» Daniel/Johan - Mind's Eye  
« back


Daniel Flores and Johan Niemann comment on each song on the album Walking On h2o (2006):

Earth - The Movie - (Daniel:) This is a long time dream for me. I have been trying to do this intro for so long and finally I had a chance. Mia Cold heart of Crucified Barbara did the vocals on the intro. She has that special teacher vibe which I wanted to capture. All the strings arrangements took me about a week to create, allot of hard work. The samples are taken from a speech made by John F. Kennedy during the cold war period. I thought it fitted perfectly with the text on the intro. I wanted this song to link together with the second song so therefore the ending seems so weird.

A Rabbit In The Hat - (Johan:) To me, a fantastic opener, with everyone playing and singing their hearts out. A killer chorus melody that´s really "hooky". Like the majority of the guitar-solos on the record, this solo is improvised - and a first take, I believe. (Daniel:) Yeah, that solo was a first take actually. This song is about the so called moon landing's and takes up the question if they did it or not. I'm personally leaning against the later choice. This song was one of last songs I wrote for the album. I didn't really feel like the other songs had a cool opener so I took this chorus which I had laying around on a paper and wrote this whole song. In the beginning there is a man counting down the lift off of Apollo 11 ship. This clip was really hard to find and is the actual footage. I had the idea of starting an album with a countdown… so this was a perfect opportunity.

Equally Immortal - (Johan:) Moody start, great chorus. A very powerful track. (Daniel:) This song is a bout the 11th of September. Seems like everybody has a twin tower song these days but I assure you that this one has a totally different spin to it. This song will provably appeal to a lot of AOR fans as it has a clear and focused chorus. Andreas really sang great on this album and on this song he really shows that he is Sweden's best melodic prog singer. The vocal layers in the beginning are over 20 channels of vocals. I wanted to make a 10cc vocal intro. I really had fun singing those. Johan's bass playing is so mature you might think it's made by Pino Paladino, this provably the best bass playing done by Johan on a Mind's Eye song ever.

Mrs. Clair Voyance - (Johan:) This album has probably more layers of guitar than the others we´ve done, but it doesn´t seem overly "guitar-sounding" to me. Really cool harmony-vocal stuff one this one. The main solo is one of three I worked out in advance. The reason being that I wasn´t comfortable improvising over all those major chords. :-) (Daniel:) This song was made back in 2003. The loop on the verse is made with burps… yeah! It's true, I pitched them down and added some reverse effects with other percussions. It' sounds really cool huh? The instrumental part of this song really reminds me of Yes (Trevor Rabin era) and I love it.

Sahara In An Hourglass - (Johan:) I love the Eastern vibe in this song. Quite a departure for us. There are a couple of notes in the solo that have EXACTLY the character I was after, with the last note being perfect! (Daniel:) I wrote this song on my Casio keyboard while I was in Marocco a few years ago. The main riff just came to me. The trip was one of the worst trips I have ever been on and the only positive thing that came out of that was this song. I spent maybe a year to try to come up with a Chorus to fit this song and finally I found a match. The intro is spoken in real Hebrew by a close friend to my wife. She says: you'll never own me like you own Sahara in an hourglass.

Out Of My System - (Johan:) Cool verse, great pre-chorus and a surprisingly catchy chorus. (Daniel:) This is our nine inch nails song…hahahaha. Well, I have always loved NIN and I wanted to have a song with a character like they have. The song is about drug addiction and NIN sound and look like they where on drugs, thus this song. It's a bit repetitive but I think we need a song like this to make the album full of different characters. This is the easy listening song on the album.

Umbrellas Under The Sun - (Johan:) I love the distorted vocal sound in the first verse. The pre-chorus reminds me of ELO - really cool! (Daniel:) Johan said something in the beginning of the guitar recordings that I really liked. He said: "This sounds like Jellyfish, as if they had listened to Yes instead of The Beatles". This song is about Earth and what we do to ruin it. What fits a song about earth better than the 70's style. The chords on this chorus are really different to what I would normally write. It's a strange Chorus but still really in your face. This is my tribute to ELO and Jeff Lynne, one of my all time favourite producers.

Sacred Rules - (Johan:) I wrote the main riff to this track, and Daniel and I collaborated on the rest. Another fantastic, to-the-point melody makes the chorus almost anthemic! This song has the second worked-out solo. (Daniel:) This is provably the one song that we never thought we ever would write. It's heavy and provably the heaviest chorus ever done by us. What really stand out on this song are Andreas vocals which fit the song like a glove, he was made to sing this kind of vocal lines. A funny thing happened in the studio when I was mixing it which gave me the idea of starting this song with vinyl sound and scratches from an old vinyl player. I just love how it came out. On the next album we will have more stuff like this.

The Nazca Lines - (Johan:) I really like the Alex Lifeson-sounding guitar in the beginning. I love everything about this song - the cool rhythmic verses and (again) a killer chorus! The bridge is just sooo vintage Yes and I love it!!! (Daniel:) It's a cool mix of how things sounded in the seventies and today's sound. This is a modern sounding 70's song. I am still amazed about the guitar sound which is the best clean guitar sound we ever had on any record. The story behind this song came to me when reading a book about the Nazca lines during a flight to Rome/Italy. I asked the stewardess about some paper and a pen and wrote all the lyrics during the whole flight. The drums on this verse I am particularly proud of as we skip the first beat on every bar, this is typical for Latin music and it fits really great with the song and story. Johan guitar solo is maybe the best guitar solo I have heard in years. This is part one of the 5 song story.

Flight Of The An.unna.ki - (Johan:) Ah, the dreaded instrumental! Short and intense, it has the third and final worked-out guitar-solo. This is the ultimate sitting-around-the-campfire-with-an-acoustic-guitar song! :-) (Daniel:) Well, this song is so old it had a spider web around it when I came to pick it out. It was actually written by me in 1999 in the between our first album and the second. The problem was that we couldn't do it. A song like this really needs arrangements, something that we lacked off during that time period. This part two of the 5 song story, the song is about a woman being abducted by Aliens. I always thought that this instrumental had an E.T. (The movie) feeling to it so when the opportunity came to make it an instrumental intro to the next song, I just had to have it in there. Lot's guitar players have tried to learn these chords and play it but Johan was the ONLY one who got it right away. An.unna.ki means: "Those from heaven who came" and it's a word written frequently in the Sumerian tablets as they spoak about the "Gods".

Heal My Karma - (Johan:) Another amazing song, with a beautiful keyboard solo by Vivien Lalu. I really like this song and we managed to get a really nice Allan Holdsworth-type clean tone at the end of the song. (Daniel:) Part 3 in the five song story. This woman really gives us a full insight in how a woman would feel trapped in another world. My wife wrote the lyrics ensuring that it has all the elements that a woman would feel being in a situation like this. This song was also written around 2001 or 2002, we tried to play it but we never got anywhere with it. I love the bridge after the second Chorus and main riff. I remember working really hard on getting that cinema feeling in that part and I'm quite happy with it. The ending has a special feeling too. I wrote that ending after seen the movie "The forgotten".

When I Whisper - (Daniel:) I wanted to give the to of the main characters a wedding, thus this song. After a while I discovered I wrote this song to my wife as a wedding present. Without even knowing it, I also have this song on our wedding video. People seemed to completely love it. A friend of mine started to cry when he heard it the first time. This song is part 4 in the story. I wrote parts of this song in 2000 and the rest in 2005.

Poseidon Says - (Johan:) This is my favorite song on the album. It´s powerful, epic and Andreas is just singing his heart out! Love the chorus and the backing vocals. The drumming is outstanding - as it is on the whole album! I realize I haven´t talked about the bass playing at all. Well, what can I say? It went so smoothly and felt so natural that the bass parts almost recorded themselves. It didn´t feel like work! In conclusion, I want to say that I´m very proud of this record and my fellow bandmates Andreas and Daniel. We had a lot of fun making this record and I hope that translates to the listener. (Daniel:) Final chapter of the story. About the priest who married the couple above. It starts of with the priest turning on the TV to hear the weather report at 10 am. He then goes off sailing to his death. I actually did the jingle in the beginning as I couldn't find anything which fitted my vision of the story. It's sounds quite 80's as most of these jingles sound like. Me and Johan wrote almost the whole song, he wrote the chorus riff which I love. I never realised that this song was 11 minutes until I actually recorded the drums. Nobody seems to think it's that long either, people are always stunned when I say: "You have just listened to an 11 minute song!" I hate long songs but this has so much diversity that it will keep you sharp and interested through out the whole song. I wanted to end this song in a funny way… So I throw of a TV in the end into the water… while it's showing commercials. While under the water it plays the chorus of our song and then goes off to another world where somebody walks on water ( I wont tell who). I love the fact that I ended this song with that same chord of which I started with in the intro (Earth the movie). As Johan told you, I am so proud of this album is crazy… The weird thing is that the album came out so naturally, almost like running water.

Sign O' The Times - (Daniel:) When I started to record this album I realized we were eventually going to have to write a bonus song for the Japanese fans. A must these days so it seems… So I thought a lot about it and came to the conclusion of making a cover of this song which I love. I think the lyrics really fit perfectly with the whole concept of mine. It really sums up that we humans are just dumb ass people. The cover is done in the way of that "Simple minds" did their version in the late 90's.

Review of the album »

Related links:
www.roundrec.com