LionHeart :: Interviews :: Sanity (September 2003)

First of all I would like you to give us a small biography. Also tell us a few things about your former groups.
Sanity first presented itself to the public january 2000. The idea of the band's formation originates from the finals of the Parel van de Betuwe contest back in 1999. Ex-members of Blind Fury and the former singer of Bagheera decided to arrange a few rehearsals. We soon discovered that our idea's leveled and gathered forces under the name Sanity. Starting from that moment on we have been put a lot of effort in creating original material. Both in 2000 and 2001, as well as in 2003 the band reached the finals of the Parel van de Betuwe contest. Each time the feedback from the press and the crowd is very positive.

Sanity exists of Kees van Keulen (vocals), Jeroen Hoegee (guitars), Nathan Cairo (keyboards), Ruud Kool (bass guitars), and Fred den Hartog (drums).
We play symphonic, melodic metal without too many fancy additions, in which emotion plays an important role. Fierce up-tempo pieces, gentle parts and atmospherical, sensitive excesses seemlessly follow up each other. The lyrics of the songs contain subjects such as grief and happiness and other aspects of human life. We also included autobiographical element. Our performances are intense and powerful, as well as visually attractive. Kees’ first serious band was Bagheera, during the early nineties. Bagheera was a quite successful melodic rockband in that period. However, Kees’ and the band’s ideas grew apart from each other, so finally they decided to split up. Ruud started playing in Blind Fury, as well as Fred. The band had a more mellow approach than Sanity. Finally, Blind Fury grew into Sanity when Jeroen joined the band and the (female) singer left the band. Later on Kees joined Sanity, followed by Nathan, after the former keyboard player’s departure.

Give us some information about the Parel van de Betuwe Contest.
Every year there is a national pop competition in the Netherlands. First rounds are being held in the regions. “Parel van de Betuwe” is the contest in the region where most members of Sanity live. The finalists of the regional contest get to meet each other in the national contest. The winner receives studio time and a few gigs.

Describe your sound in detail including your influences.
To be honest, we’re not so sure about our sound ourselves. People tell us we sound like bands like Within Temptation, and Nightwish, but also like Dream Theater, Ayreon, Symphony X and Iron Maiden. We have so many influences that each song sounds very different from another. Nevertheless the ‘Sanity-sound’ is always very present. I think the unique thing about Sanity is that each band member has his share in the composition process. And since everyone listens to different music, all these influences can be found in Sanity. Very charactaristic are the theatrical voice and way of singing of Kees and the fragmented structure of the songs. We think melody and emotion are the most important parts of music, but that doesn’t mean we’re not experimenting with time changes, tempo changes, and technique.

“Sanity” is weird name for a metal group. How did you come up with such name?
Why’s that? We’re just not into knights or dragons and demons. Basically, we just thought it’s always a good idea to use your sanity.

Why did you choose to play this kind of metal? What attracted you in the first place?
At first we started off playing more soft, melodic rock music like Bon Jovi and such. But especially Jeroen and Fred had always had love for more powerful metal as well. That’s why we blended those styles into our own style. It kind of slowly grew in that direction.

I’ve noticed that a lot of Dutch groups have chosen a similar direction. What do you think of the Dutch scene? Are there any groups you like?
Yes, definitely. Kees and Nathan are very fond of the Gathering. And we all like After Forever, Within Temptation and last but certainly not least Ayreon/Star One. There is a lot going on in the Netherlands at the moment. We’re happy to see there are a lot of people who seem to like this kind of music and that there are quite a few rising bands in the scene as well.

A lot of fans (including me) often criticize progressive/melodic/symphonic groups for their excessive "open mindness" and radio friendly sound. They believe that adding elements taken from other styles and fitting them to the music in an inappropriate way can distort the actual metal sound and cause metal to lose its identity. Additionally, some groups although they have made the metal influence almost non existing by combining a variety of music styles (electronica, funk, grunge etc) are considered to play progressive metal. What would you say to these fans and what is progressive/symphonic metal in your opinion?
Progressive metal derived from progressive rock, which came into existance in the seventies with bands like Yes, Rush, ELP, and Genesis. Those bands started experimenting with blending rock music with classical, jazz, synthesizers and odd time signatures and shredding. In the 90’s bands like Dream Theater made a more metal approach to basically the same kind of music, which from then on was called progressive metal. Symphonic metal is mostly more melodic than progressive metal and is basically metal with melodic singing and orchestral arrangements, including synthesizers. What is true metal? Some progressive metal fans are music snobs and tend to think of progressive metal as the ultimate and only music form. That is ridiculous. The idea of progressive is to be open-minded and not conservative. That also includes listening to completely different music! We ourselves are not really conscious of what styles we mix, because it comes naturally and not like “hey, let’s put some jazz here and a touch of trance there”. We’re very ok with bands that do, as long as it sounds nice, because that’s what it’s all about. There is nothing wrong with radio-friendly either, as long as you keep focus to in what direction you want your

By the way, have you listened to the new Queensryche album? If yes what do you think of it?
Yes, we have. It’s a great album. It’s nice to see a group like Queensrÿche not getting stuck in their old successes, but following an entire new direction. A band should grow and that’s what they’re doing. A few months ago we attended a live show of theirs and they were great as ever.

Sanity is a relatively new group (formed in 2000) but some members are relatively old. (The youngest was born in 1979 and the oldest in 1966). Does it affect you in any way?
Most certainly our ages reflect to our music. The older band members have a lot of band experience and have chosen a clear direction in Sanity, because their musical knowledge abilities have matured and they know what they want to do now. The younger members bring in more modern influences as well and the age differences contribute to some really interesting ideas. There is a lot of energy going on.

General speaking I’ve noticed that you’ve put emphasis on the production of your recordings. Is this one of your main purposes when recording material?
In 2000 you released the “Beyond Believe” demo. Tell us a few things about the recording process including how long it took and when/how you composed the songs.
Next, tell us what reviews “Beyond Believe” has received.
Yes, production has always been very important to us when recording our material. That could also be the reason why we have only released one original demo yet: studio time is valuable time and we don’t like the idea of recording a cheap and sloppy demo. After finishing our first songs in less than one year time, we decided to go into the studio and record the material for promotional purposes, but also for ourselves. Something to be proud of. Despite limited financial resources and studio time, we made the best out of it we could. A lot of effort will also be put in our new upcoming cd, which will most likely be released by the end of october.
Beyond Believe didn't receive that many reviews. The main reason was that the cd has never been for sale in the stores but was only sold at concerts and to friends. But somehow some journalists started writing about it. For example Metalprivider wrote they could hear influences from bands like Dream Theater, Savatage and Queensryche but nevertheless we had created our own characteristic style. According to them we're one of the best symphonic/progressive Dutch metal bands they know. Klokradio agreed with that but also compared the first track 'Together as One' with the music of Marillion. A few reviews can be seen on our website, by the way.

In 2003 you recorded “The Demo” which is for promotion purposes only. It includes two CDs. An audio demo and a Video Demo. The audio demo has two songs from Beyond Believe and the rest are live recorded at Music Awards Gelderland. In fact you didn’t get in the studio to record something from the scratch. You just edited existing recordings. I would like to ask why you preferred to do this and why you included live tracks (that do not appear anywhere else) instead of recording them in the studio.
It looks like we're a bit lazy, doesn't it? Nothing is less true. Just around three months ago Chris enjoyed Sanity as the sixth member and Chris doesn’t have the abilities to produce any music, but makes a lot of noise for us by doing management and promotions. He also brought some additional budget to the band to spend, but most of it will be put in the new cd we'll record in august and september. He advised us not to spend too much money on a new demo now, and showed us how we could use the old material combined with great graphic design to make a spectacular ‘new’ demo with even live recordings on it. And it really works. In three months time Sanity changed from a local band in The Netherlands to a band known all around the world. The response we received until thus far is really incredulous. We never thought for instance that we would have an interview for a Greek site in such short notice.

As far as the Video Demo is concerned, I think that it’s not usual to include such material in a promo. Again I would like to know why you did this. How important do you think the stage appearance of a group is?
There are two reasons why we put the video on the demo. First of all when you send demo's to magazines or record companies you're just one little piece of dust in a huge pile they receive every month. By making a well-designed demo - even when it's a cdr - combined with a video, which is indeed unusual and also very complete information of the band, and also developed by a graphic designer you distinguish yourself from all the others and have more chance of being reviewed immediately. We're absolutely sure this strategy worked. A second reason is that we wanted to show the real capacities of the band. It's easy to go to the studio's, record each instrument seperately, make a perfect mix and press a perfect demo. With the video and the live recordings we showed the naked truth.

Tell us what reviews “The Demo” received.

Thus far we haven’t received a lot reviews yet, because they're still all on their way. We’re expecting reviews very soon now from the U.K., Germany, Italy, France, Greece, and Canada. Up till now we’ve received three reviews which please us very much. Strutter Magazine in Holland called the sound and the songs very impressive. In their eyes we're a very professional band and they think 'The Demo' is a wanted piece for fans of both 80’s U.S. power metal and today's progressive metal style. Babyblaue Seiten compared us a lot with IQ and heared resemblance to the voice of IQ's Peter Nicholls and other famous singers in Kees' voice like Fish and Bono. Also the Canadian rock encyclopedia Proglands wrote a review that made us very happy. Again we are compared with a very well-known band. This time they say the vocals remind to Eric Clayton's project Saviour Machine. Further they wrote, I quote: "The lead singer, Kees van Keulen, remind also the tonality of David Bowie and maybe sometime of Rod Evans of Deep Purple. A lot of great progressive feelings all along the CD will blow your ears." So lot of comparisons with very big names but in our opinion it shows we have a distinguished, and very own sound.
Besides this there was also an other surprising way wherein the professionals showed they liked our demo. Three radio stations said they will give 'The Demo' airplay: ‘Crete FM’ in Greece, ‘Radio Atraxion 102.5’ in Chili and ‘CSCR 90.3 Cable FM’ in Canada. Also Germany starts to give us airplay on a local level. This surprised us a lot because the technical quality of the demo isn't on a true professional level yet. Nevertheless we were very honored to hear this of course.

Which is your favourite Sanity song and why?
There really isn’t a favorite, but ‘Together as One’ pretty much includes everything Sanity has in terms of composition, emotion, and sound.

“ Together as One” is the title of a Death song from the “Human” album. You have also released a song under the same title. What is it about?
It’s about how good it can be when you’re not alone, but when there are people there to help you. And that we’re thankful for the help we’ve gotten on such occasions.

What are your lyrics about? Do you think that lyrics matter in music?
Lyrics matter very much in music, because that is where you put your emotions in. The lyrics tell the emotions and the music just emphasises them. Our lyrics are mostly about life. About relationships, emotions, things that have happened in the past, death, you name it. Real-life issues.

Have you contacted any label/company? What do you expect it will happen?
Yes, we have contacted some labels and labels spontaniously have contacted us. It's too early to say what will happen on the short term. When closing a deal with a record company the most important consideration will be that we can keep controlling our music by ourselves. We will never play what the record companies like to hear just because they think it’s better in a commercial way. There's already enough plastic music in the world from stars that come and go. We're looking forward to speak with labels and companies who are willing to look in the long term instead of the quick money.

Tell us about your live experiences so far. Do you find peoples’ response satisfying?
We’re not very regular giggers yet, but when we have our occasional perforamce the crowd is always very enthousiastic. We think the numbers of gigs will soon chance after we released the new album, which will be due for release by the end of october. One of the tracks will be a 'tribute' song to one of the famoust and most beloved Dutch 'chansonniers', Ramses Shaffy. Professionals in the music scene in Holland who heared the song allready are very impressed and predict that we will get lot of airplay because of this. And a lot of airplay will mean a lot of gigs. This news alone was enough to receive a first booking for april, when we will perform for approximately 2,500 people.

Judging from the quality of your releases, your site, your promotion efforts etc I get the feeling that Sanity is a professional group. Where can I attribute this mature approach, this professionalism?
All the visual aspects such as the website, and the promotion efforts are indeed very professional, but only a mirror to that one thing we're doing this all for: we enjoy composing and playing our songs and we like to make the whole world a contributor of this. We really think we have something to say in our songs and hope a lot of people will share those feelings.

This was my last question. Do you want to say something else?
Thank you for this interview. It’s always nice to see people showing interest in our music.