Valentin: I don't buy lots of different styles, but I draw on music/artists with some sort of level of inspiration, not something that was just thrown together, but something that makes you feel an emotion and has some heart to it.
Dom: What artists have been inspirational/influential for your music?
Kristine: you know, it's such a hard question... It can't be answered with one person or vocalist artist. When I was a kid my dad would listen to Aretha Franklin and Patti Labelle, I belonged to gospel choir. But there are so many great vocalists today that it's hard to pick just one person. Every good vocalist has his or her strong suits. One person's voice that HAS influenced me though is Steve Perry.
Valentin: I knew you were going to say that!
Kristine: Steve Perry is one of the most amazing male vocalists of all time..
Valentin: Both Kris and I feel that way. When I write lines for Kris to do in her upper register, a lot of times I will explain it to her in the context of the Steve Perry thing which I can only do a weak emulation of, but she knows what I'm talking about 'cos we're both familiar with his style.
Kristine: He had an album called For The Love Of Strange Medicine, and he is so amazing the way he cuts off the ends of his lines and the delivery is so incredibly passionate. With females it's too difficult to choose just one.
Dom: Val anyone specific that stands out for you?
Kristine: (laughing loudly) Val is a sponge...
Valentin: It's kind of silly, things I listen to I almost listen to as a workbook. I kind of study them. Steve Perry is just an idol of mine. Actually I listen to a lot of vocalists from the past decade or two, and I have paid attention to what makes them work as vocalists vs. singers, which is this little weird theory I have.
There are people who are great vocalists who aren't necessarily great singers, and at the risk of having people write a lot of "nasty-grams" I'll say that in the context of a group like Genesis, I find Phil Collins is a really good singer. I don't think Peter Gabriel is as good a singer but he's a great vocalist.
What he does as a vocalist is phenomenal, but he doesn't have an instrument like a Phil Collins does. I am like a big softie. I also like Michael Jackson, his vocal delivery and his inflections, and his whole rhythmic little karate chop thing he does with the "he chye kya kuh" all that stuff was incredibly inventive. He's got some issues now, but going back a ways, the guy had an ability to put across a song that was just phenomenal.
Dom: What is the most satisfying result of creating Mobius?
Valentin: Getting it done! No I am kidding. Actually we weren't expecting the kind of results that we got from Love Bites. When we first put it out there it was almost a little test thing and it caught us unprepared, to be honest. So we already had some songs that were in the works, but we weren't prepared to say "let's get an album out in eight weeks," which is what ended up happening. For me it's sort of a double-edged sword because on the one hand part of the gratification was 'OK we got it done!' Now I can sleep for a minute. But I think part of it is completing a body of work like that and then having people listen to it and get out to perform and continually get people exposed to it is very gratifying.
Kristine: For me it's more from finishing the album to getting out there and doing performances, I love meeting people and having performers and people telling me we love your album, and feeling really satisfied, and feeling good about people really liking what we're doing. So for me it's what happens after you complete the album that makes me feel inspired and good.
Dom: What's on the horizon for QED?
Valentin: We're almost done with our Polka album... seriously though, we are almost ready for the next single. More than likely it will be Islands or Alone. That is something we are pretty excited about because we personally enjoy both songs, we're really into these two tracks.
We're also working on new material. A couple of things that are kind of "dancey," sort of what people would expect, but there's also a couple of things more along the lines of what we did with Epilogue, and I am not kidding when I say there's also a couple of songs that are pretty well-written. Actually completely written, the audience will decide if they're well-written, and trying some more things with more of a hip-hop influence. And so even though there's more we want to do from Mobius, as the name implies, it's an on-going thing... we want to continue creating video, ultimately the plan has been, and I am not sure when exactly this will happen, but to do some surround mixes that incorporate video and surround mixes of Mobius and create a DVD. So that's one of the things, when you think of a long term game plan, that we do want to do, but we also know that hopefully our fans will also be interested in listening to new material so we're working on that at the same time.
