Thank you for asking me, I am honoured.

Before starting asking you about "Resonance - Live in Poland" I would like to admit my ignorance about you. However I have the essence that I am not the only one and that the Galahad fan base is not so wide as in other bands of neo-prog scene. Do you have an explanation?

For a start we are not a full time band and therefore do not always have the time., money and resources to push the band and as much as perhaps we could or should. We also have our own label which means it"s down to us at the end of the day, we don't have a "team" of people working for us. Most of the bigger bands have at least one member, if not all, who are full time musicians and can dedicate their time exclusively to their band/label.

Obviously with the release of the "Resonance" DVD it's different this time as Metal Mind are doing most of the work which takes the pressure of me for a change…other than for interviews such as this of course!!

Also, we have had our fair share of problems over the years in trying to get albums recorded and keep the band going through various line up changes. We call it the "Galahad Jinx"!! However, I think we are better known than many people think, we just don't plaster ourselves all over the place, we just quietly get on with writing, recording and playing etc. We have actually sold albums in 48 countries, which I would suspect is more than most bands of a perceived similar size and profile have achieved.

As for the "Neo-Prog" label I actually do detest that term as discussed further in question 10!

I am sorry that I started in an awkward way, but I was positively surprised by "Resonance" and I had this natural wonder about your popularity status. It surely is not analogous as your quality as a band. Now let me proceed by asking you a common question. How do you feel about "Resonance"?

We are very pleased with "Resonance", especially as we had very little time to plan and prepare for the concert and the recording. Metal Mind have done a great job in putting the DVD together and the packaging looks stunning.

We were happy with our performance although there are mistakes but we are only human after all! Some of the camera shots could be better but we had very little time with the guys from Metal Mind to formulate any staging, camera or lighting plan, thus in the light of this lack of preparation I think everyone concerned did a great job.

I think many non Galahad fans would be pleasantly surprised by this DVD as we feel it's more than just a bog standard progressive release. It is quite heavy and metallic at times as well as having an industrial feel in places... must be the Rammstein influence!!

It seems that you struggled for a long time to visit Poland? What made you insist on trying to visit Poland?

We have been meaning to visit Poland for many years to play, but have never quite made it due to timing, logistical and financial reasons. Metal Mind then invited us over to play last Spring and be filmed for the concert DVD which was an offer we couldn"t refuse and the rest, as they say, is history!

Do you believe that it was the right moment in your career to release a DVD?

What is the right moment? We are not proud, any time is a good time!! It certainly is good timing at the moment as we are also about to release our new studio album "Empires Never Last". Obviously, the more product you have out on release means the more you have to maintain your profile and keep yourself in the public eye as it were, which is always useful.

Weren't you afraid of what would you meet in your first visit to Poland?

No, not really, I have actually been to Poland before, to Krakow and Warsaw, we were made very welcome and had a great time. We take each country/city as it comes.

Could you give us some more information about your dressing in "I Could Be God"? Is it part of a concept that I ignore or perhaps some kind of tradition of the U.K. prog-rock bands?

It was just a prop to dress as priest, to add a little drama and colour to the performance I guess and not to be taken too seriously! But at the same time it does get people to think about the song and the significance of the robes… anything to get people thinking as well as watching and listening!!! I think it's always important to put on a show and think the odd costume can enhance that, but not too much otherwise it becomes corny and a bit cabaret!! I guess it follows in the good old English music hall tradition!

Also I could not leave unnoticed the color combination of black and red in many parts of "Resonance". Was it something intentional or it just happened? Is there a symbolism behind it?

The black and the red just seemed to make sense. It wasn't planned, but it looks good and very effective in our opinion and again, it gets people thinking. Much of the new material has a darker, heavier edge and these colours represent that to a certain degree. I guess there is a certain amount of religious/spiritual imagery involved, to which these colours are synonymous, which also always fuels debate.

How important is to use samples in you lives? Is it an element that is present in every live performance or you used them just because the show was filmed?

We always use samples to enhance the songs, although we do try to play as much as live as possible, however Dean, our keyboard player, only has two hands which means that some sounds have to be triggered as there too many layers to actually play... We can't afford two keyboard players!!! I do believe that samples, if used sparingly can enhance the songs.

Do you feel part of this scene that is characterized as "neo-prog"? What distinguishes you from the rest representatives of this genre?

Firstly I think "neo-prog" is a very over used and lazy term, I don't even really know what it means and who it involves. I am assuming it relates to certain bands who formed mainly in the 80's and had obvious influences such as Genesis/Yes/Rush etc., which applied to us to a certain extent in the early days, but certainly doesn't anymore.

I think that when you start off in a band you do tend to wear your influences in a more obvious way. We have never, certainly intentionally, been a part of any "scene" as such and don"t tend to mix with all the various "in crowd" groups of musicians, some of whom seem to be in dozens of bands!! We have always ploughed our own furrow, but have been lumped in to the neo-prog slot, unfairly these days I would argue, by certain journalists and writers at certain times.

It's difficult to say what distinguishes us from the rest of the "scene" as I don't actually know any of the bands or their music from this so called scene. All I would say is that I think we have an unusual cocktail of a sound which includes a kind of industrial/electronic edge which a lot of other bands don't have, also, I think the new material is far heavier than your average "neo-prog" band.

Also, we like to think that we change with each album, in other words we "progress" in the true sense of the word in terms of what we write and record. We certainly don't want to repeat ourselves by writing the same kind of stuff over and over again, that would just be very boring to us and the fans. Unfortunately there are some bands out there that seem to write the same album time after time, but I guess that's up to them, whatever floats your boat as they say. We believe that Galahad 2006 is very different to the 1986 version!!

By reading Classic Rock I have a dim image of the progressive rock scene of U.K. It seems that there is some sort of reviving and more people turn to progressive music. It looks paradoxical especially in a time where success and popularity is ephemeral. Can you justify this increase of interest?

Perhaps, I don't really know. There appears to be an upsurge of interest in "Progressive" music at the moment, but more towards the newer bands and not so much towards the older bands. I think it's also a generation thing, everything goes in cycles and phases. I think a lot of young musicians are listening to "old" rock music from perhaps their parents record collections and thinking that "hey, this is a bit different" and then incorporating it within there own writing, but with a slightly different more modern slant to it.

Also, I think it is a reaction towards a lot of all the soulless, prepackaged boy/girl/teen band nonsense out there which has absolutely nothing to do with music and being artistically creative, it's just a way of conning impressionable young people and making lots of money for the producers, writers and record companies. Cynical moi, mais non!!!

You run your own label. Do you feel justified after all these releases or would you prefer to be in the roster of a big label?

Being on our own label has its advantages in that we are free to do and release what we want, when we want and have complete artistic control over our output. However, it does have its disadvantages in that we only limited resources in terms of time and money with which we can promote ourselves.

I would quite happily join a larger label, if they wanted us and if the deal was one that we could agree with. It would certainly cut down the workload for the band itself allowing us to concentrate on making music, which after all is why you join a band in the first place!

Four years after "Year Zero" are too many. Do you have any new information about your new release?

We have been working on a new album called "Empires Never Last" for the last two years which is almost finished. In fact we will be selling tour editions of the albums during our brief European tour in November. The full final version should be out early next year.

You described in "Resonance" your new sound as heavy and modern. You mentioned that you are influenced by many new bands, like for example System Of A Down. What is so special in contemporary bands that attracts you and influences you?

I admire the fact that there a few newer bands who are experimenting with different musical styles again and there seems to be a lot of cross pollination of different styles going on which I believe is truly "Progressive". Of course virtually everything has been covered in terms of styles of popular music, but some bands are just mixing it up a bit and putting a new slant on it. I think rock music especially the heavier side is in great shape at the moment. Other bands that I really admire at the moment are Rammstein, Muse, Coheed and Cambria, Tool etc. some of these bands are really pushing the boundaries and have completely obliterated the rules books, the most extreme example I guess would have to be The Mars Volta.

Do you believe that Karl Groom from Thin Ice Studios (also in Threshold) had an affect on "Empires Never Last"?

Definitely, he is great engineer and has given us easily the best produced and most professional sounding album that we have recorded. He also guests on the album with a great, but tasteful guitar solo at the end of "Sidewinder".

Karl also seems to be the only engineer we have ever worked with who has considerable empathy with what we are trying to achieve and seems to understand where we are coming from in terms of writing, musical arrangements and over all sound. Also, as he is a very good guitarist he has helped to make the album heavier in terms of guitars than anything we have done before which is what we were aiming for with this album... We even experimented with de-tuning... shock horror!!

Do you believe also that is representative enough for your sound? I mean if someone will listen to "Empires Never Last", will he get a clear image of what Galahad are?

He will certainly get a clear indication of what Galahad is about at the moment here in 2006, but as I said before, every album is different which is a conscious decision on our part.

Who knows what the next one will sound like... It might turn in to some kind of wacked out space jazz odyssey, highly unlikely of course but you never know and we certainly don't know where our musical path will lead us next!!!

In "Empires Never Last" track you say that "empires… always crumble and fall". Does this verse have anything to do with the current geopolitical status?

"ENL" works on several levels, it.s up to the listener to interpret the lyrics how they want. Yes, there is a certain link to politics and Governments within the song, but it is also about individuals who build empires in the work place or even at home. Therefore, I guess it is socio-political lyric. Basically the song is saying nothing ever lasts in this World and we"d be fools if we thought otherwise.

Would you say that Galahad are a political aware band? Do these issues concern you?

I like to keep abreast of what's going on the World at large and have my own opinions just like any other individual and, yes, these opinions do occasionally spill over in to the song writing. But we are not a political band as such, no.

Stuart this is the end of our conversation. Thank you very much for your precious time and I wish you all the best.

Thank you too!