Chen Balbus, guitarist for Israeli progressive metal band Orphaned Land from Petah Tikva/Bat Yam, Israel. Orphaned Land Interview May 23, 2013.
Orphaned Land Interview
1. How was it working on the new Orphaned Land album, All Is One?
Working on ‘All Is One’ was another new and exciting journey for Orphaned Land. This album is also the first to feature our two new band members, Matan Shmuely (Drums) and Chen Balbus (Guitars, Keyboards), that contributed a lot to ‘All Is One’, making it now our best album to date ever.
‘All Is One’ featured over 40 musician that included 8 Turkish string orchestra players, 20 choir singers, guest vocalists and many more traditional instruments. Also ‘All Is One’ was recorded in three countries (Israel, Turkey & Sweden); each country contributed their own uniqueness to the album. For example, we recorded most of the instruments in Sweden at Fascination Street Studios, recorded the orchestra in Turkey, the choirs and guests in Israel. It was finally mixed and mastered by Jens Bogren (Opeth, Kreator). All of those places had something to contribute to the album that made it as epic as it is
2. What influences did you find in making All Is One?
The first influence of making ‘All Is One’ was the the title itself, ‘All Is One’. Why do we always fail to see that we are all the same? That concept motivated us through the lyrical concept and we wanted ‘All Is One’ to be a simple album with an “in your face” message, less complex song structures, catchier tunes, giving up on the growl vocals. Also on this album, two famous Israeli singers/songwriters wrote two songs for us (Shama’im & Let The Truce Be Known) that we re-arranged and made into a mixture of Orphaned Land and those two artists, which turned out amazing. As always, we find those interesting artists to collaborate with and make something special together. “Ya Benaya” is a Yemenite song written by an Yemen poet that we decided to turn it into metal. We are constantly exploring sounds from our roots, cultures and reality.
3. Any North American tours coming soon for Orphaned Land?
Unfortunately not for 2013, although we are working to book some shows in North America. If not in 2013 – I’m sure we will make it for a big tour on 2014.
4. When writing a song, is there such a thing as investing too much time?
Probably not – if we feel that the song needs more work, we would do our best to perfect it as much as we can, as we are all perfectionists. While making the pre-production tracks at Chen’s (Guitars, Keyboards) studio, we made even up to 15 mixes and versions for each track until we were finally satisfied with the results and believed it was ready for the album. So for us, there’s never “too much” – we will work until it’s perfect for all of us.
5. What do you think of promo videos nowadays?
There are new methods coming up constantly to promote yourself day by day, we’re doing our best to adapt and use the tools we have to spread and share our music worldwide. For example, we made two lyrical video clips for “Our Own Messiah” and “Let The Truce Be Known”, they turned out to be an even bigger hit than our more regular video-clips. This method does contribute, like any other method – but of course, they all have advantages and disadvantages.
6. Would you say the overall music scene online is getting better with the economy?
Well, as everything – it has two sides. The good thing about music going online and spreading easily is that it makes your band grow and expand farther than you ever thought it would, since everyone today has internet and has the ability to find whatever album they want in a matter of seconds. Because of that technology, Orphaned Land reached so many places that we would never expect, such as Arab countries – Orphaned Land, an Israeli band, has many Arabic fans that are supposed to consider us their enemies. The bad thing about it is that it hurts the band’s ability to function in the financial way. Everyone can download what they want and the band can’t afford to make more music.
7. What were your earliest influences?
The early influences were basically the same as any metal-head teenager: the classics, such as Metallica, Megadeth, Napalm Death, Iron Maiden…All those heavy metal bands were a big part of our musical growing that made us realize what metal music is and why we want to do it. Of course we were never just metal-heads, each one of us has his special influences from his roots and culture that colored our music to be more than just metal.
8. What could we find interesting in your music collection at home?
We listen to so many genres of music, such as classical, folk music, world music (Dead Can Dance, for example), pop music, 50’s to 90’s. There’s something fascinating about each genre of music.
9. Could you describe what goes on in a day in your life as a musician on tour?
We are constantly working each day to promote our music in any possible way–touring around the world, meeting with fans and followers–sharing many experiences together as a band that will make us grow bigger and share our message that ‘All Is One’. Proving that the power of music can unite us all, even those who were meant to be “enemies”. Along the road each day we have new musical ideas that we keep to ourselves, saving them for future albums.
10. Where do you see music in 100 years from now?
100 years is quite a long time, I do wonder myself what will happen after all this time though. I believe that the past repeats itself when it comes to trends, in this case – musical trends.
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