks with Lance came about, Tom had talked to him several times, and the next thing I know, we’re getting to the point of signing. At that point it was just going to be distribution.
BM: The first release has a brighter sound to it. On the second one, things seem to be more mixed together, more mid-range. What was the difference in your recording approaches with those two albums? Which one sounds more like how you want it to sound, mix-wise?
LK: As far as the overall mix and the sound of the band, the current recording minus the mastering making things brighter. But everything on the very first version that you hear, it’s basically what you’re going to get. There’s no sample of placements, it’s all pure mixed drums, mixed on ProTools. I was mixing out of the box, literally, and dealing with a Mac G4 with the amount of processor I bought in 2002. You know, you’re really challenged on how many plug-ins you can use before you’re taxing the computer. Everything on there, there was no beat detective, it was just basically, “Here’s the wah track, effects, we’re just going to mix it.” And me and another guy came up to help me with the mixing process, and it’s kind of one of those deals where you’re dealing with drum tracks that were recorded over the course of eight months. Every track that I was listening to, we had to completely change the mix on, because the tuning on the drums, the mic placement, really got very difficult and very draining on the ear trying to match these mixes to where, I mean, if you listen to it, it’s like, “Man, the drums sound a lot different on this one than it does the other one.” But that is the result of not using any sample of placements. We went into this recording with the mindset of, “I’m going to get as solid of tracks as possible on this recording.” The drums are the main thing, as well as getting the vocals. I wanted to get those here. And I got some guitar tracks recorded. We were trying to find an engineer to work with us to get us a good mix so that I’m not being biased to it, and someone with more equipment and more processing power than I do. Because each label kind of has it’s own, there’s a mastering style. So we kind of left the mix a little bit on the darker side, to where it wasn’t as bright. Still want it to sound nice and full and big, but high ends and low ends and compressions and all the things that are done in the mastering process are always subject to whoever’s doing the mastering. And it was like, let’s just make it slightly darker, because you never know what’s gonna end up happening in the grand scheme of things. And that’s how come some people say it’s a darker sounding recording. It’s like, it’s a pre-mastered, what you’re listening to is just the masters coming straight to the mix. All the levels, we went through and leveled everything out, but we didn’t do any eq-ing, any compression, it’s just basically, here’s the mix. So when we actually did the release with Symphony X, this is our pre-release, our pre-master, I guess you could say. And now we’re definitely looking forward to the Nightmare release. The album cover change is actually something Lance had asked us about a couple weeks ago, and so now, it does truly appear like a third release.
BM: [laughs]
LK: It really does come out that way. It’s a change we were open to, he asked us about it, he just thought it popped out at him a little better. And I just thought, “Well, we liked both ideas, and let’s try it, it could be a good change.” The only thing that I kind of brought up to him was, [laughs] the fact that our faces are on the cover. We were all kind of like, “Wow, how is this gonna come across?” But he’s like, “What’s wrong with being a little different?” And we’re like, “That’s true.” It could be a really positive thing.
BM: Yeah, it is a little different. I’ve seen an awful lot of album covers from this genre, and I don’t recall seeing many band faces on them. [laughs] So it’ll stand out.
LK: Well, [laughs] that’s kind of what we were, “Oh my god, what are people going to think?” But then I have to go back and like, alright, well I guess Motley Crue, they were on there. Not just their heads, but it was an interesting, the color scheme does change. And we were actually trying to think of a way to almost darken up our look a little bit, make it a little more metal-ish, I guess, from the previous cover was definitely a more oil painting, more artistic look. And that definitely, from the concepts this guy was coming up with based on, “What do you want it to look like, color scheme, stuff like that?” When we, this album cover is basically based off what we were gonna use on a poster, because we were gonna make a new poster and use it for shows and it’s basically an avitar and it was used as our profile page. And Lance saw it, and they were like, “Whoa, interesting concept.” So within two days, we literally went back to the artist after Lance, because we were supposed to have all the artwork all uploaded already. So we had to go back to Eddie and say, “Ok, we’ve got two days.” [laughs]
BM: First of all, what is your favorite song from your album? Which is your favorite to play live? And also, you’re hitting some pretty high notes with your voice on there, [laughs] like “White Road, Black Sun,” “Shadows.” Are you going to be able to keep that up in 10 years or so, or are you gonna be a Geoff Tate, everybody’s waiting for the notes from the first two Queensyrche albums. [laughs]
LK: [laughs]
BM: And he doesn’t do it. [laughs]
LK: [laughs] Ok, first question. My favorite song.
BM: Yeah, favorite one to listen to of yours, and if it’s different from which one you play live, or it could be the same one.
LK: I think my favorite one to listen to, I’m probably going to have to go with “Asmodeus.”
BM: Really?
LK: Maybe on a slightly technical side of things. There’s some of the riffing in there that just kind of grabs me at times. As far as my favorite one to play, “Shadows.”
BM: Is it really?
LK: Yeah. I think for me because there are a lot of points of the lyrics that she [his wife] wrote that also really attribute a lot to my previous situations that I was in before.
BM: Oh yeah, relationship stuff?
LK: Yeah, I was previously married, and it was probably about just as bad if not worse in some case. [laughs]
BM: [laughs] So the “go fuck yourself” thing kind of resonated with you? [laughs]
LK: [laughs] Yeah. I mean, so I really, that one for that reason is the one song that I can go out there and play and really kinda, it’s a nice song, I love the playing fast and the technicalities and all that stuff, but it’s nice to have a song to slow down and really—
BM: Have some emotion to it.
LK: Put some emotion to it.
BM: Yeah.
LK: If you also notice the lyrical change that was on the previous to the current on that song.
BM: You know, actually I didn’t.
LK: The previous version was, ok, in the current version it’s, “Inside yourself, you’re no doubt someone else.” The previous version, it was, “Go fuck yourself.”
BM: [laughs]
LK: [laughs] Ok, both pretty much get the same point across. We kind of PG’d this version because if there is any potential of airtime, we’d like to be able to get that. [laughs] But we tinkered around with it, I haven’t talked to Lance about it, because I don’t know if it’s something we want to do. But we really, there’s a lot of people that, who have seen us live and locally here who have the first album, they kind of miss that part. And I’m like, “Well, we could make it something that we just do live, when you come to our live show.” Or do we eventually want to say, “Hey, you can download this one explicit version just to get that word.” [laughs] I don’t know, that’s neither here nor there, but the lyrical change, we were just like, “Is it too abrupt or is it even really necessary?”
BM: I think I must have been used to hearing the one off the first version, because every time I listened to the one on the second one, I was inserting those words anyway. [laughs]
LK: [laughs]
BM: That’s what I was hearing in my head. It is powerful that way. I know not everybody’s up for dropping the F-bomb, but the meaning of the song came across a lot more for me on the first version.
LK: Yeah, it’s something that we’ve definitely talked about, and it is something that could be potentially done. But we’re always gonna do it live that way.
BM: Cool.
LK: Yeah, it’s inevitable. All ages or not, we’re gonna do it live. [laughs]
BM: [laughs]
LK: You know, if there’s people, the fans who have come and seen us, that’s the point where they stick their middle finger up in the air. [laughs]
BM: [laughs]
LK: So it could end up being something we try out on the road for a little while and if people start really getting that, we’ll say, “Alright folks, here it is, you can get the explicit version.”
BM: [laughs] Yeah.
LK: But that song, even [bassist Joey] Vega made some comment about it, because he made a point of saying that he likes the guitar solo I do in it.
BM: Yeah.
LK: And I said, “Well, it’s, it just comes out of me.” Maybe here again, there’s an
Turn to Part Two for the rest of this interview...
This is Part One of a Two-Part Interview recently conducted with Bill Murphy.
BM: Hi, this is Bill.
LK: Hi, Bill. This is Lothar.
BM: Hi, Lothar. How are you?
LK: Pretty good.
BM: It’s a pleasure to chat with you. I’ve been digging these two versions of the same album. [laughs] I wanna ask you about that.
LK: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
BM: Tell me about your name. Is Lothar a way-cool stage name? Or is that your given name?
LK: That’s my birth given name.
BM: Are you named after a relative in the family or something, or does that mean something?
LK: Well, my father was born in Germany. Moved over here when he was nine. And I had even asked him this recently, because I, all I know is I went through school, especially elementary school, growing up in western North Carolina, people kinda look at names like that, and they don’t really know what to make of it. [laughs]
BM: [laughs]
LK: He said to me he just envisioned a strong, German name. I guess it’s based off of a German warrior name, and he just always felt like that was a name that represents strength. And he just always kind of thought that would be suitable. And I was like, “Well, alright.” I thought it was interesting after a while, after having my name distorted to I don’t know how many different pronunciations. [laughs]
BM: [laughs]
LK: You know, a lot of people now just call me Lo, on the personal level.
BM: Well, did it work? Did you live up to your warrior-type name? Did it strengthen you like Johnny Cash’s “Boy Named Sue,” or what? [laughs]
LK: [laughs] You know, I guess the one thing I do know is that anywhere I’ve been—and it’s interesting, I’ve been getting hit up by a lot of friends. I grew up in Durham, my dad went to Duke University, and there’s people that are contacting me from there I haven’t literally seen in 26 years. And part of it I think is because of the fact, and everybody says this, they always remembered my name because it was unusual.
BM: [laughs]
LK: I was like, “Well, thanks, I guess.” [laughs] But at the same time, when I went to Full Sail [Center for the Recording Arts], the recording school down in Florida, I had a couple of instructors who always made comments like, “Oh, where’s your battle axe?”
BM: [laughs]
LK: I’m like, “Ok.” Just like, “Oh, you sound like some kind of warrior or something.” Here again, me not knowing the actual meaning of the name, that’s when I looked it up. [laughs]
BM: [laughs]
LK: But I don’t know. I hope so. I hope I, at least in some way or form or fashion utilize it to its best.
BM: Well, I read an interview in which you talked about how Sacred Dawn started as a band you put together as a solo project in your basement.
LK: Yeah.
BM: How easy was it for you to transfer from that to finding the right musicians to begin an actual band, outside your basement?
LK: Well, I guess how this became all born was I guess the fact that I’ve played in multiple bands, over, I don’t know.
BM: A lot of bands. Your first band was the Christian band, IHF.
LK: Yeah, yeah. And that was born out of me and a couple of guys going to my dad’s church that he was preaching at. And we were into the whole Stryper thing, but I was also into bands like Iron Maiden, the Grim Reaper, and King Diamond.
BM: Oh yeah.
LK: But I did grow up with a real strong faith, you know, growing up in a church like that. And we just kind of thought it was cool, like, “Let’s have a Christian rock band.” And then my dad actually got involved after about a couple of years and played bass for us.
BM: Wow.
LK: Which is always interesting. And there were people that thought it was really cool, and there were people who were like, “Hmm, what’s he doing?” I did that for a number of years. But I also had other bands as well. I mean, I played in, at that time I guess you could say an ‘80s metal cover band. [laughs] In high school, you know I was like 14, 15, I started playing some of the teen nightclubs at that point, whatever we could get involved with. With the Christian rock band, we were playing a lot of youth rallies, you know, things like that. And just always being involved with it, I knew this was something I wanted to do. Ended up also, after recording, and I do have a CD, actually, I think I have a couple CDs left of the IHF, if you’re ever interested in hearing it sometime.
BM: Oh, I’d love to hear that.
LK: We recorded, you know, my dad went to the trouble of looking for a recording studio and engineer that would work with us and produce us, and we recorded a full-length CD. And we basically, locally just kind of self-released it. We did some ads on the local FM station and stuff. And I was like, at that point, I’d already messed around with a four-track. And always enjoyed using it. My dad got it for me for the reason of, composition purposes. And it really opened my eyes to how I could compose things on my own. So I started getting more involved with learning how to play drums, for instance. And bass. I play multiple instruments, but guitar was always the main forte. I wasn’t even really doing anything as a singer then, because the old voice was going through some changes and didn’t really start developing until, because I used to sing in a boys’ choir, and I was a soprano. And then when my voice changed, my voice, really for about three years, was rough. But I’ve dropped down to a second bass, and started singing chamber singers in high school. Well, singing in the band was always very difficult for me. And when I was doing all the writing and getting involved, at the point at which we were recording in the studio, I was like, “I really like this, and I want to get further into it.” The engineer said, “Why don’t you go to this school?” He went there, and it was Full Sail. And went to it, got my degree, came back, got involved with sound, audio production. Always knew I wanted to build my own studio, but whether it was for my own purposes or being in the band, that’s what I wanted to do. I always knew I wanted to be able to sit there and write. And I ended up getting involved with a band, doing pretty well, almost to the point of, we were actually at one point offered the chance to do support for Savatage for a couple of months.
BM: Wow.
LK: And right before all of this is getting ready to get dealt with, talking to the agent and everything, the band became disbanded. I got really disgruntled, I put things down, and that’s when I went into full-fledged, TV, broadcast engineering. So I literally from the age for 28 to 32, I didn’t pick up my guitar for like five, six years. Started getting the itch because I was constantly traveling around the country. I was like, “You know, let’s turn this basement into a studio.” I started building a studio, started writing my own stuff again. One of the drummers from IHF had moved out to California, and we started recording some tracks. Got contacted by the old drummer in the band that almost went on the road with Savatage, and he’s like, “Hey, what have you got going on?” I was like, “Well, I’m in the middle of writing a bunch of stuff. Trying to get some recordings done with this solo thing I’m trying to get together.” And he’s like, “Hey, I’m getting out of the army, I’d like to try to get things going again. I’m like, “Well.” He’s asking me where I’m living now, and I’m like, “Well, Chicago area.” He lived in Hawaii at the time. So he came out here, and we got things going. And Sacred Dawn was basically born out of this. I mean, it was kind of born out of the fact that I was really kind of at the point where I’m going to need to get some musicians if I’m gonna take this another step, because doing solo stuff kind of doesn’t, there’s a couple of guys around here that do it, but they never really get out and play because they don’t have a full band.
BM: Yeah.
LK: And this guy’s like, “Hey, I’ll play drums.” I’m like, “Cool.”
BM: Is this Joe Marvin?
LK: Joe Marvin, yeah. So he’s the guy from the band Disciple 13, that was looking at Savatage. Some of those songs from Disciple 13 are actually on this Gears of the Machine. There are three selections on there we updated, did some rearrangements on them.
BM: Which ones are they?
LK: “White Road Black Sun.”
BM: Oh yeah, that’s one of my favorites.
LK: That song, believe it or not, used to be almost 10 minutes long.
BM: [laughs] Really?
LK: Yeah. [laugh] We had like a two and a half, three minute intro on it. I mean, [laughs] and when we were trying to look for an old recording of it, we were like, “Oh my god, I forgot about this part.” But I was kind of like, “You know what, if we didn’t remember those parts, they probably weren’t that important.” I’m like, “So let’s stick with what we remembered and try to make that work.” “Master of Thought.” That one kind of revived that one a little bit. And the other one, ah, “The Desire.”
BM: Cool. Yeah.
LK: “The Desire,” yeah, “(World’s Apart) The Desire.” That one was one that definitely took a new turn for the better. And like I said, these songs you gotta keep in mind it was like 10, 12 years ago that a couple of these songs had been played, and at that time, the main influences were grunge. So what we were doing at that time was probably a little bit off, but we were probably in that same idea, kind of a Maiden, Dream Theater-esque kind of mix. But the majority of the other ones have been basically arrangements and ideas I’d been kind of collectively writing over the past 10, 12 years.
BM: Well, tell me about, you’re actually one of the only bands I know of that will have released its first album three times. Either you’re extremely lucky, or someone up there likes you. [laughs] You’re really getting three chances to make it here with this. [laughs] Tell me about how this came about, the first album, to the second one, to now this third one is coming up what, in April, with Lance, Nightmare records?
LK: Well, this third one actually is basically a remastered and cover change version. As far as the actual re-record from the previous version [the second release of their first album] to the Nightmare version that was a decision based on the fact that released it on the day we played a fest just to get it out, just to have something to sell at the gig.
BM: So did you put it out out kind of – well, “rush” isn’t the word…?
LK: In haste, maybe?
BM: Yeah. Just to get it out ahead of some of your gigs?
LK: We wanted it out before we played with Kamelot. And at the same time, we knew that we needed this in order to start at least getting our name out there.
BM: So you weren’t happy with how the first version turned out, or sounded, an you ended up literally re-recording everything you had done on the first one for the second version of it?
LK: Absolutely. To me, it just seemed like a necessity. For me, it didn’t feel right to go out there and being careful how to say this, but sounding way better than the CD.
BM: Yeah, yeah.
LK: We were getting a lot of comments, and that’s really what kind of did it for us, because we were getting a lot of responses from people after we played the Kamelot show, and they were like, “Yeah, got your CD, but to be honest, I think your live performance level exceeds your CD.” And I was like, “Oooh.”
BM: [laughs]
LK: Don’t get me wrong, I love to hear that because in so many cases, people are usually disappointed when they go see a band. And they say, “I’d just as soon listen to the CD than see them live, they’re terrible live.” So I took that as a compliment, but I was like, “We need to be able to represent better on what people are buying.” So we did go through the re-record process, still in talks with the other label at that time. But knew that regardless of what decision was made, this was going to be done. Decided not to go with the other label, we were like, “Let’s get this done. We’ve got this Symphony X show coming up, we’d like to be able to sell this at the Symphony X show.” And so basically we made it as kind of a pre-release, you could say, while we’re shopping. We had it available to buy off our website for people who didn’t get a copy that night, and pretty much were like, “Let’s shop this label.” So we went out to shop for a label, and we had a couple others we were looking at. At the top of that, Lance was one of the ones that had been mentioned to us, because we’d actually played a show with Pownd. It was supposed to be Eternity X was supposed to have a reunion show. That fell through on us. It was in South Carolina and the other guys were in Peoria. But we played the show with Pownd, and even after that, Terry, the bass player from Eternity X was like, “I should talk to Lance for you guys.” I was like, ‘Ok.” And the guys from Pownd I guess, they were really cool and wanted to do some show swaps with us in the future, and I was like, “Ok.” Over that course of time, we also really cultivated a good relationship with Tom Wild, and at that point we were like really serious about trying to get this version out even though we had sold it at Symphony X and we had it online available. We still hadn’t really put it out there. So when the talks with Lance came about, Tom had talked to him several times, and the next thing I know, we’re getting to the point of signing. At that point it was just going to be distribution.
BM: The first release has a brighter sound to it. On the second one, things seem to be more mixed together, more mid-range. What was the difference in your recording approaches with those two albums? Which one sounds more like how you want it to sound, mix-wise?
LK: As far as the overall mix and the sound of the band, the current recording minus the mastering making things brighter. But everything on the very first version that you hear, it’s basically what you’re going to get. There’s no sample of placements, it’s all pure mixed drums, mixed on ProTools. I was mixing out of the box, literally, and dealing with a Mac G4 with the amount of processor I bought in 2002. You know, you’re really challenged on how many plug-ins you can use before you’re taxing the computer. Everything on there, there was no beat detective, it was just basically, “Here’s the wah track, effects, we’re just going to mix it.” And me and another guy came up to help me with the mixing process, and it’s kind of one of those deals where you’re dealing with drum tracks that were recorded over the course of eight months. Every track that I was listening to, we had to completely change the mix on, because the tuning on the drums, the mic placement, really got very difficult and very draining on the ear trying to match these mixes to where, I mean, if you listen to it, it’s like, “Man, the drums sound a lot different on this one than it does the other one.” But that is the result of not using any sample of placements. We went into this recording with the mindset of, “I’m going to get as solid of tracks as possible on this recording.” The drums are the main thing, as well as getting the vocals. I wanted to get those here. And I got some guitar tracks recorded. We were trying to find an engineer to work with us to get us a good mix so that I’m not being biased to it, and someone with more equipment and more processing power than I do. Because each label kind of has it’s own, there’s a mastering style. So we kind of left the mix a little bit on the darker side, to where it wasn’t as bright. Still want it to sound nice and full and big, but high ends and low ends and compressions and all the things that are done in the mastering process are always subject to whoever’s doing the mastering. And it was like, let’s just make it slightly darker, because you never know what’s gonna end up happening in the grand scheme of things. And that’s how come some people say it’s a darker sounding recording. It’s like, it’s a pre-mastered, what you’re listening to is just the masters coming straight to the mix. All the levels, we went through and leveled everything out, but we didn’t do any eq-ing, any compression, it’s just basically, here’s the mix. So when we actually did the release with Symphony X, this is our pre-release, our pre-master, I guess you could say. And now we’re definitely looking forward to the Nightmare release. The album cover change is actually something Lance had asked us about a couple weeks ago, and so now, it does truly appear like a third release.
BM: [laughs]
LK: It really does come out that way. It’s a change we were open to, he asked us about it, he just thought it popped out at him a little better. And I just thought, “Well, we liked both ideas, and let’s try it, it could be a good change.” The only thing that I kind of brought up to him was, [laughs] the fact that our faces are on the cover. We were all kind of like, “Wow, how is this gonna come across?” But he’s like, “What’s wrong with being a little different?” And we’re like, “That’s true.” It could be a really positive thing.
BM: Yeah, it is a little different. I’ve seen an awful lot of album covers from this genre, and I don’t recall seeing many band faces on them. [laughs] So it’ll stand out.
LK: Well, [laughs] that’s kind of what we were, “Oh my god, what are people going to think?” But then I have to go back and like, alright, well I guess Motley Crue, they were on there. Not just their heads, but it was an interesting, the color scheme does change. And we were actually trying to think of a way to almost darken up our look a little bit, make it a little more metal-ish, I guess, from the previous cover was definitely a more oil painting, more artistic look. And that definitely, from the concepts this guy was coming up with based on, “What do you want it to look like, color scheme, stuff like that?” When we, this album cover is basically based off what we were gonna use on a poster, because we were gonna make a new poster and use it for shows and it’s basically an avitar and it was used as our profile page. And Lance saw it, and they were like, “Whoa, interesting concept.” So within two days, we literally went back to the artist after Lance, because we were supposed to have all the artwork all uploaded already. So we had to go back to Eddie and say, “Ok, we’ve got two days.” [laughs]
BM: First of all, what is your favorite song from your album? Which is your favorite to play live? And also, you’re hitting some pretty high notes with your voice on there, [laughs] like “White Road, Black Sun,” “Shadows.” Are you going to be able to keep that up in 10 years or so, or are you gonna be a Geoff Tate, everybody’s waiting for the notes from the first two Queensyrche albums. [laughs]
LK: [laughs]
BM: And he doesn’t do it. [laughs]
LK: [laughs] Ok, first question. My favorite song.
BM: Yeah, favorite one to listen to of yours, and if it’s different from which one you play live, or it could be the same one.
LK: I think my favorite one to listen to, I’m probably going to have to go with “Asmodeus.”
BM: Really?
LK: Maybe on a slightly technical side of things. There’s some of the riffing in there that just kind of grabs me at times. As far as my favorite one to play, “Shadows.”
BM: Is it really?
LK: Yeah. I think for me because there are a lot of points of the lyrics that she [his wife] wrote that also really attribute a lot to my previous situations that I was in before.
BM: Oh yeah, relationship stuff?
LK: Yeah, I was previously married, and it was probably about just as bad if not worse in some case. [laughs]
BM: [laughs] So the “go fuck yourself” thing kind of resonated with you? [laughs]
LK: [laughs] Yeah. I mean, so I really, that one for that reason is the one song that I can go out there and play and really kinda, it’s a nice song, I love the playing fast and the technicalities and all that stuff, but it’s nice to have a song to slow down and really—
BM: Have some emotion to it.
LK: Put some emotion to it.
BM: Yeah.
LK: If you also notice the lyrical change that was on the previous to the current on that song.
BM: You know, actually I didn’t.
LK: The previous version was, ok, in the current version it’s, “Inside yourself, you’re no doubt someone else.” The previous version, it was, “Go fuck yourself.”
BM: [laughs]
LK: [laughs] Ok, both pretty much get the same point across. We kind of PG’d this version because if there is any potential of airtime, we’d like to be able to get that. [laughs] But we tinkered around with it, I haven’t talked to Lance about it, because I don’t know if it’s something we want to do. But we really, there’s a lot of people that, who have seen us live and locally here who have the first album, they kind of miss that part. And I’m like, “Well, we could make it something that we just do live, when you come to our live show.” Or do we eventually want to say, “Hey, you can download this one explicit version just to get that word.” [laughs] I don’t know, that’s neither here nor there, but the lyrical change, we were just like, “Is it too abrupt or is it even really necessary?”
BM: I think I must have been used to hearing the one off the first version, because every time I listened to the one on the second one, I was inserting those words anyway. [laughs]
LK: [laughs]
BM: That’s what I was hearing in my head. It is powerful that way. I know not everybody’s up for dropping the F-bomb, but the meaning of the song came across a lot more for me on the first version.
LK: Yeah, it’s something that we’ve definitely talked about, and it is something that could be potentially done. But we’re always gonna do it live that way.
BM: Cool.
LK: Yeah, it’s inevitable. All ages or not, we’re gonna do it live. [laughs]
BM: [laughs]
LK: You know, if there’s people, the fans who have come and seen us, that’s the point where they stick their middle finger up in the air. [laughs]
BM: [laughs]
LK: So it could end up being something we try out on the road for a little while and if people start really getting that, we’ll say, “Alright folks, here it is, you can get the explicit version.”
BM: [laughs] Yeah.
LK: But that song, even [bassist Joey] Vega made some comment about it, because he made a point of saying that he likes the guitar solo I do in it.
BM: Yeah.
LK: And I said, “Well, it’s, it just comes out of me.” Maybe here again, there’s an
Turn to Part Two for the rest of this interview...
