Marcel Coenen Interview! (SunCaged, Lemur Voice)

Thursday, 13 November 2008

PerfectProg: Hey Mr. Coenen, you are a musical genius, it’s a real honor for us to ask you some questions, thank you so much for your time and availability, please be extensive.

<!--[if !supportLists]-->1. <!--[endif]-->You have a long career in the metal scene; for good or bad, which have been your experiences?

I am playing music since I was 11 years old, joined my first band when I was 13 years old, now I am 36 so yes I am around for quite some time J. My experiences in playing music are great so far, I love creating new songs, writing music, it is my passion and my way of expressing myself.
I played in a few metal bands in the beginning before I started Lemur Voice (before called “Aura”). Lemur Voice was my first impression with progressive music, we made two albums and did several shows in The Netherlands and France but the band disbanded in 2000. I then started Sun Caged in 1999 and this band still exists, this band is longer alive then any other band I was in before and we still kick ass. Next to that I play in several cover bands for fun and I have a solo career, with which I recorded two CD’s and a live DVD. I also made an instructional DVD.

<!--[if !supportLists]-->2. <!--[endif]-->Are you working on new material? From Sun Caged or yours.

Both J With Sun Caged we are recording at this moment for the next album, this will be the follow up for Artemisia. Right after that I will start recording for my next solo album.

<!--[if !supportLists]-->3. <!--[endif]-->There is some side project for any member of Sun Caged?

Roel Van Helden (drums) also recently joined the band SubSignal which has ex-members of Sieges Even, I have my solo career, Rene Kroon (keyboards) also plays in the band “The Barstool Philosophers” which is also very great prog music, they will release A CD pretty soon.

<!--[if !supportLists]-->4. <!--[endif]-->There is some live gigs in the near future?

First we will record our album and release it, and after that we will ofcourse play live again !

<!--[if !supportLists]-->5. <!--[endif]-->From the Artemisia album, who write the lyrics and who make this exquisite music?

Paul Adrian Villarreal (vocals) is responsible for the lyrics and the titles, the rest of Sun Caged writes the music, with Artemisia we wrote a lot of it at home, using a computer and then send it to everybody, for the next album we did a little different approach, while we wrote a lot of the new stuff in the rehearsal room together.

<!--[if !supportLists]-->6. <!--[endif]-->Please talk us about Artemisia, the new era of SC, the Latin rhythms, the feeling in the vocals, the technique of the band, talk us about everything!

Artemisia is the album which was released when the band was still young, a lot of songs were already done before some members came to join Sun Caged. The only people who were in the band were Roel Van helden and Me. When Rene and Paul joined Sun Caged in 2004 we wrote some more songs and the chemistry is really great writing with them.
Paul is a singer who has his roots in singers like Paul Rodgers, Tommy Shaw or Steve Walsh, you can definitely hear that in his voice and his way of singing. Rene has his roots in listening a lot of Toto and Spocks Beard, but also Strapping Young Lad. He even used to be in some Death Metal bands before.

I also have a metal history, I was in bands like Form and Speedica with which we played speed and thrash metal. Roel van helden I got to know at a Sun Caged gig in the past, he talked to me and said he wanted to jam with me, so I called him later and we got together, at first he would join my solo band which I was setting up at that time. When Dennis Leeflang left the band I asked him to be a part of Sun Caged in which he luckily agreed. Roel is a great drummer with a very technical skilled baggage, but besides that he has a great groove and he is the one responsible for the latin grooves, because he learned that at the school he finished in music.

<!--[if !supportLists]-->7. <!--[endif]-->How hard were for you to join a new and talented band when all the members of Sun Caged leave the band?

Actually not that hard, it just took some time to find a good singer, since singers are not that easy to find, especially not in The Netherlands. Paul is not a Dutch citizen, he comes from the USA and is now living in Germany.

<!--[if !supportLists]-->8. <!--[endif]-->What happen with Lemur Voice? Top band, why disappeared?

Lemur Voice existed until 2000. The band made two albums (“Insights” (1996) and “Divided” (1999)). The members in Lemur Voice were at the end having troubles with the music style, you can see that now too since Nathan and Barend are making really different music. I was already busy with Sun Caged so I did not feel to search for new members, I just decided to continue with Sun caged since I wanted to create a little bit heavier kind of prog metal anyway.

<!--[if !supportLists]-->9. <!--[endif]-->Please tell us about Childhood Façade, I consider this song the best in the progressive metal history.

Cool that you like that song a lot, the basics for the song are written by Barend Tromp (bass) and us in the rehearsal room and the lyrics by Gregoor and Nathan, which are also pretty personal lyrics because it happens to be the way it went for Gregoor in the past with his father..

<!--[if !supportLists]-->10. <!--[endif]-->About your solo albums, you show a magnificent technique, were you have been prepared as musician?

I studied with a teacher when I was young to learn about music theory but the rest I am self taught, I studied with a lot of instructional video’s (Paul Gilbert, Vinnie Moore etc) and with my ears (listening solo’s, playing them slower, because when I was studying there was no winamp with a slowmedown plugin). I think in general for guitarists and also other musicians it is very important to use your ears when you play, listen to what you do, it should sound good, and sound comes mainly form the fingers !

<!--[if !supportLists]-->11. <!--[endif]-->Please talk us about the masterpiece and top album Insights.

That is a long time ago (hahaha). We got a record Deal with Lemur Voice with Magna Carta and Insights was the result, we never got an idea how much the album sold and we also did not get extremely many reactions. Until now (years later) people start to ask me about that album, and the funny thing is, with Sun Caged we played the song “Intuition” twice on two occasions, one at BARFest in San Francisco and once at Prog Power Europe, which was a special treat since original singer Gregoor Van Der Loo joined the stage to sing the song with us.

<!--[if !supportLists]-->12. <!--[endif]-->Which was the response of the metal scene about your instructional DVD?

Very good so far, I sold quite some of those !

The DVD came out pretty great, it covers a lot of techniques like tapping, sweep picking, legato playing and much more plus some excerpts out of songs, backing tracks and a PDF file with all the tablature and standard notation.

<!--[if !supportLists]-->13. <!--[endif]-->How was working with Hubi Meisel?

That was cool as well, I once contacted Hubi if he would like to audition for Sun Caged when we were searching for a singer, in the end it did not work out, since Hubi’s voice is not really fitting with Sun Caged’s music but he is a solo artist and we kept contact. It resulted in me recording guitars for him for three albums.

<!--[if !supportLists]-->14. <!--[endif]-->Why you choose the song Land of Confusion to be the bonus track in the Japanese edition?

We just always loved this song, we did not know at that time that Disturbed was recording that same song as well though, else we would have chosen another song, haha

<!--[if !supportLists]-->15. <!--[endif]-->There’s something that you want to say to your fans or share with us?

Keep an eye for Sun Caged, we are recording the next album, it will be in one way more extreme then Artemisia (sometimes heavier, sometimes even more mellow) and in an other way also as melodic and proggy as Artemisia.

Vist http://www.suncaged.com for more information, we will put studio reports up pretty soon.

Thank you so much Marcel for your words, we appreciate so much, take care man, greetings to the SC members!!!

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