T H E  M A G I C  I N F I N I T Y

I had a lot of time in between the recording and release of the first album ,
which I spent with writing almost all of the songs for the next .
The Magic Infinity became more like a band album than any other. Rob Winter (guitar), Arthur Polini (Bass) and myself were very close at the time of recording . John Ewbank, our keyboard player on stage who was still in the band, didn’t play on the album, we needed him live .
Arthur came up with the title .
Though Hans Eijkenaar left the band before, he still played on the album .
Again it was done at the Wisseloord studios, this time with John Sonneveld and Pim Koopman .
Frustrated as I was with a lot of things on the first record I was determined not to make the same mistakes again . I knew exactly what I wanted with this album and what I wanted everybody to play . To the tiniest little detail .
And that caused a lot of friction between me and Pim .
I know he hated me for overruling his ideas time and again, but as I said , I knew what I wanted and what I didn’t want . I couldn’t allow myself nor anyone else to, in my opinion, ruin another album . It wasn’t too pleasant for the both of us . A constant fight and clash of ego’s .
But of course there were great times as well with lots of laughs .
Like for the song ‘Megaman’ we hired a bagpipe player who had a hard time standing still and get the timing of the notes right . We didn’t need to have his footsteps on tape as well . The end result was great, but it took ages. And if you’ve ever heard a bagpipe player practicing , you know it’s not a very pleasant thing for your ears . After one hour watching that scene we couldn’t bear to witness it any longer . So at those times I was happy to give the producing credits to Pim . "Good luck Pim, we’re off watching TV, call us when it’s done" haha… So actually he came in very handy after all .
The American children-choir on Megaman was great . They had the timing right, even bended the notes perfectly well .
Apart from them and the bagpipe player there were no other musicians involved . Except for my friend Johan Willems . He did some choirs with me on No Turning back , the first track we recorded .
I remember John had mixed it for the second time. Called us in when he and Pim were having dinner : "Go and have a listen" . I never forget the feeling I had when hearing it for the first time . The sound was overwhelming . The best mix John ever did for me .
All the other choirs were done by Arthur and myself at my home studio .
That was such a time consuming activity and we didn’t want to lose too much expensive studio time . So Arthur and I did that in our spare time .
I learned from my mistakes on the first album and made sure the atmosphere and feel were right on everything that was played and sang . We concentrated on one song at a time. Finished it, mixed it and up to the next .
I requested that, most of all to keep control of the ‘feel’ and to have enough time in between to rest my voice .
But there was one battle I didn’t win .
I wrote two very long and epical pieces of music which I called ‘Valentine’s Overture’ and ‘Valentine’s Overture part 2- Martian On Earth’ .
Together almost 24 minutes . I wanted the album to start with part 1 and to end with part 2 , but Pim and the record company were against that . They didn’t want the complete album to be that long . So the Overture’s ended up as B- sides on the Megaman CD-single and the Megaman maxi CD-single . Later as bonus tracks on the Japanese releases of the first two albums .
Arthur and Rob were great and we grew very close in that period .
Later Arthur demonstrated his artistic skills by making a fantastic cover for the ‘Megaman’ single, also making the photograph of the ‘Angel Of My Heart’ sleeve . We were far from happy with the artwork of the actual album and Arthur proved he could do a lot better than that .
I have to admit I was forced to work with some stylists to change my look , otherwise they didn’t allow me to make another record .
But promised not to push me into something I would hate .
To me the result was a boring compromise combined with boring artwork .
Standing against a tiled wall it looked like we were standing in an empty swimming pool . The whole package didn’t suit the music at all .
Should have fought for that more just like I did for the music .
The recordings were finished around May ’93 . But the record company didn’t ‘hear’ a hit-single like ‘Over And Over Again’ on it . We thought we could do the trick again by turning a piano-ballad into a rock-ballad . I loved the song ‘Don’t make me wait Forever ‘ the b-side on the 2nd single (Love Takes Me Higher) of the first album . And we thought that one could do great as a rock ballad .
So I made a demo of it and the record company agreed on our idea and send us back into the studio with Pim and John . Actually those were the best 5 days of the whole production with no friction at all . We were all satisfied with the result but when it was released September ’93, it didn’t do anything .
Second single Megaman did a lot better. Had huge airplay here in Holland and went to #16 .
During that time Brian May invited us to be his support act on the German leg of his Back To The Light Tour . But that’s a different story all together .
In spring ’94 acoustic guitar song ‘Angel Of My Heart’ was released . I shared the lead vocals with Arthur on that track . The song always did very well on stage . On the b-side we put one of my favourites ‘The Sulky Shuffle’.
Recorded at home in the summer of 1992 on my newly analogue 16 track .
A type of song inspired by Queens ‘Killer Queen’ . The first time I used that shuffle beat . Rob Winter played great guitar harmonies and leads on it, heavily inspired by Brian May who is, needless to say, his biggest hero and inspiration . I filled up the song with lots of choirs and because of the overall heavy Queen influences the record company refused to put it on the album . So it was stuffed away as a b-side . 5 Years later I re-recorded some parts and put it on the ‘No Sugar Added’ album .
‘No Turning Back’ was released a few months later as the last single taken from ‘The Magic Infinity’ . With on the B-side the lost track ‘Forever and Ever’ . A piano-ballad I recorded with Erwin Musper during the 1st album sessions . Wrote it back in ’89 and never turned up anywhere else, almost forgotten about it .