RIVERSIDE interview

How was the beginning of Riverside 10 years ago? Which circumstances brought you together and decided you to make a rock band?
The beginning was kind of an accident. Me and Piotr (the drummer) first met in the Seracos studio in Warsaw. He was recording with his death metal band Hate and I was recording with my band Unnamed. We found out we both besides metal music like Marillion and maybe it would be cool to try one day to play something similar.
We had a friend Jacek, who played keyboards and he agreed to take a part. Jacek owned studio and rehearsal room and he found out Mariusz in one band playing there. 

After 10 years is Riverside the band that you imagined initially?
Yeah of course it is. I need to say that everything what happened since those 10 years is much more I ve expected at the beginning of the band.

When were you firstly sure that you are a success band in Poland and than in Europe?
What do you mean success? J It is difficult question. We worked really hard to record the best songs we can and to play as much shows as possible. We risked a lot because at the beginning we couldn’t predict what will happen in the future.
I don’t really know how it happened but since the beginning we had quite a good crowd on our shows of course as a debut band and mostly in the big cities like Warszawa, Krakow, Wroclaw or Gdansk. We had only one record released and for example we sold out two evenings in Progresja club in Warszawa, so together it was around 600 people.
Is it a success? J Somehow it is.
Our first show outside Poland it was Prog Power Festival in Holland and after the show we read a lot of good reviews and people said we were one of the best festival bands.
It was also a success for us. So I think our success it is common things of such a small success I described.

Riverside is characterised as a neoprogressive rock band. Do you agree whith that? Why did you choose this rock direction?
I am not responsible for how people describe our music but we prefer to use just rock band J Neoprogressive reminds me bands I am not big fan of. And since 10 years we are escaping from this neo part J You know Marillion was only a reason brought us together
but there is one Marillion so I think people don’t need another. 

The titles of your songs and albums are psychological and onirical. Do you have a preference for deep and mysterious themes ? Which are those themes or subjects and how do you get there musically speaking and, of course, textually?
For sure Mariusz would answer much more better for this question he is a story teller and lyrics writer. I always admire his way of writing songs he is very talented person. What I like the most it is hiding things in song titles or doing a deep bottom in a lyrics.
He choose the subject directly from his own observations, thoughts and experience. He can find inspiration in the situation he took a part, the movie, book or even game.
Until now our work looked like he wrote a lyrics into a music so he always knew how the music goes and what kind of emotions are in the music. I think we need to try in the future to reverse this J 

Why did you choose to sing in English and not in Polish?
There are two main reasons. First we think singing in English gives more chance to try outside Poland. And second we simply thing English fits better is more melodic language. Polish language has some annoying sounds for singing J

Which is the philosophy of your newest album? Could we say that Memories in my head is a synthesis of your previous albums? In which way?
We get used to closing chapters J We needed to do it with a trilogy and it was Reality Dream DVD now we are closing 10th  anniversary chapter with some kind of continuation of our EP Voices in my head. We tried to come back a little to our previous albums OoM, or SLS, we tried to do compose more melo songs with more air.

You’ll have, in may, a very tough tour. How are you preparing yourselfs for those 12 europeans concerts?
Twelve shows it isn’t so bad J Most of times we travel with two vans and it is really tiring but this time we do it with a nightliner so it make travelling more comfortable.
We would like to play good shows so we are practicing three – four times a week.

Do you like to sing live in big concerts or do you prefer the studio or more intimate representations?
I think both things has its own charm. We haven’t been on tour since a year and we miss it a lot but after a touring time you need to start thinking about a new record you miss the part of the creation J Often it goes like that.

What about your favorite rock bands or musicians? Which are your mutual preferences in rock music or in music, generally speaking?
This is a wide question. Each of us is listening a lot of music, we have some common bands but mostly we are searching in a different directions.
I think what we have common it is Pink Floyd I think this is the best rock band ever.
Personally I love Dead Can Dance which is for me the best band ever J
I wouldn’t like to go deeper into this question J 

Which was your most memorable concert? Why?
I think for now the most memorable show was Arrow Rock Festival we play in Holland.
It was the first time we played in front of twelve thousands crowd and twenty more thousands seeing us on big screens. It was  the first time in front of such a big audience it was really scary J

What’s next? Are you working/thinking to another album?
First we have the tour before us and some summer festivals but we hope in between we will discuss an idea for new album. We hope we will record it next year but first we would like to concentrate on a story we would like to tell on this album. We really like the idea but we need to focus more on the details now.

Eliza Dumitrescu- Jurnalul De Duminica- 5 mai 2011