Dennis Ward (Pink Cream 69)
March 2007
You left your previous record label, SPV, after just one album. What happened?
We basically just got a better offer to be honest. And since I’ve done a lot of stuff in the past together with Frontiers and Serafino’s ideology worked to ours. I mean everything that we stood for seemed to work better with this company than, I would imagine, with SPV, due to the simple reason that even though SPV is a large label with many bands, they don’t seem to have the energy to pay a lot of attention to us. Mostly because they have other large acts, so we wanted to give it a try with another label that pays more direct attention to us, which we haven’t had in many many years. That was the biggest reason for the change. We had no problems with SPV, but the offer was very good from Frontiers and they presented us a very good idea of how they wanted to market the band and of course that’s very important to us.
How many albums have you signed for this time?
We also sign record deals for one album and an option. With SPV we both agreed that we won’t go for the option. As for Frontiers the promotion just got started and so far so good. I can’t complain. We got lots of good reviews already and we’ve been in lots of magazines, so it’s looking good, but it’s very early days to judge it. I hope everything will be fine though.
What was your best selling album to date?
Well, our best selling album would probably be our second album with Andi Deris. We sold approximately 80,000 units of that album. As for the newer stuff we’ve been consistent with the last few records around 20-25,000 copies.
But this is a different era...
Yeah, completely different. I mean we were mainstream back then and now we’ re underground. The whole scene changed very drastically.
It took two and half years to follow up “Thunderdome”. Was this break intentional or just happened?
Both. It was a little bit of intentional as a couple of us needed a break. People relocated and resettled in a new life and the other reason was that we were very very busy with our own activities. Dave is working for a couple of schools privately teaching vocals and also he has some other projects and a solo album, which he just finished. Kosta works at Bottom Row, so he’s very busy with touring management and music business stuff. And I’m of course quite heavy stuck in my production side work and our new guitar player also works at a school as a guitar teacher, so it’s not easy to get these guys in the same room. (Laughs) It’s very difficult.
You mentioned about the new second guitarist... is Uwe a permanent member now?
Yes, he is a permanent member of the band. After Koffler’s accident and the problems he has with his hand we were finding ourselves limited. He felt uncomfortable doing all the guitars himself. He was really at the point saying, “Guys, I don’t want to continue, this is not how I imagined to play my instrument. If I can’t play well then I don’t want to play at all.” So, we came to the idea to get someone to help it, so we wanted a real trooper, someone that would fit the band perfectly. And after a few demos and checking arounds we met Uwe and it clicked right away. Everything worked out well. It’s great to work together with him. He’s very patient and he’s a very very good guitar player.
The new album doesn’t have Günter Werno on keyboards but a new guy...
Actually we have very very few keyboards on. Almost all the keyboards were done by myself or Koffler except for one piano track in one ballad called “Last Train to Nowhere”. And to be honest the main reason is that we were under so much time pressure to get it done and I knew this guy if he had a few minutes time and if he could just play it in as we had the whole part arranged. We just needed someone to play it a little bit nicer. And he did it for us in one afternoon. This same guy plays on the Sunstorm album that I ’ve produced for Joe Lynn Turner. I didn’t want to bother Gunter to be honest for just one little part. (Laughs) Mr. Werno is very very good and I wouldn’t want to bore him with one little piano track for a ballad at the end of the record.
Would you care using a sampler when you play it live?
No, not at all. (Laughs) Maybe if we had an explosion or some other really special strange effect we might use a sampler, but we found out over the years that a lot of this stuff get lost anyway in the mix being live in the volume and everything. So, why waste my time to program it, set up the sequencer, rehearse it to the sequencer...? Nah, forget it, just leave it out. (Laughs) If everybody misses it we might do it again. But this is a ballad and it’s a question of if we play it live. To be honest I’m not a big fan of ballads live unless we’re doing a really long set. I found it to be quite boring. (Laughs) So, it comes to the question if there would be a ballad and that would probably either modified like we’ve done in the past, so we didn’t need the keyboard, or we’ll be playing with a sequencer alternatively.
How did you approach the songwriting this time?
It’s always the same. People come with a basic ideas, the four songwriters. Some people might have a more complete idea, but sometimes it’s just a guitar part that we fit into another song. Sometimes one of us just have a spontaneous idea that is changing everything. Basically it starts off with rough demos from each of us and we just throw them in and work on them. Usually we record a one or two songs extra to see which ones are gonna make it or not for the final record. It’s a process we’ve been doing for 20 years and we found no reasons to change yet. It’s very very easy to work this way.
Who came up with the most ideas?
Ah, that’s really hard to say. Musically the main songwriter of this album Koffler, there’s no doubt. I did little songwriting to this album, mainly because I’ve been just too busy to get everything done. So, I concentrated on the lyrics. I wrote most of the lyrics and I wrote melodies to about 5-6 songs. I didn’t feel it was necessary because the material was there and when the material is there I don’t see any reason just to write to satisfy my own ego. I don’t need that. My end goal is to have a good record and I don’t care who writes the songs to be honest with you.
Did you also involve Uwe in the writing to some extent?
Oh yes, he wrote some riffs for a few songs, for example “Wanna Hear You Rock”. The basic whole guitar riff is his idea. He was pretty much integrated into the songwriting process. He’s a little bit shy for being a new guy, but he also helped me in the past with Place Vendome with some songwriting stuff. His ideas are there and he’s developing more and more and I’m sure on the next record he’s gonna even write more. I’m totally convinced of it.
“In10sity” is the 10th album of Pink Cream. Does this add more pressure on you?
The pressure is always there, but to me it’s our own pressure. There was a few times in the past when we weren’t satisfied with the end result or not as satisfied as we’d have liked we’ve been and in every case we knew that it was our own fault. We never pointed our fingers to the record companies saying blahblahblah. For every band it’s usually their own damn fault if the record sucks. And that is our own pressure that we put on ourselves to always keep a certain niveau when we bring a record out. We don’t wanna disappoint ourselves and we don’t wanna disappoint our fans.
How do you see “In10sity” compares to “Thunderdome”?
That’s a really hard thing. (Laughs) People have told me that it sounds heavier. I’m never really objective with my opinion because I don’t know what heavy is anymore. One person’s heavy is another person’s ballad, so it’ s kind of difficult to say. But I would say it’s a lot more guitar oriented. It’s got a lot more riffs than we’ve had in quite some years. Other than that it’s pretty much all along the Pink Cream line of doing things. We don’ t experience too crazy, we just wanna make good songs that fit to us, that’s all.
You said you write most of the lyrics. Can you tell me about your inspiration?
Inspiration starts at home and ends on the news. (Laughs) I’ve got some lyrics about my personal situation in general, which I don’t wanna get detailed about because it is quite personal. I always leave my lyrics for interpretation. To a certain point I find writing lyrics to be very self therapeutic. In other words, when I do it, it really helps me realise a few things. Also there’s some lyrics, like the first song “Children of the Dawn” that is based around what we seem to ignore is the times we are living in. There’ war everywhere and everything seems to be shit. One of the real problems of the world to me is neglected children, children that are involved in war that are literally been kidnapped become solders. Just to give you an example... today I had a confrontation with an individual in a shopping centre. He wanted to talk to me about saving animals. I didn’t really care too much about it, because I try to do my part and try to pay respect, but he confronted me and basically I didn’t have time to deal with him and he seemed a little bit upset by the fact that I said “No, thank you” and I walked away. I turned around and said, “It’s very wonderful what you’ re doing, somebody has to do it and I’m glad that you’re taking so much energy to make your point. But I really think there’s too many people in this world are being too distractive by bullshit and stupid problems, although animal rights is not a stupid problem, but they are more distractive by this than helping themselves, helping their own children, helping children over the world and making fucking priorities. I mean some people are doing great things, but our priorities should always be our children but it’s constantly being neglected even when it’s so obvious. You watch it on TV and you say “Ah, that’s terrible” but you think you have nothing to do with it. But that’s all bullshit. We have a lot to do with it but nobody just doesn’t seem to care enough. I think a lot of people trying to do some charity work for animals, going to church, or some other bullshit like this, to make themselves feel better about themselves speaking that they are doing a part for society. But the fact is that doing something for society starts with the children. And war children and any child growing up in a developing country have no hope... that’s what we should pay our attention to. You see it everywhere and you ignore it just as fast.
You seem to have a very strong opinion about things going on in the world...
Yeah, I do. But I’m not an activist, don’t get me wrong. You’re not gonna see me on top of the podium for Greenpeace any day yelling out “Save the world”. Because I don’t think we need to. I think everybody knows what to deal with. We all see it, it’s obvious and it’s not a dumb theory. Shit happening. I don’t know if the aliens come down next week and take us away, I don’t know. But the fact is that it’s also obvious that nobody is making a big move and that bothers me and I have a strong opinion about that. I have a strong opinion about overly rich people that actually seem to be ruining this world. That bothers me too. I try to put in my lyrics as much as possible.
Last time you recorded a great cover tune, “My Sharona”. What about this time?
This time we didn’t cover anything. Actually we had no good ideas to be honest. When a cover idea comes out it’s usually someone offering some stuff. A couple of times it was Dave playing around with some ideas in the studio and we liked that. For the last two records it was like this, but for this new one nobody was coming up with any ideas.
And how about a bonus track? You always record special tracks for different territories...
Actually we always record a couple of songs extra because we never know during the process oh how the end result will actually be. So, we always try to keep a couple of songs on the sides for maybe a bonus track or for a better selection of songs for the album. The bonus track this time ended up being the song that we didn’t think it fit the whole concept of the album. We still think it’s a great song. Bonus tracks are always a great option to get a song out.
I’ve heard you’re planning a tour together with Freedom Call in Europe...
Yes, it’s in the works now. It seems to be happening. I don’t have the official statement yet, but I’m looking very forward to it and I’m very positive that it’ll happen. As far as I know this would be a co-headlining tour and hopefully we got to visit your country again. We’ve been in Hungary two times and both times it turned out to be great and the people were wonderful. I remember getting a nice welcome and a great dinner.
Are there any plans for a live CD or DVD?
Well, as a matter of fact, I’ve got here tracks from years ago that I always wanted to mix on my free time. (Laughs) And I haven’t got that free time yet. (Laughs) We are talking about it now because there’s a new guitar player in the band, so actually we are talking about to tape some shows during the next tour to finally get that going. The thing is that taping and producing a DVD has a certain cost that would have to be covered.
You are a very well-known producer in hard rock/heavy metal. Is there anything great you’re working on at the moment?
Other than finishing the new Pink Cream I just finished David Readman’s solo album two days ago. That turned out really really good and I’m very happy with the result. And I’ve also just finished the mix for the Allen/Lande project with Russell Allen and Jorn Lande with guitar player Magnus Karlsson. This is their second album and this one turned turned out to be great as well. Magnus is a great songwriter and guitar player. I think this is gonna be a big success.
Any plans for a second Place Vendome album?
Yes! (Laughs) There are. I’d just have to do it. (Laughs) This is always a difficult thing, doing it, getting started and writing songs. But having such a busy schedule for the last year that I couldn’t get started. But yes, it’s in the works and we all agreed to do it.