Visions Of Atlantis – interview met Clémentine Delauney
Clémentine Delauney: “I am using the metaphor of the pirates as posting to write about the human soul. ”
Visions of Atlantis draait al bijna 25 jaar mee. Ik heb in veel recensies geroepen dat er veel potentie in de band zat. Totdat zangeres Clémentine en zanger Michele bij de band kwamen, wilde dat er maar niet uit komen en dreigde de band in 2018 te stoppen. Dat jaar zou de afscheidstournee zijn. Hoe vreemd kan het lopen dat juist de plaat die het laatste wapenfeit zou zijn, het grote keerpunt betekende. Een dezer dagen komt ‘Armada’ uit een plaat die hele hoge ogen gooit.
William Pezy Ι 21 augustus 2024
Welcome Clémentine, first off, how did you find out you wanted to be a singer?
Well, I have to think about that one. You know you can enjoy doing something for a long time before you realise you have talent about it, right? I started singing when I was very young and continued it in school. When I become a teenager and my voice started to develop and started to get a certain colour. I realised at a point that I wanted to start singing lessons to get better so I joined the special teenagers class at Young Nationals Opera. A few years later I started as a singer in a metal band. However I am classically trained, I love metal. Still it was just because I liked it not to start a career as a metal singer. I just wanted to express myself.
What bands/artist did you grew up with that one way or the had a undeniable influence on you musical development?
To be honest, for that you have to go back to your childhood. Because that was the period that left the most important imprint. The two artist for me where Michael Jackson and Madonna. Good artists that have a sense for big messages or to empower you. Later I got into mainstream rock because that was on the radio. Think of Queen, Nirvana and The Offspring however with these bands I felt like somethings missing. I did not know what because I still had to discover metal. Until that day that I heard ‘Bring Me To Live’ from Evanescence, that was the moment when I knew I was missing. That made me to discover all the different styles in metal.
Visions Of Atlantis is here for about twenty four years and besides very nice releases it seems as it was a bumpy ride until 2018. A lot of musicians came and went. How do you look back at these years?
I feel like the band has had a rebirth twice actually since I joined. The actual idea when I joined was to make a final record and to do a goodbye tour. It was not like I was trying to get a career. We just wanted to make a graceful end to a chaotic story. However for a long time nothing really moved or started happening. When we finally sat down to write and record the album ‘The Deep & The Dark’ it felt like we were writing a huge new chapter for Visions of Atlantis. Later Michele joined, that was the second rebirth. With him onboard and with his ability to write great music we realised that everything could start coming from within again. Like we were finally able to deliver our own passion. Of course we work with a producer but from now we found our pillars of stability. So it feels like we only exist for just a few years. We evolved from a creative project to a band with a mission that creates value to the world.
You have a band with multiple nationalities. Besides language there is of course the part of rehearsing and writing material. How does this work?
Michele has grown to be the mail songwriter. That’s why I moved to Italy close to where he lives so we can write music and have a sort of band life together. When he has written a song, we sit down together to check the vocal lines, to check the harmonies and see if we both fall in love with the song and finish it. Then we send it to the other members so they can write their lines. The feedback from Thomas is very important because he is not only the band leader also his feedback is very important.After that we send it to our producer. The fact that people come from different countries is not very special to us. It simply works in writing music. The rehearsals for the tours are usually in Austria. I’m learning Italian because I live here in Italy. Duolingo is a great app by the way. It works for me, I still miss vocabulary off course but it is getting better and better. I can communicate with people. It will still take me about a year or two before I feel it is good enough. After that I will try to learn the German language.
What are the things that inspire you to write your music? And what message are you trying to deliver?
I am using the metaphor of the pirates as posting to write about the human soul. Most is about personal experience or personal journey. The emotions that I let out. Transform the negative in us to something I feel better about so others can connect with. They are highly personal but sometimes I change it to lyrics about a fantasy world, but they are about exploring the human soul. I hope people can relate with it and find their own way with it or just find a soothing word.
Touring is exhausting, I remember Dave Mustaine of Megadeth writing a song called ‘The Killing Roads’, how do you make sure touring is something that won’t suck the life out of you.
It’s important to find balance in tiny micro moments. Especially when you are an introvert it is hard on the road because you are constantly surrounded with people. Introverts will feel their energy be sucked out of them so the need time alone to restore their social battery. The problem is that you don’t always have the luxury of isolating yourself. So you need to find the ability to find your own balance and stay connected to yourself. Even if you are surrounded by people. Sometimes it can mean just being on you r with your headphones for just ten minutes, or doing a quick meditation of breath work. Ask yourself: are you ok and in touch with yourself? Stay aware of your emotions. Stay in a process were you find little relax moment each day. Even when it’s busy get a coffee on your own or go for a little walk of if it is possible: go to the gym. It might be taking a shower in the venue before the show. During the day there are moments where you can reset. It is just about self-care and wellbeing. Sometimes when you are on tour you have to push through, but be aware of that and create the parameters for a real relax moment the next day. I take a hotel room sometimes and watch a movie of take a bath. Just make sure what’s going on to make sure you don’t burn down.
You have worked with classical orchestras. This album to me sounds like it is mainly written for orchestra with some space left for drums and guitars. Do you agree? And did I hear bagpipes?
Wow that is interesting feedback. I kind of like that. It shows that the symphonic part is very present and dramatic. It is something that we totally intend with our music because we are a symphonic metal band. It is the first objective and we try to make honour to that style. It is something that we are missing a bit in the scene. Sometimes when I listen to ‘Pirates’ I feel that this is the album that I would have like to be able to hear when I was a dedicated symphonic metal fan. We write the music first. So it is always guitar and voice orientated first. It starts with melodies and than think of the riffs second. Then we build our harmonies and from there we add up. All the textures and the soundscapes and the orchestral parts. We love to have parts when it is just orchestra or some choirs and we’re silent as vocalists and let others be king of the moment. Because we love orchestra and choirs. The are so much more instruments to play with. Our produces is very good in fitting in each part and combining for example the drums and the orchestra. It is hard to have to drums punch out the way you want it. We also raised the guitars more than we used to because besides all these amazing possibilities we still are a metal band.
Over the years the music has become more heavy and dark, is there a reason behind it?
There must be a reason. Our mail writer is Michele and he is our vocalist, but is also in an progressive metal band. So he is used to writing music, and for the last years he is trying to learn to play the guitar. I know he likes to play heavy riffs a lot. I think the last one might be the most logical reason for it. It might also be that we love the same bands and love listening to metal with a high ‘headbanging’ factor. We like to play what we like to listen to.
Since ‘The Deep & The Dark’ was released Visions Of Atlantis started to get more and more attention with every release, more shows, bigger audiences etc. What goals would you still like to achieve?
My ultimate dream is having our show to grow. I want to be able to put the songs on the stage all the way. With each song having their own setup and effects and creating an absolute huge show from scratch. Like I said earlier, we have seen Michael Jackson do that. He was an over the top artist. He gave us the taste to go all in. For something watching it, it must be inspiring a bigger than life event. With lights, fire and water….
The world seems to be changing quite fast, politics are going more and more to the right wing, the climate change is becoming problematic and we just had the corona crisis just a few years back. How do you look at the world nowadays?
We are having this conversation with the results of the European elections coming out. I think it is something to worry about the fact that extreme right parties are rising all across Europe. Ith is a sign that society is not doing good at all. There’s an appeal for being either far right or far left. I think that is a signal of a huge imbalance created by politics and social media. On top of that we have climate change which is a huge worldwide threat. However you don’t see this coming back in the way people are voting. Which also makes senses because people are trying to solve issues in their personal lives before they will start to fix other issues. People know that it is important but as long as you don’t have something that’s hitting you directly people will react with: ‘It is not my problem.’ You can’t blame people for trying to solve their own issues and most of them are money related. I don’t know where all of this is going to. For example in France left parties are trying to unite, so are the left wing parties. This might just increase polarity, that already is a big problem. Besides that there is so much going on in the world, to many subjects. So I understand that we can’t have the focus on the main subject alone. Everything is connected. We need a new form of politics that is eager to solve issues, we need new forms energy we need new inventions the solve issues. I am still optimistic, I believe in the good in people’s hearts. I believe humanity is capable of great things. Maybe we’ll reach a point where humanity will show that.
Thanks a lot for answering these questions, what question did I forget?
It is complicated to talk about everything when we have just half an hour. So thank you for the questions so far. Maybe good to mention that we will have a big tour later this year. We hope to see you all to see us perform Armada!
