We recently had the chance to talk to two of the principles of the band [headspace] – 
Damian Wilson and Adam Wakeman. Their most recent album, All That You Fear Is Gone, has been released to rave reviews, including Brad’s review right here at Progarchy. Needless to say, we are fans. To throw in my own two cents, I find the album to be both musically adventurous and conceptually fascinating, and particularly the urging of standing as an individual against the pressures to conform to society at large. Anyway, they can shed more light on their work than can I, so let’s get to it:
Progarchy: Your current album is a second one of a trilogy. Could you go back, starting with your previous album, and walk us through the trilogy, including the third album?
Damian Wilson: The first album is based on an individual not coping with the group, the second is the group not coping with the individual. Both albums reflect on each other, they are tilted mirrors to be completed when the final album is placed on top. A trilogy infinitely reflecting inwardly upon itself, symbolic by form and purpose. To some 3 is one, to others just a number.
Progarchy: Can you shed some light on the lyrics in the current album? In particular, we’d love to hear your thoughts on “Secular Souls” and “Semaphore”, and other tracks on the album you’d like to discuss?
Damian Wilson: Secular soul simplified is the glorification of the individual. Semaphore is about choices and the responsibility of those choices.
I like to think that the songs speak for themselves once you have listened to them a dozen times, reflected and considered where they run within the trilogy. Then listened to again consecutively within the three albums and that perspective.
Progarchy: When can listeners expect the third album to be released?
Adam Wakeman: When it’s finished! it wont be for a couple of years realistically.
Progarchy: Can you shed some light on how [headspace] came together, and what your role in that was?
Adam Wakeman: I’d been on a lot of really long tours, and thought it would be great to have a band with my best pals in, who are also fantastic musicians. Ironically, we probably see less of each other now than we did before we had the band! I’ve worked with Damian a lot in the past and always thought he’s the best front man and vocalist. The rest just fell into place with Lee and Rich Brook (and now Adam Falkner) and Pete Rinaldi.
Progarchy: How do you see [headspace] fitting into the current prog movement?
Adam Wakeman: I don’t really worry too much about where it fits in. We love the way we write music and how it all comes together – the fact that people like it is a real bonus and an honour for us. As soon as you start to write for a particular movement or genre, you’re taking away a % of it’s genuine-ness in my opinion. Taking away those boundaries gives a truer album in my opinion.
Progarchy: You obviously grew up in a musical household, but you seem to have taken a different path from your father and even your brother. How did that come about?
Adam Wakeman: I didn’t really chose a particular path, I just made sure I didn’t turn down any experiences, even if they were out of my comfort zone. That way, you become more employable and able to earn a living 12 months a year, not just 4 months a year which can happen if you are just focused on one genre, or one band. I was also conscious about getting out of my dads shadow which was why I didn’t go down the YES route. It also stops me from getting bored!
Progarchy: So how did you end up touring with Black Sabbath?
Adam Wakeman: I met Sharon Osbourne at a show I was playing with Annie Lennox and 6 months later her office called and asked if I was available to tour with Ozzy. I was away with Travis touring at the time so was unable to do it, but they asked again the following year and it worked out with my schedule which was great. Then, they asked me to do Sabbath too when Ozzy, Tony, Geezer and Bill got back together in 2004 I think it was.
Progarchy: Ok, one final question related to some family ties (and asked humorously, with tongue firmly in cheek) – does your dad ever give you the whole “back in my day” spiel about prog, music in general, and so forth? If so, how do you respond to him? 🙂
Adam Wakeman: He never really says that sort of thing funnily enough, unless you press him with questions! He’s very much a ‘look forward not back’ kind of guy, and in this industry, if you don’t do that you’re already dead in the water.
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Progarchy would like to take this opportunity to thank Adam and Damian for their time in talking to us, and to wish them the best of luck on their upcoming tour. Thanks, guys!
Manuel Göttsching was the guitarist for Ash Ra Tempel, a formative krautrock space jam band based in Berlin that included Klaus Schulze (post-Tangerine Dream/pre-solo) and Hartmut Enke. Göttsching made E2-E4 in 1981, years after Ash Ra’s heyday, as something to listen to on a plane trip. It became, upon its release in 1984, a classic of electronic house/dance and trance music, and is the natural descendant of Göttsching’s Inventions for Electric Guitar (1975). The piece is divided into tracks on CD but plays seemlessly across an hour as an integrated suite. Göttsching holds off on soloing for over 30 minutes, and when he let’s go it’s with the restraint of a jazz player. I’ve listened to this record maybe a dozen times over the last 20 years, so not a lot, but would never relinquish it. I have an idea that music like this (what Julian Cope might term “motorik”), when it’s at its best, can work like noise-cancelling headphones, as if by tapping into the wavelength of your brain’s “always on” subchannel it can then mirror and bring the mind’s noise to zero sum, creating a kind of peace not to be had elsewhere. Perhaps that’s a stretch, but, being in the deep with E2 E4, the background of the morning takes on a different kind of flow and light. Now, perhaps, a game of chess….
Progarchy 