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 Progressive
metal/rock super group Green Carnation have recently released
their fifth studio album, "The Acoustic Verses" to a great
reception from the metal world.
Ambitious
to the last, they have embarked upon their first North
American tour on a bare bones budget with Beyond The Embrace
to enthusiastic audiences.
Phil:
First off, how's the U.S. tour been so far?
Tchort:
It's been excellent! It's a new opportunity for us to
come to a new country and share out music with the crowd.
We've only been to Canada last year, so that was fun and
the tour so far has been excellent. The crowd and the
response has been very, very good.
Phil:
It was the Day of the Equinox festival in Canada last year,
right?
Tchort:
Yes.
Phil:
Okay, so you played with Agalloch, who are actually from
here, but they never, ever play.
Tchort:
Really? They're from Portland?
Phil:
Yeah, but it's been about three years since they've played
here. Alright, now what exactly happened with the Boise
cancellation? I know there was problems with the promoter;
are there any specifics that you can give?
Tchort:
I can't really remember which one that was.
Jim
(tour manager): We don't really have an answer for that.
The promoter called us at 10:30 in the morning and said
"don't come." That's all we know.
Tchort:
Well, we went to Boise, but not to the venue. (laughter)
Phil:
Okay, what exactly is your anticipation level for playing
the Quart festival?
Tchort:
Actually, we played there two or three years ago…
Tommy:
2003.
Tchort:
Two years ago. Thank you for the math. (laughter) It's
our home city and we play in Kristiansand a lot last year.
I think we did five or six shows, something like that,
some charity and some regular club shows. But it gives
us an opportunity to play for a bigger audience coming
not only from Norway, but other countries as well. We're
playing with Bullet For My Valentine and other international
bands. A couple U.S. bands as well.
Phil:
Okay, where did you get the inspiration for an acoustic
album? We've had a couple members of our message board asking
about that.
Tchort:
The inspiration… well, actually, we have done a couple
of acoustic songs prior to this one. We did record some
acoustic songs as bonus material for the DVD and also
for one of the vinyls. So actually, we kind of picked
up from the response and feedback we had on those songs.
When we wanted to do the fifth studio album in 2005, that
was our fifteenth anniversary, so we wanted to do something
special. We thought about doing a single or an EP or something
like that, but since we had already released "The Quiet
Offspring" in 2005, we kind of felt it would be too much
to have two releases during the same year, especially
if they were full production releases, so that's when
we decided to pick up on the feedback we had from the
acoustic material. The original plan actually was to do
cover songs, but acoustic. But as soon as we got into
the studio, being creative and all, we ended up doing
a full album and an EP.
Phil:
Now I know you had some of the acoustic equipment lost in
New York, (small amount of laughter) how much did that cut
into your set and how much did you have to change because
of that?
Tchort:
We didn't have to change anything because we had planned
for a long set, like an hour thirty, an hour forty, but
we still have music to compensate for that. We'll have
to rearrange the set a little bit when the acoustic guitars
finally arrive. I was just checking the UPS tracking system
and it seems like we'll have the guitars in a week or
something. (laughter) So it gives us a couple of weeks
or three weeks to play the acoustic material. I think
we had scheduled twenty, twenty-five minutes acoustic
and an hour ten with the regular music.
Phil:
I've read that you do a twenty-five minute live version
of "Light of Day, Day of Darkness." How did you go about
deciding what to cut out and what to keep in?
Tommy:
Well, "Light of Day" is like an hour song and we've made
two sets of it, so it's the first part and the second
part, and we only play the first part.
Phil:
Oh! Okay.
Tommy:
So it's as simple as that. We talked about it at the rehearsal
room and tried to pick out elements from the song and
make a twenty-five minute song out of it, but every band
member and we also think that the fans would not appreciate
that, so it's either the twenty-five minutes or the hour,
so it's as simple as that.
Phil:
Okay, just one last question; do you think this tour has
been successful enough to warrant a return trip to North
America?
Tchort:
For us or for the promoters? (laughter) Well, actually
we've already had requests from a lot of the promoters
to return, but also from the record label, so most likely
there will be a follow-up tour, maybe even later this
year. But we definitely want to come back, so we're hoping
for the rest of the tour and making a foundation for future
returns.
Phil:
Okay, thank you very much!
Tchort:
Thank you.
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