| Greyhaven
are : Ethan Matthews on guitars and keyboards Nate Howard on guitars Nick Cipriano on drums How would you classify your music? NH: I suppose if I had to genre-ize the stuff we're playing now, I would probably call it ElectronicAtmosphericRock or "Electrospheric" or something stupid like that. (heh) E: I can dig it. Do you all have day jobs and if so whay do you do? NH: I am Mr.Full-Time Student, so I am currently unemployed. E: I'm a student to.....but I work a crap job to pay my gas bill. How did the band get together? NH: I remember I contacted Ethan after seeing his "seeking musicians" ad. I was looking to do some kinda side project with him, but I figured we should just get together with Nick, who I was already jamming with at the time. E: That's about it. What are your musical ackgrounds? NH: I mainly started to want to play music after listening to Queensryche and Metallica for the first time back when I was 12 or 13. I made gloriously terrible attmepts to become a guitarist through that portion of my life up until a few years back when I decided to actually try to play something in tune. When we started doing the Greyhaven thing, we were writing fairly demanding music for my level of musicianship at the time. It was then that I really wanted to set much higher standards for myself as a musician and guitarist. I still think that I suck, but I'm much better than I used to be. E: I've been playing guitar for 4 1/2 years or so. Piano much longer. Then I got bored with guitars and started using my piano skills to play synths. Then I started making wierd sounds with the thing.....and then different sounds and then more different sounds. Pretty soon I maxed out the RAM in my synth and had to get another as well as a RAM card for the first synth. In the future I will be interfacing with a computer. I don't play guitar as much.....simply in fact because they suck. Well, OK, guitars are cool but they are not relieable at all. And, since I've been playing keys(where everything is in perfect tuning.....sort of. ..) I notice the intonation problems with guitars more frequently. They are great for expression gut emotion but there are always engineering pitfalls unless you can spend over 1000 per guitar which I can't so there you go. What kind of music do you like to listen to when you're not playing? NH: I listen to many different types of music and I find that I cannot really limit myself to any one genre in particular. To name a few performers I enjoy: Eric Johnson, Darkstar, and even some Manowar once in a while. Orchestral music I also enjoy deeply, in fact the most beautiful music I've heard was written by composer Jo Hisaishi for Miyazaki's movie Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind. E: I like anything from Depeche Mode, to Rush, to Tangerine Dream, to Bjork, to Steve Morse, to Fates Warning, to Type o Negative, to Testament, to tell me to stop soon please. Lately I've been getting the most out of some Mark Shreeve and Corporation tunes. They are both electronic composers that unfortunatly little of the world knows about. What do you do to relax? NH: I usually just slack off in front of the TV and catch up on Millenium, or sometimes I'll read (lately William Gibson books.) E: I haven't relaxed in 19 years. I'm sure someday I will.....but it'll take a lot of work. If you had the chance to jam with any band, who would that be? NH: Type O Negative I suppose. E: I don't jam very well. I used to. But then I joined this band. What's the best thing that has ever happened to you? NH: Buying "Empire" back in '90. E: Falling in love and then realising that I'm an obsessive, melodramatic wierdo that the most of the rest of the world would rather not associate with. But hey, it makes things more interesting. What's the worst thing that has ever happened to you? NH: Nothin' I coudn't get over in a week or two. E: I can't pin-point a worst thing. Things all seems equally bad......or perhaps equally good depending on how you look at it. I live day by day but always looking toward the future just enough to see the horizon, but not so far that I try and manipulate everything around me to get to some so-called "end", or "best case senario". Instead, I think about endless "best case scenarios" so that I can be happy as much as possible. Looking at life this way makes it much more interesting and leaves the user free to do what ever he/she pleases. Who writes the songs? NH: Ethan and I usually come up with melodic ideas and what not on our own and then bring them to practice to try to piece together a song. He tends to write the bulk of our music, but we all contribute our own individual parts and/or arrangements into what becomes the "final" song. Where do you get your inspiration from? NH: I've never been able to determine what inspires me to write. I sometimes just pull music out of me arse. (heh heh) E: Sound. Life. Who thought of the band's name and how did you choose it? NH: I came up with the band's name way back when. I was (and still am) a really big Tolkien fan at the time when we first got together. I came up with the name Greyhaven, which is an alteration on "The Grey Havens", from "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy. It's a very overused source for band names, but I truly love the Middle-Earth tales (from the Silmarrilion to The Return of the King) and I felt that the name fit perfectely with the band and the music. And I could care less whether the whole thing is cliche or not. Which are you personal favorite songs and why? NH:Well, after listening to them for so long it's hard to pick favorites. But, the ending of Cold Night and the first half of Moria-Downs are probably my favorite parts. E: The end of "Cold Night by the Fortress: is certainly up there. Also, the atmospheric (jungle drum) section of Moria-Downs. Do you play many gigs and if so where? NH: Getting a gig for our style of music is close to impossible here in Eugene. But, sometimes we manage to sneak into a local showcase or benefit concert. Of course only about five or six people there like the music, I think it's because we're not a Ska band or something. E: We play with ska bands and then proced to sell CD's to their parents after the show (heehee!). What is you view of the music scene in Eugene ? NH: Well, as I mentioned above, Ska is pretty hip in town. Also wank off wah-wah type funk rock. There are a few popular bands (and thier copycats) that try to be this cross between Pink Floyd and Tool, but it just sounds wrong. There are a few metal type bands that are sometimes worth wacthing, but they never play. Hey, did ya know the Cherry Poppin' Daddies were from here, yeah, they make gigging here tough also. Of course, their busy playing Letterman though. E: No comment. What band would you say has had most influence on you? NH: Probably Dream Theater (gee, what a suprise!), because I believe that they inspired us in the direction of working with different types of music and they were the common link for us all getting together. E: I guess progmetal was the common link.....I can't tell if it still is. For me personally, it isn't. I change musical perspectives very quickly(at least for the last couple of years). I don't feel the need to say that our music sounds like any band in particular, and I don't feel the need to "stick up" for any one genre of music. What are your plans for the future? NH: Hopefully playing the music that I love so dearly........and....uh....maybe making some money off it to, yeah that would be cool, huh huh huh. E: I wanna get more money so I can buy more equipment. Then when I buy more equipment I wanna record a bunch of stuff. Then I wanna buy more equipment again....then maybe go on some sort of tour or whatever. Then revamp all that equipment and get some more. Somewhere along the line a senario like this will help me forward my career in music. Until then, we'll just have to worry about buying more equipment and thinking about more scenarios. Any last words or remarks? NH: MTV is funny. E: I'm going to buy more equipment. Website : http://members.aol.com/greyhavn/index.html |