Introductory Interview Clive - September 2002

Finally the wait was over! I found the lyrics of Contagion waiting for me in my mailbox. It looks like a lot has been going on in Clive’s mind again, with a set of very intriguing lyrics as a result. This episode of Follow The Signs serves as an introduction to the lyrics of the new album and mainly consists of an interview I did with Clive.

When asked about the concept, Clive referred to Noah and the flood. So let’s start with that. For those who want to look it up: see Genesis 6-9. In a nutshell, the story of Noah tells how God punished mankind for having strayed from him. The world has resorted to evil instead of abiding Him. Moral decay and corruption have gradually filled the world. God is tired of having to strive with man and therefore warns mankind of His coming judgement, thus giving mankind a chance to turn away from evil and come back to Him.

Before bringing his judgement upon mankind, God chooses Noah, for being righteous, to build an arc. In this arc he has to take his family and a male and female of very kind of animal. Then, caused by heavy rainfall, the flood covers the earth. Noah, his family and the animals survive the flood in the arc. When the waters recede the arc strands. When Noah and his family have left the arc God tells them to multiply and replenish the earth. It’s a new start for mankind.

Now let’s turn to Clive;
The first thing I thought after having read the lyrics is that you seem to continue with the theme of Immortal?; mankind heading towards a certain doom…
Yeah, it must be my sad brain… It’s not intentional, there’s no planned connection. But I guess there are interconnections with certain themes I have been writing about in the past.

The doom that is brought over mankind, this ‘mental virus’, is it something fictional or is it something that mankind is actually doing at the moment?
No, it’s based on a fictional idea, but there are certain parallels that you can find in what’s going on around us. The short story that I wrote is by no means fact, but on the other hand, we are leading ourselves down certain paths which I always thought were fairly dangerous. You only have to look at the news to see what’s going on. 

The first verse of Salamander seems to talk about radioactivity and the atomic bomb.
Does it? It’s more intended as a kind of analogy. The blue fire, for me, in this concept has more to do with the virus, not a nuclear war, but the effect of it is just as devastating and that’s what the song is about. This particular song in the overall concept describes how the virus spreads across the world. It’s the same effect as if there had been a world war. Mankind ends up virtually wiped out. 

In Skin Game DNA is mentioned, in Painted Man there’s the line ‘Wrongly conceived’. Are you referring to genetic manipulation?
Not intentionally, I’m not trying to make a particular point about that.

Earlier you referred to Noah and the flood. In the pre-flood world it is said there lived a race of fallen angels, angels who had turned away from God. Some of them had intercourse with humans, thus creating a race of Nephilim, giants. Does the line ‘Wrongly conceived’ refer to this?
It’s an interesting thought, it might be, and it might not. This works on different levels. There’s the straight down the line story telling, but if you leave the story out and just take the lyrics it isn’t going to be so obvious. Each song has a point to make in itself. There are a lot more personal elements that are going on. This isn’t just a question of a hero travelling a journey and finding salvation. There are other things I wanted to talk about and did!

I suspect that certain clues will become more tangible when you’ve got the booklet. The artwork will probably help to guide thoughts.

Coming back to Noah again; is the virus a kind of flood that comes over the world to cleanse it?
I don’t think that’s the point of the virus; I don’t think that’s necessarily the intention. It might possibly be a result. It’s not the overriding message. However, by the time things conclude there’s the feeling of starting again. With Noah’s arc the world’s covered in water. There’s an automatic feeling of cleansing, because of the nature of water. In the concept, the new beginning has to involve the act of cleansing. There’s going to have to be a recovery.

The protagonist is the one who has to start this new beginning?
Pretty much…

In City Of Lanterns the protagonist seems to talk about a new beginning, a ‘dream of paradise’. 
The City of Lanterns is sort of a vision of heaven. Not necessarily a Christian heaven, but that place that’s better then where we are now. Whether it’s fictional or factual or spiritual or parallel universal, basically it’s somewhere out there and the protagonist believes in the City of Lanterns. He’s trying to do what he feels is right to achieve his acceptance into the kingdom of that particular heaven.

This protagonist is also the one who brought the virus into the world?
It could be the case, yes.

Basically all the songs are written in the first person. Are there several characters or just one?
I’m finding this harder to answer now then I would have yesterday, because I made the mistake of reading the short story this morning. So in my head I’ve gone back to where it all started, but it’s changed quite a lot. I had to leave a lot of that story out to make it work as an album. You only need a small set of ideas really, to make an album. The story has a sub-plot that is not included in the album and there are other characters in the story.

In the album there’s basically the one protagonist and I’ve sort of twisted it round so that it’s through his eyes. Perhaps some of the observations rise above his abilities to understand at the time.

When I put a thesis about the plot to Clive and ask him whether I’m looking in the right direction, I get the following answer:
This is the difficult question. I’m always torn, the same happened with The Visitor. When we did The Visitor I didn’t write a short story, but I had an idea, a concept, which I wrote down in a couple of paragraphs. I followed that basic set of themes when we did the album. But I made a point that time, because I hadn’t written a short story or anything like that, of not telling people very much about it. So we had a lot of very interesting theories as to what it is about. I like that because it is written to be taken on several layers.

This is much, much more than just about the short story, in the end especially, because when it was written, for me it’s a lot more personal than that. What you’re saying could be right, it just doesn’t happen to be what I had in my mind when I put it together. So it depends on how far I’m supposed to explain it, really…

The basic theme of this album is, as you say, that it begins with one person, he causes the damage, he’s the equivalent of Eve biting into the apple, and as a result of that he then has to try to correct the damage he has caused. A lot of the album is concerned with that journey. Then there follows his attempt at salvation. An element of this is that he finds salvation in somebody else. Witch Hunt, in the story, is where we actually meet the ‘somebody’ else, a girl in fact.

The way the short story is written – and the album is the same – is that 6 tracks follow on from the first track; then the next 4-5 tracks are a flash back, things that have taken place before the first track; the rest of the album picks up from that point before the flash back. There’s no reason why anyone should work that out from the lyrics, I’ve not done anything to help you realise that. It’s merely my guideline from when I wrote it. It’s a journey, as usual with these things.

The protagonist has to undertake this journey to make the new start, ‘write a new beginning to this tale’.
Yes.

In Ascension the protagonist says he feels vindicated, he feels right about what he has done. Does this refer to the journey, to having repaired the damage he has caused, or to causing the virus to spread in the first place?
That’s open for debate. It could be his actions doing this have vindicated him, or it could be he feels that the whole thing needed to happen, that also the fact that he set off the virus in the first place is a vindication, something that had to happen. He was merely a pawn in the game just like everybody else.

To draw the parallel with Noah and the flood again, the flood came because the world was filled with moral decay and corruption. There are many references to moral decay and corruption throughout the album. 
The comparison with Noah is pretty loose. One of the main things happens to be that the character in the short story is called Noah.

Noah was chosen because he was the one righteous person left who could fulfil the journey and make a new start for mankind.
That’s where the comparison ends I suspect.

Is the moral decay part of the virus or is it something that’s already there when the virus starts?
I’m not analysing the moral decay, that’s merely something humanity suffers from as a matter of course I think. The virus is the story. I always imagined it as being a very intense and constant hallucinogenic effect. It’s not a judgement, or maybe it is. These are things for you to decide!

For the moment there are more questions then answers!
That’s exactly how it should be! Going back to the short story, I have the idea of including it on the second EP, as a PDF file or something. So when the album has been out for about nine months, if anyone’s interested, they can read the story that it started with. But I do think it’s better for people to find their own particular journey with something like this. I realise it can mean several different things at this stage and I found with The Visitor people came up with things which made a lot of sense to me that I hadn’t thought of initially. They’re just as valid as far as I can see. I think it’s important that people delve into it themselves.

I do think it works beyond just the story level. But I was actually quite surprised in some ways when I read the story this morning how it did follow the story pretty well - if you know what the story is.

I noticed a few hidden messages in the lyrics.
Well done. There are quite a few codes. In fact there are some that I’ve lost; I can’t find them anymore. These codes are fun to do and their part of the construction, of the way I do the lyrics, but they’re not there at the expense of the lyric. It’s not like a jigsaw puzzle where I force everything in. There are several codes that began and didn’t get finished, that I disposed of, because it didn’t really work…

By: Erik Beers