The Art of Prog recently conducted an interview with singer Ray Alder of progressive metal legends Fates Warning. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.
The Art of Prog: What's the latest with Fates Warning? I know you guys are playing ProgPower [festival in early September] and I hear from Glenn Harveston [ProgPower organizer] it's the only gig you're playing this year. But what's going on with the band? Are you guys going to do anything more?
Ray Alder: Yeah, well right now we're in the middle of writing another record, which has been a loooong time coming, obviously. . . But the things that we do in our off time, our little other projects, other bands and things. They tend to get away from us, you know? Time just goes by so quickly, before you realize it. I was working in Redemption, Jim [Mateos, guitar] was writing and recording OSI, and it takes time to get back together and do something. You know? But OSI's done now, and the focus is doing the [next Fates] record, and not really going on the road. We haven't had a record in so long, it doesn't make sense for us to really tour, you know? It's kind of like punk bands. Punk bands can just tour all the time, you know.
[laughs] So you're gonna be like The Beatles now, huh? You're going to put out albums with no tours anymore. [laughs]
Well, me and Jim actually had a big sitdown, over the phone, of course. But we were talking about our careers. We've been doing this for so many years. [We were] wondering whether or not it was time to throw in the towel. We had a good run. We had a good time and made a lot of fans and did some good music. But we just decided this is not the time for us to go quietly into the night. We're gonna make another record and see what happens. So we actually signed to a different label, the first time we're going to release a record that's not on Metal Blade. We signed with InsideOut [Music] in Europe.
When Fates started you started off with a sort of John Arch sound, with the really operatic, high vocals. As Fates progressed that quieted down. The music got less dynamic and flamboyant. And your voice mellowed a bit. Was that a conscious decision? Or was it just you guys getting older and you wanted to do something different?
I'm sure it had a bit to do with both. I mean, obviously, my voice isn't what it used to be. But, again, it was the style at the time to sing really, really high. As I got older, I realized I can do different things with my voice. You can actually emote more if you're not screaming. . . So you know, again, I'd only been singing for a few years when I joined the band. So I started finding myself, I think around "Parallels" time is when I really started figuring out what sounded good to me. And yeah, I was an adult, I'm not 20, I'm not saying anything about anybody else, because that's fine, whatever they want to do, because I did it. I'm saying personally, I just didn't like the high screaming any more, you know? It just sounded better singing. And somehow, my band mates agree. They said, "You know what? Yeah, let's not sing high anymore." "OK."
Read the entire interview from The Art of Prog.
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