Via Nocturna Magazine (Portugal), October 2017  by  Pedro Carvalho

 

AVI ROSENFELD INTERVIEW

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Translation from Portuguese:

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Hello Avi! All right? You’re still, like nobody else, releasing albums. Let’s focus now on three - Very Heepy Very Purple VII, Guinevere and Many Years Ago. The most striking
aspect is your duet with Marco Buono who even has his name on the cover. At what levels did this collaboration take place? Only in the vocalization of the themes or also in the composition level? Particularly on this album, how was the composition process? What approaches did you try?

The albums with Marco are very exciting for me, I really love the final album result. Marco is one of the best vocalists I know, he can sing anything and with such power and emotion. He really feels the songs. Our process of work is similar to the usual process I’m working with other vocalists. I send Marco the music, melody and lyrics, and after sometime I get back the new recordings which almost always make me go,
WOW MAN, this is beautiful…

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However, you already have another album, released later with the collaboration of Marco Buono. Apparently, a connection to keep?

I really hope so! I think we can do more good albums together. I usually think my songs are nice and got a good potential, but with Marco’s vocals they go to a higher level and turn into real classics. Marco is really cool and great to work with, We’re actually working on the next album right now, and there are really cool songs there.

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And is it in your plans to make this kind of cooperation with some other musician?

Why not, I’m always open to work with good musicians, the more the merrier. There is so much music going on so musicians are needed.

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Moving on to Guinevere, here you try a different musical approach. In what look?

Guinevere for me belongs to the more personal type of albums, some of the songs there show more personal emotion. The musical styles here range quite widely but have that common personal touch.

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Vocally, you take on almost all of the themes. How do you feel more comfortable?Letting others sing or be you doing it?

I’m quite sure that other better vocalist would have sung the songs better, but I think that when you sing your own songs it has an impact on the song that no one else can do. I mean, no one can sing exactly the same as the other, and when one sings his own songs he can achieve that special authentic feel only he can do. Well, I’m not talking about Heavy Metal songs that need much more then that

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But one of the songs, The Only Thing That Is Really Clear, is sung by a sensational voice - Olivia Marjen . Who is she?

Olivia Maria Elia is an amazing vocalist from Greece, she has great emotion in her vocals. And she also rocks with her band Exanda. The song waited quite long time until it was published.

Here you have a song composed by a series of variations around a theme of Mozart. How did this idea come about? Is this the first time you make a cover?

Sometimes I hear a beautiful melody, and I think what would it sound like in a different style. I did that with some Israeli folk songs which turned into hard rocking heavy riffing rollercoasters. This time I had fun idea of taking Mozart’s Turkish rondo and try to play it in Gypsy Swing style, well at least that was my initial intention. With every musician that joined this kind of Jam, adding additional color and feel, it tuned out very nicely.

Jumping into the seventh part of Very Heepy Very Purple, here you also do not sing, but each theme has a different vocalist, does not it? What made you decide to be like that?

The vocalists are very busy ! Well seriously, I think that each song has its own flavor created by all the musians playing on it including the vocalist of course. It creates some kind of an interest within inside the album. A kind of an ear candy.

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The most prominent name should be Ivan Giannini. Was it easy to persuade him to record this song for you?

Ivan is great, I don’t remember that it was different in the work process. The song he sings “Tailgunner” is quite challenging since it has very high vocals, and he nailed it, adding his unique style.

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The Very Heepy Very Purple saga is already in the seventh part. Do you already have an intended end to this sequence?

All good things must come to an end eventually, but don’t worry, I will start a new series then.

As for the covers, what an important aspect in your work, which created these three works?

I like the fantasy style covers and also I like art that has something going on in it. There are amazing artists all over the world that their cover art really did something special
to the whole album concepts. Artists like Elsbro, Sandara, Mateusz Ozminski for their amazing fantasy style, Aquasixio Cyril Ronaldo that has really brilliant ideas in his art,
Haim Rosenfeld that proves that with a camera you can create worlds in photos, Maya Rosenfeld with the romantic nostalgic painting style that fronted on all my earlier
albums.

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Is this time you have a Portuguese musician in your songs? Do you think this could happen one day?

One day I hope! I really invite you all to join the project.

When it comes to videos have you created anything for these discs?

I’m more focused on the music so I’m currently less into 
videos, but there are artists like Sellenna that created some very beautiful artistic videos for my songs.

Well, Avi, do you want to add anything to what has already been said?

There’s a great quote by Lao Tzu “Music in the soul can be heard by the universe“ and there’s so much more music inside that I’d like to share. Rock On my friend, Thank you very much!

 

Link to the original Magazine article:

http://vianocturna2000.blogspot.co.il/2017/10/entrevista-avi-rosenfeld.html