Some weeks ago IMAGINARY WAR, the synthpop band with an industrial edge, played a studio session which was broadcasted live on the internet. Now the band releases the first video off this session and put it up for streaming. Days Turn Brighter is a dance floor smasher that everyone who is into darker tunes might fall in love with. NOTHING BUT HOPE AND PASSION took the chance to talk to IMAGINARY WAR to find out what happened since the release of their debut album Replacing The Ghosts, how they came up with the live studio session plan, and how their touring and future plans look like. Yes, IMAGINARY WAR are working on a new album!
How did you came up with the idea of playing a live studio session that’ll be broadcasted on the internet and what have been the most special things about this?
We thought it would be great to let people into our room and let them take part in a sort of rehearsal/studio situation and it’s just another way to present the songs live. So we went to a friend’s studio and planned all the technical stuff with some guys who we already worked with for one of our video clips. While setting up it was of course more complicated than we thought, with 8 cameras, lights and sounds. And on top, the main mixing console decided to die exactly one minute before start. The perfect nightmare. But we got a new one within minutes and could start again. For us it was interesting how it feels when you play live without people. You have of course no feeling for how the set develops and what people’s reactions are. So it’s a bit like a blind run. But we are really happy with the result and reactions of the viewers. So now we release some of the songs from the session for the ones who missed it live.
On August 23rd you’ll headline the French Mission Pop Festival in Paris. Since this is your first show outside of your home country Germany: what are the touring plans for the future?
We are very excited to play our first show outside of Germany and start with such a great place in Paris. We have been invited by the French Pop Mission guys who do great festivals and are very dedicated about bringing new music to the clubs. Of course we don’t know what to expect and just hope the French like to become friends with us. We definitely plan to tour some other countries in 2014. The reactions to our album showed that this is not a specific regional thing, so we work on going to places like France and Britain, maybe Eastern Europe and Russia. Would be awesome anyway.
A bit more than a year ago you released your debut album “Replacing The Ghosts”. What happened since then?
Replacing The Ghosts is our debut album from 2012 and the result of a long process of songwriting and initiating the band. With the release we started to tour and see what the world actually thinks about our stuff. As we are between many chairs this is a pretty interesting trip which is not at an end. We see that our listeners come from all ages, scenes and backgrounds. That’s new to us and very exciting. We shot some videos for our singles (Embrace) and had overall great feedback to that. We are very happy to have established some structures with our new management now.
Your debut album “Replacing The Ghosts” was released in summer 2012. When will you release your next album?
We are right in the middle of songwriting for the next album where most of the songs are already done in outlines. What we can say is that we go more into details and will create more complex sounds. You will also see some different sides of us in terms of mood and melody. This time we like to open the process more to a producer maybe. So we are about sorting out with whom to work to bring it to the next level.