1. Hello! How are you? Since you are a new band, can you give us some info about you and when you decided to form ASTRAL TRAVELLERS? 

We are a group of musicians from the Netherlands, and are playing together in this set-up since 2000. In our first rock band OKER, we played melodramatic pop-rock, which still had the classic build-up of verses. In 2005 we realized we were restricted by the notion our songs needed to be radio-friendly (so under 3 minutes per song, no strange rhythms or tempo-shifts). It was then when we decided to regroup under the name ASTRAL TRAVELLERS, let all restrictions fly, and make music as we really intended it to be.

A lot of musical needs! We feel we now have no boundaries, we can work with literally everything we come up with to incorporate in our songs. We feel we need to tell a story with our music, for which we take the time to tell.

We really took the time to do it right this time. That meant that the songs kept evolving: if we thought we were finished with a song, we would make a recording and study this. If we then were not satisfied with a passage, we would rewrite and record again. We kept doing this until we were sure the songs were finished. Next to this, we keep straining our capabilities when writing new material. In short, we needed to improve our skills just to keep up. Both items take time, but now we are sure we made an album we are proud of. 

The oldest song we have included is ‘Gather Around’, which we finished in its current version in spring 2007.

I cannot really say this song is easier than that song. All songs took their time to evolve, some parts were done at the first go, other ones kept on changing before we were satisfied. I don’t feel it was difficult to complete a song, perhaps one takes more effort than the other, but they all come easy because they come from within. 

The Traveller part comes from the journey we took ourselves before we were at the point where we decided we needed to let go all restrictions, and follow our own feeling in composing. I think this journey reflects in the songs and the way they are composed, so in a way I agree with you it makes the listeners mind travel while listening to it. The Astral part comes from the idea we wanted to give the name a progressive ring to it. The fact that the band YES wrote a song titled “Astral Traveller” in the ’70s is of course a nice touch. 

There are actually 3 reasons we did it like this. We wanted to be in complete control of the final production, to be fully able to convey our own thoughts in the music. Secondly, we wanted to bring this album to the audience, and did not have the time to first find an appropriate label. And finally, our synth player is a good producer and he liked to do this himself. 
But if we find a label which can help us fulfill our goals, we are interested to join. 

Producing such a project on your own from start to finish was new to us all. Because we were in control we could fully decide for ourselves when a track sounded “right”. We actually recorded 6 songs but while mixing we decided to leave one out. This is all a big advantage, but there is also a lag. Because you are emotionally connected to your songs and the atmosphere you want to create, I think the hardest was to say: and now it is finished, this is it, send it out for duplication.  

We feel the album is a result of honest composing from the heart. It also reflects that the sum of the members is larger than the parts. It became a real ode to the music we feel within. We feel this passage from our song ‘As she goes down’ reflects this feeling.

My favorite writer is a combination of Terry Goodkind (Sword of Truth) and George R.R. Martin (Game of Thrones), and my favorite movie is the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.

I cannot say a song is based on just one book or film, but passages are definitely inspired from various fantasy and sci-fi books (for example ‘Dance of Death’ and ‘Higher’). 

I personally do not believe this, although pseudo-scientist Erick von Daniken does have some interesting theories which I enjoy reading about. 

A fan told us that, by listening to the build-up in the middle of ‘Gather Around’, he felt he was riding his war-horse on the battle-field, lowering his bannered lance and splintering it while he crashed into his enemies…  after which he continued by drawing his sword, hacking and slashing through the synth solo.
For your info: I totally understand this person.

This is an exciting period for us. We really feel connected to our music and are looking forward in every way to getting feedback on our album. At this moment we are focussed on the live-set list and planning to play at prog-venues in Europe. Of course we also started writing new material and ideas for a second album are popping up. We would like to thank every fan and critic for listening to our music and we hope to meet you at a live-gig!