I’ve been wanting to attend a Pure Reason Revolution gig ever since I’ve heard their debut album The Dark Third in 2007. In the same year I was given the chance to see them opening up for Porcupine Tree in Oslo, Norway but unfortunately I couldn’t use it since the concert had an age limit and the local promoter refused my daughter to enter the venue. A little less than 2 years later I made it sure I wouldn’t miss them on their first headlining tour in Europe. As expected the tour didn’t reach Hungary but luckily Vienna’s B72 was on the list so I immediately arranged a weekend trip to the Austrian capital with the PRR concert being its highlight. And to make it even more memorable right before the gig we sat down at the venue’s terrace with Chloë and Jon and talked about the band’s fortunes.

The Dark Third took the progressive rock community by storm generating lots of great reviews. Did you expect anything like that?

Jon: For us things went slow from the actual finish of the recording. We then ended up doing Cautionary Tales For The Brave which was taken some of The Dark Third songs and then adding a couple of new ones. It was quite a while between finishing the recording and the actual release. With regards to reviews I don’t know…
Chloë: I was pleasantly surprised by the positive reaction we had and when I look back on it it’s not what we took it for granted, like Jon said it did burn up very very slowly so by the time reviews came in we were so used to the album so it wasn’t like a dealbreaker or anything like that. Perhaps we realize a bit more how much people kind of hold it in high regard when we come out and do these shows and people talk about that it’s one of their favourite records. That’s really flattering.

You’ve been through some member changes since the release of that album. How did that affect the band?

Chloë: I would say that in a positive way, really. I mean it’s a shame about Andrew, Jon’s brother, but he got married and left the band. His successor Paul is a great drummer and a really good guy and the change was making things better for us and now we’re a really good unit.
Jon: I mean either way it wasn’t the songwriting or the lyrics so it wasn’t anything sort of a drastic change. It didn’t change the sound and the dynamic of how the band works.

Do you feel comfortable being a four piece?

Chloë: It’s nice actually, especially on a stage like tonight. (Laughs) There’s hardly room to move around.
Jon: Yeah, it’s pretty damn tight!

How did you hook up with Paul?

Chloë: Well, we held some auditions and obviously he had to be as good as Andrew, so… The auditions went on quite well and Paul was the most impressive. He was very good to play with and he’s a very good guy and he just fits right in.
Jon: It’s painful really to have these auditions because you have a lot of guys and you are like “Here we go again, playing the same three songs”. And you meet some really nice people… they are really nice guys but they kind suck.
Chloë: That’s when I realized we really suffered from guilt because I felt that some of them might come in like with crutches or like one armed. We felt we had to go through the whole process with them playing the whole three songs.

It’s obvious that he had to be a good player but what kind of guy were you looking for as far as his personality?

Chloë: I think you just know it really, it can’t be described what that feels like when someone gets it, who you can picture spending 7-8 hours in a bus.
Jon: Paul is really into it, he probably practises more than the rest of us. He even keeps a practise diary! (Laughs) He’s a real drummer enthusiast, he’s really focused on the drums and he’s dedicated.

Your new album has a lot of electronic elements which we can say is a significant change in your music. Was it intentional or it just came through the writing?

Jon: The manifesto at the beginning of Pure Reason Revolution was that we could use any instrumental sections where we use guitar, piano, synthesizers, programmed drums, live drums, strings, acoustic guitar, I mean anything really. Some of our earliest demos were just sort of keyboardry or whatever. I don’t know, this wasn’t a conscious decision to do this album differently, it just felt like a natural progression and we pick up new influences as we grow up.
Chloë: Yeah, it was just an organic process really. And it’s been a while since The Dark Third was released so I think it’s normal because we have a label and a manifesto that allows us to do whatever we feel like. There are no boundaries and it’s really just the product of that.
Jon: I think perhaps in the back of my mind we were aware that to some people it might be a bit of an extreme change but to us it didn’t really feel that extreme. The thing is that the vocal harmonies are always gonna be prevalent but anything else goes. The new album just shows this kind of natural progression really.
Chloë: It has our trademark, the vocal harmonies.

Was it a concern that you might end up losing fans because of the change?

Jon: Not really. I mean it’s basically just that we have to create what we’re excited about creating and we can’t do it to please a fanbase. We have to create what we want to create…
Chloë: and what feels right, yeah! I mean we were aware that some people weren’t gonna like it but we also picked up a lot of new fans that wouldn’t listen to The Dark Third. It’s pros and cons really.

So how is the initial feedback?

Chloë: From fans it’s pretty much what we thought. A lot of real positives and a few falling outs saying this isn’t their cup of tea and we also picked up some new fans with this album. And from the press what we’ve seen was really good so far and once again we’re just happily surprised by the positive press. I mean it’s our second album and we couldn’t have wished for any better.

Personally I really like AVO. I think having more electronica really added to your music. And at gigs you play from both albums anyway…

Jon: Exactly. We were aware of this coming to and especially coming back to mainland Europe and the set is a real mix of the old and the new stuff. We still love playing the old stuff.
Chloë: Also the songs of the two albums work well together, the set isn’t divided into old and new because it all has the PRR trademarks both old and new stuff.

The album has a Latin title, translated as Love Conquers All. What was the idea behind that?

Jon: My old school blazer is Veritas Vincit Omnia which was Truth Conquers All and I always liked that moniker so the title was kind of re-worked from there. Lots of the songs were going on with a love theme. It sounds really cheesy but love songs are going from being excited of love ’til the actual fallings-out. Yeah, it seemed appropriate to put Amor on the beginning. It’s sort of part of the concept. With the heavier and dirty sides of the record we wanted to reflect on the fallings-out.

And the cover artwork, which was done by Chloë, fits very well as well. Did you do it with the album’s title in mind?

Chloë: I started the artwork quite early on but it was a gradual process as Jon would send me bits of songs so I could hear what was going on in the songs and he also sent me some lyrics so I would work with that in mind.
Jon: It was a really organic process because most of it happened in the studio in London where I was working on the songs and Chloë would come in to do some vocals and hear some new material and we talk about the ideas and then Chloë would go away and come back a few days later with new images and to do more vocals. It was a nice way of working this way.
Chloë: Yeah, and we really wanted to make this album ourselves. We knew we could do that because that’s how we made the first record. We could do the artwork ourselves and Jon produced the record himself and it’s great to be able to do that. I think it’s necessary as you grow older that you do things that are actually meaningful and really represent what you’re playing.

Are you doing these image arts outside of the band as well?

Chloë: Yeah. I work mostly with images using programs like Photoshop to make these kind of collage images and stuff. I might move on, who knows, but at the moment that’s kind of where I am and I enjoy doing it. I’m thinking about putting on an exhibition at some point. That’s kind of what I do when I’m not doing the band. It’s nice to tie them together. (Laughs)

Ever thought about offering your artworks to other bands to use as album covers?

Chloë: Well, I don’t know. I did that once with Gavin Harrison from Porcupine Tree and it was nice and I like doing it but I’d rather just do images that people buy as opposed to making them just to be used by others unless it’s for PRR which is obviously close to my heart so it has more meaning. I think it’s hard to make up an image for someone else’s music that you are not connected with.

On this current tour you’re playing most of the songs off Amor Vincit Omnia. How did you pick the ones that you don’t play?

Chloë: Yeah, there’s only a few we’re not playing. I suppose we think about what would translate best live because live it can’t be perfect as it is on the record so we have to think about what we can put across in the best way and the songs that would translate the best live. Having said that we’ll get to play them all live at some point so it’s really about having the most pre-production time that we can and trying to make them sound as good as possible. It’s not easy to decide but we try to come up with the best for the gigs.

Imagine having 5-6 albums then…

Chloë: (Laughs) Oh my god, yeah!
Jon: It’s gonna be a little bit tense!

So what song is coming through the best with the audience?

Chloë: Hmm, I don’t know… people seem to really love Deus.
Jon: Yeah, that was Deus Ex Machina on this tour. I mean Ambassador still goes down well.

The old classic… (laughs)

Jon: Yeah, yeah, that almost feels like that. (Laughs) Trembling Willows always goes down well, AVO is going down really well.

You’re doing a headliner tour just two years after the release of your debut album and it’s quite an achievement. How is it going?

Jon: It’s been quite a long… six weeks by the time we finish it. And yeah, it’s the first time we’re touring with our own shows outside the UK I suppose.
Chloë: We were quite nervous about it and we didn’t think anyone was gonna turn up but it’s been really good so far. (Laughs) I think we’ve got more fans than we thought we had in Europe and that’s a really nice surprise.

Is there any difference between European and UK fans?

Chloë: I don’t know… I can notice when we play in Europe that sometimes the crowds are warmer.
Jon: We’ve had very enthusiastic Polish fans.
Chloë: Oh yeah. (Laughs) The Poles go nuts and it’s great.
Jon: Yeah, they become nuts. We generally would go to the merch stand and do some signing after the show and they were like singing to us our own songs. That’s so overwhelming.
Chloë: This is quite real actually. For some reason it’s really clicked in Poland. The gig was really good there as well. Having said that some of the UK fans are really really good as well. I think it depends on where you go. We also played in Southern Europe and the crowd was just amazing. It’d be nice to go back there.
Jon: I think we’ll have a few summer festivals there.

You did a support tour with Porcupine Tree in 2007. How much did it help your band to gain attention?

Jon: If you support a big band you’re about to play in front of a thousand people a night and you can nick a bit of their fanbase. The similarities between us and them, it’s like a media exposure, isn’t it, to a possible fanbase.
Chloë: I think without a doubt it has serious pros for a band like us that is fairly unknown, it’s a great way to get their music heard by playing with a band that has quite a following.
Jon: The cons are that you obviously only have a 40 minute set to play and you don’t get to use visuals and you get a brief soundcheck. That’s the flip side of a tour like that but it’s definitely beneficial at our level. It was perfect for us to support Porcupine Tree on that tour.

Were they treating you nicely?

Chloë: Oh yeah, they were really nice. We’ve been a few times with them and also with Blackfield so we are no strangers to each other. They are really good guys.
Jon: It’s also good picking up like tips for the inside working of the band and to see how they actually do their visuals that we can’t really do on the scale we’re on now but in the future if the budget comes along now we now how to do things. It’s an invaluable time to pick up things from them and talk to the crew and learn how things work so we can improve on what we do.
Chloë: It’s also inspiring to spend time with people like that as they are such great musicians.

All rights reserved (c) 2009 by Zoltán Koncsok
All pictures by Nina Voronova

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