Pete Morten is a busy man as My Soliloquy release their debut album ‘The Interpreter’ plus he will be out on tour soon with Threshold…

1. What are you currently up to?

I’m currently rehearsing for the Threshold European Tour, looking forward to that. I think Karl (Groom) plans on starting work on the next Threshold record too in the summer, so I’ve got a few riffs I’m working on.

Outside of my Threshold commitments, I’m busy preparing for My Soliloquy rehearsals that take place in April, as soon as I return home from touring. I’ve also started writing for the next My Soliloquy album too, and have about six songs at various stages of development.

I’m also currently making an album with a band called Nightmare World who I’ve been singing with since 2007, and we have one E.P. out already. I have just one more song to sing, and then we’re pretty much ready for mixing. It’s going to be a great record.

And yes there’s more, I may be recording a promo track with another band I front called Metalloid, whom I’ve played over 60 shows with.

Sadly we have nothing recorded yet, so we’re hoping to address that with this promo.

2. On this album, bar the drums, you play everything yourself. Did you ever consider recording it as a band or was it a case of you knew what music you wanted to record? How did Rob Aubery become involved in the production side?

The E.P. I recording in 2007 was done the same way. I did everything and Damon did the drums. In early 2006 I’d decided to part ways with the then current lineup due to complications within the band at the time. So I had to do what was needed, and go it alone.

So really, MS has been just me and the drummer for 6 years. I felt really confident that I could not only write everything myself but also play everything bar the drums, so when it came to the album, I wanted to approach it in the same way. I never once considered getting a full band back together, as I was very keen to sidestep all that group decision making or indecision as the case often is.

I have a very strong sense and feeling for what any given song I might be working on needs, so trying to be a democracy all the time when it comes to writing actually slows everything up and can make the process very tiresome and strained.

I originally asked Karl Groom if he was free to produce the album, but I think he was busy with Dragon Force at the time, so the studio was fully booked. But he turned me on to Rob Aubrey, who is obviously a producer of the same calibre. Working with Rob was a real pleasure. Great producer.

3. Could you take us through the new album ‘The Interpreter’? (e.g. ideas behind the songs etc)

I consider this record to be very much an album in the truest meaning of the word ‘album’. Like a photo album is a collection of memories, and so

‘The Interpreter’ assumes a literal meaning. Every song is a memory of an event in my life since I started this band 10 years ago, thus I have become ‘The Interpreter’ of those events for the listener.

Even when I was doing the artwork, I wanted to reinforce that concept, to create this fictional future where everyone can repeatedly revisit past events in their lives by hooking up to their very own user registered Interpretation Interface, which is what the machine is. It affords the user to watch their memories like movies.

Regarding actual songs, I cover spirituality, reincarnation, love, both in an obvious sense and in a universal sense, loss, insecurity, and the human condition and war.

4. How did the touring line-up come together and if all goes well would they appear on the next album?

Well to get back to me going it alone in 2006, some of the guys that were in the band now were originally in it then. I simply just asked them if they wanted to be involved in the live shows again. The only exception to that rule is the Bass Player who is a completely new addition. I played a few shows with him back in 2009 in another band.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YK5wTTWuwfs

5. Your vocals are not the usual high pitched ones you often get in progressive metal bands. How did you develop your vocal style and who are your influences?

Vocally my main influences kinda centre around three singers, Morten Harket of A-ha, James LaBrie of Dream Theater, and Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden. The album uses all my range, and there is a lot of high register singing on there, but I’m not afraid to use my lower registers if it’s right for the passage.

I’m certainly not one of these singers who thinks that the only way to express himself is through only singing high.

My Soliloquy is all about dynamic, and will never be about a band who just offer the same emotion in every song, the very idea of that just sounds dreadful to me.

I also had some vocal training around 2005/2006 with an excellent vocal coach.

6. When you formed My Soliloquy what sort of musical vision did you have for the band?

To write original music, end of. I love Dream Theater, but what I noticed was that all the bands that came out after DT, all sounding like DT ha ha.

And I remember thinking, why do these bands all sound the same ha ha. The rare exception to that is probably Pain of Salvation, who are truly original.

So anyway, I obviously have nods to the mighty DT in my music, but it’s very much delivered in my own unique way of song writing and is very subtle.

Prog fans may hear this album and say where are all the 5 minuet solo’s and 15 minute songs ha ha.

But I’d argue all those elements are there. There are plenty of clever uses of odd signatures in the music, but it’s not over baring and dominating,

it’s used subtly. And the solo’s in Inner Circles, Flash Point and Fractured are all very inventive and challenging to play.

I think my strengths as a song writer lie in being clever with arrangements for the sake of the song, not for the sake of just being clever.

7. You briefly fronted Power Quest. What was it like switching from guitar to being the main onstage focus of a band? How did you come to leave the band?

Well when I joined PQ for those three tours in 2009/early 2010, I’d already had 8 years experience of being the front man with My Soliloquy, Nightmare World and Metalloid combined, so it wasn’t like all of a sudden I was the singer and didn’t know what I was doing.

Rather, looking back, I realise that I took too much on. I was in the thick of the MS album, had lots of work on as a freelance graphic designer, and was also preparing for a Threshold Tour. I remember specifically doing the PQ UK tour with MSG and then going directly into a Threshold EU tour. I gave my all at PQ shows, but I knew I truly wasn’t there in spirit and heart.

I feel bad about that for Steve, but I guess you live and learn right. I knew I wasn’t right for the band, but I am forever grateful for the experience, and we had some fun.

8. Threshold are headlining one night of the Celebr8.2 festival. Do the band adapt their set much for a festival given that all the audience may not be familiar with the band’s music?

Not really, I don’t think we do things differently for festivals verses our own shows. If we only have a short set, which has happened at some festivals in Europe, we might swap more of the longer songs for shorter songs, but that’s about it really. I think all the material is so strong and inclusive of that Threshold signature sound, that quite frankly anything we play will be a great representation of the band. Even the uninitiated can get a very clear idea of what the band is about in any given song.

9. You became a full time member of Threshold last year with the ‘March Of Progress’ album. Did you have much input into that album?

Correction, I became a full time member sometime around 2009 I think ha ha, although the actual conversation of..”Pete welcome to the band” never actually happened, it was more unspoken, more of a feeling. I’ve been eager to just get stuck in and write for the band since 2009 really. It’s going to feel very good indeed to go out with those guys and support an album that I’m actually on, rather than just being the ‘new guy’, the ‘hired gun’.

I wrote two songs for March of Progress and a bunch of solos. The songs Coda and Divinity were written by me, and I just presented the songs to the guys, thankfully they thought they were good enough for the record. Regarding the other songs, I really just wrote a few solo’s for them, as the tracks were already fully realised by Karl and Rich before I got to them.

10. What do all enjoy doing in your spare time away from music?

I love movies, and get very moved by film. Strangely I get more out of watching a great film rather than music. Yea I know that’s weird.

I also love cycling, reading and collecting Transformers, specifically G1.

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