Blistering.com: Right. Some of the early albums were very heavy and technical, so are you past playing such things?
Hennephof: No [laughs]. With this album, we focused on this side of Textures a lot, but I can promise with the next album it will be very heavy and maybe heavier than Polars. It’s just how it sounds with this album; we still have everything in us – we don’t want to lose our heavy side.
Blistering.com: So do you prefer the heavy side of your first albums or the melodic side ala Dualism?
Hennephof: Yeah, for live shows the heavy side is for fun – people go crazy on it. On the other hand, we’re getting used to the more epic side as well. It’s a good way to give some rest during your set. The resting point to calm down and bring it to a minimum so that people are forced to listen and are required to talk to each other because the music is so silent. On bigger shows we can do that – throw in a very serene song
in the middle like “Messengers” offSilhouettes and the vocal line makes it very dynamic.
Blistering.com: Obviously, Daniel had a huge influence on the album and is a change from Eric. What’s your take on how he’s shaped the Textures sound?
Hennephof: He’s perfect. He’s exactly what we wanted in a singer and we’re very lucky to have found him. If we didn’t find him, we’d still be searching right now [laughs]. It’s very hard to find a guy like that with the diverse singing and able to scream and grunt. For the older songs, he’s does perfectly as well. He fills in on his own way, adding his own touch, but with a Textures-style to it.
Blistering.com: Was it weird at first to not have Eric fronting the band?
Hennephof: Yeah. It always is with the leaving of a member, but that’s how it goes. We still have plenty of contact with Eric – we sometimes go for a beer or have dinner. That way, he’s not out of our lives. We’ve kept him up to date about the new songs and he provided comments. He was quite involved with the whole process.
Blistering.com: Something like “Reaching Home” is easily the most accessible thing you’ve done. Where did that one come from?
Hennephof: We’re very proud of it. It was sort of an experiment in the first place. The actual idea for that song was quite old, like 2003 or 2004 when we wrote it. We always thought, “Eh, maybe not for this album.” We thought we’d have to put different vocals on it then it would be good for an album. It’s always been shelved. This album, we thought to give it new pre-production to make it heavier and put some new vocals and melody to it. This way, we could fit it into the album. It turned out to be one of my favorite songs on the album. There’s no screaming parts on it; it’s the first the time we ever did that.
Blistering.com: What’s the schedule looking like for the rest of the year, going into 2012?
Hennephof: We have to finish this tour in the U.S., then come over to the U.K. for some dates with The Ocean. Some festivals in Germany, then our release shows in Holland, in the north and south parts. End of the year, we’re thinking about going to back to India. We still have some good contacts over there. Then in early 2012, we’ll probably go on a European tour. If not, we’ll go back to America.