AHRAYEPH

"Winterland. Summerland. Ghostland. Dark Land. Dry Land. Mindland"

Music has the ability to take you to the distant corners of the sky. To see the Fallen Ones enter our earthly ground. A world taken over by the Offspring of Angels.

I have the privilege of talking to a musician who knows how to perfectly portray this world in his music. And although he has spoken to Peek-A-Boo many times before, living in our small country, he certainly deserves to be brought to the attention again.

Ladies and gentlemen, let me present to you; Raf Ahráyeph.

Hello to you Raf!

And hello to you, Hayley.

To us you are no stranger but to introduce yourself a little to those who are not yet familiar with your music, how would you put it into words?

It's at once an easy and a tough question to answer... I could say my music is a reflection of me and how I view the world at large, which is the philosophical thing to do. I suppose I could take a description my late best friend bestowed on me and say it's 'Progressive Gothic Rock' or 'Prog Goth' for short, which is what I think most people will understand. But I guess what comes closest is that Ahrayeph is an expression and externalisation of the dark aspects of my life and what I observe around me. It's a better form of expressing darkness than being depressed, I guess...

Say you could describe your music by naming both movie and classical literature titles, which would you choose?

Well, coincidentally, I just rewatched Coppola's take on 'Bram Stoker's Dracula' last week. I felt that that's the perfect visual - and narrative - illustration of the kind of music and lyrics I write. Ever since I discovered Romanticism as a literary, and later visual, art form (thank you, Iron Maiden!), I've been partial to that form of expression. My literary influences are the usual suspects : the Shelleys, Byron, Pope... But there's also quite a bit of more modern influence like Sartre and the Beat Poets by way of Jim Morrison.

The start of Ahráyeph was with the 2006 ‘Heralding The Marooned’ EP. Was it a at that time conscious decision to take the direction that characterizes your music today?

In one word, no. That came long before the E.P.'s release. At the tail end of the period when the band was still called Crucifire, I was jamming with David and Peter, my then band members and I had already started looking for a sound that was less ensconced in Metal. One afternoon, after listening to the The Cure's compilation album 'Staring At The Sea', I reflected on how their iconic song 'A Forest' moved me emotionally and then tried to put that emotion into my take on that song (as evidenced in the cover song I later released). That's when what I call the 'Ahrayeph Sound' was born. As a happy coincidence, I also found my lyrical 'voice' around that time. I was never happy with the worse-than-sophomoric lyrics I wrote for the Crucifire songs the year before. Luckily, it all came together at that time. A few years later, when virtual synthesizers became available with the advent of computer recording, I was finally able to put it all together into the sound I had in my head and create a perfect sonic environment for myself that contributed to the creative process of the lyrical part of my songwriting.

With Coppola's take on 'Bram Stoker's Dracula', as you mentioned before, in mind; Don't know if you've seen Roman Polanski's 1967 classic ‘The Fearless Vampire Killers’? Imagine that you are a professor slash Vampire hunter, which famous person would you like to be your bumbling assistant?

Tom Cruise. It's about time he paid for his sins.

Looking at your discography up till now, there are 3 albums, a special in 2018 re-recorded version of 'Marooned on Samsara', 4 EP’s, and several singles. How do you look back at what you've accomplished so far?

For someone who apparently has a reputation for not finishing projects in some circles, I do feel pretty accomplished, haha!

Seriously though, there were times when I wasn't sure I would get so far in writing such an extensive body of work. Like I said : it's a constant evolution and at certain points in that evolution you're going to have moments of doubt. Not necessarily because you don't feel like you're good enough, although that is sometimes a factor, but because you inevitably have moments where you're void of inspiration. These don't necessarily last long, but they feel like they do. I've learned to stop worrying about that. It comes when it comes, and it invariably always does. And on the technical side, I'm particularly proud that I've finally reached a point where, as a producer of my own music, I can make it sound exactly the way I want. That, too, is an evolutionary process.

I hope you'll stick around to finish this interview!

I'm not going anywhere, Hayley. Except to the bar in about half an hour *laughing*.

You play your own music, you write your own music, you produce your own music, but what about performing live? I can imagine as a one-man-band that is not something easy to do.

Being a one man band is not something I sought out. Writing and recording different instruments is of course easy to do, but in terms of live playing, I prefer more bodies on stage, because it's more fun for the audience to see people moving across a stage, even if it's not by much. Unfortunately, I haven't found the right musicians yet to perform with, something I'd like to remedy shortly, because I'd love to start playing live again.

Who knows, maybe you find the right musicians through this interview? Keeping fingers crossed! Do you have any memorable/fun anecdotes from live performances when Ahráyeph consisted of more band members you’d like to share?

That's certainly possible. Interested musicians can always contact me either through Bandcamp or the Ahráyeph band page on Facebook. I do have to stress, however, that this isn't a hobby for me, so I only want to work with people who take their craft seriously. I've been burned by amateurs - mentality wise - way too many times to have my time wasted by such people anymore. A professional attitude is definitely a must.

Ahráyeph unfortunately didn't play live as much as I'd liked, so I don't have a lot of fun anecdotes from those gigs. Certainly memorable was our first ever gig in Leuven, 'The 22nd Movement', in '07. That was a great gig to start. A few people actually came over from Scotland to see us play.

Also memorable was the Spain Gothic Festival in Madrid in 2010, which we co headlined with QNTAL, a band I really like. Hanging out in Madrid and meeting Spanish, Argentinian and Scottish fans, of which the latter later became good friends, was fun too.

And of course there was the Wave Gotik Treffen in Leipzig in 2012. Our gig was bad for reasons I'm not going to go into here, but it was great to be able to revel in the atmosphere in the city for two days, completely taken over by representatives of all subsections of the Goth culture. I really loved that open minded mentality and the relaxed vibes. And of course meeting a few musicians I used to look up to like the guys from Red Lorry Yellow Lorry is something to remember. I'd really love to go there again and make up for the bad gig we played there.

If you want more memorable stories, I'd have to delve into the two stints I did in Ancient Rites. I've toured more frequently with that band, as they were already an established and well known act, which is something you can't accuse Ahráyeph of being, haha!

When it comes to performing on stage some bands have favorite songs they swear by playing live. Do you have such songs? Songs you will always include in a setlist.

Well, since I haven't played live for twelve years now, it's a bit of a mixed bag, because there are plenty of songs I've never played live, which I definitely would like to put into the set when it comes to that again.

Going by past sets, 'Misanthropia' is a song that will always stay on the set list. Same goes for 'Resolve (A Dirge)'. They're both up tempo songs that always get a crowd going.

It's very odd, but I used to get several requests to play 'The Rain Suite'. It's odd because at twelve minutes, it doesn't seem like an obvious song to play live, but for some reason, it's a fan favourite and to be honest, you don't have to twist my arm to play it live; it's a song I really like because I can put a variety of emotions into when performing it live.

Imagine this. You are a substitute teacher at a preparatory school and you have a class of musical talented students. Sounds familiar right? Let’s call it ‘School of Ahráyeph’. What bands/songs would you teach the students?

I smell a 'School Of Rock' theme here.

Correct!

Well, it may not be the 'Goth' thing to do, but academically speaking, I'd go for a wide catalogue of Prince songs, because there is so much you can learn from him in terms of songwriting, dynamics, expression, invention and production (especially lack thereof, which may seem surprising). Oh, and work ethic, which is something I find lacking, as I already mentioned. He was a hard taskmaster, but he demanded a lot from himself too. Prince's body of work is a master class in all these things and I know he was influenced by many different genres of music. You'd never know it, but he did love bands like Kraftwerk and Joni Mitchell, and that's something I'd try to teach my students : don't be limited in your influences. I could be obvious and put stuff in there like Pink Floyd, Rush, Marillion and all those iconic 80's Goth/New Wave bands like The Sisters Of Mercy, The Cure, Siouxie, Joy Division etc. and of course they'd get those too, and a lot more, because there's so much good music out there, it's nigh on impossible to pick just a few bands, artists or songs. You should see my music collection : from Disco over Blues to Metal, Goth, Pop, Jazz Industrial, Ambient, Classical... The list is endless.

But when it comes to understanding music and how to write it, I'd definitely start with Prince. And Toto. Unapologetically.

When making music, do you demand a lot from yourself too?

I have the reputation of being a perfectionist and that is not undeserved. Although, as the years go on, and especially having spent twelve years in my studio almost exclusively, it gets easier to accomplish what I have in my head. But I do still suffer from performance anxiety when the 'record' button goes on. I can play a part flawlessly when I rehearse it, say, four times before committing to recording, but when I hit 'record', I get a bit uptight because my inner perfectionist is yelling 'It has to be perfect now!', and while it does happen less than before, it makes me make one or two mistakes that I can't live with, so instead of cleaning those up - 'punching in' in professional terms - I just start from the top because I want to get the entire part right and will continue to redo the part until I achieve that. I guess I'm old school that way, as with computer recording, you don't really have to be perfect. But I take pride in my craft, so I don't like to 'cheat', even if punch ins have been an industry standard for decades, even before computer recording.

The same applies to production : I'm unwilling to let go of songs until they sound just right. They don't have to be polished to death, just sound like I have it in my head and I won't stop until they do. That's the reason why I go back to old songs and re-record them, especially from the 'Samsara' days. It doesn't happen with the songs I've released over the past five years, because I finally got to a point where I can achieve my production goals easily.

Your studio is called ‘Rose Creek’. Where did the name come from? Is there a special story behind it?

It's a bit of a funny story, really, going back to the days of my second stint in Ancient Rites.

When we were in preproduction for the 'Rubicon' album, my band mate and co-guitar player Erik Sprooten used to come over from his home in Harderwijk, Holland on the weekends to rehearse my demo songs at my place and to teach me his. The part of town I live in is called 'Roosbeek', which in English translates as 'Rose Creek', something Erik always said when he arrived here : 'Back in Rose Creek'. It was a light bulb moment for me, because I liked how it sounded, so the name stuck. I since found out there are a few towns in Canada and the U.S. that are called Rose Creek, and it's also a town in the movie 'The Magnificent Seven'.

Now that we are on the subject of movies again, 'Dark Century Bats' wants to make a biographical movie about your musical career. To give the movie the right mood they ask you to choose both the composer for the score, the director and the actor who portrays you. Who, oh who, will you choose?

Score composer : the late, great Angelo Badalamenti. He's mostly famous for the Twin Peaks soundtracks, but I also love the album he did with Marianne Faithfull, 'A Secret Life'. It's one of my all time favourite albums and many of the songs are based on Marianne's own life experiences, so I know Angelo could've translated mine perfectly as well.

For the director... Perhaps Alex Proyas, who directed The Crow. Or the aforementioned Francis Ford Coppola, because I love the Godfather movies and he knows how to give a character the proper gravitas. Without taking anything away from his stellar performance, Michael Corleone wasn't just Al Pacino's merit.

Actor... That's a tough one. I think, if he were still able to, I would go for Val Kilmer. Obviously not for his looks, he'd have to tone those down considerably to look like me, but he did a great Jim Morrison and a stellar Doc Holliday in Tombstone, so I feel he would be able to get into my head and not just play a shallow one dimensional derivation of who I am.

A little birdie, a 5 feet Pteropus to be precise, told me you are working on a new album. Is there anything you already like to tell us about that?

The only thing I can say about it right now, is that it will probably be the last release for a while.

As I've mentioned before, I spent twelve years almost exclusively in my studio, save for one or two gigs. With the catalogue of music I have right now, I could play two and a half hour sets and still have songs left to switch things up and not play the same set night after night. As much as I love writing and recording, I've missed playing live, so my future focus will be on trying to get a band together and booking gigs. Of course, I can't just switch off my creative brain, so I'm sure I will keep writing songs in the mean time. It's just that I might not release them at the same frequency as I do now, depending on how well the resurrection of Ahráyeph as a live band goes. It may be a year or more before I release new music, if all goes well on the live front, that is.

See that half an hour and 2 minutes have passed already, what do you say? Time for that drink?

Raf, thank you for once again making time for us. Needless to say, we at Peek-A-Boo appreciate that very much. Here's to a great further musical and healthy future!

I'm still sufficiently hydrated, so it may just be time for a toilet break, haha!

It was a real pleasure talking to you, Hayley, thank you and until next time!

• Ahráyeph - Bandcamp
• Ahráyeph - Facebook
• Ahráyeph - YouTube

Hayley CLX
09/11/2024