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Status: Still Listening!EXCLUSIVE
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Status: Still Listening!EXCLUSIVE
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The questions in this interview were written by Carole (Coroner Page webmaster), and the answers gathered by Andy M. Siegrist (ex-Coroner fan club manager) in March/April 1998. Coroner band members were interviewed separately in Zurich, Switzerland.
Thanks to Tommy, Ron and Marky for accepting to answer these questions for the Coroner Page. A very special thanks goes to Andy M. Siegrist also, for giving me this great opportunity!
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Questions to Tommy, Ron & Marky |
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Questions to Tommy |
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Questions to Ron |
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Questions to Marky |
How do you regard your past work with Coroner, musically speaking?
Ron: I think, still nowadays, it has a good quality and remains very good. I am still very proud of almost anything we did.
Tommy: I am very proud of the last two albums we did. Our music was still very original, but I can't take the first two albums very seriously today. Maybe back then we wanted to prove something to everybody and, because of that, we did almost too much of everything.
Marky: We always tried to produce good music with high quality standards and lots of experimental pieces in it. Not your average everyday stuff.
The fans I get mail from always say that Coroner was one of the most underrated metal bands of all times, and that such a multi-talented band deserved much more credit and recognition. Did you ever get proposals from other major labels?
Ron: No, not really.
Tommy: As far as I can remember, we had one offer right after the third album [No More Color], but Noise did not let us go. There will always be bands who play very special and sophisticated music - not only in the metal genre, but also in jazz and fusion - who sell very little amounts of records because of lack of audience.
Marky: No, I think Coroner were never an interesting band for a major label. Our music was never mainstream and it changed so much from album to album.
I read in an interview you guys did with Hard 'N Heavy Magazine, in 1996, that you felt like most countries except France did not really understand Coroner's music, or that it was too sophisticated for some. Don't you think the main reason was more a lack of exposure?
Ron: I think you can definitely relate that problem to poor promotion.
Tommy: Of course, with a better record deal and better promotion, Coroner would have been doing better. But our music was never made for the big masses. We were ahead of our time a few years, not only musically, but with all the graphic stuff, artwork and photography and all that. It has been copied ever since from a lot of bands.
Marky: We could have done more with a good promotion behind our records, sure. But good promotion is always a money problem, and money was always very limited with Noise, especially for promotion outside of Germany.
The evolution from R.I.P. to the self-titled Coroner album was very noticeable every step of the way, yet the typical Coroner style was still very recognizable. Who was responsible for those changes? How did they come about? Just experiencing new grounds or was it just getting to what you really wanted to do in the first place?
Ron: In the evolution progress from album to album we had always been working as a team, and the progress came to us along with working on it. I think it is every musician's goal to get better from album to album, otherwise there is no sense in going on.
Tommy: It was always a teamwork-thing. An artist who does not make any progress from time to time will soon be musically dead.
Marky: We always worked as a team, more or less. I think if Coroner were still existing right now, we would still be looking for that perfect album, song or sound. But the album Grin and the last compilation came closest to our idea of a perfect album.
Most Coroner listeners notice how "clean" Coroner lyrics are -- no foul language, no sex, no drugs, no other BS... Was that a mutual and conscious decision on your part?
Ron: We packed such meanings hidden in our lyrics, not for anybody to see. You have to read between and behind the lines in Coroner's lyrics.
Tommy: We always had a certain intellectual approach in our lyrics. We never liked bands with foul language in their lyrics.
Marky: We simply developed the whole lyrics in a more subtle way. It is relatively easy to say "Fuck" in a song. To force the listener to read between the lines is yet a little more challenging for a writer. But it was no intention for us to write clean lyrics, it just happened that way.
Where did the inspiration for Coroner lyrics come from?
Ron: Experiences you've had in your own life. Things that happened to friends or stories you've heard happened to other people. Stories from magazines or books.
Tommy: For me, lyrics are only interesting when I have to write music to accompany it. Lyrics were more or less exclusively Marky's business. He is very intelligent and he really reads a lot! He brought a lot of stuff he had been reading about into Coroner's music.
Marky: Daily life, personal experiences, stuff from movies but, mostly, from a lot, a lot of books.
Any favorite Coroner album or songs? Some you enjoyed composing or playing more than others?
Ron: I like the last compilation album best. There are songs like "Paralyzed" or "I Want You" that we almost never played live. Also we played the songs from RIP less and less.
Tommy: My favorite songs are "Serpent Moves" and "Golden Cashmere Sleeper". Out of all our albums, I like the last compilation album best, because it gives you a good reflection of all our work and offers almost the best songs out of every album. I would have really liked to play the Beatles' cover "I Want You" live. But, unfortunately, we produced that song to the extreme, and that's why it was almost unplayable live.
Marky: As I said before, my favorites are Grin and the last compilation album. It is also very sad that we never had the chance to play "Last Entertainment (TV Bizarre)" live. Like "I Want You", that song was overproduced.
How did you guys meet? How did it all start for Coroner? Did you ever play with other bands before forming Coroner?
Ron: I played in a band in Zurich (Switzerland) with Tommy. Later we met Marky and out of this Coroner were born.
Tommy: Ron and I played in a local band in Zurich, but we were very unsatisfied with our other members. When we met Marky, we were very excited about all his ideas, not only musically, but about all his conceptual ideas about getting on with a band. He was way ahead of us in his mind. But Ron and I were musically ahead of him. All of this balanced out with time.
Marky: I met Ron and Tommy in Zurich, they had already played together. Later on we formed Coroner.
From the emails I receive, Coroner fans seem to have an extremelly high (and justified) opinion of you as a guitarist. When did you start playing the guitar? Did you learn it by yourself?
Tommy: I started playing the guitar at the age of 12, but I had 3 years of violin lessons before that. After that I had a few hours of guitar lessons but I soon got tired of playing the same notes for hours. I became an autodidact from then on. I listened to Van Halen and AC/DC albums and picked out the cool pieces. The young guitar players today can have it very easy. Today, there is a lot of literature on the market for all musical styles, and even videos to teach you all the special techniques! In my early days, I had to listen to my favorite albums over and over again to get it right, tough job! At the time we wrote RIP I had a few months jazz lessons, but finally had to give it up because of the Coroner activities.
On a more technical note, how do you finger such beautifully smooth arpeggios?
Tommy: It is a very special sweep technique which I learned very painfully in my very early days of guitar playing.
What are your main musical influences? Any favorite bands? Where does your inspiration come from?
Tommy: Earlier: Eddie Van Halen, Angus Young, David Gilmour (Pink Floyd). Today, it's more people from the Jazz/Fusion genre like Scott Henderson. I look at music not only as a guitar-thing but as a whole. Today, I am more interested in arranging music instead of only guitar playing. Nowadays I also do a lot of music with synthesizers and programming.
Many fans were looking forward to hearing about Clockwork. What went wrong with that project?
Tommy: Clockwork started really promising, we had much better musicians than in Coroner and a very high technical level in the whole band. What was completely lacking in this band was originality, which Coroner had plenty. Today I am very glad that I recognized this before it got really serious with Clockwork. The decision to let Clockwork die has never been regretted by me until today. I had the feeling that this band would not make it.
What are your plans for the future? Staying with Kreator? Any plans on forming your own band some day? How about a solo album?
Tommy: A solo album was planned long ago, but there's no time! It will however be recorded someday. As ever, it's also a money problem. When I'm not working with Kreator I am still a guitar teacher for young players. Kreator is a money making job for me, but it is a lot of fun too, especially when we are on tour. In a live situation, I am 100 percent behind the band. Musically though, I have different things in mind. I would love to start a new band here in Switzerland but musicians who can fulfil my high standards are very rare here. One of the best things happening to Switzerland right now is Appolyon Sun! [Marky's band].
Given your outstanding guitar skills, the fans were surprised (and disappointed) that there weren't any real full-length guitar solos on the latest Kreator album. Why not? How involved were you in composing pieces on that album?
Tommy: When I joined Kreator they had already finished all the songs for the new album. I only took part on a few solos, the whole riffing and the production. It is always a matter of songwriting - when I write a song I will always take care that there is enough space left for some guitar solos.
Did you get any offers to join other bands after Coroner had split?
Tommy: No, but I did a lot of studio jobs all over Switzerland and Germany, which brought good money. After that I was working with Stefan Eicher (Swiss/French pop star with an intellectual touch) on world tour and in the studio.
If you had the opportunity to do just what you wanted (with no annoying background "Noise" to get in your way), how would you describe your preferred musical style nowadays?
Tommy: I have no preferred style, it is more a matter of moods, but mostly it is very dark. There is only good and bad music, but moods (good or bad) could be produced by a classical orchestra or a thrash metal band.
Why did you decide to get out of the music business altogether? Just a question of money/survival, or were you also bored with the musical scene or metal in general?
Ron: I did not quit the music business at all and I don't think it is boring. I just needed some time off to get my things together after Coroner broke up. Just to clear my mind and to find out what I want to do (musically) in the future.
Any plans on forming your own band some day, or joining another band?
Ron: I have a project going on with my own band, but I don't want to talk about it at this time. More news on this later this year.
You're an excellent singer and bass player -- would you consider doing the vocals in another band, or you'd be more interested in joining as a bass player only?
Ron: I would love to do both!
What are your musical preferences nowadays?
Ron: Geddy Lee (Rush), Jimi Hendrix, rap, techno...
I hear you're now playing with Apollyon's Sun. How involved are you in composing music, or writing lyrics, with that new band?
Marky: I am not participating in writing lyrics with Apollyon Sun right now, because Tom's lyrics are absolute genius. I am however very involved in composing and writing songs (as all members of AS are) and I am creating the whole graphic and visual concept for the band.
How would you describe Apollyon Sun's music?
Marky: It is very difficult to categorize Apollyons Sun's music (As it was with Coroner's music earlier). We are more electronic sounding than Coroner. And the whole musical concept is totally future-oriented. No compromise!
Were you the one who brought that little "techno beat" to Coroner's music?
Marky: I listened to a lot of techno back then and, yes, it was my idea to do this remix of "Grin", but it was a friend of mine (producer) who did the job.
Did you have the opportunity to fill in for any other major bands, in the studio or on tour, since Coroner split?
Marky: No, not in a major band.
Interview by Carole - "The
Coroner Page" / Andy M. Siegrist
April 1998.
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