German prog rockers Liquid Horizon have just released “Revolutions”, an epic concept album based around various struggles for freedom throughout history. Having reviewed and highly rated the album, Paul Williams caught up with guitarist/vocalist Oliver Kilthau to find out more about the band….

Liquid Horizon

Firstly, thanks for finding the time to talk to us guys.

Oliver - Thank you for giving me the chance to say a few words to your readers! It’s a pleasure for me. 

Perhaps you would like to start by introducing yourself and the other members of the band to the HRH readers.

Oliver - My name is Oliver Kilthau and I’m the singer and guitar player with Liquid Horizon. Well, there’s three more guys in the band, great guys, by the way. Our drummer Chuck West originates from Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. Marc (Bass) and Michael (Keys) are from Mannheim (Germany), just like myself.
 
The album has been out for just a few weeks now…what has been the initial reaction from fans and critics ?
 
Oliver - The reaction is very good, I think. And obviously you liked it, I read your review. Thanks, you got good taste! Of course you cannot please everybody. I was a bit surprised that many critics pointed out that we sound a bit like Queensryche in the old days. I feel honoured by this because I really like the old Queensryche stuff. But then again I would not describe our music this way… Anyway, everybody has their own way of listening to music. And then we see that many people are a bit confused by the cover of the record. In hindsight we have to admit that it does not really look like the cover for progressive music, does it?
 
I always think that concept albums can be quite a risky venture…what made you decide that it was something you wanted to do ?
 
Oliver - This may not be the expected answer in an interview… I didn’t want to do it, but the other guys talked me into it. Being the person who’s writing the lyrics I was not really excited about this because there are so many concept albums around with a lame story full of clichés. But then I was listening to Iced Earth’s Glorious Burden and I instantly realised that this would be the right way for us to do it – a concept piece without a story but a common theme throughout all the songs. Although I didn’t want to do it in the beginning as soon as we started I was pretty excited about writing these songs. So, here we are.
 
As I said in my review, the subjects on this album should be required listening for everyone. What made you pick the struggle for freedom as a recurring theme for the album ?
 
Oliver - Thank you. I’m pretty much into the history thing, so I guess the other guys were not really surprised when I came up with this theme. ‘People fighting for their freedom’ is a fascinating thing. This is where real heroes are born, in my personal opinion. Consider the White Rose. They were a German resistance group, people who tried to open people’s eyes by illegally printing leaflets during the Nazi regime. The world would be a better place if more people would do things like these. Sometimes I ask myself if I would have the courage to act like this. I would like to believe so, but then again perhaps I would have done what everybody did – just nothing.
 
How did you decide which examples of struggles and revolutions to use as the basis for the songs?
 
Oliver - The French Revolution was there from the beginning. When we decided to do a concept album about revolutions five minutes later we knew that there would be a trilogy about the French Revolution. That’s a bit crazy I guess, we had not composed a single note then. In my understanding with the French Revolution modern democracy was born. And it’s hard to understand how the revolution could become what it became, a system of terror. By the way, that’s the title of one of our songs from the trilogy. It portrays the thoughts of Robespierre, the leader of the revolution when the land was ruled by terror. It’s really spooky when you’re reading about this guy, he saw himself as a kind of a modern messiah. Listen to the song, you’ll know what I mean.  

Are you as a band particularly interested in history or did your interest grow as you researched ideas for the album ?
 
Oliver - Our interest grew as we did a lot of research for the album. Our main source of information was the internet, Wikipedia rules! You know, when you’re writing about historical things you should know the facts pretty well. And when you’re starting to learn about one revolution suddenly you’ll find yourself dealing with another revolution, you just have to follow a link from on page to the other. Funny thing, some stories just came to us by pure chance. I have no idea how we decided to do a song about Spartacus, the slave who was leading a slave uprising against the Romans. It was just there one day.
 
Given your experiences with writing and recording a concept album, would this be something you would like to do again with perhaps a different theme or do you see yourselves returning to more traditional albums in future?
 
Oliver - If you had asked me just after finishing the album I would have told you that next time we’ll do a traditional album, as far as I’m concerned. All in all you have to put much more effort into the writing of an album if there’s a concept behind it. But just a few days ago I realized that I’m beginning to change my mind…. It was an interesting experience. I guess we should talk about doing another concept album, perhaps dealing with all the revolutions we forgot this time, haha…
 
The album was released under the Artist Service network as opposed to a more traditional label…what made you sign up with them and how does it differ from the traditional setup ?

Oliver - These guys are doing a great job. They do the promotion and the distribution of the album. What’s very nice is the fact that they don’t try to influence us in any way, they let us do our thing and we stay in control of everything. On the other hand it’s not a huge company, so there’s no chance to go on tour with Dream Theater or Judas Priest, haha… But we’re happy with the way things are going right now.
 
Are you intending to do any live shows to support the album and will that include the UK if so ?
 
Oliver - Sure, we played 3 shows in December and will do some more shows in the weeks to come. You can check out the tour schedule at our website www.liquid-horizon.com! Of course we would love to come to the UK, but this would only make sense as the support for some well known act or playing on a festival. Let’s see what happens, we would love to do this…
 
What else is on your agenda for 2008, will you be looking to release another album next year ?
 
Oliver - I think the next release will be in early 2009. There’s a lot of songs to write before we can start recording again. And this takes some time, everybody in the band still has their regular daytime job. It’s not easy to make a living out of music when you’re playing progressive Metal… Many musicians do this, but they don’t tell you in an interview because this in not supposed to be Rock’n’Roll…
 
Do you get the chance to listen to many other bands yourselves and if so, who are you currently listening to and who are your all-time favourites ?
 
Oliver - I always loved the band Queen! Freddie Mercury was a genius. And they were so great when they were doing the progressive stuff like Bohemian Rhapsody or Innuendo. As a band we have similar influences, this makes the composing much easier. We’re all fans of Dream Theater, Savatage, Queensryche and the German band Vanden Plas. I had the chance to see the Frankfurt show of Queensryche just a few weeks ago and met them backstage. Really great guys! And then Iced Earth and Nevermore are personal favourites of mine.
 
Lastly, our standard wrap up question…is there anything else you’d like to add ?
 
Oliver - A word to the people out there… Believe me, it’s hard when you’re new in the business and save all of your money to be able to pay the production cost of your record. So, please don’t copy it illegally. Check us out at our website or at myspace (www.myspace.com/liquidprog). And peace to all of you!
 
Well thanks once again for taking the time out to talk to us.

Liquid Horizon's latest album Revolutions is out now via Artistworxx. You can check out the HRH review via this link and find out more about the band via their official website @ www.liquid-horizon.com