With:	Mariusz Duda and Piotr Grudzinski
Conducted by:	.mrt, Ivor (in person)
Published:	23.07.2009
Band profile:	Riverside

First of all I would like to say that I am sorry for bothering Riverside right before the show. It isn't exactly the ideal timing but fortunately they didn't seem to mind. The interview went great and the show was great as ever.

To begin with, I'll start with some background. Riverside for me and Ivor and some other buddies of ours has been an obsession for some time. We've been thinking of going to Poland to see them in their natural habitat for ages. So, you understand why my jaw dropped when I saw the following line from Ivor in my Skype some two and a half weeks before the event itself: "Holy fuck! Riverside is coming to Tapper in the 25th of June."

Tapper is a moderately new place in Tallinn but has already earned the respect of local heavy music enthusiasts with some great artists performing there, like Emilie Autumn, Blaze Bayley, Richie Kotzen, Protest the Hero, and of course many great local artists (with of course some not-so-great, and downright bad and the kind of artists you would like to be illegal because they just blow). But Riverside of course tops them all, at least for the writer of these lines.

So, I would like to dedicate this interview to all my friends who were with me on the Riverside show.

But before the show could start we went backstage, which exactly wasn't near the stage at all. It was more of a back-pub, if I may be so bold. Piotr Grudzinski led us in the room with couple of windows and one sofa which was occupied by Mariusz Duda playing on his PSP. The fact that the room was poorly populated by furniture didn't mean there wouldn't be any people in it. In fact, there seemed to be some people coming and going all the time, which on any other time might have been a distraction, but it wasn't bothering us having a nice chit-chat.

Martti: Thank you for taking the time to be annoyed by couple of fans with some, hopefully interesting questions! First of all, welcome to Estonia! It's your first time here, as a band.

Mariusz Duda: Yeah, that's true.




I don't know if you have been here in person but as a band it's a first one for you?

MD: We should have done it earlier. We had a show in Finland and we took the ferry directly from Poland to there. And tomorrow we are also going to Finland.

Did you drive directly from Poland to here this time?

MD: Yes.

How did you find the roads?

MD: Pretty good, I think. Really, we're from Poland and unfortunately we still don't have very good roads but I hope it will change.

But you do have a highway from Warsaw to the German border...

MD: To Tallinn. (Laughing.) No-no, I know. Well, we're working on that one.

Piotr Grudzinski: We were a bit afraid of the road as it was our first time but it went really fast, I need to say. The roads were quite empty and I would say, good quality. So, it's not so bad.

Well - you're here. So, it must have been reasonable. OK, guys. We tried to catch you earlier but then we saw your van leaving. So, did you go to the city for some sightseeing?

MD: No.

PG: No.

MD: Actually we went for the hotel and tried to sleep. Sorry for that but I hope there will be a chance in the future to visit this beautiful city.

PG: It was pretty strange for us because here at 2 AM it's not dark, you know.

MD: Is it all the time like this?

No-no. It's only during Summer.

PG: For example we're around 10 PM right now. It's much more darker now in Poland. I feel now like 7 or 8 o'clock, something like that. So, it's a bit different.




Piotr "Mittloff" Kozieradzki brings in some snacks for the band and I can see how PG and MD suddenly seem like starving kids in Africa. So I encourage them to grab a snack so we could start talking about the music instead of the economy, weather and roads.

Did you have time to catch other bands playing before you this evening or did you come straight here (to backstage)?

MD: Exactly, straight here.

But what's the usual routine for you guys? Do you arrive like two days earlier and check things out and this time it's an exception for you or how does it work for you?

MD: No. During the tour we have shows day by day, usually. And when we have a day off then we usually spend it in the car driving because the distances are sometimes much longer and it's hard to do it in one day. Well, usually we arrive in time to prepare so that we can prepare the rehearsal. And after this, maybe we can have few hours, maybe take some sleep. Well, that's technically but practically it's totally different. So, the show is just the way it is. Just very normal. Sometimes, after the show, terrible things are going on in hotel but those will be our little mysteries.

PG: A lot of things happen by accident. For example, yesterday we thought we would arrive to Tallinn around noon but unfortunately we came around 2 o'clock in the morning. We didn't have the hotel...

Really?

PG: Yeah, well... In fact, we had a hotel booked for tonight...

MD: These are our own private details, for Christs sake. (Laughing he gets up to grab some snacks as it seems he got a bit suspicious that he might miss them.)

PG: I know! I'm just saying that there is no such thing as routine. Sometimes things just happen and you have to do things out of routine. You need to fight, for example, with the lady to check in the hotel earlier than you have booked.

Ah! Yeah, they're really tight-ass about these things. So, congratulations on the fourth studio album (Anno Domini High Definition). It's out and I've got it and it's great. Well, it's better then great.

MD: It's short.

It's not short!

MD: I know. It's just a normal-length record. If you take a look at old records, right. Each record has about 45 minutes worth of music. It's quite normal.

Yeah, well. I think it's actually 44 minutes and 44 seconds. So, I've got to ask: why not 4 songs only, why 5?

MD: We wanted to do this at first but unfortunately, you know? We wanted to do this in a quite natural way and we didn't want to just connect two songs which are totally different because of 4. I thought about it but I just left those 5. You know, it doesn't matter because we have already 44 and 44. And we have a four-word title so enough of this "four."

So, this new one is pretty heavy...

MD: Sorry...

Sorry? (Laughing.)

Meanwhile PG gets back from taking snacks and hears our discussion about the number 4 and enlightens us further.

PG: We have 5 songs on this one because the next one is going to be our fifth album. So, it is also a magic number.

Everyone's laughing.

Yeah, sure!

MD: And the fifth album will only have 4 tracks.

Ivor: Why not six?

MD: I don't know...

And we drift off laughing again...

When somebody asks "what genre do you play" then what do you answer these days? How would you describe your music? Do you think it has changed a bit?

MD: Yeah! You know, the trilogy was quite oneiric, if I could say that. There was a lot of space, deepness, and somekind of melancholic mood. It was quite dark. Now we have changed the colors a little bit, for red. Because I think it's a great color for our times of this speed, of the chaos. What other color would there be, blue? No, of course not. Red is great. And what connects the dots, I think, the music is much more open. It just became not so, if I could say, beautifully artistic in some kind of very spacey mood. But instead of we just wanted to be an ordinary rock and roll band on this album. Have a lot of fun and a lot of joy and this is what we wanted to do - just record a good rock and roll album. And this is exactly what we did.

PG: Can I ask you one thing?

Sure!

PG: I noticed, for example here, when we crossed Tallinn I didn't see something like crowds. A lot of people in the same moment in the same place. It's rather like an empty town. Sometimes one or two persons but?

You mean today?

PG: Yeah!

I think it's because of the festivities, we had this holiday yesterday and probably many people haven't really returned to the city yet and took the whole day off after a lot of drinking.

MD: Good time for the show, by the way! (Dropping this remark sarcastically.)

Yeah!

MD: Well, you know, it's strictly for the fans anyway. Who wanted to stay - stayed. So what's next?

I wanted to ask about ADHD. What the story with high definition? Is there some frustration with the high speed of our stressful lives and such?



MD: Yeah, yeah! Basically it's a... (Laughs at some general commotion going around the room that distracts him.) Basically, it's about the chaos, you know. All the record is about the chaos, about the speed of everything, you know. Time. "Sorry, we have only 5 minutes. Do this quickly." (Slaps his fingers at the wrist where the watch is supposed to be.) I just wanted to take some pictures of our modern times, of our hybrid hyperactive times. And I was looking for some kind of title which will have some kind of modern words that you can use these days, which can reflect these days. Like ADHD disorder - Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder which is quite popular now. And High Definition which is also very popular. But this is not a record about TV, not the record about the media, about the Internet. No. That's all on the second level. First of all it's about the reactions between people in these times when you don't have time for another person. So, this is the most important. And I would say that this High-Definition term is some kind of synonym of our times. So, again...

Mariusz grabs my memo-dictaphone to make sure I get it.

MD: ... this is not about the television.

(Laughing.) I'll make sure to write that down. Any stories from the making-of side you'd like to share? Like when you recorded the album.

After a long pause.

MD: No.

PG: We just spent six weeks in a town, not our home town.

MD: Yeah, we changed the studio for this album.

PG: Yeah. It's 250 km from Warsaw and we spent there 6 weeks.

Were you locked up there?

PG: Almost. We had a place not in the center of the city but just outside. We didn't have TV and anything, you know.

MD: We just had computers and we just sat in front of our computers and were like, you know. All the time.

Mariusz demonstrates the normal position of "a person in front of the computer for the 6th hour straight and still writing angry text at you, because somebody on the Internet wrong!" Certainly you can't leave it like that but you must engage him like Darth Vader protecting his precious little Deathstar.

PG: 6 o'clock in the afternoon and, in fact, you have nothing to do. You can go to the movies, we went twice. Sometimes you don't want to want. I don't know if you understand. Sometimes you are thinking "maybe we'll go somewhere... Maybe nooot."

MD: What is very important thing when you are a band and if we're going to the studio then we do it together. And we do everything together. Sometimes it's a little bit silly but that's the way it is. It's cool from the other side, of course. So, let's say when Piotr has recorded his drums he has free time and he could go home but he stays. But usually when one of us is recording their own parts then the rest are with him. Well, maybe not in the same room but somewhere, you know. This is cool. And usually when you have a lot of different recordings sometimes you have a lot of free time. For me it's great because I usually try to finish my lyrics along with the sessions. When we're recording the drums, the bass, the guitar, and someone asks me when will we start with the vocals, then I would say: "Maybe we would record some more instruments." Because unfortunately I only have two lines of lyrics. I'm usually doing those in the last minute. This time I'm very happy for the lyrics. I don't know what the question was, by the way, but... (Laughing.)

Never mind. It was already drifting into my next question: how do you work as a band? Like you said about the lyrics being unfinished. So, I guess the music comes first?

MD: Yes. Music is mostly comes first and then I create my vocal lines. OK, sometimes I have some words that I use to start the melodic line. Of course at first I have some main thought about the song. So, we know more or less what it will be about. Because if it will be about love then we can't play very hard. Or maybe we can!? I don't know. It doesn't matter. Usually we have a main thought, we're doing this, talking about this, I'm just creating the melodic line and the lyrics are the last part of the process of creation. So far it has been like this, maybe it'll change, I don't know. Maybe someday I will write the lyrics and then just try to figure out how to sing them.

You have a special DVD with the ADHD special edition. What's on the DVD?

PG: We recorded the songs during the show in Amsterdam and it was really great. The Club Paradiso had a pretty good equipment there to record everything and. We watched it... It was on the Internet for some time, FabChannel website. We thought it would not be really good thing to put on a bonus DVD. But they closed this website and it was not available on the Internet anymore. And then we thought it would be a good thing to put a few songs from the show on a DVD.

Sure. Looking forward to it.

Ivor: Do you have a plan to release DVD by itself, some other show, I mean?

PG: Actually we recorded the DVD last year in May, in Poland, and we hoped that we could release it last year.

MD: Before ADHD was the plan.

PG: Yeah. More or less Christmas time. But unfortunately the studio we cooperate with, is working on mixing the video tracks very slowly and unprofessionally. So, we are still waiting for the video tracks to be mixed together with the audio stuff. But we hope we will have it with us on the ADHD tour in September/October.

Ivor: So you still plan to release it?

PG: Yeah, yeah! You know, audio tracks are mixed and we released it as "Reality Dream." And the limited version of the CD.

MD: So, we thought this audio will be on our official DVD first. I hope this year still. We're planning to release it and take it with us on the tour we're planning in September, October, November. So, basically it should be finished by the end of this year. But it will be a DVD from the last year, from May 2008, which is some kind of closure of the Reality Dream trilogy.

Sounds good!

MD: Theoretically.

PG: (Laughing.)

So, a bit about your musical education. Where did you learn to play so good? Do you have some academic...?

MD: Slums... Hmm!

Are you self thought? Really?

MD: Yeah. OK, I remember piano lessons when I was a young boy in a private music school but it was only for one year and it was piano. Later I just decided to cooperate with different people in bands. I've been playing bass now over ten years for now. I don't remember, that was a very long time ago. Each of us was playing before Riverside in different bands. And some were quite famous like Mittloff who had very famous... (Thinking.)

... death metal band...

MD: ... death metal band, yeah. In Poland, of course. It was pretty nice. So, Michal is the only "virgin" in our band.

Ivor: Two questions. How did you end up in prog rock? And the second one - how does Poland have so many prog bands?

MD: They have so many prog bands?

Ivor: Actually yes.

Martti: It seems to us like that.

MD: We're growing up. We have quite nice potential.

Ivor: I know. It's usually for me like I pick up a band. Feels nice. And then I check out where are they from, what they do and I find out - Polish. Again! Why? Do you know?

MD: I don't know. In Poland there's a very popular some kind of neo-progressive "mood." It probably came from the SBB in the 70s which was kind of a good band, I think. And now we have bands like Collage, and Abraxas...

? Quidam.

MD: Yeah, Quidam. So, now we have a new generation and you can say we started it with some other bands. A lot of new bands that are just starting now that have a lot of potential. But it's still unfortunately little steps for the future. If you're looking for some popular band it's mostly Riverside, talking about progressive music, of course. Because talking about Quidam, the new Quidam, or different bands they're only known in the progressive circles. We always want to move on a little bit and not only play on the progressive festivals. We just play rock'n'roll, we play rock, we play just our own rock music, so we would like to play different places. But you had a first question about...

Ivor: How did you come into prog rock, actually.

PG: You know, the point of creating a band was to play something different because I was playing metal and Mittloff also was playing metal and we wanted to try something different. I need to say that we were really big fans of Porcupine Tree in that moment but we didn't want to play like Porcupine Tree. We wanted to play something different. And when Mariusz joined the band, you know, and... (Piotr trailed off.)




MD: We started to play like Porcupine Tree. (Laughs.) No, just kidding.

PG: But everything was because of...

MD: It's usually funny, you know, when you're talking to me like that. "When Mariusz joined the band." And it's very funny because it sounds like they were a band for like, I don't know, 6 months, but they had only one rehearsal with some kind of sucker, you know! And it's usually like I joined to the Riverside which is very funny to me! They didn't exist for several months, they existed for several hours. But it's fine...

Guys chuckling all around.

PG: Expressing myself in English is much more difficult.

MD: Yeah-yeah, I know! But it's usually also very funny. (Laughs.)

PG: Yeah, but you know, the truth is like it is. We had one rehearsal without you!

Some more healthy rolling on the floor, laughing. So I try to gather myself and my memo papers that I've thrown away probably in a burst of laughter.

Umm, well, so, moving on. You've obviously been on tour with a lot of different bands...

MD: (Sighing.) Yeah-yeah, I know what you're asking for. Dream...

... Theater. How did that happen?

Mariusz (probably mishearing my question for "how did it go." Trying to look as indifferent as possible.

MD: Fine.

Well, I mean where did the initiative come from and such?

PG: You know, one day I was sitting in my bathroom and suddenly my phone was ringing and Mike Portnoy called me and said: "Hey Piotr, do you want to join the tour?" and I said "Yeah, of course we want." And he said: "Wow, great. It would be awesome, man!"

MD: And then he splashed the water.

PG: (Laughing.) No-no! Well, the truth was that we were in the last process of recording Rapid Eye Movement and the proposition came from, as far as I remember, from InsideOut. Mike Portnoy contacted InsideOut and asked the owner of the band and they asked us if we would like to join the Dream Theater tour. And, of course, from the one side it was really great because playing with this kind of band, I mean the biggest progressive metal-rock band now. And the second one, we were finishing our album then and it was quite difficult. So, we had to do everything really fast and we joined the tour not from the beginning but, I think, 4-5 shows after the tour had already started. Probably if we hadn't played on this tour the band would be different, I don't know. We learned a lot during this tour. Especially how to...

MD: How to organize ourselves.

PG: Yeah, how everything works. So, it was really good knowledge for us.

MD: So, we were not used to the fact that we had to play at about 10:30 PM and what time is it, for Christ's sake! No, it's late, just kidding. (Obviously referring to the absence of darkness outside.)

Ivor: How was the reception from the audience?

MD: During the Dream Theater tour?

Ivor: Yes. I bet you got a lot of new fans?

MD: Quite positive, I think. Maybe people just like Dream Theater very much and they tried to be nice.

PG: One evening was really special, in Portugal. When we entered the stage there was so much screaming I though people were mistaken. Maybe they thought that Dream Theater was coming on stage. But the screaming was really loud and I was really surprised. But mostly it was like we had some fans but we gained new fans from the audience.

MD: Basically new fans, yes.

Probably.

MD: Yeah! Very nice experience for us. Maybe in the future we'll get the chance to do this again.

PG: Maybe we'll take them on tour someday. I mean Dream Theater.

Nobody can hold a straight face at a remark like that, except Piotr who tells me the following being completely serious.

PG: It was also a joke. Can you write it down there.

I'll put lots of smileys in there.

MD: (Laughing.) Yeah! "LOL."

As I understand you also used to work normal jobs. You were not only musicians, now you are professional, but earlier. Is it somewhat of a secret, I won't ask then, but what were your normal jobs back then?

MD: Well, I was working in a sales department in Hertz rent-a-car. I'm not sure if we had some kind of office in Tallinn. Probably yes. In a way each of us had different jobs, it was normal thing to do. Riverside wasn't our priority at first. But when we realized that we have only some limited amount of days of holiday and we used that only for the shows and didn't have time for ourselves. Then one day it appeared that we have much more shows then the days of holidays and we decided to quit the jobs. It happened after Second Life Syndrome in 2005. No, 2006. For me it was 1st of June, 2006. Yeah, and now I'm in a terrible position because each day I need to fight for my survival.

Suddenly I realized that the guys in the back of the room had dispersed and the room was rather quiet. However, the silence was now torn apart by another burst of laughter following the dramatic statement Mariusz had made.

Ivor: Very dramatic.

Martti: Right. Do you have any other passions besides creating this incredible music.

PG: Yeah, playing Playstation. (Laughs referring to Mariusz playing before we started the interview.)

MD: It's not Playstation, it's Playstation Portable. It's totally different. No, of course we spend a lot of free time for buying on Ebay or Viagra. But seriously we try to find the time to be together with our closest family and friends. We try to hang out much more. I admit that I changed a little bit my style of living to much more healthier. So, much more healthy now because I'm getting older and I need to be careful, more. And it's usually very important when playing on the long tours. Because if you're doing only 5-6 shows, it can be rock and roll and it's fine. But when you're doing 20-30 shows it could be like doing the Depeche Mode tour, you know. (Knocks superstitiously on the wood, obviously referring to the recent mishaps of Depeche Mode touring.) You need to be careful and you need to remember that a lot of people still would like to see you, so you can't afford for so many things.

Mm. Need to relax. Now a couple of specific questions about the music. If you remember, well obviously you remember - you created the music. Out Of Myself, the beginning, "The Same River." There was this radio tuning sound and I could have sworn that I have heard that same sound later on some other artist's records. Is that some generic sample or was that, I don't know, Piotr tuning his radio?

MD: Yeah, that was just a sample.

PG: Yeah! I downloaded it from the Internet.

MD: Unfortunately it was just a sample. That's why you can hear it on different songs. Of course we mixed together different samples.

PG: Yeah, we had two samples of the tuning of the radio. But, you know, when you are recording the first album...

MD: It was the first demo.

PG: Yeah, it was the first demo tape, really, and you aren't thinking about what is in the sample. We just needed the sound of radio tuning. So, we downloaded it and a few months after somebody told us, for example, that he hears in a really short part there a band that he knows.

Mittloff from the other end of the room: Sebastian Bach!

PG: Something, you know. Few months after that, for example, you can hear the same sample in the other bands song. So, yes, I downloaded it from the Internet, not doing the sample on your own.

I just recognized it in some other artist's songs and that's why I was curious.

MD: Yeah, it's a quite popular sample.

"The Piece Reflecting the Mental State of One of the Members of Our Band." Who is that member?

MD: Michal. It's about Michal. Unfortunately he still doesn't know anything about it.




OK, although he wasn't in the band at the time.

MD: No, he was in the band. This is from the single Conceiving You which was added to Second Life Syndrome. So, it was already with Michal.

Ah, OK! My bad. The song with the weird name, "Dna Ts. Rednum Or F. Raf" which reads backwards "far from understand." Does it mean frontwards anything, perhaps in Polish or something? Or is it just the pun?

MD: No, it's just word fun, only that. Or maybe I should fly and maybe I should say that there's a hidden meaning, I don't know...

Hidden satanic message.

MD: Yeah-yeah! Something like that. Who knows.

PG: Maybe somebody 5 years from now will say that there's an idea inside, and our thing was to bring Satan back on Earth, or something.

Sure-sure! Obviously! What else could it be? How do you decide what songs from an album become singles? For example "Panic Room." Was it more radio friendly?

MD: Well, you usually can hear from the beginning which song is good for the radio, I think. Of course we don't have so many singles. We just try to pick the songs that we like and that are quite short for the radio. Unfortunately during this album we had to cut our song and just put it on MySpace page.

PG: And it is still too long.

MD: We just put it on MySpace only. So far it was... You know, you have a short song, 3-4 minutes, it has a verse, it has a chorus.

PG: In fact in all of our records we don't have that many short songs which fit to be singles. If you have long tracks and one is 4 minutes - that is the single.

It makes it easy to choose.

PG: Yeah, it is easier.

MD: Exactly!

Where is this room 302?

The minute I asked that question I understood how wrong it turned out. Mariusz looked worryingly around and started pointing at one direction like trying to guide a tourist through an unfamiliar place. Others chuckling at their drinks.

OK! Got that! (Laughing.)

MD: OK, but do you want to know for real? It's from a game called Silent Hill 4 and it was the room where you started the game. You're trapped in the room which has a number 302. And that was very funny because in this game this room was both your shelter and a very dangerous place. And you could only save the game there. It was a very fun idea and very close to the panic room. This place for the rich people to hide themselves. So, I just used this number.

Why the solo, the Lunatic Soul. It's not like the Riverside hasn't played with acoustic guitars?

MD: Well, after the trilogy I just wanted to do something for myself...

It so happened that PG went out for a bit at that precise moment.

MD: ... Why Lunati Soul? (Laughs pointing at the door.) No, just kidding, he's OK with this. You know, I need to develop, I need to move on also as an individual artist, I think. Personally, I would like to experiment with some new tunes. Like, for instance, music with no electric guitars. It couldn't happen in Riverside, because Piotr would just...

? be pissed?

MD: But mostly I just wanted to do something different. I need to do something with me. I need something to do with my Attention Deficit Disorder. So, I like to do a lot of things and next year there will be the second album of Lunatic Soul. While recording the album I'm thinking of a new one. So, now I have plans for a new Lunatic Soul during the tour of Riverside. Things go like this.

Cool!

MD: Yeah. I have time for that, finally. So, I can do this as much as people would like to listen to this.

So, you develop the album during the tour?

MD: No, I mean this time because we will have a lot of shows during the ADHD and I would like to go to the studio in February 2010. So, I have about 6-7 months to prepare the new material but I have a lot of ideas now. So, I need to do a selection for this. You know, this is cool stuff, when you can do something on your own, really.

Sure.

MD: It's not only about my ego. I really want to develop, I really want to experiment a lot because all experience I have by myself or with different people, later I can also put my experience into the new Riverside album. And thanks to the fact that Lunatic Soul is so calm, and so mellow, and so dark, and so slow, the Riverside album is so energetic. Because I didn't want to put another acoustic ballad or whatever.

Exactly something I thought while listening to that and the new Riverside, that you put all the mellow stuff on the Lunatic Soul and reserved the steam for the new Riverside.

MD: I think it should go in this direction more, because all that mellow stuff I will tweak into Lunatic Soul. But also we'll also play some simple songs because we love them.

Sure. So you're moving on to Finland and then you have the ADHD tour in September, October, November. What are you looking forward the most this year? Looking forward to gathering ideas for the Lunatic Soul?

MD: You know, first of all we have festivals. Then we have about a month of free time. And later the tour. The tour will probably continue next year also. Basically we're thinking of the touring of the festivals right now. We're not thinking about the new material. But probably next year we will start.

Ivor: Which ones do you prefer, festivals or single shows?

MD: Festivals and single shows both.

Ivor: No preference?

MD: When you have your own shows, it's different. A lot of people who know your music will come and sing with you and know you. But in festivals there's usually 60% totally different people. This is what the festivals are for - reaching another audience and other people, new fans. But it's a very nice experience when you are trying to convince new people with your music and we usually try to do this with our progressive rock on metal festivals. It's very fun.

Ivor: OK. Do you have a festival that you would like to play on one day?

MD: Probably yes.

Ivor: Which one?

MD: I don't know. Name some festivals Piotr.

PG: We saw the line up for Hellfest in France this year...

Ivor: Yeah, I just came back from there.

PG: And last year it was also pretty big. The biggest lineup this year, in Europe. And Roskilde. That's reaaally big, the biggest probably, I don't know.

Some information arrives in the between that the last warm-up artist is playing their last song so Ivor is making me some signs I can only guess meant for me to cut things short.

OK, so is there anything you would like to say to end this interview?

MD: Of course - bye!

A roar of laughter to celebrate the end of our fun 40 minutes of chatting.

MD: No, just kidding. First of all of course we would like to say hello to all Estonian fans because it's always nice when you can play in the place for the first time.

PG: We should ask, why aren't they here?

MD: (Laughing.) Yeah, where are you?! Our Riverside fans, where are you! I know you are hidden somewhere in Estonia. Please come here to Tallinn. No, seriously, we know there are people who like our music and we would like to say "Hello!" and I hope we will be a chance to meet again during the festivals, or during the tour.

That would be cool. I'm glad you're here and I'm looking very much forward to the gig and hopefully you'll come back with new material.

MD: First you'll have to allow us to play the first show. (Laughs.)



Riverside is like the Matrix - unfortunately no one can be told what Riverside is, you have to see it for yourself.

During the writing of this interview it seemed to me that every other line was going to include something with laughing, and since I'm not that fond of smileys all over the place, try to understand that this text is to be taken with a sense of humor. The written text doesn't do those guys justice, I hope you and I get to meet them once again with more great material and a bit of more time.

PS. As always, check out some Ivor's shots from the show itself in our galleries.