home back to coverstories	In The Lions Cage Mick And Clive - November 1995
	In a nice hotel full of breakfast noises I had the honour to meet the guys of Arena for the first time. And it was something to remember. One by one they entered the restaurant and they… looked like shit! Unbelievable, are these the boys who make this wonderful music? The ones I am going to interview? Who make all other music fade to the background like degraded tones? Sleepy, unshaven and with very unclear eyes. One of them hadn’t even had the energy to put on something decent. A pale boxer short and the same type of shirt. The image was completed with a wonderful pair of lazy slippers and a face which said ‘Please, don’t speak to me!’.  The interview was planned with Clive and Keith. Clive was present, Keith was merely there. He hadn’t slept very well. He slept in a room with Cliff and it appeared that in his sleep he’s not a bass player but a lumberjack... cutting down very tall giants of the forest! He tried coffee, scrambled eggs and cigarettes but none of these delicacies had given him any pleasure or brought him back to earth. He disappeared rather soon and as quietly as he had appeared. Clive was easier and he talked as if his life depended on it. One question was good for five minutes text. We started by looking for connections between the album cover and the album itself.  A very clear connection between album and cover is of course the fact that the person is standing in an arena. Not difficult to think of the band’s name at once. That’s correct, however the cover idea came before the band name. We had various ideas about the cover of Songs From The Lion’s Cage. I said that I saw a man standing in an Arena with all these people around him. Then there was still the question ‘What are we going to call the band?’ Then I think Mandy, Mick’s girlfriend and a sort record-company organising kind of person said ‘Why don’t you call it Arena!’ We thought, ‘Well, it’s an idea’ and so we did. So there is a connection, only it’s the other way around than we thought. I think its a nice name, short and easy to remember. Yeah, it’s easy to say and in fact whenever you think of a name – you always have to get used to it. There are always people saying ‘No, that’s nothing’, but I think once you get used to it, a name really doesn’t matter. Then it is the music they like, not the name. Yes, indeed. But I like the name. The person standing in the middle of the Arena looks very self confident. However, in the first three sketches he was standing there very being insecure and protective, maybe even afraid. Our vision of what was happening in the Arena... Pretty barbaric? Yes, maybe. But we didn’t want the person to be dominated. I mean Daniel and the lion’s den was the picture we always had in mind, but my idea was that the figure was gaining control over the lions and was frustrating the audience. That’s why the picture kept changing until we thought he was in that kind of position where he’s not backing away. He’s doing something to them. Does the situation have to do with religion? Maybe a Christian being punished. No, it is not a religious album. I would say it perhaps has to do with faith. These are two different things. Religion is a ready-made package. We go out and buy the book, buy the cross and buy the T-shirts and it’s a nice comfortable package. Faith is sometimes a lot harder because it doesn’t always fit into your life and in your relation to other people. You can grow stronger by keeping faith than by religion. I think there’s an element of that in the cover. There’s a big crowd in the background. One person in the middle is sitting on a throne. When the Romans threw people to the lions there was always a leader present. I think what we wanted to say is that people are like sheep. They just blindly follow the leader. Are you satisfied with the picture? I guess so. I got so used to it I really don’t know. However when we saw it for the first time I remember we were pleased with it. Yes I think you can say I’m satisfied with it, I just don’t realise it anymore.  What I do know is that John [Gosler, the artist – eds.] did what we asked him to do. For example we used a lot of hieroglyphics, but if you look carefully you see all kinds of ‘impossible’ stuff. That idea came from the film Ben Hur where one of the people was accidentally still wearing a watch. You can see a red Indian, a portable phone, a computer and more drawings like this that are out of context. Just a bit of comedy in it. The faces of the people in the audience look a bit shocked. Yes, that was the whole idea of the picture. They thought that the man in the middle would be dead by now. But he isn’t, he’s controlling it. That’s why the big lion is looking that angry and frustrated. On the concert poster we saw in the hieroglyphics a little fish. Any Fish we know? [Clive starts to laugh and people around us are looking shocked in our direction. Clive asks Mick for help.] [Mick laughs] No, it has nothing to do with Fish. The fact is we gave the artist a free hand in making up those hieroglyphics. Maybe he knew about Fish and this is one of his little jokes or he was being ironic about it. Maybe this is just a  coincidence. However a nice detail. Well Mick, now that you’re here, Clive and I were talking about the person in the middle. When I look at his silhouette and I look at yours... it could be you!? [Clive] Oh, absolutely not. [Mick] No, every resemblance to me is based on coincidence. When I said we gave the artist a free hand this also meant the person in the middle. We gave him a concept and he made up the rest. Besides I have a double chin and he doesn’t. [Laughs] This concept had to create a feeling. Can you describe this feeling? [Clive] Yes. There are not many direct relations between the cover and the text. You can’t say, ‘This is from that song.’ The feeling we wanted to express was how a victim feels. Someone who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. When I look through the booklet I see soft blue, yellow, nice mellow colours. Then on the last page BOING.... blood-red, looking like blood drops too. Why the big contrast? [Clive] That actually was my idea and it has a purpose. I wanted to let everybody feel that when you almost start feeling safe (soft-coloured), there still can be danger behind everything. So what I want to say is, always look out for the unexpected. By the way, you can see that red as a lion’s claw mark. That’s what happens when he loses his concentration for half a second. I understand that the ideas for the next album contain something like this album with the same hieroglyphics. However there will be more relations between items on the cover and tracks on the album. That’s correct. The name of the next album is Pride and we want to use pillars on the foreground and on those pillars there will be statues. There’s a lot of symbolic potential there. A lot of people put themselves on a pedestal and are just proud of themselves. When I hear the new title I think about the same person in the arena, the victim, standing up and saying to the audience, ‘You can do with me what you want but I am who I am and I’m proud of it.’ Will that be a theme on the next album? [Mick] That’s nice, we mention the name of the new album and you’re already getting ideas. I think it’s important that everyone who’s looking at it gets an idea of their own. It’s great you see all kind of things in the hieroglyphics and say that the person in the middle is me, but we started with a concept. That’s the basis of the whole album, the message we want to get out. [Clive] I think every band has something iconic, like Marillion had the Jester. I think that we have, not visually but conceptually, a kind of victim character. It’s not a person, it’s an idea! Do you yourself feel related to this idea, this victim? [Clive] Anyone can feel related to this victim. Everybody sometimes has these feelings of ‘why me?’ and feeling miserable. We’re not complaining on our album though, because we are writing about a victim who is going to stand up and do something about it! That’s what ‘Pride’ will indeed be about. A victim can still be a winner!  That is very right! Well, I’m really looking forward for your next album. Thank you very much for your time! By: Marcel Steur