THE PRESENT
6. How does The Muse Awakens satisfy you? Are you all pleased with it?
Frank: I am very satisfied with the Muse. It represents a major accomplishment for me personally, evidence that it is possible to come back to doing something I had wanted to do my entire life, but circumstances kept preventing. The music itself is heart felt, and fulfilling in every regard. It challenges me technically as HTM music always has, and allows me to express myself without any limitations to my imagination.
Stan: We’re all very pleased with this cd. I get to show a little more diversity with my songwriting on this cd so that’s very satisfying. We feel we’ve continued where Crafty Hands left off which was our goal with this cd so that feels good. And lastly, Joe is the perfect drummer for HTM as he has elements of both Mike Beck and Ron Riddle and he also brings his own style to the band. We’re very ‘happy’ men right now!
7. What does the “Muse” mean for the band (generally and in this case) and how has this meaning find its way into the music and of course the cover?
(The cover: the sea – present in a couple of tracks - , the clock, the muse, the Greek storyteller.)
Frank: Stan had the original spark for the Muse concept, so he can better describe that. As for the cover, we wanted the art to reflect the mood and content of the compositions by including some visual elements that the songs would naturally conjure up. Il Qunito Mare, Adrift, and Maui Sunset all spark nautical imagery and the sea had varying degrees of significance in there inspirations, so it was easy to envision the water as a backdrop for the other motifs. The muse is Calliope, eldest of the nine muses who is “Fair Voiced” and is the muse of epic poetry. She is known for cheering her friends by playing the harp and singing, and is an excellent representative for our Happy endeavours. Dan Muro chose the images well, and his use of Maxfield Parrish’s Mountain Ecstasy figure to represent the newly awakened muse in us is wonderful.
Stan: The Muse Awakens was the first song I wrote for this reunion. I hadn’t written in the HTM style since we broke up in 1979 so I wasn’t real sure I could still write in that vein. So thankfully, when this song ‘presented’ itself to me I said to myself, “wow, the muse has awakened!” We’ve always tried to write music from a higher place that had spirit as it’s main inspiration and we’re happy to be able to plug back into our ‘muse’.
8. Why did you choose for just one vocal track, while you wrote in the press-sheet that you’ve got already three more vocal tracks ready for the new album (“The Muse At Work” ? )?
(Although it doesn’t count for much of the progressive music-lovers, it is well known that vocal music sells better than instrumental music. The question could also be: “How do you keep instrumental music interesting a whole CD long?”)
Stan: There’s only one vocal track on this cd as it was the only one available when we were choosing the songs for this cd. I’ve had a lot of practice singing over the past 25 years so I think I can sing a lot better now than in the ‘old days’. The band seems to realize that too, so the next cd will definitely have more vocal toons on it and if that helps us sell more records then great! Frank’s already written 4 or 5 songs with lyrics for the next cd which we recorded demos of already for the other ‘bandies’ who loved them all.
It is difficult to keep instrumental music interesting throughout an entire album but we’ve always had a great love for classical music so we’ve always tried to take a symphonic approach to our instrumental music. We spend a lot of time developing textures and melodies that keep things interesting. Melody is very important to us.
9. Listening to the instruments of the album it seems that Whitakers guitar-sound has developed a lot since the seventies (which was also very evident on the Carl Hupp-CD), while a lot of the keyboard-sounds are still very much the same? Why did you choose for the latter especially because you have a wonderful new keyboard-player in the person of David Rosenthal? And what has influenced the development of Stan’s guitar-style?
(When it has something to do with the thing you call “typical Happy The Man”, how would you describe that phenomenon?)
Frank: Speaking for myself, I have always written all of my songs on an acoustic piano, and given the opportunity, I would love to have one for live performance as well. That said, my new keyboards sounds are much changed from the first HTM recordings. On those records, I played an acoustic grand piano, a real harpsichord, and some Fender Rhoades, and live I would play almost everything on the Rhoades. This time around, I play a Kurzweil and that means I have many more sounds available, and so I can contribute to the live sound textures much more than before. Most of the live piano parts now are samples of an acoustic grand rather than the Rhoades, so I believe the show is much more like the recordings than ever before. As for the keyboards sounding similar to before, I think that is just the nature of our compositions, and our collective arranging head.
Stan: My guitar sound/style has always been an ever evolving thing. Like most guitar players I’ve always been on that seemingly endless quest for the holy grail of tone. Crafty Hands had a bit heavier tone than the first HTM album which I liked and I think it added to the overall rockier style of that album (along with Ron’s drumming) and is why it’s a lot of HTM fans’ favourite cd and ours. I’ve always loved Allan Holdsworth’s playing and his legato singing tone. A sparkling clean tone is also very important to me and HTM music, so I’m very happy with my current setup which is a Mesa Boogie Blue Angel for my clean sound and a Koch Twintone (which is made in your corner of the world I believe) for my distortion tone. These are the amps I used on the Muse.
Concerning the keyboards, I agree with Frank, a big part of HTM’s sound is the mini-moog melodies and solos along with piano, Fender Rhoades piano, strings and organ. David certainly uses these as the foundation to help maintain that HTM sound but definitely stretches into some new keyboard territories on this cd.
6. How does The Muse Awakens satisfy you? Are you all pleased with it?
Frank: I am very satisfied with the Muse. It represents a major accomplishment for me personally, evidence that it is possible to come back to doing something I had wanted to do my entire life, but circumstances kept preventing. The music itself is heart felt, and fulfilling in every regard. It challenges me technically as HTM music always has, and allows me to express myself without any limitations to my imagination.
Stan: We’re all very pleased with this cd. I get to show a little more diversity with my songwriting on this cd so that’s very satisfying. We feel we’ve continued where Crafty Hands left off which was our goal with this cd so that feels good. And lastly, Joe is the perfect drummer for HTM as he has elements of both Mike Beck and Ron Riddle and he also brings his own style to the band. We’re very ‘happy’ men right now!
7. What does the “Muse” mean for the band (generally and in this case) and how has this meaning find its way into the music and of course the cover?
(The cover: the sea – present in a couple of tracks - , the clock, the muse, the Greek storyteller.)
Frank: Stan had the original spark for the Muse concept, so he can better describe that. As for the cover, we wanted the art to reflect the mood and content of the compositions by including some visual elements that the songs would naturally conjure up. Il Qunito Mare, Adrift, and Maui Sunset all spark nautical imagery and the sea had varying degrees of significance in there inspirations, so it was easy to envision the water as a backdrop for the other motifs. The muse is Calliope, eldest of the nine muses who is “Fair Voiced” and is the muse of epic poetry. She is known for cheering her friends by playing the harp and singing, and is an excellent representative for our Happy endeavours. Dan Muro chose the images well, and his use of Maxfield Parrish’s Mountain Ecstasy figure to represent the newly awakened muse in us is wonderful.
Stan: The Muse Awakens was the first song I wrote for this reunion. I hadn’t written in the HTM style since we broke up in 1979 so I wasn’t real sure I could still write in that vein. So thankfully, when this song ‘presented’ itself to me I said to myself, “wow, the muse has awakened!” We’ve always tried to write music from a higher place that had spirit as it’s main inspiration and we’re happy to be able to plug back into our ‘muse’.
8. Why did you choose for just one vocal track, while you wrote in the press-sheet that you’ve got already three more vocal tracks ready for the new album (“The Muse At Work” ? )?
(Although it doesn’t count for much of the progressive music-lovers, it is well known that vocal music sells better than instrumental music. The question could also be: “How do you keep instrumental music interesting a whole CD long?”)
Stan: There’s only one vocal track on this cd as it was the only one available when we were choosing the songs for this cd. I’ve had a lot of practice singing over the past 25 years so I think I can sing a lot better now than in the ‘old days’. The band seems to realize that too, so the next cd will definitely have more vocal toons on it and if that helps us sell more records then great! Frank’s already written 4 or 5 songs with lyrics for the next cd which we recorded demos of already for the other ‘bandies’ who loved them all.
It is difficult to keep instrumental music interesting throughout an entire album but we’ve always had a great love for classical music so we’ve always tried to take a symphonic approach to our instrumental music. We spend a lot of time developing textures and melodies that keep things interesting. Melody is very important to us.
9. Listening to the instruments of the album it seems that Whitakers guitar-sound has developed a lot since the seventies (which was also very evident on the Carl Hupp-CD), while a lot of the keyboard-sounds are still very much the same? Why did you choose for the latter especially because you have a wonderful new keyboard-player in the person of David Rosenthal? And what has influenced the development of Stan’s guitar-style?
(When it has something to do with the thing you call “typical Happy The Man”, how would you describe that phenomenon?)
Frank: Speaking for myself, I have always written all of my songs on an acoustic piano, and given the opportunity, I would love to have one for live performance as well. That said, my new keyboards sounds are much changed from the first HTM recordings. On those records, I played an acoustic grand piano, a real harpsichord, and some Fender Rhoades, and live I would play almost everything on the Rhoades. This time around, I play a Kurzweil and that means I have many more sounds available, and so I can contribute to the live sound textures much more than before. Most of the live piano parts now are samples of an acoustic grand rather than the Rhoades, so I believe the show is much more like the recordings than ever before. As for the keyboards sounding similar to before, I think that is just the nature of our compositions, and our collective arranging head.
Stan: My guitar sound/style has always been an ever evolving thing. Like most guitar players I’ve always been on that seemingly endless quest for the holy grail of tone. Crafty Hands had a bit heavier tone than the first HTM album which I liked and I think it added to the overall rockier style of that album (along with Ron’s drumming) and is why it’s a lot of HTM fans’ favourite cd and ours. I’ve always loved Allan Holdsworth’s playing and his legato singing tone. A sparkling clean tone is also very important to me and HTM music, so I’m very happy with my current setup which is a Mesa Boogie Blue Angel for my clean sound and a Koch Twintone (which is made in your corner of the world I believe) for my distortion tone. These are the amps I used on the Muse.
Concerning the keyboards, I agree with Frank, a big part of HTM’s sound is the mini-moog melodies and solos along with piano, Fender Rhoades piano, strings and organ. David certainly uses these as the foundation to help maintain that HTM sound but definitely stretches into some new keyboard territories on this cd.