Detritus
Mini-Issue #320.5 - June 10, 2005
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*** CAST OF CHARACTERS ***
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Patrick Brower, Editor
patrickbrower@...

Sean P. Gahgan, Editor
lof@...

Tim Wadzinski, Owner
tsw512@...

Steve Shumake, Co-owner
vongoober@...
http://www.vongoober.com/

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*** LET ME SPEAK ON THIS ***
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-Here is a very cool interview Neal did recently with Shadow Gallery
main man Gary Wehrkamp. Enjoy and have a great weekend! - Tim

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*** SPECIAL REPORT ***
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by Neal Woodall (MysticX10@...)

-Interview w/ Gary Wehrkamp (Shadow Gallery)
May 27, 2005

Since 1991 Shadow Gallery has been creating some of the most intricate
and captivating progressive metal, skillfully blending influences with
virtuoso musicianship and intriguing lyrical ideas. Nearing the
release of the band's fifth album, ROOM V, I spoke with Shadow
Gallery's multi-talented Gary Wehrkamp...

DETRITUS: Your new album is called ROOM V and will be out June 7,
right?

GARY WEHRKAMP: Yes, here in the US. Where are you located?

D: I'm in Macon, Georgia.

GW: Oh Georgia, cool...

D: Well, I've heard ROOM V and it's an excellent album.

GW: Oh, well thanks!

D: So far my favorite songs are "The Andromeda Strain," "Encrypted,"
"Torn" and the title track, awesome stuff...

GW: Great! You know, a lot of people are coming up with some of the
same songs. It's funny though, I expect everybody to say a couple of
songs but everybody always has one or two songs in there that are
different than everybody else...

D: Yeah, I really like some of the shorter ones too, "Manhunt," "Birth
Of A Daughter," "Death Of Mother," and "Lamentia." Are the short ones
necessarily easier to compose than the long ones?

GW: Not really because in the end a long song is really made up of
many short, different parts...so ahh, I mean it's easier to see it get
completed quicker. But there are no super-long songs on this album. I
don't know if you're familiar with any of our past albums but there
are usually 20-minute songs on there. So these are a little
more...individual.

D: Well speaking of past albums ROOM V is actually a sequel to TYRANNY
isn't it?

GW: Yes, it is.

D: Could you go over the concept briefly?

GW: I don't know if I can do it briefly but I'll try! (laughs)

D: OK!

GW: TYRANNY is about a couple of individual people who are in for an
awakening in their life when they start to realize that things they
were involved with, with their job, are not exactly what they thought.
As they start uncovering what was a mystery to their participation
into things like working for employers who provide arms to both sides
of a war, they start getting deeper and deeper and it really changes
their outlook. This leads to a lot of events that happen -- ah, I'm
trying to keep this brief. (laughs) Basically, they are kind of living
parallel lives but the girl character is certainly a couple of steps
ahead of the guy character and she has been kind of leading him on
into digging deeper to find other information. But the story ends
where they are supposed to meet after a wild chase, and we never
really know if they meet... So, that's kind of where ROOM V picks up.

D: You had some great guest performances on TYRANNY, James LaBrie and
D.C. Cooper. On this one you have Laura Jeager?

GW: Yes, she was also on TYRANNY -- she's the female character.

D: Right, she's coming back and you also have Arjen Anthony Lucassen,
but I'm not familiar with some of the other guests. Can you tell us a
little about them?

GW: Well for TYRANNY you did mention James LaBrie and Laura and they
are both back. James is not back as a singer but as a co-songwriter on
the track "Torn," which we had initially worked with James on a few
years back on one of his solo albums. It kind of got shuffled around
and switched back and forth to a few records and he didn't use it on
his last record, so we said "Hey, we'll take it back if that's OK." So
we reworked that, so he's heard on that. Some of the other guests are,
let's see... Joe Stone, he is actually a guitar student of mine,
someone I've been teaching for many, many years and he plays on "The
Archer Of Ben Salem." Ah, who else? I think that's it for the main
album, there is a bonus track album...

D: Yeah, something that's coming out in Europe?

GW: Yeah, Mark Zonder from the band Fates Warning, he's on there and
that was kind of a strange participation because he didn't even know
he was on it and we didn't ask him. (laughs) Basically, there is a
really long Pink Floyd song called "Floydian Memories" and in the
middle of this I kinda wanted to inject some originality and Mark and
I had been working on some other tracks together for another project.
There was kind of a throwaway track that was just an experimental,
anything-goes, kitchen sink kinda song, so I just kinda stuck that in
the middle of the Pink Floyd song and suddenly, he's on the song too,
without even knowing it...

D: Now that the album is finished, what do you feel is more
satisfying: the process of composing and recording the album or
listening back to the finished product?

GW: Well, I tell you, right now is certainly a much nicer time for me
because there is much less pressure insomuch as I don't feel like I
have to work 16, 17 hours a day -- kinda cut that down to 12 and that
feels great. Because especially towards the end of production, you
know the producing is what really gets challenging in that you've got
to be involved with every single aspect, so that gets really hectic.
It is really rewarding and satisfying but it's such a blur 'cause
you're doing so much, so many different things at once. Now it's
more... At least I can just sit on my couch and, you know, talk about
the record (laughs), rather than have to make lots of decisions. But I
think we're all pleased that it's finished and it was rewarding to
write and record, and this is rewarding as well...

D: Do you have any live performances planned?

GW: We've really been talking about different options with that and
our options kind of keep changing. Right now we don't have any tour
dates; we were trying to consider doing a European tour and right now
it's really just a question of scheduling and timing and we've been
through this before and it's been a problem for us, so our goal has
always been to make the best record and start with that. We're hoping
by early next year we can be in Europe playing and then back here in
the States as well...

D: What about a DVD? Any plans for videos or anything like that?

GW: Well, that's a really popular thing to do these days and I think
the fans really love seeing that because you can't always get to
concerts and where they're at. But especially with the technology and
all the wonderful things you can do with it it's great, so when we
start playing we're definitely going to consider that. We've talked
briefly about that but we'll have to wait and see what our dates open
up for. In the meantime we are also planning on doing a "Making Of"
DVD which goes through the making of this album.

D: That should be really interesting!

GW: Yeah, actually it's pretty cool because we've already filmed like,
30 hours going back two years ago, right from when we first started
demoing ideas and, you know, tracking all of the instruments. So now
it's just the task of editing that down to a good solid hour or two
and making it cohesive. So that's our next project and that's going to
start in about two weeks.

D: Do you have a solo album in the works, or any outside projects like
tribute albums coming up?

GW: Well, they seem to kind of enter a lot quite often. We're always
interested in doing those kinds of things because it just allows
further expression of what we do. Right now I actually don't have too
many things lined up; the last thing that I did was something called
ProgAid, which was for the tsunami victims...

D: Yeah, I remember reading about that.

GW: There are some things in the works but I try not to talk about
them until they are solid because, (laughs) next thing you know,
everyone starts asking you about them and it's no fun to say "Oh yeah,
that didn't happen." One thing that has been in the works for awhile
is a project with Mark Zonder and D.C. Cooper -- I don't know if you
are familiar with both of them?

D: Oh, yeah!

GW: We kind of had to put that on hold while we finished the Shadow
Gallery and now, subsequently, since the album was done we did a bonus
track and then a bonus disc and now it's led right to interviews and
promotions, so it's continued to be put on hold until we get through
this stage. But I'm hoping to revisit that soon and see what kind of
material we can finish up with that...

D: Any other musicians you're interesting in working with?

GW: Well, it's been a great pleasure to work with Arjen Lucassen
because not only is he a great musician, he's also a great friend and
I have a lot of respect for his work, so it was great to have him on
our record and great to be a part of his records. It would be a thrill
to work with one of the guys from Pink Floyd, although I see that as a
great impossibility (laughs), but that's more from a fan
perspective...

D: You never know...

GW: You never know where things are going to lead but I just try to
branch out in every possible direction and when opportunity comes my
way, if at all possible, I take it because I find that it always leads
somewhere else and usually it's leading to me working with the people
I've wanted to work with, so as long as I continue on that good ride
of good luck, I'll be OK.

D: You are really a renaissance musician in that you cover keyboards,
guitar, piano, vocals and you do the production too. Which of these do
you feel is most difficult for you, or does that change with every
album and project you undertake?

GW: (laughs) Well, the production is by far the most difficult,
although when I'm doing it I'm not usually complaining or saying it's
difficult because it's just a natural extension. It's very easy to do
but it's the most time-consuming and sometimes I think I'd rather just
be the guitar player because that would be great just to go in and
play some guitar and then pack up and go home. It's when you've got to
be editing the vocals and going over the drum parts, all those
additional things. Probably the most challenging and time-consuming
thing I'm doing is managing the band -- it's not crazy in every avenue
because when we are not touring it's a different story of course, but
from the merchandise to the fan club to the promotion it all adds up
and the next thing you know, the day is over with and my guitar is
sitting up there staring at me (laughter), and I wish I could play it.
But I have it right here next to me so if I finish the interview early
I try to play it for five minutes but that's about the most I get to
play these days...

D: Do you play all the different instruments equally, can you give a
percentage of what you are playing?

GW: On the record?

D: Yeah, on the record.

GW: On the record the guitar is split 50% between Brendt [Allman] and
myself, for all parts, rhythms, solos, everything -- we try to split
it as equally as possible. It usually comes down to who wrote the
song, and if that song is on the record, we usually try to let that
guy play the guitar. In the past, we've always had a policy to make
sure that we're always playing all guitar parts and a real common
procedure for recording is double-tracking guitars, where you play the
part and then record it again. In the past what we would do is no
matter who wrote the song or who played the first guitar part, we
would have the other guy double it. That was really cool, but also,
I'll tell you what, that was a real pain because Brendt and I play
very similarly but we also approach the guitar different. Whereas
maybe I just tend to phrase things a little behind the beat, he tends
to phrase things a little ahead of the beat, and it's just a feel, but
when you have to double somebody and it's a super-fast passage and
it's going along with the bass, keyboard and drum line as well, you
know there is really no room for interpretation or feel. It's got to
be locked in, so that really took some time in the past. Now we
approach it differently, if it's a guitar part that I wrote then I'm
going to play it and double track it and same thing for him.

Keyboards, it used to be split pretty evenly between Chris [Ingles]
and myself; the farther you go back with the band probably the more it
was favored towards him, and now the more you go to the future, the
more it's myself, but I did all the keyboards on this last album...

D: OK, wow! That's interesting because I remember reading in an
interview that you once said you feel like more of a producer than a
musician, so let me ask you a production question. When I think of
production I think of the overall sound of the album along with the
quality of the performance. How would you define it?

GW: Well, it's certainly that but from the working point of view, the
workhorse part of it is everything from producing the vocals, which
that can be really time-consuming to get accomplished. We've always
had a philosophy in Shadow Gallery that we're not just interested in
capturing it or capturing some mood of the day, but every single word,
every single note, we're trying to get something that is extremely
magical, and we have endless patience (laughs), although sometimes
that's tested, of course. Everything about myself is, I want to do
things 100% to my potential, and if I don't, I just don't feel right
about it, and if I know I can do it better, even if it's good enough,
even if 99 out of 100 people would say "That's great," that's not what
is important to me. It's a matter of me saying "That's what I wanted,
I've achieved it, now I'm ready to move on," and as a producer, that
extends to judging and being a part of every other aspect of the
recording. Of course that can be very difficult for Mike [Baker], our
singer, because he gets to hear me say the words "do it again" about
1,000 times a day...

D: The Mutt Lange thing! (laughs)

GW: Yeah, exactly! I love Mutt Lange, too. So the truth is, even
though he might look at me like "Come on, that was good enough," he
trusts me in order to know that good enough is not really good enough
-- "good enough" just means "OK it's not bad," but we're never after
"not bad." We're after making the most magical, greatest album ever,
every time we do it. Obviously that's an impossible task but that's
where we set our goals.

D: Well you certainly get close!

GW: Well thanks!

D: There are a lot of bands out there who have good material but have
a limited recording budget. What kind of advice would you give them,
as a producer?

GW: Well, I'm right there with you, we have a very small budget for
recording, too, and luckily it's grown, you know, as we've started to
sell more records, but we started off with almost nothing. Today I
think it's great for the newer bands who are starting out and doing it
themselves -- boy, technology has really made it possible to turn out
a great sounding product with very, very limited gear. If you have a
computer and a $200 program, if you've got a good microphone and a
good mic preamp, you've really got a great start. But for people who
are doing it themselves that's probably the most crucial thing -- it's
really an invisible-sounding piece of gear but a good mic preamp is
really one of the most crucial things. And it's not just a matter of
capturing it on tape, it's a matter of capturing it in a very clear,
pristine (pauses)...and sometimes you want it to be colored, it just
adds that sense of depth. To the average person you might record
something through a regular, tiny $100 mixing board, or if you run it
through a mic preamp, and if you don't listen carefully it's going to
sound the same. But when you stack 30 tracks together, that little
difference is multiplied times 30 and it certainly adds up so get a
good mic preamp, that's what I would say to somebody...

D: OK, let me ask you about lyrics. To me Shadow Gallery's lyrics are
ultimately very positive; is there an overall theme to your music?

GW: Ah, yeah. I'm glad to see that you said they are positive, because
really it's under the guise of being negative. (laughs)

D: Yeah, there is a lot of dark subject matter...

GW: There's a lot of dark matters but it certainly tries to question
things, and that's what we want to do as a band -- not just write fun,
happy songs but to write real life. Carl [Cadden-James] is the primary
lyricist and he does a lot of research into what he writes about -- he
doesn't make things up and he doesn't say "Oh, this sound good" -- he
researches things heavily and reads tons of books, reads everything by
the author and really dives into it before he gets into a storyline.
We really always want to have a lot of truth in the record, but have
it to the point where somebody if they want to dive deeper themselves,
this could be the road that will pave them to saying "OK, what is this
really about?" We're never trying to force-feed any issue to anybody,
we're not saying "You should believe this" or "Go check it out" -- but
it's certainly there. In the end, our records, after they have
explored so many different things from government issues, political
issues, religious issues and life issues with people dying and stuff,
it does come back to your own personal take on it and what your
mindset is, and how that ties into your own spirituality. So
ultimately it does end up being positive even if it's not really
defined...

D: Excellent. When you compose do you hear it all in your head a la
Mozart, or do you put it together in bits and pieces?

GW: Ah, sometimes it's one way and sometimes it's another. It's really
funny -- and I don't know how it is for everybody else in the band but
I know for me -- I write so many uninspired, bad songs (laughs), and
when you do that it's just so much work and I can't tell you how many
songs and ideas I've written and recorded that, by the time I was
done, I didn't even want to hear it back. (laughs) It seems like a
waste of time but what I always realize and remember is that in order
to be a songwriter, you can't sit down and write a great song, you
just have to write -- and you never know where it is going to lead
you. When you're uninspired and you're trying to do it and make it
work, it usually sounds that way and it usually comes across as
lacking emotion or any kind of magic. But what happens is you keep
doing that and the process leads you, and catches you on a moment when
you are particularly inspired by something, whether you know it or
not, and then it's like, boy, you don't even try and there's all kinds
of magic. It's like your same fingers on the same instrument just go
to different chords and it's amazing what comes out. I've certainly
been on both ends of that and what a difference... Some of the songs
we've written have been more of a process of labor, where you just
labor over changing things... (pauses) I remember "New World Order,"
the whole beginning of that song was all on-the-spot, it just wrote
itself; then I got to the middle and I kept rewriting it probably 30
times to maintain that magic of what the beginning had.

D: That's a great song...

GW: Thanks! I certainly probably could have stopped after 10 attempts
for some of the solo sections but I got to a point and I said boy,
here's a great start but then the song just kind of dies and goes limp
in the middle and what's the point? I don't want people to hear this
and say "Well that could have been a great song." You know, there are
a lot of "could've been great songs" out there and I just don't need
to add to that list. But then there are other times when it's just
inspiration or you capture the emotion and I certainly hear it all in
my head at once and you can't record fast enough to get it down. Songs
like "Vow" -- I'd say half of that song was taken from the demo, which
I recorded probably in about 30 or 40 minutes, which is funny because
people usually say "How come it takes you three years to put out a
record?" (laughs) But I remember that song, I just, I was probably
watching TV, just strumming guitar and usually I'm just trying to
practice and keep my fingers warmed up and going and sometimes you
just kind of land on two or three chords and that's when I usually
shut the TV off, grab my guitar and run downstairs to my studio and
hit record and just try to record, as I'm going. I'm trying to write
the song as I go -- I know I've got two or three chords and I'm just
imagining somebody singing over it and I'm imagining Carl writing over
it, and for that song in particular, exactly what I played is exactly
the way it ended up, you know, down to the end. The very first thing I
wrote on keyboards and recorded, we flew that in and that's the same
thing that's on the album. It would be great if it always worked that
way but unfortunately it doesn't.

D: Do you keep up with any of the other progressive rock and metal
bands out there, like Symphony X?

GW: Not too much.

D: It's kind of hard to, when you're playing...

GW: Yeah, you know, I revolve around music 15 hours a day and people
always ask me what I'm listening to and I have to always think because
I don't ever sit down to listen to music. [There have been] maybe two
or three times in the last two or three years where I've sat down on
my couch and put a CD on just to listen. I can't help it to always
multi-task and if I'm not doing three things at once, I always feel
like I'm wasting time. So just listening to music seems to me like...
(pauses) I don't want to say a waste of time but a waste of an
opportunity to be doing something productive; it doesn't result in
anything for me. Symphony X is a great band, I heard some stuff from
them a couple of years ago and obviously there is a great deal of
talent with them. Ayreon, which we mentioned before, that is something
that I know and love -- in my car, THE HUMAN EQUATION is just a
tremendously brilliant album, but I could probably say the same thing
about any album he has done.

D: Let me ask you about your fan base -- are you aware of about how
many fans you have?

GW: Ah, sort of between 16 and 18 I think. (laughs)

D: I was going to ask if you were satisfied with the number! (laughs)

GW: Well, we were shooting for 20 but... (laughs) You know, that's
really hard to say. I mean, as more and more people get on-line with
the Internet, it becomes more and more apparent so to me it always
seems like it's growing but it probably could be the fact that it's
easier to be in touch with more people. I know we enjoy different
censuses of popularity in different countries but it seems to be
starting to spread more uniformly throughout the world, but I don't
think we're that big. (laughs)

D: Shadow Gallery was all over the first Rush tribute disc WORKING
MAN, but Magna Carta has just put out a new one; have you heard
SUBDIVISIONS?

GW: No, I haven't. We talked to Magna Carta many years ago and they
mentioned doing another one and asked us if we wanted to be involved
and, you know, I love Rush, so immediately I just go "My God, Rush is
one of my favorite bands," but then I thought, what's the point of
doing another Rush tribute? So, being that we're not with Magna Carta,
obviously by the time they got around to doing it we were on our way
out with them so they didn't ask us again. But no, I haven't heard any
of it. How is it?

D: It's pretty good, but I don't think the song selection is quite as
good as the first one...

GW: I guess they took all the good ones... (laughs)

D: There is some good stuff on there, Stu Hamm is back playing bass --

GW: Oh, he's tremendous.

D: Yeah, he's just awesome. I wanted ask you about the Rush book
"Contents Under Pressure" [by Martin Popoff]. Have you read that yet?

GW: No!

D: You ought to get that, I noticed you had read the Pink Floyd book
"Saucerfull Of Secrets" --

GW: By Nicholas Schaffner, yes, that's great!

D: You'd probably like "Contents Under Pressure" a lot.

GW: Yeah, I think I've read that Pink Floyd book 30 times!

D: Neil Peart's books are really good.

GW: I heard about that. I've been meaning to get some of those, I
just... (pauses) You know I haven't been a big reader over the years
-- I'd say before last year I might have read one book a year -- then
suddenly about a year ago I got on this kick where I was reading, you
know, six or seven at a time and I finally managed to finish 20 or 30.
But towards the end of recording the Shadow Gallery there was
absolutely no time so my reading has been on hold, but the Neil Peart
definitely sounds interesting.

D: One last question. I'm going to put ROOM V on tonight; what kind of
beer would you recommend I have as I listen? (laughs) I know you are a
beer connoisseur...

GW: Well, I used to be, I'm not a beer drinker anymore. You know what?
When I got halfway through making this record I realized I just didn't
have time for it so I just stopped drinking and I don't drink at all
anymore. But I did love beer so that is actually a great question --
you know what you would have to do, honestly? You would have to get a
six-pack of about 10 different kinds of beers, line up a different
beer in front of you and drink a different beer for each song.

D: Yeah! That's a cool idea!

GW: I think each song has got a different flavor so if you want to
match that with beer you should go from the cheap and the simple to
the dark and imported ones...

D: Gary, the record is fantastic and I look forward to seeing you live
at some point!

GW: I certainly hope so!

Relevant links:

InsideOut Music
http://www.insideoutmusic.com/

Shadow Gallery
http://www.shadowgallery.com/

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*** OUT ***
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