Tomorrow’s Outlook with Prominent Guests

It is always fun with new bands that takes a chance by putting a lot of hard work and money in to something they believe in. Northern Norwegian TOMORROW'S OUTLOOK has been joined by names such as Michael Kiske and Graham Bonnet on its debut album. Is it the lack of suitable musicians in the north that is the reason to have chosen these and a host of other "hired" musicians?

- No, it has nothing to do with it. We could, for example, brought in help from the local band Cyclophonia, but chose to go with musicians not related to the band. TOMORROW'S OUTLOOK was originally never meant to be anything other than a studio project with hired musicians, Trond Nicolaisen assures.
- The whole project started as a fun thing when Andreas (Stenseth, bass) had composed a song around the same time I had to get rid of my first car. He sent me the song and was wondering if I could create text and vocal lines. To "push" the text has never borne fruit, so it came naturally to write about something I had to say. "White Lightning" was the pseudonym of the car, and was also the title of the song. It was more of a comical thing than anything else. When we eventually got very good responses to a couple of songs, the project grew from plans to recording an EP to make a full length album. The project has become much bigger than we thought. We're hardly hobby musicians that can be compared with some of those we work with.

Trond is not credited for some of the performance on the album, but for contributing songs and pulling the strings of the project. Does this mean that if you were to take TOMORROW'S OUTLOOK to the stage, then it will happen without you?

- Very correct. I do not play as much as a recorder solo on the album. Which is great since I do not master the recorder or any other instrument very well. I played drums for about a year back in 2003, and it is probably still a fairly ambitious dream to take up playing again so that I might be able to do live work. If not for TOMORROW'S OUTLOOK, then maybe another band or project, or just for fun. Otherwise, I take care of most of the creative piece of the project. I am the driving force that whips Andreas out of bed to record a song or just to tell him about a new idea. When it comes to playing live, we have no concrete plans in the near future. Our first priority is to do a good job in promoting our debut album and record another full length album. But if there should be very great interest, one should not ignore that it may be necessary to do some concerts.

You've spent much time both to promote the band to "sell" TOMORROW'S OUTLOOK to various companies. Explain about how you went out, and what you have learned from this process.

- I've mostly learned that sending out promo packs at random without first having been in contact with someone from the company, is wasted time. Without having the exact number of promos I sent out, I can say with certainty that the four-five companies reported interest were ones that I had been in contact with in advance. The promo packages I sent out appears to be homemade. It consisted of a burned CD with home-made cover and a little information of course where I talked about the Kiske and Bonnet.

How much did it mean to you that you had renowned people on the team?

- In theory, this sounds marketing friendly, but the fact is that the larger companies do not care if you have a couple of draws. With how the music industry is today, it seems that the larger artists  have his own struggles to obtain lucrative contracts. When it comes to smaller companies, such as Battlegod Productions, Pure Steel Records and 7hard, which were some of those who showed interest, it probably means a lot more to carry prominent musicians. We're talking about the dedicated people who are opposed to having a desire to make money on the "sellout" music, are interested in building a label based on trust and faithfulness.

In retrospect, Trond is glad that they chose to invest in Battlegod.

- Pete from the company is a great guy, one of those who are passionate about what he does, and that certainly loses on every issue because he is dead honest and fair. He also does a wonderful job for every band on the label. We had printed 500 copies of the digipack and 500 promos. Of these, we received 50 copies as payment. Pete has also recently hired the German promotion company Sure Shot Worx to take care of promotional work. I have heard a lot of positive things about them and this will probably cost him his shirt. Otherwise, we thrive much better with being one of the few bands at a smaller company versus one of many at a larger company. Here we are followed up all the way.

What demands do Michael Kiske and his management have to set up and sing a song? With all due respect,  the PR effect for him isn’t the greatest, so it is probably the motivation?

-    I do not think motivation was in the money or the PR effect for Kiske. Of course we paid a sizeable sum for the brand name, but it was by no means a deterrent amount, but I do not want to go into details about how much we are talking about. We realized early on that the way to go was not using a standard Helloween-style power metal song. To get Kiske on board, it had to be through a very special song. "The Ethereal Dream", which is a collaboration between myself, Andreas, and Mike Gorham probably could not have been a better choice. He was given artistic freedom to do his own version, with minor changes here and there on the vocal melodies, but he actually ended up doing a version close to the original. This shows respect for the original work.

Has he given any feedback to the song?

- I can not remember anything except that he thought it was a very good song. He also said that he was not very comfortable doing the lighter tone that Mike Gorham does with the song, and that he believed there was no longer singing with what he was doing there.

From what I understand the idea is that the next full length album to be recorded as "34613." This means that people will have to wait a few years for this?

- TOMORROW'S OUTLOOK is an unconventional project, and we have found a very unconventional way to record. To record song by song is what works best for us. We didn’t make any decisions on the first album, it just happened, and there was also a necessity since we never had saved funds on hand. We played in a little bit now and then, depending on when we could spare a few bucks. The advantage was that we all the way had plenty of time to make small changes and adjustments. Tracks that have benefited from this are "A Song For You", "Gate To Freedom" and the intro "As Darkness Falls". In some cases, we recorded only small, subtle harmonies, while other times we did more procedures. In the case of the latter song, we made the instrumental intro to a song with vocals. Many of the details of the music is because much of the recording took place over time with the ability to tweak.

Are you striving for continuity by using more of the same people next time, or is the thought to bring in new musicians and singers from album to album?

- We strive for continuity definitely. We are not very different from Tobias Sammet’s Avantasia. The biggest difference is probably that there are several writers that push and pull in the material. Currently, we are very pleased with the cooperation of all our artists. We have Mike Gorham often seeking artistic freedom with his phenomenal lyrics and vocal melodies. In addition, we have Ski (Norman Kiersznowski) that always gives life to, and building on our ideas. Since both are located in New Jersey, and are old friends, we have plans to try to put together their voices, if the songs on the next album allows. We have already seen that it works on Crimson Glory's "Red Sharks" that we recorded in the 2009 tribute album "The Revenge Of Azrael". We have, however, also planned to keep Scott Oliva on the sequel, and have already sent him several songs. Scott has one of the coolest voices I've heard in metal. It's awesome to hear the throttle that the guy has. When it comes to other musicians, our plans are to keep the local guitarist, Øystein Kvile Hanssen, and the Finnish guitarist Sami Saarinen. In general, it will probably be Øystein playing on the next album, as he recently has also agreed to become part of the songwriting team. We also plan to continue with Andreas and myself composing the songs, but with the help of Øystein for the structure. I also envision ourselves doing a collaboration between us, in terms of both text and melody lines. We have already begun a collaboration that has led to two strong songs for the upcoming album. Otherwise, we have also started working with drummer Andreas Nergård from Trondheim, who has already tracked drums to the aforementioned songs. He is best known for the upcoming rock opera, "Memorial For A Wish", which is going to be released in two parts closer to the summer of 2012.

Since you now are working with Øystein, I assume that you have departed from the principle of not having links to the aforementioned Cyclophonia?

- In the beginning, it was more about proving something to ourselves. Øystein is an amazing guitarist and songwriter, and we would not want people to think that this was probably a Øystein project. Øystein was not in the picture until 2008 when we asked him to play the guitar for the Lizzy Borden-track "Red Rum". Eventually he also played for the Crimson Glory cover "Red Sharks", Virgin Steeles "Victory Is Mine" and a little bit here and there. When it comes to the creative songwriting process for the debut album, he is only credited for the song "March Of The Demons", but here he wrote, on the other hand, both text and parts of the vocal melody. That we, in the wake of "34613", have decided to enter into closer cooperation with Øystein, will probably not be seen as anything other than a vague link to his band. In Cyclophonia he writes just about one hundred percent of the music, while here we are talking about a partnership in relation to write lyrics and make vocal melodies. The instrumental portion will probably be composed in most part by Andreas and myself, just to maintain the character and keep our distance from what he was doing in Cyclophonia.

The album comes in a beautiful digipack with a special informative booklet with a lengthy explanation of each song, the production and cover species. I assume you have spat in the money even to get to this?

- It was Pete from Battlegod Productions who made the proposal to release our album as a 6-panel digipack. In these times of declining CD sales as a result of illegal downloading, it is more important than ever to focus on the entire package. I have been picking out the pictures and also made suggestions to the design. The job is performed by Isis Sousa and Matti Kuusniemi. We have not had to pay extra for printing the digipack, but we have been responsible for all the costs of the product. I've also done a tremendous job of promoting for many years. The company has thus gained a complete package in their hands. I do not even want to count how many hours I have been working on the promoting. There are at least several thousand.

I assume we're talking about thousands, even when it comes to crowns. Dare you estimate?

-    Including all, hired musicians, artwork, production costs, website and so on, we have probably put more than $17,000 US Dollars in to the project.  We are therefore completely dependent on selling as many copies as possible, as well as link up with some sponsors if we are to reach the goal with a sequel within a reasonable amount of time. It may sound like a lot of money, but it has been an investment I have not regretted. There are many who spend even more money on their hobbies. I know several who have spent well over half of the amount only on trips to warmer climates over the last four years. We have already made some steps to reduce the cost of a sequel. Among other things, we will save a lot of money to record the drums here in Norway, as well as record all the bass and most of the guitars in Øystein’s home studio.

Why is it important for you to give the listener an insight into, not only performance, but also the process? I am thinking of the review which has been printed in the booklet.

- That we have explained, and given the listener an insight into the recording process was a quite spontaneous idea I had. "The Making Of 34613" is probably first and foremost to special interests, but the idea was that it would provide answers to some details about how we have worked and planned each song. This section is written chronologically, from "White Lightning" and even including "Glass Mountain".

With so many people and different recording sites involved, it is inevitable that the album is spread out a bit.

 - "34613" has been fully mixed and mastered since December 2010. Some tracks were recorded in 2007, so I feel I've had plenty of time to digest both individual songs and the album as a whole. Therefore, it is perhaps easier to take some self-criticism and to some extent agree that the album is spread out. In 2007 we did not know what we were doing with either songwriting or production. The whole thing has been a learning process. On the first songs we recorded we’re not talking about a quality check. We did not have a clue how to manage the files we received from artists either. There were many times that Colin Davis of Imperial Mastering tore his hair, wondering what we smoked in the north. Fortunately, we have been able to re-record and gloss over some things, but songs that stand out in a negative direction are the trio "White Lightning", "Liquid Scream" and "Kill Again". Unfortunately Ski sings on all of these. He was definitely not lucky with songchoice. Both production and sound probably put these songs a little behind the rest. So I am very happy that we decided to record "March Of The Demons" by Ski on vocals over again. Here he shines as only he can. I must admit that I might like the very best Ski on songs that are even faster and a more thrashier material. If you want to hear a world class vocalist all you have to do is listen to Deadly Blessings "Ascend From The Cauldron".

Would not the album become more uniform if a person had taken care of all the vocals?

-    You're probably right about that, but I think it is just that we do not, that saves the album.  Every song has a surprise, hence packed in our own special sound. The music is neither technical or especially progressive, but I am fairly certain that it demands several replays in order to catch all the subtle harmonies.

What do you mean that this saves the album? Is it the surprise factor, you think?

- Yes, first and foremost. We recently got a couple of very good reviews. I can mention, for example, a 6 out of 6 in the regional newspaper called Trønder-Avisa. My theory on why the album strikes some as well, must be that the slightly weaker individual songs that would normally be drawn into the character is forgotten, and that the album is considered a breath of fresh air. The biggest problem today is talented bands that runs on autopilot. Surprise factor is definitely something we will go with in the future. For us it is important to have a diverse song material. What we may lack the debut disc, which certainly will be available on the sequel, are a couple of quick and more thrashy songs.

When I read the booklet, it strikes me that you have actually made some compromises, such as when it comes to lyrics. Is not this a little scary?

- There has never been talk of having to make compromises to have room for the vocalists we wanted. It is us who guided the ship from here and there should never be any doubt. We have made all of the instrumental compositions and arrangements, and disregarded some guitar solos. In the case of SKI and Graham Bonnet who both have written a text to each album, it was an invitation and a request from us that they would also participate in the creative process.  Gorham has received a lot of artistic freedom with his amazing ability to write lyrics and melody lines.  He is probably the only one from the outside who is going to participate creatively through writing lyrics on the next album.

I was thinking mostly about what you write in the booklet that you have changed the lyrics to make sure Skis was onboard...

- During the period when we recorded "Kill Again", Ski was a vocalist in Christian Faith Factor. He was also a member of the band the first time we asked him to do the vocals for "March Of The Demons". Ski is personally a Christian, and I think the reason he was reluctant to make the songs was that he was unsure how people would interpret it. After he left Faith Factor, it seems that he has finally decided to leave the metal to metal. But I know sometimes it can be difficult to put into the lyrics and give 100 percent of yourself if you can not stand behind the message and the contents of a song.

The pictures of you and Andreas in the booklet have a slightly casual feel. I do not know if I'd checked out the music if I saw the pictures first, humor, and metal is a bit scary combination. Was the reactions of this type something you thought through in advance?

-    I really disagree here, and I think on the contrary, that even more people will check out our music on the basis of advertising posters and the cover. I believe that people are incredibly tired of the boring promo pictures where people on death and life shall find the darkest and bleakest places that are being sold, and then hiding themselves in black clothes. Not to forget the fierce and serious expressions that everyone should have. I like my metal with a dose of humor, and as long as the music is good, and the album is not an afterparty classic on par with the latest Skylark, I have no problem with people chuckling over two fools who have created a living room in the middle of a field. We are aware that there is a big drop, but I think people are savvy enough to see the humor in it. So far I have not received a single negative comment on either case or promo photos. Should there be some crap in the future, then I probably will not lose sleep over it. I think the old Helloween with Kiske and Hansen managed to blend humor and metal very well, and I think it is only when you lose the self irony and take yourselves too seriously, that there is a danger of making a fool out of ourselves.