I guess everyone into first class Metal will agree with me that VIRGIN STEELE have always delivered high quality music. But with their two new releases "The House Of Atreus Act I & II" they probably have come up with their ultimate masterpieces! So, we obviously had to hook up with the band's mastermind David DeFeis  once again while he was over in Germany, promoting the release of  "Act I" to find out all necessary details... Here's the result. Enjoy!

When we last spoke, there's already been a couple of songs that were almost finished, but didn't make it on "Invictus" for one reason or another... Back then you said, that they would either appear in the opera or the VIRGIN STEELE album to follow it. How is it possible that they would fit so easily into albums that differ so much lyrically?
"Because some of the lyrics were not complete, though the songs themselves were in place. Not all of the lyrics were in place to some of those things, if they were appearing in the opera. I had the option to use 'em or not use 'em.There's some songs which have not appeared yet, there's still two songs from the "Invictus" session that will appear probably later on down the road. But there's one piece that was almost complete, "Agony And Shame", which I then completed and adapted to fit the opera."
Do you think it is essential to understand the storyline of the new album to really get into the music or can people who are not interested in Greek history or mythology still enjoy it in the same way?
"Oh yeah, you can enjoy it in the same way, cause it's just emotions. If anyone didn't understand what all the words are, if you didn't speak the language, you could still get the emotions from the tone of the voice and it could still work for you."
When did your interest in those historical kinda events actually start? Have you already been enjoying it back in school?
"As a child... from earliest times I can remember, I was surrounded by this world of myths and magic. My father puts on live theatre, he's got a theatre company on Long Island. So, as a kid I would go to his shows and I would help out with the sets and see rehearsals and what was going on. I was attracted to the world of theatre. And some of this included the Greek tragedies and then I read these things on my own. I think my early education is really responsible for the  kind of music  that I do. The things that I'd learned musically and theatrically and emotionally... whatever! It all played a role leading up to this particular moment."
The next question may sound a bit silly, but... your lyrical contents is so in-depth this time, that I was wondering if you never get scared that you might forget certain lyrical lines on stage later on?
(laughs) "I never get scared if I'm gonna forget lyrics, I just make up something else if that happens. I'm pretty good at that!"
Did it already happen?
"Oh yeah! I mean, just take a song like "Emalaith". There's a thousand notes I have to play on the keyboard, there's all kinds of changes going on, plus it's ten minutes long and there's a millions words in that. And sometimes the lines are somewhat similar, there's only a couple of words at the end that may change, you know, and to keep all that straight... It happens once in a while, you know. It does happen here and there, but what you do is - you just keep singing."
But I guess nobody notices that anyway?!
"No, just keep going, cause if you stop then, they will realize that there's a problem (laughs)!"
How long did it take you to finish the songwriting for the new albums? Did you continue to write while you were in the studio or was everything completely done already when you went in?
"I started going in as I was still writing. So, the overall writing probably took about two or three months, but remembering that I also wrote the second act as well. That's already written too. I was working furiously, like a mad demon every day, it just possessed me, this whole thing. Then we started going in and doing the basic sketches and then I would go home and continue writing as well. So, in the beginning it was a little bit of both, recording and writing."
I noticed that you made a big progression in terms of the production this time, even though you still worked with Steve Young as an engineer once again. So, you obviously did take the partly
mentioned criticism for the "Invictus" production quite seriously, didn't you?
"I take everything seriously, you know. It's always my goal to up the standards in everything and I wanted to make the record sound better, make the performances better, I wanted the songs to be better...I wanted everything to be better, everytime, all the time! And we had access to some different  pieces of equipment that was actually better than what we used the first time around. So, that helped and being used to the room a little bit more helped as well."
How big was the input of Ed Warrin, who co-engineered the new album?
"Ed did some early keyboard sessions that I did, the basic sketches.How I approached the record is, I go in there and I do a guide vocal, I do guide keyboards or real  keyboards and a guide guitar, which sometimes becomes the real guitar. And we work from there. So, Ed Warrin did some of those sessions,
he was around for some of those kind of things. He mainly engineered keyboard things. He's a good engineer, he's a good guy."
What can you tell us about the cover artwork of the new album?
I mean, even though it shows a Greek warrior it still seems to me that it
wasn't painted for the album exclusively... So, where did you get it from?
"Ahh-ha-ha-ha... this is a family heirloom! It's been in my family for like fourty, fifty years. This thing was hanging in front of me for a long long time. And doing the course of this album I would occationally see this thing. And when the record company asked me "What about the cover?"... we searched for two other things and then I was like "What the fuck am I doing? That's the cover,  I'm starring at this thing!" Cause when I look at it... it's a shield, it's an old shield  and when I look at that thing, I just hear... I hear "Kingdom Of The Fearless", I hear the music for the record. It sounds like music when I look at it. So, I just took it off the wall and I went down to a photographer and for $130.00 there's my cover (laughs)!"
Aren't there any legal problems?
"No, cause I know the artist..."
Have you ever thought about using a female vocalist, your sister for example (who's a professional opera singer! - Frank), for additional vocals on the new albums?
"We did think about it and we talked about it, but it just didn't really happen."
But it would probably fit even better to present all the different characters...
"On one hand, yes - on the other hand, my feelings also were... I knew it was gonna be an ambitious project and I knew people would be judging it in a certain way and if it succeeded, I wanted the band to succeed or fail on its own. If we'd fuck it up, then we take the blame, but if it's a success then we take the credits as well. It's a personal experience from VIRGIN STEELE to the listeners, there's no other interpreters, it's still very much the band thing. There's not one thousand and one strings and it's not soft and wimpy, no - it's VIRGIN STEELE! Here it is and it's us going for it like we always go for it!"
Who's actually singing the choir vocals of "Through The Ring Of Fire"?
"Me!"
It's all you?
"Every vocal you hear is me!"
Ah, ok... and was the overall bombastic feel in "Day Of Wrath" created on a keyboard exclusively or have you used other instruments as well?
"The entire track is me! Even the drums, everything! The gongs, all that stuff is me."
So, you're kinda like a one man orchestra, huh?!
"(laughs) Yeah, it's amazing... modern technology! It's just a simple thing that Les Paul invented, you know, overdubbing. It's a wonderful thing!"
Let's talk a little bit about the Memmingen theater performances now... It must've been the first time for you that you composed VIRGIN STEELE material that got performed by other vocalists in the first place... So, what kind of feeling was that and did you like their interpretation?
"I loved it! It was an amazing thing! It's the first time I ever heard anybody else than myself sing my songs, anything I've written! So, when I came to the first day of rehearsal, there's a whole cast of characters singing songs that I've had written. It was a wonderful experience, because I saw that it really meant a lot to them and they put their whole minds, bodies and spirits into the performance. So, it was very gratifying to me."
Are there actually more performances to follow those Memmingen shows?
"Yeah, there's like twenty cities or something that the company has toured in already and it's going to start up again over the next few months.They'll do more shows."
That's great, cause I guess when both your new albums have been released the interest from people to experience a theater performance could increase quite a bit...
"I hope so, yeah! And I think at this point now, see the blueprint is there and we can do this many ways in terms of live presentation or we can do further recordings. We could go on tour and play it like  we always do, just the band, like the way THE WHO toured for "Tommy" originally. And then we can go ahead and do it with the people from the Memmingen production or other singers, with an orchestra, without an orchestra, there's so many ways to do it! We could record it again live with  all these other people. I could again use THE WHO's "Tommy" as an example. They did a version  with the London Philharmonic and all kinds of guest people on there. So, anything is possible now that the thing is actually concrete and has been performed and has been written and recorded."
What really confused me was the setlist from Memmingen - which was (apart from being incomplete) not even in a chronological order? So, how was it possible to perform the storyline this way?
"There's songs in there from "Act II" obviously, which is coming out next. But Walter Weyers, the director - he had a slightly different concept along the way. And his concept still worked. Like he actually had Klytemnestra singing "Child Of Desolation" to Kassandra, but it worked, because we were still operating from the same basic premise of everything that we had talked about. I've spent three days at his house, just talking and drinking wine and talking about life and all kinds of art in general, you know. So, we were in quite of an agreement  with a lot of our thoughts and believes. So, it's just a different take  on the same concepts."
Wasn't it a bit confusing for you to see the result a little different than you originally wanted it to be?
"It only confused me at first when I was still home and they were calling me up saying "We need this song!", "We need that song!" and "This is gonna happen here!" and I said "Wait a minute! This doesn't
happen here, this happens later!" But once I saw the rehearsal, I wasn't confused anymore, cause it made sense to me."
Why is there a title difference between the opera and the VIRGIN STEELE albums that contain the same songs?
"I think they were looking for like a one-word title, like "Klytemnestra" and then "Der Fluch or: The Curse Of The House Of Atreus". I just figured that was a bit too long for the CD's, so I just made it "The House Of Atreus" and subtitled it "Kingdom Of The Fearless" because that's the first track and that's where the events begin."
There's a big influence from classical music in your songwriting, especially in the new material... So, I was wondering if you also ever felt inspired particularly by the stuff that Basil Poledouris composed for the first "Conan" movie?
"You know, I'm not that familiar with those movies. I've seen them, but I can't recall the music, I'm not sure. I have to check it out again with that in mind. I will give it a listen! I will go and rent a movie, a blockbuster video when I get home (laughs)!"
How will you continue on the next regular VIRGIN STEELE album? Will you go back to the basic style again or will you just stay with this combination of classical music and Heavy Metal?
"Some songs will probably be a combination of this style as it's something where I'm heading with the writing. And I'm sure there will be other songs that are a bit more straight ahead and some songs that might even be acoustic or who knows what. There's many more lyrical ideas I wanna explore, there's many more things I wanna explore... styles..."
On the last couple of VIRGIN STEELE releases there's always been certain melodies that already sounded familiar from your previous records. And you quite obviously continued that tradition on the new album in songs like "Children Of Desolation", "Garden Of Lamentation", "Agony And Shame" or "In Triumph Or Tragedy"... Would you like that to become another trademark of the band?
"Yeah, that is. You know, I'm thinking kinda like Wagner. What he did was, he had all these operas but there's still some sort of thread that came together. So, I've connected the "Atreus" work to the "Marriage" concepts through various musical themes and the ideas that are expressed also in the lyrics here and there."
I guess you aren't really happy about the fact that Modern Music is putting out "The House Of Atreus" as two separate CD's, are you?
"Well, my original concept was to do it as a double album of course, yeah. I thought that would be even more shocking, cause you have this huge huge work and people would be like "How do we deal with this?" On the other hand it makes it easier, because I didn't have to actually finish this second record."
What was the reason that they put it out as a single CD now? Was it because of financial reasons?
"No, I think it's really because of the nature of competing in the chart market. It's just the way they work, their own ideas of how the records could be broken in the market place."
I know that you won't start touring for "The House Of Atreus" before the second part is released... So, will your setlist consist of the new material exclusively then?
"I don't know. It depends on how we present the opera. If we present the entire work or if we do a condensed version of it, if there's time for other things, if we're doing one night in each city of the world or if we do a couple of special event things where we can play three or more hours, I'm not sure! I have to see when that point comes, when we start rehearsing."
Your bassplayer Rob DeMartino didn't seem to be in the band any longer as he isn't credited on the album...
"Well, he didn't play on the album..."
Is he still a member of VIRGIN STEELE?
"No!"
So, what happened and are you already auditioning new bassplayers?
"No, we aren't auditioning, but if anyone wants to send a tape to the P.O. Box, they are more than welcome, feel free to do so. But we just couldn't work with Rob anymore. He really wants to do his own thing from what I understand and he wants to do stuff that... he feels more comfortable with bluesy WHITESNAKE kinda stuff."
So, it's mainly musical differences?!
"Uhm... yeah... musical differences, yeah. There's other things probably as well, but we'll just leave it with that (laughs)."
Has the CD re-release of "Guardians Of The Flame" been put on ice for a while or is it still on your release schedule?
"It's not on my schedule in terms of that I can tell you when it will come out, but it is on the backburner. It's planned to do re-release the first two CD's with bonus tracks and all the other insanity. Yeah sure!"
Do you personally follow the evolution of the Heavy Metal scene these days? I mean, do you still go out and buy new records or go to shows?
"I buy things, yes. Certain bands I follow, I hear a track here and there of some of the bands that we share the label with, but I haven't listened completely fairly to some of those bands, so I don't like to comment on things that I haven't and that I'm not familiar with. But for example, I do like TYPE O NEGATIVE and I just stole their new abum in Spain the other day (laughs)! I haven't heard it yet, but I was sitting there and was like "Hmm, I think I'll take this..." (laughs)!"
I always thought that a song that originally had been sung by Ronnie James Dio would perfectly fit to VIRGIN STEELE, musically as well as lyrically.Something like RAINBOW's "Gates Of Babylon" for instance... And now there's a DIO tribute compilation out on Century Media Records, but VIRGIN STEELE is missing. What were the reasons? Lack of time or haven't you been asked to contribute?
"Nobody ever asked me! I didn't know anything about it until it came out."
Would you have liked to do that?
"It's possible, yeah... I would've considered it, you know. I'm not that much for doing so many of these tribute things. We did the JUDAS PRIEST thing and all that, but it's possible. DIO, yeah - I would've
considered that... I think he's definitely been an influence!"
After all those years you still try to answer VIRGIN STEELE fan mail personally, as far as I know...
"It's true!"
That's quite unusual for a band that has already released so many albums. So, how do you find the time to still do so?
"I just make the time, you know. Sometimes the problem is, it takes me a while, but I do get through it. Sometimes a fan will have to wait a while for me to actually sit down and answer, but I'll have to steal time sometimes and then I say "Ok, today I'm gonna answer the mail!" and then I go ahead and do the bulk of it, if not all of it. And then it builds up again and I do it like that. So yeah, I still do it. There's a mountain of it still waiting for me (laughs)! And it will be even more when I get home, but I will answer it!"

VIRGIN STEELE
P.O. Box 2431
North Babylon, NY 11703-0431
U.S.A.
http://www.home-of-virginsteele.com

Frank Stöver                                 

Photocredits :
Live Pics: Rita van Poorten / Metal Maidens
Pic: Michelle Francis

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