Stolt, Roine (The Flower Kings) (August 2004)

Secrets Of The Master Gardener - A Conversation With The Flower King, Roine Stolt

At 9:30 am last Saturday morning my phone rang. Roine Stolt had called to talk about the new Flower Kings release, Adam And Eve, and what it's like to be the busiest man in progressive rock. So after a few formalities and some small talk, Roine let me inside the flower garden to glimpse a bit of the work that goes into the making of a Flower Kings release. Most of the interviews I have read with Roine have focused mainly on the inner workings of whatever the band's latest release was, so this time I have tried to conduct a wide ranging discussion of a number of topics to try and get a wider view of Roine and his current and past work, his methods for creating music and his musical background. We talked about everything from his new CD to his newest guitar amps, and touched on songwriting, touring, recording, lyrical philosophy, childhood memories and more. In the course of all this, Roine shows, once again, why he is considered one of the best, and most thoughtful musician/composers in the music business today.

Roine Stolt: Tom?

Tom Karr: Yeah, is this Roine?

RS: Yeah, this is Roine Stolt

TK: Hi, good morning Roine, or good afternoon.

RS: Morning? Is it morning? [Laughs]

TK: Where are you?

RS: I'm in Sweden.

TK: So you're calling from Sweden?

RS: Yeah, I think I'm six hours ahead of you.

TK: Well it's 9:30 here in California.

RS: Is it? So you're in California, wow.

TK: What town in Sweden are you in?

RS: Uppsala, it's close to Stockholm. You say California, huh? I think I am 9 hours ahead of you, isn't that right?

TK: Yeah, England is 8 hours ahead of us, so that sounds right.

RS: Yeah, its 6:30 now.

TK: Well I hope you've had dinner and are ready to talk for a while. I want to ask some questions about Adam And Eve.

RS: Yeah.

TK: I've already seen some good reviews of the release. You must be pretty happy with that. Can you tell me what you are most pleased with on the new album?

RS: The high point for me, oh, in terms of songs, I think my favorite songs, at the moment I would say ... and that can change after we start playing them live, but at the moment it seems like my favorite songs are the opening track "Love Supreme," and uh... "A Vampires View," that one, and also the closing song "The Blade Of Cain."

TK: Yeah, I'm really pleased with your shorter songs this time, too. I mean a lot of the time the attention goes to the longer songs, the epics, but I think that some things like "Cosmic Circus"...

RS: Yeah, that's a good one.

TK: And Tomas Bodin's song "Babylon," they're beautiful and very well written. The songwriting is getting tighter and more concise, better every year.

RS: Yeah, thanks.

TK: What material will you... You have a European tour coming up soon don't you?

RS: Yeah.

TK: What material from Adam & Eve are you going to add to the set?

RS: That's a good question. I think that, actually the rest of the band is asking the same question. [Laughs] They're sort of waiting for an e-mail or a call from me to see what's up. I, I mean that generally, I say that we will try to play as much as possible from the new album, so I couldn't say we're playing all of it, uh ... maybe we leave out one or two songs.

TK: So people will be able to hear the new music this time, most of it?

RS: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and apart from that, we're trying to do all new songs, nothing that we've played before, except maybe we'll do "The Truth Will Set You Free." It works good live and we haven't played it too much, but the rest of the stuff we're lifting out and putting in new, fresh songs that we've not played live.

TK: Is that a tradition of The Flower Kings? I mean, I haven't seen the band live yet.

RS: No, no, no. No, we sort of, you know we, you know, people keep asking for songs, and we want to, I mean, my view is like, if you pay for the ticket and you go see the band and you want to hear a certain song, I mean, I want to play the songs people want to hear.

TK: And that can get a little old year after year.

RS: After we've done that, you know, like four or five years, still keep playing the same songs, there's "There Is More To This World," and "Stardust We Are" or "The Flower King," then you know, we need to stop. We just lift them out, maybe return them later. But now we need to play new songs.

TK: Yeah, after five or ten years of playing "Big Puzzle" and "There Is More To This World," it's time to move on.

RS: Well yeah, especially in Europe, I think, cause now we've been playing every year in Europe and lots of people go to many shows also. If we're playing Holland and Germany it's not too far away, they jump in the car and they drive for six hours to see the band the next night and they hear the same songs again, so, I don't know, it seems like we've been playing for those people many, many times the same songs, you know? So it feels like now is the time to do something completely new and fresh. So that's why we're playing most of the new album then, and just, you know, other songs we haven't played live before.

TK: Are there any plans to come to the USA after you finish the European tour?

RS: Ah, we're hoping, but there are no concrete plans, but doing it, up till now actually we've had a few offers and it all comes down to the economics, unfortunately.

TK: Yeah, of course.

RS: Yeah, but it seems like it could be possible, because we've had a few decent offers actually, and we'll see if we can patch together some sort of decent tour where we don't lose too much money, and we'll be there, you know? I mean especially for, because we've been playing the east coast four, five, six times now and California, we played 1997 or 1998, 1997 I think, Progfest, and then we played just two gigs one and a half, or two years ago.

TK: Yeah, it's been a long time.

RS: Yeah, so we haven't played California too much, so I think we need to play in California.

TK: Yeah, I think you do need to play California, definitely.

RS: I guess that most people who live in California and are big prog music fans and The Flower Kings fans especially, they think we should play in California, of course. So, I mean, I hope it will be possible.

TK: Well, we'll be looking out for you. Now I wanted to ask you a few questions about your songwriting. You seem to be about the most prolific songwriter we've got these days. Nine Flower Kings albums, three of those are double CDs, Transatlantic, Kaipa, Hydrophonia, and you have a huge amount of music that you've written in the last ten years. Do they just sprout out of you? Do you wake up thinking about a song? Do you have to work hard at it?

RS: No, I never have to work hard, and I'm not saying now that each and every song I write is a great song, but it seems to me like I seem to come up with songs very easily, and then what takes the time is the recording process. I was just thinking the other day, maybe yesterday, I was sort of, you know, sometimes you just have the time to sit down and think about your life, what's going on in your life, and I was thinking I need to make some changes in my life, because I feel that I have so many other things that I'm doing now and I don't have the time to record what I'm writing. I'm just writing and writing and writing and I just put all those bits and pieces on tape or in the computer and it's just forming into this big mountain of music, you know? I mean, not only progressive rock but I think probably one of the reasons I'm writing so much is because when I'm writing, I just write music.

TK: Yeah...

RS: I don't think like, ok, let's write a progressive song or a prog epic, you know? I just sit down and I write.

TK: When it comes time to record, do you take all these bits and pieces and start working with the other members of the band to build them into songs? Or do you do that work yourself?

RS: I very much, I think I, for different reasons, I like to sit down, you know, with all the bits and pieces and, and, so it sort of makes sense. It sort of seems pointless to me, just bringing all those pieces and then expect that someone else should understand my intentions and everything, because it could seem weird, and if I have a chance to display it in a proper way, make a decent demo, I think it's easier to, you know, for the other guys to understand what I'm trying to do. So what I'll do is, I just sit down and listen to what I've done, just lately, or what I've done two years ago, or five years ago. And again, it's just this big mountain of music. I'm just going through it and listening to the pieces and so it's slowly taking form into, maybe an epic. I'm working with it and it's growing into a eight minute, ten, fifteen, twenty minute song, and of course I, normally I build it up and then I take it down and I sort of put in things and I lift out things you know?

TK: Uh huh, right.

RS: It takes some time you know, to get a song like that ready. And then, of course, I write simple songs and I could have them ready in, say, maybe a couple of hours.

TK: Ok, so by the time you demo a song and you've gone through the pieces and built something, by the time you take it to rehearsal to show the other guys, is it pretty much in the final form that we hear later as the recording or do the others tweak it and change things and, umm, do they help with the arrangements?

RS: Well, I would say that the arrangements are pretty much set. Uh, what they do contribute is, with it, is more like the way they play it.

TK: The dynamics?

RS: Yeah, like the way Zoltan [Cs?rsz] comes up with, like, a nice drum pattern or a drum rhythm that I hadn't thought of, you know? It's like, that's great, keep playing that for me. Or Jonas [Reingold] has very much the freedom to write whatever bass lines he wants to write, you know? And normally, I would say that nine times out of ten, I'm saying, that's great Jonas.

TK: Right, uh huh.

RS: It's like, why didn't I think of that, you know?

TK: It's great having the best musicians to work with, right?

RS: Well, right, I mean they're all quite accomplished. They're great musicians. They have lots of fantasy, you know, and Tomas also, with his keyboards, he always comes up with all those, even if I've written the actual melodies or the lines, the chords, he always comes up with those weird sounds, you know?

TK: I wanted to ask you about Tomas. In the resurgence there's been in the last fifteen, twenty years of progressive rock bands, art rock, there haven't been that many all around, really masterful keyboard players. Tomas is very much like the old school players, like a Wakeman or an Emerson, a very complete, all around player. How did Tomas come to be in The Flower Kings? How did you two meet?

RS: Uh, Tomas and I, we met, I think in 1985. So it's almost twenty years now, he was just, I didn't know he existed, actually. We're from the same town and he'd been playing piano in different bands and I wasn't aware of his existence. It was actually our percussion player Hasse Bruniusson, you know, at that time we were playing together on and off, and I was about to put together a band to play some songs I had written, and Hasse mentioned someone he knew that played piano, because I was looking for a piano player, and I just called him up and I went to his home and I talked with him, you know, for half an hour and then he came to rehearsal and we played some music and we've been playing together on and off since then, you know? So when the time came to form The Flower Kings, he was my number one choice, because we'd been playing together and he's a great guy and all that.

TK: Yeah, he was a great choice. He's really contributed to the sound of the band.

RS: And I think that he, I mean, from the beginning he was sort of more playing the piano, and he wasn't that much into synthesizers and stuff like that, but over the years, it's like he's been developing skills with synthesizers, sounds and everything because he's interested in, he always wanted to learn more about everything that goes with recording , you know, sounds and synthesizers. He's a band person.

TK: Yeah, he seems to have great taste and a very keen sense of orchestration.

RS: Absolutely.

TK: You know, he picks the right keyboard voice at the right time.

RS: Yeah, absolutely. That's probably one of his main features. Yeah, I think, compared to other keyboardists, it feels like, I would find it hard to work with someone who just went into the store and bought a synthesizer and then, you know, just played with the presets, number twenty three or something like that.

TK: Exactly, yeah.

RS: It wouldn't work for The Flower Kings. Of course I'm very much like that myself, you know. It's very important, I mean the sound is important, not only the keyboards of course, but overall it's about the writing, but it's also the sound and the orchestration, it's all these tiny details that all together, they make the sound, you know? That's the sound of The Flower Kings.

TK: Yeah, that's the thing with progressive rock. Progressive rock is so much the details. There's so much thought that is behind it. There's so much more than just a simple theme.

RS: Yeah, yeah, I look at it pretty much, it's like you are conducting a symphonic orchestra. You're listening to the sounds and you're saying, like, ok, can I have a little more of that flute, or can I have the French horns down a little bit, or can we switch those instruments or blah, blah, blah, more reverb or whatever. So it's the combination of sounds, I would say, that's pretty much how we've been working over the years for the albums, putting layers and layers down and the combination of sounds that forms a typical Flower Kings song.

TK: You spent quite a bit of time on Adam And Eve in the studio, didn't you? A couple of months?

RS: Yeah, a couple of months. I think we started laying down the drum tracks in January, and then I finished the mix in, umm, the end of May.

TK: Did you work every day during that period?

RS: Well, almost every day. I think I did something in between, I can't remember what it was now, but pretty much each and every day. And that includes Saturdays and Sundays, too.

TK: Let me ask you something, man you're a hard working guy. But with all the Flower Kings and all the other projects you've been in on, guesting on other artist's projects as well, how many recordings do you think you've appeared on?

RS: Umm, I stopped counting, some five, six years ago I think, but I would guess, oh, roughly about two hundred and fifty maybe.

TK: Oh, my God! That's a lot of work.

RS: Yeah, I mean, not each and every one was like an album, there's like a handful of, maybe, ten, twenty singles also. But the others are albums. Of course there are those that I only played on three or four songs.

TK: Uh-huh.

RS: But most of them, I think I played on all the songs, and some of them I played both guitar and bass, and some of them I played keyboards.

TK: Did you play bass on the early Flower Kings releases, or did your brother play?

RS: I played bass, and he, normally it was like fifty/fifty, you know? So if I try hard, I can probably remember what songs I played bass on, but I think when Jonas came in, at the time of Space Revolver, I think he played on half of that album and I played half because he was new to the band and he was sort of developing his style, you know? He wasn't actually playing with a pick because he had been playing mostly jazz and I was playing with a pick and I wanted that sound for a couple of the songs on Space Revolver.

I played half of it, but he developed his pick playing and, you know, that slightly distorted sound that goes with progressive rock.

TK: Yeah.

RS: But, from Rainmaker and on, it's been Jonas playing each and every track.

TK: Is the recording process getting any easier for you now that you've got Jonas taking care of the bass duties and now Hasse [Froberg] or maybe Daniel [Gildenlow] singing a little more? Are you able to sit back now and be more of the director now, more than when you had to do everything yourself?

RS: No, no, actually not. No, I would say rather the opposite.

TK: It's getting to be more difficult?

RS: It seems so. I can't say exactly why. It seems like for each and every song you record, for each and every part and for each and every sound you record, there is more consideration going into each moment, I think. Maybe that's because we've been doing so many albums. So I'm a little afraid that we do something that is not up to the standard, something that is just the same old thing once more. I would say that there is more thinking going on now, so in that sense I would say that Adam And Eve is more of a mind album than say, Retropolis, which was basically an album that I put together from just, sort of leftovers, you know? And I just did it, and it wasn't much work. I think we finished that in, you know, a month or something like that. And now there is so much you have to live up to, you know?

TK: Yeah, well now you've got a track record, a history, and you have to live up to that history every time.

RS: Yeah, every time, every time. And even if you look at Adam And Eve and, maybe on the surface it looks like a slightly less complex album than, say, Unfold The Future, which was the more experimental album, I think, even if it looks like a simpler album, I think it's really not.

TK: Oh yeah, it's going to take repeated listening to find out all that's really going on there.

RS: Or all the details. I mean, we put in more consideration to each and every detail on this one than on the previous ones.

TK: Right, that's always a hallmark of good progressive rock. I mean, if it's just ok, then I like it immediately, but if it's really good, then it takes several listenings to grasp how good it actually is. There are always new things to discover, and...

RS: Yeah, yeah, that's always the way it has been for me, too. I mean, I can remember hearing lots of bands I didn't really like in the beginning, but after repeated listening, I mean, the first time I heard Weather Report I didn't care much for it, and after a couple of years I sort of re-discovered them and became a big fan. And I think the same with Genesis and Yes, even Yes. I think I didn't take much notice the first time I heard The Yes Album, I think. And sort of coming back, listening again, gradually learning to appreciate the style, and...

TK: And Adam And Eve is going to be one of those type of albums. Every time I listen to it, and I've listened to it, maybe nine, ten times so far, and every time I listen I keep hearing more and more, and that's just the same thing as when I first started to listen to, like ah... Close To The Edge, even thirty years later, every time I hear it I hear it a little bit differently, hear something I hadn't noticed before.

RS: Yeah, yeah.

TK: I want to ask you a question, if I can, about your lyrics. It, it, this is no big surprise, but everybody thinks that The Flower Kings lyrics are all very positive, very uplifting, and I want to ask you about, well ... you. The lyrics are a reflection of you, right? I mean, you seem to have a great attitude on life, a very positive attitude and I was just wondering, do you feel you were always a naturally optimistic and happy person? Do you have to work at that? Because you seem to have a great feeling for life and your music, and it shows in your lyrics.

RS: I can remember, well, first of all, I think I can remember a happy childhood, that's what I had, and being a teenager I came into music quite early actually, and I was playing in my first professional band when I was seventeen, and...

TK: How old were you when you started with Kaipa? Was that Kaipa?

RS: Seventeen, yeah, and suddenly I was in the recording business. It was lots of fun, you know, and I started to travel and meet people and I had to, I had a chance to actually do what I wanted to do, play music, write music, and uh ... make my living off of that.

TK: You know, I don't hear any cynicism, I don't hear any cynicism at all in The Flower Kings music or your lyrics.

RS: No. So I think that from that point I, I mean, of course I look at the world around me and I, I can see the bad things, of course, and I think if you look to The Flower Kings albums from day one I think that, as you say, most of it is very positive, but I think there are also some songs that I would say are almost like, I would say very critical towards the society, and almost political, I would say.

TK: Yeah, sometimes, but that...

RS: Yeah, I guess the overall impression is that The Flower Kings is a band that is, ah ... sort of beaming out a positive energy.

TK: It does. It's ... sometimes you have to really try to see the good. You can let the bad overcome you and it takes a special kind of person to see the good.

RS: Yeah, and I was thinking, probably one of the goals I had was when I started The Flower Kings was to make music that was positive, because a lot of the music that I have liked over the years has been positive. I always looked at The Beatles as a very positive band, you know? They brought much joy to my life, you know? You know, the positive energy that came from The Beatles, and I always appreciated music that was uplifting, that brings joy, both the music and the lyrics.

TK: Speaking of The Beatles, let me ask you something. Was there a moment where you knew, when you were a child, or when you were a teenager, when there was a moment you said that I know I'm going to be making music for the rest of my life?

RS: No, umm...

TK: I mean, I know that for me, when I saw The Beatles on TV in 1964 I said to myself that I've got to have a guitar, I have to play music, too.

RS: No, I think I was just admiring them, or thinking, you know, this is something for someone else. I was just happy watching them, just happy buying the albums, putting the posters on my wall, you know, all that. And I think I, it wasn't until I started working with Kaipa when I was seventeen, because I can remember like six months before that I was talking to a friend and I, I can remember that vividly, because I said that, you know, you're like ah ... you just finished school and you're thinking, ok, what's going to happen now, what am I going to do with my life? I was painting, I was drawing, I wanted to do something with that, you know? I thought, at the same time I thought maybe I become a teacher, you know, who knows? If I'm happy, if I'm lucky I can work at the theater, a TV station or something like that, you know? It could be fun. But, I mean, you're young and you're thinking, what possibilities are there? What can I do? Being realistic. And I was saying to my friend, ok, I'm playing in this band and it would be fantastic, I just imagined what it would be like being in a band and playing music, writing music, and even going into the studio and recording an album. And that was just, say, one year before I did the first album with Kaipa. I think it's, I was just lucky. I just came across those guys who were a couple of years older than me and I, I had something, you know? I was playing guitar, but I wasn't great, but I had something and they were kind enough to offer me a place in the band, and it just went on from there. I suddenly realized that now I'm a professional musician. It was sort of like a dream.

TK: You know, I've heard the early Kaipa stuff and some of it was pretty good. You don't sound like a seventeen year old kid. You sound pretty solid.

RS: Yeah, the Kaipa stuff isn't fantastic, but it's pretty ok. For that time you know? The mid-seventies.

TK: Let's talk about you as a guitar player for a moment, ok? In the old days when I first started hearing The Flower Kings, about the time of Retropolis, and I thought, for a while that you sounded, your voice, your tone sounded a lot like Steve Vai. You both had that very expressive wah-wah playing, and now I'm listening to you, and your playing reminds me more and more of Robben Ford....

RS: Robben Ford?

TK: You know of him? The jazz/blues player? You're becoming a great, a more jazzy player.

RS: Thanks.

TK: Who do you listen to? Who were you listening to when you started playing guitar?

RS: When I started playing guitar I was, well, even before that, I was a big fan of Jimi Hendrix. I think it was from the time Jimi released his first single, "Hey Joe," until a couple of albums later. I was a big fan of Jimi Hendrix. And then I was also a big fan of Robin Trower.

TK: Oh yeah?

RS: Yeah. At that time he was in Procul Harum. And then he went on, you know? Going solo, playing more like, blues albums.

TK: Well, that makes sense, that if you liked Hendrix, then you're going to like Trower, too.

RS: Yeah, Trower, too.

TK: Yeah, so who do you like now? Are there any guitar players...

RS: Also I was a big fan of Peter Green, too, who was also a blues player.

TK: Uh-huh, Fleetwood Mac.

RS: Old Fleetwood Mac. Also as a singer, a fantastic singer, and a great player.

TK: Yeah, his time in Fleetwood Mac, that was my favorite period of that band.

RS: I like his tone. I absolutely love his guitar tone. His Les Paul and the Fender amp make a fantastic sound.

TK: Well, you've got a pretty rich tone, a sound of your own. What are you using for amplification on stage?

RS: On stage? Ah, it differs all the time. I mean lately I've bought two old Fender amps that have been modified by a guy here in Sweden.

TK: Uh-huh.

RS: So I can have an old Fender Bassman....

TK: Oh, you're using Bassmans? They're awesome sounding!

RS: Yeah, I am.

TK: Great! Bassmans have a very unique tone and cool distortion, too.

RS: Yeah. So what you're hearing on Adam And Eve is basically the Bassman, and I've had a Dual Showman, like a 100 watt amp, and it's modified so it has four channels, so I can have clean and distorted, slightly distorted and crunch.

TK: And everything in between.

RS: Yeah, so that's what I'm playing, and this album was recorded with a Fender Telecaster thinline.

TK: Oh yeah? Really? It sounds very ballsy for a Telecaster. You did say a Telecaster?

RS: Yeah. And I think maybe a couple of solos on some tracks were recorded with a Les Paul, but not much on this album.

TK: Wow, cause I usually think of a Telecaster as having a rather thin sound, but you don't have a thin sound at all.

RS: Yeah, well this thinline is not with the single coil pickups. It's more like the Fender humbuckers.

TK: Oh, it's has humbuckers, eh? That makes a lot of difference. Hey, by my clock, it looks like we're about out of time.

RS: We are? Oh, wow, you're right.

TK: Can I ask you one more question?

RS: Sure, yeah.

TK: Next time you have a good break from recording or touring, is there something you want to do, someplace you'd like to go, something you'd like to do that you haven't done yet?

RS: Uh ... wow, well there's lots of places I want to go, I mean, just going there, but if we're speaking about music...

TK: No, I mean just anything. What do you want to see or do that you haven't done yet?

RS: Well the thing is, I've seen, I mean, being in The Flower Kings, I had a chance to see places in South America and I've seen Japan. I haven't been to Australia, yet. And also I've been traveling through Asia, to Thailand and Malaysia, and places like that. I've been to Mexico and Cost Rica, Chile, Argentina, Venezuela, Brazil. You know, I've been lots of places.

TK: Yeah, sounds like it.

RS: And most of Europe, too. So ah ... I don't know. I've never been to Africa really. That would be interesting too, maybe South Africa and Australia, too.

TK: Well, I hope you get a chance to go where your dreams lead you. I want to tell you thank you very much for talking with me.

RS: You're very welcome.

TK: It's very nice to talk with you, and I hope you don't have too long an evening ahead of you. Thanks Roine.

RS: Well thank you. That's what I'm here for. Bye bye.

TK: Yeah, bye bye, Roine.

So, that was my talk with the Flower King himself. It is always refreshing to learn that one of best musicians on the planet is also one of the nicest and most open people I've ever talked to. The new Flower Kings release is sure to be another milestone in his career, the kind of album that grows and grows on you. The master gardener has certainly produced another fine crop.

Discography:
Roine Stolt - The Flower King (1994/2001/2004)
Back In The World Of Adventures (1995)
Retropolis (1996)
Stardust We Are (1997/2000)
Scanning The Greenhouse (comp) (1998)
Edition Limitíe Quebec (1998) (only 700 copies!)
Flower Power (1999)
TFK fanclub disc (2000) (free CD exclusive to fanclub members only)
Alive On Planet Earth (2000)
Space Revolver (2000)
Space Revolver Special Edition (2CD set) (2000)
The Rainmaker (2001)
The Rainmaker - Special Edition (2001)
Unfold The Future (2002)
Live In New York: Official Bootleg (2002)
Fan Club CD 2002 (2002)
Fan Club CD 2004 (2004)
Adam & Eve (2004)
BetchaWannaDanceStoopid (2004)
Harvest (fan club CD) (2005)
Paradox Hotel (2006)
The Road Back Home (2007)
The Sum Of No Evil (2007)
The Sum Of No Evil (Special Edition) (2007)
Tour Kaputt (2011)
Banks Of Eden (2012)
Desolation Rose (2013)

Meet The Flower Kings - Live Recording (DVD) (2003)
Instant Delivery (DVD) (2006)
Instant Delivery - Limited Edition (2CD/2DVD) (2006)
Tour Kaputt (DVD) (2011)