CIRCLE II CIRCLE Frontman Discusses Inspiration For 'Burden Of Truth'

Mark Carras of RockMyMonkey.com recently conducted an interview with CIRCLE II CIRCLE singer Zachary Stevens. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

Rock My Monkey: What was it about this album that made you want to-why did you want to do a concept album, and why did you choose The Da Vinci Code as the subject matter?

Zachary Stevens: It's been quite interesting to us since — well, I read the "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" back in '98. The original book came out in '82, so it's been around 25 years, so it's really not anything new. I think with the advent of the movie, of the latest release where they took it a step further, you know, it really captured the imagination. We felt like, with Da Vinci Code movie coming out, it really captured the crowd a little bit more, got people a little bit more into the different concepts of what they were talking about, as far as the bloodline theories between Jesus and Mary Magdalene. I think that with the movie coming out kind of spurred our imagination a little bit more. I think that's what got us saying, hey, let's go ahead and do this, because more people knew about what this is all about now. So we just let the music feed off of that. Taking it to, basically, moving it into a situation where the record represented a musical extension to the movie, almost like a musical sequel to the movie, in a musical format. And that's basically where we left it. And we created a fictional story that kind of fed off, where the movie "Da Vinci Code" actually ends and where our record picks up. Basically we just kind of invented the story about what could happen to the character that was the recipient of the news that they were of the bloodline, and what changes in their life would happen at that point. It really spawned some really good music, so we just continued down that path. And that's basically what "Burden of Truth" is, is it's a concept of what might happen with the character right where the movie left off.

Rock My Monkey: So this actually isn't necessarily a retelling of either of the two books. You're actually making a whole new story with the album?

Zachary Stevens: Exactly.

Rock My Monkey: Wow.

Zachary Stevens: We're putting it to music, so we're letting the music be the different various scenes. Almost like a musical movie. So each song on the record is like a different scene. It was really kind of fun and interesting putting it together that way, about where it could go. Because I think a lot of us, when we watched "Da Vinci Code" movie were like "Wow, that's cool, but what now?" We were kind of pushed by the impetus of that "Hey, what now?" maybe. We created, of course a fictional account, but it really gave a lot of impetus to the music, and with the focus on the music it created an interesting situation.

Rock My Monkey: Since this is a whole new story, and you've kind of created your own sequel with this, I guess this would be considered what they call fan fiction. I got to ask, when I got the album for review, I got like a promo version. So when the fans, when they put down their hard earned money to buy the album, what kind of extras are they getting with the album that helps reinforce the story that the music tells?

Zachary Stevens: Well, you're getting the package, a very well put together package, looking very expensive. Basically what it does is it gives all the lyrics to each song, but it gives you pictures of real people, real caricatures, that go along with it, so it makes it somewhat more deeper. For example, as you're turning to the book, it's like a twenty page book, and then it's going to give you pictures of each, going along with the two pages, each song has two pages of it, the left and right. So it kind of leads you down the story by representing in visual form the characters and the pictures of what's going on in those songs. They did a really great job, our artist did a great job looking into the lyrics, and really helping to create a situation where it takes you much deeper than just the lyrical content. So that's what you're going to get. And it really paints that picture well, and it kinds of leads you down the story, and helps you to understand what the different songs are, as far as their relationship to the story. So it's quite a lot. So it's a nice package to sit down and — kind of like the old days — you're going to sit down with that package, you're going to read it, you're going to listen to it, and you're going to understand it a lot more due to the huge booklet that comes along, and the artistry, and the stuff we do with the art that's included therein.

Check out the entire interview in text and MP3 format at www.rockmymonkey.com.