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BACK
THE
GATHERING
Onward they go
By Adrian ‘The Energizer’ Bromley
Souvenirs, the new offering from The Gathering, may
just be one of 2003’s most passionate pieces of work, a wonderful
display of mesmerizing beauty, powerful harmonies and ethereal atmospheres.
Far from their earlier recordings, though fragments of those albums
still find their way into the new disc, The Gathering continues
to grow noticeably with each recording. Like a restless child, The
Gathering can’t sit still, and that seems to be their charm
for the many die-hard fans that have stayed around over the years.
"I tell you, Adrian, making albums has been a treat for us,"
says singer Anneke Van Giersbergen. "Every album that we have
made we would always end up with more that we wanted to do with
the band and would have to wait for the next record to do so. After
the completion of Souvenirs we [guitarist Rene Rutten, bassist Hugo
Prinsen Geerligs, keyboardist Frank Boeijen and drummer Hans Rutten]
were pleased with what we had done and the amount of stuff we wanted
to keep pursuing as a band continues to grow smaller. In a sense
we are getting closer to what we want to do as a band, but not to
a point where the ideas of drying up."
But as Van Giersbergen explains, the recording process and overall
work on Souvenirs was a grueling process indeed, something she says
she never wants to experience again.
"The length of time and the chaoticness of it all was very
hard on us. We wrote a lot of things with our producer [Zlaya Hadzich]
and some beautiful marvelous things came out of it, but with him
as the sixth band member, while it was refreshing, it was difficult
at the same time. We wrote and recorded and wrote some more and
recorded. It was a mishmash of ideas coming and going whereas previously
we’d have everything ready to go and just head into the studio
and record."
Why was it turning out this way?
"Because we thought the songs needed more time to come into
their own. We’d write a song and say it is good, but not there
yet and put it away on a shelf for a while and come back to it later.
We left a lot of these songs for almost three years and by this
time we were almost dead. Beautiful things came out of this, but
it was lots of blood, sweat and tears and I’ll never do it
again. The thing we need to do next time—and make sure we do
it like this—is write, demo and go in to record like race horses
for two months and finish up the product. You can’t spend too
much time on a record because you lose focus. I mean, you may eventually
get the results you want, but you need to have the end in sight."
So with all the hard work behind you, what impresses you about Souvenirs?
"I just like the sound and the emotion that the record exudes.
It is very personal for all of us. When I hear a certain note or
musical passage I can recollect a certain time frame of where we
were and how we were feeling when we wrote that part. This record
really helps push the band forward musically and emotionally. It
just blows my mind sometimes how far we have come as a band."
It must amaze you to go back and listen to your previous records
and to reminisce.
"Yeah, it is fun to do that," she replies. "I find
myself every half a year or so sitting down and going through all
the albums and just taking in what we have done as a band. I also
find out that I always come back to How To Measure a Planet? (1998)
as one of my favourite albums by us. The sound is just so crystal
clear and there are some great songs. It reminds me of a great period
in time. Also, Mandylion (1995) also brings me back to a great time
because I had just joined the band and it was very exciting and
new for me. All of the records we have done together, from Mandylion
to now, are very special to me and I always get something out of
all of them when I play them back."
No doubt the last year or so has been a bumpy one for the quintet
as they severed ties with their longtime label Century Media, started
up their own label Psychonaut Records and released the EP Black
Light District and most recently Souvenirs (distributed in North
America via The End Records). How is the band handling a much larger
workload this time around?
She laughs. "Well, we do everything. We have the office and
two of the members’ homes to help with all the work. Hugo our
bassist and the drummer [Hans] handle all the business stuff, as
they have more of an insight than the rest of us. They make all
the big decisions for the label and get the deals done, while the
rest of us do the dirty work. When we get the CDs in we pack them
and send them off to the distributors."
She finishes, "We all work hard in the office and warehouse
and it was pretty chaotic when we started off as we didn’t
really know what to expect, but it is starting to roll pretty smoothly
now and we are feeling very at ease with running the label."
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