What inspired the name of the band? What are your influences and are they the same as when you started out?
During the first recordings and gigs (the early 1990s) we did not have a name, and all of a sudden the recording studio needed one. At that time I was reading literature about the bible and apocryphal scripts in which I found the word “eloah” which loosely translates to “comes from above”. We figured that since our inspiration to write songs also somehow came from somewhere else, and we liked the sound of the name, we chose it as preliminary band name. Because I also studied physics at that time, and I wanted to make the name unique, I replace the “h” by and “ħ”, the symbol for the reduced Planck constant.
Our influence are mainly singer/songwriter music, 80s rock, jazz and new age music.
How do you approach songwriting? Are there any themes that you are keen to explore when you start off?
No, I cannot do this intentionally. At some point when I play guitar and I am lucky, all of a sudden chords and pick patterns “appear”, then I quickly get a pen and piece of paper and curiously await the lyrics that I write, not knowing at that time what the song will be about. After finishing it, I keep practicing the song until neither words nor the music change anymore (sort of optimizing), and then I present it to my colleagues.
Alternatively, we improvise together and build the songs on that, but the process I described above is true for about 80 percent of our songs.
How do you approach songwriting? Are there any themes that you are keen to explore when you start off?
No, I cannot do this intentionally. At some point when I play guitar and I am lucky, all of a sudden chords and pick patterns “appear”, then I quickly get a pen and piece of paper and curiously await the lyrics that I write, not knowing at that time what the song will be about. After finishing it, I keep practicing the song until neither words nor the music change anymore (sort of optimizing), and then I present it to my colleagues.
Alternatively, we improvise together and build the songs on that, but the process I described above is true for about 80 percent of our songs.
Why do you write the sort of music that you do?
Because it frees me. Writing music is a form of artistic expression for me, allowing my emotions to take form so that I can release them.
How do you decide what songs to perform live?
Generally faster and simpler songs work better in a live setting than complicated and slow songs. There are always exceptions, of course. And concerning live settings, we try to play the songs somewhat different from the recorded versions in order to keep things interesting.
How do you decide what songs to perform live?
Generally faster and simpler songs work better in a live setting than complicated and slow songs. There are always exceptions, of course. And concerning live settings, we try to play the songs somewhat different from the recorded versions in order to keep things interesting.
What plans do you have for the future?
At the moment we are recording a soft-rock / pop album, and we are already composing a hard rock / metal album in parallel. After this studio work is finished, we are aiming to play live again.