So... it's that time again. Milt and I are about to kick off the interviews for the festival program. And as always, we're open to any questions forum members might have for the various acts. With that in mind, it looks like I'll be speaking with Roland of Masterplan and Christer of Need in the next few days.
http://www.blabbermouth.net/news/masterplans-roland-grapow-talks-to-myrockworld-audio/ For people asking about the split with Jorn, Roland Grapow (guitars/founding member) says: "I think that it's basically hard to explain why we always had singer changes. When we started MASTERPLAN with Jorn [Lande], a lot of people had warned me to be careful saying that he was very difficult. That he was never happy or satisfied with things. I think that the only thing that he really was concentrated on was trading on a solo career called JORN. Everything else for him was just a side project; he never saw MASTERPLAN as his main band. It was especially bad for me as I had put so much love, work and so much feeling for this band. I had given everything to make the band big. Jorn never did anything for us for this band. He never even said anything great about MASTERPLAN. That is not nice; you need a really good team behind you which loves this work. It's the same as a company — if someone is not dedicated totally 100%, it doesn't matter what a great voice he has. You stay on the same level, but now with a totally different lineup, we have a really big chance of getting further now. We can play live again. That just wasn't happening for about six years, which was quite terrible, to be honest."
OK, but why did Roland agreed to have Jorn back again for the 2010 album Time To Be King? Weird, after reading such comments... In any ways, I love Jorn, but Rock Altzi is also an excellent singer, so no problems on vox for Masterplan.
why the singer keeps reading the lyrics from a monitor/teleprompt on live performances? can´t he memorize it? BTW, i love the band
Question for Need: What, if any, were the differences in the song writing process between their 1st couple albums and their current release, Orvam? Question for Masterplan: Since they've had a few different singers, does the way they write their songs change based on the singer that is with the band at that time? Do they in any way change the way they perform a song live when it is performed with a different singer than who originally recorded it?
Is Roland still friendly with the guys in Helloween after the split or does he have nothing but bad comments about them?
Yea, it is hard to think of questions for Masterplan that don't address the elephants in the room (the numerous line-up changes and the general consensus that their first album was their shining moment).
I'd love to hear what he says about the momentum they lost between the first two records with the whole Jorn debacle(s), and how they pretend to regain that.
I think the loss of Uli Kusch was as big as the loss of Jorn in terms of song writing. I thought TtbK was still pretty lacking compared to their first two, even with Jorn back.
You thought Aeronautics was better than Time To Be King? I personally find the latter to be leagues better than the former.
See, I was really into Masterplan back in the day and used to have the first two albums playing on repeat all the time. I think Aeronautics wasn't as strong as the debut, but came close. Then Jorn left, I got MKII and enjoyed it for a bit, but it never had the same effect. When Time to be King came out, I had honestly lost the "spark" for Masterplan (which is weird because I always prayed for Jorn's return to the band) and honestly never really gave it a fair chance. Did anybody else feel that way? Perhaps I should revisit that disc this week...
MKII was better than Time to Be King. They had something to prove with that album, and the songrwiting was great.
Well to be honest, I love their first album. Everything after that never really grabbed me much. I remember Aeronautics having some high highs and some really low lows.
