Interview: PAUL LOGUE of EDEN’S CURSE
Paul Logue has been a busy man as his band Eden’s Curse have just finished their first full UK tour which was a great success and the band plan a summer break before more UK dates planned for November.
He has also been involved in Dead End Heroes, a band formed around Swiss drummer Daniel Voegeli and feature Carsten ‘Lizard’ Schulz and guitarist Rolf Munkes amongst their ranks. Their debut album ‘Road Kill’ is out on AOR Heaven…
How did the recent UK tour go?
It was one of those things where you don’t know how it is going to go it’s a bit of a gamble. We were over the moon with the turn outs and we had a couple of sell outs. Even midweek nights people were saying don’t book them but we got good turn outs.
We had to book them as every day on the road costs money, you’ve got to people in hotels and so on. We planned it on areas we had done before with a good reception and luckily it went an absolute dream. We thought we’d be doing well if we made break even, but we actually made money.
We took the new record on the road and sold out of nearly every copy and t-shirts. When we got to the London show we only had small sized t-shirts left and we had to ask Mike Exley (PR man) to bring along a few copies of the latest CD. It couldn’t have gone any better, we are absolutely delighted.
We have had a lot of offers in after this tour. It will be hard to fit it in as the guys have few holidays left after family commitments.
How do you get onto these festivals, do you have to buy your way in?
I have heard in the past smaller bands have paid to get onto the festivals. We would certainly do something like that to get onto a festival but we’ve never been in the position to yet. More established bands are willing to do this which makes it harder for bands like us to get onto the festival bill. Look at Download I bet Andy Copping’s (Download promoter) email is overloaded and how does he go about actually nailing down who is good and who is not.
We just concentrate on the things we can influence like building the fanbase up. We have a very active presence online and on our Facebook page we update at least once a week to give people something to chew on. We don’t want to put up any old rubbish you know? We want stuff that is good content to look at. In fact the Facebook page has even overtaken our website in terms of content and traffic we get.
How have the new boys settled into the live shows?
Steve (Williams) and Nikola (Mijic) live debut was Firefest last October and John (Cleland) had the harder task of learning eighteen songs live. One of the main reasons we chose John is that he is a student of the drums. He’s a person I’ve worked with on album projects and he is very meticulous. I knew he would immerse himself in the eighteen songs and I wasn’t wrong at all. We could rehearse as a live rhythm section as he lives in Edinburgh and I am in Glasgow, so we met up every fortnight. By the time the boys arrived they could see the rhythm section worked really well. I personally don’t think the band has ever sounded better.
It must be hard with a band like Eden’s Curse with members spread out across Europe and getting together around family and work commitments.
Yes it does take preparation. We formed as a band through the worldwide web and I orchestrate it all from my studio. I have everybody’s musical parts as I collate them before sending them to Dennis Ward to work his magic on them. I can give everyone a version of the song minus their instrument. We pick the set very early on in the process, four or five months before the live shows and we have plenty of time to learn the songs. When we actually meet up together we are rehearsed and we then get to know each other, where we stand on the stage and stage movements.
Maybe not known to the naked ear but ‘Trinity’ and ‘Symphony Of Sin’ were written as a live band, so we actually finish each song on it as we would do live. It’s reaping its rewards now hopefully.
The profile of the band is at its peak. We did the two Dream Theater shows and got back out on the road, we had a couple of years of instability in the band. That’s why we took our time in picking Nikola and we recorded the record with him. Nobody knew we had him at that point. We had had him since December 2012 in the bag and we didn’t release the record until October 2013. Nobody knew and we kept him under wraps. It was not telling the fan base about him. We planned it properly and it reaped rewards. We want to show people we are a live band and build up a following.
What have the band planned gig wise for the rest of the year?
Well we are taking the summer off, although I say that tongue in cheek as I will be writing press packs and contacting festivals for opportunities. Also looking at the venues for the November dates here in the UK.
We have started on a few ideas for the next record. We will look to be writing from August and the rest of the year with a view to recording in the summer of 2015. We will try and get a few festivals in the summer and we aim to get the album out next year. We won’t rush the album and we will go to Serbia for a few sessions as Nikola has his own studio. Mr Ward will doubtless be involved too.
You are involved in a new band Dead End Heroes and you’ve just recorded a video for the song ‘Road Kill’?
I just got back on Sunday night from Frankfurt. I was asked if I wanted to play bass on it and it’s classic hard rock which I thought was great. The guys asked me if I wanted to join the band as I don’t really join bands but the more I heard the music the more interested I became and I thought why not?
Eden’s Curse is my heart and soul, I look after the business side and production and so on, so Dead End Heroes is great as I can play bass and take a backseat. I don’t have to write all the material. I very much enjoyed.
I’ve just reviewed it. Good hard rock album with Deep Purple influences.
Oh there are a lot of influences coming through like Purple you mentioned, Krokus and even a bit of Y&T and Scorpions in there. A great classic rock album and absolutely brilliant production. I knew of Rolf Munkes from working with Doogie White and Empire, the more I saw of him working as a producer and guitar player. He is absolutely brilliant and I stayed over with him when I was in Germany.
You’ve worked with Eddie Lavelle as well recently?
Eddie was a fan who bought a t-shirt at our stall as another one of my role, with my lovely wife, is running the merchandise stall. He sent over an MP3, no vocals but it sounded great. He emailed asking if I would be interested in writing some songs. I wrote him one song and he asked would I do some more.
The more we got into it I asked him where he wanted to go with it. Did he want to do a full album? I put him in touch with John Kivel and the rest as they say is history. I did write or co-write every song on the album. One was on old song I wrote with the Martin brothers’ years ago for a Frontiers project and they didn’t want it, so I am glad I kept it as it is a killer tune.
(There was some discussion of the upcoming World Cup with Paul going for Germany to be the top European team and Brazil as winners)
Message for your fans…
The fans have been amazing on this tour. Two things have kept us going, first the band camaraderie and secondly the fans who emailed and wrote to us when we were going through tough times. There was never a point when we thought we would call it a day but words can’t describe how much the fans support meant to us. That’s why it is important to us that we tour and meet as many fans as we can. We hope to meet more on the November dates later in the year.
Interview by Jason Ritchie
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