Lofstads, Jorn Viggo (Pagan's Mind) (January 2008)

Speak Of The Pagan

With Pagan's Mind scheduled for the 10th edition of ProgPower Europe 2008 next October, and with their new album God's Equation just out from Limb Music Products (released last November), it was time to find out what else these Norwegians have been up to, so Joshua Turner spoke with guitarist Jorn Viggo Lofstads about their "pagan" rituals.

Joshua Turner: Hello Jorn. The first thing I wanted to ask you was if you had any tours or concerts lined up at this time aside from ProgPower Europe.

JVL: We just finished off the tour we had with Fates Warning, that we had in Europe: Germany and Holland. We're having now a few gigs in Norway, and we're going on a European tour with Brainstorm again in March. We were actually offered a slot on tour in the US at the same time, but at that time, we had committed to the other tour. One of our absolute biggest priorities right now is to get together and tour in the US. Hopefully, it will happen in the first six months of 2008, and of course festivals and such like that as well.

JT: About that new album that you have, how did you come up with the name of it and what's the concept behind it?

JVL: Yeah, I think the name God's Equation is a phrase first used by Albert Einstein. It's his way of explaining the expanding of the universe or something like that in a mathematical formula, in a way. Nils [K. Rue] did the cover. He's the singer in the band. He did the cover and the artwork. He came up with the title. We are all big fans of the Taken series with Steven Spielberg and actually one episode there was called "God's Equation."

[When I read the title, I experienced déjú vu. This explains why as I watched the series not too long ago. - JT]

So maybe he took the name and started to do some research about it. Regarding the cover, what you see is the female sitting with different religious symbols in her hand: One being the Christian cross, another being the Egyptian ankh and also different symbols from different religions. I think the idea here is that's what we call "God's Equation." Maybe everything comes from the same source, and it's also a bit provoking because the title is God's Equation and we have a picture of a female goddess. Yes, touching a lot of strings here.

JT: Yeah, it's pretty cool. I think if you asked my girlfriend, she would agree with the picture as well. That it should be a woman.

JVL: [There is a pause followed by a chuckle.] Actually, the woman on the cover is the drummer's wife. We took the picture, built it up from the bottom ourselves. It's not something that we found or something like that. It was kind of... we had an idea from the bottom up, you know, started from scratch. We were taking a lot of photos of her and of course adding a few art. [We laugh.] It turned out really cool I think.

JT: That's great. Speaking of names, your band has a very unique name. I was wondering if you could go into how you came up with the name, what it's referring to?

JVL: I wish I had a really clever answer for you, but the truth is that Nils and Stian [Kristoffersen] earlier played in a band Silverspoon. It was a cover band that also did some of their own stuff. The bass player there, named Øyvind Vang, he actually came up with that name as a song idea for a Silverspoon song, or a song that also turned up on our debut album, Infinity Divine. I cannot remember the song: number five or six or something like that. It's called something else but it has the phrase "pagan's mind" and he wanted that song to be called "Pagan's Mind." But then again, we all thought that - of course when we started Pagan's Mind he was not a part of that, but we thought that was a very cool and original name. Of course Nils did kind of... the thing that Nils is responsible for in this band is the singing, lead writing and lyrics, the concepts, and those two things are really important to him. So kind of from his own personal beliefs and stuff like that. I think that band name was perfect for, you know, the kind of topics he wants to write about. Things that are more out there than the eye can see. I don't know if he considers himself a pagan. [I laugh.] I mean, at the end of the day it's a cool band name.

JT: Yeah, I agree. That's a good answer. You know, I'd say that my favorite song from the album is probably "United Alliance". I don't know what it is, I just like that song. I mean, I like every song on the album. But I was curious, what song - if any - would you say that you are the most proud of or would you say is your favorite, or just the one that clicks the most?

JVL: Oh phew! I have no idea. It's been too short since we worked on it. So it's kind of like, achh. I tend to listen a lot to "United Alliance," "Atomic Firelight," the David Bowie cover "Hallo Spaceboy," "Evolution Exceed," and also "Alien Kamakaze." So those songs right now seem to be my favorite songs. I also like "United Alliance" a lot. Maybe not a typical Pagan's Mind song, but it's very nice, very forward melodic metal song with nice melodies and that's also a big part of Pagan's Mind; you know, having nice vocal lines and stuff like that. I mean, why not?

JT: By the way, how did that David Bowie cover of "Hallo Spaceboy" come about?

JVL: A few years ago, I saw a live show with David Bowie on TV and when I heard "Hallo Spaceboy" I thought, "Wow, this song could be really interesting for Pagan's Mind to do." After playing it for the other guys in the band, we all agreed and thought that we could do something special with it. The reason why we chose to have "Hallo Spaceboy" on this album and not save it for later or whatever is that we thought that the version we wanted to do of the song also presents a lot of the new elements that we brought into our other new songs as well. And we are very satisfied with the result, and I think it fits perfectly on the album. It will not be a habit for Pagans Mind to have cover songs on our new releases, and we did not do it cause we were in lack of our own material or something like that. You will probably never see us recording Queensrÿche songs, et cetera, cause it would be too predictable and not very exiting. It's much cooler to do something surprising and original, and that's what I think we did.

JT: One thing that I like to ask a lot of artists is I like to find out about their influences and what bands influenced them. And specifically pertaining to your instrument, what guitarists out there would you say have influenced you? And I've actually heard Dream Theater mentioned a lot when your name is mentioned, but Dream Theater gets mentioned a lot for a lot of bands.

JVL: I don't know. For me, I would say that it's very incorrect. Of course, when I started to play in Pagan's Mind, I never played progressive music before in my life, before I started in Pagan's Mind.

JT: Oh really?

JVL: I had experience from fusion stuff and I don't know, playing covers by Toto and those instrumental songs that they have. Of course, that has similarities to a lot of progressive stuff that's out there. But, my influences have been more the classic rock scene actually. To me, the number one player is and will always be Eddie Van Halen.

JT: Definitely.

JVL: He's the guitar player that has influenced me mostly at least from the time that I was seventeen until I was twenty. Still rehearse a lot. So then he was very important to me and I think he has kind of a rawness and energy, and it's the real thing.

JT: Yeah, he's the innovator.

JVL: He has so much life in his playing. It really comes from the heart and that's really important to me. Rather than sitting weeks and hours and hours just rehearsing scales or something like that, just going through a routine or something like that. I mean, I think that's a good thing to do, to rehearse stuff, but what you play, it should always come from your heart and have a real and good energy. The number one guitar player: I would say Eddie Van Halen. I also love Dave Gilmour from Pink Floyd.

JT: Wow. Those are great choices.

JVL: Talk about playing good melodies and have that extremely nice and warm tone in his playing. Regarding bands that I grew up with and stuff like that, it was first, you know, Metallica - when I was 14 or 15 years old, it was Metallica, Megadeath, and King Diamond and stuff like that. Then I started to recognize bands like Dio, Black Sabbath, and Deep Purple, Whitesnake. A lot of those classic hard rock bands in a way. Led Zeppelin and a lot stuff like that. My major influences are kind of from that scene, but of course, after you grow older, you pick up on a lot of things. And I like bands like Toto. Of course I like Dream Theater, but I didn't... Actually I heard... I remember when they released their debut album. But I did not pick up on the fabulous Images & Words album until maybe five years after it was released. So it's kind of when I started to play in Pagan's Mind, I got more aware of the Progressive Rock stuff around me.

JT: The next thing I wanted to talk about is that I wanted to find out more about your songwriting process. Who comes up with what? Do lyrics come first? Do melodies come first? How do you put your music together? Can you give me a brief idea of that?

JVL: We always put songs together in the rehearsal room. I think Pagan's Mind is a live band more than a studio band. The writing process is maybe I come up with something. Maybe Ronny [Tegner] - the keyboardist - comes up with something, and we start to work on it together as a band in our rehearsal room. That's a very basic room. It's very lucky we live in the same area, the same city and have the possibilities to meet up at the rehearsal room a couple of days a week and do this and have a real band feel to it. So it's not a one-man show, but basically the band writes the music, you know, the four of us. We're playing. We come up with the ideas for the songs and a lot of times also the ideas for the melodies. That's a collaboration between what we come up with and what's natural for Nils to do. And he writes lyrics and comes up with different stuff and then we paint some stuff with cooperation there. It mainly starts with the songs or maybe an idea for a melody, and we build the song around that or something like that. But mainly it starts with the music and then the vocals come afterwards.

JT: Do you have any idea what else fans can expect from the studio, either with solo work or Pagan's Mind or maybe anything else that you're involved in? Or is it too soon to tell?

JVL: Actually, right now I just finished off? I play with a guy, a singer from Norway called Jorn Lande. I don't know if you've heard of him.

JT: Yeah, I think I have.

JVL: He is the singer of Masterplan. He was in that band and in a really cool, more progressive band called Ark, too, and he played in a lot of bands, playing with Yngwie Malmsteen and the guys in Whitesnake and stuff like that. So he's a classic hard rock singer. So I just finished off our third studio album that I've done with him now. We just got finished.

JT: Wow, you're a busy guy. It sounds like you're involved in a lot of different projects.

JVL: Yeah, I am. This year has been really almost too much. I'm happy now because I'm going to have a bit of a break from the studio for awhile and play more live and stuff like that. I really don't enjoy spending a lot of time in the studio. It's just a necessary evil or something like that. I mean, you need to do a good job when you're there, but the best thing is to play live.

JT: That's cool. You're doing a lot these days and a lot of bands maybe only release one thing every couple years. You're getting a lot done here. Talking about the live environment, do you have any plans maybe in the works for a live album or a DVD or something along those lines?

JVL: Yeah, actually we do. That's kind of our plans now after this album - it's first, of course, to promote it by playing live as much as possible. We do have a lot of footage from the earlier years with Pagan's Mind; you know, stuff that's been filmed and recorded professionally so we can go and mix it afterwards. And we kind of have a lot of stuff from when we started seven years ago to now.

But what we want to do is kind of have main concerts from this; you know, after the release of God's Equation. We actually recorded the gig at ProgPower [USA, last October]. So a few songs from that concert are going to be there. The main concert will be a whole concert from after the release of God's Equation and then, of course, we're going to put a lot of things there so people get their money's worth buying it. So it's going to be a lot of stuff from one of the two first gigs we ever had with the band, and you'll see the development to where it's at right now. It's also going to be a CD I think, yeah.

JT: I'm not sure if I've said this yet, because I may have been too busy hitting you up with questions, but you're a very proficient guitar player, which leads me into the next question. Probably going back to the beginning, you could have taken up any other instrument and been very successful. You obviously have that music-head. But I'm wondering, have you ever considered playing a different instrument or pursuing a different career?

JVL: No. I don't know. I guess when I was seven or eight years old, you know, I played the drums. I wanted that, but my parents wouldn't let me.

JT: [I laugh] That happened to me.

JVL: I understand. [He laughs.] I guess I always had an ear for music. Like in, I don't know what you call it, the first year at school - stuff like that - you get, everyone gets a small flute that you enjoy and everybody hates playing them. But I loved it. [We laugh.] So it was when was kind of "Argh! We have to play this now," I got bigger flutes and more stuff developed. I think also my teacher once sent me to play piano when I was nine years old or something. That wasn't the thing for me. I was really a restless kid in a way. I guess the thing that did it for me was the first time I sat down with a guitar and heard that distorted sound come out of the amplifier and I was so like, "Oh! This is what I'm going to do." [He laughs.] Easy as that.

JT: What's kind of funny is that you're talking about flutes and you're also involved in rock. That pretty much says progressive at least to me. Flutes and rock and Jethro Tull. You kind of think of Jethro Tull and stuff.

JVL: Yeah, yeah, Jethro Tull. I guess it does a little bit. When I was twenty, twenty-one years old, I also heard a lot of stuff: You know like Jethro Tull and stuff like that. I went to see them in a couple of concerts. Of course, I've always been interested in a lot of different kinds of music. But I guess the core of my inspiration is maybe in more straightforward guitars; you know, rock n' roll kind of style in a way.

JT: Also going back to the beginning, how did you get involved in music? Was it basically the music class and just one thing progressively led to the next?

JVL: The reason that I started in a band was that a couple of friends of mine had bought instruments and stuff like that. I wanted to play guitar, but there were already two guitar players. Of course, what were they missing? Of course a bass player. [He laughs.] So I bought a bass, you know, just to join the band. And I played bass for four, five months. It was kind of funny. They were always yelling at me, because I was always playing with the distorted sound only on the G string. All the time because it sounded more like a guitar or something like that.

So it started off with that, but after that I had kind of been going from band to band. Luckily, I think when I was 16 years old, I started to play with people who were a lot older than me. I mean I was born in 1974. I'm 32 years old now. It's not normal for a guy at my age to have their main influences from bands in the seventies. It's more common that you're inspired by bands that came in the eighties or late eighties, or something like that, when I was a teenager. But I kind of started to play with people who were a lot older than me who showed me this kind of music. They taught me a lot of things regarding groove and having a good tone and, you know, it's not a matter of how much you play or how fast you play. It's just how you good play what you play with these people. That's kind of my philosophy, too.

JT: I also wanted to touch upon the others who contribute to the album. You may not want to tell them this ... I think your guitar playing is the real standout on the album. [Well, the cat's out of the bag now. -JT] But everybody is doing a great job. What I'm wondering is how do you know these musicians? How did they get involved in the project? How did you guys meet up basically?

JVL: We had, bottom line: We're all from the same city, and I was playing in one band and Stien [Krokmo] and Nils were playing in another band. So we were kind of competing. [He laughs.] Ten years ago or something like that we were playing in cover bands. We were kind of competing to get the same gigs all the time. But then I started playing with Steiner and Ronny - the bass player and the keyboard player - in their Toto cover band. Kind of what became Pagan's Mind was kind of merged between the Silverspoon band with Stian and [the late] Thorstein [Aaby] - our guitar player, too. He was also part of the first two albums. So it was merging between them, me, Ronny, and Steiner. So that's what became Pagan's Mind. And it's seven and a half years ago now we started, I think.

JT: Wow. Now this question is going to make you think. So you may want to take a pause and take a deep breath and think about this one.

JVL: Okay. [He gives an uncomfortable chuckle.]

JT: Can you tell me about a Spinal Tap moment that you may have experienced in your career? And that could be some practical joke, some mishap. Something out of the ordinary that may have occurred in concert, on the road or in the studio. Just something like that.

JVL: Oh, I don't know. Things that make me embarrassed when I think about it. I can think of so many things. I don't know. One episode that happened on stage in Poland in March 2007, the thing most that I find quite embarrassing. It's like it was six months since I had my last... I've always done a lot of gigs. But this bad gig was with Jorn, the other band that I play in. I'm going on stage. I haven't played live in six months or something like that, just because of the songwriting process. Blah, blah, blah. A lot of folks there and I was going out on stage. You know, it was 6,000 people there. That's quite a lot of people to play before. So because I haven't done a lot of gigs, I was pretty nervous. And it was a plug-n-play festival so you didn't get to check the equipment before you went on and stuff like that. You know, it's the second song, and I'm going to start playing this song and the cord just flew out of my guitar. So I'm just standing there in the middle of the opening riff and, you know, "Boing!" [He tries to reproduce the sound effect.] The cord goes out of the guitar. I have to stand down, put it in again and start playing it. I mean, if I had done a lot of gigs or done that right now, I probably would have laughed my ass off onstage or make a joke about it so people can enjoy it with me. But first my face got red and then I got totally white. It was an awful experience.

JT: I'm sure it's funny now, but it wasn't funny then. [We both faintly laugh.] Maybe this plays into the next question. But what would you say is the worst part about being a musician? Is there a bad part? Is there a worst part about being a musician?

JVL: I wish it would be easier to make a good living out of it. You know, it's not easy to make a living out of playing. At least when you try to follow the music that I want to play, that I need to play. I'm not going to start in a sing-along band just for money's sake. I'm not in this for the money, but it would nice. But I guess the downside: Every artist or someone who is extremely dedicated to what they do, it can be a family life and stuff like that. A few people in the band have children and stuff like that. It's of course something I'd like to do, too. But it's hard for me to have a relationship with someone when I'm that involved in two bands. It's kind of like I'm working a lot. So I guess that's maybe the downside to it. Kind of like you have this egoistic energy that you want to give out. I feel that I have so much musically to give people. That's kind of my priority. But it would be nice to get home to a done-cooked meal sometimes, too. You know what I mean? [He laughs.]

JT: Sure. On a brighter note, what would you say is the best fan interaction that you've had? A good, memorable one. If nothing pops in your mind, we can take a pass on that.

JVL: There are a lot of places. In general, maybe people in Europe are a bit colder with the reception. I mean, if you play in Germany - and no harm; I'm not saying anything bad about the German citizens or something like that.

JT: They're serious.

JVL: Not that they're standing there with their arms crossed and looking at you very hard like "Who do you think you are?" or something like that. But when you're playing... times that we've played in the US, you know, people have been extremely welcoming to us. You know, that's one of the reasons that you play: To have that warm interaction with the audience. I play good when people are smiling and enjoying the show. Then I play better. And also, I have to say, they're big in Moscow with a good reaction from the audience. It's overwhelming.

JT: Wow.

JVL: I would say the American and the Russian audience are kind of the coolest that I've played for.

JT: Well, that's great to hear that. Going onto the next thing, I'd also like to find out about your current musical tastes. To start off with an easy one, what's the last CD that you purchased yourself?

JVL: It is the Toto Live CD that just came out. [ Falling In Between Live -ed.] It's the last one that I bought. I bought it a week and a half ago. It's kind of like we were in a planning session with Pagan's Mind. And I haven't bought that much music lately, to be honest, because I've been so busy myself. But I saw it and I just thought, oh, I want to listen to something else than what I do myself.

JT: That's cool.

JVL: Yeah, I picked it up. I also listen to... I have good friends - they're Norwegian - named Circus Maximus.

JT: Oh great, yeah.

JVL: I have listened a lot to their album lately, too. I think they're a great band. It's been very enjoyable to listen to that album.

JT: That's one of the albums that I'm planning on listening to very soon. It's funny that you mention that; I think we have similar tastes. Also along the same lines, what's the last concert that you attended as a fan?

JVL: I've always gone to a lot of shows. To see a band on a festival that I play on does not count now or does it?

JT: It can count if you're a fan. If you sit in the audience.

JVL: Yeah, yeah. If I don't see it in most festivals that I play on, you know, I think the last concert that I bought tickets for was In Flames. The Swedish band In Flames. They played in Oslo actually with Slayer and some other bands. And they're an extremely live band. So I really wanted to catch their act and stuff like that. So I guess In Flames was the last band that I paid money to see.

JT: Great. And I have a couple questions along the same lines. I'm going to ask you about your favorites. And these can be kind of difficult. So if you can just choose the first thing that pops into your head, we can kind of treat this as a lightning round before we wrap up. What would you say is your favorite album of all-time?

JVL: Ah, maybe the 1984 album by Van Halen or maybe Machine Head by Deep Purple. That's kind of the two that pop up in my head first I think.

JT: Yeah, those are good choices. We can go with those.

JVL: There's so many good albums, it's almost impossible to answer. But that's kind of two albums that have meant a lot to me.

JT: It's probably difficult to come up with a Top 100 actually. But who would you say is your favorite band of all-time? Would you just say Van Halen for that one?

JVL: Um, yeah, I think I have to do that. I think so. Maybe not now. I don't like it that it's a reunion with Michael Anthony. [He laughs.] [I think he means "without," as it's Eddie's son on bass -ed.] I'm such a big fan that I don't like that he's - I don't have anything against him.

JT: That's funny. Okay, I like to ask about some favorites that aren't necessarily related to music just to kind of get ideas of where influences are coming from or maybe this will affect future albums or something. But what would you say is your favorite movie?

JVL: My favorite movie? Um, I have a couple ones. It's one called Pay It Forward.[Interestingly enough, I watched Secondhand Lions around this time. Our tastes seem to overlap. -JT] I like that very much. It's a very warm and giving movie. I like the message and stuff in that movie very much. I'm also, when it comes to more fiction and stuff and like that, I'm a big fan of Lord of the Rings and Star Wars and stuff like that. I'm a big fan of movies. I'm sitting here right now because I have more of a kind of a weekend off. I have three movies in front of me because I haven't been able to watch the movies for such a long time.

JT: What do you have?

JVL: I'm sitting here with the new Simpsons movie and the Bourne Ultimatum, because I haven't seen any of them. So I'm going to see them later this weekend. [He laughs.]

JT: What's the third one? The Simpsons, Bourne Ultimatum, and what?

JVL: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, the last one is a film called The Big Nothing. I just kind of got it. I don't know anything about it.

JT: I don't know anything about it, either.[*] You might have to tell me if that's any good. Also I wanted to find out: What's your favorite TV show?

JVL: It's not Idol, the American or Norwegian Idol. [We both laugh.]

JT: That's the best answer you could give. [This is a statement and not a question.] You probably don't get much time to do that.

JVL: It's kind of like, I don't have - it may sound a bit funny - but right now I don't have a lot of TV channels at home. It's like I have seven, eight that I watch.[**] It's not so many American shows. I guess if I watch American TV, it's probably things that they send on the Norwegian network like David Letterman or something like that. He's cool to watch sometimes. But I think, I don't have a favorite TV show right now.

JT: Okay.

JVL: Well, maybe the Sopranos or something like that.

JT: Cool, well, that's good.

JVL: As far as the serious stuff, that behooves us absolutely.

JT: Would you say you have a favorite book? Is there a favorite book that you can think of?

JVL: I'm not a big reader so I can't brag and say that I read books. I really read very few books and it's been years and years and years and years since I done it. Maybe when I was in High School or something like that. I guess I'm kind of a pretty wound-up guy and I need to be running around and doing stuff in a way. No, I don't have a favorite book. I'm sorry.

JT: Okay, now also...

JVL: That doesn't mean that I'm shallow. [He laughs.]

JT: No, no, that's okay. To give you something else that you can share, would you say you're a sports fan and if so, what's your favorite team?

JVL: Absolutely, I'm a sports fan. I guess you guys call it soccer.

JT: Yeah. Right. [I laugh.]

JVL: So yeah, soccer is probably my favorite game that I like to watch. I also played soccer until I was 17, 18 years old. I follow my hometown team here, of course, every year. We had a very bad year this year. We went down a division. You got to stick with them anyway. I've been kind of a big fan of soccer since I was 6, 7 years old.

JT: What's the name of that team?

JVL: It's spelled O-D-D. So, I mean, if you say, "Odd," it sounds like something else, doesn't it. [We laugh.] But that's the name of the team: O-D-D.

JT: Oh-dit-dee. Oh I see.

JVL: It's a very old traditional club here in Norway. [Odd Grenland, methinks -ed.]

JT: Cool, we're getting towards the end. I just have a couple things. But I like to ask this question, because it helps me identify with the artist. But do you have any pets?

JVL: No, I don't have any pets. I don't. Sadly I'm allergic to cats or dogs or whatever. So I can't keep them.

JT: Also, before we wrap up, is there anything you'd like to say to your fans at this time?

JVL: In general, I'm extremely thankful for everyone that supports and enjoys our band. That's what we live for: to make good music, to make people enjoy it or for us to get feedback from the fans. And that people enjoy our album and songs means a lot to me. So I guess, uh, I'm really hoping that we're going over to the US soon to play. Not only for one festival, but for a whole tour. Yeah, I'm really hoping for that. And I hope that, you know, people will show up when the time comes. I'm really looking forward to that.

JT: That's great. I want to let you know that the album you put together is excellent and I really appreciate all the work that you put into it.

JVL: Thank you very much sir.

JT: One last thing that I wanted to tell you: With a name like Pagan's Mind and also the fact that you play kind of heavy music, before we got to speaking, I was thinking, well who am I going to be talking to here? And it's going to be this demonic type of guy or this or that. [He laughs.] You turned out to be very down-to-earth.

JVL: Absolutely.

JT: No it's funny. You're very down-to-earth and you're watching The Simpsons movie and you listen to Jethro Tull. It's cool to finally make the connection and see that you're kind of putting your emotion in the music, but you're a down-to-earth, cool person, too.

JVL: I guess every one of us is very down-to-earth. I mean, I'm not the guy that thinks I'm something special because I play music. It's very appreciated that people enjoy it and I love playing more than anything. But it's kind of like, it's best to have your feet on the ground if you want to kind of have? I'm happy to enjoy a normal and simple life as well.

JT: Do you have other interviews set up right now? Is this starting to run over?

JVL: Yeah, we have, let me see the time. I think I have an interview in ten minutes now. I think it's at 6:15 or something like, my time. So I think it's seven, eight minutes till I have another one. Actually, I was [just] getting home so I have some groceries that I need to put away before they are melting and lying all over my floor in my apartment here.

I'm going to do that and I'm going to have a cup of coffee and do the interview, and later tonight I'm going to go out with a couple of the guys from the band. I'm going to have a couple of drinks. It's been a long time since we've had the ability to do it. So I'm looking forward to that as well.

Thank you very much for wanting to talk to me as well. It's very important to us that people want to support us and write about us. So thank you very much and I wish you a great weekend. And I'm sure we'll talk again sometime.

JT: Definitely. Well, good luck and hopefully we can talk again. [At this time, I'm thinking that I'd like to see them live - if and when they tour nearby. -JT]

No US dates scheduled at this time, but their tour with Brainstorm kicks off on March 4 at The Rock in Copenhagen, Denmark and ends on March 22 at the Avalon Club in Budapest, Hungary.

*It's a 2006 comedy starring Friends' David Schwimmer? -ed.
**This is funny to hear. Check out Porcupine Tree's Fear Of A Blank Planet for more commentary on the subject matter. -JT
Discography:
Infinity Divine (2000/2004)
Celestial Entrance (2002)
Enigmatic: Calling (2005)
God's Equation (2007)
Live Equation (2009)
Heavenly Ecstasy (2011)
Full Circle - Live At Center Stage (2LP+CD) (2015)

Live Equation (DVD) (2009) Full Circle - Live At Center Stage (DVD/BR+2CD) (2015)