Walter, can you tell when and how the band Pillion was founded?
In 1978, Guy and I met at ELK-Music, a little non-profit company which developed and built modular synthesizers. We were interested in electronic music because it put us in the “driver’s seat” of a band and we did not need other musicians. I talked a lot with Eric Feremans (founder of ELK-music) and Guy, who worked there as a designer-composer.Guy D2 is a very special person; very driven, and extremely intelligent about almost anything. Conversations where good, everything clicked, and we decided to get together to try to compose a new kind of music (this was in1979).
From the start we didn’t want to play the floaty space music or the so-called cosmic music as it was done by members of the Berlin School of EM, as it is now called…we wanted to be the “hard rock band” of electronic music: dark, moody, almost horror-like and sequencer-driven… we refer to it now as deep space music (keeps tongue firmly in cheek). Most of what we composed was inspired by the darker side of life.
So, that’s exactly what we did, and all went according to plan, so to speak. Sometimes we overdid it a bit though – I remember one rehearsal where Guy vomited all over his synthesizers because we played too darn loud, seriously crossing the limit of what would be considered “a reasonable dose of decibels”… Nonetheless, we always had good fun and enjoyed carving out our niche.
Gigs were announced and in 1980 we recorded the live Enigmas album, which was then released by Mastic – a hard rock record label! (how coincidental).
Following up Enigmas’ success, the record company put us in a professional studio for a month – we had a blast of a time, being locked away from the world! Between the sandwiches and the recordings, we had so much fun. We worked continuously, and even slept in the studio as well (with the mice and spiders all around us) and we still recall the death-silent nights, out there in the middle of nowhere, and the darkness which engulfed us and inspired us.
Walter Christian Rothe
Our record company wanted one side of the album “a bit more commercial”, and for the other side we could do “whatever we saw fit”[grin]…
We obliged, and came out with a very eclectic album with Kraftwerk-like disco stuff which wouldn’t be out of place with current house or techno (remember, this was 1982), a Chinese opera piece, a hymn with chanting monks, Moroder-style songs, etcetera on one side, and a second side with our typical, “syncopated sequencers” Pillion style, no holds barred.
I also remember dubbing most of the chords over many tracks, because we didn’t have a decent polyphonic synthesizer at that time – this gave the album a very specific and somewhat strange timbre. We also ruined a perfectly fine grand piano, because we wanted to sample the metallic sound of the iron-cast framework (using a sledgehammer for that wasn’t our brightest idea)… Sometimes we were a bit weirdo, yes. The “Mountains of Fear album” – inspired by H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu writings – was never released because the record company burned down destroying the remainders of the Enigma albums and all of our master tapes. End of story. All that is left now is one single copy on a cassette tape.
What happened after that?
Guy and I kinda drifted apart, but never in a bad way. There was of course marriages and children, other professional work, and other “important things in life” to attend to… Guy wanted to go more avant-garde in music, and he loved designing things as well (he designed all the covers of Pillion, as well as our other artwork), and I wanted to get myself into film-music and scoring. Guy did. I did. But every time we got together, we talked about getting back on tour again or in the studio….we talked for the past 25 years!! Time to stop talking, and time to DO it!
GuyD2
Walter, you were also know for several solo albums like “Let the night last forever”. Can you tell something about each album you made?
I always loved “stories”. A good story is everything. In my albums you will always find a story, something to hold on to.
In all my albums or even in the film-scores you will always find this “file-rouge”. “Solitude” is the story of being alone (first LP after Pillion) the struggle and the emptiness one has to go though when you are alone. “Let the night last forever” tells the story how I love the night and the big city, also, in the early hours, the loneliness in a big city. I lived in the hart of Brussels at that time. “Alice” is the story about a women waiting for her man to return, the story about breaking up relations and the grief. The story of life itself and, at the end of it, the things you would have done differed if only you had known at a given time. “Zebra” tells about a woman wandering on the high plains of Kenya at the turn of the century. “A time of stone” (never released). The story of two children in the Warsaw ghetto in 1941-1942) “Bevers”, the story of people in the grip of the mafia, pedophilia and prostitution. This was a stage play in the KNS- Brussels. “One night in Paris”: Paris in one night. I composed this after I wrote a screenplay about the difference in culture of the European en African set in Paris. “Visions of the Heart”. Children are our future, this is the story of Jessie (I wrote, produced and composed the music for this short film) “The story of Alice” this is a re-issue of the original album plus some bonus tracks. “Quiet Latitudes” is a trip to the inner soul. I composed the background spaces to this “master of string instruments” Mr. Anthony Boast. “Two For Green” tells about Bulgaria. The rich tonality of the Bulgarian state choir in a story about love and hate. “Ten To Midnight”: what can happen in the 10 minutes before the ghost hour? Find out in this album… “Requiem” (not released): a requiem I wrote as a tribute to my father in who died in 1998) “Tabula Rasa”. This is the new Pillion album. A story about the changes in life one has been forced to do…if you have no choice… “A famous fouled (2006)”: the story unfolds….
In fall of 2005 word started that “Enigmas” was never released on cd. In a way this seemed to create some regained interest in the music of Pillion. What’s the whole story?
We think it is about time for new era in electronic music.
We always loved it, and we had a solid and loyal following, so we think a lot of people will love what we do as well. There are no tours with this kind of music anymore (concerts in churches, planetaria, weird places, etc.) – it’s time Pillion does something about that.
Demand is high, the new generation needs a different kind of music ‘cause all is commercial and pre-programmed music now. We will bring them original and inspired music in the same way Tangerine dream or Schulze did back in the hay days. Time is right and people need a “way out”!
A lot of electronic music came out with no inspiration and people started calling this kind of music New Age, whilst we feel that there isn’t too much “new” or original about most of it. The market is saturated – especially with second-grade stuff, so we will make a difference because Pillion is about a story, a way of life, a message, a vision. Be yourself, enjoy life and “freak out”!
…. and it now appears Pillion will undertake a tour starting September 2006 to support the announced release of a 3 cd box..
We love to play live, meet people, get to other places. Of course we will tour; it is our life, it’s what we love and what we are!
We want to bring the music to the people and feel their reaction, get their feedback and have a beer whilst we sit down with our audience and babble about our common beliefs and dreams. Our music may be loud and a bit darkish perhaps, but Guy and me are still nice chaps, you know. We don’t live in ivory towers, and we certainly don’t maintain “rock-star attitudes”.
Anything else you’re like to tell or add?
Come and join us at one of our gigs. If not taken by what we do, you might be at least surprised, and we promise it will be beyond anything you’ve ever heard ! Oh, and there soon will be an official Pillion website soon.
