Instrumental Progressive Rock
Interviews
Eccentric Orbit talks about the band, the music, the scene
Nucleus Interview SV: I would like us to
speak some the past. Could you be some details of Eccentric
Orbit origins? BN: Eccentric Orbit
started off as a project that would give me the opportunity to
play more bass guitar. After I left my last semi-professional
band in 1989 and went to pursue my master's degree, I bought
my first sequencing keyboard (an Ensoniq VFXSD). From 1990 to
1997 I was working on a project in which I was playing mostly
guitar, using the VFX to sequence the other parts like drums,
keys, and bass. The music was vocal-oriented Prog, but with
more of an '80s rock feel (Asia or '80s Rush comes to mind).
As my primary instrument is bass, I wanted to play more bass
and decided to write some instrumental music that I could
sequence and have fun playing along with my bass. The first three songs I put down in
roughly 1998 were "Enemy of My Enemy," "Sputnik," and about
two-thirds of "Star Power." I immediately realized that I was
onto something and that this music was much more interesting
to me than the project I had been working on. By the Summer of
2000 I had finished "Star Power" and had most of "Attack of
the Martians" finished. I actually met Mark Cella at NearFest
2000. He was behind the booth of his business, M&M Music,
which I realized was from Massachusetts. I told him I was a
bass player/composer looking for a keyboard player and drummer
to do some new music. I didn't realize that Mark was a drummer
and that he was at NearFest with Bruce Alger, keyboard player
from the '80s pop-prog band Blind Owl. Mark asked me to sent
them a demo of my stuff which I did when I got home and the
nucleus of the band was formed. In the Fall of 2000, work began on
recording the drums. By September of 2001 I had finished
"Forbidden Planet" and drum recording was complete. It had
become clear during the drum recording process that the music
was complex and would require a lot of a single keyboard
player. I suggested adding my wife, Madeleine, to the band as
she could play some keyboards, but could handle many parts on
a MIDI wind controller as she is a classically trained
Saxophone player. Bruce and Mark liked the idea so she joined
the band. Unfortunately, Bruce left shortly
thereafter as there were too many things going on in his life
so we had to find another keyboard player. Madeleine and I
knew Derek from when we worked at Berklee College of Music
from 1993 to 1996 and he was interested in the gig. With busy
schedules and the delay finding a replacement keyboard player,
progress on the album was slow and wasn't completed until
January 2004, finally being released in late
February. SV: If we wanted to
look for a relating one for the sound of the band, which would
they name? BN: Reading different
reviews of the record I notice that people hear many different
elements. My primary influences writing the initial songs were
ELP and King Crimson. My goal was to meld the compositional
approach of KC with the sound of ELP. I'm not sure I was
really successful at achieving this, but I'm pleased with the
results and the music has its own sound which is perhaps more
important. I still jokingly describe Eccentric Orbit's music
as "ELP meets KC at a b-grade sci-fi movie." Le Orme, Anekdoten, Banco, and Area
were other strong influences. My distorted bass sound actually
came from hearing Rage Against the Machine's "Bulls On Parade"
and "People of the Sun." While I don't like all their music,
there are elements of their style that really excite me; the
bass and guitar sound definitely being two of those
elements. SV: Do we speak
of "Attack Of The Martians"... is the album that you wanted to
make exactly? How do you feel regarding him? BN: Honestly, I am
thankful the project has seen the light of day and been
released. There were many times we came very close to dropping
the whole thing. All four of us work other jobs and have
full-time lives outside the band. It is very hard to make
challenging music that is of a quality to stand up against the
many excellent releases that are coming out these
days. That being said, from a compositional
and performance perspective I am absolutely thrilled with the
album, it is exactly the album I wanted to make and is very
much what I heard in my head. With more financial resources we
may have spent a bit more time with the mixing/mastering, but
I'm still quite pleased with the results. Nick Joyce really
helped make this project a reality. Without his help at the
end the album would never have been finished. SV: What can you
be about the title of the disk and of the songs that integrate
it? BN: The space-theme
actually evolved very naturally from hearing the first few
songs I wrote. I didn't have titles for "Enemy," "Sputnik," or
"Star Power" until they were completed and I listened back to
them and these names just seemed to fit. "Sputnik" in
particular was named due to the bristling Clavinet at the
beginning that reminded me of those antennae on the Sputnik
satellite. Once I had those songs named, I just ran with the
concept. I'm a sci-fi fan so it was a natural theme for me to
pursue. "Forbidden Planet" is the only song in which I
intentionally pursued telling a sci-fi story. I found the little toy on the cover in
Toronto in August 2003. I just thought it was a perfect
representation of the music, which has a humorous,
"tongue-in-cheek" quality. People might be interested to know
that the original name of the band (back in 2000) was
Satellite. We were forced to change it when the ex-members of
Collage named their new project Satellite. I angry at the
time, but in retrospect it probably worked out for the
best. SV: What process
you do usually use to compose your music? BN: The basic ideas
for my music comes from either hearing an idea in my head or
from improvising on my primary writing instrument, guitar.
Once I work out the basic ideas on guitar, I do a sequence of
the parts to give the band an idea of how the song goes. It is
then up to them to embellish what I have done with their own
instruments. SV: Do you think
that with keyboards, bass, percussion and wind-synth can
create atmospheres that could not achieve using
guitars? BN: Definitely. I
think omitting guitar from the music lets the other
instruments shine in a way they couldn't if we had a guitar
player in the band. I like guitar, but I feel most rock music,
including Prog, has enough guitar-oriented material to satisfy
listeners. I wanted to do something different and focus on
other instrumental and sonic elements. I don't think we did
nearly as much with this particular line-up as we could have,
and I look forward to exploring more sonic possibilities in
the future. SV: You,
individually, they have participated in very varied projects
besides Eccentric Orbit. Was it interesting to work in them?
Did those experiences contribute somehow to define an own
sound how band? BN: The most
recent work Madeleine and I did were two songs for the Gentle
Giant tribute CD's and a track combining ELP's Eruption and
Tank, which was to have been for a fan ELP tribute CD (this
song has never been released). Prior to that, my last
experience playing Prog rock was in 1986 - 1987 when I was in
a band with violinist/multi-instrumentalist Chris Devine, who
recently worked with Richie Blackmore in his band Blackmore's
Night. This was probably my most formative musical experience.
Chris was a classically trained violinist and he really taught
me a lot about writing, rehearsing, and playing complex music.
I can't say the Gentle Giant projects were anything but a
brief interlude; fun to have done but not particularly
influential. Mark is a very good drummer who is
capable of playing in many different styles. I'm not sure that
Pye Fyte really prepared him for Eccentric Orbit as the style
of that music is very different. Mark's approach was to try
and support the music without being too busy, which was really
what I wanted. He did a great job of adapting to what I had in
mind and what we thought the music really called for.
Madeleine was completely unprepared to play rock, coming from
a classical background, but she is coming along nicely. Her
last serious playing experience before joining the band was
playing in Boston Ballet's orchestra. SV: Do you have
thought to publish a new album this year? Is there tentative
date of edition? BN: I have finished
three songs for a second album, just under half the record. We
are at a bit of a crossroads right now in terms of how to
proceed. We are considering options to start playing live,
which would delay a recording but would benefit us in other
ways. In either case I don't imagine we'll do another album
this year. Next year would be a stronger possibility. One idea
I'm toying with is doing an album of Dave Brubek songs called
Rock Impressions of Dave Brubek. As our line-up parallels the
classic Dave Brubek Quartet, I thought this might be fun.
However, I still have to sell the other members on this idea,
and then arrange all the music. SV: Changing
topic. What current, North American or European bands, do they
find interesting? BN: My favorites of
the more recent crop of Prog bands include DFA, Deus Ex
Machina, Pochakaite Malko, Thinking Plague, Dreadnaught,
Nathan Mahl, Niacin, Taproban, Maxwell's Demon, Anglagard,
Anekdoten, and Periferia Del Mondo. I'm sure there are some
I'm forgetting. SV: Some that has
surprised them lately and that you want to recommend us to
listen? BN: A Japanese fusion band called Igzit
Nine is well worth checking out. Also, for more melodic-Prog,
a little-known band from Massachusetts called Seldon's
Inquisitor are really quite good. Their albums are available
on their website www.seldonsinquisitor.com SV: Thank you friends.
Some final words? BN: It really is wonderful to know that
our music has reached people in places all over the world. It
makes us feel like we are part of a worldwide community. My
thanks to all those who support Progressive music, and if you
have feedback for Eccentric Orbit, we'd love to hear from
you Euro-Rock Press Magazine NN: Please give
us a brief introduction of each member including when and how
he or she picked up the instrument he plays, if he or she had
musical education or is self-taught, major musical influences
when he or she was young, and musical career before Eccentric
Orbit. Madeleine: I started
playing saxophone when I was 12 years old in the school band.
I went to college to continue studying the instrument and
graduated in 1989 with a degree in music education. While in
college I played in wind ensemble, marching band, saxophone
quartet, and briefly in a show band. Growing up, my biggest
influence was Paul Desmond of the Dave Brubeck Quartet. To
this day, I still think he's the best player I've ever heard.
I had put music aside for many years before joining Eccentric
Orbit and was glad to get back into it. Derek also has a formal music
background with a 4-year degree in Music Production &
Engineering from Berklee College of Music. After graduation he
kept up music through various jobs including sequencing for a
website called Music Playground. Derek did not have a Prog
background going into Eccentric Orbit but his tastes included
bands like Puddle of Mudd and Steeley Dan plus a great variety
of others. Mark: I studied
percussion with Fred Buda and Arthur Press from the Boston
Symphony Orchestra. I studied Jazz and free Jazz with Bob
Gullotti from the Fringe. I have written two books on
Progressive Rock: The Progressive Beat and Progbeat, both
available from mandmmusic.com. My early influences were Return
to Forever with Lenny White, Mahavishnu Orchestra with Billy
Cobham, Bill Bruford's solo albums
and Brian Eno. When I found Prog I listened to everything. I
still listen to a wide variety of music. I still like finding
new music. I have played many styles of music. My Prog
recordings have been with Pye Fyte "The Gathering of the
Krums" , Prog in USA and A Triggering Myth's "Between
Cages." Bill: I picked up bass
when I was about 15 and guitar about a year later, so I’ve
been playing for about 25 years. I am largely self taught, but
I did have about 6 years of jazz guitar lessons where I
learned some theory and enhanced my playing. My best learning
experience was playing in a Progressive Rock group in the mid
1980’s with a guy named Chris Devine who was a classically
trained violinist and multi-instrumentalist. Chris recently
played with Richie Balckmore and Blackmore’s Night on their
album Fires at Midnight. I am a total Progressive Rock fanatic,
so my main influences primarily stem from hearing bands that
play in this style and also some Fusion groups like Mahavishnu
Orchestra, Jean Luc Ponty, etc. Progressive Rock is truly my
passion and my reason for playing music. If I didn’t write and
play Progressive Rock, I’m not sure I’d be all that interested
in music, though from time to time I enjoy still enjoy playing
a bit of jazz as a diversion. NN: When was
Eccentric Orbit formed? Where? What was the turning
point? Bill: I started
writing the music that wound up being Eccentric Orbit in about
1997 or 1998. By 2000, I had most of the album complete but
needed other players to really make it happen. I met Mark
Cella and a friend of his who played keyboards at NEARFest in
2000. I sent them a demo tape of my material and we decided to
work together when they heard it. While working on finalizing
the music, I realized there was probably too much for one
keyboard player to handle, so I suggested adding my wife,
Madeleine, to play some additional keyboards and the
wind-controller to trigger some synth parts. The original
keyboard player left due to other commitments leading to our
asking Derek to join in 2002, but it still took us almost two
years to finish up the album. NN: When the band was
formed, what kind of music did you want to create? Was
it prog-rock oriented from the
start? Bill: The project was
definitely Prog-Rock oriented from the start. Actually, my
original intent was to write some music that was fun to play
on bass. I had another project at the time in which I played
primarily guitar and I really wanted to get back to bass. I
found that by eliminating the guitar, I could focus on other
aspects of composition and it really opened up some musical
avenues to me. My secondary goal was to make instrumental
Progressive Rock that was as compelling as vocal-oriented
music. NN: Who is the leader
of the band? Is it Bill? How do you compose music? How about
arrangements? Is each tune presented to the other members as a
crude idea or in a completely arranged form? Bill: As the composer,
I suppose I am the leader, but all the band members play
important roles. I do most of my composing in MIDI and present
semi-finished and arranged pieces to the group. They then take
those basic parts and expand on them as necessary. Solos are
mostly the creation of the player, though I worked with
Madeleine a bit on her solos as she is not really used to
doing improvisation as a classical player. NN: Please give
your comments on each tune. The song titles are all based on
old sci-fi movies. Please include
your comments on the movies that affected each composition. Bill: Actually, only
Forbidden Planet is based on a sci-fi movie. The other songs
got their titles because they were evocative of space and
science-fiction, in a very old school, 1950’s way. The first
song to be titled was Sputnik, which I named for the bristling
Clavinet in the beginning that reminded me of radio antennae.
Attack of the Martians got it’s name because it came out so
over the top and silly. Star Power and The Enemy of my Enemy"
were titles that just seemed to fit the music and the
space/sci-fi motif of the other pieces. Forbidden Planet is the only song I
wrote with a specific idea in mind. It basically tells the
story of the 1950’s sci-fi film which is loosely based on
William Shakespeare’s "The Tempest" (thus the name of the
final movement). Despite being a bit dated, Forbidden Planet
is a fantastic and extremely sophisticated film that has
Freudian overtones in both it’s use of the Id or unconscious
and the Oedipal overtones of the father/daughter relationship.
The music hopefully captures some of the melancholy and menace
of that situation. NN: In the
compositions, mellotron samples are often used. Who/what band
is the major influence on the band?
Do you like vintage keyboards? Who decides the instrumentation? Bill: I do love the
sounds of the vintage keyboards and it was mostly my choice to
use them for this album. I’m open to digital synths if used
creatively, and I have no reservations about using samples
(Mellotrons are too hard to maintain and move to make them
practical for my purposes). NN: Madeleine
plays wind-controlled synthesizers & keyboards. Please
explain more about her gear, and
how they are used in the album. Madeleine: I primarily
use a Yamaha WX5 midi wind-controller and a KORG MS2000R
analog synth modeler. I also use an EMU Vintage Keys unit more
sparingly and some computer-based Mellotron samples. As a
saxophone player, the WX5 was a comfortable switch for me.
Sound programming was new to me, but the MS2000R is very
well-designed and easy to work with, so I was able to learn
quickly. I recorded almost all my parts using
the WX5, and virtually all my lead sounds plus some of the
sound effects were programmed in the MS2000R. I can't say
enough good things about the MS2000R. It's a very
rich-sounding unit and it's very easy and fun to use. We've
received a lot of compliments on the sounds, so I guess other
people like the MS2000R too. NN: Derek plays
the keyboards. Please explain the composition of his gears.
His preferences to specific
keyboards. Madeleine: Derek
primarily used a Nord Electro. The sounds were perfect and the
action was also excellent. All of the vintage electric piano
and organ sounds were generated by this board. We also made
use of the EMU Vintage Key for some of Derek's synth leads.
Eccentric Orbit puts a very high priority on good sounds. We
spent a lot of hours choosing, designing, creating, and
tweaking sounds to get just what we wanted to hear.
NN: Please tell
us what gears do Mark and Bill use. Bill: I use Tobias
basses. I have both a four-string Growler and a five-string
fretless. Mark: I play an Eames
custom made drumset built in 1986 to my specifications. I
added a 13 and 14 inch floor tom to the set. These are unusual
sizes but they are very clear and punchy. I use a mix of
Zyldjian annd Sabian cymbals. NN: The band
sound appears to be influenced by the prog-rock in the 70's.
Please give specific names of the influences and pick up the
best work of each of
them. Bill: That would take
20 pages to be complete as there is so much phenomenal Prog
Rock out there, both from the 1970’s and today. We all tend to
like the big Prog names like Yes, ELP, King Crimson, Genesis,
Gentle Giant (both Madeleine and I played on both Gentle Giant
tribute albums) and most all the other bands that play in this
classic Progressive style. NN: Are you a
studio band or a live band? Do you play gigs? If yes, please
tell us about how you play live music on stage. Any fond
memories about live performances? Bill: At this time we
are only a studio band, but we hope to play some live dates in
the near future. The music was composed specifically for live
application so very little would need to be
rearranged. NN: Please tell
us about the music scene in Massachusetts. Is there any other
prog scene or at least prog bands in the state? Please
explain. Bill: Massachusetts has a small but active
Prog Rock scene. The center of activity is the New England Art
Rock Society ( NN: What is your
next plan? Will there be any follow-up tour? How about the
second album? Is there any material or plan? How about
unreleased materials? Bill: I have three
songs completed for a second album, plus lot’s of other ideas
in the works. Unfortunately, we all work full-time and it is
hard to find time for creative pursuits like music. At the end
of the Summer we will assess what our next step will be.
Certainly recording more music will be in the plan, and we’d
like to do some gigs if time permits rehearsals. NN: Please give
your fans in Japan a message. Bill: I enjoy many fine Japanese groups
like Ars Nova, Kenso, Pochakaite Malko, Igzit-Nine, Bi Kyo
Ran, and others. We hope our music appeals to the Japanese
audience as much as these fine Japanese groups appeal to us
and encourage any fans of the group to contact us
Sergio Vilar interviews Bill
Noland; August 2004
Nobuhisa Nakanishi
interviews EO; August 2004
