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Progfreak.com's interview with Threshold's Richard West 23/10/01
part one | part two
Richard: I don't think I ever thought about it really! At the time I was in a rock band called Mercy Train with Threshold's guitarist Karl, and I was also trying to get somewhere writing singles for pop bands on a new record label in England. So those were my main areas of focus and everything was secondary really. In 1992 I toured as a session player with Shadowland, fronted by Arena's Clive Nolan and also featuring Karl, and during the tour Karl mentioned Threshold. They'd already recorded Wounded Land but needed some keyboard parts, so I just saw it as another session job and agreed to help out. The following year we released the Mercy Train album, but that didn't really go anywhere and the pop writing was just frustrating, so when the opportunity came to join Threshold for their tour I decided to put everything else second and concentrate on that. I don't think I ever saw it as a long-term thing, prog and metal weren't popular in the UK and combining them was pretty much unheard of, but I like the music and I was impressed by how together the band sounded. It was quite a shock at first though, as I'd really stretched myself on the album so I had to practice very hard to play the stuff live! 2 - A thing that people usually don't realize about Threshold is that Wounded Land came out at the same time as Dream Theater's Images and Words did. And while Dream Theater already had an album before that, it was really until 1993 that a new, more modern direction for progressive metal was established. Didn't it ever feel unfair or frustrating to see that people only recognized Dream Theater as the new trendsetter for the genre, without initially taking notice of bands such as Fates Warning and yours? Richard: I don't know how Dream Theater managed to land themselves a major deal but I'm very glad they did! Because although we were busy in England combining prog and metal, it was them who made the style popular. I think they got some great coverage on MTV at the time, and that helped the genre to get off the ground. For us, being called a prog metal band from the UK really didn't mean much to anyone, but call us the UK's answer to Dream Theater and suddenly we started to get noticed. As for Fates Warning, I love what they've done recently but I don't know much about their past, so I don't really know how they fit into the story. I know that in 1995 they were pretty well known, and our record company was really pleased to get us onto their European tour. We thought that was really going to help our careers, but unfortunately the tour got cancelled. 3 - Later on, after releasing Psychedelicatessen, you toured with what may very well have been one of America's most underrated progressive rock bands ever, Psychotic Waltz. How did that tour come about and how did it feel to be on the road with a bunch of self-described hippie prog metallers? Moreover, when a band that you've toured with comes to an end, like Psychotic Waltz did, does it somehow hit you as awkward or shocking? Richard: It's always sad when a band comes to an end. I think a couple of the guys are involved in other projects now so I guess life goes on. Our tour with them really came about as a substitute for the Fates Warning shows, but we were worlds apart in terms of our backgrounds and lifestyles so we never became close friends. They were actually quite a culture shock for us! 4 - Touring for Psychedelicatessen followed with Dream Theater, and the live album Livedelica was released in support of the tour. Things seemed to be going great, but there was some turmoil going on inside the band and later on Jay Micciche (drummer) and Glynn Morgan (vocals) left the band in order to form Mindfeed. Are there any regrets now of perhaps not having exploited the Dream Theater support tour to the maximum due to internal conflicts? Richard: The Dream Theater tour was really good for us, we got to play to much larger audiences and win loads of fans. If we'd have followed that up by doing another album straight away I think our future would've been very different, but unfortunately we'd developed so many internal problems over the past months that we ended up doing nothing for about two years afterwards. Looking back we were really stupid, there we were on tour with some great musicians and we hardly even spoke to them, we were so caught up in our own problems. They probably don't even remember us! 5 - After Jay Micciche and Glynn Morgan left, drummer Mark Heaney entered the fold and vocalist Damian Wilson returned for Extinct Instinct. You have mentioned at times that Wilson didn't enjoy touring or committing himself to a band, which led to his departure again before the recording of Clone in order to join the musical Les Miserables. My question is: did you ever get tickets to go see him? And did you go? Richard: No, although I thought about going, but his show was touring the country and never got close to where I lived. I don't think I've even seen him since he left Threshold, our paths never tended to cross outside of the band. He's just brought out a second solo album but I haven't had a chance to hear it yet. 6 - A thing that strikes me as peculiar is the fact that no one ever seems to ask about Johanne James' integration into the band, how he works with you, and any funny or memorable anecdotes of him ever since he has been an official member of Threshold. This is doubtlessly because everyone asks about Mac having joined the band, but out of balance and curiosity, how has Johanne affected Threshold and how has he worked out so far? Richard: Johanne's a bit of a mystery to most people, he tends to play his cards very close to his chest! He joined the band on tour in 1997 and again in 1999, and finally got into the studio with us for Hypothetical. He fits wonderfully into our style of music and he's very easy to get along with, although he's constantly hungry and most of our time on the road seems to be dedicated to finding food! Before Johanne joined we'd had a succession of drummers who either didn't fit or weren't committed, but then Johanne came along and he was just right! 7 - I must admit, however, that I'm also planning to ask something about Mac. After he joined the band, he got voted as the best vocalist at the Wacken Open Air Festival but had an "embarrassing" performance at the ProgPower festival. I don't intend to rub it in any more, but what I wanted to ask is if that ProgPower incident has already been left behind and is now considered as an interesting anecdote for Threshold, or whether Mac won't forgive himself for that. Another thing, although not really related to Mac, is what the difference is, if any, for you as a band to play in an all-round heavy metal festival and then in a progressive/power metal festival. Richard: When we got to Wacken most of the bands seemed to have death-style vocals, so we were a bit worried about doing a set with a ballad in it! But we figured we might as well just do what we do, and it all worked out pretty well in the end. It looks like we should be back there in 2002 so I guess they liked us. From what I've seen, prog fans are usually more critical than metal fans, so what happened at ProgPower was pretty unhelpful to our reputation. But that was 2 years ago now and our last tour went much more smoothly, so that festival has become - not an anecdote yet - but just a distant warning!
Richard: I don't think so, and you can't have my Loverboy albums either! I'm no music historian but it's not hard to imagine that "hair metal" probably killed off the commercial metal scene, it became the new pop music and once that happened the fall was as steep as the rise. 9 - Going back to Clone for a second, the time between that album and Extinct Instinct was a bit long. Do you think that the delay in releasing a new album may have caused the Threshold machine to lose some steam where promotion and expansion is concerned? With Damian Wilson leaving days before recording Clone, was there a sudden panic of that delay being lengthened even more?
10 - During the summer of 1999, you had decided to leave Threshold and had already commented about the decision and your choice to stay and play the last scheduled live dates with the band before departing, but then you changed your mind. What exactly made you change your mind after you had taken such an important decision? Richard: In 1999 I was burned out and something had to give way, I felt that Threshold had probably gone as far as it could go and I wanted something that I could try to take further. As a result I decided to concentrate on the Farrah West project [Ed.note: Richard West's wife] and figured I wouldn't really have time for both. But one day I was visiting a church and someone had a prophecy for me. Now I know it's easy to be sceptical, but a stranger told me he had one word for me, and the word was "Threshold!" He also said a few more things about it, and when I asked the band later if I could join again they told me they'd never really thought that I'd left anyway! 11 - Ok, before we catch you off-guard, we're warning you. It's now time to go into Progfreaks.com's series of oddball questions; basically lightweight stuff that only full-blown bozos like us think of asking. First one: when you're running frantically between vans, one of them blocked by a market, in order to get your equipment on time to the Viarock festival in Belgium…what exactly stops you from setting fire to the market? Richard: The market stall wouldn't sell us any matches. 12 - What are the odds of seeing Threshold on tour with the Backstreet Boys across Europe? Richard: I don't they could afford our buy-on fee. 13 - If you were given the choice of being a porn star or playing in a band for the rest of your life, which one would you choose? Now that I think about it, wasn't there a time when both things were actually one and the same? Richard:
Playing in a band definitely, that way I don't have to worry about how
big my stomach gets.
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