August 2004

Interview mit Rob Holliday

Mera Luna 2004, Pic: Petra

Q & A with Rob Holliday - August 2004
The Mission live guitarist September 2001 - August 2004

By Petra Sümnicht

Q: The Absolution tour ended at Mera Luna Festival few weeks ago. It was one of the shortest Mission tours ever, so how was it for you and are you satisfied how it went?

A: for the most part I thought the shows went well - it was however very very short



Q: Do you prefer the shorter tours and why?

A: playing live is always great, but for me personally after about 3 or 4 shows the whole band is usually just getting back used to playing together after a 3 or 4 month break, so by the time we were feeling comfortable playing together again the tour was over- so I would`ve liked it to have carried on



Q: Please give us a touring memory from the following cities:

Norwich

A: very hot - met some cool people after the show


Nottingham

A: saw a few friends, again a very hot club show due to renovations at rock city the show was moved next door to the rescue rooms - so it was quite an intimate style show


London

A: errrrr boiling hot inside. the astoria had told us we could use the showers next door when the show was finished - so the fact that the show was rammed and very very sweaty made for a great atmosphere, I thought we played very well tonight and the atmosphere within the group was great, after the show we came off soaking wet and the promotor then informed us that the astoria weren`t going to let us use the showers ????!!!!! ASSHOLES ! so anyway we were on the smelly bus all the way to amsterdam.


Zandaam

A: ahhhh showers - the weather was great and we all had a lovely clothes washing day - went out for lunch with richard and a couple of friends from holland, went to the bank machine and it ate my bank card ! hmmmmm fabulous, but richard is the son of a billionaire art dealer from russia so he paid for my lovely lunch - bless. before the show wayne did an interview for errrr naked t.v ?? the interviewer kept her clothes on till after the interview but then was prancing around with the crew and tour manager with her top off! I think you can see a photo on georges ( t.m ) website www.xtrememusic.co.uk
naughty boys tut tut!


M`era luna / Hildesheim

A: I like this festival - i`ve done it before and there is always a great atmosphere - I love germany! Weather was very warm again - sun & drinks - too bad it's the last show



Q: Speaking of M`era Luna, unfortunately you had some sound problems, so what went wrong?

A: My pedal board went down halfway through the set - not sure if it was a bad cable or what? But stan our guitar tech sorted it pretty quickly, i`m actually surprised that I didn't kick something over like normal, must have been the sunshine that kept me calm.



Q: Also you didn´t seem to be happy with the set list at Mera Luna, please tell
us your perfect Mission festival set list.

A: Set, hmmm well I thought that serpents kiss and sacrilage would`ve gone down really well for this show, I would`ve like to have played those ones at mera luna

Perfect set

1 crystal ocean
2 hymn for america
3 beyond the pale
4 slave to lust
5 sacrilage
6 serpents kiss
7 tower of strength
8 deliverence



Q: Any special highlights you would like to share with the people?

A: well I actually couldn't see any of the audiences at any of the shows due to richards trousers eclipsing them!



Q: Please describe the tour in one word:

A: SHORT



Q: Did you see or hear any of your support bands? In Nottingham you were supported by this young guys called Operation and they did a fast version of hands across the ocean. In London you were supported by X-Lover and N.F.D. Any remembrance of their gigs?

A: Yeah, I caught a few songs by operation, they were very young with lots of confidence and energy - i`ll hand it to them, I thought they did very well, especially in front of a mission audience, I thought they may have had a hard time, but I think they won the crowd over.
x lover are a couple of friends of mine, brian and oly - plus another couple of members in the band, I saw 1 song out front at london, their singer was wearing hardly any clothes which was errr...interesting.
nfd seemed pretty cool, I saw their soundcheck, some good sounds happening there.



Q: The Zaandam venue website advertised your gig as "The Mission – grote Goten" which means "great Goths" in English. At Mera Luna Wayne entered the stage and asked the people if they would like to hear some pop songs. So are the Mission a goth band with a big repertoire of pop songs or how would you describe the musical style of the band?

A: i`ve never really known what to classify the mission as ?- I know the band have always had a large scale gothic following but I personally couldn't pinpoint a genre really - it`s quite mixed, that's a tough question



Q: What do you prefer, to work in studio or to go on tour to play live?

A: The creative process in the studio is always good - it can be frustrating too as you cant always be artistic every second of every day and can become frustrating and quite stressfull if things arent sounding too good or not coming together as you are hearing it in your head, but when a record is complete it makes it all worthwhile when you go out on tour and play the stuff live. I must say id rather be playing live though.



Q: Obviously you´re very busy recording the new Sulpher album and mixing some tracks for the forthcoming new Numan album, so are there any news about it and do you have other plans as well?

A: Yeah we`ve done a couple of tracks with gary so far - he's working away on stuff at his place at the moment as for sulpher, it`s moving along, it`s getting there, it seems a lot more melodic what we are doing currently, don`t get me wrong it still has the power and energy of the last record but I think we have grown a bit more as far as songwriting - i`m looking forward to getting it out and getting a reaction from the people and the press who liked the last album. still no release date yet, it will be finished when we are totally happy with it and not before - keep you posted.

Links

Viel mehr über Rob und seine Projekte findet ihr auf Tanja`s Sulpher-Archive Webseite sulpherous, auf der deutschen Sulpher Webseite und natürlich auf der englischen offiziellen Webseite.

Jegliche Wiederverwendung, auch ausschnittweise oder in übersetzter Form, nur mit schriftlicher Genehmigung der Verfasser.

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