I think it’s pretty safe to say so ;). Yeah it’s a concept album, but we decided not to tell too much about the storyline before the release, though don’t ask me why I have no idea haha ! No, we want to see if people actually understand the concept ! But actually, that’s not so important. I think the music is more important. It’s great if the lyrics are cool or interesting, but the songs have to be good first. That’s why we don’t want to tell too much about the concept, to kind of let the music speak for itself you know !

Man, you have no idea how tough that f**ker was ! We record in our own studio, like we did for the second album, “Sign of the winner”. For “Sign”, the recording process was as smooth as it can get. Maybe too smooth actually, we were maybe too much in the comfort and not enough on the edge, I don’t know. Well anyway, this time around, it was the absolute contrary ! We’ve had all kind of technical problems it was ridiculous sometimes. The biggest and final blow happened at the end of june : we were ready to go to the mix, but some kind of virus infected the central unit and f**ked up the hard drives. It took a pretty long time for some ingenieers in Germany to recover the datas. But aside from that, we were much more confident about the production side of things compared to “Sign of the winner”. The sounds we dialed in for the bass and the guitar for example are much better than what we did for “Sign”. I mean, the sound can change dramatically in the mix and be improved a lot, but this time we knew better what we were doing, so the rough sounds are pretty good already. Which means that in the mix it’s even easier and you can get better results. So now as I speak, the mix is finally on its way with Sascha Paeth (Rhapsody, Angra, Kamelot...). Three songs are done, and I can tell you Sascha is doing a killer job ! This album took a long time, we sweat several hundred liters, we pulled out hundred of thousands of hair (well maybe not but you get the picture :)), but we finally made it. And we’re really proud of this album !!

Well, as you guessed, it’s a concept album. So the title is pretty linked to the storyline, and has a strong sense. You’ll see why (or maybe not !) when you’ll hear the lyrics !

I wouldn’t talk about experimentations as such. But our style has evolved a little bit. The usual elements which made Heavenly from day 1 are there : the big melodies, the choirs, the strong orchestrations etc. But this time around, we wanted to have a more solid base. More metal you can say. I’ll take a comparison with a house : you build your house, so you build the base first, and then you do all the nice finishing touches, like the paint on the wall, the wallpapers etc. That’s cool, but if the base of the house is not solid, then there’s not point of having some nice finishing touches you know ? That’s kind of what we think now about “Sign of the winner” when we look back on it. Maybe the finishing touches (in this case, the choirs, the orchestrations) took over the base (drums, bass, and rythm guitars). So this time around, we wanted to be sure we had a solid base, while still having all the nice touches you know ? That’s pretty complicated, so I’ll sum it up : This record will be somewhat heavier : there will be some stronger riffs, some more intricate rythm parts, tempo changes etc. There will be all the huge orchestrations and stuff, but there will be more of a contrast going on (compared to Sign, where it was all the time), so the songs are more interesting. All in all, I think our fans will love it, and some people who didn’t like us before will maybe like us now !

Hahaha, that’s a nice one ! Actually, Ben has changed somehow his way of singing. He has broadened his range of singing, he’s not up there all the time like he used to be. Trust me, he did an amazing job on “Dust to dust”, he really shines throughout the album, it’s fantastic ! And I should mention also that he went as far as re-recording the song “Dust to dust” in Japanese for our fans over there ! It will be on the Japanese version.

WE WOULD LOVE TO !!! Seriously, I have no idea about the chances of that happening. I think the biggest chance would be of playing in one of the festivals there, especially Progpower (hint !). So our fans should let the promoters know that they want to see us ! But I should mention that we have had no contact yet with any promoter in the US.

I would say touring first. I really love going on tour, and I can tell I’m so impatient to get back on the road, it’s been too long now, I WANT TO GO NOW !!! J So for me, touring is the biggest thing when you’re a musician. You get to visit some nice countries where you have never been, you meet nice people, you have a great time with your friends in your band, you play shows every night. That’s so great. But it’s nice also to make albums. It’s great to see how things take shape from scratch, it’s really cool. And then it’s great to see all the feedback, to receive e-mails from fans, to talk about our music in interviews etc. So there’s a lot of rewarding parts of being a musician. There’s also some bad sides, but let’s not talk about it. Always look on the bright side of life !

I don’t know about the other guys, especially Ben and Max who formed the band and were there from day 1. I joined the band with Fred right before the Stratovarius tour at the end of 2000, so the first album was already out. So things were looking pretty good even then, but I didn’t know it would grow even more, we would make even better albums and bigger tours, grow as a band and as friends, having all kind of great memories I’ll be able to share with my grandchildren etc. J That’s really cool, and I hope it’s only the beginning, cause we’re not that big yet !

I don’t think so. We kind of had the idea and wanted to do one. I mean it’s really expensive to do videos, that’s why so few metal bands shoot some nowadays, but you can always manage to do it on your own and still get a decent result in terms of image quality and stuff. So we thought about it, but as technical problems occurred during the recording, and things got more and more delayed, at the end we didn’t have time anymore. We won’t have time to do it before the album is released and no time either after the release.

We all have our different influences, but I don’t know how they come across in our music. Obviously you can mention Helloween, Gamma Ray, Angra, Blind Guardian, the leaders of this style. But all of us like all kind of different stuff. For example, I love melodic hard rock a la Europe, Fair Warning, Bon Jovi, etc. I love more heavy/thrash metal a la Nevermore, Kreator, Morgana Lefay, etc. You know, metal as a whole !

Haha, well sometimes I get recognized in the streets, but people never scream when they see me, nor do they mob ! I live in an average size city (for France at least, in the US it would probably be a somewhat small city !) in the east of France, close to Switzerland but there’s a lot of metal fans. So actually I think a lot of them have met or seen me in the streets so they’re used to it. But sometimes I meet someone from here who didn’t know I was living there (cause somehow people think we must live in Paris) and he or she is surprised to see me. But actually, I get recognized more often when I go to concerts, of course. But it’s always nice to meet fans, or even not fans. Sometimes people come to me and say they don’t like Heavenly, which is fine with me !

I don’t know if we put France on the map for quality metal actually. Cause we’re not that famous yet. But that’s true, France is more recognized for its metal bands now, though I can’t say what is exactly our role in this process.

Sure, there’s a lot, but maybe you don’t know them. But more and more now get to be distributed internationally. I can mention Manigance, Dyslesia, Headline. Though I have to say that if I know of all these bands, and I know or met the guys from these bands, I’ve never listened to most of them.

I listen to a lot of Nevermore lately. You can say they’re my new favorite band J. Actually I’m going to their show tonight in Pratteln, Switzerland. I really love them, they’re amazing. My favorite one is “Dead heart in a dead world”, so I listen to this one a lot. Currenly there’s also the Kreator live album, Arch Enemy, Symphony X “The odyssey”. And for older stuff, these days I tend to go back a lot to Annihilator “Never, neverland”, Pantera “Cowboys from hell”, Twisted Sister “Live at Hammersmith”.

Well, when you record all day long, you don’t want to listen to music anyway at the end of the day (and it’s better also to rest your ears). But actually, we don’t record the instruments all together, they’re all recorded seperately. Which means the five of us are not constantly in the studio. So when I’m not in the studio, yes I listen to other music. It’s good also to get some fresh air and get away from your own stuff, especially when the recording process is so long.

You know, as I told you earlier, I crave so much to go back on the road, that at this point if Korn asked to join them on tour, I’d go ! Seriously though, we’re not gonna open for Korn or other bands like that (though I have nothing against them, it’s just not my style of music). But somehow your question is interesting for one point : there’s a strong chance that we’ll go on tour with a band you would not expect us to support. I can’t tell you who right now, cause nothing is confirmed. But it’ll be f**kin’ cool if it does happen.

I don’t know. These last years I’ve met a lot of musicians I admire. But I woud love to meet the guys from Iron Maiden for example. I don’t know if you’ll see me on my knees chanting “I’m not worthy”, but I’ll be definitely impressed. I’d love to meet the guys from Judas Priest also. Yngwie Malmsteen, I’d love to meet him too. Fred met him on his last tour, and he said he was as nice as you can get !

I don’t know actually. But I do know that I got asked a million times in interviews if we were a Christian band. Well, sorry we’re not ! Actually Ben and I even have jewish origins. But those kind of shows from Christian bands are amazing, especially for us Europeans. Cause Christian rock doesn’t exist here. That’s something we, in Europe, have trouble to put together, rock and Christianity. I was in the US when I was 16, and I met this girl you know. And she asked me to come with her to a rock show. I thought it was cool, you know I had some ideas with her, and going to a rock show was a cool beginning for a night. Well anyway, it happened to be those kind of shows from a Christian band. As a little European, I was completely amazed by that, I couldn’t believe it, haha. And anyway, at the end of the night, that girl I went with told me “sorry, no sex before marriage” haha ! I learned a lot about certain aspects of American culture that night !!

Hmmm, I don’t know. I know I would have other things to tell you about, but of course as usual, I can’t remember right now. Damn, that was my only chance !! Well, anyway I think I pretty much talked about the essential things, our PR people could be proud of me : ) !

Yes sure. Keep an eye out for “Dust to dust” on January 12th. We’ll be on tour probably around march, in Europe anyway. For American fans, as I said, beg your promoters to make us come ! And anyway, there will probably some previews of the new album within several weeks on our website http://www.heavenly.fr.st or our record company’s http://www.noiserecords.com/heavenly You can visit also our forum, we come there pretty often and answer questions, http://heavenlyforum.free.fr And finally don’t hesitate to drop me an e-mail at PE@heavenly.fr.st even if it’s hate mail (I love it !). Thanks for the interview, and see all of you soon !