{"id":2567,"date":"2017-05-17T10:00:53","date_gmt":"2017-05-17T08:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cruzdelsurmusic.com\/?p=2567"},"modified":"2017-05-17T10:04:29","modified_gmt":"2017-05-17T08:04:29","slug":"while-heaven-wepts-tom-phillips-on-walpyrgus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cruzdelsurmusic.com\/blog\/index.php\/2017\/05\/while-heaven-wepts-tom-phillips-on-walpyrgus\/","title":{"rendered":"WHILE HEAVEN WEPT’S TOM PHILLIPS ON WALPYRGUS"},"content":{"rendered":"

We are very grateful to Tom Phillips<\/strong> (While Heaven Wept<\/strong>) for sharing these words about WALPYRGUS<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

“I wanted to take a moment here to shed some light on my whereabouts, what\u2019s been going on, and why for the first time in 17 years I\u2019ve become involved with something other than While Heaven Wept<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been quite some time since I\u2019ve discussed what I\u2019ve been doing musically – two years in fact – and now the time has finally come to reveal what has been going on: in March 2015 I was just beginning work on a solo project when I was approached by Scott (Waldrop) about tracking some keyboard parts for the debut album of Walpyrgus<\/strong>, which I was more than happy to do even before hearing the new material given our long history, plus it was an opportunity to put the instrumental arsenal I was building up through its paces, and I was eager to do something <\/em>in light of recent events involving my own band.<\/p>\n

The songs arrived one by one, each being more enthralling than the previous and it became very clear that Scott had a lot of ideas given the extensive notes and rough drafts in demo form. It was also very clear that – in my opinion – these were among the very best songs I\u2019ve ever heard coming from my old friends\u2026 needless to say I was \u201cin\u201d, full stop. I was totally free to interpret the ideas any way that I wanted to and thus I was able to truly express myself, in turn impacting the arrangements of songs in the same way that every musician involved has.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the thing about Walpyrgus<\/strong>: EVERY member of the band is responsible for making these songs what they are; everyone brought their skills, personality, and \u201cA\u201d game to the table \u2013 and the performances are both real <\/strong>and inspired\u2026organic\u2026not Pro-Tooled or forged in any way, rather the kind of music that everyone involved loves playing, the way we\u2019ve done in our respective bands all our lives.<\/p>\n

It was not lost on me or Scott that 20 years prior we co-founded the now long-running Twisted Tower Dire<\/strong>, yet that original configuration ultimately was short-lived due to both copious amounts of alcohol and the necessity to express other things musically on a much more personal level – you all know the rest of that story – but the point here is there\u2019s always those \u201cWhat If?\u201d questions that remain. You know – like \u201cWhat if the original line-up stayed together\u2026\u201d and so forth\u2026and it\u2019s not often that \u201csecond chances\u201d actually turn into second comings\u2026now we actually had the opportunity to dive into that parallel universe to answer some of those questions for ourselves.<\/p>\n

Anyway, with this in mind, my role evolved over time from creating\/performing\/recording the keyboard parts to engineering other recording sessions to the deep editing of various tracks finally reaching a stage where I was overseeing the entire project with full \u201ccarte blanche\u201d \u2013 and those of you who know me are cognizant this means a lot of hyper-detailing, holding ourselves to the highest standards, etc – so it should come as no surprise that this lead to additional recording, re-recording, mixing and re-mixing\u2026but it\u2019s not just my usual manias; the fact is it was decided that we\u2019d stop at nothing to fully realize Scott\u2019s vision successfully, without cutting corners, sparing no expense (aka \u201cWHW style\u201d) – and I absolutely took that aspect to heart. I personally felt the responsibility to deliver in every role I served so as to insure the end result was not a watered-down version, an approximation, or some outside producer\u2019s vision, instead \u201cthe album he always wanted to make.\u201d I believe now that we have achieved this. When all is said and done, It\u2019s truly been an honor to work with my buddies Scott, Jim, Jonny, and Charley – each of whom kicked ass in their own right on this one – bringing this to life, and involving Kevin and Gustavo from the \u201cWHW team\u201d made it that much more gratifying for me. It was a no-brainer to re-align with Enrico and Cruz Del Sur Music <\/strong>as well considering the direct ties to TTD <\/strong>and WHW<\/strong>, along with albums in the same vein from our mates Slough Feg<\/strong>, Widow<\/strong>, Bible Of The Devil <\/strong>on the label. Call it a homecoming if you will.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been involved with every aspect of \u201cWalpyrgus Nights<\/strong>\u201d perhaps more so than with any of my own albums – I mean like those, I know every note and detail intimately – yet, in this case my hands were on the console, twisting the knobs, adjusting faders, zooming deep into the waveforms – I\u2019ve literally heard these songs hundreds of times\u2026and what I wanted to convey here is I still <\/em>LOVE <\/strong>them; it should speak volumes that I actually still <\/em>want to hear them absolutely fucking cranked and truly enjoying every freaking minute of them after hearing them more times than I can count. And THAT is what mattered to all of us the most – satisfying our own ambitions for this record and hearing exactly what we <\/em>wanted to in the end – on OUR stereos. Call it self-serving if you want, but I sincerely believe that this enthusiasm, this heart \u00a0translates to tape – and can only hope that everyone else out there feels that through their own speakers. \\m\/”<\/p>\n

Tom Phillips<\/p>\n

April 4, 2017<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We are very grateful to Tom Phillips (While Heaven Wept) for sharing these words about WALPYRGUS. “I wanted to take a moment here to shed some light on my whereabouts, what\u2019s been going on, and why for the first time in 17 years I\u2019ve become involved with something other than While Heaven Wept. It\u2019s been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,1396,31],"tags":[1406,34,76,1397,1398,30],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cruzdelsurmusic.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2567"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cruzdelsurmusic.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cruzdelsurmusic.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruzdelsurmusic.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruzdelsurmusic.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2567"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruzdelsurmusic.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2567\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2572,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruzdelsurmusic.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2567\/revisions\/2572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cruzdelsurmusic.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruzdelsurmusic.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruzdelsurmusic.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}