{"id":633,"date":"2009-04-22T09:13:55","date_gmt":"2009-04-22T08:13:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tempelores.com\/?p=633"},"modified":"2019-11-14T21:09:12","modified_gmt":"2019-11-14T19:09:12","slug":"the-eternal-10-04-2009","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tempelores.com\/?p=633","title":{"rendered":"The Eternal – 10-04-2009"},"content":{"rendered":"

Interview with: Mark Kelson
\nBy: Sabine van Gameren<\/em><\/small><\/p>\n

On a lovely, sunny day I sit down with Mark Kelson from the Australian band The Eternal. The band is on a world tour and this day they were in The Netherlands.
\n
\nThey are already two weeks on the road and some more weeks are coming up. Right before they left their home country they had a couple of weeks with weekend shows in Australia, so the band got into the gigging mood already. The band announces it huge on their website, their world tour but Mark is still quite down to earth: \u201cWe are not really a huge band so some shows are really small\u201d. <\/em>Even though he tells that it is small, the band also went to Japan. So far, almost every band that went to Japan comes back with amazing stories. Nothing different for The Eternal as it seems. \u201cWe did some shows in Japan which were a surprise to us. Probably the most interesting headlining experience we had\u201d<\/em> says Mark. \u201cIt is so organized, by the minute!\u201d<\/em> and Mark continues talking about what amazed him: \u201cThe people are all polite. They come up and take photo\u2019s and ask signatures, they are very polite and respectful. It\u2019s culture is extremely clean and well organized.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n

To see The Eternal touring much is not something new for them. The band already had a tour to Europe straight after releasing their very first album. How come that these Australians find their way to Europe and the rest of the world so soon, while some others never take a look out of their own comfort zone? Mark is clear about it. It seems to him as something natural that comes with an adventurous mind. \u201cYou have to get out there and just do it if you want to do it\u201d <\/em>he states. That the band is not born with a golden spoon in their mouth might be clear as well. The band organized pretty much all of it their selves. \u201cWe are not getting a huge support from our label\u201d<\/em> tells Mark but he does not sound to bitter of it. The rock and roll side of touring is not discouraging them at all. \u201cWe don\u2019t have too high expectations. If we get a hotel, that\u2019s nice. If we crash on someone\u2019s floor, it is fine too\u201d<\/em> says Mark and he seems quite sure about that. But yet I wonder how the band made it after their first release. It will be hard to go somewhere if your fan base is not too big yet. \u201cWe hooked up with another band and did it together. We\u2019d paid for the airfares ourselves and brought merchandise to sell. We got the tour out of it but lost the airfares. That is fine, we do it because that is who we are\u201d<\/em> Mark explains. The band took risks with it but for them it felt right. Mark says: \u201cWe knew that our albums are available in Europe so that was enough motivation for us to come.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n

By now it is the third time we see the band appearing on the European stages. The band must have gotten a fan base by the touring already, but I wonder if this is the major element in the growth of their fan base or does internet erased borders for them as well. \u201cIt is hard to have an idea of how this has come. I kind of think we are still in the hard work, shaking a lot of hands stage of the band.\u201d <\/em>says Mark, but he seemed to agree with me that the touring is a major thing in the building of the fan base as he continues: \u201cWe need to go around and make fans, give people a show to remember. I think those gigs bring a couple of new people in the family\u201d <\/em>
\nAfter the band finishes this world tour they have done more gigs outside of Australia then in their home country. That makes me wonder about the fans that they have at home, how do they see the world domination ambitions of these guys. These people have seen their first gigs, have been around since the start. Mark tells: \u201cThe Australian fans are pretty supportive. This tour is a world tour, we go to a lot of places and we organize ourselves. I think a lot of other bands from Australia are pretty taken back from that\u201d<\/em> so this must have given them a certain status as you should guess. \u201cWe are more known for being that band that goes overseas and tour over there.\u201d<\/em>, says Mark.<\/p>\n

To step back from the touring part of this band, there is some more to wonder about. The band get announced as being gothic metal at several websites, as they are now in The Netherlands where Gothic metal often gets associated with female metal vocal bands I wonder if they feel comfortable under this label. As it seems like Mark initially want to tell that he doesn\u2019t care, he does say quite strongly: \u201cI am not Goth at all. I am just a rock guy.\u201d<\/em> As well as he announced to be more influenced by bands like Pink Floyd etc. but he can understand where the gothic is coming from: \u201cI think it comes from my former band Cryptal Darkness which was more gothic. When The Eternal formed, we might have this over us.\u201d<\/em> So, that must be where this comes from, but what about now, where does The Eternal feel more comfortably placed? Mark doesn\u2019t have a clear musical territory where he feels The Eternal fits in: \u201cWe are dark-melodic-progressive-rock-metal band. A bit of everything. On Kartika there is some world music on, some weird instruments and a lot of progressive elements as well\u201d <\/em>With these being said, we went to talk a bit about their latest release \u201cKartika\u201d. There were three years between Kartika and the album before \u201cSleep of Reason\u201d. Besides the tour that took place after the release of \u201cSleep of Reason\u201d there was a lot going on. After their label Firebox dumped them, almost all of the band members left. After some time of rebuilding and the return of their drummer the band started working on new material. \u201cThe problem with Kartika was that we were very ambitious with not too much of money. We went way over budget and it took us long time to record\u201d<\/em> tells Mark. After that, things got better and Firebox welcomed them back to the label. \u201cSomehow we got it back together and got Kartika together, a really epic process\u201d<\/em> sighted Mark. The mixing of the album was done in Estonia by the same engineer as \u201cSleep of Reason\u201d who had moved to Estonia. Mark tells that in the first place someone else was suppose to mix it, because they could not get him anymore. \u201cWe were doing it with another engineer but it became quite clear that this project was too big for this engineer to handle.\u201d<\/em> As things were not really going as they were suppose to, they went over to Estonia to mix it. \u201cI just rang up and begged: please help me finish this album, I\u2019ll come to you. He said yes and we were scheduled in for three weeks to mix it\u201d<\/em> tells Mark.
\nAs we were reflecting the album Mark came to the solution he is satisfied with the results in the end even thought quite some things went on before it was born. \u201cI think Kartika is a good album. For me it is still associated with the time that it was a bit difficult in the band. It is hard for me to look at it without remembering all the pain\u201d<\/em> he says and continues after a bit of silence: \u201cKartika to me is the ultimate learning experience of The Eternal. It has some great songs on it and I am really proud of it\u201d<\/em>
\nLuckily there is some more sight what is in the future as well. The band does not stand still and have some thoughts about a new album: \u201cI already have some things in mind I want to do on the next album. I want to make it more spacious and make it a more controllable project. I think a sort of continuation of Kartika, . A good album, to the point in 40\/50 minutes\u201d<\/em> and for those who were pleased with their work before, Mark tells that he expects it to be released in 2010. To give us, curious people, already a bit of an idea of what we can expect he tells: \u201cWe wrote quite a bit already. It is all very focused. It is more spontaneous not so much over thought. Much more like how the band would play it and over dubbing the crap out of it. We are going to strip it back, but it still sounds like The Eternal.\u201c<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Links:<\/strong>
\nThe Eternal MySpace<\/a>
\nThe Eternal Official<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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