Praying Mantis: Old version of the site. For the latest click here
New Album Sanctuary Out Soon!|
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Nowhere To HideLast Modified On 21 Mar 2009
I currently expect the track listing to be as follows:-
The Japanese Catalogue number I believe will be PCCY-01447. It is currently due for release on 21st June 2000. There is not a lot else can report on this at present except what is in the News Page. However on 27 October 1999 Dennis Stratton kindly agreed to allow me to interview him about his whole career at a pub on the River Thames in London. This is an extract from the end of it which I thought was worth writing up first as it dealt with writting for Nowhere To Hide. The Full interview is slowly appearing here Dennis Stratton InterviewJH - What happened to the songs on To The Power Of Ten? To me you started sounding like other bands which is most unusual for Praying Mantis. DS - Erm no. I think what happened there was an interest in Praying Mantis from Germany. There were a few people came across and said if you could try maybe a slightly different direction. A bit more Rock'n'Roll a bit more rockier, you might stand a better chance of getting a release in Europe and opening another door, doing a couple of tours of Germany and France and things like that. So we went into the studio and did a more Rock'n'Roll album and unfortunately it was the wrong direction. And we all knew that. JH - Right. When the album first came out there were no writing credits on it and there were just three tracks that sounded like Mantis tracks to me. The rest reminded me more of Kiss or Whitesnake. Dennis looks at the album. DS - Yeah Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark was like a Mantis track. Bring On The Night. We wanted to put on a cover Ball Of Confusion was Tino's choice. JH - The Temptations wasn't it? DS - Yes. Welcome To My Hollywood was Chris. Another Time, Another Place I can't remember. To The Power Of Ten. Little Angel and Angry Man was him again, the German fella. Tom Jackson. JH - Tom Jackson? DS - Yeah the fella that was singer years ago. JH - Really! I didn't know he had anything to do with the recent band. DS - Yeah we still keep in contact with him. Only The Children Cry was me and Night And Day was me. Yeah so Victory was more like a Chris and Tino Mantis track. Yeah I don't know because it was more of a Rock'n'Roll album we sort of lost direction. It was a bit of a mismatch again. Night And Day. The reason I wrote that was a guy wanted me to write that for a TV series. It was a Customs and Excise show like The Bill (A Popular UK Police Drama). And there were two Coppers in it. One was called "Night" and one called "Day". So they wanted me to write a track called Night And Day and that sort of thing. I had been looking up the writing credits myself. JH - Yeah with exception of Only The Children Cry from the EP. The tracks I identified as Mantis sounding were Troy/Troy only tracks. The rest were Troy/Troy and others or not at all. That was the first album released after I had discovered Mantis were going again. So this was a bit of a disappointment DS - Very much. JH - But it still had touches of Mantis. So this kind of leads me to this. We as Mantis fans are now by not buying To The Power Of Ten and then loving Forever In Time effectively forcing you to write in a particular Mantis way. How do you feel about that? DS - What it is I have always wrote songs in that Mantis melodic harmony guitar sort of way. A typical Mantis track, even in the Lionheart days, is the typical way I would write a song. What I did was when the albums took a change of direction, for instance She's Hot because it matched the Predator album. And again with To The Power Of Ten I wrote Night And Day a) for the TV show but also because we were going for more Rock'n'Roll so that is why I did it. After we had done To The Power Of Ten we had a meeting in Japan with Pony Canyon and they said "Power was a mistake" and we said "We know" and apologised. They said "Go home and write a Mantis album." And we went home and did Forever In Time. That was when we put down between me, Chris, Tino and Tony, all the thoughts we could on what was a Mantis track. So we went from through the albums. For instance we played Lettin' Go from A Cry For The New World and listened to all the stuff that was exciting. Welcome To My Hollywood was another and we said "This is how we are going to write the album". We went back to the roots of Mantis. So it wasn't changing my way of writing. It was just that we had tried different directions and on Forever In Time we were refocusing on what we are good at. JH - But do you find it like a straight jacket DS - No JH - Or do you find it easier? DS - It's easier. No it's easier because I have always written songs like that even with Lionheart and Remus Down Boulevard. If you listen Only For You a Remus Down Boulevard track, on the Live At Bridge House album, it's harmony guitars. It could be a Mantis Track. And that was even before I played with them. It's always been there and it is a lot easier. And that is why when we come to Best Years on Forever In Time, I am doing so many backing vocals you can hear my fog horn voice going all over everything. I just get so involved in a track. I just push it and get it the biggest I can. JH - So it is not the case that the Power Of Ten was diluted by the additional writers? DS - No it was just a completely different direction. We were thinking more of Germany and Europe instead of Japan and we were stupid to do so because when we did direct it at Europe we got let down in Europe. So we are back in Japan again. We were silly to believe them. JH - With all the vocalist changes over the years had the band ever considered knocking it on the head? DS - No we knew that while there was a record company out there wanting an album, there was a singer somewhere out there. It just meant finding him. And as you can see from Forever In Time going on to this next album the song writing is getting better. The songs are getting better. Where as bands have released albums with 6 or 7 really good songs on them and 3 fillers or throw away tracks, Forever In Time I can't remember there being a throw away track on there. Every song is good. And this next album will be exactly the same because we are more excited now. JH - Did it ever concern you the long delay between To The Power Of Ten and Forever In Time? DS - Yeah. It concerned everyone even the record company because they thought it wouldn't take long for the fans to lose their interest. You have to keep their interest. But when Tony came along we thought no this is worth waiting for. JH - What sort of year did he appear? 98 or 97? DS - Yeah it's got to be hasn't it. End of 1997? Again his name cropped up though someone who knew someone else. He was singing in a duo and someone said we should go and see this singer. So Tino and Chris went over there. They heard him sing in a pub. And Tony came over and said "Oh I have loved Mantis stuff for years". And they had never meet one another. It was a case of instant chemistry. JH - How do you feel the new album is going? DS - Really well. When we were recording Forever In Time because we were using the new Pro Tools Logic stuff that we had never used before, it was a bit nerve wracking. It was equipment we had never used before and we were a bit worried about it. And because Forever In Time came out so well recording this next album seems so much easier. I even said to Tino and Chris last week because we were doing something in the studio. We were putting down some backing vocals for some Choruses and tracking them up. I said "I don't know weather it is me but do you get the impression this is going really easy. It's a lot more relaxed?" And they went "Yeah". And we can't put our finger on why. It just seems so natural. We are going in and putting tracks down. And there doesn't seem to be any pressure. I know time is a pressure because we are trying to get it finished by the middle of December or whatever. But we don't feel the pressure or threatened. We just enjoy it. We sent Tony (who now lives near Birmingham) up some cassettes of stuff we had done during the previous couple of months with me doing guide vocals. We sent it up, wrote the lyrics out, I went in and Chris had done another track. I did a guide vocal for it, Chris and Tino added some backing vocals so that Tony knew were the choruses would come. All rough. We sent them to him and Tony came down for four days a couple weeks ago and he did the lead vocals for four songs in four days. And he is singing really well. So it was because he was already familiar with the songs. He was able to come to the studio already familiar with the songs and let himself go more. And because he was more relaxed and the atmosphere more relaxed, it's been really going well. JH - How did you feel about all the side projects. i.e. Tony's Solo Horakane, Demorabilia and the one off reunion and Lionheart Archives release. DS - Erm well the Lionheart thing didn't bother me. As I said before I was a bit disappointed in the quality of the stuff but if that is what the record company wanted then they got it. Erm, I wasn't to bothered about Demorabilia because I knew the boys had got some old stuff that hadn't been released. Erm, what worries me about these reunion things is that after establishing the band after many line up changes I don't want to confuse the Japanese fans by sending over a reunion line-up. Especially when we have just established a settled line up in the band we have now. Erm hopefully it was a one of thing. I hope they don't draw it out an milk it by having more reunions and more of this and more of that. They should put it to bed leave it now. Let us get on with this album and then get back out there as the settled line up as it has been for the last two albums and let us do what we have been trying to do you know? JH - Do you write as much as you like to? DS - I am writing more now than I did before. Yeah I am enjoying it. Where as before if Chris or Tino got an idea they would try and write it to completion, on this album I have written two songs alone. But also Chris has been writing stuff on Qbase and I have taken it and written the lyrics and the melody and it is like a joint venture. And it seems to be working really well. But I am enjoying everything. At this point time got the better of us so we stopped. Thanks Dennis. If you got this far I am very interested to know how hard you find these interviews to read. My approach is very much to report it as spoken so that you get the feel of being in the room with us. Does this approach work or do it make it impossible for you to read? Feel free to let Me know via E-mail. Also do I ask the right questions? |
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