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German keyboardist\/vocalist Yogi Lang first encountered guitarist Karlheinz \u201cKalle\u201d Wallner in 1988 when the latter was playing in a band called Incubus. Eventually renamed Violet District, the group released its sole album, Terminal Breath<\/i> in 1992, with Lang producing. Based 40 km north of Munich in Freising, that group met with only modest success, disbanding by the late \u201890s.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe did this thing together, and then we had contact and talked from time to time,\u201d Lang recalls. \u201cBut I was [mostly] in the studio working, and Kalle was playing guitar. We met again in 1997 and talked about going back on stage.\u201d<\/p>\n
An opportunity for a live gig came up, but the musicians found themselves short on time to prepare. \u201cSo we jammed over old Floyd songs, because this was what we had in common,\u201d Lang recalls. The group focused on material from the period before Pink Floyd broke out globally, playing extended works like \u201cThe Embryo,\u201d \u201cGreen is the Colour\u201d and \u201cCymbaline,\u201d all key tracks on the road to the eventual masterwork of The Dark Side of the Moon<\/i>. \u201cAnd this is how RPWL was born,\u201d Lang says with a hearty laugh. \u201cFour crazy guys that only played four songs, but for two hours!\u201d<\/p>\n
The band soon began writing original material. A demo tape caught the interest of a record company executive, who wanted to sign the band. But the group\u2014Wallner, Lang, bassist Chris Postl and Phil Paul Rissettio on drums\u2014didn\u2019t have a name. \u201cWe intended to call ourselves the Super Band,\u201d Lang says, laughing again. \u201cBut they didn\u2019t accept the name. So we came up with just the first letters of our names, which was RPWL.\u201d The name would stick, even though both Postl and Rissettio would both be gone from the band by 2003.<\/p>\n
In the same way that Pink Floyd never fit neatly into the progressive label, RPWL isn\u2019t\u2014strictly speaking\u2014a prog band, either. In fact, Lang and Wallner didn\u2019t initially think of themselves as progressive musicians. \u201cWhen I bought records when I was a kid,\u201d Lang recalls, \u201cthere was rock music, folk, jazz, pop \u2026 I never saw \u2018prog.\u2019\u201d But an early review of the band\u2019s debut, God Has Failed<\/i>, appeared in a German progressive rock magazine. \u201cSo we came to progressive rock,\u201d he says. Today, the band still prefers to think of itself as making \u201cneo-art rock,\u201d says Kalle Wallner.<\/p>\n
The ambitious nature of progressive rock does manifest itself in RPWL\u2019s compositional approach. While some of the group\u2019s albums are simply collections of songs, many RPWL releases feature thematically-linked pieces. And some take things a step further: 2012\u2019s Beyond Man and Time<\/i> is built around ideas from the work of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. Even God Has Failed<\/i> can be seen as a riff on Nietzsche\u2019s \u201cGod is dead,\u201d though the album itself doesn\u2019t dive deeply into philosophy.<\/p>\n
Memorable melodies have always been at the core of the group\u2019s music, and while tricky time signatures and unexpected shifts in dynamics aren\u2019t unheard of, they\u2019re not necessarily hallmarks of the RPWL sound. A track like \u201cThis is Not a Progsong\u201d from 2008\u2019s The RPWL Experience<\/i> is a hooky pop song more than anything else, with an upbeat chorus that sticks in the listener\u2019s head after the tune fades away.<\/p>\n
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Though RPWL got its start as a Pink Floyd cover\/tribute band, and even though the members\u2014Lang in particular\u2014express a strong affinity for the Floyd\u2019s late \u201860s post-Syd Barrett work, on its early records, RPWL sounds like nothing so much as late<\/i>-period Pink Floyd. The songs on God Has Failed<\/i> suggest the strong influence of the Gilmour-led era, specifically the 1987 album A Momentary Lapse of Reason<\/i>. But on each successive album, RPWL would more fully develop its own distinct musical character.<\/p>\n
By the time of 2005\u2019s World Through My Eyes<\/i>, the band had carved out a classic-meets-modern sound of its own, though even the casual listener would still be able to spot the indelible influence of Pink Floyd, Genesis and even the Alan Parsons Project. And the band has a knack for turning out a wonderfully melancholy tune like \u201cEverything Was Not Enough,\u201d a Lennon-McCartney style ballad. Perhaps the digitally repeated final line of its verses is a too on-the-nose nod to Pink Floyd\u2019s \u201cDogs,\u201d but it\u2019s done with enough style to be forgivable.<\/p>\n
Some artists are primarily creatures of the studio. Others contend that their true nature can only be expressed in the context of a live concert. RPWL likes to have it both ways. While the production aesthetic of the group\u2019s albums is seamless, there is an energy and a dynamic element to RPWL\u2019s live shows. Acknowledging that reality, the band has released a live album to document most every tour to date.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn the one hand, you have a studio album and you have to produce for just listening to the music,\u201d Wallner says. \u201cFor live music, we try to arrange the songs in different ways, maybe in other versions. The reason for a live album is, always there\u2019s something different than the studio work.\u201d<\/p>\n
RPWL adds a visual element, as well. \u201cEspecially the two or three last tours, we had actors in our shows,\u201d Wallner says. \u201cNot only visuals, but the story from the album itself put into the show. And it was a bit more like theater.\u201d Both 2012\u2019s Beyond Man and Time<\/i> and Wanted<\/i> (2014) are conceptual works with music threaded together via story lines.<\/p>\n
An appreciation for musical narratives\u2014even of an oblique sort\u2014has characterized RPWL from its earliest days. And in 2016 the group embarked upon a long-simmering project that brought together that quality with its roots as a Pink Floyd tribute act. Wallner recalls the genesis of the project, decades before the release of RPWL Plays Pink Floyd\u2019s The Man and the Journey<\/i>.<\/p>\n
\u201cYogi and our original drummer were talking about this Amsterdam bootleg,\u201d he says, referring to a recording of Pink Floyd dating from September 17, 1969 (the recording received official release as part of the 2016 box set The Early Years 1965-1972<\/i>). \u201cI never had that; I never was familiar,\u201d he says. But the songs from that show ended up becoming part of the earliest RPWL set lists. \u201cSo The Man and the Journey<\/i> was always near the band,\u201d Wallner says. \u201cIt was always in der kopf<\/i> \u2026 we always had it in our minds.\u201d<\/p>\n
When the tour for Wanted<\/i> wound down, the band was looking for another interesting project, and collectively decided to mount a live production of the obscure Pink Floyd work stitched together from scattered tracks written variously for A Saucerful of Secrets<\/i>, More<\/i>, Ummagumma<\/i>, Atom Heart Mother<\/i> and the Zabriskie Point<\/i> soundtrack. \u201cWe would do that maybe a bit different, but of course in the same spirit,\u201d Wallner says.<\/p>\n
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\u201cYou can play Floyd songs that everybody knows, and you can try to copy every single note, but that is not much fun,\u201d adds Lang. \u201cSo, to do something that nobody knows was really interesting.\u201d The band performed the work at a number of European venues\u2014relatively small halls, as Pink Floyd did in \u201869\u2014and released a CD and DVD of a show at De Cacaofabriek in Helmond, Netherlands.<\/p>\n
But a tour and album of Pink Floyd music didn\u2019t signal the end of original ideas from RPWL. Another CD+DVD release, A New Dawn<\/i> applied the Floyd\u2019s The Man and the Journey<\/i> methods of re-purposing existing material. The release documents an ambitious stage show with music and dialogue, combining pieces from Beyond Man and Time<\/i> and Wanted<\/i>. Citing his love of Alan Parsons Project concept albums like I Robot<\/i> and Pyramid<\/i>, Lang says, \u201cIt\u2019s cool to have a 70-minute piece where there\u2019s the first song, second song, third song, and you have this whole story.\u201d<\/p>\n
But RPWL hasn\u2019t locked itself into a strict conceptual format. The band\u2019s latest release, Tales From Outer Space<\/i> presents a less rigid theme. \u201cThis time, we wanted to have just an album as we we knew it when we were young,\u201d Lang says. He explains that Tales<\/i> is \u201cseven short stories gathered together in an album that fits. It\u2019s different to a whole story.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, a thread does run through the songs on Tales From Outer Space<\/i>. \u201cScience fiction was always something we were very interested in as we grew up as kids,\u201d Lang says. \u201cBesides Pink Floyd, it was the U.S.S. Enterprise<\/i> and comics,\u201d Wallner adds. Tales<\/i> pulls all of those threads together. Even the analog keyboard textures\u2014courtesy Lang\u2019s vintage Memorymoog\u2014fit perfectly into the subject matter, he believes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat a huge playground for all this: bringing music, comics and science fiction all together,\u201d Wallner says. \u201cWe\u2019re loving to work with it.\u201d And the move away from weighty topics was a refreshing one for the group, too. \u201cI was terrifying my family working on [the Nietzsche-themed] Beyond Man and Time<\/i>,\u201d Lang says with a hearty laugh. \u201cWith Tales From Outer Space<\/i>, it was not a search for knowledge. It was a search for fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
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