MILAN POLAK INTERVIEW

1st July 2009

Hi Milan, many thanks for agreeing to another interview with Virtuosity One.

 Hi Andy, totally my pleasure! It’s always great talking to you.

We last spoke after the release of your previous solo album “Straight”, how was the response for that album overall?

I’ve had everything from “best rock album of the year” to “total crap” but the overall response was good. I guess some people were surprised, some disappointed that I had chosen to leave the instrumental, guitar hero road and others thought it was the best thing to do. You know, you can’t please everyone…

I have read a few reviews in some places which were a little less enamoured with the album cover – did this bother you?

Well, I wouldn’t say it bothered me. You can’t expect everyone to understand correctly or feel the same way about something and I guess for some people it’s not okay to play an instrument, sing and have a six-pack… haha But if you look beyond the cover it wasn’t really about “hey, check out my cool body”. The people who know me better know very well that I am way much more than just that. And the rest should read my lyrics. My message was a different one.

It seems that people seemed to miss the relation between album cover, title and songs.

Yeah, absolutely! There was a message behind all of it, kind of like a concept if you will: This is me, stripped down, naked, just me and my guitar, no effects, no bullshit. Like it or not.

I really wanted to make clear that the days of the “instrumental Milan Polak” were over. Nothing more, nothing less.

But enough about “Straight”, let’s talk about my new CD!

Absolutely! Ok, your new album “Murphy’s Law” is set for release on June 19^th, how is it to be taken in relation to its predecessor?

“Murphy’s Law” is more modern & heavy, less bluesy than its predecessor. It features a lot more vocal work & guitar stunts and even has a few progressive parts. You’ll find loops, exotic harmonies and even some oriental sounds like an electric sitar for example. I think I found a perfect blend of songs for “normal” people and musicians. Everything has been taken at least one step further in relation to “Straight”.

My impression of the album is that it’s the next logical step on from “Straight” introducing the more guitar dominated elements of your instrumental albums into the framework of the same vocal song structures as on “Straight”, is this a fair judgement?

Yes, I’d very much say so. While on “Straight” I really wanted to make clear that I had decided to get away from the instrumental guitar music and get into vocal oriented songs, there’s a certain balance on “Murphy’s Law” between the if you will “old” Milan Polak, the guitar player and the “new” Milan Polak, the vocalist. The new album is full of guitar work, solos and vocal harmony arrangements.

The main point that hit me from the album is that your vocals sound stronger, more confident if you like.  Is this to do with anything in particular or just natural growth?

I’d say it’s a bit of both. Of course, after recording and touring you grow as a singer. You become more confident, singing becomes more natural to you, your voice becomes more used to singing and thus stronger. But I also worked a lot on my singing, in fact much more than on my guitar playing. haha

I normally try to do 30 – 45 minutes of vocal exercises at least 5x/week. The voice appears to work like a muscle – you need to constantly train it. And it grows and becomes stronger.

Lyrically the album is quite observant about world affairs in terms of celebrity status, preconceptions etc.  Is it safe to say Milan Polak is generally pissed off about certain people that are famous – perhaps for all the wrong reasons?

Haha, no I wouldn’t say so. The lyrics you’re referring to deal more with those people that aren’t famous but want to be - the ones who would do anything for 15 minutes of fame, those who desperately try to become famous no matter what. “Wannabes” deals with this phenomenon. It has this one line in the chorus, “They should be sent to therapy but get a show on MTV.”

TV is full of crap like reality shows and casting shows. They keep making people believe that anybody can become a singer, star or actor. It’s ridiculous. It’s just totally disrespectful to all the real musicians and actors out there - the ones with real talent, the ones that study hard and work off their asses. We live in a time where some idiot with mental issues is regarded as being cool and becomes an icon. Everyone is a model or rock star these days. It’s hilarious.

But it’s not the only thing I sing about. Other lyrics deal with finding and listening to your inner voice (“Inner Truth”), the alienation of individuals in cities (“Alien Nation”), religion (“No God”). So I really don’t think you can cut it all down to Milan pissing on some celebrities… haha

In fact, the song with the most important message to me is “The Mystery Of Life”. If you were to check out only one song, listen to this one and pay attention to the lyrics. That one’s pretty much what Milan Polak is all about.

Where did your inspiration for the music and lyrics come from for “Murphy’s Law”?

Life basically. I constantly absorb - experiences, people I meet, stuff I see on TV or MySpace, etc. Anything that moves me emotionally or intellectually will sooner or later end up in one of my songs… “Fake” and “The Opposite Of Love” are good examples for this, dealing with superficial lifestyle, people caring about latest news on Britney Spears or Paris Hilton more than important things that are going on in the world and thus becoming an easy target for mass manipulation because they degenerate intellectually. People who pretend to be fans or friends only to get a piece of you and then turn out to be psychos or stab you in the back, etc.

The cool thing is that I get a lot of positive response for my lyrics, which shows me that there are actually people out there that do read and care about lyrics. I get a lot of kudos for having the balls to say what others think but don’t dare to say for whatever reasons.

Music-wise I usually just come up with riffs while noodling around on my guitar and most of the time I compose while I am asleep or in the hours of waking up. I store the music in my head, writing it down on an imaginary note sheet. So many times by the time I grab a guitar I already know what to play.

There is a nice variety of music on offer yet also a modern sound, it’s an album that I can see appealing to a wide cross section of rock fans.  Was this an aim or a natural end product?

Thank you! I’d say it was a bit of both. When I recorded “Straight” I wanted it to sound a certain way, kind of like the old AC/DC records where you feel like you’re in the same room with the band when you listen with headphones on.

For “Murphy’s Law” I definitely wanted a more modern sound. So if we talk about sound then it was definitely deliberate.

If we talk about the song writing, I have to honestly tell you that I just write songs and see what happens. In fact, we recorded a song that did not make it on the record because it was too different and did not fit the overall sound/style of “Murphy’s Law” even though everyone who has heard it said that this one could be a hit. It is a ballad and features my friend Neil Taylor (guitarist of Robbie Williams and Natalie Imbruglia), he played the solo on it. When we had all the songs recorded and mixed I thought to myself, “Nah, this is too different from the rest of the songs”. So I saved it and decided to not put it on “Murphy’s Law”.

As much as everybody hopes that their music will appeal to a wide audience, I try to never let that get in my way or influence my song writing.

Feel free to give us a track by track analysis.

Ok, the title track “Murphy’s Law” is basically a heavy rock opener featuring a lot of guitar solos (3 in total). I kind of wanted to make clear, “hey I’m back!” Lyrically it deals with the thesis "If anything can go wrong, it will" by Edward A. Murphy, Jr.

“No God” is probably one of the heaviest songs on the album with a slight oriental touch melody-wise. It has a long guitar solo in the middle with lots of stunts. Lyrically it deals with doubting the existence of a god.

“Inner Truth” has a lot of backing vocal arrangements and a strong oriental touch musically. I also played electric sitar on that one. Lyrically, it’s about finding your inner voice and becoming who you are.

I noticed that radio stations have started to choose this song to put on their play list. Definitely a song everyone should check out!

“Losing Me” is more of a modern ballad. It deals with realizing that someone is trapped inside oneself and will not change anymore. You know when you’re like together with someone and they blame you for their problems? One day you decide enough’s enough and you just leave. Then some day you meet the person again and they’re still having the same problems, nothing changed…

Musically, there is a real long fade out solo over a 7/16 groove at the end of the tune – it’s one of my favourite solos on the CD.

 Next is “Wannabes”. As said before, it deals with this recent phenomenon of people willing to do anything just to make it onto (M)TV. Recently, we have been flooded with all these stupid shows of someone trying to find true love (yeah right, on a reality show), people who want to be made (wtf?) and model & singer casting shows. I am really, really sick of that BS, I’ve had it to here. So this is my answer.

“The Opposite Of Love” is a heavy groove tune that basically deals with today’s superficial lifestyle where everything that counts is just how much money you make and what clothes you wear. So people degenerate on an emotional level and compensate with materialistic things.

“Sheeple” is the fastest song on the album with a short progressive unison part in the middle. The term “sheeple” is a blend of the words “sheep” and “people” referring to people who unquestioningly accept as true whatever their political leaders say or who adopt popular opinion as their own without scrutiny. Unfortunately, the world is full of them…

The next tune is “Torn”. It is the 2nd ballad and a very personal song lyric-wise. It basically deals with an emotional state that most of us have encountered one or more times in their lives. Many people have told me so far that this is the best song of the album. It also has a nice outro solo on a classical guitar.

“Alien Nation” describes my impressions of modern day cities and how I feel about life in a big city. Thanks to different factors (such as increasing growth of population, internet, etc.) people degenerate more and more emotionally (and also intellectually) which results in alienation and leads to increase of crime and illiteracy. You may not realize when you live in the same old town you grew up in (just as you don’t see your hair grow) but as I travel a lot and get to see a lot of this world I started to notice that all big cities have these same problems. I moved to another city a few years ago and this song basically reflects how I feel there.

“Fake” is a very riff-laden, heavy tune featuring my first encounters with a talk-box that one of the companies I work with (Dunlop/MXR) has given me. Basically, it’s a box with a plastic tube that you put in your mouth. The tube sends the guitar tone directly into your mouth and by moving your mouth you can change the tone. I fooled around a bit with it and taught myself to actually speak whole sentences with it, so my guitar is saying “you’re fucking fake”.

Lyrically, the song reflects upon various experiences with different “friends” I had in the last 2 years.

The last tune “The Mystery Of Life” is probably the most progressive piece of the album. It is very long and consists of different parts. This song has an interesting story: The idea for the lyrics I actually had over 10 years ago after a conversation I had with someone. Basically the conversation was like, “even though nature seems to always be concerned to evolve and progress, it seems to have made a mistake when it comes to humans as we have constantly been killing each other throughout all the centuries”. I recorded a demo and wanted to add some news flashes. So I turned on an international TV news channel and recorded about 5 minutes. Immediately I had different stuff about war, disasters, etc. which I used on the demo.

Now when I recorded the new version I couldn’t use these original news flashes anymore because they were recorded on a different recording medium, so I had to get new, more up-to-date news flashes. Until the final moment of mixing I tried to get hold of a recording machine for my old tapes to recover the original files. It would have been great to use the news flashes of over 10 years ago as an intro. That would have really affirmed and reinforced the message of the song.

I notice from the promo pics you are now using Yamaha Guitars, what other gear did you use for the album?

 Yes, I used Yamaha acoustic & electric guitars on this CD. They gave me a bunch of different guitars, so all my needs were fulfilled on that end. I play Thomastik handmade strings and DiMarzio pickups. Amp-wise I used a boutique amp that TubeThomsen - a company in the north of Germany that builds great handmade tube amps - gave me. It was mic’ed with AKG microphones. For direct recordings I used a Damage Control preamp.

As opposed to my previous album “Straight” I also used some effect pedals on “Murphy’s Law”. Dunlop gave me some cool MXR pedals and I also got some great pedals from a Danish company called T-Rex. All these companies have been very supportive.

And I also recently teamed up with Engl Amps – they supported me on my last tour. They have some great amps and I am really excited about our future collaboration.

The guitar tones are generally very dry and unaffected, what do you feel this type of “earthier” tone yields in comparison to more heavily effected sounds used by many others in rock genre?

Ooooh, dangerous question. Some guitarists out there are probably going to hate me now… hahaha

Ok, here we go: In many years of playing, recording and teaching I have noticed that most guitarists usually use effects to cover up the flaws in their playing performance. I am not talking about when someone uses e.g. a delay to create a certain lick or riff and the delay is part of the composition but when people use delays, reverb etc. to mask their sloppy playing. I always disliked that. Also for rhythm guitars, I feel that especially in heavier music nothing has more punch than a dry accurately played, tightly performed riff.

In addition, especially the younger generation of players has been polluted with these new, digital amps that sound like crap compared to the original real tube amps they are trying to reproduce. Unfortunately, they do not know any better because their ears have not been trained to cherish a good guitar tone. So to them this digital, sterile shit sounds good because they are used to it. But trust me, nothing has more balls than a good tube amp!

What were you looking for sonically with this album and what did you do to achieve it?

Sonically, I wanted a more modern sounding album this time. I used different guitars and different amps than on the last album “Straight”. I even experimented with different guitar picks. The drums sound a lot better thanks to the incredible performance of Simon Michael and you will also find the usage of loops and some synths this time thanks to Fabio Trentini who also played all the basses on this CD. He had a lot of impact on the way the album sounds, especially because he also mixed “Murphy’s Law”.

The other musicians all deliver great performances, especially drummer Simon Michael.  How instrumental were they in the making of the album and please feel free to big them up.

Yeah, I agree. Both of them took the songs to the next level. The thing I love about Simon Michael is that he is not just another drummer with great technique. He’s got so much more to offer and is easy to work with. I talked to a few drummers before recording “Murphy’s Law” but I am really glad I chose Simon. He is a very musical drummer who always plays for the song and not for the sake of showing off.

Same thing goes for Fabio Trentini. He cares more about groove, phrasing and tone than playing fast scales. Fabio and I have known each other for some time. We have been working on different projects in the past including Subway To Sally’s album “Bastard” and that’s how we met Simon Michael. Fabio is also a successful producer and co-produced the album with me.

As far as the working process goes, I basically recorded rough demo versions of all the songs after writing them and then sent them to Fabio. We then would refurbish them together in his studio. So by the time I recorded the actual guitars & vocals I already had a pretty good idea of what to do.

Groove-wise everything was more or less clear when Simon came in but he had a few suggestions and I gladly accepted. Other than that I just let everyone play whatever they felt was appropriate.

When I work with other musicians/artists I always try to capture as much of their personality as possible. After all, that’s why you work with others. If there’s chemistry then the end result will be so much better on all levels.

Any touring plans in support of Murphy’s Law and if not, what can our readers do to help?

Well, I won’t lie to you - it’s very difficult these days to play live if you’re not famous already or play in a cover band. Also, thanks to the worldwide financial crisis a lot of clubs are closing down and that doesn’t make things easier. I just recently played a little tour and had to deal with all sorts of shit.

I would really need a good booking agency. It is impossible to try to do everything yourself, plus it’s not my job.

There is a platform on the internet that gives people the possibility to demand their favorite artists/bands. I have the banner posted on my official site and on my MySpace profile. That’s one way to help.

The more people buy my CD the more likely I can get a booking agency interested in me. Unfortunately, many people still don’t understand that the production of an album costs a lot of money and do not value all the hard work an artist puts into the making of a CD, so they download it illegally instead of buying it.

I know you are also an in demand session musician, what else do you currently have lined up for 2009?

Apart from composing and recording jingles for TV/radio once in a while, nothing specific at the moment. I am busy doing promo for “Murphy’s Law” and have also started to write songs for the next CD already. When you have to take care of everything yourself one year goes by very fast and I want to avoid another 2 years break this time if possible.

In the past I have been asked to compose songs for other bands/artists but I really got sick of writing material for some moron who won a casting show and got a record deal with a major company without even being able to write a single song himself. I always felt like, “Hey, why don’t you give me the record deal & support instead? If my song writing is good enough to use for other hit records why don’t you invest the money in me in the first place?” I tell you, it’s a hypocritical, superficial bullshit business. I have e-mails here from major companies talking about the plan to create a band sounding and looking like this or that asking me to compose music in this or that style. It’s all planned out and put together in business meetings. When you then read everywhere that the band members found each other in a manga forum on the internet, how they had to fight for their success, etc. and you know it’s all made up, it just makes you wanna puke. People get hoaxed and willingly pay for it. And what’s even worse, they don’t even want to hear the real truth. I could get more into this now but it would exceed the limits of this interview…

Anything else you would like to let our readers know?

Haha, I think I’ve talked enough…

I just want to let everyone out there know that I am really grateful for your support, for all the nice messages & comments I receive everyday and I truly appreciate every single one.

Milan, many thanks for this interview. We wish you all the best for “Murphy’s Law”.

 No, thank you guys for all the love and support. You rock! All the best,

Official websites
www.milanpolak.com | www.myspace.com/milanpolak