Artist: Arjen Lucassen’s Star One
Origin: Netherlands, International
Genre: Progressive Metal, Power Metal
Label: InsideOut Music
Link: https://www.arjenlucassen.com
Band members:
Vocals, Guitars, Bass and Keyboards – Arjen Lucassen
Background vocals – Marcela Bovio
Background vocals – Irene Jansen
Solina Strings – Erik van Ittersum
Drums – Ed Warby
HIER geht es zur deutschen Übersetzung.
We caught a well-behaved Arjen Lucassen on video chat, and he talked about the great singers on the recently released Star One album Revel In Time. His other projects like Ayreon or The Gentle Storm aren’t left out either. As well as Dio, Blackmore, and Dickinson.
Time For Metal / Florian W.:
First of all, it’s great to do an interview with you. I’m a big fan. You read my review, that was great to see.
Star One and Ayreon / Arjen Lucassen:
Yeah, cool man. I did, and I like it when every song is highlighted. It was very detailed.
Time For Metal / Florian W.:
There is one person at Time For Metal who controls all the reviews etc. and I always write too much, she says. ?
Star One and Ayreon / Arjen Lucassen:
[laughs] I write too much, too. My albums are too long as well.
Time For Metal / Florian W.:
You’re the next part of my „collection“ of interviews with old hippies. Last year I had an interview with Roine Stolt.
Star One and Ayreon / Arjen Lucassen:
Yeah, he is an old hippie too. Nice guy.
Time For Metal / Florian W.:
Is there any musician you have always wanted to work with? With whom it didn’t work out in terms of time or is that person even no longer alive.
Star One / Arjen Lucassen:
How many do you want cause it’s a list of a hundred. [laughs] I can give you the first five. No longer alive there would be Dio. I met him, he was interested and he knew and loved Ayreon. I got his email address, diodude@aol.com (lol ?). But unfortunately, it never happened. Robert Plant, Ian Gillan. The big heroes I grew up with. Paul McCartney as well. Guitar players like Ritchie Blackmore, Brian May, Steve Vai … oh wait a minute I got Steve Vai [laughs]. The list is endless. Kate Bush, Ian Anderson, Geddy Lee etc. All the great heroes.
Time For Metal / Florian W.:
You worked with so many great musicians. But this time you played rock star bingo. Steve Vai, Bumblefoot, Jeff Scott Soto, Joe Lynn Turner. What made you do it?
Star One and Ayreon / Arjen Lucassen:
My roots are Rock music. I was born in 1960. In the 60s I grew up with The Beatles, Kinks, T. Rex and all that stuff. Then we got the whole Glam Rock period with The Sweet, Alice Cooper and David Bowie. Then I discovered Prog and Hard Rock. I’m talking about UFO, Deep Purple, Uriah Heep and these kinds of bands. The Prog bands like Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, Emerson, Lake and Palmer. That’s where my roots are. My music is a combination of my Hard Rock roots and my guitar sound, which is pretty Metal. It’s heavier than the bands back in the 70s. I love combining the two worlds. I love the old Hard Rock feeling with Hammond, synthesizers and more melodic stuff, combined with pretty heavy and aggressive guitar tones. But I’m not a fan of aggressive music. I don’t like aggression period! [Imitates growling and shredding] It’s not my thing. If I was born thirty years later maybe I would have liked it. I like epic music. I like Stargazer from Rainbow. If I look for singers, I look for melodic and epic singers with power, not aggression. Sometimes I need aggressions, like Devin Townsend screaming his heart out. Maybe Mikael Åkerfeldt to do a growl or even on the latest album Dan Swanö to do a growl. Sometimes it’s good but not a whole album.
Time For Metal / Florian W.:
That is exactly the direction of my question. You always mention that Star One is your Metal kind of Ayreon but the singers are more the classic Hard Rock dudes. But they did a great job. One of my favourites on the record is Jeff Scot Soto (on Back From The Past).
Star One and Ayreon / Arjen Lucassen:
Oh yeah. It’s so great to finally work with him. He was on my list for years but I didn’t have the right song. This time I saw an interview with Jeff at a Greek magazine and they ask him: „Do you know Ayreon and why have you never been on a record?“. He said: „Cool stuff but he never asked me, I don’t know why and what took him so long.“ [laughs] When I saw this, I immediately called the Greek guys and asked for his number. When I contacted him he said again: „What took you so long?“ and „sure I’m in“. He’s such a nice guy. He loved the whole album and the artwork. Genuinely pleasant guy.
Time For Metal / Florian W.:
That’s great to hear. Cause when you have a voice for a new song in your mind and you contact the guy, the worst thing that could happen is a response like: „Who are you and what do you want from me?“
Star One and Ayreon / Arjen Lucassen:
It’s terrible and it happens. If I asked big names like David Gilmour, which I did, he was like „who are you?“ Then it‘s hard you have to convince them. Luckily, through the years I’m a bit more known (AN: Understatement of the century!) and people read about me in magazines or whatever. Most people in my genre know me. If I want people outside my genre for example the singer of Sparks, I wouldn‘t get him. It’s hard to convince people if they don’t know me.
Time For Metal / Florian W.:
So it’s even nicer, that a guy like Jeff Scott Soto knows Ayreon and wanted to work with you?
Star One and Ayreon / Arjen Lucassen:
Most of these guys heard about me. Those who didn’t know about me as Joe Lynn Turner googled me. And they were impressed that I worked with Bruce Dickinson and James LaBrie. That helps that I’m able to work with some of the big names. It’s kind of an addiction to work with your childhood heroes. When Number Of The Beast came out it was like „Yes!“ I was already a fan when Bruce was in Samson. When I had him in MY studio, singing MY song it was the ultimate compliment for me.
Time For Metal / Florian W.:
When we talk about all the stars on the new album … in my opinion, if you leave out the movies and most of the musicians, you still have a great metal album with Revel In Time. A welcome change in your progressive opera routine?
Star One and Ayreon / Arjen Lucassen:
It’s like blowing off steam. Especially after the last Ayreon album Transitus. It was so complicated with so many layers, and so many different instruments. Most of the songs aren’t even based on guitar, they are based on keyboard riffs or weird melodies and sounds. To be able to plug in the guitar and just play riffs, keep it straight and simple is great. I grew up doing it that way when I started back in the 70s playing UFO-covers. Riff-orientated Hard Rock music is in my blood. It’s fun to do but an Ayreon album is just as much fun because it’s a challenge and I’m always looking for challenges.
Time For Metal / Florian W.:
When we go back to Star One and you have so much fun doing a „non Prog opera thing“. The last album was already 12 years ago. What took you so long?
Star One and Ayreon / Arjen Lucassen:
I like so many styles of music, not just Prog, Hard Rock and Metal. I like also Folk which I did with The Gentle Storm with Anneke van Giersbergen (The Diary, 2015). That also had to come out of my system. I grew up listening to Electronic music like Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk and Klaus Schulze. So the Ambeon project (Fate Of A Dreamer, 2001) also had to come out of my chest. I love the 60s Beatles stuff, that’s what you hear on my solo album (Lost In The New Real, 2012). On that album, I could make completely different music, not Prog or Metal. Ayreon is the mothership and has all the styles of music. Now and then I take out one of these styles and that’s it. Star One is the only project that had a few successes. All the other stuff I did like Guilt Machine, Gentle Storm, Ambeon and Stream Of Passion was always just one album. Star One will always continue. If I wait another ten years I’ll be 72 and I’m not sure how much of a Headbanger I still would be. ?
Time For Metal / Florian W.:
You started with the right choice and guys like Russell Allen back in the days on the first Star One album (Space Metal, 2002).
Star One and Ayreon / Arjen Lucassen:
As you may heard or read somewhere (AN: Nope!) it’s supposed to be a Bruce Dickinson solo album but things went horribly wrong. We worked on it together, I wrote 12 songs and he started writing lyrics. Then I started talking about it on the internet. These were the first days of the internet and I had no idea how fast the news would spread. But it did and the next day his manager Rob Smallwood heard about it and cancelled the whole project. It was set up as a solo album with Bruce, I had the songs and started thinking about what to do. It was too heavy for Ayreon and that’s how Star One was born. It started out asking the best singers which are also my friends. That brought me to Russell Allen, Floor Jansen, Damian Wilson and Dan Swanö.
Time For Metal / Florian W.:
I think it’s good the way it came out. Although I will never have a comparison to the planned album with Bruce. There are so many singers, why work with only one?
Star One and Ayreon / Arjen Lucassen:
In the end, it’s good. That’s true and so I can do the guessing games on Facebook [laughs]. The more singers I have, the more fun it is.
Time For Metal / Florian W.:
Just to point out one of your projects: I saw The Gentle Storm at the Rockharz Festival which is almost in my neighbourhood and it was so much fun. I love Anneke and she brought me tears of joy.
Star One and Ayreon / Arjen Lucassen:
Great to hear. Anneke is the best. They had a great band together.
Time For Metal / Florian W.:
Let’s stick with concerts: In 2019, you were part of one of my best concert road trips. First I went to the Hamburg St. Pauli area (you know) with my buddy to see a German band. Then we slept very little and partied a lot and went to Tilburg the next day to see the Electric Castle live show. That was amazing. Have you ever been on a concert trip that you will never forget?
Star One and Ayreon / Arjen Lucassen:
I’m very proud of the Electric Castle live shows. For my own experience, I again had to get back to Rainbow with Ritchie Blackmore, Ronnie James Dio and Cozy Powell. That show I will never forget. It must have been 1975 or 1976. Ritchie broke his guitar like he always did, it flew over my head cause he threw it into the audience. A little guy caught it and everyone jumped on this guy and fought. I wore a big fur coat and got a big part of the guitar. Then I put it under my coat and no one saw it. We were five guys at the concert. We went back into the bus and everyone was partying. One guy was like „I think I have a splinter of the guitar in my finger“. Then I opened my coat and said, „well guys I have this.“ [laughs] I’ll never forget that day. The part is in my bedroom, I can see it every night.
Time For Metal / Florian W.:
The readers of Time For Metal recently voted for the album of the year 2021. Was there an album last year that excited you?
Star One and Ayreon / Arjen Lucassen:
I have no idea. It’s terrible and I‘ve always been afraid that I could only listen to music as a musician. In the 70s/80s I was listening to music as a fan. Nowadays I couldn’t listen to music as a fan anymore. I know too much about it. If I hear a production it’s always like „oh the kick drum doesn’t sound good or the vocals are not in tune“. It’s hard for me to listen to new stuff. I listen to almost everything, I appreciate stuff but I don’t listen to it more than once or twice. Every day I try to discover new stuff and when I like it I contact the singers. It’s mostly singers. For example Brittney Slayes of Unleash The Archers. They are an amazing band but it’s not the stuff I listen to. But her voice amazes me. (AN: She did a hell of a job on Fate Of Man).
Time For Metal / Florian W.:
It’s kind of sad that you can’t switch off the „musicians button“ in your head.
Star One and Ayreon / Arjen Lucassen:
I can do it with music that isn’t close to my music. I can enjoy Folk music or Singer-Songwriter. It’s impossible when it comes close to my territory.
Time For Metal / Florian W.:
Do you listen to your music when you’re not producing it? Do you enjoy your music?
Star One and Ayreon / Arjen Lucassen:
It sounds arrogant but I do. [laughs] When you’re on YouTube they always have the suggestions on the side and sometimes my on stuff is there. Then I check it out and see if I still like it. Mostly I’m proud of it. When I see a little part of the show you’ve been to (Electric Castle) or Ayreon Universe then I’m pretty proud of it. Sometimes I hear pre-Ayreon stuff like Vengeance (AN: Arjen’s band from the 80s) and I think „Oh my god, maybe it was cool in the 80s but it didn’t stand the test of time.“ ?
Time For Metal / Florian W.:
I always have to ask this question because many musicians can’t listen to their old stuff anymore like Tobias Sammet who was also in Ayreon. He can’t stand the old Edguy stuff.
Star One and Ayreon / Arjen Lucassen:
But not Avantasia, I guess (AN: Not at all). Do you know why? When you’re in a band you have to do concessions. That’s why I don’t like music from before Ayreon. With Ayreon I didn’t have to make concessions, it was all me. When you’re in a band the drummer likes Rush, the singer likes Bon Scott and the guitar player likes Judas Priest you try to please the bandmates and the record company. But not yourself. I look back at my band days like Tobias does. If I hear the singer go on with „I saw a beautiful blonde and a pretty brunette, I said hey come on girls, let’s get wet“ (Vengeance – Rock ’n Roll Shower) – what was I thinking? But it brought me to where I am now.
Time For Metal / Florian W.:
Let’s go back to Revel In Time: If you could be a character from a movie or series, what would it be and why?
Star One and Ayreon / Arjen Lucassen:
Most of the characters on the album don’t have a good life. I wouldn’t wanna be Jake Gyllenhaal in Donnie Darko cause that would be pretty shit. Or Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, being stuck on the same day sounds pretty heavy. [laughs] Maybe I wanna be Matthew McConaughey in Interstellar, travel the stars that would be me. [laughs]
Time For Metal / Florian W.:
Source Code was a great choice cause I think it’s an underrated movie.
Star One and Ayreon / Arjen Lucassen:
It is. I watched it again and I remember that we had ten movies set up and I didn’t think I would like it. Thought it was another Hollywood blockbuster action thing which I don’t like. Of those ten movies, I liked it the most. When I was working on the time thing I rewatched Source Code and liked it even more.
Time For Metal / Florian W.:
My buddies and I have to rewatch the movies too. Primer maybe for the first time.
Star One and Ayreon / Arjen Lucassen:
Primer? I try to watch it and couldn’t get through it. Michael Mills wrote the lyrics, I tried to watch it twice but it was so complicated and cryptic that I couldn‘t stay awake.
Time For Metal / Florian W.:
What does the future of your music bring? Is it full of Ayreon or another Star One or even a whole new project?
Star One and Ayreon / Arjen Lucassen: Usually, the way I work is to gather ideas, I put them all on my phone and at that point, I have no idea what it’s going to be. When I decide it’s going to be this or that project I would limit myself. I just let the ideas flow and at some point, I have like 50 little ideas on my cassette player. But the player broke so I have to use my phone which is scary when I might lose it. After that, a concept slowly is developing. Maybe for Ayreon, Star One or a solo album. At the current stage, I just gathering ideas and I don’t know what it’s going to be.
Time For Metal / Florian W.:
Thanks a lot for answering all my questions and for your time. It’s a pleasure to interview one of my heroes. The person you can see on the videos or stages is definitely Arjen. You answered as sympathetically as I expected you to.
Star One and Ayreon / Arjen Lucassen:
It’s good when you can be yourself. For the first 30 years of my life, I wasn’t myself. Too many concessions and being different to people. At some point, I wanted to make music that I like and become independent. Then I can be myself and I have nothing to hide. That happened at the age of 35. Before that I wasn’t a nice guy and pretty difficult when I didn’t get my way. [laughs] Thanks for talking, Florian it was a pleasure.