Got “The second coming”, Eden’s Curse sophomore album, for reviewing and when I listened to it, I simply saw the Indian, just like Jim... A huge album just landed on my stereo equipment, a present full of amazing songs, the best proof that there are some serious inspiration and istros “out there”... Contact with Timo Hoffmann from AFM Records is the key, he arranged the whole interview thing and I truly thank him for that. Thus, the night of October 20 finds three telephone lines, in Greece, Scotland and USA, connected in order for a fine talk to take place...
Interview by Costas Koulis
Rockpages.gr : Congratulations on the new album, it’s great! It was released in Japan recently. How did it go?
Paul Logue : Well, we have been informed it has already sold 2.000 copies during its first week in Japan. We are waiting for the figures after its European release.
Rockpages.gr : It will be released on the 24th. Are you planning to do a release party?
Michael Eden : A release party… No, I don’t think so… I’d be the first to go, if there was a party in the band’s honor, of course we all want to be there, but to pull everybody together would be a huge financial commitment… with me in the States and the boys in Europe… Right now the next place I wanna be is to get ready to play with the band on a stage somewhere.
Rockpages.gr : The songs are so melodic yet so powerful! It’s a fine piece of art, if you ask me, a fine piece of Hard Rock. How do you guys work in the studio, what is the procedure you follow when you compose a song and how do you manage to sound that great?
Paul Logue : Well, first of all and on behalf of everybody involved, that’s a huge compliment and we thank you for that! When I start, I write the songs at my home studio and the procedure I follow… well, I’m writing for quite a long time, for the band, for this project… I will send the song to Michael… the voice is very important, I want him to be comfortable with what he’s singing about, the song changes… then we come up with final running order… I have written about forty songs…
Rockpages.gr : What? Forty?
Paul Logue : Yes and we got them down to fourteen to record, which was an unbelievable task… Every song I liked I drew a little sketch and gave one to Michael, to Thorsten (e.n. Koehne – guitars)… the guys on this project… and they all got involved, guitars, vocal melodies…
Rockpages.gr : It’s team work actually, isn’t it?
Paul Logue : Correct, correct.
Rockpages.gr : I’m gonna go to the first single you’ve released, “Angels & Demons”… I was just wondering if you’re gonna make a video for it.
Michael Eden : You know… that would be cool, wouldn’t it? I would like to go back to one of the things you asked about, the release party… I would have to say, it all comes down to money. If the record does well, we’ll probably talk about making a video. Nowadays, most bands don’t make videos cuz there’s no one left to play them! The average cost of a video back in the day for a band like Dokken or Motley… we’re talking about a million five! We can probably make a video under ten thousand, probably eight thousand dollars, but seriously told, there’s nowhere to play it. We could put it on youtube, we could probably have the record label posted over the website… There could be an “Angels & Demons” video and I would personally love to do it, but it’s probably gonna be a live clip, you know, live footage, thrown together with the studio track…
Rockpages.gr : I was wondering if you’re gonna take the Curse on the road…
Paul Logue : Absolutely! Our No 1 goal has been achieved, with the album being out and we are setting up to play some concerts in 2008 and definitely in 2009. We are looking at this album to be our stepping stone and currently we are talking with the management team this couple of weeks to arrange a tour, that’s our No 1 target now…
Rockpages.gr : I’m gonna go back to the single. This time you worked with Pamela Moore. How did you get in touch with her and what was it like working with her?
Michael Eden : Pamela obviously does her own work all these years and you’re one person who appreciates her work as much as we do. We are huge Queensryche supporters… I got to see them on “The Warning” tour, the tour for the EP… We just wrote Pamela a letter to her myspace account, sent the song and said “If you like to do this, we’d love to have you” and she said “Yeah, yeah!” and I called her up, spoke with her and found out she has a house really close to where I live, we’re talking half an hour away… Pamela is really cool and I talked to her and she agreed, she’s really easy to work with, she did the track for us in Seattle and delivered the track to Paul. He got the cute task of putting it all together. Then I went to Germany of course and did the vocals for the album, because everything had been done separately, the guys recorded their stuff and then I fly to work with Denis. Pamela Moore is great and I know there are some people out there saying “Why didn’t you get someone else”? Really simple. We like what she does. Period! She was our choice and we’re damn happy to have her onboard. I think it speaks highly for her work and the song… I’m not gonna talk about my vocals…
Rockpages.gr : I will do that for you!
Michael Eden : (laughs) There’s people saying to me “Hey, man, you have a great voice”! That’s good, I don’t wanna blow my own horn. What I will say is I think it’s a hell of a ripping track!
Rockpages.gr : You know, Michael and Paul, I would like to take that a little bit further cuz I read the story about Bruce Dickinson playing the song over his BBC radio show and he sounded really excited… when did you find out about this and how did you feel?
Michael Eden : Oh, he played a couple of songs of the debut album, a couple of years ago, we knew he did that and I was surfing on the net one night, on one of these message boards and I saw that somebody posted that Bruce Dickinson played Eden’s Curse and I’m like “Oh, I’ve got to check this out”! It’s an honor! Paul and I are not Rock stars, we don’t play the Rock star game. We are regular guys that are very lucky to be doing what we’re doing and luckier to have people buy this music and support the band. What the band stands for. We’re not to make billions of dollars, we have to be honest with ourselves… The chances of happening… Yes, it could and I’m on the next bus to Cleveland, to jump on a plane to Germany… we always keep the positives… if you do something better you can achieve something a little bit more. Our goal, Paul said it before, is to get the band on the road. I would personally love to see Pamela Moore do a couple of shows with us. And, at some point, maybe we can go out with the big boys! I’m not gonna say it can’t happen. We’re gonna do whatever we can to make these goals happen. And to hear someone like Bruce Dickinson talk about it on the radio, it’s the greatest thing in the world! We’re working like hell to get on his radio show, to get an interview with the guy, because we know that that would raise the band’s profile. Any band like Iron Maiden or Queensryche that consider Eden’s Curse even being significant… that’s a major accomplishment… If someone told me, five years ago, that I was gonna be doing a record with Denis Ward producing, Denis Ward from the mighty Pink Cream 69, I would have told them they’re on drugs! (laughs) It’s not easy what we do. Many people don’t understand. It’s not a walk in the park. We have to bust our ass to get what we get and, I tell ya, financially we get very little! (laughs) Five years from now I hope we can sit back and say “Hey, this band is still going. What’s next”? My plan, Paul’s plan, is to keep this thing rolling, to spread the word about Eden’s Curse. And when people like Bruce Dickinson talk about it… that’s just surreal… that guy is a legend!
Rockpages.gr : You guys are the ones started this band three years ago… I would like to ask you… are things going the way you thought they would be?
Paul Logue : I think that it is safe to say it probably surpassed our expectations, because the only success we had with this band in the past was limited…
Michael Eden : Very.
Paul Logue : I was coming from the European side, Michael was coming from the States side, this force made eachother… There was a couple of occasions, he was trying to tell me what he liked, I was trying to tell him what I wanted… a couple of weeks after I was like “Oh, my God, this guy is tuned to what I’m thinking about” and once we started swapping ideas, it showed we had something special… It’s a big part that Michael added… he’s a great singer… and with his involvement and Denis’ involvement… I think he was testing me in more ways than one…
Michael Eden : I did test him! I did test Paul. And, occasionally, I still do. I always want to know that the love and the passion that he had from day one is still fuckin’ there! It’s very important to know that the determination to be the best he can is still there. And, I’m proud to say that it’s there 120%! And it’s never ever gone away! The two of us are the one for sure thing in Eden’s Curse! There is no Eden’s Curse without either of us.
Paul Logue : Once we got past that initial stage, I don’t think at any point, we ever sat down… if you look at what we’ve done and what we’ve achieved… when the first album was out we sold between 10-12.000 copies, that’s four or five times what I estimated we would sell. We had no idea. It was an album with stuff from me and the guys, lots of killer ideas… What started as an idea in our heads became this huge monster that has an unceasing appetite and we’re waiting to feed it with great reviews and sales… it’s still a hungry fucker!
Rockpages.gr : Well, I can’t wait to meet that hungry fucker on the road! (laughs) Thank you so much! Congratulations, Paul, congratulations, Michael!
Michael Eden : Be good, man !
Paul Logue : We appreciate it!